Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Where and When You Use Credit Cards Could Hurt Your Credit Rating
July 15th, 2009Cash kills credit card companies. Via: Concord Monitor: Here’s a word to the wise: Think twice before whipping out that credit card to pay for purchases at the Salvation Army or a discount store, have tires re-treaded or even buy a late-night round of drinks. Credit card companies see those purchases, and a slew of […]
Power Sockets Can be Used to Eavesdrop on What People Type on a Computer
July 13th, 2009Via: BBC: Power sockets can be used to eavesdrop on what people type on a computer. Security researchers found that poor shielding on some keyboard cables means useful data can be leaked about each character typed. By analysing the information leaking onto power circuits, the researchers could see what a target was typing. The attack […]
Feds: Wrap Up Those RFID E-Documents in Tin Foil
July 12th, 2009Via: Washington Post: To protect against skimming and eavesdropping attacks, federal and state officials recommend that Americans keep their e-passports tightly shut and store their RFID-tagged passport cards and enhanced driver’s licenses in “radio-opaque” sleeves. That’s because experiments have shown that the e-passport begins transmitting some data when opened even a half inch, and chipped […]
Britain: Police Examine News Group Phone Tap Claims
July 9th, 2009Thousands? Via: Guardian: Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists’ repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories. The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists […]
NSA Plans Massive Data Center in Utah
July 5th, 2009Via: The Salt Lake Tribune: The National Security Agency was so confident that its nearly $2 billion plan for a new data center in Utah would be approved by Congress that it began designing the facility last November. NSA budgeting documents also indicate that the design of the 1-million-square-foot center should be completed by February, […]
Big Brother Untangles Baby Babble
July 2nd, 2009Via: BBC: In 2005, the artificial intelligence researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab set out to understand how children learn to talk. “We wanted to understand how minds work and how they develop and how the interplay of innate and environmental influence makes us who we are and how we learn […]
UK: Government Backs Down from Requiring ID Cards; Will be Voluntary at First
July 1st, 2009While this may seem like good news, it’s just a flick of the switch to make it compulsory. We’ll see how voluntary it is after a Sufficiently Horrific Provocation. Via: Reuters: Britain said on Tuesday it was dropping plans to bring in compulsory biometric identity cards for airport workers and that the multi-billion pound scheme […]
The Union of Soviet Indian Republics Is Rolling Out a National ID Card
June 28th, 2009Tens of millions of people who who can’t read or write (see: literacy in India) will need an identity card to get their government food handouts. Yes, it has come to this. Via: New York Times: Policy makers see a national ID card as critical to improving the delivery of social services, subsidies and other […]
Emails Between Mark Sanford and His Mistress Were Turned Over to Newspaper Back in December
June 25th, 2009UPDATE: The Mistress’ Other Boyfriend (Not Sanford, but Some Other Punter) Sent the Emails to The State Ok, I guess we can put this one to bed. (Sorry, I could resist.) Via: New York Times: The mystery of who revealed Gov. Mark Sanford’s e-mail messages may finally be solved. A business associate of Mr. Sanford’s […]
Google Analyzes Your Vacation Snaps to Figure Out Where You Were
June 23rd, 2009Via: Popular Science: Where were we when this was taken? Do you remember, dear? Tired of trying to identify landmarks in your endless folders of travel photos? Google’s image recognition engine could help. Just upload the mystery image to an online album, point the engine at it, and zap — turns out it was the […]
