Author: TheConversation

Elissa Redmiles, Ph.D. Student in Computer Science, University of Maryland Data breaches, widespread malware attacks and micro-targeted personalized advertising were lowlights of digital life in 2018. As technologies change, so does the advice security experts give for how to best stay safe. As 2019 begins, I’ve pulled together a short list of suggestions for keeping your digital life secure and free of manipulative disinformation. 1. Set your boundaries and stick to them As part of my research, I’ve recently been speaking with a number of sex workers in Europe about their digital security and privacy. One consistent thing I’ve...

By Amitrajeet A. Batabyal, Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology The shutdown may be over – for now – but its consequences will linger on. One of those concerns is the dizzying amount of economic data the federal government collects on everything from the state of the economy and investment to the cost of college and the quality of nursing homes. During the partial government shutdown, a lot of data simply weren’t collected, which means at a minimum there will be gaps in what people know about the U.S. economy, the jobs picture and housing,...

Jeffrey Miller, Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Hospitality Management, Colorado State University With America in the middle of a flourishing craft beer and craft spirits movement, it is easy to forget that Prohibition was once the law of the land. One hundred years ago, on January 16, 1919, Nebraska became the 36th of the country’s 48 states to ratify the 18th Amendment, reaching the required three-fourths threshold. The law forbid the production of beverages that contained more than one-half of 1 percent alcohol. Breweries, wineries and distilleries across America were shuttered. Most never reopened. Prohibition may be long dead,...

By Jack Schneider, Assistant Professor of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell Five decades after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., many carry on his legacy through the struggle for racially integrated schools. Yet as King put it in a 1968 speech, the deeper struggle was “for genuine equality, which means economic equality.” Justice in education would demand not just racially integrated schools, but also economically integrated schools. The fight for racial integration meant overturning state laws and a century of history – it was an uphill battle from the start. But economic integration should have been easier. In...

By Deana Rohlinger, Professor of Sociology, Florida State University Over nine decades, efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to recognize women’s rights have faced major challenges. Congress finally passed such legislation, known as the Equal Rights Amendment, in 1972. The amendment would recognize women’s equal rights to men under the law. Despite concerted campaigns by women’s rights groups, it fell short of the 38 states that needed to ratify it in order for it to become part of the Constitution. The original deadline for states to ratify was 1979. Congress extended the deadline to 1982, but even then it...

By Felipe A. Filomeno, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Global Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore The extreme violence, environmental disasters and grinding poverty that drive people from places like Guatemala, Honduras, and Afghanistan are largely the result of global phenomena like colonialism, climate change, and trade. President Donald Trump tends to portray migrants as a foreign problem that has suddenly – and unfairly – been “dumped” at America’s doorstep. Migration “is a way they get certain people out of their country and dump in U.S.,” he wrote on November 25 about a caravan of mostly Honduran women, children...