Citizen Lab discovers alleged attack using ‘zero-click exploit’ on individual employed by DC organization An individual employed by a Washington DC-based organization with international offices was targeted with powerful hacking software made by NSO Group, researchers have claimed, raising new concerns about the proliferation of spyware that can infect …
A used government surveillance van is for sale in Chicago: So how was this van turned into a mobile spying center? Well, let’s start with how it has more LCD monitors than a Counterstrike LAN party. They can be used to monitor any of six different video inputs …
License plate scanners aren’t new. Neither is using them for bulk surveillance. What’s new is that AI is being used on the data, identifying “suspicious” vehicle behavior: Typically, Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology is used to search for plates linked to specific crimes. But in this …
This is why we need regulation: Zoom updated its Terms of Service in March, spelling out that the company reserves the right to train AI on user data with no mention of a way to opt out. On Monday, the company said in a blog post that there’s …
Imagine a future in which AIs automatically interpret—and enforce—laws. All day and every day, you constantly receive highly personalized instructions for how to comply with the law, sent directly by your government and law enforcement. You’re told how to cross the street, how fast to drive …
The French police are getting new surveillance powers : French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices, lawmakers agreed late on Wednesday, July 5. [...] Covering laptops, cars and other connected objects as well as phones …
Police are already using self-driving car footage as video evidence: While security cameras are commonplace in American cities, self-driving cars represent a new level of access for law enforcement and a new method for encroachment on privacy, advocates say. Crisscrossing the city on their routes, self-driving cars capture a …
In 2013 and 2014, I wrote extensively about new revelations regarding NSA surveillance based on the documents provided by Edward Snowden. But I had a more personal involvement as well. I wrote the essay below in September 2013. The New Yorker agreed to publish it, but the Guardian asked …
Cameras are getting smaller and smaller, changing the scale and scope of surveillance. [...]
Just another obscure warrantless surveillance program. US law enforcement can access details of money transfers without a warrant through an obscure surveillance program the Arizona attorney general’s office created in 2014. A database stored at a nonprofit, the Transaction Record Analysis Center (TRAC), provides full names and amounts …
No details, though: According to the complaint against him, Al-Azhari allegedly visited a dark web site that hosts “unofficial propaganda and photographs related to ISIS” multiple times on May 14, 2019. In virtue of being a dark web site—that is, one hosted on the Tor anonymity network—it …
Eufy cameras claim to be local only, but upload data to the cloud. The company is basically lying to reporters, despite being shown evidence to the contrary. The company’s behavior is so egregious that ReviewGeek is no longer recommending them. This will be interesting to watch. If Eufy …
European parliament is investigating powerful surveillance tool used by governments around the world Victims of spyware and a group of security experts have privately warned that a European parliament investigatory committee risks being thrown off course by an alleged “disinformation campaign”. The warning, contained in a letter to MEPs …
Here in 2022, we have a newly declassified 2016 Inspector General report—”Misuse of Sigint Systems”—about a 2013 NSA program that resulted in the unauthorized (that is, illegal) targeting of Americans. Given all we learned from Edward Snowden, this feels like a minor coda. There’s nothing really …
This technique measures device response time to determine distance: The scientists tested the exploit by modifying an off-the-shelf drone to create a flying scanning device, the Wi-Peep. The robotic aircraft sends several messages to each device as it flies around, establishing the positions of devices in each room. A …
It’s Iran’s turn to have its digital surveillance tools leaked : According to these internal documents, SIAM is a computer system that works behind the scenes of Iranian cellular networks, providing its operators a broad menu of remote commands to alter, disrupt, and monitor how customers use their …
The Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis was spied on by his own government, with a commercial spyware product called “Predator.” That product is sold by a company in North Macedonia called Cytrox, which is in turn owned by an Israeli company called Intellexa. Koukakis is suing Intellexa. The lawsuit filed …
The Washington Post is reporting that the US Customs and Border Protection agency is seizing and copying cell phone, tablet, and computer data from “as many as” 10,000 phones per year, including an unspecified number of American citizens. This is done without a warrant, because “...courts have long …
CEO Shalev Hulio is stepping down as part of NSO reorganisation that will see it focus on sales in Nato member countries Israel’s NSO Group, which makes the globally controversial Pegasus spyware said on Sunday its CEO Shalev Hulio would step down as part of a reorganisation. The …
TheMarkup has an extensive analysis of connected vehicle data and the companies that are collecting it. The Markup has identified 37 companies that are part of the rapidly growing connected vehicle data industry that seeks to monetize such data in an environment with few regulations governing its sale or …
Amazon has revealed that it gives police videos from its Ring doorbells without a warrant and without user consent. Ring recently revealed how often the answer to that question has been yes. The Amazon company responded to an inquiry from US Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), confirming that there have …
Surely no one could have predicted this : The new proposal—championed by Mayor London Breed after November’s wild weekend of orchestrated burglaries and theft in the San Francisco Bay Area—would authorize the police department to use non-city-owned security cameras and camera networks to live monitor “significant events …
This is an excellent essay outlining the post-Roe privacy threat model. (Summary: period tracking apps are largely a red herring.) Taken together, this means the primary digital threat for people who take abortion pills is the actual evidence of intention stored on your phone, in the form of texts …
Report by Georgetown’s Center on Privacy and Technology published a comprehensive report on the surprising amount of mass surveillance conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Our two-year investigation, including hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests and a comprehensive review of ICE’s contracting and procurement records …
San Francisco police are using autonomous vehicles as mobile surveillance cameras. Privacy advocates say the revelation that police are actively using AV footage is cause for alarm. “This is very concerning,” Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) senior staff attorney Adam Schwartz told Motherboard. He said cars in general are troves …