Tag: technology

Gavin Newsom Applauds Rollout Of AI Surveillance Network In California

If you’re not a criminal then you have nothing to hide, right?  This is the perpetual argument used in favor of state mass surveillance throughout history.  It’s the underlying justification at the birth of every surveillance agency from the Soviet Cheka to the German Stasi and beyond.  Don’t commit crimes and “you have nothing to worry about.”

Of course, this argument requires the public to overlook a simple and universal truth – That which is legal today can be made illegal tomorrow, and the people who make these decisions are often not good people.  With the ability to track and trace the behavior and movements of the citizenry in real time, the temptation to abuse that technology to increase government power is exponential.  That is to say, mass surveillance tends to inspire governments to abuse their authority and treat people like criminals even when they are innocent.

As we witnessed around the world during the pandemic lockdowns, authoritarianism can rear its ugly head without much warning and with incredible speed.  Some western countries (and even a few American states) aggressively sought to make resistance to covid restrictions criminal, to the point that authorities were legislating and even building “camps” designed to lock up covid offenders.  These plans were of course denied by political leaders even as they were putting the pieces in place to implement them. 

All of this was done in the name of a virus with a 99.8% survival rate.  What might they do when a legitimate crisis comes along?

We have seen how far our governments are willing to go to go to secure greater power over the populace; they have proven they’re not trustworthy enough to handle unilateral oversight. With real-time AI based surveillance in place the dangers are far greater.  Across the country there has been a quiet rollout of a new algorithm driven camera network from a company called Flock Safety.  

Flock offers AI integrated cameras with off-grid options (solar) that they say are meant primarily for license plate reading and vehicle identification.  California Governor Gavin Newsom recently applauded the creation of a new 480 camera network from Flock that will ostensibly focus on the Oakland metro area.

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Why L. Ron Hubbard Patented His E-Meter

To call L. Ron Hubbard a prolific writer is an extreme understatement. From 1934 to 1940, he regularly penned 70,000 to 100,000 words per month of pulp fiction under 15 different pseudonyms published in various magazines. Not to be constrained by genre, he wrote zombie mysteries, historical fiction, pirate adventure tales, and westerns.

But by the spring of 1938, Hubbard started honing his craft in science fiction. The publishers of Astounding Science Fiction approached Hubbard to write stories that focused on people, rather than robots and machines. His first story, “The Dangerous Dimension,” was a light-hearted tale about a professor who could teleport anywhere in the universe simply by thinking “Equation C.”

How Scientologists use the E-meter

Twelve years and more than a hundred stories later, Hubbard published a very different essay in the May 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction: “Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science.” In the essay, Hubbard recounts his own journey to discover what he called the reactive mind and the “technology” to conquer it. The essay was the companion piece to his simultaneously released book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which in turn became the foundation for a new religion: the Church of Scientology.

Marrying technology with spirituality, Hubbard introduced the electropsychometer, or E-meter, in the 1950s as a device to help his ministers measure the minds, bodies, and spirits of church members. According to church dogma, the minds of new initiates are impaired by “engrams”—lingering traces of traumas, including those from past lives. An auditor purportedly uses the E-meter to identify and eliminate the engrams, which leads eventually to the person’s reaching a state of being “clear.” Before reaching this desirable state, a church member is known as a “preclear.”

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Does wireless tech cause cancer or is it just another “coincidence” being propagated by tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists?

Do cell phones, Bluetooth devices, WiFi and other wireless tech cause cancer or is it just another “coincidence” that tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists are sharing on their smartphones?

Let me tell you about such a “coincidence” I witnessed firsthand…

Many years ago, I hired a young lady to help out around the apartment and in the office, as my wife was quite ill and I was already working seven days a week (still am, I guess). The new assistant came in six days a week for a few hours and completed a long list of items in record time. The whole time she’d be singing and was a joy to have around.

Until, after about six months, she began slowing down and making mistakes. I asked her what was up. She said she was having trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep at night.

I asked her a few questions about her sleeping arrangements. It turned out to be an EMF nightmare: She and her husband both slept in a small, loft room, upon a large futon on the floor with a tin roof above them. On either side of their bed, they each had their laptops and their smartphones active, recharging and certainly not in airplane mode. They also kept their WiFi blasting all night.

I suggested that maybe they should experiment and get all the tech out of their sleeping chamber and kill the WiFi at night.

She looked at me like I had suggested they move out to the wilderness and live in a cave.

I then told her about the $30 million, ten-year study the US Department of Health and Human Services conducted, exposing rats to 2G and 3G cellphone radiation. I believe the scientists were trying to prove that wireless tech was harmless.

Their experiment failed.

The study concluded “there is clear evidence that male rats exposed to high levels of radio frequency radiation (RFR) like that used in 2G and 3G cell phones developed cancerous heart tumors, according to final reports released today. There was also some evidence of tumors in the brain and adrenal gland of exposed male rats.”

She told me that she wasn’t worried about that and Jesus would heal her if she got cancer.

Well, you can’t argue with faith. So I didn’t mention it again.

Fast forward a few months and she’d become quite sick — throwing up and having to lie down after an hour of work. She had to quit.

A week later, she emailed to let us know that she had cancer and was beginning chemotherapy. The doctors found one tumour on her heart (just like the rats in the study) and the other in her neck.

Coincidence? Sure. Just like getting vaccinated and dying suddenly is a coincidence.

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QUANTUM MECHANICS HACK COULD LEAD TO “UNBREAKABLE” METALS BY LEVERAGING WEIRD DISTORTION OF ATOMS

Scientists say they have created a new method of testing materials that allows predictions to be made about their ductility, which could lead to the production of virtually “unbreakable” metals for use with components in a variety of applications.

Drawing from quantum mechanics principles, the new method allows for significant improvements by enhancing predictions about metals’ ability to be drawn out into thinner shapes while maintaining their strength.

According to researchers involved with the discovery, the new method has proven very effective for metals used in high-temperature applications and could help industries like aerospace and other fields perform tests of various materials more rapidly.

The discovery was reported by scientists at Ames National Laboratory in cooperation with Texas A&M University.

The team’s new quantum-mechanics-based approach has already proven effective on refractory multi-principal-element alloys, a group of materials that often lack the ductility required for their use in the demanding conditions of fusion technology, aerospace applications, and other applications where metals must be capable of withstanding extreme temperatures.

Problems associated with metal ductility have remained a challenge to such industries for many decades since it remains difficult to predict a metal’s thresholds for deformation without compromising its toughness. This has led many industries to resort to trial and error, which also presents issues due to the material costs associated with repeated testing and the amount of time it requires.

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Navy’s Rush To Test Microwave Weapons Tied To Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Fears

The U.S. Navy hopes to have a prototype high-power microwave directed energy weapon ready for shipboard testing by the end of 2026. The service sees weapons of this type as critical additional defensive options that will help its warships keep higher-end surface-to-air missiles in reserve for threats they might be better optimized for, including anti-ship ballistic missiles. The experience of American warships shooting down Houthi missiles and drones over the past six months has rammed home concerns about the magazine depth of the Navy’s surface fleets, issues The War Zone previously explored in detail in a feature you can find here.

Details about the Navy’s current high-power microwave (HPM) shipboard defense plans are included in its budget request for the 2025 Fiscal Year, which the service rolled out earlier this month. USNI News was the first to report on aspects of the Navy’s HPM plans from the new budget proposal.

The Navy has working toward a prototype HPM weapon system specifically for this role through a program called REDCAT since at least 2023. The service’s latest budget proposal says the plan is now to rename that development effort METEOR, for reasons that are not entirely clear and that we come back to later. REDCAT and METEOR both appear to be acronyms, but their meanings are unknown.

HPM weapons, in general, are designed to generate bursts of microwave energy that are capable of disrupting or destroying the electronics inside a target system. In a maritime context, HPM systems, as they are understood now, are best suited to providing close-in defense against missiles, drones, and small boats.

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CERN Particle Accelerator To Go Live During Solar Eclipse After Two Year Hiatus

The European Organization for Nuclear Research’s CERN particle accelerator will be used to search for hidden particles as the upcoming April 8 solar eclipse takes place.

The machine, a Large Hadron Collider (LHC), smashes protons into each other to bust them open and study the subatomic particles inside them. 

During next month’s eclipse, the team of scientists will be trying to prove the existence of dark matter, which is estimated to make up around 28% of the universe despite never being seen.

While the LHC usually operates for one month every year, it has been two years since it was up and running after being turned off during Europe’s 2022 energy crisis.

Last week, scientists revealed a “ghost-like” structure had been discovered inside the particle collider.

Popular X account “Concerned Citizen” commented on CERN’s solar eclipse testing and also noted NASA will be launching rockets named after an Egyptian snake deity during the event.

The NASA mission, known as Atmospheric Perturbations around the Eclipse Path or APEP, was given the acronym in honor of the “serpent deity from ancient Egyptian mythology,” who was a “nemesis of the Sun deity Ra.”

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RAND Corporation: “Internet Of Bodies May Lead To Internet Of Brains” By 2050

The Internet of Bodies ecosystem may lead to the Internet of Brains sometime between 2035 and 2050, according to a UK Defence-commissioned RAND report.

Commissioned by the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and conducted by RAND Europe and Frazer Nash Consulting, the study “Cultural and technological change in the future information environment” looks at six technologies and information environments and their implications for British defense.

They include:

  • Automated information systems
  • A virtual metaverse
  • Augmented and mixed reality
  • Advanced connectivity
  • Human augmentation
  • Information security

A major theme running through these information environments is transhumanism — the merger of humans and machines.

According to the report, “Advances in object connectivity may eventually extend to human bodies. Researchers refer to the potential development of an internet-linked network of human-connected devices collecting end users’ biometric data as an ‘internet of bodies […] An ‘internet of bodies’ may also ultimately lead to an ‘internet of brains’, i.e. human brains connected to the internet to facilitate direct brain-to-brain communication and enable access to online data networks.’“

The Internet of Bodies and the coming Internet of Brains fall specifically under the category of “human augmentation technologies,” which “refer to technologies that enhance human capabilities, either physically or cognitively.”

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Is IRS using AI to infringe upon our financial privacy?

The House Judiciary Committee has opened an inquiry to whether the IRS is using artificial intelligence to invade Americans’ financial privacy after an agency employee was captured in an undercover tape suggesting there was a widespread surveillance operation underway that might not be constitutional.

Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., sent a letter last week to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding documents, and answers as to how the agency is currently employing artificial intelligence to comb through bank records to look for possible tax cheats.

The inquiry comes after the same panel has been exploring why the FBI was obtaining Americans’ bank records, including those of Jan. 6 suspects, without using search warrants or subpoenas.

Hageman told Just the News that lawmakers are increasingly concerned that federal law-enforcement agencies are no longer abiding by constitutional protections, including prohibitions against search and seizure without a warrant. 

The congressional inquiry was prompted by a September 2023 announcement that the IRS is using AI to “help IRS compliance teams better detect tax cheating, identify emerging compliance threats and improve case selection tools.”

The Treasury Department has since acknowledged it has “implemented an enhanced process using AI to mitigate check fraud in near real-time by strengthening and expediting processes to recover potentially fraudulent payments from financial institutions’ since late 2022.”

Jordan’s and Hageman’s letter said lawmakers have evidence and reason to believe that the IRS and Department of Justice (DOJ) are actively monitoring millions of Americans’ private transactions, bank accounts, and related financial information—without any legal process—using the AI-powered system.

“This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private financial records raises serious doubts about the IRS’s—and the federal government’s—respect for Americans’ fundamental civil liberties,” the letter said.

You can read the letter here: 2024-03-20 JDJ HH to IRS re AI surveillance.pdf

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Unbelievable: New AI Ad Will Make You Question Reality

Social media is going wild over a woman advertising body wipes for men.

The only thing is — everything about the woman, from her voice, to her eyes to her hair, are entirely AI generated.

In a head-spinning example of a new AI advertising platform known as Arcads, which creates ads using “AI actors,” a woman appears as though she’s delivering a social media lecture on male hygiene.

However, it soon becomes clear she’s reading a pre-written script pushing a product, and her eyes don’t exactly match up with the cadence of the words she’s saying.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” wrote one X user.

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Latest Google Gaffe: Search Giant’s AI Points Users Towards Scam and Malware Sites

Google’s recently introduced AI search feature called “Search Generative Experience” (SGE) has been found to recommend malicious websites that redirect users to scams, fake giveaways, and unwanted browser extensions.

BleepingComputer reports that earlier this month, Google began rolling out its new AI-powered search feature, SGE, which provides quick summaries and site recommendations related to users’ search queries. However, the new system appears to have some significant flaws that cybersecurity experts are now bringing to light.

SEO consultant Lily Ray was among the first to notice that Google’s SGE was recommending spammy and malicious sites within its AI-generated responses. Upon further investigation by BleepingComputer, it was found that the suspicious sites shared similarities in their TLD usage (.online), HTML templates, and redirect practices, suggesting they are part of a coordinated SEO poisoning campaign.

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