Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Canada: Secret Cold War Plan Included Mass Detentions
October 14th, 2010Via: CBC: At the height of the Cold War, the Canadian government crafted a top-secret plan to detain thousands of citizens with Communist links in the event of a national security threat, according to a joint CBC/Radio-Canada investigation. The secret contingency plan, called PROFUNC, allowed police to round up and indefinitely detain Canadians believed to […]
Increasing Use of RFID Tracking for Students
October 12th, 2010Can we get these kids some breakfast sticks? Via: Houston Chronicle: Radio frequency identification — the same technology used to monitor cattle — is tracking students in the Spring and Santa Fe school districts. Identification badges for some students in both school districts now include tracking devices that allow campus administrators to keep tabs on […]
Airport Body Scanners
October 11th, 2010Via: Lew Rockwell: I understand now why the scanners aren’t mandatory. There doesn’t seem to be a need for the authoritarians to officially force everyone through. Everyone around me went through of their own volition. Research Credit: Pookie
Caught Spying on Student, FBI Demands GPS Tracker Back
October 8th, 2010“Me and my friend went to the mechanic today and we found this on his car.” Via: Wired: A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether […]
One Program to Watch Them All: DARPA’s INSIGHT
October 4th, 2010Yet again, it’s the Information Awareness Office by another name. Via: Wired: No surprise that Darpa, the military’s blue-sky research arm, is the agency behind the lofty five-year program, called Insight. The agency’s goal is to replace “largely manual exploitation and…chat-based operator interactions” with a system that mines different inputs, including drone footage and on-the-ground […]
“Me and my friend went to the mechanic today and we found this on his car.”
October 4th, 2010Update: FBI Demands Return of the Device Via: Wired: A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was […]
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI): New Computers Will Boot in Seconds
October 4th, 2010I wonder what surveillance hell lurks inside this… Via: Daily Tech: Microsoft reportedly plans to unleash a new PC firmware interface called Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) in 2011. Microsoft is rumored to be coming out with the successor to Windows 7 next year, dubbed “Windows.NEXT”. That successor may support the new interface. While UEFI […]
The U.S. Government has Deployed Mobile X-Ray Technology to Scan Cars and Trucks at Internal Checkpoints
October 1st, 2010Via: Christian Science Monitor: As an antiterror measure, the US government has deployed mobile X-ray technology to randomly scan cars and trucks. But the measure is riling privacy proponents. For many living in a terror-spooked country, it might seem like a great government innovation: Use vans equipped with mobile X-ray units to scan vehicles at […]
Researchers Find Phone Apps Sending Data Without Notification
September 30th, 2010Via: PhysOrg: Publicly available cell-phone applications from application markets are releasing consumers’ private information to online advertisers, according to a joint study by Intel Labs, Penn State, and Duke University. Flicking through a wallpaper app with backgrounds of Mickey Mouse and a tropical waterfall, Peter Gilbert gets a plain, black and white text notification on […]
Pre-Crime Magic 8 Ball Uses “Resentment” in Spoken and Written Information to Identify “The Terrorists”
September 29th, 2010I like Tony’s commentary on this over at Technofascism Blog. He offers a couple of quotes from 1984: “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, […]
