Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Binney Claims FBI Has Access to NSA Mass Intercepts
December 3rd, 2012Intuitively, we all knew this, but here’s a claim by someone who was in a position to know, that FBI has access to the mass intercepts. Via: Russia Today: Related: Retroactive Surveillance on Anyone
Australian Government Admits to Accessing People’s Private Telephone and Internet Records 5800 Times Every Week Without Warrants
December 2nd, 2012I wonder what happens when their targets/citizens run persistent VPNs located in other countries? Via: Sydney Morning Herald: AUSTRALIAN law enforcement and government agencies have sharply increased their access without warrant to vast quantities of private telephone and internet data, prompting new calls for tighter controls on surveillance powers. Government agencies accessed private telecommunications data […]
Sentry System Combines a Human Brain with Computer Vision
November 30th, 2012I’ve posted this one at least a couple of time over the years, but in case you missed it… Via: MIT Technology Review: Sentry duty is a tough assignment. Most of the time there’s nothing to see, and when a threat does pop up, it can be hard to spot. In some military studies, humans […]
‘The Cashless Society is Almost Here’
November 30th, 2012I first heard about the cashless society back around 1988. By 2000, cash would be gone, or so the stories went. haha. Now, in 2012, the cashless society is almost here… I’d say that it’s closer to being here than it was in 1988, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people who are waiting for […]
Palm-Scanning Technology ‘as a Handy ID System’
November 26th, 2012Via: USA Today: At schools in Pinellas County, Fla., students aren’t paying for lunch with cash or a card, but with a wave of their hand over a palm scanner. “It’s so quick that a child could be standing in line, call mom and say, ‘I forgot my lunch money today.’ She’s by her computer, […]
U.N. Wants Drones
November 24th, 2012Via: AFP: The United Nations wants to use drones for the first time to monitor fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where Rwanda has been accused of aiding rebels, officials said Friday.
School Attempts to Suspend Student for Refusing to Wear a School-Issued RFID Tracker
November 22nd, 2012Via: Wired: 2:30 p.m. PST UPDATE: A local Texas judge on Wednesday tentatively blocked the suspension, pending further hearings next week. A Texas high school student is being suspended for refusing to wear a student ID card implanted with a radio-frequency identification chip. Northside Independent School District in San Antonio began issuing the RFID-chip-laden student-body […]
Stores Start Using Spy Mannequins to Boost Sales
November 22nd, 2012Via: Bloomberg: Fashion brands are deploying mannequins equipped with technology used to identify criminals at airports to watch over shoppers in their stores. Retailers are introducing the EyeSee, sold by Italian mannequin maker Almax SpA, to glean data on customers much as online merchants are able to do. Five companies are using a total of […]
Senate Bill Rewrite Lets Feds Read Your E-mail, Cloud Docs, Facebook Information and More Without Warrants
November 20th, 2012Update: Dropped — It won’t just be the NSA that will get to have all the fun… Via: Cnet: A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans’ e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law. CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of […]
Ingress: Google’s Strange New Game
November 16th, 2012John Hanke is the head of Niantic Labs, the Google unit that created Ingress, a new global augmented reality game. Let’s quickly look at some of what Hanke was up to before he worked at Google. After graduation from the University of Texas at Austin, Hanke, “Worked in foreign affairs for the US Government in […]
