Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Meet the Robot Telemarketer Who Denies She’s A Robot
December 13th, 2013Via: Time: The phone call came from a charming woman with a bright, engaging voice to the cell phone of a TIME Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer. She wanted to offer a deal on health insurance, but something was fishy. When Scherer asked point blank if she was a real person, or a computer-operated robot […]
New Zealand: Customs Seizes Man’s Electronic Equipment
December 13th, 2013Via: New Zealand Herald: A backpacker coming home for Christmas had every bit of electronic equipment stripped from him at the airport. A Customs officer at Auckland International Airport took law graduate Sam Blackman’s two smartphones, iPad, an external hard drive and laptop – and demanded his passwords. Mr Blackman, 27, who was breaking up […]
Bargains, Bargains: Facial-Recognition Cameras Hidden in Eyes of Mannequins
December 12th, 2013Via: CBS: Big Brother could be at your favorite store. As CBS 2?s Don Champion reported, a growing number of stores are using discrete and sophisticated technology — including mannequins with facial-recognition cameras hidden in their eyes — to track shopper demographics in an effort to boost sales. Retailers say the marketing data technology allows […]
Intel Contractors Give Millions to Lawmakers Overseeing Government Surveillance
December 12th, 2013Via: Maplight: In response to documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden, the congressional committees in charge of overseeing the government’s intelligence operations have come to the defense of the surveillance and data collection programs, and the agencies that administer them. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate […]
Canada to Stop Delivering Mail to City Homes Over 5 Years
December 12th, 2013Via: New York Times: Canada’s postal service said Wednesday that it would cease home delivery over the next five years, and substantially increase postal rates. Though Canada would become the first Group of 7 country to end all residential mail delivery in cities and older suburbs, Canada Post shares many problems with postal services in […]
NSA Uses Google Cookies to Pinpoint Targets for Hacking
December 11th, 2013Via: Washington Post: The National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable Internet advertisers to track consumers, using “cookies” and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance. The agency’s internal presentation slides, provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, show that when companies follow consumers on the […]
FreeBSD Developers: Don’t Trust Intel/Via Random Number Generators
December 10th, 2013Via: Ars Technica: Developers of the FreeBSD operating system will no longer allow users to trust processors manufactured by Intel and Via Technologies as the sole source of random numbers needed to generate cryptographic keys that can’t easily be cracked by government spies and other adversaries. The change, which will be effective in the upcoming […]
What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data
December 10th, 2013Via: ACLU: We now know that the NSA is collecting location information en masse. As we’ve long said, location data is an extremely powerful set of information about people. To flesh out why that is true, here is the kind of future memo that we fear may someday soon be uncovered…
JPMorgan Patents Bitcoin-Like Payment System
December 10th, 2013Bitcoin is not anonymous on it’s own. Never was. Never will be. And if this JPMorgan thing is anonymous, my name is Santa Claus. Via: CNN: JPMorgan Chase has patented a digital payment system that could rival Bitcoin. The system includes digital wallets, the ability to transfer money to anyone and anonymity too, according to […]
Darpa’s Giant Folding Spy Satellite Will Dwarf All Other Space Telescopes
December 10th, 2013Via: Wired: Spying could become much easier if a new lightweight, folding satellite concept gets off the ground. Darpa, the military’s futuristic research agency, says it has plans to “break the glass ceiling” of space telescopes by shooting a new design into orbit that’s made of plastic and unfolds into a mammoth satellite that would […]
