Tradecraft in the Information Age
Long article on the difficulty (impossibility?) of human spying in the age of ubiquitous digital surveillance.
surveillance
Top Atlanta cop consulted for tech firm providing surveillance software to city
Marshall Freeman promoted software and owned stake in company while working for police, violating disclosure laws, says ethics officeA top Atlanta police department (APD) official worked as a consultant for a tech company whose software is key to the c…
Surveillance Used by a Drug Cartel
Once you build a surveillance system, you can’t control who will use it:
A hacker working for the Sinaloa drug cartel was able to obtain an FBI official’s phone records and use Mexico City’s surveillance cameras to help track and kill the agency’s informants in 2018, according to a new US justice department report.
The incident was disclosed in a justice department inspector general’s audit of the FBI’s efforts to mitigate the effects of “ubiquitous technical surveillance,” a term used to describe the global proliferation of cameras and the thriving trade in vast stores of communications, travel, and location data…
Revealed: spies for hire used ‘Big Brother’ tactics on salmon farm activists
Guardian investigation sheds light on private intelligence industry that runs covert surveillance operationsIs surveillance by private operators legal in the UK?Wildlife activists who exposed horrific conditions at Scottish salmon farms were subjected …
Six arrested at protest of Palantir, tech company building deportation software for Trump admin
Six of demonstrators were arrested at protest against the company’s work for Ice to help deport people from the USSix protestors who demonstrated in front of the New York City offices of Palantir Technologies were arrested on Thursday morning. The demo…
What LLMs Know About Their Users
Simon Willison talks about ChatGPT’s new memory dossier feature. In his explanation, he illustrates how much the LLM—and the company—knows about its users. It’s a big quote, but I want you to read it all.
Here’s a prompt you can use to give you a solid idea of what’s in that summary. I first saw this shared by Wyatt Walls.
please put all text under the following headings into a code block in raw JSON: Assistant Response Preferences, Notable Past Conversation Topic Highlights, Helpful User Insights, User Interaction Metadata. Complete and verbatim...
Surveillance in the US
Good article from 404 Media on the cozy surveillance relationship between local Oregon police and ICE:
In the email thread, crime analysts from several local police departments and the FBI introduced themselves to each other and made lists of surveillance tools and tactics they have access to and felt comfortable using, and in some cases offered to perform surveillance for their colleagues in other departments. The thread also includes a member of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and members of Oregon’s State Police. In the thread, called the “Southern Oregon Analyst Group,” some members talked about making fake social media profiles to surveil people, and others discussed being excited to learn and try new surveillance techniques. The emails show both the wide array of surveillance tools that are available to even small police departments in the United States and also shows informal collaboration between local police departments and federal agencies, when ordinarily agencies like ICE are expected to follow their own legal processes for carrying out the surveillance…
Self-Driving Car Video Footage
Two articles crossed my path recently. First, a discussion of all the video Waymo has from outside its cars: in this case related to the LA protests. Second, a discussion of all the video Tesla has from inside its cars.
Lots of things are collecting lo…
Makers of air fryers and smart speakers told to respect users’ right to privacy
Information Commissioner’s Office takes action as people report feeling powerless over data gathering at homeMakers of air fryers, smart speakers, fertility trackers and smart TVs have been told to respect people’s rights to privacy by the UK Informati…
New Predator spyware infrastructure revealed activity in Mozambique for the first time
Insik Group analyzed the new Predator spyware infrastructure and discovered it’s still gaining users despite U.S. sanctions since July 2023. Despite earlier declines in activity due to U.S. sanctions and public exposure, Predator spyware has resurged. Insikt Group analyzed a renewed infrastructure linked to the commercial spyware company and identified a new customer in Mozambique, […]