This Company is Selling Bizarre and Expensive Spy Equipment to Police

Motherboard obtained a secret catalog of surveillance tools advertising covert recording devices disguised as energy drinks, vapes, t-shirts, and more.

Last month, a small Georgia company that sells equipment to law enforcement sent out a jovial email to its private mailing list, with special summer offers and a copy of its 2020 catalogue of covert surveillance tools.

June had seen what was, by some estimates, the largest protest movement in U.S. history. Tens of millions of people filled streets across the country to protest the police killing of Black Americans, sparking unprecedented momentum for defunding the police and intense scrutiny of police tactics and technology.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkyz47/this-company-is-selling-bizarre-and-expensive-spy-equipment-to-police

#us #surveillance

Blocking weirdos is not censorship?

We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called ‘QAnon’ activity across the service.

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1285726277719199746

#QAnon #twitter
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
📡@NoGoolag

Uber offers COVID-19 contact tracing help amid chaotic U.S. response

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc has quietly launched a service to give public health officials quick access to data on drivers and riders presumed to have come into contact with someone infected with COVID-19, company officials told Reuters.

The service, offered free of charge, could help burnish the image of the ride-hailing giant, which recently launched a new ad campaign spotlighting its “No Mask, No Ride” policy in the United States.

Now being promoted to government health officials in all the countries where it operates, the service provides health departments with data about who used Uber’s services and when and allows health agencies to urge affected users into quarantine, the company officials said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-uber-focus/uber-offers-covid-19-contact-tracing-help-amid-chaotic-u-s-response-idUSKCN24L17X

#uber #privacy

The North Face Led a Campaign Against Facebook — While Handing Over Your Data to Facebook

Advertisers can’t quit Facebook

OnJune 19, with the seemingly bold claim “We’re in,” outdoors brand The North Face lent powerful corporate backing to the Stop Hate for Profit movement.

Except there’s a problem. Instead of “We’re in!,” The North Face’s tweet perhaps should have read, “We’re in! Kinda!”

Stop Hate for Profit calls on advertisers to boycott Facebook, in response to the rampant “hate and misinformation across Facebook’s products, which are supported by paid advertisements.”

Although The North Face and hundreds of other brands are indeed pausing their Facebook advertising campaigns, they’re still handing Facebook millions of data points about their customers every single day.

https://onezero.medium.com/the-north-face-led-a-campaign-against-facebook-while-handing-over-your-data-to-facebook-b8f17540fcfa

#facebook #thenorthface #privacy

Spanish police will use facial recognition in shows to detect people with pending cases

La policía española usará el reconocimiento facial en espectáculos para detectar personas con causas pendientes

https://www.vozpopuli.com/economia-y-finanzas/reconocimiento-facial-causas-pendientes_0_1375363234.html


deepl translation:

The Guardia Civil launches a contract for the development of a technological system with which to also control the illegal dumping of waste

The Ministry of the Interior wants a solution based on facial recognition to be installed in large sports or cultural events - football matches, concerts... - that will allow to detect people with pending cases with the Justice.

This is reflected in the agreement signed between the portfolio directed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska and the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, E.P.E., regarding the pre-commercial contracting of R&D services in the field of rural security. The objective is "to provide the Guardia Civil with innovative solutions that respond to specific technological challenges, allowing them to increase protection and security in the rural environment. This is because, in the rural environment, due to its extension and, in some cases, isolation, it is not possible to deploy a sufficient number of agents under certain exceptional situations".

Although the document refers to the rural environment, the Convention also reflects the interest in protection in "mass events". In fact, the text hypothetically exemplifies the use of these systems at the Viñarock music festival held annually in Albacete.

This type of system consists of cameras connected to the Internet which in turn are linked to the databases of the state security forces with which they compare the images captured

"It is envisaged that the innovative solution can be based, in a general way, on an innovative and intelligent technological system consisting of the following components: License plate recognition system (...), mobile phone detection system, (...) and a people recognition system (e.g. facial recognition system), to be installed at the access control point itself at the entrance to the event. Its purpose is to provide the agents who control access to the event with alerts to stop people with pending issues with the justice system," the agreement details.

This type of system is composed of cameras connected to the Internet which in turn are linked to the databases of the State Security Forces and Corps. In a matter of seconds, they are able to analyze the faces of those attending an event and compare their facial features with the images in the database of those with pending cases with the justice system. It is a system that has already been used in several countries, such as China or the United Kingdom.

The system proposed by Interior also provides for the location of valuable objects (mobile phones, wallets, etc.) stolen from those attending the event. "It is envisaged that the innovative solution can be based, in a general way, on a technological system formed by low-cost ("decoy") and, if possible, reusable marking elements installed on the valuables susceptible to theft (mobile phones, wallets, etc.), as well as a system for detecting the marking elements to be installed at the exit points of the event. Its purpose is to provide agents controlling the event's exit points with alerts to stop people carrying such decoys whose theft has been reported during the event".

The document also explains that the solutions proposed must comply with the General Data Protection Regulations (RGPD), the Directive that ensures the proper treatment of data of all Europeans - it is a rule of compulsory transposition to the Spanish legal framework.
Drones against poaching and fire

This agreement has not been the only one published these days to modernize the systems of citizen protection. The Guardia Civil also wants to make a technological turnaround to its platforms to combat poaching, fires and illegal dumping of waste into river areas.

In this sense, it divides the demands into three areas. The first of these, which has to do with hunting and poaching activities, states that "the innovative solution should be based primarily on the individual or joint use of any of the following technologies: networks of sensors/cameras deployed in land positions in the operating environment; unmanned aerial vehicles with different types of sensors/cameras on board and mobile phone detectors (based on IMSI-catcher) in order to obtain identification information from the mobile phone that passes through the detection point", explains the agreement.

The system, referred to as IMSI-catcher, is defined in Wikipedia as a mobile subscriber international identity receiver, "a telephone listening device used to intercept mobile phone traffic and track the location data of mobile phone users.


#spain #police #gov #why #cam #facial #recognition #shows

BTDig

dhtcrawler is a DHT crawler written in erlang. It can join a DHT network and crawl many P2P torrents. The program save all torrent info into database and provide an http interface to search a torrent by a keyword

Source code: https://github.com/btdig/dhtcrawler2
Tor: btdiggwzoyrwwbiv.onion
Clearnet: https://btdig.com

#p2p #torrent #DHT

Slack Accuses Microsoft of Illegally Crushing Competition

The complaint, filed in Europe, threatens Microsoft’s recent ability to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

Microsoft is undeniably one of the Big Tech elite, given its size, wealth and stock market value. But the software giant has stood apart from Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple in one important respect: Microsoft, once the bully of the tech world, has escaped antitrust scrutiny so far.

Now Slack Technologies, whose popular chat and collaboration software has become embedded in the daily routines of millions of workers at thousands of companies, is hoping to change that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/technology/slack-microsoft-antitrust.html

#europe #microsoft #antitrust

Vodacom partners with China's Alipay to create 'super app' in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Vodacom Group (VODJ.J) plans to create a ‘super app’ in partnership with digital payment provider Alipay, part of China’s Alibaba group (BABA.N), to allow consumers in South Africa to shop online, pay bills and send money to family from next year.

The app will also help small to medium enterprises (SME) access financial services such as lending and insurance, the two companies said in a joint statement on Monday.

Vodacom and other mobile operators in South Africa are seeking to expand their mobile payment apps into online market places to leverage their network and customer base.

They are also looking to tap more than 11 million South Africans who do not have bank accounts, to offer lending and other financial services.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vodacom-grp-alipay-safrica/vodacom-partners-with-chinas-alipay-to-create-super-app-in-south-africa-idUSKCN24L1LY

#africa #southafrica #vodafone #alipay

Brazil will authorize payments system involving WhatsApp if rules are respected, central bank director says

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil’s central bank will authorize a payments system involving Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) WhatsApp messaging service, to send money and make payments via chats, as long as all rules are respected, director Joao Manoel Pinho de Mello said on Monday.

“We view the entry of ‘big tech’ as a huge opportunity. Everyone can participate. We will allow it, no problem. People can take whatever path they want, (do) whatever initiatives they want,” as long as rules and regulations are met, he said during a live online event hosted by Genial Investimentos.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-whatsapp/brazil-will-authorize-payments-system-involving-whatsapp-if-rules-are-respected-central-bank-director-says-idUSKCN24L2JD

#brazil #whatsapp

College recruitment database leaking nearly 1 million students’ GPAs, SAT scores, IDs, and other personal data

We recently discovered an unsecured Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) bucket, or database, containing nearly 1 million records of sensitive high school student academic information.

Included in this unsecured bucket are GPA scores, ACT, SAT, and PSAT scores, unofficial transcripts, student IDs, and students’ and parents’ names, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers and more.

The unsecured bucket seems to belong to CaptainU, an online platform that purports to help connect student athletes and colleges or universities that are interested in recruiting them for their athletic programs. Because of that, the bucket also contains pictures and videos of students’ athletic achievements, messages from students to coaches, and other recruitment materials.

https://cybernews.com/security/college-recruitment-database-leaking-nearly-1-million-students-gpas-sat-scores-ids-and-other-personal-data/

#us #school #privacy #students

Image "Cloaking" for Personal Privacy

2020 is a watershed year for machine learning. It has seen the true arrival of commodized machine learning, where deep learning models and algorithms are readily available to Internet users. GPUs are cheaper and more readily available than ever, and new training methods like transfer learning have made it possible to train powerful deep learning models using smaller sets of data.

But accessible machine learning also has its downsides as well. A recent New York Times article by Kashmir Hill profiled clearview.ai, an unregulated facial recognition service that has now downloaded over 3 billion photos of people from the Internet and social media, using them to build facial recognition models for millions of citizens without their knowledge or permission. Clearview.ai demonstrates just how easy it is to build invasive tools for monitoring and tracking using deep learning.

So how do we protect ourselves against unauthorized third parties building facial recognition models to recognize us wherever we may go? Regulations can and will help restrict usage of machine learning by public companies, but will have negligible impact on private organizations, individuals, or even other nation states with similar goals.

The SAND Lab at University of Chicago has developed Fawkes1, an algorithm and software tool (running locally on your computer) that gives individuals the ability to limit how their own images can be used to track them. At a high level, Fawkes takes your personal images, and makes tiny, pixel-level changes to them that are invisible to the human eye, in a process we call image cloaking. You can then use these "cloaked" photos as you normally would, sharing them on social media, sending them to friends, printing them or displaying them on digital devices, the same way you would any other photo. The difference, however, is that if and when someone tries to use these photos to build a facial recognition model, "cloaked" images will teach the model an highly distorted version of what makes you look like you. The cloak effect is not easily detectable, and will not cause errors in model training. However, when someone tries to identify you using an unaltered image of you (e.g. a photo taken in public), and tries to identify you, they will fail.

👀 👉🏼 http://sandlab.cs.uchicago.edu/fawkes/

#Fawkes #image #cloaking #facialrecognition #privacy
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📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
📡@NoGoolag

How to check your device for Stalkerware

Stalkerware is an monitoring software OR somewhat spyware that is used for stalking. These softwares mostly keep hidden on devices, but it sends a lot of detailed information to its controller/owner that maybe your prying boss or an paranoid partner.

📖 Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-check-for-stalkerware/

📡 @howtobeprivateonline
#DataBreach #Spyware

CouchSurfing investigates data breach after 17m user records appear on hacking forum.

EXCLUSIVE: CouchSurfing working with law enforcement and security firm to investigate incident.

CouchSurfing, an online service that lets users find free lodgings, is investigating a security breach after hackers began selling the details of 17 million users on Telegram channels and hacking forums.

The CouchSurfing data is currently being sold for $700, ZDNet has learned from a data broker, a person who buys and sells hacked data for profit on the hacking underground.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/couchsurfing-investigates-data-breach-after-17m-user-records-appear-on-hacking-forum/

📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
📡@NoGoolag

China to crack down on handling of data under new law

Beijing will also put foreign companies under its scope

BEIJING -- Businesses, including foreign ones, that collect and use data in ways that "harm national security or the public interest" would face hefty fines under new legislation drafted by Beijing amid its escalating tech clash with Washington.

The Data Security Law is China's first comprehensive legislation governing the handling of information, extending its oversight beyond state secrets and military intelligence to everyday data.

But if the government clamps down on data usage without clarifying what activities the legislation actually covers, it risks hampering businesses in an era when judicious use of data is vital for competitiveness.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/China-to-crack-down-on-handling-of-data-under-new-law

#asia #china #surveillance #privacy

WhatsApp is starting lending and insurance with a number of users that Paytm, PhonePe and Amazon took years to build

📝 WhatsApp is driving its financial inclusion push in India as it has announced its foray into lending, micro-insurance, and micro-pension products.
📝 The financial services plans could give the instant messaging app over 200 million new users, adding to its existing 400 million user base in India.
📝 But with the move, WhatsApp becomes a direct competitor to the existing players in India – Paytm (backed by Alibaba and SoftBank), PhonePe (backed by Walmart) as well as Amazon Pay.

https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/news/whatsapp-is-starting-lending-and-insurance-with-a-number-of-users-that-paytm-phonepe-and-amazon-took-years-to-build/articleshow/77124146.cms

#asia #india #whatsapp

AT&T criticized for startling “buy a new phone or lose service” warning

This week AT&T started sending out emails about how users will need a new smartphone if they want to continue “receiving service.” AT&T’s message does not suggest that users will lose service instantly – but they DO suggest that some users will NEED to upgrade to a new phone if they plan on continuing to get phone calls by the time the countdown is done.

An update email from AT&T suggested that they’re upgrading their network “to use the latest technologies.” AT&T continues, saying “these updates are to serve you better and bring faster speeds and greater reliability.”

If you’re the sort of person who generally refuses to upgrade to a new phone unless your old phone is completely non-functional, you might not be happy with this news. The good news is that there is a bit of time before your phone will stop working with AT&T’s network.

In the message from AT&T, an AT&T representative linked to an AT&T support page which detailed the phasing out of AT&T’s 3G network by 2022. According to AT&T, you’ll need a new phone by February of the year 2022.*

https://www.slashgear.com/att-update-needed-buy-a-new-phone-or-lose-service-22630223/

#us #att

OnePlus accidentally leaks emails of hundreds of customers in an research email.

👀 👉🏼 https://twitter.com/itsRith/status/1286399727572000769

#oneplus #leak
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Malaysians may pay US$11,700 for license to upload videos on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook

If you've been considering creating a YouTube channel to talk about your favorite movies and games or setting up a Facebook page for your cooking videos, great!

If you're Malaysian, you might want to think twice.

Apparently, there's an absurd law that requires you to obtain a license from Malaysia's National Film Development Corporation (Finas) to upload any video content online.

“Film producers must apply for Film Production License and Film Shooting Certificate (SPP) regardless of whether they are mainstream media agencies or personal media which produce films on social media platforms or traditional channels,” Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said on July 23, 2020.

https://sea.mashable.com/culture/11654/malaysians-must-pay-us11700-for-license-to-upload-videos-on-tiktok-youtube-and-facebook

#asia #malaysia

Apollo 11 'disaster' video project highlights growing danger of deepfake tech

Nixon's speech is the centerpiece of a "complete deepfake" — one that includes manipulated audio and video.

"Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace."

So begins President Richard Nixon's televised address to the nation 51 years ago, given just after the historic lunar touchdown attempt of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin went tragically awry.

"In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood," Nixon went on. "Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts."

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/apollo-11-disaster-video-project-highlights-growing-danger-deepfake-tech-n1234338

#deepfake