Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
New Zealand: Biometric Payment Terminals
July 31st, 2026“like, wow”. Via: Radio New Zealand: Kiwis could soon be able to make purchases using their face or hand, without the need for a card. EFTPOS New Zealand is rolling out new Verifone Victa biometric payment terminals that will allow people to pay with their faces or palms – without cards. The new tech can […]
GDID – Microsoft’s Secret Windows Tracker That Can’t Be Turned Off
July 31st, 2026Via: Rob Braxman Tech:
How Texas Police Spent $4.5 Million on Four Chevy Tahoes
July 19th, 2026Via: The Drive: It’s hard to make a 2026 Chevy Tahoe cost more than a million dollars. Until you start packing it with military-grade public surveillance technology. Ominous Israeli surveillance tech is now being deployed on American roads. FalcoNet, brought to you by a company called Cognyte (Israel’s Palantir rival), secretly tracks people by intercepting […]
Microsoft Generates Device-Specific ID Linked to User’s Microsoft Account, Telemetry Can Report All Websites Visited to Microsoft
July 15th, 2026Via: tom’sHARDWARE: The Internet is buzzing over news that 19-year-old Estonian “hacker” Peter Stokes got nabbed by the authorities and extradited to the U.S. on digital crime charges, mostly thanks to Microsoft Windows’ built-in telemetry. The FBI seemingly subpoenaed Microsoft, which coughed up telemetry logs that contained both Stokes’ GDID (Global Device Identifier) and websites […]
Painted E-Tattoos: Working Electrodes, “Future of Wearable Biosensors”
July 14th, 2026Via: Ars Technica: Scientists at Pennsylvania State University have developed a novel conductive ink that can be painted directly onto the skin in colorful custom designs, turning into a functional electrode for biomonitoring after drying.
All Cars Sold in the EU Now Require a Camera Aimed at Your Face
July 8th, 2026A friend of mine just bought a new car in New Zealand and it has this. Via: All About Cookies: Starting July 7, 2026, every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera aimed at your face. Glance at your phone, your kids in the back seat, or the radio […]
Happy 250th, America
July 4th, 2026Via: Truthstream Media: Related: A Country the Founders Wouldn’t Recognize as Their Creation
Claude Code Is Steganographically Marking Requests
July 1st, 2026Via: thereallo.dev: I inspected Claude Code for privacy reasons and found hidden system prompt markers based on API base URL and timezone. … Anthropic probably wants to detect API resellers, unauthorized Claude Code gateways, and model “distillation attack” pipelines. A custom ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL pointing at a known reseller domain is a useful signal. A hostname containing […]
Flock Cameras Track A Lot More Than Your License Plate
June 28th, 2026Via: Engadget: Thanks to the rise of AI, a new kind of surveillance camera has rapidly proliferated across the United States. Typically referred to as automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, they’re most often mounted along roadways, where they log the movements of cars which pass through their field of vision. Though various companies offer […]
Digital Euro Moves Ahead
June 23rd, 2026Via: Reuters: The European Central Bank secured key parliamentary backing on Tuesday for the launch of a digital euro, an electronic means of payments aimed at making the euro zone less reliant on U.S. credit cards at a ?time of fraying transatlantic relationships. The digital euro, essentially an electronic wallet guaranteed by the central bank […]
