Tag Archives: DARPA
License plate readers add to a database on your behavior
License plate readers have proliferated across the country. But cities and states are all over the map on how long they hold information they collect and with whom they share it. http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/07/17/policies-on-license-plate-readers-vary-widely-says-a-c-l-u/ That is according to a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union, which collated license plate reader policies from nearly 300 law […]
UK funds advanced autonomous robotics research in Scotland
Two Scottish universities have been given more than £6m of UK government funding for research into robotics and autonomous systems. Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh will use the cash to develop a joint research centre in the capital. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23332184 The centre will explore the potential of robots and autonomous systems across a broad […]
Department stores tracking customer behavior with wi-fi
When Nordstrom posted a sign telling customers it was tracking them, shoppers were unnerved. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?pagewanted=all Nordstrom wanted to learn more about its customers — how many came through the doors, how many were repeat visitors — the kind of information that e-commerce sites like Amazon have in spades. So last fall the company started testing […]
Snowden’s protects himself with “dead-man’s pact”
Edward Snowden has highly sensitive documents on how the National Security Agency is structured and operates that could harm the U.S. government, but has insisted that they not be made public. Disclosure of the information in the documents “would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which […]
Russia, UN to copy NSA surveillance techniques
Two members of Russia’s Parliament have cited Mr. Snowden’s leaks about N.S.A. spying as arguments to compel global Internet companies like Google and Microsoft to comply more closely with Russian rules on personal data storage. These rules, rights groups say, would open a back door for Russian law enforcement into services like Gmail. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/global/nsa-leaks-stir-plans-in-russia-to-control-net.html?pagewanted=all “We […]
DARPA accelerates combat robot research with cash prize
A Pentagon-financed humanoid robot named Atlas made its first public appearance on Thursday. Some see Atlas’s unveiling as a giant step toward the long-anticipated age of humanoid robots. “A new species, Robo sapiens, are emerging,” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/science/modest-debut-of-atlas-may-foreshadow-age-of-robo-sapiens.html?pagewanted=1&hp The robot is equipped with both laser and stereo vision systems, as well as dexterous hands. The debut of […]
Microsoft the leader in NSA collaboration
Microsoft has collaborated with the National Security Agency more extensively than it previously acknowledged, providing the spy agency with up-to-date access to its customer data whenever the company changes its encryption and related software technology, according to a new report based on disclosures by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/us/report-indicates-more-extensive-cooperation-by-microsoft-on-surveillance.html?ref=us Microsoft had helped […]
Drones lead western imperialism in Africa
Nearly every day, and sometimes twice daily, an unarmed American drone soars skyward from a secluded military airfield in Niger, starting a surveillance mission of 10 hours or more to track militants in neighboring Mali. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/africa/drones-in-niger-reflect-new-us-approach-in-terror-fight.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world The two MQ-9 Reapers that are based here stream live video and data from other sensors to American analysts […]
Hacker conference to bar FBI, intelligence services
The main Def Con event that takes place in Las Vegas from 1 August and will see 15,000 hackers debate security topics and demonstrate their coding prowess. The convention had been an “open nexus” where government security staffers and law enforcement agents could freely mix and share ideas with the other hackers, researchers and security […]
Murder of american engineer ruled suicide
A judge ruled Monday that an American engineer, Shane Truman Todd, who was found dead in his apartment in Singapore last year killed himself, rejecting suspicions by the man’s parents that he was murdered because of research into sensitive technology. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/07/07/world/asia/ap-as-singapore-americans-death.html?ref=world Todd’s parents have said they believe he may have been murdered over his research […]
EU spying brought to light through French Prism
France’s foreign intelligence service intercepts computer and telephone data on a vast scale, like the controversial US Prism programme, according to the French daily Le Monde. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23178284 The data is stored on a supercomputer at the headquarters of the DGSE intelligence service. The operation is “outside the law, and beyond any proper supervision” Other French […]
Restore Fourth Amendment rally at state capitals Thursday
The Restore the Fourth movement – referring to the US constitution’s fourth amendment – said it wants to end “unconstitutional surveillance”. Reddit, Mozilla and WordPress are among the big web names backing the action, due to take place on Thursday. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23160309 Almost 100 events have been planned across the US. The site quotes a line […]
DARPA to create “super vision” contact lenses
Researchers have created contact lenses which bestow telescopic vision on their wearers. The lens research was being funded by Darpa, the research arm of the US military. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23142469 Polarising filters in the spectacles allow wearers to switch between normal and telescopic vision. Tiny aluminium mirrors scored with a specific pattern act as a magnifier as […]
Pentagon Cyber Command hints at internet “kill switch”
The Pentagon is updating its classified rules for warfare in cyberspace for the first time in seven years. “If the nation’s critical infrastructure came under attack from poisonous code over a computer network from overseas, the first effort would be gathering information on the malware and the systems under attack. Network defenses would be in […]
Couldn’t have said it better: Criminal NSA
This Op-Ed piece in the NYT by Jennifer Stisa Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and Christopher Jon Sprigman, professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, outlines the criminality of the surveillance state the US has become. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/the-criminal-nsa.html?_r=0 The twin revelations that telecom carriers have been […]
Google’s RFID pill: the difference between health and death
As society struggles with the privacy implications of wearable computers like Google Glass, scientists, researchers and some start-ups are already preparing the next, even more intrusive wave of computing: ingestible computers and minuscule sensors stuffed inside pills. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/disruptions-medicine-that-monitors-you/?ref=technology Some people on the cutting edge are already swallowing them to monitor a range of health data […]
Chinese dissident given spyware in electronics
Several electronic devices that were given to Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese legal advocate, soon after his arrival in the United States last year were loaded with spyware designed to track his family’s movements and their online activity. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/22/world/asia/chinese-advocates-devices-were-loaded-with-spyware-nyu-says.html?ref=world Two of those devices, an iPhone and an iPad, were given to Mr. Chen by China Aid, […]
Google keeps snatched wi-fi data in UK
Google has been given 35 days to delete any remaining data it “mistakenly collected” while taking pictures for its Street View service, or face criminal proceedings. The UK investigation into Google reopened last year after further revelations about the data taken from wi-fi networks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23002166 Google Street View, which launched in 2007, has been one […]
NSA and Tech companies are one entity
Max Kelly, the chief security officer for Facebook and the man who was responsible for protecting the personal information of more than one billion users from outside attacks, left the social media company in 2010 and went to work for another giant institution that manages and analyzes large pools of data: the National Security Agency. […]
Dirty Babylon 