Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Prisons Across the U.S. Are Quietly Building Databases of Incarcerated People’s Voice Prints
January 31st, 2019Via: The Intercept: In New York and other states across the country, authorities are acquiring technology to extract and digitize the voices of incarcerated people into unique biometric signatures, known as voice prints. Prison authorities have quietly enrolled hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people’s voice prints into large-scale biometric databases. Computer algorithms then draw on […]
China’s Military-Run Space Station in Argentina Is a ‘Black Box’
January 31st, 2019China – Argentina – Patagonia ground station: Outrage, spying, unspecified doom in the media. United States – Australia – Pine Gap: *crickets* Via: Reuters: The United States has long been worried about what it sees as China’s strategy to “militarize” space, according to one U.S. official, who added there was reason to be skeptical of […]
Smart Coolers: Now Your Groceries See You, Too
January 30th, 2019Via: The Atlantic: Walgreens is piloting a new line of “smart coolers”—fridges equipped with cameras that scan shoppers’ faces and make inferences on their age and gender. On January 14, the company announced its first trial at a store in Chicago in January, and plans to equip stores in New York and San Francisco with […]
Google’s Sidewalk Labs Plans to Package and Sell Location Data on Millions of Cellphones
January 29th, 2019Ah… It de-identifies the location of cellphone users. Mmm hmm. Via: The Intercept: Most of the data collected by urban planners is messy, complex, and difficult to represent. It looks nothing like the smooth graphs and clean charts of city life in urban simulator games like “SimCity.” A new initiative from Sidewalk Labs, the city-building […]
Pope Francis Unveils New ‘Click to Pray’ App
January 22nd, 2019Via: New York Post: The Holy Father launched an app called “Click to Pray” on Sunday that’ll allow the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics to join him in prayer. The pontiff has a profile on the Android and iOS app that shows Catholics around the globe what he’s currently praying for. Users can then click […]
‘The Goal Is to Automate Us’: Welcome to the Age of Surveillance Capitalism
January 20th, 2019Via: Guardian: The headline story is that it’s not so much about the nature of digital technology as about a new mutant form of capitalism that has found a way to use tech for its purposes. The name Zuboff has given to the new variant is “surveillance capitalism”. It works by providing free services that […]
Hackers Broke Into an SEC Database and Made Millions from Inside Information
January 16th, 2019Background: Insider Crimes, Funny Money and Options Rackets They Made a Killing: The Use of Knowledge of Covert Operations in the Stock Market I’m practically positive that there are roomfulls of traders with TS/SCI clearances who do this on a level that is unthinkable to even the most sophisticated crooks on the outside. My guess […]
Joe Lieberman Listening to U.S. National Security Concerns for Chinese Telecom Giant ZTE
January 16th, 2019Via: Open Secrets: Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has officially filed as a lobbyist for Chinese telecom company ZTE, registration forms released Wednesday confirmed. ZTE has long been under fire from U.S. officials and members of Congress who say the company could endanger national security by providing espionage opportunities for the Chinese government. Though the […]
The Super-Secure Quantum Cable Hiding in the Holland Tunnel
January 14th, 2019Via: Bloomberg: Commuters inching through rush-hour traffic in the Holland Tunnel between Lower Manhattan and New Jersey don’t know it, but a technology likely to be the future of communication is being tested right outside their car windows. Running through the tunnel is a fiber-optic cable that harnesses the power of quantum mechanics to protect […]
Mobile Carriers Selling Phone Location Data
January 9th, 2019Via: TechCrunch: Last year, four of the largest U.S. cell carriers were caught selling and sending real-time location data of their customers to shady companies that sold it on to big spenders, who would use the data to track anyone “within seconds” for whatever reason they wanted. At first, a little-known company LocationSmart was obtaining […]
