- The algorithms that make lethal decisions about your life
- Thousands of companies are spying on you to try to change your politics, votes, culture and education
- When you log into ANY device, you give it permission to manipulate your life
Thousands of students in England are angry about the controversial use of an algorithm to determine this year's GCSE and A-level results.
They were unable to sit exams because of lockdown, so the algorithm used data about schools' results in previous years to determine grades.
It meant about 40% of this year's A-level results came out lower than predicted, which has a huge impact on what students are able to do next. GCSE results are due out on Thursday.
There are many examples of algorithms making big decisions about our lives, without us necessarily knowing how or when they do it.
Here's a look at some of them.
In many ways, social-media platforms are simply giant algorithms.
At their heart, they work out what you're interested in and then give you more of it - using as many data points as they can get their hands on.
Every "like", watch, click is stored. Most apps also glean more data from your web-browsing habits or geographical data. The idea is to predict the content you want and keep you scrolling - and it works.
And those same algorithms that know you enjoy a cute-cat video are also deployed to sell you stuff.
All the data social-media companies collect about you can also tailor ads to you in an incredibly accurate way.
But these algorithms can go seriously wrong. They have been proved to push people towards hateful and extremist content. Extreme content simply does better than nuance on social media. And algorithms know that.
Facebook's own civil-rights audit called for the company to do everything in its power to prevent its algorithm from "driving people toward self-reinforcing echo chambers of extremism".
And last month we reported on how algorithms on online retail sites - designed to work out what you want to buy - were pushing racist and hateful products.
Whether it's house, car, health or any other form of insurance, your insurer has to somehow assess the chances of something actually going wrong.
In many ways, the insurance industry pioneered using data about the past to determine future outcomes - that's the basis of the whole sector, according to Timandra Harkness, author of Big Data: Does Size Matter.
Getting a computer to do it was always going to be the logical next step.
"Algorithms can affect your life very much and yet you as an individual don't necessarily get a lot of input," she says.
"We all know if you move to a different postcode, your insurance goes up or down.
"That's not because of you, it's because other people have been more or less likely to have been victims of crime, or had accidents or whatever."
Innovations such as the "black box" that can be installed in a car to monitor how an individual drives have helped to lower the cost of car insurance for careful drivers who find themselves in a high-risk group.
Might we see more personally tailored insurance quotes as algorithms learn more about our own circumstances?
"Ultimately the point of insurance is to share the risk - so everybody puts [money] in and the people who need it take it out," Timandra says.
"We live in an unfair world, so any model you make is going to be unfair in one way or another."
Artificial Intelligence is making great leaps in being able to diagnose various conditions and even suggest treatment paths.
A study published in January 2020 suggested an algorithm performed better than human doctors when it came to identifying breast cancer from mammograms.
And other successes include:
However, all this requires a vast amount of patient data to train the programmes - and that is, frankly, a rather large can of worms.
In 2017, the UK Information Commission ruled the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust had not done enough to safeguard patient data when it had shared 1.6 million patient records with Google's AI division, DeepMind.
"There's a fine line between finding exciting new ways to improve care and moving ahead of patients' expectations," said DeepMind's co-founder Mustafa Suleyman at the time.
Big data and machine learning have the potential to revolutionise policing.
In theory, algorithms have the power to deliver on the sci-fi promise of "predictive policing" - using data, such as where crime has happened in the past, when and by whom, to predict where to allocate police resources.
But that method can create algorithmic bias - and even algorithmic racism.
"It's the same situation as you have with the exam grades," says Areeq Chowdhury, from technology think tank WebRoots Democracy.
"Why are you judging one individual based on what other people have historically done? The same communities are always over-represented".
Earlier this year, the defence and security think tank RUSI published a report into algorithmic policing.
It raised concerns about the lack of national guidelines or impact assessments. It also called for more research into how these algorithms might exacerbate racism.
Facial recognition too - used by police forces in the UK including the Met - has also been criticised.
For example, there have been concerns about whether the data going into facial-recognition technology can make the algorithm racist.
The charge is facial-recognition cameras are more accurate at identifying white faces - because they have more data on white faces.
"The question is, are you testing it on a diverse enough demographic of people?" Areeq says.
"What you don't want is a situation where some groups are being misidentified as a criminal because of the algorithm."
PERSONAL INTERNET SECURITY – PART 1
Validation Note: University, Federal, Forensic Researcher and Journalism sources provided in the links below, prove every assertion in this report many times over. A simple web-search by any college-educated person, on the top 5 search engines, can turn up hundreds of additional credible, verifying sources. Expert jury trial and Congressional hearing witnesses have proven these facts over and over.
You probably can't imagine the second-by-second dangers and harms that modern electronics, like your phone and tablet, are causing to your life, your income, your privacy, your beliefs, your human rights, your bank account records, your political data, your job, your brand name, your medical data, your dating life, your reputation and other crucial parts of your life.
Any use of a dating site, Google or Facebook product, social media site, movie site, or anything that you log in to, puts you at substantial risk. Remember: "if it has a plug, it has a bug" . Every electronic device can be easily made to spy on you in ways you cannot possibly imagine.
The Take-Aways:
- Stalkers can find you by zooming in on your pupil reflection images
in your online photos ( https://www.kurzweilai.net/reflected-hidden-faces-in-photographs-revealed-in-pupil
)
- If you send email overseas or make phone calls overseas all of your
communications, and those with anybody else, are NSA monitored ( https://www.privacytools.io/
)
- Bad guys take a single online photo of you and put it in software that
instantly builds a dossier on you by finding where every other photo of
you is that has ever been posted online ( https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/apples-use-face-recognition-new-iphone
)
- Face-tracking software for stalking you on Match.com and OK Cupid is
more effective than even FBI software for hunting bank robbers ( https://www.cnet.com/news/clearview-app-lets-strangers-find-your-name-info-with-snap-of-a-photo-report-says/
)
- Any glass, metal or ceramic object near you can be reflecting your
voice or image to digital beam scanners that can relay your voice or
image anywhere in the world
- All your data from any hotel you stay at will eventually be hacked and
leaked ( Info
of
10 MILLION MGM guests including Justin Bieber and TWITTER
CEO leaked online! )
- Your voting data will be used to spy on you and harm you ( Every
voter
in Israel just had their data leaked in 'grave' security
breach... )
- Lip-reading software can determine what you are saying from over a
mile away ( https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/20/russian-police-use-spy-camera-film-opposition-activist-bedroom/
)
- Every Apple iPhone and other smart-phone has over 1000 ways to bug
you, listen to you, track you and record your daily activities even when
you think you have turned off the device. Never leave your battery in
your phone. ( LEAKED
DOCS:
Secretive Market For Your Web History... )(Every
Search.
Every Click. On Every Site… )
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX StarLink satellites are spy satellites that send
your data to Google and other tech companies ( https://www.chieftain.com/news/20200118/first-drones-now-unexplained-lights-reported-in-horsetooth
)
- Google and Facebook have all of your medical records and they are part
of a political operation ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-give-tech-giants-access-to-detailed-medical-records-11579516200
)
- Every dating site, comments section and social media site sends your
private data, covertly, to government, political campaigns and corporate
analysis groups and can also be hacked by anyone.
- Any hacker can hack ANY network with even a single Intel, Cisco,
Juniper Networks or AMD motherboard on it and nobody can stop them
unless they destroy the motherboard because the back-doors are built
into the hardware. Many of the companies you think are providing
security are secretly owned by the Chinese government spy agencies or
the CIA ( https://boingboing.net/2020/02/11/cia-secretly-owned-worlds-to.html
)
- Warehouses in Nigeria, Russia, Ukraine, Sao Paolo, China and hundreds
of other regions, house tens of thousands of hackers who work around the
clock to try to hack you and manipulate your data.
- Every red light camera, Walmart/Target/Big Box camera and every
restaurant camera goes off to networks that send your activities to
credit companies, collection companies, political parties and government
agencies ( 'Homeland
Security'
using location data from apps to track millions of people...
- Match.com, OKCupid and Plenty of Fish are also DNC voter analysis
services that read your texts and keep your profiles forever
- If you don't put fake ages, addresses, phone numbers and disposable
email addresses on ANY form you fill out electronically, it will haunt
you forever ( https://www.the-sun.com/news/284784/pornstar-data-breach-massive-leak-bank-details/
)
- Every train, plane and cruise line records you constantly and checks
the covert pictures they take of you against global databases.
Corporations grab your collateral private data that those Princess
Cruises and United Airlines companies take and use them to build files
on you ( https://www.silive.com/news/2020/01/report-new-app-can-id-strangers-with-a-single-photo.html
)
- The people who say "nobody would be interested in me" are the most at
risk because their naiveté puts them at the top-of-the-list for
targeting and harvesting ( https://www.cnet.com/news/clearview-app-lets-strangers-find-your-name-info-with-snap-of-a-photo-report-says/
)
- Silicon Valley tech companies don't care about your rights, they care
about enough cash for their executives to buy hookers and private
islands with. Your worst enemy is the social media CEO. They have a
hundred thousand programmers trying to figure out more and more extreme
ways to use your data every day and nobody to stop them
- The government can see everyplace you went to in the last year ( https://www.protocol.com/government-buying-location-data
)
There have been over 15,000 different types of hacks used against over 3 billion "average" consumers. EVERY one of them thought they were safes and that nobody would hack them because "nobody cared about them". History has proven every single one of them to have been totally wrong!
If you are smart, and you read the news, you will know that you should ditch all of your electronic devices and "data-poison" any information about you that touches a network by only putting fake info in all conceivable forms and entries on the internet. You, though, may be smart but lazy, like many, and not willing to step outside of the bubble of complacency that corporate advertising has surrounded you with.
Did you know that almost every dating and erotic site sends your most private life experiences and chat messages to Google's and Facebook's investors? https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-quietly-tracking-porn-you-watch-2019-7
Do you really want all of those Silicon Valley oligarchs that have been charged with sexual abuse and sex trafficking to know that much about you?
Never, Ever, put your real information on Youtube, Netflix, Linkedin, Google, Twitter, Comcast, Amazon and any similar online service because it absolutely, positively will come back and harm you!
Always remember: Anybody that does not like you can open, read and take
any photo, data, email or text on EVERY phone, computer, network or
electronic device you have ever used no matter how "safe" you think your
personal or work system is! They can do this in less than a minute.
Also: Hundreds of thousands of hackers scan every device, around the
clock, even if they never heard of you, and will like your stuff just
for the fun of causing trouble. Never use an electronic device unless
you encrypt, hide and code your material! One of the most important
safety measures you can take is to review the security info at: https://www.privacytools.io/
Those people who think: "I have nothing to worry about..I am not
important" ARE the people who get hacked the most. Don't let naivete be
your downfall. ( https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/when-will-we-get-full-truth-about-how-and-why-government-using-facial-recognition
)
All of your info on Target, Safeway, Walgreens has been hacked and read
by many outsiders. NASA, The CIA, The NSA, The White House and all of
the federal background check files have been hacked. The Department of
Energy has been hacked hundreds of times. All of the dating sites have
been hacked and their staff read all of your messages. Quest labs blood
test data and sexual information reports have been hacked and published
to the world. There is no database that can't be easily hacked. Every
computer system with Intel, AMD, Juniper Networks, Cisco and other
hardware in it can be hacked in seconds with the hardware back-doors
soldered onto their electronic boards. All of the credit reporting
bureaus have been hacked. Wells Fargo bank is constantly hacked. YOU ARE
NOT SAFE if you put information on a network. NO NETWORK is safe! No
Silicon Valley company can, or will, protect your data; mostly because
they make money FROM your data!
Every single modern cell phone and digital device can be EASILY taken
over by any hacker and made to spy on you, your family, your business
and your friends in thousands of different ways. Taking over the
microphone is only a small part of the ways a phone can be made to spy
on you. Your phone can record your location, you voice vibrations, your
mood, your thoughts, your sexual activity, your finances, your photos,
your contacts (who it then goes off and infects) and a huge number of
other things that you don't want recorded.
Privacy
watchdog
under pressure to recommend facial recognition ban...
Alarming
Rise
of Smart Camera Networks...
AMAZON's
Ring
Doorbell Secretly Shares Private User Data With FACEBOOK...
The worst abusers of your privacy, personal information, politics and
psychological information intentions are: Google, Facebook, Linkedin,
Amazon, Netflix, Comcast, AT&T, Xfinity, Match.com & the other
IAC dating sites, Instagram, Uber, Wells Fargo, Twitter, Paypal, Hulu,
Walmart, Target, YouTube, PG&E, The DNC, Media Matters, Axciom, and
their subsidiaries. Never, ever, put accurate information about yourself
on their online form. Never, ever, sign in to their sites using your
real name, phone, address or anything that could be tracked back to you.
If you don't believe that every government hacks citizens in order to destroy the reputation of anyone who makes a public statement against the current party in power then read the public document at: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP89-01258R000100010002-4.pdf
That document shows you, according to the U.S. Congress, how far things can go.
A program called ACXIX hunts down all of your records from your corner pharmacy, your taxi rides, your concert tickets, your grocery purchases, what time you use energy at your home, your doctor records...and all kinds of little bits of info about you and puts that a file about you. That file about you keeps growing for the rest of your life. That file sucks in other files from other data harvesting sites like Facebook and Google: FOREVER. The information in that file is used to try to control your politics and ideology.
In recent science studies cell phones were proven to exceed radiation
safety limits by as high as 11 times the 2-decade old allowable U.S.
radiation limits when phones touch the body. This is one of thousands of
great reasons to always remove the battery from your cell phone when you
are not talking on it. A phone without a battery in it can't spy on you
and send your data to your enemies.
If you are reading this notice, the following data applies to you:
1. EVERY network is known to contain Intel, Cisco, Juniper Networks,
AMD, QualComm and other hardware which has been proven to contain
back-door hard-coded access to outside parties. This is a proven,
inarguable fact based on court records, FISA data, IT evidence, national
news broadcasts, Congressional presented evidence and inventory records,
ie: Krebs On Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU, Global IT
services, FBI.
2. Chinese, Russian FSB, Iranian and other state-sponsored hacking
services as well as 14 year old domestic boys are able to easily enter
your networks, emails and digital files because of this. They can enter
your network at any time, with less than 4 mouse clicks, using software
available to anyone. This is a proven, inarguable fact based on court
records, FISA data, IT evidence and inventory records, ie: Krebs On
Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU, Global IT services, FBI.
3. Your financial office is aware of these facts and has chosen not to
replace all of the at-risk equipment, nor sue the manufacturers who sold
your organization this at risk equipment. They believe that the hassle
and cost of replacement and litigation is more effort than the finance
department is willing to undertake. This is a proven, inarguable fact
based on court records, FISA data, IT evidence, national news
broadcasts, Congressional presented evidence and inventory records, ie:
Krebs On Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU, Global IT
services, FBI.
4. In addition to the existing tools that were on the internet, in
recent years, foreign hackers have released all of the key hacking
software that the CIA, DIA and NSA built to hack into any device. These
software tools have already been used hundreds of times. Now the entire
world has access to these tools which are freely and openly posted
across the web. This is a proven, inarguable fact based on court
records, FISA data, IT evidence, national news broadcasts, Congressional
presented evidence and inventory records, ie: Krebs On Security,
FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU, Global IT services, FBI.
5. The computers, servers, routers, cell phones, IP cameras, IP
microphones, Smart Meters, Tesla’s, “Smart Devices:”, etc. and other
devices openly broadcast their IP data and availability on the internet.
In other words, many of your device broadcast a “HERE I AM” signal that
can be pinged, scanned, spidered, swept or, otherwise, seen, like a
signal-in-the-dark from anywhere on Earth and from satellites overhead.
Your devices announce that they are available to be hacked, to hackers.
This is a proven, inarguable fact based on court records, FISA data, IT
evidence, national news broadcasts, Congressional presented evidence and
inventory records, ie: Krebs On Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault
9, EU, Global IT services, FBI.
6. It is bad policy for your organization, or any organization, to think
they are immune or have IT departments that can stop these hacks. NASA,
The CIA, The White House, EQUIFAX, The Department of Energy, Target,
Walmart, American Express, etc. have been hacked hundreds of times. This
is a proven, inarguable fact based on court records, FISA data, IT
evidence, national news broadcasts, Congressional presented evidence and
inventory records, ie: Krebs On Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault
9, EU, Global IT services, FBI.
7. The thinking: “Well, nobody would want to hack us”, or “We are not
important enough to get hacked” is the most erroneous and negligent
thinking one could have in the world today. Chinese, Russian and Iranian
spy agencies have a global “Facebook for blackmail” and have been
sucking up the data of every entity on Earth for over a decade. If the
network was open, they have the data and are always looking for more.
The same applies to Google and Facebook who have based their entire
business around domestic spying and data re-sale. This is a proven,
inarguable fact based on court records, FISA data, IT evidence, national
news broadcasts, Congressional presented evidence and inventory records,
ie: Krebs On Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU, Global IT
services, FBI.
8. You are a “Stepping Stone” doorway to other networks and data for
targeted individuals and other entities. Your networks provide routes
into other people’s networks. The largest political industry today is
called “Doxing” and “Character Assassination”. Billions of dollars are
expended by companies such as IN-Q-Tel - (DNC); Gawker Media - (DNC);
Jalopnik - (DNC); Gizmodo Media - (DNC); K2 Intelligence - (DNC);
WikiStrat - (DNC); Podesta Group - (DNC); Fusion GPS - (DNC/GOP); Google
- (DNC); YouTube - (DNC); Alphabet - (DNC); Facebook - (DNC); Twitter -
(DNC); Think Progress - (DNC); Media Matters - (DNC); Black Cube -
(DNC); Mossad - (DNC); Correct The Record - (DNC); Sand Line -
(DNC/GOP); Blackwater - (DNC/GOP); Stratfor - (DNC/GOP); ShareBlue -
(DNC); Wikileaks (DNC/GOP); Cambridge Analytica - (DNC/GOP); Sid
Blumenthal- (DNC); David Brock - (DNC); PR Firm Sunshine Sachs (DNC);
Covington and Burling - (DNC), Buzzfeed - (DNC) Perkins Coie - (DNC);
Wilson Sonsini - (DNC) and hundreds of others to harm others that
they perceive as political, personal or competitive threats. Do not
under-estimate your unintended role in helping to harm others. This is a
proven, inarguable fact based on court records, FISA data, IT evidence,
national news broadcasts, Congressional presented evidence and inventory
records, ie: Krebs On Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU,
Global IT services, FBI.
9. NEVER believe that you are too small to be noticed by hackers.
Parties who believe that are the hackers favorite targets. This is a
proven, inarguable fact based on court records, FISA data, IT evidence,
national news broadcasts, Congressional presented evidence and inventory
records, ie: Krebs On Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU,
Global IT services, FBI.
10. NEVER believe that because the word “DELL” or “IBM” or “CISCO” is
imprinted on the plastic cover of some equipment that you are safe. Big
brands are targeted by every spy agency on Earth and are the MOST
compromised types of equipment. This is a proven, inarguable fact based
on court records, FISA data, IT evidence, national news broadcasts,
Congressional presented evidence and inventory records, ie: Krebs On
Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU, Global IT services, FBI.
11. YOU may not personally care about getting exposed but the person, or
agency, you allow to get exposed will be affected for the rest of their
lives and they will care very much and could sue you for destroying them
via negligence. Be considerate of others in your “internet behavior”. Do
not put anything that could hurt another on any network, ever. This is a
proven, inarguable fact based on court records, FISA data, IT evidence,
national news broadcasts, Congressional presented evidence and inventory
records, ie: Krebs On Security, FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU,
Global IT services, FBI.
12. Never post your real photograph online, or on a dating site social
media or on any network. There are thousands of groups who scan every
photo on the web and cross check those photos in their massive databases
to reveal your personal information via every other location your photo
is posted. These "image harvesters" can find out where you, who your
friends and enemies are and where your kids are in minutes using
comparative image data that they have automated and operating around the
clock. This is a proven, inarguable fact based on court records,
FISA data, IT evidence, national news broadcasts, Congressional
presented evidence and inventory records, ie: Krebs On Security,
FireEye, ICIJ, Wikileaks Vault 9, EU, Global IT services, FBI.
13. If you think using web security measures like this makes you
"paranoid", then think again. Cautious and intelligent people use these
security measures because these dangers are proven in the news headlines
daily. Uninformed, naive and low IQ people are the types of people who
do not use good web hygiene and who suffer because they are not cautious
and are not willing to consider the consequences of their failure to
read the news and stay informed.
‘Gotham’ software written by Palantir shows how government agencies, or anybody, can use very little information to obtain quick access to anyone’s personal minutiae.
VICE NEWS Motherboard via public records request has revealed shocking details of capabilities of California law enforcement involved in Fusion Centers, once deemed to be a conspiracy theory like the National Security Agency (NSA) which was founded in 1952, and its existence hidden until the mid-1960s. Even more secretive is the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which was founded in 1960 but remained completely secret for 30 years.
Some of the documents instructing California law enforcement (Northern California Regional Intelligence Center) “Fusion Center” are now online, and they show just how much information the government can quickly access with little or no knowledge of a person of interest.
“The guide doesn’t just show how Gotham works. It also shows how police are instructed to use the software,” writes Caroline Haskins.
“This guide seems to be specifically made by Palantir for the California law enforcement because it includes examples specific to California.”
According to DHS, “Fusion centers operate as state and major urban area focal points for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information between federal; state, local, tribal, territorial (SLTT); and private sector partners” like Palantir. Further, Fusion Centers are locally owned and operated, arms of the “intelligence community,” i.e. the 17 intelligence agencies coordinated by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). However, sometimes the buildings are staffed by trained NSA personnel like what happened in Mexico City, according to a 2010 Defense Department (DOD) memorandum.
Palantir is a private intelligence data management company mapping relationships between individuals and organizations alike founded by Peter Thiel and CEO Alex Karp and accused rapist Joe Lonsdale. You may remember Palantir from journalist Barrett Brown, Anonymous’ hack of HBGary, or accusations that the company provided the technology that enables NSA’s mass surveillance PRISM. Founded with early investment from the CIA and heavily used by the military, Palantir is a subcontracting company in its own right. The company has even been featured in the Senate’s grilling of Facebook, when Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell asked CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “Do you know who Palantir is?” due to Peter Thiel sitting on Facebook’s board.
In 2011, Anonymous’ breach exposed HBGary’s plan, conceived along with data intelligence firm Palantir, and Berico Technologies, to retaliate against WikiLeaks with cyber attacks and threaten the journalism institutions supporters. Following the hack and exposure of the joint plot, Palantir attempted to distance itself from HBGary, which it blamed for the plot.
Bank of America/Palintir/HBGary combined WikiLeaks attack plan. You can find more here: https://t.co/85yECxFmZu pic.twitter.com/huNtfJp8gl
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 29, 2016
This was in part because Palantir had in 2011 scored $250 million in deals ; its customers included the CIA, FBI, US Special Operations Command, Army, Marines, Air Force, LAPD and even the NYPD. So the shady contractor had its reputation to lose at the time being involved in arguably criminal activity against WikiLeaks and its supporters.
Palantir describes itself as follows based on its website:
Palantir Law Enforcement supports existing case management systems, evidence management systems, arrest records, warrant data, subpoenaed data, RMS or other crime-reporting data, Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) data, federal repositories, gang intelligence, suspicious activity reports, Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) data, and unstructured data such as document repositories and emails.
Palantir’s software, Bloomberg reports,
combs through disparate data sources—financial documents, airline reservations, cellphone records, social media postings—and searches for connections that human analysts might miss. It then presents the linkages in colorful, easy-to-interpret graphics that look like spider webs.
Motherboard shows how Fusion Center police can now utilize similar technology to track citizens beyond social media and online web accounts with people record searches, vehicle record searches, a Histogram tool, a Map tool, and an Object Explorer tool. (For more information on each and the applicable uses see the Vice News article here.)
Police can then click on an individual in the chart within Gotham and see every personal detail about a target and those around them, from email addresses to bank account information, license information, social media profiles, etc., according to the documents.
Palantir’s software in many ways is similar to the Prosecutor’s Management Information System (PROMIS) stolen software Main Core and may be the next evolution in that code, which allegedly predated PRISM. In 2008, Salon.com published details about a top-secret government database that might have been at the heart of the Bush administration’s domestic spying operations. The database known as “Main Core” reportedly collected and stored vast amounts of personal and financial data about millions of Americans in event of an emergency like Martial Law.
The only difference is, again, this technology is being allowed to be deployed by Fusion Center designated police and not just the National Security Agency. Therefore, this expands the power that Fusion Center police — consisting of local law enforcement, other local government employees, as well as Department of Homeland Security personnel — have over individual American citizens.
This is a huge leap from allowing NSA agents to access PRISM database search software or being paid by the government to mine social media for “terrorists.”
Fusion Centers have become a long-standing target of civil liberties groups like the EFF, ACLU, and others because they collect and aggregate data from so many different public and private sources.
On a deeper level, when you combine the capabilities of Palantir’s Gotham software, the abuse of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) database for Federal Bureau of Investigations/Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and facial recognition technology, you have the formula for a nightmarish surveillance state. Ironically, or perhaps not, that nightmare is the reality of undocumented immigrants as Palantir is one of several companies helping sift through data for the raids planned by ICE, according to journalist Barrett Brown.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED:
According to the world's top internet security experts: "...Welcome to
the new digital world. Nobody can ever type anything on the internet
without getting scanned, hacked, privacy abused, data harvested for some
political campaign, spied on by the NSA and Russian hackers and sold to
marketing companies. You can't find a corporate or email server that has
not already been hacked. For $5000.00, on the Dark Web, you can now buy
a copy of any person's entire dating files from match.com, their social
security records and their federal back-ground checks. These holes can
never be patched because they exist right in the hardware of 90% of the
internet hardware on Earth. Any hacker only needs to find one hole in a
network in order to steal everything in your medical records, your
Macy's account, your credit records and your dating data. Be aware,
these days, Mr. & Ms. Consumer. Facebook, Google, Twitter and Amazon
have turned out to be not-what-they-seem. They manipulate you and your
personal information in quite illicit manners and for corrupt purposes.
Avoid communicating with anybody on the internet because you will never
know who you are really talking to. Only communication with people live
and in-person..."
SPREAD THE WORD. TELL YOUR FRIENDS. COPY AND PASTE THIS TO YOUR
SOCIAL MEDIA. SEE MORE PROOF IN THESE ARTICLES:
https://www.i-programmer.info/news/149-security/12556-google-says-spectre-and-meltdown-are-too-difficult-to-fix.html
https://sputniknews.com/us/201902231072681117-encryption-keys-dark-overlord-911-hack/
https://www.businessinsider.com/nest-microphone-was-never-supposed-to-be-a-secret-2019-2
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/430779-google-says-hidden-microphone-was-never-intended-to-be-a-secret
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/71200/smartphone-apps-sending-intensely-personal-information-to-facebook--whether-or-not-you-have-an.html
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-edge-secret-whitelist-allows-facebook-to-autorun-flash/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19210727
https://www.davidicke.com/article/469484/israel-hardware-backdoored-everything
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2186606/chinas-social-credit-system-shows-its-teeth-banning-millions
https://youtu.be/lwoyesA-vlM
https://www.zdnet.com/article/critical-vulnerabilities-uncovered-in-popular-password-managers/
https://files.catbox.moe/jopll0.pdf
https://files.catbox.moe/ugqngv.pdf
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612974/once-hailed-as-unhackable-blockchains-are-now-getting-hacked/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/02/att-t-mobile-sprint-reportedly-broke-us-law-by-selling-911-location-data/
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/08/jeff-bezos-protests-the-invasion-of-his-privacy-as-amazon-builds-a-sprawling-surveillance-state-for-everyone-else/
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/71200/smartphone-apps-sending-intensely-personal-information-to-facebook--whether-or-not-you-have-an.html
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/feds-share-watch-list-with-1-400-private-groups-1.569308
https://voat.co/v/news/3053329
https://www.zdnet.com/article/all-intel-chips-open-to-new-spoiler-non-spectre-attack-dont-expect-a-quick-fix/
https://voat.co/v/technology/3075724
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/26/malware_ibm_powershell/
https://fossbytes.com/facebook-lets-anyone-view-your-profile-using-your-phone-number/
https://www.iottechtrends.com/vulnerability-ring-doorbell-fixed/
https://voat.co/v/technology/3077896
https://www.mintpressnews.com/whistleblowers-say-nsa-still-spies-american-phones-hidden-program/256208/
https://www.wionews.com/photos/how-israel-spyware-firm-nso-operates-in-shadowy-cyber-world-218782#hit-in-mexico-218759
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/whatsapp-hack-latest-breach-personal-data-security-135037749.html
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/14/whatsapp-security-attack-put-malicious-code-iphones-androids-9523698/
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/9069211/whatsapp-surveillance-cyber-attack-glitch/
----------------------------------------------
THE PROMIS BACKDOOR
Beyond embedded journalists, news blackouts, false
flag events, blacklisted and disappeared Internet domains the plotline
of America's "free press" there are now ISP-filtering programs subject
to Homeland Security guidelines that sift through emails and toss some
into a black hole. Insiders and the NSA-approved, however, can get
around such protections of networks by means of the various hybrids of
the PROM IS backdoor. The 1980s theA of the Prosecutor's Management
Information System (PROMIS) software handed over the golden key that
would grant most of the world to a handful of criminals. In fact, this
one crime may have been the final deal with the devil that consigned the
United States to its present shameful descent into moral turpitude.
PROMIS began as a COBOL-based program designed to track multiple
offenders through multiple databases like those of the DOJ, CIA, U.S.
Attorney, IRS, etc. Its creator was a former NSA analyst named William
Hamilton. About the time that the October Surprise Iranian hostage drama
was stealing the election for former California governor Ronald Reagan
and former CIA director George H.W. Bush in 1980, Hamilton was moving
his Inslaw Inc. from non-profit to for-profit status.
His intention was to keep the upgraded version of
PROM IS that Inslaw had paid for and earmark a public domain version
funded by a Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) grant for
the government. With 570,000 lines of code, PROMIS was able to integrate
innumerable databases without any reprogramming and thus turn mere data
into information.
With
Reagan in the White House, his California cronies at the DOJ offered
Inslaw a $9.6 million contract to install public-domain PROMIS in
prosecutors' offices, though it was really the enhanced PROM IS that the
good-old-boy network had set its sights on. In February 1983, the chief
of Israeli antiterrorism intelligence was sent to Inslaw under an alias
to see for himself the DEC VAX enhanced version. He recognized
immediately that this software would revolutionize Israeli intelligence
and crush the Palestine Inti fada. Enhanced PROMIS could extrapolate
nuclear submarine routes and destinations, track assets, trustees, and
judges. Not only that, but the conspirators had a CIA genius named
Michael Riconosciuto who could enhance the enhanced version one step
further, once it was in their possession. To install public domain
PROMIS in ninety-four U.S. Attorney offices as per contract, Inslaw had
to utilize its enhanced PROMIS.
The DOJ made its move, demanding temporary possession of enhanced PROMIS as collateral to ensure that all installations were completed and that only Inslaw money had gone into the enhancements. Na'ively, Hamilton agreed. The rest is history: the DOJ delayed payments on the $9.6 million and drove Inslaw into bankruptcy. With Edwin Meese III as Attorney General, the bankruptcy system was little more than a political patronage system, anyway. The enhanced PROMIS was then passed to the brilliant multivalent computer and chemical genius Riconosciuto, son of CIA Agent Marshall Riconosciuto.5 Recruited at sixteen, Michael had studied with Nobel Prize-winning physicist and co-inventor of the laser Arthur Shallo. Michael was moved from Indio to Silver Springs to Miami as he worked to insert a chip that would broadcast the contents of whatever database was present to collection satellites and monitoring vans like the Google Street View van, using a digital spread spectrum to make the signal look like computer noise. This Trojan horse would grant key-club access to the backdoor of any person or institution that purchased PROM IS software as long as the backdoor could be kept secret. Meanwhile, the drama between Hamilton and the conspirators at DOJ continued. A quiet offer to buy out Inslaw was proffered by the investment banking firm Allen & Co., British publisher (Daily Mirror) Robert Maxwell, the Arkansas corporation Systematics, and Arkansas lawyer (and Clinton family friend) Webb Hubbell.
Hamilton refused and filed a $50 million lawsuit in bankruptcy court
against the DOJ on June 9, 1986. Bankruptcy Judge George F. Bason, Jr.
ruled that the DOJ had indeed stolen PROMIS through trickery, fraud, and
deceit, and awarded Inslaw $6.8 million. He was unable to bring perjury
charges against government officials but recommended to the House
Judiciary Committee that it conduct a full investigation of the DOJ. The
DOJ's appeal failed, but the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
reversed everything on a technicality. Under then-President George H.W.
Bush (1989 — 1993), Inslaw's petition to the Supreme Court in October
1991 was scorned. When the IRS lawyer requested that Inslaw be
liquidated in such a way that the U.S. Trustee program (AG Meese's
feeding trough between the DOJ and IRS) could name the trustee who would
convert the assets, oversee the auction, and retain the appraisers,
Judge Bason refused.
Under then-President William Jefferson Clinton (1993
— 2001), the Court of Federal Claims whitewashed the DOJ's destruction
of Inslaw and theA of PROMIS on July 31, 1997. Judge Christine Miller
sent a 186-page advisory opinion to Congress claiming that Inslaw's
complaint had no merit a somber message to software developers seeking
to do business with Attorney Generals and their DOJ. For his integrity,
Judge Bason lost his bench seat to the IRS lawyer. T
hroughout three administrations, the mainstream Mockingbird media
obediently covered up the Inslaw affair, enhanced PROMIS being a master
tool of inference extraction able to track and eavesdrop like nothing
else. Once enhanced PROMIS was being sold domestically and abroad so as
to steal data from individuals, government agencies, banks, and
corporations everywhere, intelligence-connected Barry Kumnick~ turned
PROMIS into an artificial intelligence (AI) tool called SMART (Special
Management Artificial Reasoning Tool) that revolutionized surveillance.
The DOJ promised Kumnick $25 million, then forced him into bankruptcy as
it had Hamilton. (Unlike Hamilton, Kumnick settled for a high security
clearance and work at military contractors Systematics and Northrop.)
Five Eyes / Echelon and the FBI's Carnivore / Data Collection System
1000 were promptly armed with SMART, as was closed circuit satellite
highdefinition (HD) television. With SMART, Five Eyes / Echelon
intercepts for UKUSA agencies became breathtaking.
The next modification to Hamilton's PROMIS was
Brainstorm, a behavioral recognition software, followed by the facial
recognition soAware Flexible Research System (FRS); then Semantic Web,
which looks not just for link words and embedded code but for what it
means that this particular person is following this particular thread.
Then came quantum modification. The Department of Defense paid Simulex,
Inc. to develop Sentient World Simulation (SWS), a synthetic mirror of
the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to
current real-world information. The SEAS (Synthetic Environment for
Analysis and Simulations) soAware platform drives SWS to devour as many
as five million nodes of breaking news census data, shiAing economic
indicators, real world weather patterns, and social media data, then
feeds it proprietary military intelligence and fictitious events to
gauge their destabilizing impact. Research into how to maintain public
cognitive dissonance and learned helplessness (psychologist Martin
Seligman) help SEAS deduce human behavior.
---------------------------------------------------------
There are legitimate reasons ( http://www.learnliberty.org/videos/edward-snowden-surveillance-is-about-power/ )to want to avoid being tracked and spied-on while you're online. But aside from that, doesn't it feel creepy knowing you're probably being watched every moment that you're online and that information about where you go and what you do could potentially be sold to anyone at any time--to advertisers, your health insurance company, a future employer, the government, even a snoopy neighbor? Wouldn't you feel better not having to worry about that on top of everything else you have to worry about every day?
You can test to what extent your browser is transmitting unique
information using these sites: panopticlick.com, Shieldsup, and
ip-check.info.
https://panopticlick.eff.org/
https://www.grc.com/shieldsup
https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/ip-check.info?/lang=en
These sites confirm that browsers transmit a lot of data that can be
used for fingerprinting. From playing around with these sites, I have
noticed that turning off javascript in my browser does help some. Also
the TOR browser seems to transmit less data than most, but even it is
not completely effective. The added benefit that you get from the TOR
browser and especially the TAILS operating system is that they block
your IP address from the websites you visit. You want to try several
browsers to see which one transmits the least information. Perhaps you
will be lucky enough to find a browser that transmits less information
than the TOR browser.
The next thing to be aware of is that corporations have methods other
than tracking to spy on you. There is a saying that if a corporation is
offering you their product for free, you are their product. This means
that corporations that offer you free services are selling the data they
collect from you in order to be able to provide you with these services.
So, chances are that companies that provide you with free email are
reading your email. We know that, in addition to tracking you, Facebook
reads your posts and knows who your friends are, and that is just the
beginning of Facebook's spying methods. Free online surveys are just
ways of collecting more data from you. Companies also monitor your
credit card transactions and sell your online dating profiles. If you
have a Samsung TV that is connected to the internet, it's probably
recording what you watch and may even be listening to your private
conversations in your home. In fact, anything that you have in your home
that is connected to the internet may be spying on you, right down to
your internet-connected light bulb. With a few exceptions, online search
engines monitor and log your searches. One of the exceptions is the
ixquick.com search engine, which is headquartered in Europe. The steps
to counter the nearly ubiquitous activities of free service providers
would be to pay for services you receive online, read website privacy
agreements, and not buy products that are known to be spying on you.
However, the only way to be really secure from corporations using the
internet to spy on you is to never connect to the internet or buy any
internet-connected appliances. Welcome back to the 1980's.
Protecting yourself from government spying while you are on the internet
is the hardest and requires the most knowledge. The biggest problem is
that unless a whistle-blower like Edward Snowden tells us, we have no
way of knowing how governments may potentially be spying on us. That
means that we have no way of protecting ourselves 100% of the time from
government spying. Some things whistle-blowers have revealed ( https://secureswissdata.com/9-ways-government-spying-on-internet-activity/
) are that the US government logs the meta data from all phone calls
(who calls who and when), secretly forces internet service providers and
providers of other services to allow it to "listen in on" and record all
traffic going through their servers, reads nearly all email sent from
everywhere in the world, and tracks the locations of all cell phones
(even when they're turned off). And, although I am not aware of any
specific whistle-blower revelations on this, there is every reason to
believe that the US government (and perhaps others, including China's)
has backdoors built into all computer hardware and operating system
software for monitoring everything we do on our cell phones, tablets,
laptops, desktop computers, and routers. ( https://www.eteknix.com/nsa-may-backdoors-built-intel-amd-processors/
) See also this. Because Lenovo computers are manufactured in China, the
US government has issued warnings to all US government agencies and
subcontractors to strongly discourage them from using Lenovo computers.
And the US government probably has backdoors ( https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-nsa-attempting-to-insert-backdoors-into-encrypted-data
) into all commercially-available encryption software, with the possible
exception of Truecrypt version 7.1a. I hope you are understanding now
the magnitude of the lengths that governments are going to (using your
tax money) to spy on you. In truth, we are now approaching the level of
government spying that George Orwell warned about in his book, 1984
So what can we practically do to protect ourselves from government
spying? Seriously, there isn't much, if we want to use cell phones,
credit cards, and the internet. About all we can do, if we absolutely
need to have a private conversation, is to have a face-to-face meeting
without any electronics within microphone range. That includes cell
phones, Samsung TV's, video cameras, computers, or land-line telephones.
And don't travel to the meeting place using long-distance commercial
transportation.
Sending a letter through the US mail is the next best, although it is
known that the outsides of all mail sent through the US mail are
photographed, and the pictures are stored. So, don't put your return
address on the envelope. ( http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/new_york_times_post_office_photocopies_envelopes_of_all_mail_sent_in_the_us/
) As far as surfing the internet is concerned, begin with all the
precautions that I outlined above to protect yourself from corporate
spying (except HTTPS and VPN's). Then, add the TAILS operating system on
a USB stick. As I said, TAILS will not prevent you from being identified
and tracked via the fingerprinting method. And who can be sure whether
the government has a backdoor in TAILS? As far as I know, the
super-paranoid, hoody and sunglasses method I outlined above is is the
next step.
-----------------------------------------------
Experts warns of ‘epidemic’ of bugging devices used by stalkers -
By James Hockaday
Stalkers are using cheap bugging devices hidden in everyday household
items
More funding and legal powers are needed for police to stop a surge of
stalkers using eavesdropping devices to spy on victims, experts have
warned.
Firms paid to detect the bugs say they’re finding more and more of the
devices which are readily available on online marketplaces like Amazon
and eBay.
Jack Lazzereschi, Technical Director of bug sweeping company
Shapestones, says cases of stalking and victims being blackmailed with
intimate footage shot in secret has doubled in the past two years.
He told Metro.co.uk: ‘The police want to do something about it, they try
to, but usually they don’t have the legal power or the resources to
investigate.
‘For us it’s a problem. We try to protect the client, we want to assure
that somebody has been protected.’
Advert for a hidden camera device planted inside a fire/smoke alarm sold
on Amazon
People are paying as little as £15 for listening devices and spy cameras
hidden inside desk lamps, wall sockets, phone charger cables, USB sticks
and picture frames.
Users insert a sim card into a hidden slot and call a number to listen
in on their unwitting targets.
People using hidden cameras can watch what’s happening using an apps on
their phones.
Jack says the devices are so effective, cheap and hard to trace to their
users, law enforcement prefer using them over expensive old-school
devices.
Although every case is different, in situations where homeowners plant
devices in their own properties, Jack says there’s usually a legal ‘grey
area’ to avoid prosecution.
The devices themselves aren’t illegal and they are usually marketed for
legitimate purposes like protection, making it difficult for cops to
investigate.
There is no suggestion online marketplaces like eBay and Amazon are
breaking the law by selling them.
But in some instances, images of women in their underwear have been used
in listings – implying more sinister uses for the devices.
Even in cases when people are more clearly breaking the law, Jack says
it’s unlikely perpetrators will be brought to justice as overstretched
police will prioritise resources to stop violent crime.
Jack’s says around 60 per cent of his firm’s non-corporate cases cases
involve stalking or blackmail.
He says it’s become an ‘epidemic’ over the past couple of years with the
gadgets more readily available than ever before.
Jack Lazzereschi says he’s seen stalking cases double in a few years
Victims are often filmed naked or having sex and threatened with the
threat of footage being put online and in the worst cases children are
also recorded.
Jack says UK law is woefully unprepared to deal with these devices
compared to countries in the Asian-Pacific region.
In South Korea authorities have cracked down on a scourge of perverts
planting cameras in public toilets.
James Williams, director of bug sweepers QCC Global says snooping
devices used to be the preserve of people with deep pockets and
technological know-how.
He said: ‘It’s gone from that to really being at a place where anybody
can just buy a device from the internet.
‘Anything you can possibly think of you can buy with a bug built into
it. I would say they’re getting used increasingly across the board.’
Suky Bhaker, Acting CEO of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which runs the
National Stalking Helpline, warned using these gadgets could be a
prelude to physical violence.
She said: ‘We know that stalking and coercive control are extremely
dangerous and can cause huge harm to the victim, both in terms of their
psychological wellbeing and the potential for escalation to physical
violence or even murder.
‘The use of surveillance devices or spyware apps by stalkers, must be
seen in the context of a pattern of obsessive, fixated behaviour which
aims at controlling and monitoring the victim.
She added: ‘There should be clarity for police forces that the use of
surveillance equipment by stalkers to monitor their victim’s location or
communications is a sign that serious and dangerous abuse may be present
or imminent.’
‘All cases of stalking or coercive control should be taken seriously and
investigated when reported to police.’
The charity is calling for all police forces across the country to train
staff in this area.
Earlier this month a policeman known only by his surname Mills was
barred from the profession for life for repeatedly dismissing pleas for
help from 19-year-old Shana Grice who was eventually murdered by her
stalker ex-boyfriend Michel Lane.
A spokesman for eBay said: ‘The listing of mini cameras on eBay is
permitted for legitimate items like baby monitors or doorbell cameras.
‘However, items intended to be used as spying devices are banned from
eBay’s UK platform in accordance with the law and our policy.
‘We have filters in place to block prohibited items, and all the items
flagged by Metro have now been removed.’
Face-tracking harvesters grab one picture of you and then use AI to find
every other digital picture of you on Earth and open every social media
post, resume, news clipping, dating account etc. and sell the full
dossier on you to Axciom, the NSA, Political manipulators etc. and hack
your bank accounts and credit cards. Never put an unsecured photo of
yourself online.
===========================
KrebsOnSecurity spent a good part of the past week working with Cisco to alert more than four dozen companies — many of them household names — about regular corporate WebEx conference meetings that lack passwords and are thus open to anyone who wants to listen in.
Department of Energy’s WebEx meetings.
At issue are recurring video- and audio conference-based meetings that companies make available to their employees via WebEx, a set of online conferencing tools run by Cisco. These services allow customers to password-protect meetings, but it was trivial to find dozens of major companies that do not follow this basic best practice and allow virtually anyone to join daily meetings about apparently internal discussions and planning sessions.
Many of the meetings that can be found by a cursory search within an organization’s “Events Center” listing on Webex.com seem to be intended for public viewing, such as product demonstrations and presentations for prospective customers and clients. However, from there it is often easy to discover a host of other, more proprietary WebEx meetings simply by clicking through the daily and weekly meetings listed in each organization’s “Meeting Center” section on the Webex.com site.
Some of the more interesting, non-password-protected recurring meetings I found include those from Charles Schwab, CSC, CBS, CVS, The U.S. Department of Energy, Fannie Mae, Jones Day, Orbitz, Paychex Services, and Union Pacific. Some entities even also allowed access to archived event recordings.
Cisco began reaching out to each of these companies about a week ago, and today released an all-customer alert (PDF) pointing customers to a consolidated best-practices document written for Cisco WebEx site administrators and users.
“In the first week of October, we were contacted by a leading security researcher,” Cisco wrote. “He showed us that some WebEx customer sites were publicly displaying meeting information online, including meeting Time, Topic, Host, and Duration. Some sites also included a ‘join meeting’ link.”
==========================
Quest Diagnostics Says All 12 Million Patients May Have Had Financial,
Medical, Personal Information Breached. It includes credit card numbers
and bank account information, according to a filing... HOW MANY TIMES DO
YOU NEED TO BE TOLD: "NEVER, EVER, GIVE TRUE INFORMATION TO ANY COMPANY
THAT USES A NETWORK OR MAKES YOU SIGN-IN TO ANYTHING ONLINE!"
https://khn.org/news/a-wake-up-call-on-data-collecting-smart-beds-and-sleep-apps/
==========================
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hackers-may-soon-be-able-to-tell-what-youre-typingjust-by-hearing-you-type-11559700120
https://sputniknews.com/science/201906051075646555-chinese-cyborg-future-chip/
https://www.emarketer.com/content/average-us-time-spent-with-mobile-in-2019-has-increased
https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-ransomware-20190603-story.html
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/447532-news-industry-joins-calls-for-more-scrutiny-of-big-tech
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/the-future-will-be-recorded-on-your-smart-speaker-1.1270598
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/9/robert-mueller-exploited-cell-phone-gps-track-trum/
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/the-unholy-alliance-between-dna-sites-and-facial-recognition/
Key Points
Google Gmail keeps a log of everything you buy.
Google says this is so you can ask Google Assistant about the status of an order or reorder something.
It also says you can delete this log by deleting the email, but three weeks after we deleted all email, the list is still there.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai
Google and other tech companies have been under fire recently for a variety of issues, including failing to protect user data, failing to disclose how data is collected and used and failing to police the content posted to their services.
Companies such as Google have embedded themselves in our lives with useful services including Gmail, Google Maps and Google Search, as well as smart products such as the Google Assistant which can answer our questions on a whim. The benefits of these tools come at the cost of our privacy, however, because while Google says that privacy should not be a “luxury good, ” it’s still going to great lengths to collect as much detail as possible about its users and making it more difficult than necessary for users to track what’s collected about them and delete it.
Here’s the latest case in point.
In May, I wrote up something weird I spotted on Google’s account management page. I noticed that Google uses Gmail to store a list of everything you’ve purchased, if you used Gmail or your Gmail address in any part of the transaction.
If you have a confirmation for a prescription you picked up at a pharmacy that went into your Gmail account, Google logs it. If you have a receipt from Macy’s, Google keeps it. If you bought food for delivery and the receipt went to your Gmail, Google stores that, too.
You get the idea, and you can see your own purchase history by going to Google’s Purchases page.
Google says it does this so you can use Google Assistant to track packages or reorder things, even if that’s not an option for some purchases that aren’t mailed or wouldn’t be reordered, like something you bought a store.
At the time of my original story, Google said users can delete everything by tapping into a purchase and removing the Gmail. It seemed to work if you did this for each purchase, one by one. This isn’t easy — for years worth of purchases, this would take hours or even days of time.
So, since Google doesn’t let you bulk-delete this purchases list, I decided to delete everything in my Gmail inbox. That meant removing every last message I’ve sent or received since I opened my Gmail account more than a decade ago.
Despite Google’s assurances, it didn’t work.
Like a horror movie villain that just won’t die
On Friday, three weeks after I deleted every Gmail, I checked my purchases list.
I still see receipts for things I bought years ago. Prescriptions, food deliveries, books I bought on Amazon, music I purchased from iTunes, a subscription to Xbox Live I bought from Microsoft -- it’s all there.
A list of my purchases Google pulled in from Gmail.
Todd Haselton | CNBC
Google continues to show me purchases I’ve made recently, too.
I can’t delete anything and I can’t turn it off.
When I click on an individual purchase and try to remove it — it says I can do this by deleting the email, after all — it just redirects to my inbox and not to the original email message for me to delete, since that email no longer exists.
So Google is caching or saving this private information somewhere else that isn’t just tied to my Gmail account.
When I wrote my original story, a Google spokesperson insisted this list is only for my use, and said the company views it as a convenience. Later, the company followed up to say this data is used to “help you get things done, like track a package or reorder food.”
But it’s a convenience I never asked for, and the fact that Google compiles and stores this information regardless of what I say or do is a bit creepy.
A spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on this latest development.
But it shows once again how tech companies often treat user privacy as a low-priority afterthought and will only make changes if user outrage forces their hand.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/11/google_assistant_voice_eavesdropping_creepy/
https://www.technowize.com/google-home-is-sending-your-private-recordings-to-google-workers/
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-malicious-apps-infect-million-android.html
https://archive.fo/RrnuL#selection-1489.0-1489.170
EVERYTHING IN AMERICA HAS BEEN HACKED OR SOON WILL BE:
In a country of just 7 million people, the scale of the hack means that just about every working adult has been affected.
"We should all be angry. ... The information is now freely available to anyone. Many, many people in Bulgaria already have this file, and I believe that it's not only in Bulgaria," said Genov, a blogger and political analyst. He knows his data was compromised because, though he's not an IT expert, he managed to find the stolen files online.
Microsoft says foreign hackers still actively targeting US political targets
The attack is extraordinary, but it is not unique.
Government databases are gold mines for hackers. They contain a huge wealth of information that can be "useful" for years to come, experts say. "You can make (your password) longer and more sophisticated, but the information the government holds are things that are not going to change," said Guy Bunker, an information security expert and the chief technology officer at Clearswift, a cybersecurity company. "Your date of birth is not going to change, you're not going to move house tomorrow," he said. "A lot of the information that was taken was valid yesterday, is valid today, and will probably be valid for a large number of people in five, 10, 20 years' time."
Data breaches used to be spearheaded by highly skilled hackers. But it increasingly doesn't take a sophisticated and carefully planned operation to break into IT systems. Hacking tools and malware that are available on the dark web make it possible for amateur hackers to cause enormous damage.A strict data protection law that came into effect last year across the European Union has placed new burdens on anyone who collects and stores personal data. It also introduced hefty fines for anyone who mismanages data, potentially opening the door for the Bulgarian government to fine itself for the breach.
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Still, attacks against government systems are on the rise, said Adam Levin, the founder of CyberScout, another cybersecurity firm. "It's a war right now -- one we will win if we make cybersecurity a front-burner issue," he said. The notion that governments urgently need to step up their cybersecurity game is not new. Experts have been ringing alarm bells for years.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs suffered one of the first major data breaches in 2006, when personal data of more than 26 million veterans and military personnel were compromised. "And it was all, 'Oh, this is dreadful. We must do things to stop it.' ... And here we are, 13 years later, and an entire country's data has been compromised, and in between, there's been incidents of large swathes of citizen data being compromised in different countries," Bunker said. Out-of-date systems are often the problem. Some governments may have used private companies to manage the data they collected before the array of hacks and breeches brought their attention to cybersecurity. "In many cases, our data was sent to third-party contractors years ago," Levin said. "The way we looked at data management 10 years ago seems antiquated today, yet that old data is still out there being managed by third parties, using legacy systems."
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If the "old data" hasn't changed, it's still valuable to hackers.
The Bulgaria incident is concerning, said Desislava Krusteva, a Bulgarian privacy and data protection lawyer who advises some of the world's biggest tech companies on how to keep their clients' information safe.
"These kinds of incidents should not happen in a state institution. It seems like it didn't require huge efforts, and it's probably the personal data of almost all Bulgarian citizens," said Krusteva, a partner at Dimitrov, Petrov & Co., a law firm in Sofia.
The Bulgarian Commission for Personal Data Protection has said it would launch an investigation into the hack.
A National Revenue Agency spokesman would not comment on whether the data was properly protected.
"As there is undergoing investigation, we couldn't provide more details about reasons behind the hack," Communications Director Rossen Bachvarov said.
A 20-year-old cybersecurity worker has been arrested by the Bulgarian police in connection with the hack. The computer and software used in the attack led police to the suspect, according to the Sofia prosecutor's office.
The man has been detained, and the police seized his equipment, including mobile phones, computers and drives, the prosecutor's office said in a statement. If convicted, he could spend as long as eight years in prison.
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"It's still too early to say what exactly happened, but from political perspective, it is, of course, very embarrassing for the government," Krusteva said.
The embarrassment is made worse by the fact that this was not the first time the Bulgarian government was targeted. The country's Commercial Registry was brought down less than a year ago by an attack. "So, at least for a year, the Bulgarian society, politicians, those who are in charge of the country, they knew quite well about the serious cybersecurity problems in the government infrastructures," Genov said, "and they didn't do anything about it."
Hackers posted screenshots of the company's servers on Twitter and later shared the stolen data with Digital Revolution, another hacking group who last year breached Quantum, another FSB contractor.
This second hacker group shared the stolen files in greater detail on their Twitter account, on Thursday, July 18, and with Russian journalists afterward.