Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Why Online Tracking Is Getting Creepier
June 13th, 2014Via: Pro Publica: The marketers that follow you around the web are getting nosier. Currently, many companies track where users go on the Web—often through cookies—in order to display customized ads. That’s why if you look at a pair of shoes on one site, ads for those shoes may follow you around the Web. But […]
Ars Tests Internet Surveillance—By Spying on an NPR Reporter
June 11th, 2014If you are a non technical computer user, this article does a good job of explaining how much of your online life is like an open book for any man-in-the-middle observer. This observer could be your ISP, an intelligence organization, the police, anyone who has access to the network infrastructure between you and the Internet. […]
Google to Buy Satellite Company Skybox Imaging for $500 Million
June 11th, 2014Via: Reuters: Google Inc said on Tuesday it is acquiring satellite company Skybox Imaging for $500 million in cash, the Internet company’s second high-profile acquisition of an aerospace company this year. Google said that Skybox’s satellites will provide images for Google’s online mapping service. Google, the world’s No.1 Internet search engine, said that Skybox’s technology […]
Feds Snatch Mobile Phone Tracking Records Away from ACLU
June 10th, 2014Via: Naked Security: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a run-of-the-mill public records request about cell phone surveillance with a local police department in Florida. The US Marshals Service last week reacted by swooping in and snatching those records out from under the ACLU’s nose just hours before they were supposed to review them. […]
How FBI Informant Sabu Helped Anonymous Hack Brazil
June 9th, 2014Via: Vice: In early 2012, members of the hacking collective Anonymous carried out a series of cyber attacks on government and corporate websites in Brazil. They did so under the direction of a hacker who, unbeknownst to them, was wearing another hat: helping the Federal Bureau of Investigation carry out one of its biggest cybercrime […]
Vodafone Reveals Direct Access by Governments to Customer Data
June 6th, 2014Via: New York Times: A number of countries have direct access to the communication network run by the British telecom company Vodafone. The revelation comes in a privacy report released on Friday by Vodafone, the world’s second-largest carrier behind China Mobile, that included information about how governments regularly requested data about the company’s users. Vodafone […]
Overseas Processing Centre 1 (OPC-1)
June 5th, 2014Via: Register: Above-top-secret details of Britain’s covert surveillance programme – including the location of a clandestine British base tapping undersea cables in the Middle East – have so far remained secret, despite being leaked by fugitive NSA sysadmin Edward Snowden. Government pressure has meant that some media organisations, despite being in possession of these facts, […]
LAPD Adds Drones to Arsenal, Says They’ll Be Used Sparingly
May 31st, 2014*wink* Via: Los Angeles Times: The Los Angeles Police Department has acquired some eyes in the sky. On Friday, the department announced that it had acquired two “unmanned aerial vehicles” as gifts from the Seattle Police Department. The Draganflyer X6 aircraft, which resemble small helicopters, are each about 3 feet wide and equipped with a […]
German Foreign Intelligence Agency Wants to Access Social Media Sites in Real Time
May 31st, 2014Via: Deutsche Welle: German media has reported that the country’s foreign intelligence agency wants to access social media in real time. The agency reportedly wants to expand digital operations out of fear of falling behind other countries.
NSA Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images
May 31st, 2014Via: New York Times: The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents. The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the […]
