We’ve noted a few times now that while Facebook gets a lot of justified heat for its privacy scandals, the stuff going on in the cellular data and app market in regards to location data makes many of Facebook’s privacy issues seem like a grade-school picnic. That’s something that was pretty well highlighted by the […]
Surveillance & Technology
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You Bought Smart Speakers Over the Holidays. Now What Are Amazon and Google Doing With Your Data?…
I recently attended a holiday potluck hosted by a tech-junkie friend who had decked out his one-bedroom apartment with smart speakers, smart lights, and small, infrared motion sensors that looked disconcertingly like cameras. Toward the end of the party, after one of the guests disappeared into the back of the apartment, another decided to play […]
23andMe’s Pharma Deals Have Been the Plan All Along…
Since the launch of its DNA testing service in 2007, genomics giant 23andMe has convinced more than 5 million people to fill a plastic tube with half a teaspoon of saliva. In return for all that spit (and some cash too), customers get insights into their biological inheritance, from the superficial—do you have dry earwax […]
Kohler’s Smart Toilet Promises a ‘Fully Immersive Experience’…
CES has barely begun, but 146-year-old plumbing company Kohler has already stolen the show with what will undoubtedly be 2019’s hottest gadget: an “intelligent toilet” with built-in surround sound speakers, ambient mood lighting, and Amazon Alexa voice controls. Truly, we live in an age of wonders. Kohler’s Numi 2.0 Intelligent Toilet is one of those […]
Kiss What Is Left of Your Medical Data Privacy Goodbye…
Matt Stoller warned back in 2012 that insurers would increasingly induce, then force, customers to agree to surveillance. But a Wall Street Journal story tonight describes how insurers and medical providers, meaning your doctor’s employers, are actively cooperating, so as among other things, to help Big Pharma peddle more drugs to you. Stoller warned that […]
Politicians Who Block Citizens on Social Media Violate 1st Amendment…
A federal appeals court in Virginia ruled unanimously Monday that a county official who blocked a citizen from accessing her official Facebook page is in violation of the First Amendment. The case—which was heard before the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals—found that Phyllis Randall, the chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, improperly blocked a […]
China-Made Smartphone Weather App Stole Data from 10 Million Global Users…
TCL, a Chinese producer of consumer electronics, has been collecting data without permission from mobile phones that have downloaded its free weather forecast smartphone app. This app has been downloaded more than 10 million times by users around the world since it was released in December 2016. TCL is a listed company on the Hong […]
The FBI Is Trying Amazon’s Facial-Recognition Software…
The FBI is piloting Amazon’s facial matching software—Amazon Rekognition—as a means to sift through mountains of video surveillance footage the agency routinely collects during investigations. The pilot kicked off in early 2018 following a string of high-profile counterterrorism investigations that tested the limits of the FBI’s technological capabilities, according to FBI officials…
Five Weeks After the Guardian’s Viral Blockbuster Assange-Manafort Scoop, No Evidence Has Emerged — Just Stonewalling…
Five weeks ago, The Guardian published one of the most extraordinary and significant bombshells in the now two-plus-year-old Trump-Russia saga. “Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign,” claimed reporter and best-selling “Collusion” author Luke Harding, Dan Collyns, and a very sketchy […]
The Terrifying Rise of Financial Blacklisting…
It is the most totalitarian form of blacklisting: not just to be prevented from speaking on a university campus, or to be kicked off social media, but to be shut out of the entire financial system. That is the terrifying new threat to freedom that western societies must now contend with. Financial blacklisting doesn’t just […]
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NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Just Visited the Farthest Object Ever Explored…
As Earthlings marked the start of a new year, one of the most distant spacecraft successfully explored the farthest — 4 billion miles from Earth — and most primitive objects that humans have ever seen. NASA received confirmation Tuesday that its New Horizons probe survived its 12:33 a.m. eastern encounter with Ultima Thule, a rocky […]
FBI Probing Theft of 18,000 Documents Linked to Sept 11 Attacks…
The FBI is investigating the theft of 18,000 documents related to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center by a hacking collective known as The Dark Overlord, according to FT, citing two people familiar with the matter. “Posting under the name “The Dark Overlord”, the hacker or hackers claimed on New Year’s Eve that […]
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Giuliani Says Assange Should Not Be Prosecuted…
Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, said Monday that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange had not done “anything wrong” and should not go to jail for disseminating stolen information just as major media does. “Let’s take the Pentagon Papers,” Giuliani told Fox News. “The Pentagon Papers were stolen property, weren’t they?…
Chinese Schools Monitor Students With “Smart Uniforms”…
Education facilities in China have rolled out “intelligent uniforms” embedded with microchips to better monitor students’ attendance and whereabouts, said the Global Times. Eleven schools in Southwest China’s Guizhou Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have introduced smart uniforms, which are developed and manufactured by Guizhou Guanyu Technology…
Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments…
In September of last year, we noted that Facebook representatives were meeting with the Israeli government to determine which Facebook accounts of Palestinians should be deleted on the ground that they constituted “incitement.” The meetings — called for and presided over by one of the most extremist and authoritarian Israeli officials, pro-settlement Justice Minister Ayelet […]
We’re All Just Starting to Realize the Power of Personal Data…
It’s no secret that companies like Facebook and Google scoop up personal information to serve users ads. But if anything became clear this year, it’s that consumers have a lot more to learn about what happens to their data online—how it’s gathered, who gets to look at it, and what it’s worth. American corporations are […]
The Biggest Technology Failures of 2018…
It was the year that technology—and the people who create it—seemingly could do no right, and did much that was wrong. As one of my sources put it in a tweet reacting to a dumb tech stunt, “2018 can’t end soon enough.” For the past few years MIT Technology Review has published a list of […]
Google and Big Tech Can Shift Millions of Votes in Any Direction…
I am not a Trump supporter. I’m not even a conservative. But I love America and democracy, and I defend truth when I see it, and President Donald Trump is not only justified in expressing misgivings about Google and other tech companies — he seems to have no idea just how big a threat Google-and-the-Gang pose to both […]
Guccifer 2.0 Game Over – Year End Review…
It’s almost two years since I started investigating Guccifer 2.0. Since then, largely thanks to several other independent researchers and their contributions, much has been discovered. The purpose of this article is to go back over all of the discoveries made during the last two years, as well as the various challenges received, and to […]
Facebook’s Massive, Secret Rulebook for Policing Speech Reveals Inconsistencies, Gaps and Biases…
Facebook is attempting to tackle misinformation and hate that its platform has enabled with a massive, byzantine and secret document of rules packed with spreadsheets and power point slides that gets updated regularly for its global content moderators. According to the blockbuster New York Times report, the rules show the social network to be “a […]
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