A friend of mine, who runs a large television production company in the car-mad city of Los Angeles, recently noticed that his intern, an aspiring filmmaker from the People’s Republic of China, was walking to work. When he offered to arrange a swifter mode of transportation, she declined. When he asked why, she explained that […]
Surveillance & Technology
Latest News
Cannot Imagine: China Starts “Debt Shaming”: New App Warns Users if They Are Walking Near Someone in Debt…
Authorities in the northern Chinese province of Hebei have rolled out an app over WeChat which can tell people if they’re walking near someone in debt, according to China Daily. The program, aptly named “map of deadbeat debtors,” flashes a warning if someone in debt is within a 500-meter radius – showing their exact location according to a screenshot […]
Want to Heal the Internet? Ban All Collection of User Data…
The social media/search giants have mastered the dark arts of obfuscating how they’re reaping billions of dollars in profits from monetizing user data, and lobbying technologically naive politicos to leave their vast skimming operations untouched.I’ve been commenting on the cancerous disease that’s taken control of the Internet– what Shoshana Zuboff calls Surveillance Capitalism–for many years. Here is […]
Boeing Pilotless Air Taxi Lifts Off the Ground…
Boeing on Wednesday offered a glance at a futuristic alternative to crowded freeways when its prototype autonomous air taxi — essentially a flying car with no driver — lifted off the ground for the first time on a test takeoff. “In one year, we have progressed from a conceptual design to a flying prototype,” said […]
I Tried to Block Amazon from My Life. It Was Impossible…
Apparently, I am a masochist. I am on a mission to live without the tech giants—to discover whether such a thing is even possible. Not just through sheer willpower but technologically, with the use of a custom-built tool that would literally prevent my devices from accessing these companies, and them from accessing me and my […]
‘The Goal Is to Automate’ – Welcome to the Age of Surveillance Capitalism…
Shoshana Zuboff’s new book is a chilling exposé of the business model that underpins the digital world. Observer tech columnist John Naughton explains the importance of Zuboff’s work and asks the author 10 key questions. We’re living through the most profound transformation in our information environment since Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of printing in circa 1439. […]
French Watchdog Slaps Google with $57M Fine Under New EU Law…
France’s data privacy watchdog has fined Google 50 million euros ($57 million), the first penalty for a U.S. tech giant under new European data privacy rules that took effect last year. The National Data Protection Commission said Monday it fined the U.S. internet giant for “lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent” […]
Judge Unseals Trove of Internal Facebook Documents…
A trove of hidden documents detailing how Facebook made money off children will be made public, a federal judge ruled late Monday in response to requests from Reveal. A glimpse into the soon-to-be-released records shows Facebook’s own employees worried they were bamboozling children who racked up hundreds, and sometimes even thousands, of dollars in game […]
‘Disrespectful’: Google Employees Melt Down Over The Word ‘Family’…
A Google executive sparked a fierce backlash from employees by using the word “family” in a weekly, company-wide presentation, according to internal documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. Many Google employees became angry that the term was used while discussing a product aimed at children, because it implied that families have children, the […]
FBI Records, Emails, Social Security Numbers Exposed in Massive Data Leak…
A massive data leak has been discovered at the Oklahoma Securities Commission, in which millions of records — including files related to sensitive FBI investigations over the last seven years, emails dating back 17 years and thousands of Social Security numbers — have been exposed. The breach was uncovered last month by Greg Pollock, a […]
Feds Can’t Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules…
A California judge has ruled that American cops can’t force people to unlock a mobile phone with their face or finger. The ruling goes further to protect people’s private lives from government searches than any before and is being hailed as a potentially landmark decision. Previously, U.S. judges had ruled that police were allowed to […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX Is Laying Off Hundreds Off Workers…
Elon Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX is cutting 10 percent of its workforce in an effort to cut down on costs and waste, The Los Angeles Times reported. Musk – as SpaceX CEO – and company President Gwynne Shotwell broke the news to the estimated 6,400-employee workforce Friday at an all-hands meeting at the company’s […]
How to Stop Facebook, Apple and Google Tracking Your Every Move…
Technology companies have been pummeled by revelations about how poorly they protect their customers’ personal information, including an in-depth New York Times report detailing the ability of smartphone apps to track users’ locations. Some companies, most notably Apple, have begun promoting the fact that they sell products and services that safeguard consumer privacy. Smartphone users are never […]
Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can’t Delete Facebook…
Nick Winke, a photographer in the Pacific northwest, was perusing internet forums when he came across a complaint that alarmed him: On certain Samsung Electronics Co. smartphones, users aren’t allowed to delete the Facebook app. Winke bought his Samsung Galaxy S8, an Android-based device that comes with Facebook’s social network already installed, when it was […]
Despite Promises to Stop, U.S. Cell Carriers Are Still Selling Your Real-Time Phone Location Data…
Last year, four of the largest U.S. cell carriers were caught selling and sending real-time location data of their customers to shady companies that sold it on to big spenders, who would use the data to track anyone “within seconds” for whatever reason they wanted. At first, a little-known company LocationSmart was obtaining (and leaking) […]
A Study About Fake News Was Just Retracted…
A study that claimed to explain why falsehoods go viral — findings that were widely covered by the media — has turned out to itself be false. The article, published in June 2017, blamed people’s short attention spans for the spread of fake news. It was a claim that garnered coverage in dozens of news […]
Peter Schweizer’s “The Creepy Line” Takes Tech Giants to Task…
As if this were not “creepy” enough, there is another process going on that is far less transparent: “listing” — the order in which information appears on Google. The “list effect” on our cognitive functioning, Epstein explains, is that we believe that the items appearing at the top of a set of search results — […]
Poland Detains Employee of Chinese Tech Giant Huawei on Spying Charges…
Polish authorities detained and charged an employee of Chinese tech giant Huawei with spying on behalf of China, amid growing global concerns the company is tied to Chinese intelligence agencies. The arrest of Huawei’s local sales director in Poland comes a month after the company’s chief financial officer was detained in Canada at the U.S. […]
Related
Chinese Money Flees Silicon Valley as Trump Clamps Down on Access to U.S. Tech…
Thanks to new policies from the Trump administration aimed at cracking down at Beijing’s access to strategic US technologies, China has all but halted investments in US-based tech startups, according to Reuters. Venture funding out of China peaked last year at a record $3 billion according to the Rhodium Group, a New York economic research firm. […]
How a Russian Firm Helped Catch an Alleged NSA Data Thief…
The 2016 arrest of a former National Security Agency contractor charged with a massive theft of classified data began with an unlikely source: a tip from a Russian cybersecurity firm that the U.S. government has called a threat to the country. Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab turned Harold T. Martin III in to the NSA after receiving […]
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