Archive for the 'Technology' Category
IRS’s Big Data Tracking
June 15th, 2013Via: MSN: The Internal Revenue Service is collecting a lot more than taxes this year — it’s also acquiring a huge volume of personal information on taxpayers’ digital activities, from eBay auctions to Facebook posts and, for the first time ever, credit card and e-payment transaction records, as it expands its search for tax cheats […]
Google’s Project Loon
June 15th, 2013As I was reading about this, I was expecting to see that they would trial it somewhere… Far far away from me. I almost fell out of my chair when I read that it’s happening in New Zealand. Ok, now let the SkyNet jokes begin. Via: Google: The Internet is one of the most transformative […]
Naomi Wolf: My Creeping Concern That The NSA Leaker Is Not Who He Purports To Be
June 15th, 2013Update: Even AP Admits that Prism Is Chicken Feed Compared to What We Learned Years Ago About Mass Intercepts Via: AP: With Prism, the government gets a user’s entire email inbox. Every email, including contacts with American citizens, becomes government property. Once the NSA has an inbox, it can search its huge archives for information […]
U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms
June 14th, 2013Via: Bloomberg: Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said. These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward […]
Companies Scramble for Consumer Data; Don’t Have to Pay Much
June 13th, 2013Via: Financial Times: Corporate competition to accumulate information about consumers is intensifying even as concerns about government surveillance grow, pushing down the market price for intimate personal details to fractions of a cent. Over recent years, the surveillance of consumers has developed into a multibillion-dollar industry conducted by largely unregulated companies that obtain information by […]
The Cyberwar Industrial Complex
June 13th, 2013Via: Wired: In short, despite the sequestration, layoffs, and furloughs in the federal government, it’s a boom time for Alexander. In April, as part of its 2014 budget request, the Pentagon asked Congress for $4.7 billion for increased “cyberspace operations,” nearly $1 billion more than the 2013 allocation. At the same time, budgets for the […]
‘Digital Blackwater’: Meet the Contractors Analyzing Your Private Data
June 12th, 2013Via: Salon: From Narus, the Israeli-born Boeing subsidiary that makes NSA’s high-speed interception software, to CSC, the “systems integrator” that runs NSA’s internal IT system, defense and intelligence, contractors are making millions of dollars selling technology and services that help the world’s largest surveillance system spy on you. If the 70 percent figure is applied […]
On Technology Eliminating Jobs: ‘This Time It Might Be Different’
June 12th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review: Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson’s contention really is. Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in […]
Ava 500 Telepresence System
June 10th, 2013Via: TechWorld: Ava 500 is essentially a Cisco TelePresence EX60 personal video endpoint mounted on top of an iRobot mobile robotics platform, which can self-navigate busy environments like offices, manufacturing floors and laboratories without bumping into people or objects. The robot is controlled via an iPad interface. This means that the remote user can select […]
Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations
June 10th, 2013Remember, The NSA Wiretapping Story Nobody Wanted? Klein was essentially ignored at first, and people like me, who mentioned Klein’s story and the implications, were called conspiracy theorists… Ok, so why are the same media apparently on-board now? Curious. Via: Guardian: The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history […]
