Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Facebook’s Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment
June 28th, 2014Via: The Atlantic: Facebook’s News Feed—the main list of status updates, messages, and photos you see when you open Facebook on your computer or phone—is not a perfect mirror of the world. But few users expect that Facebook would change their News Feed in order to manipulate their emotional state. We now know that’s exactly […]
Predictive Policing
June 25th, 2014Via: Guardian: The algorithm at play is performing what’s commonly referred to as predictive policing. Using years – and sometimes decades – worth of crime reports, the algorithm analyses the data to identify areas with high probabilities for certain types of crime, placing little red boxes on maps of the city that are streamed into […]
Federal Judge Rules U.S. No-Fly List Violates Constitution
June 25th, 2014Via: Reuters: The U.S. government’s no-fly list banning people accused of links to terrorism from commercial flights violates their constitutional rights because it gives them no meaningful way to contest that decision, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Anna Brown, ruling on a lawsuit filed in federal court in Oregon by 13 […]
New Handheld X-Ray Scanner
June 23rd, 2014Via: DefenseOne: Superman had X-ray vision. Now, so does the United States military, in the form of an X-ray gun that can see through fabric, rubber and aluminum to find drugs, money, explosive liquids and even people. The recently released X-ray gun is the first device of its kind that a soldier or would-be superhero […]
New Leaks Show Germany’s Collusion with NSA
June 22nd, 2014Via: Deutsche Welle: This week German news magazine Der Spiegel published the largest single set of files leaked by whistleblower and former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The roughly 50 documents show the depth of the German intelligence agencies’ collusion with the NSA. They suggest that the German Intelligence Agency (BND), the country’s […]
Florida: Cops Hid Use of Phone Tracking Tech in Court Documents at Feds’ Request
June 20th, 2014Via: Ars Technica: On Thursday evening, the ACLU published a 2009 e-mail exchange (PDF) between police departments in Sarasota, FL and North Port, FL indicating that local law enforcement had concealed the use of cell phone-tracking Stingray devices in court documents. Stingray is a trademark, but it has come to generally mean devices that can […]
“Got Fiber?” Countries Outside of Five Eyes Network Working with NSA
June 19th, 2014Via: First Look: Huge volumes of private emails, phone calls, and internet chats are being intercepted by the National Security Agency with the secret cooperation of more foreign governments than previously known, according to newly disclosed documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden. The classified files, revealed today by the Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information in a reporting […]
It’s Complicated: Facebook’s History of Tracking You
June 18th, 2014Via: ProPublica: For years people have noticed a funny thing about Facebook’s ubiquitous Like button. It has been sending data to Facebook tracking the sites you visit. Each time details of the tracking were revealed, Facebook promised that it wasn’t using the data for any commercial purposes. No longer. Last week, Facebook announced it will […]
UK Intelligence Forced to Reveal Secret Policy for Mass Surveillance
June 17th, 2014At least the wholly domestic traffic isn’t going down the gurgler too. *wink* Via: Privacy International: Britain’s top counter-terrorism official has been forced to reveal a secret Government policy justifying the mass surveillance of every Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google user in the UK. This disturbing policy was made public due to a legal challenge […]
U.S. Pushing Local Cops to Stay Mum on Surveillance
June 15th, 2014Via: AP: The Obama administration has been quietly advising local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology they are using to sweep up basic cellphone data from entire neighborhoods, The Associated Press has learned. Citing security reasons, the U.S. has intervened in routine state public records cases and criminal trials regarding use of the […]
