Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads
June 24th, 2017Via: Bloomberg: Google is stopping one of the most controversial advertising formats: ads inside Gmail that scan users’ email contents. The decision didn’t come from Google’s ad team, but from its cloud unit, which is angling to sign up more corporate customers. Alphabet Inc.’s Google Cloud sells a package of office software, called G Suite, […]
Facial Recognition Is Coming to U.S. Airports, Fast-Tracked by Trump
June 21st, 2017Via: The Verge: Soon, it may be hard for visa holders to board an international flight without submitting to a facial geometry scan. Customs and Border Protection began testing facial recognition systems at Dulles Airport in 2015, then expanded the tests to New York’s JFK Airport last year. Face-reading check-in kiosks will be appearing at […]
Booz Allen Hamilton: Federal Civil and Criminal Probe in Connection with Its Finances
June 15th, 2017Via: NBC: Shares of Booz Allen Hamilton sank as much as 13 percent in after-hours trading after the government services firm revealed in a regulatory filing it was the subject of a federal civil and criminal probe in connection with its finances. Last year, the company derived 97 percent of its revenue from U.S. government […]
Japan Passes Controversial Bill Boosting Surveillance Powers
June 15th, 2017Via: Bloomberg: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government passed controversial legislation that gives prosecutors the power to monitor and arrest people in the planning stages of crimes. As dawn broke in Tokyo on Thursday, bleary-eyed lawmakers voted to pass the so-called anti-conspiracy bill, which the government says is needed to bolster counter-terrorism precautions ahead of […]
Chinese Style Internet Censorship… in Britain?
June 10th, 2017Via: Independent: Theresa May has refused to rule out censoring the internet like China. The prime minister has looked to introduce sweeping and deep changes to the way the internet works, in what she claims is a necessary move to prevent terror. Those have included restricting the kinds of things people can post online and […]
Google Now Tracks Your Credit Card Purchases and Connects Them to Its Online Profile of You
May 29th, 2017Via: MIT Technology Review: Google’s new ability to match people’s offline credit card purchases to their online lives is a stunning display of surveillance capitalism in action. The capability, which Google unveiled this week, allows the company to connect the dots between the ads that it shows its users and what they end up actually […]
How Facebook’s Tentacles Reach Further Than You Think
May 26th, 2017Via: BBC: Facebook’s collection of data makes it one of the most influential organisations in the world. Share Lab wanted to look “under the bonnet” at the tech giant’s algorithms and connections to better understand the social structure and power relations within the company. … “If Facebook were a country, it would be bigger than […]
CIA Malware for All Versions of Windows
May 20th, 2017Via: WikiLeaks: Today, May 19th 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents from the “Athena” project of the CIA. “Athena” – like the related “Hera” system – provides remote beacon and loader capabilities on target computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system (from Windows XP to Windows 10). Once installed, the malware provides a beaconing capability (including configuration […]
Here Comes the War for Commercial Drone Dominance
May 14th, 2017Via: Bloomberg: At some point in the not-too-distant future, fleets of commercial drones are expected to swarm across American skies. Companies in a wide range of industries will employ unmanned vehicles for tactical advantage—inspecting infrastructure, surveying crops, maybe even estimating how much your new roof will cost. And when these drones fly, a torrent of […]
In Cashless Sweden, Even God Now Takes Collection Via an App
May 14th, 2017Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates open 24/7. Via: Bloomberg: In the most cashless society on the planet, even God now accepts digital payments. A growing number of Swedish parishes have started taking donations via mobile apps. Uppsala’s 13th-century cathedral also accepts credit cards. The churches’ drive to keep up with the times is the latest sign […]
