the intensifying cross-overs between the use of drones to deploy lethal force in the war zones of Asia and the Middle East, and their introduction within western airspace, need to be stressed. The European Defence Agency, for example, a body funded by the UK and other European governments, is lobbying hard to support the widespread diffusion of drones within UK and EU policing and security as a means to bolster the existing strengths of European security corporations like BAE systems, EADS and Thales within booming global markets for armed and military drones. The global market for drones is by far the most dynamic sector in the global airline industry. The current annual market of $2.7 billion is predicted to reach $8.3 billion by 2020 and $55 billion is likely to be spent on drones in the next decade. A specific concern of the EU is that European defense and security corporations are failing to stake claims within booming global drone markets whilst US and Israeli companies clean up.
From Helmand to Merseyside: Unmanned drones and the militarisation of UK policing | ope... - 0 views
-
-
what scholars of surveillance term ‘function-creep’ is likely to be a key feature of drone deployments
-
it is startling that the main concern so far in public policy debates about the introduction of military-standard surveillance drones into routine police practice in Western countries has surrounded the (very real) dangers of collision with other aircraft.
- ...1 more annotation...
British Art Robots | Beyond The Beyond - 0 views
A woman first wrote the prescient ideas Huxley and Orwell made famous - Quartzy - 1 views
-
In 1919, a British writer named Rose Macaulay published What Not, a novel about a dystopian future—a brave new world if you will—where people are ranked by intelligence, the government mandates mind training for all citizens, and procreation is regulated by the state.You’ve probably never heard of Macaulay or What Not. However, Aldous Huxley, author of the science fiction classic Brave New World, hung out in the same London literary circles as her and his 1932 book contains many concepts that Macaulay first introduced in her work. In 2019, you’ll be able to read Macaulay’s book yourself and compare the texts as the British publisher Handheld Press is planning to re- release the forgotten novel in March. It’s been out of print since the year it was first released.
-
The resurfacing of What Not also makes this a prime time to consider another work that influenced Huxley’s Brave New World, the 1923 novel We by Yvgeny Zamyatin. What Not and We are lost classics about a future that foreshadows our present. Notably, they are also hidden influences on some of the most significant works of 20th century fiction, Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984.
-
In Macaulay’s book—which is a hoot and well worth reading—a democratically elected British government has been replaced with a “United Council, five minds with but a single thought—if that,” as she put it. Huxley’s Brave New World is run by a similarly small group of elites known as “World Controllers.”
- ...12 more annotations...
Nine million logs of Brits' road journeys spill onto the internet from password-less nu... - 0 views
-
In a blunder described as "astonishing and worrying," Sheffield City Council's automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) system exposed to the internet 8.6 million records of road journeys made by thousands of people
-
The Register learned of the unprotected dashboard from infosec expert and author Chris Kubecka, working with freelance writer Gerard Janssen, who stumbled across it using search engine Censys.io. She said: "Was the public ever told the system would be in place and that the risks were reasonable? Was there an opportunity for public discourse – or, like in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, were the plans in a planning office at an impossible or undisclosed location?"
-
The dashboard was taken offline within a few hours of The Register alerting officials. Sheffield City Council and South Yorkshire Police added: "As soon as this was brought to our attention we took action to deal with the immediate risk and ensure the information was no longer viewable externally. Both Sheffield City Council and South Yorkshire Police have also notified the Information Commissioner's Office. We will continue to investigate how this happened and do everything we can to ensure it will not happen again."
Narrative Napalm | Noah Kulwin - 0 views
-
there are books whose fusion of factual inaccuracy and moral sophistry is so total that they can only be written by Malcolm Gladwell
-
Malcolm Gladwell’s decades-long shtick has been to launder contrarian thought and corporate banalities through his positions as a staff writer at The New Yorker and author at Little, Brown and Company. These insitutitions’ disciplining effect on Gladwell’s prose, getting his rambling mind to conform to clipped sentences and staccato revelations, has belied his sly maliciousness and explosive vacuity: the two primary qualities of Gladwell’s oeuvre.
-
as is typical with Gladwell’s books and with many historical podcasts, interrogation of the actual historical record and the genuine moral dilemmas it poses—not the low-stakes bait that he trots out as an MBA case study in War—is subordinated to fluffy bullshit and biographical color
- ...13 more annotations...
Lack of Transparency over Police Forces' Covert Use of Predictive Policing Software Rai... - 0 views
-
Currently, through the use of blanket exemption clauses – and without any clear legislative oversight – public access to information on systems that may be being used to surveil them remains opaque. Companies including Palantir, NSO Group, QuaDream, Dark Matter and Gamma Group are all exempt from disclosure under the precedent set by the police, along with another entity, Dataminr.
-
has helped police in the US monitor and break up Black Lives Matter and Muslim rights activism through social media monitoring. Dataminr software has also been used by the Ministry of Defence, Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, and the Cabinet Office,
-
New research shows that, far from being a ‘neutral’ observational tool, Dataminr produces results that reflect its clients’ politics, business goals and ways of operating.
- ...3 more annotations...
1 - 9 of 9
Showing 20▼ items per page