Our picksProtecting against Public-Health Threats | Taking Aim at Disinformation | Vehicle Ramming Attacks, and more

How China Turned a Prize-Winning iPhone Hack against the Uyghurs  (by Patrick Howell O’Neill, MIT Technology Review)
An attack that targeted Apple devices was used to spy on China’s Muslim minority—and US officials claim it was developed at the country’s top hacking competition.

A Health-Data Ecosystem to Protect against Public-Health Threats  (Sheri Lewis, Alan Ravitz, Aaron Katz, and John Piorkowski, Brookings)
To better prepare for the next pandemic, the health community needs to strengthen its ability to leverage data in managing the health of individuals and populations. We needed this ability before the pandemic; it became imperative during the pandemic; and we assuredly need it after this pandemic—to better protect lives during the next one. The health industry should apply systems engineering principles and best practices to the development of a comprehensive data ecosystem—a holistic, requirements-driven, risk-based approach in contrast to today’s reductionist and siloed approach to health data. The goal is to establish a health-data ecosystem that continuously and efficiently collects and distributes timely, accurate, and comprehensive data among interdependent entities spanning all levels of society, leaving the world better prepared to tackle the next health crisis, a group of researchers from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory write.

Feeding Hate with Video: A Former Alt-Right YouTuber Explains His Methods  (Cade Metz, New York Times)
Focus on conflict. Feed the algorithm. Make sure whatever you produce reinforces a narrative. Don’t worry if it is true.

When the Right Wing Rallies  (Sarah Slobin and Sam Hart, Reuters)
Reuters examined data from the U.S. Crisis Monitor on  political protests across the United States to provide a look at the spread of right-wing demonstrations in 2020. Our visualization shows how the incendiary concept of a stolen election brought together a disparate collection of anti-government militias, conspiracy theorists, white nationalist and ordinary Americans, and how those protests continue into 2021.

COVID Conspiracies Are Supercharging Germany’s Far-Right  (Tim Hume, Tim Hume, and Tom Bennett. Vice)
The stable economic powerhouse at the heart of the European Union is also home to the continent’s biggest, and wildest, anti-lockdown movement.

Hello, This Is Leonid Volkov  (Meduza)
Using deepfake video and posing as Navalny’s right-hand man, Russian pranksters fool Latvian politicians and journalists into invitation and TV.