Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
ID Bracelets for People Who Need Assistance Leaving Storm Areas
September 1st, 2008This is such a great a system, used by the helpful soldiers. Old Auntie Mildred won’t get lost. Maybe it will be ok for the whole family (someday). That’s the intended lesson, anyway. Via: Star Telegram: Along the Texas Gulf Coast, mandatory evacuation started in waves this morning. Communities closest to the coast put orders […]
Peep Show: Millimeter Wave Scan Machine at Denver Airport
September 1st, 2008Via: BoingBoing: I snapped this photo of a passive millimeter wave scan machine set up in the main entrance hall at Denver International Airport on Friday evening. The machine was swiveling back and forth, searching people who didn’t even know they were being scanned. I’m sure some of the people scanned weren’t passengers; they were […]
“Surveillance in a Box” Makes its Debut
August 30th, 2008Via: Intel Daily: According to New Scientist, German electronics giant Siemens has developed software allegedly capable of integrating …tasks typically done by separate surveillance teams or machines, pooling data from sources such as telephone calls, email and internet activity, bank transactions and insurance records. It then sorts through this mountain of information using software that […]
Culture of Surveillance May Contribute to Delusional Condition
August 30th, 2008There’s now a psychiatric designation for people who are aware of systems like the NarusInsight Intercept Suite and Siemens’ Intelligence Platform. Via: IHT: Psychosis in the 21st century looks something like this: You think your every move is being filmed for a reality television show starring you, and that everyone in your life is an […]
The Numerati
August 30th, 2008After staring down the bottomless abyss of formal schooling, this is what the best and brightest can expect when working for IBM: Full time, automated surveillance by a Magic 8 Ball system that will match “commoditized” workers to tasks and monitor their progress on a minute by minute basis. Via: Business Week: By building mathematical […]
Safe in Our Cages
August 27th, 2008Via: Guardian: In the Queen’s speech this autumn Gordon Brown’s government will announce a scheme to institute a database of every telephone call, email, and act of online usage by every resident of the UK. It will propose that this information will be gathered, stored, and “made accessible” to the security and law enforcement agencies, […]
Wealthy Mexicans, Worried About Kidnapping, Are Buying Personal Satellite Tracking Systems
August 25th, 2008From what I’ve been able to tell from this, the implanted chip has nothing to do with tracking the person. It’s probably for postmortem identification purposes. There’s an external box that the person must carry with them (a GPS receiver that’s probably tied into the mobile phone network). As soon as the kidnap victim is […]
FBI to Begin Terrorism Investigations on Americans “Without Any Basis for Suspicion”
August 23rd, 2008As usual, the Dems squeak pathetically while refusing to do anything substantive (hint: “purse strings”) to stop the slide into ever darker levels of fascism. Via: AP: Proposed rules to help the FBI catch terrorists could lead to innocent Americans being spied upon by government agents or informants “all without any basis for suspicion,” a […]
U.S. Government Holding International Travel Information for 15 Years
August 20th, 2008The Magic 8-Ball is strong in this one. Via: Washington Post: The federal government has been using its system of border checkpoints to greatly expand a database on travelers entering the country by collecting information on all U.S. citizens crossing by land, compiling data that will be stored for 15 years and may be used […]
UK: “Failsafe” Face Scanners Could Replace Passport Officers at Airports
August 20th, 2008In Other News: Security researcher clones chips on two British passports; implants digital images of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber. Three thousand blank British passports have been stolen. Via: This Is London: Facial recognition machines are to be installed at airports to replace passport officers under border control plans announced today. The machines […]
