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dr tech

Amazon's Ring is the largest civilian surveillance network the US has ever seen | Laure... - 1 views

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    "Ring is effectively building the largest corporate-owned, civilian-installed surveillance network that the US has ever seen. An estimated 400,000 Ring devices were sold in December 2019 alone, and that was before the across-the-board boom in online retail sales during the pandemic. Amazon is cagey about how many Ring cameras are active at any one point in time, but estimates drawn from Amazon's sales data place yearly sales in the hundreds of millions. The always-on video surveillance network extends even further when you consider the millions of users on Ring's affiliated crime reporting app, Neighbors, which allows people to upload content from Ring and non-Ring devices."
dr tech

ExpressVPN's Research on Phone Location Tracking | ExpressVPN - 0 views

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    "In these cases, we call the SDKs "trackers" or "tracker SDKs." We follow the lead of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, and other digital rights organizations and use the term broadly: "Trackers" encompasses traditional advertisement surveillance, behavioral, and location monitoring. Legitimate uses may include user feedback mechanisms, telemetry, and crash reporters. App developers have decided to include tracker SDKs in apps for a variety of reasons, and we do not categorize all usage of trackers as malicious or condemn the app authors. Additionally, given the complexity and pace of software development, some developers may not be aware that trackers are in their app or may not know the full implications of bundling such code before publishing."
dr tech

The Trump 2020 app is a voter surveillance tool of extraordinary power | MIT Technology... - 0 views

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    "Data collection-as Parscale's comment suggested-is perhaps the most powerful thing the Trump 2020 app does. On signing up, users are required to provide a phone number for a verification code, as well as their full name, email address, and zip code. They are also highly encouraged to share the app with their existing contacts. This is part of a campaign strategy for reaching the 40 to 50 million citizens expected to vote for Trump's reelection: to put it bluntly, the campaign says it intends to collect every single one of these voters' cell-phone numbers. This strategy means the app also makes extensive permission requests, asking for access to location data, phone identity, and control over the handset's Bluetooth function."
dr tech

Amazon's driver monitoring app is an invasive nightmare - 0 views

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    "Mentor is made by eDriving, which describes the app on its website as a "smartphone-based solution that collects and analyzes driver behaviors most predictive of crash risk and helps remediate risky behavior by providing engaging, interactive micro-training modules delivered directly to the driver in the smartphone app." But CNBC talked to drivers who said the app mostly invades their privacy or miscalculates dangerous driving behavior. One driver said even though he didn't answer a ringing phone, the app docked points for using a phone while driving. Another worker was flagged for distracted driving at every delivery stop she made. The incorrect tracking has real consequences. ranging from restricted payouts and bonuses to job loss. "
dr tech

Amazon and the Rise of 'Luxury Surveillance' - The Atlantic - 0 views

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    "It would be a bit glib-and more than a little clichéd-to call this some kind of technological dystopia. Actually, dystopia wouldn't be right, exactly: Dystopian fiction is generally speculative, whereas all of these items and services are real. At the end of September, Amazon announced a suite of tech products in its move toward "ambient intelligence," which Amazon's hardware chief, Dave Limp, described as technology and devices that slip into the background but are "always there," collecting information and taking action against it. This intense devotion to tracking and quantifying all aspects of our waking and non-waking hours is nothing new-see the Apple Watch, the Fitbit, social media writ large, and the smartphone in your pocket-but Amazon has been unusually explicit about its plans. The Everything Store is becoming an Everything Tracker, collecting and leveraging large amounts of personal data related to entertainment, fitness, health, and, it claims, security. It's surveillance that millions of customers are opting in to."
dr tech

To Avoid Government Surveillance, South Koreans Abandon Local Software And Flock To Ger... - 0 views

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    "A story on the site of the Japanese broadcaster NHK shows how this is playing out in the world of social networks. Online criticism of the behavior of the President of South Korea following the sinking of the ferry MV Sewol prompted the government to set up a team to monitor online activity. That, in its turn, has led people to seek what the NHK article calls "cyber-asylum" -- online safety through the use of foreign mobile messaging services, which aren't spied on so easily by the South Korean authorities. According to the NHK article: Many users have switched [from the hugely-popular home-grown product KakaoTalk] to a German chat app called Telegram. It had 50,000 users in early September. Now 2 million people have signed up."
dr tech

Opinion | They Stormed the Capitol. Their Apps Tracked Them. - The New York Times - 0 views

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    "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."
dr tech

Facial recognition app matches strangers to online profiles | Crave - CNET - 0 views

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    "Intentions aside, the app seems to cross some pretty serious privacy boundaries. Generally speaking, people like to choose who they identify themselves to, and having your online information freely available to anyone who sees you in public seems an uncomfortable prospect. Google seems to think so, too; the Web giant does not currently allow facial recognition apps on the MyGlass app store. "
dr tech

Contact tracing apps unsafe if Bluetooth vulnerabilities not fixed | ZDNet - 0 views

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    "As more governments turn to contact tracing apps to aid in their efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, cybersecurity experts are warning this may spark renewed interest in Bluetooth attacks. They urge developers to ensure such apps are regularly tested for vulnerabilities and release patches swiftly to plug potential holes, while governments should provide assurance that their databases are secure and the data collected will not be used for purposes other than as originally intended. "
dr tech

Chinese border guards put secret surveillance app on tourists' phones | World news | Th... - 0 views

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    "The Chinese government has curbed freedoms in the province for the local Muslim population, installing facial recognition cameras on streets and in mosques and reportedly forcing residents to download software that searches their phones."
dr tech

The dawn of tappigraphy: does your smartphone know how you feel before you do? | Smartp... - 0 views

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    "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"."
dr tech

We must start preparing the US workforce for the effects of AI - now | Steven Greenhous... - 0 views

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    "At Amazon, some warehouse and delivery drivers complain that AI-driven bots have fired them without any human intervention whatsoever. At some companies, surveillance apps track how much time workers spend in trips to the bathroom, with some workers protesting that the time limits are too strict."
dr tech

Mandatory Student Spyware Is Creating a Perfect Storm of Human Rights Abuses | Electron... - 0 views

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    "Spyware apps were foisted on students at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Today, long after most students have returned to in-person learning, those apps are still proliferating, and enabling an ever-expanding range of human rights abuses. In a recent Center for Democracy and Technology report, 81 percent of teachers said their schools use some form of this "student monitoring" spyware. Yet many of the spyware companies supplying these apps seem neither prepared nor concerned about the harms they are inflicting on students. "
dr tech

How a global health crisis turns into a state-run surveillance opportunity | John Naugh... - 0 views

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    "But an analysis of the app's code found that it does more than decide in real time whether someone poses a contagion risk; it also shares information with the police, setting "a template for new forms of automated social control that could persist long after the epidemic subsides"."
dr tech

Investors used Clearview AI app as a personal toy for spying on public / Boing Boing - 0 views

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    "Investors and clients of the facial recognition start-up with ties to the extreme right used an early version of the Clearview AI app on dates and at parties - "and to spy on the public.""
dr tech

Coronavirus: Singapore develops smartphone app for efficient contact tracing, Singapore... - 0 views

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    "Dubbed TraceTogether, the app is able to identify people who have been in close proximity - within 2m for at least 30 minutes - to coronavirus patients using wireless Bluetooth technology, said its developers, the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and the Ministry of Health (MOH), on Friday (March 20)."
dr tech

Hong Kong set to implement a China-style health code and contact-tracing app ... - 0 views

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    "However, the new government under the newly inaugurated Chief Executive John Lee is changing these policies and requiring real-name registration in the app, which some are concerned may pose a privacy threat. The city will also adopt a health code system similar to the one used in mainland China in a bid to curb the latest COVID spike."
dr tech

Welcome to dystopia: getting fired from your job as an Amazon worker by an app | Jessa ... - 0 views

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    "Instead, the robots are here not to replace this lower tier of underpaid and undervalued work. They are here to smugly sit in the middle, monitoring and surveilling us, hiring and firing us. Amazon has recently replaced its middle management and human resources workers with artificial intelligence to determine when a worker has outlived their usefulness and needs to be let go. There is no human to appeal to, no negotiating with a bot. "
dr tech

Popular chat app ToTok is actually a spying tool of UAE government - report |... - 0 views

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    "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."
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