OnStar Begins Spying On Customers’ GPS Location for Profit
September 21st, 2011Update: OnStar Reverses Decision to Change Terms and Conditions
Via: GM:
OnStar announced today it is reversing its proposed Terms and Conditions policy changes and will not keep a data connection to customers’ vehicles after the OnStar service is canceled.
OnStar recently sent e-mails to customers telling them that effective Dec. 1, their service would change so that data from a customer vehicle would continue to be transmitted to OnStar after service was canceled – unless the customer asked for it to be shut off.
“We realize that our proposed amendments did not satisfy our subscribers,” OnStar President Linda Marshall said. “This is why we are leaving the decision in our customers’ hands. We listened, we responded and we hope to maintain the trust of our more than 6 million customers.”
—End Update—
Via: Jonathan Zdziarski:
I canceled the OnStar subscription on my new GMC vehicle today after receiving an email from the company about their new terms and conditions. While most people, I imagine, would hit the delete button when receiving something as exciting as new terms and conditions, being the nerd sort, I decided to have a personal drooling session and read it instead. I’m glad I did. OnStar’s latest T&C has some very unsettling updates to it, which include the ability to sell your personal GPS location information, speed, safety belt usage, and other information to third parties, including law enforcement. To add insult to a slap in the face, the company insists they will continue collecting and selling this personal information even after you cancel your service, unless you specifically shut down the data connection to the vehicle after canceling.
…
Anonymized GPS data? There’s no such thing! We’ve all seen this before – anonymized searches, for example, that were not-so-quite anonymized. But in this case, it’s impossible to anonymize GPS data! If your vehicle is consistently parked at your home, driving down your driveway, or taking a left or right turn onto your street, its pretty obvious that this is where you live! It’s like trying to say that someone’s Google Map lookup from their home is “anonymized” because it doesn’t have their name on it. It still shows where they live! What’s unique even more-so to OnStar is that the data they claim they sell as part of their business model is useless unless it’s specific; that is, not diluted to the nearest 10 mile radius, etc. This combination of analytics, and their prospective customers (law enforcement, marketers, etc) requires the data be disturbingly precise. Anyone armed with Google can easily do a phone book or public records search to find the name and address that resides at any given GPS coordinate.
Research Credit: BM
More than 4.2 Million People Have U.S. Government Security Clearances
September 20th, 2011Ha. That’s about as many people with security clearances as the population of New Zealand.
Via: Washington Post:
More than 4.2 million people have security clearances for access to classified information, a number that vastly outstrips previous estimates and nearly rivals the population of metropolitan Washington.
The number was disclosed in a new report that was mandated by Congress and marks the first time that the government has produced a detailed accounting of the clearances issued to federal, military and contract employees.
The official count is so much greater than previous estimates that it caught security experts off-guard. Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said the new total is an “astonishingly large figure” and “another reminder of how quickly the national security bureaucracy has expanded over the past decade.”
Aftergood noted in his blog that just two years ago the Government Accountability Office estimated that about 2.4 million people held clearances. The Washington region’s overall population is just under 5.5 million.
The vast majority of clearance holders are federal employees or members of the U.S. armed services. But more than a million contractors also have access to classified information. Remarkably, nearly as many contractors hold top secret clearances (524,990) as do federal workers (666,008).
A Future for Drones: Automated Killing
September 20th, 2011Via: Washington Post:
One afternoon last fall at Fort Benning, Ga., two model-size planes took off, climbed to 800 and 1,000 feet, and began criss-crossing the military base in search of an orange, green and blue tarp.
The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on any control.
After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed images from an onboard camera, zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object. Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look.
Target confirmed.
This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. Imagine aerial “Terminators,” minus beefcake and time travel.
The Fort Benning tarp “is a rather simple target, but think of it as a surrogate,” said Charles E. Pippin, a scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, which developed the software to run the demonstration. “You can imagine real-time scenarios where you have 10 of these things up in the air and something is happening on the ground and you don’t have time for a human to say, ‘I need you to do these tasks.’ It needs to happen faster than that.”
The demonstration laid the groundwork for scientific advances that would allow drones to search for a human target and then make an identification based on facial-recognition or other software. Once a match was made, a drone could launch a missile to kill the target.
Only Enterprise and Developers Can Bypass Windows Store for Metro Apps
September 19th, 2011How long until both Microsoft and Apple require approval for software to run in their full operating systems?
You think I’m nuts—and then it happens.
Via: Ars Technica:
Microsoft will restrict general distribution of Metro apps to the Windows Store, but grant exceptions to enterprises and developers, allowing them to side-load applications onto Windows 8 devices. While Windows 8 will be an operating system for both desktops and tablets, Microsoft is creating two sets of rules for traditional desktop apps and Metro-style apps, which are optimized for touch screens but will run on any Windows 8 device.
A primer for Windows developers on Microsoft’s website states that distribution of traditional desktop applications will proceed as usual. “Open distribution: retail stores, web, private networks, individual sharing, and so on” will be allowed, Microsoft says. Metro apps, on the other hand, will be “Distributed through the Windows Store. Apps must pass certification so that users download and try apps with confidence in their safety and privacy. Side-loading is available for enterprises and developers.”
This approach is similar to the one taken by Apple with its iPhone and iPad App Store, and also similar to Microsoft’s own Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, although jailbreaks and workarounds allowing side-loading have been released by independent developers for both iOS and WP7. With Google’s Android, by contrast, it is easy for any user to install non-market applications from either third-party app stores such as Amazon’s or by downloading software directly from an app maker’s website. The exceptions carved out by Microsoft will let developers test apps and businesses distribute custom or private apps to employees.
Italy’s Debt Downgraded by S&P; Outlook Still Negative
September 19th, 2011Via: CNBC:
Standard and Poor’s downgraded its unsolicited ratings on Italy by one notch to A/A-1 and kept its outlook on negative, a major surprise that threatens to add to concerns of contagion in the debt-stressed euro zone.
S&P in a release dated Sept. 19 said the cut reflected its view of Italy’s weakening economic growth prospects.
Japanese Government to Invite Foreigners Who Have Large Facebook and Twitter Networks to Tohoku So That They Can Tell Their Followers “Japan Is Safe”
September 19th, 2011Do they get to bring their own dosimeters?
Via: EX-SKF:
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have started to make preparations for inviting people from overseas who disseminate information via the social media such as Facebook and Twitter, as part of the countermeasures against “baseless rumors” that have damaged sales of Japanese agricultural products and tourism industry. More than 500 million people in the world are said to use the social media. The ministry has seen the great impact of the social media in the revolutions in the Middle East, and decided to use the social media to counter the “baseless rumor” by having people disseminate the messages of safety and favorable impressions.
In the second supplementary budget for the fiscal year 2011, the ministry obtained 1.5 billion yen for the countermeasures against “baseless rumors”. This plan to invite Facebook and Twitter users with large followers is part of the countermeasures.
Solution for Oahu’s Slums: Move Homeless to Mainland?
September 19th, 2011Via: Independent:
Despite its “aloha” reputation, Hawaii currently has the third-highest ratio of homelessness of any state in the nation, behind Oregon and Nevada. Since the number of Americans living below the poverty line rose above 15 per cent last week, the problem here, like elsewhere, seems likely to get worse before it gets better. In addition to the likes of Paracuelles, a recent study by the research firm SMS found that 96,648 Hawaiians are now members of the “hidden homeless” community, a demographic which contains people squatting, living in temporary accommodation, or staying with friends or family members. Another 262,000 people – a staggering one in five residents of the seven islands – are classed as being “at risk” of homelessness.
You don’t have to go far from the high-rise glamour of Waikiki Beach, Hawaii’s most famous tourist centre, to appreciate the human effects of this statistical burden. Beggars throng the traffic lights of central Honolulu. They while away days in parks, and sleep in wasteland tent cities. In many ways, their sheer ubiquity makes the city of Barack Obama’s birth resemble a Third World metropolis.
Venture into the countryside of Oahu, and you’ll catch glimpses of tarpaulin, often in deep undergrowth a short distance from the road. Each one is a casual dwelling. There are several hundred of them, on a relatively small island which measures roughly 20 miles by 30 across.
The problem has not escaped Hawaii’s ruling class, who are acutely aware of its potential to damage the “tropical paradise” reputation on which the state’s lucrative tourist industry relies. Last year, local politicians narrowly failed to back a highly controversial plan to offer homeless people from other parts of the US a free one-way air ticket home.
Debate over alternative solutions is now gaining increased urgency in the run-up to November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit, which will draw 21 heads of state and hundreds of business leaders to Honolulu. In April, Hawaii’s Governor, Neil Abercrombie, unveiled a “90-day plan” to reduce homelessness before the big event. But the 90 days brought little in the way of visible change.
Homeless advocates are now concerned that officials are planning to conduct intense “sweeps” of Hawaii’s homeless encampments in the run-up to the Apec summit, clearing them from the streets in order to hide the scale of their problem from the prying eyes of the international media due to attend.
Lloyd’s Insurer Sues Saudi Arabia for ‘Funding 9/11 Attacks’
September 19th, 2011Well, well, this could meander into all sorts of interesting areas.
Update: Lawsuit Withdrawn
That didn’t take long.
Via: Insurance Journal:
Lloyd’s London’s Syndicate 3500 filed a notice on Monday, Sept. 19, to voluntarily dismiss its federal lawsuit against Saudi Arabia over 9/11 claims.
The lawsuit, first filed on Sept. 8, had asserted that Saudi Arabia as well as several Saudi charity and financial organizations were instrumental in helping al Qaida carry out the 9/11 terror attacks.
Attorney Stephen Cozen of law firm Cozen O’Connor, who represents Lloyd’s, told Insurance Journal that he cannot comment on why Lloyd’s decided to drop the case 13 days after filing the complaint. He said, however, the suit could be refiled and also that there could be other similar lawsuits filed by other insurers in the future.
Cozen said he cannot talk about the lawsuit other than to say “that we were instructed to voluntarily dismiss without prejudice. That of course means that the suit is free to be refiled and certainly similar suits may be filed by others,” he said.
—End Update—
Via: Independent:
A Lloyd’s insurance syndicate has begun a landmark legal case against Saudi Arabia, accusing the kingdom of indirectly funding al-Qa’ida and demanding the repayment of £136m it paid out to victims of the 9/11 attacks.
The Brighton-based Lloyd’s 3500 syndicate, which paid $215m compensation to companies and individuals involved, alleges that the oil-rich Middle Eastern superpower bears primary responsibility for the atrocity because al-Qa’ida was supported by banks and charities acting as “agents and alter egos” for the Saudi state.
The detailed case, which names a number of prominent Saudi charities and banks as well as a leading member of the al-Saud royal family, will cause embarrassment to the Saudi government, which has long denied claims that Osama bin Laden’s organisation received official financial and practical support from his native country.
Outlined in a 156-page document filed in western Pennsylvania, where United Airlines flight 93 crashed on 9/11, the claim suggests that the nine defendants “knowingly” provided resources, including funding, to al-Qa’ida in the years before the attack and encouraged anti-Western sentiment which increased support for the terror group.
The legal claim states: “Absent the sponsorship of al-Qa’ida’s material sponsors and supporters, including the defendants named therein, al-Qa’ida would not have possessed the capacity to conceive, plan and execute the 11 September attacks. The success of al-Qa’ida’s agenda, including the 11 September attacks themselves, has been made possible by the lavish sponsorship al-Qa’ida has received from its material sponsors and supporters over more than a decade leading up to 11 September 2001.”
Economic Collapse of Britain Entering New Phase: Famine
September 19th, 2011Via: Independent:
Tens of thousands of benefits claimants will be referred to food banks by the Government, which is worried that many Britons face a stark choice: starvation or feeding themselves by begging or stealing.
From tomorrow, jobcentres in England and Wales will refer the needy to charity-run food banks that will give them a food parcel. It is the first time in living memory that hungry people will have been passed on to charities in this way.
The move comes amid growing levels of food poverty, fuelled by rising food prices and high rates of unemployment. Under the scheme, people whose benefits have been delayed, or have been refused crisis loans, will be referred to their local food bank. A claimant will be limited to three consecutive referrals – each time giving them enough food for three days. They will be given basics such as tinned soup, baked beans, meat, fish and pasta.
The scheme will operate from more than 70 food banks run by the Trussell Trust, a Christian charity. It will open another 60 in the next six months, according to Jeremy Ravn, a director. “We are forecasting that we will feed somewhere between 90,000 and 100,000 this financial year,” he said. “And we’d expect 30-40 per cent of those to be [caused by] problems over benefits.”
What Does It Feel Like To Fly Over Planet Earth?
September 19th, 2011Via: Universe Today:
