Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
U.S. Widens Surveillance to Include ‘Homegrown Violent Extremists’
October 25th, 2017Mmm hmm. Via: Reuters: The U.S. government has broadened an interpretation of which citizens can be subject to physical or digital surveillance to include “homegrown violent extremists,” according to official documents seen by Reuters. The change last year to a Department of Defense manual on procedures governing its intelligence activities was made possible by a […]
Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
October 23rd, 2017Via: Bloomberg: In doing so, companies such as Facebook Inc. are competing with defense contractors, financial firms and the U.S. government itself. Security clearances are a rare and valued commodity, whether at a bank trying to prevent hackers from stealing credit-card data and emptying accounts or at a manufacturer building parts for a stealth fighter […]
‘Why ProtonMail Is More Secure Than Gmail’
October 23rd, 2017Disclosure: I have no relationship with ProtonMail, besides being a user of the service. — While I wouldn’t assume that ProtonMail is as secure as they claim it to be, what is very clear is that far less of your personal information is going to leak from ProtonMail than it would from Gmail, which essentially […]
China Is Creating a Database of Its Citizens’ Voices to Boost its Surveillance Capability
October 23rd, 2017In other news, Google Home Capable of Voice Printing Multiple Users. Via: Time: The Chinese government has collected tens of thousands of “voice pattern” samples from targeted citizens and is inputting them into a national voice biometric database, according to a Human Rights Watch report published Monday. The idea is that an automated system, thought […]
UK Spies Using Social Media Data for Mass Surveillance
October 18th, 2017Via: TechCrunch: Privacy rights group Privacy International says it has obtained evidence for the first time that UK spy agencies are collecting social media information on potentially millions of people. It has also obtained letters it says show the intelligence agencies’ oversight body had not been informed that UK intelligence agencies had shared bulk databases […]
LAPD Becomes Nation’s Largest Police Department to Test Drones
October 18th, 2017Via: Los Angeles Times: After months of often-heated debate, a civilian oversight panel Tuesday signed off on a yearlong test of drones by the Los Angeles Police Department, which will become the largest police department in the nation to deploy the controversial technology. The Police Commission’s 3-1 vote prompted jeers, cursing and a small protest […]
The USA Liberty Act
October 12th, 2017A double round o’ Freedom Fries for everyone! Via: Register: The US Senate Judiciary Committee has unveiled its answer to a controversial spying program run by the NSA and used by the FBI to fish for crime leads. Unsurprisingly, the proposed legislation [PDF] reauthorizes Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) – which […]
Google’s Home Mini Needed a Software Patch to Stop Some of Them from Recording Everything
October 11th, 2017Mmm hmm. Via: The Verge: Categorize this under “one of the worst possible PR nightmares for a Google smart speaker.” According to Artem Russakovskii at Android Police, the Google Home Mini he was reviewing was randomly and near-constantly recording sounds in his home and transmitting them to Google. The company acknowledged the problem and is […]
Our Minds Can Be Hijacked: The Tech Insiders Who Fear a Smartphone Dystopia
October 6th, 2017Via: Guardian: There is growing concern that as well as addicting users, technology is contributing toward so-called “continuous partial attention”, severely limiting people’s ability to focus, and possibly lowering IQ. One recent study showed that the mere presence of smartphones damages cognitive capacity – even when the device is turned off. “Everyone is distracted,” Rosenstein […]
‘Australia Presses for More Facial Recognition in Terror Fight’
October 4th, 2017Via: New York Times: The Australian government wants to strengthen its counterterrorism efforts by making use of a fundamental part of all Australian citizens: their faces. On Thursday, at a national security meeting in Canberra, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is expected to pressure states and territories to hand over the driver’s license photos of every […]
