Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
GCHQ and NSA Targeted Private German Companies
March 29th, 2014Shocker. Via: Spiegel: Documents show that Britain’s GCHQ intelligence service infiltrated German Internet firms and America’s NSA obtained a court order to spy on Germany and collected information about the chancellor in a special database.
IBM: Mass Biometric Surveillance Unstoppable
March 28th, 2014Via: Wired: It’s already too late to stop the ubiquitous tracking and monitoring of the public through biometrics, says Peter Waggett, Programme Leader at IBM’s Emerging Technology Group. We need to stop worrying about prevention, and start working out how to make the most of data garnered from that kind of surveillance. “We’re fighting the […]
The Most Popular Show In America Is Basically NSA Propaganda
March 25th, 2014Via: Business Insider: NCIS and its sibling NCIS: Los Angeles are the top-rated dramas on television, a distinction they have held for several years. Next season there will be a third iteration, which ones hopes will be titled NCIS: Spinoff. As Quartz’s Jason Lynch notes, viewers love these formulaic procedurals—while critics ignore them. But what […]
Police and Stingray
March 22nd, 2014Via: AP: Police across the country might be intercepting phone calls or text messages to find suspects using a technology tool known as Stingray. But they’re refusing to turn over details about its use or heavily censoring files when they do. Police say Stingray, a suitcase-size device that pretends it’s a cell tower, is useful […]
Drone Advertises Fake WiFi Access Points, Steals Information
March 20th, 2014This type of exploit has been around forever. Now it’s just taking to the sky on a remote controlled toy. Via: CNN: The next threat to your privacy could be hovering over head while you walk down the street. Hackers have developed a drone that can steal the contents of your smartphone — from your […]
Los Angeles Cops Argue That All Cars Are Under Investigation
March 20th, 2014Via: EFF: Do you drive a car in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area? According to the L.A. Police Department and L.A. Sheriff’s Department, your car is part of a vast criminal investigation. The agencies took a novel approach in the briefs they filed in EFF and the ACLU of Southern California’s California Public Records […]
U.S. Tech Giants Knew of NSA Data Collection, Agency’s Top Lawyer Insists
March 19th, 2014Via: Guardian: The senior lawyer for the National Security Agency stated unequivocally on Wednesday that US technology companies were fully aware of the surveillance agency’s widespread collection of data, contradicting months of angry denials from the firms. Rajesh De, the NSA general counsel, said all communications content and associated metadata harvested by the NSA under […]
Facebook’s New ‘DeepFace’ Program Is Just As Creepy As It Sounds
March 19th, 2014Via: Huffington Post: Facebook owns the world’s largest photo library, and it now has the technology to match almost all the faces within it. Yes, even the ones you don’t tag. Facebook announced last week that it has developed a program called “DeepFace,” which researchers say can determine whether two photographed faces are of the […]
NSA Capable of Recording Audio from 100% of Unnamed Country’s Phone Calls
March 18th, 2014The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, CEO of CIA contractor Amazon.com, is working with U.S. Government censors to conceal the name of the country in question. Even if we did know the country, this is a ridiculous limited hangout. My guess is that the same thing is happening in the U.S. and that the […]
A Tale of Two Internets
March 15th, 2014It sounds a lot like U.S. politics: “A world where you think you are making choices, but in reality, your options are narrowed and refined until you are left with merely the illusion of control.” Via: Scientific American: Imagine an Internet where unseen hands curate your entire experience. Where third parties predetermine the news, products […]
