Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Real Headline: “Firm Led by Google Veterans Uses A.I. to ‘Nudge’ Workers Toward Happiness”
December 31st, 2018The New York Times, where cringe inducing meets comedy gold. I think that Foxconn should run this software. Maybe there’s a suicide prevention net plugin for it. Sensing that an employee has landed in one of those nets, the employee’s RFID badge could be read and the system could send them a coupon for lunch […]
How Facebook Tracks You On Android (Even If You Don’t Have A Facebook Account)
December 30th, 2018Via: Chaos Computer Club: In this talk, we’re looking at third party tracking on Android. We’ve captured and decrypted data in transit between our own devices and Facebook servers. It turns out that some apps routinely send Facebook information about your device and usage patterns – the second the app is opened. We’ll walk you […]
Chinese Schools Make Pupils Wear Micro-Chipped Uniforms to Thwart Truancy
December 27th, 2018Via: Telegraph: Schools in southern China are forcing children to wear uniforms embedded with computer chips that track their movement and trigger an alarm if they skip class. More that more than 10 schools in Guizhou province and the neighboring autonomous region of Guangxi are now requiring students to wear “intelligent uniforms”, according to the […]
Indian Government to Intercept, Monitor, and Decrypt Citizens’ Computers
December 21st, 2018Via: FastCompany: The Indian government has authorized 10 central agencies to intercept, monitor, and decrypt data on any computer, sending a shock wave through citizens and privacy watchdogs. Narendra Modi’s government late Thursday broadened the scope of Section 69 of the nation’s IT Act, 2000 to require a subscriber, service provider, or any person in […]
Google’s Earth: How the Tech Giant Is Helping the State Spy On Us
December 20th, 2018Via: Guardian: The purchase of Keyhole was a milestone for Google, marking the moment the company stopped being a purely consumer-facing internet company and began integrating with the US government. When Google bought Keyhole, it also acquired an In-Q-Tel executive named Rob Painter, who came with deep connections to the world of intelligence and military […]
Signal App to Australia: Good Luck with That Crypto Ban
December 17th, 2018Via: Ars Technica: Signal, one of the most secure messaging apps, essentially told Australia this week that its attempts to thwart strong crypto are rather cute. “By design, Signal does not have a record of your contacts, social graph, conversation list, location, user avatar, user profile name, group memberships, group titles, or group avatars,” Joshua […]
Affect Recognition: Face Scanning Combined with Insane Pseudoscience
December 14th, 2018You’ll love this one. Via: The Intercept: Facial recognition has quickly shifted from techno-novelty to fact of life for many, with millions around the world at least willing to put up with their faces scanned by software at the airport, their iPhones, or Facebook’s server farms. But researchers at New York University’s AI Now Institute […]
Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Doorbell Cameras
December 14th, 2018Via: ACLU: Recently, a patent application from Amazon became public that would pair face surveillance — like Rekognition, the product that the company is aggressively marketing to police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — with Ring, a doorbell camera company that Amazon bought earlier this year. While the details are sketchy, the application describes a […]
Australia Passes Cyber Snooping Laws with Global Implications
December 6th, 2018Via: AFP: Australia Thursday passed controversial laws allowing spies and police to snoop on the encrypted communications of suspected terrorists and criminals, as experts warned the “unprecedented powers” had far-reaching implications for global cybersecurity. There has been extensive debate about the laws and their reach beyond Australia’s shores in what is seen as the latest […]
5G + AI
December 6th, 2018Via: EE Times: SAN FRANCISCO — Qualcomm launched a $100 million venture fund at an event here where the level of enthusiasm for machine learning ran high. China’s SenseTime alone talked about taking in $3 billion for its platform, and others gave examples of AI quadrupling productivity and saving lives. The combination of 5G and […]
