Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Edible Microchips to Monitor Drug Taking Habits
January 20th, 2012I wonder if people will tell Siri to remind them to take their digestible sensors? Via: Independent: An edible microchip that records the precise details of a patient’s pill regime will be available in Britain by the end of year following a commercial deal that opens the door to an era of digital medicines. An […]
Air Force’s Top Brain Wants a ‘Social Radar’ to ‘See Into Hearts and Minds’
January 20th, 2012Another one for your bulging For-Fuck’s-Sake-Roll-Eyes file folder. Via: Wired: Chief Scientists of the Air Force usually spend their time trying to figure out how to build better satellites or make jets go insanely fast. Which makes Dr. Mark Maybury, today’s chief scientist, a bit of an outlier. He’d like to build a set of […]
U.S. Army Unveils 1.8 Gigapixel Camera Helicopter Drone
January 17th, 2012Via: BBC: New helicopter-style drones with 1.8 gigapixel colour cameras are being developed by the US Army. The army said the technology promised “an unprecedented capability to track and monitor activity on the ground”. … The Argus-IS’s acronym was chosen to recall Argus Panoptes – the one-hundred-eyed-giant of Greek mythology. The technology is based on […]
TSA to Test Airport Scanner Operators for Radiation Exposure
January 16th, 2012Via: Los Angeles Times: After years of rebuffing health concerns over airport scanners, the Transportation Security Administration plans to conduct new tests on the potential radiation exposure from the machines at more than 100 airports nationwide. But the TSA does not plan to retest the machines or passengers. Instead, the agency plans to test its […]
UCSF Professor: “Society Will Pay a Huge Price in Cancer” Because of DHS Full Vehicle X-Ray Machines
January 16th, 2012Via: Cnet: Internal Homeland Security documents describing specifications for border-crossing scanners, which emit gamma or X-ray radiation to probe vehicles and their occupants, are raising new health and privacy concerns, CNET has learned. Even though a public outcry has prompted Homeland Security to move away from adding X-ray machines to airports–it purchased 300 body scanners […]
Bay Area Company Creating Massive Vehicle Location Database from Police License Plate Scanning
January 12th, 2012Here’s one for your Retroactive Surveillance file folder. Via: San Francisco Chronicle: Capitalizing on one of the fastest-growing trends in law enforcement, a private company in Livermore has compiled a database bulging with more than 550 million bits of information that let police know when and where specific license plates of both innocent and criminal […]
Homeland Security Watches Twitter, Social Media, Blogs
January 12th, 2012Cryptogon readers yawn even more deeply than usual… Via: Reuters: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document. A “privacy compliance review” issued by DHS last November […]
U.S. Army Routinely Monitors Social Media and Prepares Sentiment Briefs for Public Affairs Personnel
January 11th, 2012Via: Politico: News coverage of Pfc. Bradley Manning’s legal hearing last month on charges of being a key source for WikiLeaks was generally ‘negative’ but ‘balanced and factual,’ according to daily summaries of the proceedings prepared by Army public affairs personnel. The Army flacks also took a keen interest in news coverage of former Lt. […]
Google Backing Original Shows for YouTube — Lots of Them
January 8th, 2012Plug in and be lit up by the American Hologram. This great loom of media images, and images of images, is so many layers deep that it has replaced reality. No one can remember the original imprint. If there was one. The hologram is a hermetic snow globe, a self-referential circuitry of images, and a […]
Feds Want Judge to Force Suspect to Give Up Laptop Password
January 6th, 2012Reader Question: Which Encryption Software Do I Use? M emailed to ask about the encryption software that I use. For full disk encryption, I use TrueCrypt. Whether or not you believe that TrueCrypt can protect your data from all attackers, when used properly, it can definitely protect your data from attackers that you are likely […]
