China Tracking Physical Locations of 2.5 Million People in Western Region of Country
February 17th, 2019Via: South China Morning Post:
A Chinese surveillance firm is tracking the movements of more than 2.5 million people in the far-western Xinjiang region, according to a data leak flagged by a Dutch internet expert.
An online database containing names, ID card numbers, birth dates and location data was left unprotected for months by Shenzhen-based facial-recognition technology firm SenseNets Technology, according to Victor Gevers, co-founder of non-profit organisation GDI.Foundation, who first noted the vulnerability in a series of social media posts last week.
Exposed data also showed about 6.7 million location data points linked to the people which were gathered within 24 hours, tagged with descriptions such as “mosque”, “hotel”, “internet cafe” and other places where surveillance cameras were likely to be found.
“It was fully open and anyone without authentication had full administrative rights. You could go in the database and create, read, update and delete anything,” Gevers said.
Most Americans Don’t Realize What Companies Can Predict from Their Data
February 16th, 2019Via: The Conversation:
For example, data about a mobile phone’s past location and movement patterns can be used to predict where a person lives, who their employer is, where they attend religious services and the age range of their children based on where they drop them off for school.
These predictions label who you are as a person and guess what you’re likely to do in the future.
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Data brokers are companies that are in the business of buying and selling datasets from a wide range of sources, including location data from many mobile phone carriers. Data brokers combine data to create detailed profiles of individual people, which they sell to other companies.
Combined datasets like this can be used to predict what you’ll want to buy in order to target ads. For example, a company that has purchased data about you can do things like connect your social media accounts and web browsing history with the route you take when you’re running errands and your purchase history at your local grocery store.
Shell Buys Sonnen, Tesla’s Competitor in the Home Battery Business
February 16th, 2019Via: Ars Technica:
On Friday, oil major Royal Dutch Shell and German energy storage company Sonnen announced that Shell would acquire Sonnen for an undisclosed amount.
Sonnen has been one of the top competitors with Tesla’s Powerwall in the US home battery market. The company built its base in Germany, attaching batteries for self-consumption to homes with solar panels. Sonnen now claims 40,000 batteries installed in households in Germany, the US, and Australia.
The company’s assets include proprietary software that optimizes a home’s battery use in combination with solar power.
Dr Stephanie Seneff Presents Roundup, MMR and Autism A Toxic Connection
February 16th, 2019Via: Donald Hutton:
Trump Declares U.S.-Mexico Emergency for Border Wall
February 15th, 2019Via: Reuters:
President Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border without congressional approval, an action Democrats vowed to challenge as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The Republican president’s move to circumvent Congress represented an escalation in his efforts to make good on a 2016 presidential campaign pledge to build a wall to halt the flow into the country of illegal immigrants, whom Trump says bring crime and drugs.
Facebook May Remove Anti-Vaccine Recommendations
February 15th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
Facebook Inc., under pressure to reduce harmful, misleading and fake content, said it is exploring removing anti-vaccine information from software systems that recommend other things to read on its social network.
Information discouraging people from getting vaccines for their children, which has gone viral on Facebook, especially in its Groups product, may have contributed to an increase in outbreaks of measles. The crisis drew attention on Thursday from Representative Adam Schiff, who sent a letter to Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Sundar Pichai, asking them to address the problem.
In response, Facebook said it is “exploring additional measures to best combat the problem,” according to a statement from the company. That might include “reducing or removing this type of content from recommendations, including Groups You Should Join, and demoting it in search results, while also ensuring that higher quality and more authoritative information is available.”
Survey: 53 Percent of Californians Want to Leave the State
February 15th, 2019Via: San Francisco Chronicle:
Dreaming of greener (read: cheaper) pastures? You’re not alone.
According to a new survey by Edelman Intelligence, 53 percent of Californians are considering moving out of state due to the high cost of living. Millennials are even more likely to flee the Golden State — 63 percent of them said they want to.
New AI Fake Text Generator May Be Too Dangerous To Release
February 14th, 2019In other news: AI Generates Faces of People Who Don’t Exist
Via: Guardian:
The creators of a revolutionary AI system that can write news stories and works of fiction – dubbed “deepfakes for text” – have taken the unusual step of not releasing their research publicly, for fear of potential misuse.
OpenAI, an nonprofit research company backed by Elon Musk, says its new AI model, called GPT2 is so good and the risk of malicious use so high that it is breaking from its normal practice of releasing the full research to the public in order to allow more time to discuss the ramifications of the technological breakthrough.
At its core, GPT2 is a text generator. The AI system is fed text, anything from a few words to a whole page, and asked to write the next few sentences based on its predictions of what should come next. The system is pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible, both in terms of the quality of the output, and the wide variety of potential uses.
Trump to Sign Border Security Bill, Declare National Emergency for Wall Funds
February 14th, 2019Pelosi: Next President Could Declare National Emergency on Guns
Via: New York Post:
The White House announced Thursday that President Trump would sign the bipartisan border security bill — and then declare a national emergency to find the money for his long-promised border wall that Congress wouldn’t give him.
“President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action — including a national emergency — to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border,” spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
A short time later, the Senate passed and the House was poised to follow.
Morgan Stanley: An Electric Pickup from Tesla or Rivian Is a ‘Serious Problem’ for Detroit
February 14th, 2019Via: CNBC:
The auto industry’s electric vehicle revolution has only just begun, Morgan Stanley told investors in a note on Thursday, and the highly profitable pickup truck market is next.
“An electric pickup truck successfully launched by a new player (i.e. Rivian or Tesla) could be a serious problem for the Detroit based [traditional automakers],” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a note to investors. Jonas is widely known on Wall Street for being one of the first to recognize the significance of Tesla and electric vehicles to the auto industry.
Jonas called reports that General Motors and Amazon are in talks to invest in Rivian, if true, “the biggest news in US autos so far this year.” Without such investments, he said, GM and Ford are losing the opportunity for a “first mover advantage” in producing all electric pickup trucks. Jonas also says Rivian has a competitive advantage from building its truck from the ground up, with little prior conception of an internal combustion engine truck to cloud its view.
