Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Microsoft Working on Real-Time Audio Translations for Skype Conversations
May 28th, 2014Via: Microsoft: Skype Translator results from decades of work by the industry, years of work by our researchers, and now is being developed jointly by the Skype and Microsoft Translator teams. The demo showed near real-time audio translation from English to German and vice versa, combining Skype voice and IM technologies with Microsoft Translator, and […]
Google Web/Search History Disable Does Absolutely Nothing
May 28th, 2014Classic: For Exercise in New York Futility, Push Button: Millions of dutiful city residents and tourists have pushed them over the years, thinking it would help speed them in their journeys. Many trusting souls might have believed they actually worked. Others, more cynical, might have suspected they were broken but pushed anyway, out of habit, […]
Autonomous Mode Only: Google Unveils Self Driving Car Prototype without Steering Wheel or Pedals
May 28th, 2014Via: Google: Ever since we started the Google self-driving car project, we’ve been working toward the goal of vehicles that can shoulder the entire burden of driving. Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their […]
Brokers Use ‘Billions’ of Data Points to Profile Americans
May 27th, 2014Via: Washington Post: Data brokers that quietly gather billions of pieces of data on Americans should be required to operate more openly, so that those categorized as “financially challenged” or possibly suffering from serious medical conditions have the ability to check and challenge those characterizations, a federal report said Tuesday. The data broker industry, which […]
Facebook Wants to ‘Listen’ to Your Music and TV
May 22nd, 2014Via: BBC: Facebook is to release a new feature on its mobile app that “listens” to your music and TV shows. If the song or show is recognised by the app, users can publish the information on their profile or to selected friends. The service hopes to take advantage of the “second screen” trend, which […]
“Why I Was Forced to Shut Down Lavabit”
May 20th, 2014Via: Guardian: If my experience serves any purpose, it is to illustrate what most already know: courts must not be allowed to consider matters of great importance under the shroud of secrecy, lest we find ourselves summarily deprived of meaningful due process. If we allow our government to continue operating in secret, it is only […]
China Bans Use of Microsoft’s Windows 8 on Government Computers
May 20th, 2014To save energy. *wink* Via: Reuters: China has banned government use of Windows 8, Microsoft Corp’s latest operating system (OS), in a blow to the U.S. technology company which has long been plagued by sales woes in the country. The Central Government Procurement Center issued the ban on installing Windows 8 on government computers as […]
The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas
May 20th, 2014Via: First Look: The National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas. According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge […]
Document Establishes NSA’s Involvement in COINTELPRO
May 13th, 2014Via: The Guardian: One document from the Snowden files, dated 3 October 2012, chillingly underscores the point. It revealed that the agency has been monitoring the online activities of individuals it believes express “radical” ideas and who have a “radicalising” influence on others. The memo discusses six individuals in particular, all Muslims, though it stresses […]
NSA Routinely Installs Backdoors in Computers and Networking Equipment Exported from the U.S.
May 13th, 2014Via: The Guardian: But while American companies were being warned away from supposedly untrustworthy Chinese routers, foreign organisations would have been well advised to beware of American-made ones. A June 2010 report from the head of the NSA’s Access and Target Development department is shockingly explicit. The NSA routinely receives – or intercepts – routers, […]
