Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Gates Foundation: “Digital IDs Are an Effective Tool Against Poverty”
September 2nd, 2025Tell us another one, Bill. Via: Off-Guardian: It looks like we can add another to the growing mountain of problems that digital IDs are going to solve for all of us. We already know that digital IDs will help counter populism, and illegal immigration, and crime, and benefit fraud, and terrorism, and pandemics. But they’ll […]
Mass Vehicle Surveillance in the U.S.
September 1st, 2025Via: Benn Jordan:
Microsoft Word Will Autosave to Cloud by Default
August 27th, 2025At least there’s a built in way to change this stupid cloud autosave behavior in Word. For now, at least. Most Word users won’t know or care about the totality of what they write being copied to Microsoft’s servers. Imagine the convenience! If you use Microsoft Office, there’s a decent chance that Libre Office would […]
Burner Phones, Wiped Socials: People Trying to Avoid Being Detained When Visiting the U.S.
August 25th, 2025Don’t have too little data, because that’s also suspicious: You might think the most protective options are to completely wipe your phone before traveling, use a burner or travel without a phone. But the EFF’s Cope said that could actually raise suspicions. “People are damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” Cope said. […]
Password Protection on Mind Reading Brain Implant
August 15th, 2025Via: Nature: A brain implant can decode a person’s internal chatter — but the device works only if the user thinks of a preset password. The mind-reading device, or brain–computer interface (BCI), accurately deciphered up to 74% of imagined sentences. The system began decoding users’ internal speech — the silent dialogue in people’s minds — […]
AI-Powered Radar Can Spy on Phone Calls from 10 Feet
August 14th, 2025Add it to the list… Via: Interesting Engineering: Believe it or not, your phone’s tiniest vibrations can reveal your conversations — thanks to AI. A team of computer science researchers at Penn State has developed a startling new way to eavesdrop on phone calls remotely by decoding subtle vibrations emitted by a cellphone’s earpiece. Using […]
Huntington Beach, California: First Responder Police Drones Launch from Rooftops Around City
August 13th, 2025Via: Los Angeles Times: The Huntington Beach Police Department typically takes about five minutes to get to a crime scene or emergency situation. Drones will soon cut that time to two minutes or less. The department is expected to launch its Drone as First Responder program on Sept. 13, officials said during a news conference […]
UK Expands Police Facial Recognition Rollout
August 13th, 2025Via: The Register: A fresh expansion of UK crimefighters’ access to live facial recognition (LFR) technology is being described by officials as “an excellent opportunity for policing.” Privacy campaigners disagree. The Home Office said today that more police forces across England will gain LFR capabilities thanks to ten new “cutting edge” vans being wheeled out, […]
“Providing ChatGPT to the Entire U.S. Federal Workforce” for $1 for a Year
August 6th, 2025Try to imagine the insights into U.S. Government operations that OpenAI will gain from doing this… Also, by interacting with these systems, I wonder if the workers will inadvertently be training AI agents that will replace them? Before you cheer for fewer government workers, consider that fact that AI hallucinations are getting worse, not better: […]
New Zealand to Charge Drivers of All Vehicles by Distance Driven
August 6th, 2025They are not saying precisely how this will be enforced, but my guess is that some sort of black box with GPS tracking will be required to be added to most vehicles. Via: Radio New Zealand: “We’re not going to shift millions of drivers from a simple system at the pump to queues at retailers. […]
