Tag: surveillance

AI-powered stuffed animals are coming for your kids

Do A.I. chatbots packaged inside cute-looking plushies offer a viable alternative to screen time for kids?

That’s how the companies selling these A.I.-powered kiddie companions are marketing them, but The New York Times’ Amanda Hess has some reservations. She recounts a demonstration in which Grem, one of the offerings from startup Curio, tried to bond with her. (Curio also sells a plushie named Grok, with no apparent connection to the Elon Musk-owned chatbot.)

Hess writes that this is when she knew, “I would not be introducing Grem to my own children.” As she talked to the chatbot, she became convinced it was “less an upgrade to the lifeless teddy bear” and instead “more like a replacement for me.”

She also argues that while these talking toys might keep kids away from a tablet or TV screen, what they’re really communicating is that “the natural endpoint for [children’s] curiosity lies inside their phones.”

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Meta Found Guilty Of Eavesdropping On Period-Tracker App Users: Jury

A San Francisco Jury found on Friday that Meta had eavesdropped on the users of a popular period-tracking app, Flo.

The lawsuit, was filed in 2021 by eight women against Flo and a group of other tech companies including Google and Facebook, now known as Meta. The app asked users about their sex lives, mental health and diets before guiding them through menstruation and pregnancy. The women, who based their claims on a 2019 Wall Street Journal story and a 2021 FTC investigation, allege that Flo then shared some of that data with the tech giants, SFGATE reports.

Google, Flo, and analytics company Flurry all settled with the plaintiffs, however Meta fought through the entire trial and lost. 

The case against Meta focused on its Facebook software development kit, which Flo added to its app and which is generally used for analytics and advertising services. The women alleged that between June 2016 and February 2019, Flo sent Facebook, through that kit, various records of “Custom App Events” — such as a user clicking a particular button in the “wanting to get pregnant” section of the app.

Their complaint also pointed to Facebook’s terms for its business tools, which said the company used so-called “event data” to personalize ads and content.

In a 2022 filing, the tech giant admitted that Flo used Facebook’s kit during this period and that the app sent data connected to “App Events.” But Meta denied receiving intimate information about users’ health. -SFGate

The jury didn’t buy Meta’s argument – ruling against them in a unanimous decision, and finding that Flo’s users had a reasonable expectation that they weren’t being overheard or recorded, and found that Meta did not have consent to eavesdrop or record. The company was found to have violated California’s Invasion of Privacy Act.

According to a June filing about the case’s class-action status, over 3.7 million women in the United States registered for Flo between November 2016 and February 2019 – with potential claimants expected to be notified via email and on a case website. 

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Israeli spyware firms are fueling the global surveillance state

Last week another batch of peaceful pro-Palestine protestors were arrested by British police on suspicion of terrorism offenses, including a disabled man in a wheelchair, as the UK continues its descent into authoritarianism on behalf of Israel.

If any of these protestors had their phones on them at the time of arrest, the police will most likely have scraped them for data using sophisticated spy tech software. Protestors not arrested will have been caught on mobile cameras that sit atop police vans in the UK, and their faces, perhaps even their voices, will have been captured, analyzed and cross referenced against a police database.

And in a perverse twist, this spyware technology – technology which now underpins the insidious and growing capabilities of the modern surveillance state – will most likely have been made in Israel by Israeli spies.

But it’s not just in the UK.

Spy tech developed by former Israeli spies is being used on an industrial scale by various agencies in western democracies, from police forces to national security agencies to militaries. Some has been declared illegal, some skirts legal boundaries, and much remains hidden.

The scale of usage, and the range of capabilities provided by this Israeli spy tech, is vast. From face and voice recognition software, to interception and wiretap technology, to covert location tracking, to forced data extraction from smartphones and other devices.

The tech, built by software engineers who cut their teeth writing code to enable and enforce Israeli domination over, and apartheid against Palestinians, is being sold to security services, police forces and immigration agencies across the West.

While much of the information in this article isn’t new, it hasn’t been summarized in one place before. The implications for global civil liberties of Israel’s dominance in spy tech have also not been articulated, and past media coverage has sometimes omitted the Israeli link to these companies. This article will outline the primary players, the sellers and the buyers, and also identify recent contracts, previously undocumented, between Israeli spytech and Western buyers.

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Scavino: Google Acknowledges FBI Compelled His Account Information — Kash Patel Issues Shocking Response

During President Trump’s first term, prior to occupying the Oval Office, it is well-known that the FBI under the Obama administration deceived the FISA Court in order to obtain a warrant to spy on Carter Page, a Trump campaign aide in 2016 (Page left the campaign in October 2016). 

In order to obtain that warrant, disgraced FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith altered an email by changing wording to indicate Page was “not a source” for the CIA when, in fact, he was.

Klinesmith was found guilty of the fabrication and sentenced to 12 months of probation and a suspension of his law license.  But only for one year.

Bear in mind that several attorneys, such as Jeff Clark, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Kurt Olsen, John Eastman, among others are facing permanent disbarment or crippling sanctions for simply bringing a case to challenge the 2020 Election and Ed Martin’s nomination for U.S. Attorney of Washington D.C. was disputed by Senator John Thune for simply representing January 6th defendants.

Falsifying evidence to a federal court is a serious offense.  That should be exacerbated when the fabrication is brought before a secret FISA Court where there is no representation for the defendant, no transcripts for accountability, and the impending actions can result in unknowing infringements on U.S. citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights.

To make matters worse, under the “Two-Hop Rule,” FISA warrants can be used to spy not only on the target specifically, but also those associated with the target.  Many have speculated that this could potentially have given the FBI access to spy on President Trump himself.

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Drones, cameras, AI: University of Illinois real time crime center raises privacy concerns

Thousands of cameras. A fleet of drones. Gun shot detection devices. Stationary and vehicle-mounted automatic license plate readers.

A major metropolitan city? No, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Real-Time Information Center furnishes the institution’s Division of Public Safety with a number of technologically sophisticated tools that have some privacy experts alarmed.

The drones, gunshot detection devices, automatic license plate readers, and campus-wide system of roughly 3,000 security cameras are among the tools currently utilized at the campus, which enrolls about 59,000 students.

Social media monitoring programs and “AI-driven video analytics software” are also among the technologies being evaluated for possible future implementation, according to a document sent by Urbana Police Chief Larry Boone.

He sent it to city officials as they deliberate a proposed city ordinance to establish stricter approval, oversight, and transparency requirements for Urbana’s own acquisition and use of the kinds of surveillance tools being used by the university’s Real-Time Information Center.

According to the document, the Real-Time Information Center provides a wide array of services designed to enhance public safety, streamline operations, and support law enforcement agencies.

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Single US Water Utility Receives 6 Million China-Based Connection Attempts In 1 Week: Security Report

A single water utility in California has received more than 6 million hits from China-based addresses within a week, pointing to the Chinese communist regime’s ongoing efforts to scan for U.S. critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, according to security experts.

The South Coast Water District (SCWD) blocked these connection attempts between July 15 and July 23.

It revealed the figure in a July 23 industry webinar hosted by the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center, showing a firewall dashboard by security company ThreatSTOP.

SCWD provides potable water, recycled water, and wastewater services to about 40,000 residents, 1,000 businesses, and 2 million visitors annually in Orange County, California.

During the webinar, ThreatSTOP CEO Tom Byrnes and chief scientist Paul Mockapetris, who invented the Domain Name System, advised water industry professionals to tailor who is allowed access to their servers and said that there are some obvious limits one can set.

“If you’re a water district in southern California, you probably don’t have any customers in China,” Mockapetris said.

A ThreatSTOP case study on its website shows that as far back as 2011, even a school district’s network printers in West Memphis, Arkansas, were receiving regular access attempts from China.

Byrnes stated that the 6 million figure had increased overnight from 5 million, demonstrating that critical infrastructure, such as water systems, is constantly being scanned for vulnerabilities.

SCWD’s ThreatSTOP firewall dashboard also showed more than 34,000 blocked connection attempts originating from Bulgaria and more than 21,000 from Iran.

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Amazon Acquires Bee, the AI Wearable That Hears Everything You Say

Amazon is moving to acquire Bee, a startup focused on voice-driven wearable technology, signaling a broader push into AI-powered personal devices.

Bee manufactures a lightweight bracelet and an Apple Watch app designed to capture and process audio from the surrounding environment. The device listens continuously unless the user manually mutes it. Its primary function is to help users manage tasks by turning spoken cues into reminders and lists.

The company promotes its vision by stating, “We believe everyone should have access to a personal, ambient intelligence that feels less like a tool and more like a trusted companion. One that helps you reflect, remember, and move through the world more freely.”

According to Amazon, Bee employees have been offered positions within the company, suggesting that the acquisition includes not just technology but the team behind it. This move is part of Amazon’s intent to extend its AI ambitions beyond home assistants like the Echo. Other major tech companies are following similar paths. OpenAI is developing its own hardware, Meta has begun embedding AI into smart glasses, and Apple is rumored to be working on its own version of AI-integrated eyewear.

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Trump Admin Will Encourage All Americans To Use Wearables, Says RFK Jr.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will soon start a massive advertising blitz to encourage uptake of wearables such as fitness trackers among Americans, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on June 24.

“We’re about to launch one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history to encourage Americans to use wearables,” Kennedy said on Capitol Hill in Washington during a congressional hearing.

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) spoke positively about what he described as innovative wellness tools and asked Kennedy to describe how the government is promoting access to such tools. Balderson noted that research suggests that increased patient engagement can result in improved health.

“It’s a way people can take control over their own health, they can take responsibility, they can see what food is doing to their glucose levels, their heart rates, and a number of other metrics as they eat it, and they can begin to make good judgements about their diet, about their physical activity, about the way they live their lives,” Kennedy said.

“We think that wearables are a key to the MAHA agenda, Making America Healthy Again. My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years.”

Balderson also asked about concerns over keeping data from wearables private. Kennedy declined to address that aspect of the matter.

In addition to his role as health secretary, Kennedy is chairman of the MAHA Commission, established by President Donald Trump to study ways to improve the health of Americans.

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U.S. SCHOOLS use ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE TOOLS to monitor students’ digital behavior without consent or knowledge

A newly published peer-reviewed study reveals that a growing number of U.S. schools are using government-funded online surveillance tools to monitor students’ digital behavior—often without their knowledge or consent—and warns that such practices may have serious consequences for children’s development and well-being.

  • 24/7 Student Surveillance Raises Privacy and Health Concerns: A peer-reviewed study found that 12 out of 14 school surveillance companies monitored students’ social media, emails, and online activity around the clock, often without clear consent from parents or students, potentially harming children’s learning, mental health, and social development.
  • Heavy Reliance on AI and Lack of Human Oversight: Most companies used AI to flag student behavior, but fewer than half had human reviewers. Researchers warned this could lead to false positives and discriminatory outcomes, particularly for marginalized students, due to algorithmic bias and lack of transparency.
  • Federal Funds Fuel Poorly Regulated Surveillance Tools: Many schools use federal education grants to fund these surveillance tools, despite limited evidence that they improve student safety. Researchers called for better oversight and questioned whether this is an appropriate use of government resources.
  • Parents Left in the Dark and Policymakers Urged to Act: The study highlighted that parents often don’t know their children are being monitored and may not have opt-out options. Authors recommended federal legislation to improve transparency, address AI bias, and require parental consent for off-campus monitoring.

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How Israel’s Spy-built Apps Silently Fund Genocide While Infiltrating Your Device

The digital tools millions trust daily—photo editors, casual games, taxi hailers—hide a dark secret: They were crafted by Israeli spies turned tech moguls, funneling profits into apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. As Israel wages war under the banner of Zionism, its militarized economy thrives on apps that mine your data, normalize surveillance, and bankroll atrocities. This bombshell investigation exposes the covert Israeli app empire, revealing how even the most innocent downloads fuel a regime built on occupation and bloodshed.

Key points:

    • Hidden owners: Major apps like Facetune, Moovit, and Waze were developed by ex-Israeli military intelligence operatives, laundering their spycraft into Silicon Valley fortunes.
    • Data harvesting risks: These apps often demand intrusive permissions, feeding personal images, locations, and identifiers into Israel’s surveillance-industrial complex.
    • Funding genocide: Companies like Playtika and Crazy Labs openly funnel billions in taxes to Israel’s war economy, with staff actively enlisted in Gaza massacres.
    • Global spyware threat: Behind the apps lies Israel’s Pegasus spyware, sold to dictatorships to crush dissent, murder journalists, and silence Palestinians.
    • Boycott urgency: The BDS movement urges users to purge these apps, breaking Israel’s stranglehold on tech and its economy of occupation.

From military intelligence to your smartphone

Israel’s Unit 8200—a surveillance unit comparable to the NSA—acts as a feeder program for the country’s tech elite. Graduates infiltrate app development, weaponizing civilian software to extract data and revenue. ZipoApps, founded entirely by Unit 8200 veterans, controls photo-editing tools like Collage Maker Photo Editor and Instasquare, boasting over 100 million downloads. Users on Reddit accuse Zipo of bait-and-switch privacy violations, turning open-source apps into paid spyware traps.

Similarly, Facetune, an AI photo editor with 50 million installs, was co-developed by Yaron Inger, who spent five years in Unit 8200. Apple Store reviews warn it’s a “scam,” demanding location tracking and device identifiers. Even ride-hailing apps like Gett and Waze were built by ex-spies, embedding Israel’s military ethos into everyday tech.

“These developers are digital conscripts,” explains a Tel Aviv-based tech whistleblower who requested anonymity. They don’t leave the battlefield—they just monetize it.

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