Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Amazon Is Developing High-Tech Surveillance Tools for an Eager Customer: America’s Police
August 8th, 2019Via: NBC: Amazon, known mainly for its online consumer marketplace, is becoming a potent resource for federal, state and local authorities, peddling an array of tools that harness the power of cloud-based computing, artificial intelligence and video analysis. Some of the products seem mundane, offering agencies a relatively cheap method of storing, sharing and crunching […]
The Military-Style Surveillance Technology Being Tested in American Cities
August 4th, 2019Via: The Atlantic: In the eyes of the law, there’s no difference between a photo taken by a smartphone through an airplane window and one taken by an ultrapowerful camera in a helicopter hovering over your backyard. … Capitalizing on this gap, as some might call it, in standing privacy law, wide-area-camera manufacturers and users […]
Pentagon Testing Mass Surveillance Balloons Across the U.S.
August 2nd, 2019Via: Guardian: The US military is conducting wide-area surveillance tests across six midwest states using experimental high-altitude balloons, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reveal. Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, […]
Apple Contractors Regularly Hear Siri Recordings of Drug Deals, Medical Details and People Having Sex
July 29th, 2019Via: Guardian: Apple contractors regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex, as part of their job providing quality control, or “grading”, the company’s Siri voice assistant, the Guardian has learned. Although Apple does not explicitly disclose it in its consumer-facing privacy documentation, a small proportion of Siri recordings are […]
Chicago: Police Build Profiles on People Who Speak at Public Board Meetings
July 24th, 2019Via: Chicago Tribune: Chicago police have for years compiled profiles on every citizen who spoke at public meetings of the city’s police disciplinary panel, a process that included running criminal background checks and internet searches on activists, a police union official and even relatives of an innocent woman killed in a high-profile police shooting, the […]
Russia’s Secret Intelligence Agency Hacked: ‘Largest Data Breach In Its History’
July 21st, 2019Via: Forbes: Red faces in Moscow this weekend, with the news that hackers have successfully targeted FSB—Russia’s Federal Security Service. The hackers managed to steal 7.5 terabytes of data from a major contractor, exposing secret FSB projects to de-anonymize Tor browsing, scrape social media, and help the state split its internet off from the rest […]
U.S. Fast-Food Drive-Thrus Will Soon Use License Plate And Facial Recognition Technology
July 13th, 2019I like the picture at ZeroHedge of a morbidly obese person ordering slop at the drive-thru. Wow. Via: ZeroHedge: License plate recognition could be the new big thing at American drive-thrus, according to FT. Chains are now looking to deploy cameras that recognize license plates and help identify customers, personalizing digital menus and speeding up […]
How to Enable DNS-Over-HTTPS (DoH) in Firefox
July 6th, 2019Via: ZDNet: A step by step guide to enable DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) support in the Firefox browser.
List of Alternatives to All Google Products
July 4th, 2019Via: TechSpot: With growing concerns over online privacy and securing personal data, more people than ever are considering alternatives to Google products.
Amazon Stores Alexa Transcripts Indefinitely, Unless Customers Manually Delete Them
July 3rd, 2019I wouldn’t believe that anything can actually be deleted from that thing. Via: IAfrikan: Amazon has confirmed that it keeps transcripts of users’ Alexa voice recordings indefinitely on its servers. The company also keeps Alexa voice recordings indefinitely. According to Amazon, customers customers do have an option to delete both the transcripts and voice recordings.
