I was in the New York Public Library recently doing research in the archives when I stumbled on a 1944 pamphlet from Western Electric, the old American techno-telephone monopolist. It’s called “Circuits for Victory” and its 40 glossy, slickly produced pages are dedicated to one thing: celebrating all the ways that the company’s telecommunication technology […]
Surveillance & Technology
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Silencing the Whistle: The Intercept Shutters Snowden Archive, Citing Cost…
On March 13, a report in the Daily Beast revealed that the New York-based outlet The Intercept would be shutting down its archive of the trove of government documents entrusted to a handful of journalists, including Intercept co-founders Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, by whistleblower Edward Snowden. However, that account did not include the role […]
Flight Management System Crash Causes Airline Delays Across U.S….
A fault in software used by most US airlines caused a wave of flight delays this morning across the US, affecting hundreds of flights. “Several airlines are experiencing issues with a non-FAA flight planning weight and balance program called AeroData,” a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. “Mainline operations and regional operations […]
Office Depot Rigged PC Malware Scans to Sell Unneeded $300 Tech Support…
Office Depot and a partner company tricked customers into buying unneeded tech support services by offering PC scans that gave fake results, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Consumers paid up to $300 each for unnecessary services. The FTC yesterday announced that Office Depot and its software supplier, Support.com, have agreed to pay a total […]
A Year of Silencing Julian Assange by Elizabeth Vos…
One year ago Thursday, Ecuador’s government under President Lenin Moreno silenced Julian Assange. WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter Wednesday: “… March 28, marks one year that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has been illegally gagged from doing journalism—any writing that expresses a ‘political opinion’? even on his own treatment, after pressure from the U.S. on Ecuador.” On […]
Privacy-Minded Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Stop NSA from Collecting Your Phone Records…
Four lawmakers with a strong record of opposing secret domestic surveillance are teaming up to try to kill the federal government’s authority to collect our phone records. Reps. Justin Amash (R–Mich.) and Zoe Lofgren (D–Calif.), joined by Sens. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D–Ore.), have introduced the Ending Mass Collection of Americans’ Phone Records […]
HUD Is Also Probing Twitter and Google for Housing Discrimination Practices…
Federal officials alerted Twitter and Google in 2018 that they are peering into the tech giants’ business practices for possible housing discrimination, The Washington Post reported Thursday, citing anonymous sources. Reports about the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s decision to alert the two Silicon Valley companies comes hours after officials charged Facebook with housing […]
Federal Government Charges Facebook with Housing Discrimination Because of Its Targeted Advertising…
The federal government charged Facebook Thursday with allowing its massive trove of personal demographic data to enable housing discrimination, an allegation the company fiercely denied. The allegations set up a lengthy legal battle between the Trump administration and one of the world’s largest social media companies. At issue is whether the company’s sophisticated algorithms and […]
Tesla Cars Keep More Data Than You Think, Including This Video of a Crash That Totaled a Model 3…
If you crash your Tesla, when it goes to the junk yard, it could carry a bunch of your history with it. That’s because the computers on Tesla vehicles keep everything that drivers have voluntarily stored on their cars, plus tons of other information generated by the vehicles including video, location and navigational data showing […]
Wikipedia Editors Paid to Protect Political, Tech, and Media Figures…
A report in Huffington Post recently revealed the case of Wikipedia editor Ed Sussman, who was paid by media clients such as NBC and Axios to help diminish critical material. Paid editors operating in a similar manner to Sussman have worked on behalf of CNN contributor Hilary Rosen and the CEOs of Reddit and Intel, […]
Related
Ecuador Imprisons U.S. Journalist in Room As Ambassador Tells Assange to ‘Shut up’ and Accept Spying…
It was meant to be a routine visit by a journalist to another journalist. Instead, I found myself locked in a cold, surveilled room for over an hour by Ecuadorian officials, as a furious argument raged between the country’s ambassador and Julian Assange. The room was inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where 2019 Nobel […]
Hackers Hijacked ASUS Software Updates to Install Backdoors on Thousands of Computers…
Researchers at cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab say that ASUS, one of the world’s largest computer makers, was used to unwittingly install a malicious backdoor on thousands of its customers’ computers last year after attackers compromised a server for the company’s live software update tool. The malicious file was signed with legitimate ASUS digital certificates to […]
Judge Faults Feds for ‘Kafkaesque’ Stance in Journalist’s Surveillance Suit…
A federal appeals court has turned down a veteran TV reporter’s bid to revive her lawsuit alleging her computers and phones were illegally hacked by the U.S. government, but one judge on the panel parted with his colleagues and denounced government lawyers for their “Kafakaesque” stance in the case. Sharyl Attkisson, an Emmy-award winning former […]
FEMA Defends Actions Following Data Release Affecting 2.3 Million Disaster Victims…
The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday said it had taken “aggressive” corrective measures after mistakenly releasing detailed personal data of some 2.3 million disaster victims to a contractor. A “management alert” dated March 15 from the Homeland Security Department’s acting Inspector General John Kelly hit news outlets on Friday showing that FEMA in 2017 […]
Federal Taskforce Busts 61 Connected to Darknet Opioid Sales…
In a joint effort targeting online drug trafficking between January 11 and March 12, U.S. and international law enforcement agencies executed 65 search warrants, made 61 arrests and shut down 50 darknet accounts used for illegal activity, the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI announced today. The arrests are a result of Operation SaboTor, the second […]
Hide Those Memes, Folks! Europe Passes Massive Online Copyright Changes That Will Lead to Censorship…
Members of the European Union’s parliament ignored dire warnings that they’re heading down a path toward massive online censorship and have passed legislation that will hold online platforms financially liable for copyright violations by users and would require search engines and social media platforms to get licenses from media companies to share even snippets of […]
The Haunting of Hacker House…
Our Bed and Breakfast looked like it was out of a goth comic book: a shadowy, mid-sized Victorian on top of a steep hill, in forced perspective. A blood-red “vacancy” sign glowed overbright in the parlor window. My son and I had taken Amtrak to upstate New York for a weekend of cheap skiing. Before […]
The FBI Had Already Accessed Family Tree DNA’s Database Before Cooperation
The filters at FamilyTreeDNA started catching some attempted uploads to their database toward the end of 2018. The format was unrecognizable—something they had never seen before. So the company sent an email to the listed point of contact. Days later, FamilyTreeDNA got a call. It was from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They had uploaded […]
Facebook Stored Millions of Passwords in Plaintext—Change Yours Now…Seriously, Change It Now…
Tesla Sues Former Employees for Allegedly Stealing Data, Autopilot Source Code…
Tesla Inc filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a former engineer at the company, claiming he copied the source code for its Autopilot technology before joining a Chinese self-driving car startup in January. The engineer, Guangzhi Cao, copied more than 300,000 files related to Autopilot source code as he prepared to join China’s Xiaopeng Motors […]
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