Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Who Owns the World’s Biggest Bitcoin Wallet? The FBI
December 18th, 2013Via: Wired: Who owns the single largest Bitcoin wallet on the internet? The U.S. government. In September, the FBI shut down the Silk Road online drug marketplace, and it started seizing bitcoins belonging to the Dread Pirate Roberts — the operator of the illicit online marketplace, who they say is an American man named Ross […]
No Matter How Hard You Try to Hide, This Professional Skip Tracer Will Find You
December 18th, 2013Via: Wired: At 4’11” and just over 100 pounds, Michelle Gomez does not look like the sort of person you’d hire to retrieve earthmoving equipment stolen by a peruvian crime family. But in the summer of 2013, that’s exactly what she was doing. Gomez, the proprietor of a one-woman operation in Lockhart, Texas, called Unlimited […]
Facebook Can See What Users Type Even If Status Is Not Posted
December 18th, 2013Via: Los Angeles Times: Facebook has said that it is within its terms of service to see what users are typing even when the status or comment is never posted on the social network. The Menlo Park, Calif., company confirmed that it can track users’ unpublished posts after two Facebook researchers disclosed that they had […]
Most Ridiculous Government Honeypot Ever? “Meet The ‘Assassination Market’ Creator Who’s Crowdfunding Murder With Bitcoins”
December 18th, 2013Via: Forbes: As Bitcoin becomes an increasingly popular form of digital cash, the cryptocurrency is being accepted in exchange for everything from socks to sushi to heroin. If one anarchist has his way, it’ll soon be used to buy murder, too. Last month I received an encrypted email from someone calling himself by the pseudonym […]
IBM Sued for Cooperating with NSA Spy Program
December 16th, 2013IBM knows a thing or two about colluding with fascists: IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black Via: Reuters: IBM Corp has been sued by a shareholder who accused it of concealing how its ties to what became a major U.S. spying scandal reduced […]
Frenchelon: France Broadens Its Surveillance Power
December 16th, 2013*yawn* How old is the Frenchelon joke? I don’t remember if I first came across it in the 1980s or 1990s. Via: New York Times: For all their indignation last summer, when the scope of the United States’ mass data collection began to be made public, the French are hardly innocents in the realm of […]
‘Deep Learning’ Professor to Head Facebook AI Lab
December 16th, 2013Via: New Yorker: Earlier today, Facebook announced that one of the most prominent artificial-intelligence researchers in the world, Yann LeCun, will be joining the company to direct a massive new A.I. effort spread across offices in California, New York, and London. While it might sound like just another Facebook hire, the move, which LeCun describes […]
New Zealand: Customs Seizes Man’s Electronic Equipment
December 13th, 2013Via: New Zealand Herald: A backpacker coming home for Christmas had every bit of electronic equipment stripped from him at the airport. A Customs officer at Auckland International Airport took law graduate Sam Blackman’s two smartphones, iPad, an external hard drive and laptop – and demanded his passwords. Mr Blackman, 27, who was breaking up […]
Bargains, Bargains: Facial-Recognition Cameras Hidden in Eyes of Mannequins
December 12th, 2013Via: CBS: Big Brother could be at your favorite store. As CBS 2?s Don Champion reported, a growing number of stores are using discrete and sophisticated technology — including mannequins with facial-recognition cameras hidden in their eyes — to track shopper demographics in an effort to boost sales. Retailers say the marketing data technology allows […]
Intel Contractors Give Millions to Lawmakers Overseeing Government Surveillance
December 12th, 2013Via: Maplight: In response to documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden, the congressional committees in charge of overseeing the government’s intelligence operations have come to the defense of the surveillance and data collection programs, and the agencies that administer them. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate […]
