Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Flashback 2013: Jeff Bezos Is Doing Huge Business with the CIA, While Keeping His Washington Post Readers in the Dark
February 17th, 2017Not only do I buy a lot of homeschooling books for my children from Amazon, but Cryptogon depends on affiliate commissions from Amazon. Several retailers in New Zealand simply buy stuff at retail from Amazon and then send it over to NZ. (That should give you an idea of how broken retailing is in NZ […]
AI-Powered Body Cams for Police
February 17th, 2017Via: Vocativ: The police body camera industry is the latest to jump on the artificial intelligence bandwagon, bringing new powers and privacy concerns to a controversial technology bolstered by the need to hold police accountable after numerous high-profile killings of unarmed black citizens. Now, that tech is about to get smarter. Last week, Taser, the […]
Flynn’s Takedown, “A Soft Coup”
February 14th, 2017In case anyone is keeping score, there was a faction allied with Trump that claimed that they were going to steal the election from Hillary, who was obviously well into the process of stealing the election for herself (see Bernie). Post election, Hillary’s faction obviously hasn’t just shrugged its shoulders and said, “Oh well.” Via: […]
CIA Files Reveal How U.S. Used Psychics to Spy on Iran
February 10th, 2017Via: Miami Herald: “The stuff that the CIA has declassified is garbage,” one of the Grill Flame psychics, Joseph McMoneagle, told the Miami Herald. “They haven’t declassified any of the stuff that worked.” Agreed Edwin May, a physicist who oversaw parapsychology research for government intelligence agencies for 20 years: “The psychics were able to tell, […]
Republicans and Democrats Reportedly Using Self-Destructing Message Apps to Avoid Leaks
February 10th, 2017Via: The Verge: Trump administration members and other Republicans are using the encrypted, self-destructing messaging app Confide to keep conversations private in the wake of hacks and leaks, according to Jonathan Swan and David McCabe at Axios. Axios writes that “numerous senior GOP operatives and several members of the Trump administration” have downloaded Confide, which […]
Cortana Now Reminds You to Do the Things You Promised in Emails
February 9th, 2017haha. Just cut to the chase and release a Cortana anal suppository. Via: The Verge: Microsoft is adding a new feature to Cortana today that will remind you to keep your promises. Suggested reminders lets Cortana remind you when you’ve promised to do something in an email. Microsoft is using machine learning to highlight phrases […]
NSA Contractor Indicted Over Mammoth Theft of Classified Data
February 8th, 2017Via: Reuters: A former National Security Agency contractor was indicted on Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges he willfully retained national defense information, in what U.S. officials have said may have been the largest heist of classified government information in history. The indictment alleges that Harold Thomas Martin, 52, spent up to 20 […]
Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
February 8th, 2017Via: CityLab: Major cities throughout the U.S. have spent millions on mobile surveillance tools—but there are still few rules about what happens to the information they capture.
The FBI’s Secret Rules
January 31st, 2017Via: The Intercept: For example, the bureau’s agents can decide that a campus organization is not “legitimate” and therefore not entitled to robust protections for free speech; dig for derogatory information on potential informants without any basis for believing they are implicated in unlawful activity; use a person’s immigration status to pressure them to collaborate […]
DragonflEye Project Wants to Turn Insects Into Cyborg Drones
January 26th, 2017Via: IEEE: As hard as we’re trying, it’s going to be a very long time before we’re able to build a robotic insect that’s anywhere near as capable or versatile as a real one. So for now, we rely on a cybernetics approach to get real insects to do our bidding instead. Over the past […]
