Group items tagged

""The fact is that an interconnected ecosystem of companies and data brokers, of purveyors of fake news and peddlers of division, of trackers and hucksters just looking to make a quick buck, is more present in our lives than it has ever been," he said. "Technology does not need vast troves of personal data, stitched together across dozens of websites and apps, in order to succeed.""

"The Singapore government says the wearable device it is developing for COVID-19 contact tracing will not have GPS, internet, or cellular connectivity, so data it collects can only be extracted when it is physically handed over to a health official. These details are being offered up as the government looks to ease concerns about data privacy and drive the adoption of digital tools that can help speed up contact tracing. "

"A chat app that quickly became popular in the United Arab Emirates for communicating with friends and family is actually a spying tool used by the government to track its users, according to a New York Times report."

"Creepy grabs all this geo-location data and puts pins on a map for you. Most of the time, you probably remember to get the privacy settings right. But if you get it wrong just once - maybe the first time you used a new app, maybe before your friend showed you how to change the settings - Creepy will find it, and your home is marked on a map"

"We are talking about vast fields of aggregate data, the scale of which is difficult to comprehend; this data can be parsed by the artificial intelligence recommendation algorithms that Google has pioneered, and that now steer everything from employment application processes to dating apps."

"But the default settings of the service are configured in the expectation of trust between participants, meaning trolls can wreak havoc. Some zoombombers have used the screensharing feature to broadcast pornography and violent imagery. "

"We all fear our smartphones spy on us, and I'm subject to a new type of surveillance. An app called TapCounter records each time I touch my phone's screen. My swipes and jabs are averaging about 1,000 a day, though I notice that's falling as I steer shy of social media to meet my deadline. The European company behind it, QuantActions, promises that through capturing and analysing the data it will be able to "detect important indicators related to mental/neurological health"."

"Surrendering our privacy to the government would be foolish enough. But what is more insidious is the Faustian bargain made with the marketing industry, which turns every location ping into currency as it is bought and sold in the marketplace of surveillance advertising. Now, one year later, we're in a very similar position. But it's far worse. A source has provided another data set, this time following the smartphones of thousands of Trump supporters, rioters and passers-by in Washington, D.C., on January 6, as Donald Trump's political rally turned into a violent insurrection. At least five people died because of the riot at the Capitol. Key to bringing the mob to justice has been the event's digital detritus: location data, geotagged photos, facial recognition, surveillance cameras and crowdsourcing."

"There are clear indications that the UK government is now actively considering use of the technology as a way of easing the lockdown. If this signals an outbreak in Whitehall of tech "solutionism" - the belief that for every problem there is a technological answer - then we should be concerned. Tech solutions often do as much harm as good, for example, by increasing social exclusion, lacking accountability and failing to make real inroads into the problem they are supposedly addressing."

"If reelected, British Prime Minister David Cameron would consider banning messaging apps like Snapchat and WhatsApp, if they don't make their data available to intelligence agencies, he said Monday."

"So, are you on Clubhouse, the social-media sensation du jour? No? Me neither. But - I hasten to add, lest there should be any doubt about my social status - that's not because I wasn't invited to join. A generous friend had a few invitations to extend, and she offered me one. After that, she had an attack of what one can only describe as donor's remorse, because in order to be able to extend the invitation to me she had to grant Clubhouse access to all her contacts!"

"So when I discovered the pocket of Instagram where you can find out what it thinks you're interested in (on the app, you'll find it under Settings> Security> Access data > Ads), I obviously felt it my duty as a netizen to see what dark insights it had into my private soul. Here goes: jewellery; luxury goods; electronic music; love; emotions; fashion design; crafts. I mean: no offence, Kraftwerk (and loved ones) but I could not name eight things I am less interested in. Maybe oxbow lakes."

"The verdict against Haneen Hossam, Mowada al-Adham and three others came after they had posted footage on the video-sharing app TikTok. The ruling, which can be appealed, included a fine of 300,000 Egyptian pounds (£14,600) for each defendant."

"Disappearing messages is a feature offered by apps like Signal and WhatsApp, giving users the option to have conversations that self-destruct. They're not the only platforms that have tapped into the allure of digital ephemerality. The very premise of Snapchat is that content is only viewable for a short window; Instagram stories similarly vanish after 24 hours. Those who are chronically online may remember the last day of X's own foray into expiring content called "fleets", when countless users threw whatever remaining posting-caution they had to the wind to share revealing, horny or outright unhinged posts for one final hurrah before the feature itself vanished. I can't tell you what people posted or link you to evidence of this because, well, it's gone."

"Three software flaws in Facebook's systems allowed hackers to break into user accounts, including those of the top executives Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, according to two people familiar with the investigation but not allowed to discuss it publicly. Once in, the attackers could have gained access to apps like Spotify, Instagram and hundreds of others that give users a way to log into their systems through Facebook."

"As of this summer, though, Sift does have a file on you, which it can produce upon request. I got mine, and I found it shocking: More than 400 pages long, it contained all the messages I'd ever sent to hosts on Airbnb; years of Yelp delivery orders; a log of every time I'd opened the Coinbase app on my iPhone. Many entries included detailed information about the device I used to do these things, including my IP address at the time."

"Up to 10 million Android smartphones have been infected by malware that generates fake clicks for adverts, say security researchers. The software is also surreptitiously installing apps and spying on the browsing habits of victims. The malware is currently making about $300,000 (£232,000) a month for its creators, suggests research."