Four short links: 15 November 2017
Paywalled Research, Reproducing AI Research, Spy Teardown, and Peer-to-Peer Misinformation
- 65 of the 100 Most-Cited Papers Are Paywalled — The weighted average of all the paywalls is: $32.33 […] [T]he open access articles in this list are, on average, cited more than the paywalled ones.
- AI Reproducibility — Participants have been tasked with reproducing papers submitted to the 2018 International Conference on Learning Representations, one of AI’s biggest gatherings. The papers are anonymously published months in advance of the conference. The publishing system allows for comments to be made on those submitted papers, so students and others can add their findings below each paper. […] Proprietary data and information used by large technology companies in their research, but withheld from papers, is holding the field back.
- Inside a Low-Budget Consumer Hardware Espionage Implant — The S8 data line locator is a GSM listening and location device hidden inside the plug of a standard USB data/charging cable. Has a microphone but no GPS, remotely triggered via SMS messages, uses data to report cell tower location to a dodgy server…and is hidden in a USB cable.
- She Warned of ‘Peer-to-Peer Misinformation.’ Congress Listened (NY Times) — Renee‘s work on anti-vaccine groups (and her college thesis on propaganda in the 2004 Russian elections) led naturally to her becoming an expert on Russian propaganda in the 2016 elections.