By Andrew Guthrie Ferguson | – Video of police in riot gear clashing with unarmed protesters in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has filled social media feeds. Meanwhile, police surveillance of protesters has remained largely out of sight. Local, state and federal law enforcement organizations use […]
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Government surveillance
Did Saudi prince Bin Salman personally Hack Jeff Bezos’s Phone, Vacuuming up Secrets? What about Jared Kushner?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Update 1/25/20: Subsequent reporting at WSJ and elsewhere has raised questions about how solid the conclusions were, of the cyber-security firm hired by Jeff Bezos, that pointed with certainty to a hack coming from the cell phone of Mohammed Bin Salman. We’ve long known that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s phone […]
That’s not Good. Popular ToTok App is Emirates Spyware
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – ( Lily Hay Newman at Wired explores the implications of the revelation that the ToTok app is actually spyware for the United Arab Emirates. The app is fiendishly clever in the sense that there is nothing virus-like about it. It is just a communications application that wants to know who […]
How the Emirates Weaponized ex-NSA Spying Expertise against Democracy Activists
US officials and former NSA employees build UAE secret surveillance unit
Snowden: If Israel’s NSO had Refused Sale to Saudis, Khashoggi would be Alive
Three people, all of whom were in contact with [Khashoggi] suffered from hacking attempts by what appeared to be Saudi intelligence
Are You Ready for the Trump Admin. to Know Everything about You?
By Judith Coburn | – (Tomdispatch.com) – Now that we know we are surveilled 24/7 by the National Security Agency, the FBI, local police, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, hackers, the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, data brokers, private spyware groups like Black Cube, and companies from which we’ve ordered swag on the Internet, is there […]
Orwell knew: we willingly buy the screens that are used against us
Ann Arbor (Aeon) – Sales of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 (1949) have spiked twice recently, both times in response to political events. In early 2017, the idea of ‘alternative facts’ called to mind Winston Smith, the book’s protagonist and, as a clerk in the Ministry of Truth, a professional alternator of facts. And in […]
‘Quiet Skies’: US Latest Spying Program on Unsuspecting Air Passengers
The teams document whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a “jump” in their Adam’s apple or a “cold penetrating stare,” among other behaviors, according to the records. A Boston Globe expose has revealed that the federal air marshals are tracking the profiles of unsuspecting U.S. citizens who aren’t involved in a crime or are […]
How Exactly the Russian GRU and Troll Disinformation Campaign Worked: By an Ethical Hacker
By Timothy Summers | – College Park, Md (The Conversation) – The Soviet Union and now Russia under Vladimir Putin have waged a political power struggle against the West for nearly a century. Spreading false and distorted information – called “dezinformatsiya” after the Russian word for “disinformation” – is an age-old strategy for coordinated and […]