Monthly Archives: April 2018
India joins China with Orwellian identification scheme
Seeking to build an identification system of unprecedented scope, India is scanning the fingerprints, eyes and faces of its 1.3 billion residents and connecting the data to everything from welfare benefits to mobile phones. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/technology/india-id-aadhaar.html Civil libertarians are horrified, viewing the program, called Aadhaar, as Orwell’s Big Brother brought to life. To the government, it’s […]
DHS to compile database of journalists, bloggers
The Department of Homeland Security wants to track the comings and goings of journalists, bloggers and other “media influencers” through a database. https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/homeland-security-to-compile-database-of-journalists-and-media-influencers/ The DHS’s “Media Monitoring” plan, which was first reported by FedBizOpps.gov, would give the contracting company “24/7 access to a password protected, media influencer database, including journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers […]
Seth Rich murder investigator survives assassination
The Arlington County Police Department arrested Kevin Doherty, 46, after authorities say he used a firearm and wounded lobbyist Jack Burkman last week. Doherty once worked for the Profiling Project, an effort that Burkman started to investigate Seth Rich’s murder. http://www.newsweek.com/seth-rich-jack-burkman-kevin-doherty-arrested-854309 On March 13, as Burkman was retrieving what he said were materials from a source […]
MSM offers limited hangout of AI homes, Big Data
Amazon ran a commercial on this year’s Super Bowl that pretended its digital assistant Alexa had temporarily lost her voice. While the ad riffed on what Alexa can say to users, the more intriguing question may be what she and other digital assistants can hear. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/31/business/media/amazon-google-privacy-digital-assistants.html Amazon and Google, the leading sellers of such devices, […]
Dirty Babylon 