Tag: privacy

Chief Advisor of Klaus Schwab and the WEF Boasts: Dreams of Dictators Are Now Possible

“Dictators always dreamt about eliminating privacy, monitoring everyone, knowing everything you do, think, and feel…It is now possible.”

The privacy versus security debate is as old as civilization, historian and writer Yuval Noah Harari said recently at the Athens Democracy Forum, an annual international conference in Greece. “But there is now something new: for the first time in history, it is possible to eliminate privacy completely,” said Harari, chief advisor to the World Economic Forum’s leader, Klaus Schwab. 

“It was not possible before,” said Harari, “It is now possible. A fundamental change has taken place. “Dictators always dreamt about completely eliminating privacy, monitoring everyone all the time, and knowing everything you do, and not just everything you do but everything you think, and everything you feel.”

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Michigan School Under Fire After Student Leaks “McCarthyist” Questionnaire

A Michigan school system is under fire after a student posted a photograph of a questionnaire which asked deeply personal questions – including their parents’ political affiliation, whether a family member has ever been convicted of a crime, whether the student or family members have seen a psychologist, and whether their parents have ever lost a job.

After the post went viral, the Grosse Point School District issued an explanation, claiming that students “were provided with a questionnaire which looked like an official document from South Administration,” which “was shared on social media without any context.”

According to the district, “The document and questions were intentionally designed as a simulation of McCarthyism and to make students question the appropriateness of the information being requested,” and that “within a minute, the teacher explained the purpose of the exercise was not to collect this information, but to demonstrate how private citizens’ rights and privacy were invaded during McCarthyism in the 1950s.”

The note goes on to say that the document, created several years ago, was “collected and destroyed,” and that this is the first time they’ve experienced an issue with it.

Needless to say, a lengthy debate has ensued.

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Muting your mic doesn’t stop big tech from recording your audio

Anytime you use a video teleconferencing app, you’re sending your audio data to the company hosting the services. And, according to a new study, that means all of your audio data. This includes voice and background noise whether you’re broadcasting or muted.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison investigated “many popular apps” to determine the extent that video conferencing apps capture data while users employ the in-software ‘mute’ button.

According to a university press release, their findings were substantial:

They used runtime binary analysis tools to trace raw audio in popular video conferencing applications as the audio traveled from the app to the computer audio driver and then to the network while the app was muted.

They found that all of the apps they tested occasionally gather raw audio data while mute is activated, with one popular app gathering information and delivering data to its server at the same rate regardless of whether the microphone is muted or not.

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White House, IRS, CDC, and many other US government websites sending data to Big Tech via Google tracking code

Most of the major US federal government websites and numerous state and local government websites are sending real-time surveillance data back to Google as users browse their websites. Even websites where users are submitting sensitive or personal information, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) tips page and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website, contain tracking code that sends real-time visitor data back to Google.

Most of these government websites contain tracking code from the web traffic analytics tool Google Analytics. This code collects detailed user data which is sent to Google’s servers, analyzed, and presented to website owners via an online dashboard.

Google Analytics automatically collects data on the pages visited, the time and duration of each visit, and other visitor data (such as the device, browser, operating system, and screen resolution of visitors). It can also be configured to collect data on more specific actions such as when users click or tap specific links, download content, or fill out forms.

Some government websites also have code from other Google services (such as DoubleClick, Google Adsense, Google Maps, Google Play, and YouTube) and other tech giants (such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter) embedded on some of their pages.

The US government openly admits to using Google Analytics tracking code on 400 executive branch domains and 5,700 total websites. It even displays this surveillance data publicly via a real-time online dashboard which also tracks visitors with Google Analytics.

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Barack Obama Suggests Social Media Anonymity Should Be Stripped From People Who Are “Rude” or “Lie”

Barack Obama has suggested that people who are “rude,” “obnoxious,” or “lie” on social media should have be stripped of their online anonymity.

Yes, really.

The former president made the comments during a keynote conversation with The Atlantic’s Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg at the ‘Disinformation and Erosion of Democracy’ conference.

After Obama initially claimed he was “close to a First Amendment absolutist,” his response to Goldberg asking him how he would regulate social media companies “to make sure that they’re not privileging anger, privileging division and polarization through their algorithms,” suggests otherwise.

Obama argued that online anonymity protections should be removed when it comes to speech of which he doesn’t personally approve.

“In some circumstances, it’s important to preserve anonymity…so that there’s space in repressive societies to discuss issues but as we’ve all learned, it’s a lot harder to be rude, obnoxious, cruel, or lie when somebody knows you’re lying and knows who you are and I think that there may be modifications there that can be made,” said Obama.

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Nightmare Voyeurism: Google Tech Can Read Your Body Language – Without Cameras

Wired reports that Google’s latest privacy-invading technology can read your body language without using cameras. One Google designer ominously commented, “We’re really just pushing the bounds of what we perceive to be possible for human-computer interaction.”

Wired reports that Google’s newest tech uses radar to detect users’ body language and then performs actions based on its analysis. Google’s Advanced Technology and Product division (ATAP) has reportedly spent over a year exploring how radar could be implemented in computers to understand humans based on their movements and to react to them.

Google has experimented with radar in its technology in the past. In 2015 the company released Soli, a sensor that can use radar’s electromagnetic waves to analyze gestures and movements. This was first utilized in the Google Pixel 4 smartphone which could detect user hand gestures to turn off alarms or pause music without actually touching the device.

Now, this Soli sensor is being used in further research. Google’s ATAP is reportedly investigating if radar sensor input can be used to directly control a computer. Leonardo Giusti, head of design at ATAP, commented: “We believe as technology becomes more present in our life, it’s fair to start asking technology itself to take a few more cues from us.”

A large part of the technology is based on proxemics, which is the study of how people utilize the space around them to mediate social interactions. For instance, getting closer to another person shows an increase in engagement and intimacy.

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Thousands of confidential ethics and juvenile records are published online

A website called judyrecords.com has published thousands of confidential court records from across the nation, including private ethics records in California and juvenile court records from several states, according to reporting by Law360.

The State Bar of California said judyrecords.com apparently obtained nonpublic information on about 260,000 attorney ethics cases as a result of a “previously unknown security vulnerability” in its case management portal. The bar uses Tyler Technologies’ Odyssey system, which was also used by affected court systems that spoke with Law360 about the problem.

Judyrecords.com describes itself as “a 100% free nationwide search engine that lets you instantly search hundreds of millions of United States court cases and lawsuits.”

Law360 said it searched judyrecords.com “and uncovered dockets with detailed information about minors that, in some affected jurisdictions, is normally restricted or confidential. The information included the names of defendants. In several cases, it also listed their birth dates, criminal charges and sentencing information.”

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Senate Bill Creates Massive Surveillance Program to Scan All of Your Online Messages

 People don’t want outsiders reading their private messages —not their physical mail, not their texts, not their DMs, nothing. It’s a clear and obvious point, but one place it doesn’t seem to have reached is the U.S. Senate.

A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have re-introduced the EARN IT Act, an incredibly unpopular bill from 2020 that was dropped in the face of overwhelming opposition. Let’s be clear: the new EARN IT Act would pave the way for a massive new surveillance system, run by private companies, that would roll back some of the most important privacy and security features in technology used by people around the globe. It’s a framework for private actors to scan every message sent online and report violations to law enforcement. And it might not stop there. The EARN IT Act could ensure that anything hosted online—backups, websites, cloud photos, and more—is scanned.

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