Author: admin

In July, I wrote about my new book project on AI and democracy, to be published by MIT Press in fall 2025. My co-author and collaborator Nathan Sanders and I are hard at work writing.

At this point, we would like feedback on titles. Here are four possibilities:

1. Rewiring the Republic: How AI Will Transform our Politics, Government, and Citizenship
2. The Thinking State: How AI Can Improve Democracy
3. Better Run: How AI Can Make our Politics, Government, Citizenship More Efficient, Effective and Fair
4. AI and the New Future of Democracy: Changes in Politics, Government, and Citizenship

What we want out of the title is that it convey (1) that it is a book about AI, (2) that it is a book about democracy writ large (and not just deepfakes), and (3) that it is largely optimistic.

What do you like? Feel free to do some mixing and matching: swapping “Will Transform” for “Will Improve” for “Can Transform” for “Can Improve,” for example. Or “Democracy” for “the Republic.” Remember, the goal here is for a title that will make a potential reader pick the book up off a shelf, or read the blurb text on a webpage. It needs to be something that will catch the reader’s attention. (Other title ideas are here.

Also, FYI, this is the current table of contents:

Introduction
1. Introduction: How AI will Change Democracy
2. Core AI Capabilities
3. Democracy as an Information System

Part I: AI-Assisted Politics
4. Background: Making Mistakes
5. Talking to Voters
6. Conducting Polls
7. Organizing a Political Campaign
8. Fundraising for Politics
9. Being a Politician

Part II: AI-Assisted Legislators
10. Background: Explaining Itself
11. Background: Who’s to Blame?
12. Listening to Constituents
13. Writing Laws
14. Writing More Complex Laws
15. Writing Laws that Empower Machines
16. Negotiating Legislation

Part III: The AI-Assisted Administration
17. Background: Exhibiting Values and Bias
18. Background: Augmenting Versus Replacing People
19. Serving People
20. Operating Government
21. Enforcing Regulations

Part IV: The AI-Assisted Court
22. Background: Being Fair
23. Background: Getting Hacked
24. Acting as a Lawyer
25. Arbitrating Disputes
26. Enforcing the Law
27. Reshaping Legislative Intent
28. Being a Judge

Part V: AI-Assisted Citizens
29. Background: AI and Power
30. Background: AI and Trust
31. Explaining the News
32. Watching the Government
33. Moderating, Facilitating, and Building Consensus
34. Acting as Your Personal Advocate
35. Acting as Your Personal Political Proxy

Part VI: Ensuring That AI Benefits Democracy
36. Why AI is Not Yet Good for Democracy
37. How to Ensure AI is Good for Democracy
38. What We Need to Do Now
39. Conclusion

Everything is subject to change, of course. The manuscript isn’t due to the publisher until the end of March, and who knows what AI developments will happen between now and then.

EDITED: The title under consideration is “Rewiring the Republic,” and not “Rewiring Democracy.” Although, I suppose, both are really under consideration.

After retiring in 2014 from an uncharacteristically long tenure running the NSA (and US CyberCommand), Keith Alexander founded a cybersecurity company called IronNet. At the time, he claimed that it was based on IP he developed on his own time while still in the military. That always troubled me. Whatever ideas he had, they were developed on public time using public resources: he shouldn’t have been able to leave military service with them in his back pocket.

In any case, it was never clear what those ideas were. IronNet never seemed to have any special technology going for it. Near as I could tell, its success was entirely based on Alexander’s name.

Turns out there was nothing there. After some crazy VC investments and an IPO with a $3 billion “unicorn” valuation, the company has shut its doors. It went bankrupt a year ago—ceasing operations and firing everybody—and reemerged as a private company. It now seems to be gone for good, not having found anyone willing to buy it.

And—wow—the recriminations are just starting.

Last September the never-profitable company announced it was shutting down and firing its employees after running out of money, providing yet another example of a tech firm that faltered after failing to deliver on overhyped promises.

The firm’s crash has left behind a trail of bitter investors and former employees who remain angry at the company and believe it misled them about its financial health.

IronNet’s rise and fall also raises questions about the judgment of its well-credentialed leaders, a who’s who of the national security establishment. National security experts, former employees and analysts told The Associated Press that the firm collapsed, in part, because it engaged in questionable business practices, produced subpar products and services, and entered into associations that could have left the firm vulnerable to meddling by the Kremlin.

“I’m honestly ashamed that I was ever an executive at that company,” said Mark Berly, a former IronNet vice president. He said the company’s top leaders cultivated a culture of deceit “just like Theranos,” the once highly touted blood-testing firm that became a symbol of corporate fraud.

There has been one lawsuit. Presumably there will be more. I’m sure Alexander got plenty rich off his NSA career.

Typosquatting is when someone registers a web address that’s a misspelling of a known website — usually a popular one. Typically, it’s done with cybercrime in mind.

Take the example of “Aamazon.com” over “Amazon.com.” A few things could happen:

• A person could mistakenly tap in a typo of “Aamazon” and wind up on a counterfeit “Aamazon.com” site.
• A scammer could use the “Aamazon” address in a phishing link sent by email, text, or social media — trying to trick victims into thinking it’s a legitimate link.
• The phony “Aamazon” address could show up in search, leading people to think it’ll take them to the legitimate Amazon site.

As you can imagine, all of this can lead to no good. Often, scammers set up typosquatting sites to steal personal and financial info. Victims think they’re on a legitimate site, shop, or conduct their business as usual, only to later find that they’ve had their info stolen, got ripped off, or some combination of the two.

Several real-life examples of typosquatting cropped up with the launch of AnnualCreditReport.com a few years back. Run by Central Source, LLC, the site is a joint venture of three major U.S. credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

With the launch, scammers set up hundreds of copycat sites with typosquatted addresses.[i] Victims clicked on links thinking they took them to the real free credit reporting site. Instead, they fed their personal info into bogus sites. To this day, AnnualCreditReport.com recommends visiting the site by carefully typing the address into your browser and then creating a bookmark for it.[ii]

Aside from phishing attacks, typosquatters also use their bogus sites to spread malware. In some cases, they spread it by tricking victims into downloading a malware file disguised as, say, a coupon or offer. Other cases get a little more complicated in what are called “drive-by attacks.” With a drive-by, a victim doesn’t need to download anything to get malware on their device. Here, hackers plant code into their bogus sites that take advantage of known vulnerabilities.

To counter this, many businesses, brands, and organizations register typo-riddled addresses on their own. This prevents hackers and scammers from doing the same. Additionally, legitimate owners can have the typo’ed address redirect people to the proper address.

You can do a few things to protect yourself as well:

Be careful when clicking links in messages, emails, and texts.

Typosquatting addresses can look “close enough” to a legitimate address at first glance. Preferably, type in the address in your browser and access the site that way. (For example, when following up on an email notice from your credit card company.)

Also, you can use the combo of our Text Scam Detector and Web Protection. You’ll find them in our McAfee+ Plans. Together, they alert you of sketchy links and prevent you from visiting a malicious website if you tap or click a bad link by mistake.

Keep your operating system and apps up to date

Hackers try to exploit vulnerabilities in your devices and the apps you have installed on them. Regular updates fix these vulnerabilities and sometimes introduce new features and other improvements.

Also, be on the lookout when you search

Typosquatted sites and counterfeit sites in general appear in search results. Sometimes they appear on their own. Other times, scammers abuse ad platforms to push their bogus sites close to the top of the search results. We’ve also seen the newly released “AI overviews” in search include bad info in their summaries, including links. AI tools are only as good as the info they get fed, and sometimes they get fed junk.

[i] https://domainnamewire.com/2014/10/21/annualcreditreport-com-goes-after-a-big-typosquatter/

[ii] https://www.annualcreditreport.com/suspectPhishing.action

The post How Typosquatting Scams Work appeared first on McAfee Blog.

Operation MiddleFloor targets Moldova’s October elections, spreading EU disinformation via email

The data breach exposed more than 10m customer conversations from an AI call center platform in the Middle East

The EU’s Cyber Resilience Act requires cybersecurity standards for all connected products throughout their entire lifecycle

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Two former RAC employees have been handed suspended prison sentences for trading in personal data

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