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 […]
Surveillance & Technology
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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 […]
How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually…
In late November, the Justice Department unsealed indictments against eight people accused of fleecing advertisers of $36 million in two of the largest digital ad-fraud operations ever uncovered. Digital advertisers tend to want two things: people to look at their ads and “premium” websites — i.e., established and legitimate publications — on which to host […]
“Everything Is Fake”: Ex-Reddit CEO Confirms Internet Traffic Metrics Are Bullshit…
“It’s all true: Everything is fake,” tweeted Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao regarding a Wednesday New York Magazine article which reveals that internet traffic metrics from some of the largest tech companies are overstated or fabricated. In other words; they’re bullshit. Pao was responding to a tweet by the Washington Post’s Aram Zucker-Schariff, quoting the […]
Whoopsie: Amazon Sends Couple’s Intimate Alexa Recordings to Wrong Person…
Amazon accidentally sent the wrong person approximately 1,700 audio files and a PDF containing transcripts of intimate conversations – all recorded over the company’s in-home echo assistant. In August 2018, a German Amazon customer took advantage of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to request whatever personal data Amazon had on file about him. […]
US, Allies Slam China Over Cyberespionage As DOJ Indicts Hackers…
The steady drumbeat of indictments of Chinese companies, hackers and even bad actors allegedly working on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security in recent months has provoked whispers that sanctions against Beijing in retaliation for its hacking and espionage efforts – something that has become a sticking point in the US-China trade war – […]
Amazon’s Alexa Goes Haywire, Tells Customer to ‘Kill Your Foster Parents’…
One of Amazon’s newest projects is researching ways to make Alexa a more human-like communicator for customers, but sometimes the virtual assistant’s language comes across as creepy and offensive. New research is making Alexa better mimic human response, Reuters reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The research sometimes results in awkward moments for […]
This Story’s Legs Are Growing: Facebook Admits That it Allowed Netflix and Spotify to Access Your Private Messages…
Facebook has acknowledged allowing other companies, namely Spotify and Netflix, to access millions of people’s private messages. Responding to a bombshell New York Times report from Tuesday on how Facebook shared user data with partners over the years, the company said it had given third-party companies extensive access to messages. It said this was so […]
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Patreon + PayPal = Antitrust Violation (I’m done)…
Why is Patreon and PayPal’s behavior may finally provide proof of antitrust violation? and Why I had enough…
The Internet Lives…
Of all the anti-Trump hysterias of our age, perhaps the most absurd and extreme was the charge that last year’s repeal of an Obama-era regulation would break the Internet. A year later, the Internet is still working just fine and in many ways much better for U.S. consumers. The Obama strategy was to impose on […]
Warning of Solar Geoengineering’s Dangers, Group Recommends a Global Ban…
A Harvard research team recently announced plans to perform early tests to shoot sunlight-reflecting particles into the high atmosphere to slow or reverse global warming. These research efforts, which could take shape as soon as the first half of 2019, fall under the banner of a geoengineering technology known as solar radiation management, which is […]
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