Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Secret Text in Senate Bill Would Give FBI Warrantless Access to Email Records
May 26th, 2016Just skip the parallel construction. Via: The Intercept: A provision snuck into the still-secret text of the Senate’s annual intelligence authorization would give the FBI the ability to demand individuals’ email data and possibly web-surfing history from their service providers without a warrant and in complete secrecy. If passed, the change would expand the reach […]
FindFace
May 18th, 2016Via: Guardian: If the founders of a new face recognition app get their way, anonymity in public could soon be a thing of the past. FindFace, launched two months ago and currently taking Russia by storm, allows users to photograph people in a crowd and work out their identities, with 70% reliability. It works by […]
Stanford Quantifies the Privacy-Stripping Power of Metadata
May 17th, 2016Via: Tech Crunch: More proof, if proof were needed, of the privacy-stripping power of metadata. A multi-year crowdsourced study, conducted by Stanford scientists and published this week, underlines how much information can be inferred from basic phone logs cross-referenced with other public datasets. (Reminder: the former director of the NSA and the CIA, General Michael […]
Pentagon Wants AI to Read Social Media and Draw Up Lists of People for Lethal Autonomous Robots to Kill
May 16th, 2016Via: Medium: “LARs [lethal autonomous robots] have the unique potential to operate at a tempo faster than humans can possibly achieve and to lethally strike even when communications links have been severed. Autonomous targeting technology will likely proliferate to nations and groups around the world. To prevent being surpassed by rivals, the United States should […]
UK Developing Digital Driving Licence
May 16th, 2016Via: BBC: The UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is working on a smartphone version of its driving licence. Chief executive Oliver Morley tweeted a photo showing a “prototype” using Apple’s Wallet app on an iPhone. He says it will be an “add-on” to the plastic card rather than a replacement. Research Credit: Jb
BAY AREA: FBI MICROPHONES RECORD PUBLIC CONVERSATIONS
May 14th, 2016Keep in mind, this is just what’s admitted. Via: East Bay Express: At the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland, the FBI planted hidden microphones inside light fixtures on the courthouse’s exterior steps to capture the conversations of people attending the foreclosure auctions. Cameras and microphones were installed in parked Alameda County vehicles next to […]
Britain: Google Given Access to Healthcare Data of Up to 1.6 Million Patients
May 4th, 2016Via: Guardian: A company owned by Google has been given access to the healthcare data of up to 1.6 million patients from three hospitals run by a major London NHS trust. DeepMind, the tech giant’s London-based company most famous for its innovative use of artificial intelligence, is being provided with the patient information as part […]
Britain: Bulk Personal Datasets
April 22nd, 2016Via: Ars Technica: The UK’s intelligence agencies (MI5, MI6, and GCHQ) are spying on everything you do, and with only the flimsiest of safeguards in place to prevent abuse, according to more than a thousand pages of documents published today as a result of a lawsuit filed by Privacy International. The documents reveal the details […]
Cisco’s Latest Attempt to Dodge Responsibility for Facilitating Human Rights Abuses: Export Rules
April 19th, 2016Via: EFF: Cisco custom-built the so-called “Great Firewall of China,” also known as the “Golden Shield.” This system enables the Chinese government to conduct Internet surveillance and censorship against its citizens. As if that weren’t bad enough, company documents also revealed that, as part of its marketing pitch to China and in an effort to […]
Canadian Police Have Had Master Key to BlackBerry’s Encryption Since 2010
April 14th, 2016Via: Vice: A high-level surveillance probe of Montreal’s criminal underworld shows that Canada’s federal policing agency has had a global encryption key for BlackBerry devices since 2010. The revelations are contained in a stack of court documents that were made public after members of a Montreal crime syndicate pleaded guilty to their role in a […]
