Revealed: This Is Palantir’s Top-Secret User Manual for Cops
Motherboard obtained a Palantir user manual through a public records request, and it gives unprecedented insight into how the company logs and tracks individuals.
Surveillance
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OK GOOGLE, PLEASE STOP
Yep, Human Workers Are Listening To Recordings From Google Assistant, Too
A report from Belgian public broadcaster VRT NWS has revealed how contractors paid to transcribe audio clips collected by Google's AI assistant can end up listening to sensitive information about users, including names, addresses and details about their personal lives.
How U.S. Tech Giants Are Helping to Build China’s Surveillance State
A nonprofit led by Google and IBM executives is working with Semptian, whose technology is monitoring the internet activity of 200 million people in China.
THE THIN BEZOS LINE
Amazon Provided Police With 'Heat Maps' Of Package Theft For Sting Operation
Amazon created package loss data heat maps and performed "data analysis" that helped a police department plan and carry out a package theft sting operation.
WE'RE A CAPTIVE, CAPTCHA'D AUDIENCE
Google Promises 'reCAPTCHA' Isn't Exploiting Users. Should You Trust It?
An innovative security feature to separate humans from bots online comes with some major concerns.
PEDDLING FEAR IN SMILING PACKAGES
How Amazon And The Cops Set Up An Elaborate Sting Operation That Accomplished Nothing
Behind-the-scenes emails show how Amazon and Ring worked with police in Aurora, Colorado to make people scared of each other.
THE EMAILS HAVE EYES
Superhuman Is Spying On You
Have an inbox zero policy? That's up to you. Let your inbox build into the thousands and only deal with what you can stay on top of? That's your business too.
It is disappointing then that one of the most hyped new email clients, Superhuman, has decided to embed hidden tracking pixels inside of the emails its customers send out.
TRACKING IN TRANSIT
Your Face Is Now Your Boarding Pass. And That's A Problem
What's face recognition at the airport really about? Immigration policy and efficiency.
DO BRANDS NEED TO KNOW WHEN YOU'RE SAD?
Big Mood Machine
Spotify's enormous access to mood-based data is a pillar of its value to brands and advertisers, allowing them to target ads on Spotify by moods and emotions. Further, since 2016, Spotify has shared this mood data directly with the world's biggest marketing and advertising firms.
NOTHING GOOD CAN COME OF THIS
DIY Facial Recognition For Porn Is A Dystopian Disaster
Someone is making dubious claims to have built a program for detecting faces in porn and cross-referencing against social media, with 100,000 identified so far.
IF YOU DO, YOU'RE PROBABLY SPOOKED
It's The Middle Of The Night. Do You Know Who Your iPhone Is Talking To?
Apple says, "What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone." Our privacy experiment showed 5,400 hidden app trackers guzzled our data — in a single week.
THEY (STILL) SEE YOUR EVERY MOVE
Mark Zuckerberg Has A Different Definition Of 'Privacy' Than You And Me
Zuck is basically aiming to make Facebook more "private" — the way you might refer to a "private party" or your "private parts" — while claiming the company really cares about "privacy."
YOU CAN ALWAYS HACK HUMANS
Stalkers And Debt Collectors Impersonate Cops To Trick Big Telecom Into Giving Them Cell Phone Location Data
In several cases, a stalker impersonated a US Marshal and reported a fake kidnapping in order to get telecom companies to give them real-time cell phone location data.
HEY JEFF, WHAT DO YOU NEED THAT FOR?
Amazon Recorded Video Of A Seller For Identification Purposes
"We will record a 5-second video of your face. To proceed, enable access to your webcam."
THEY'RE WATCHING
Dozens Of Cities Have Secretly Experimented With Predictive Policing Software
Documents obtained by Motherboard using public information requests verify previously unconfirmed police department contracts with predictive policing company PredPol.
Apple’s power over Facebook ought to worry the rest of us
Social networks aren’t the only big platforms that need scrutiny
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
'Fortnite' Addiction? China Has The Answer
In the 21st century, liberal democracy will face a challenge of an entirely new kind. Here's one powerful signal of that future.
YOU BRITS MADE 'BLACK MIRROR,' REMEMBER?
British Cops Are Building An AI That Flags People For Crimes That Haven't Happened Yet
Dubbed the National Data Analytics Solution (NDAS), the system pulls data from local and national police databases.
Be Warned: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time
Next time you’re chatting with a customer service agent online, be warned that the person on the other side of your conversation might see what you’re typing in real time. A reader sent us the following transcript from a conversation he had with a mattress company after the agent responded to a message he hadn’t sent yet.
YOU MAY KNOW, BUT FACEBOOK KNOWS MORE
'People You May Know:' A Controversial Facebook Feature's 10-Year History
Perhaps now, though, in its time of privacy reckoning, Facebook will reconsider the mandatory nature of this particular feature. It’s about time, because People You May Know has been getting on people’s nerves for over 10 years.
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