Surveillance

The Taliban reportedly have control of US biometric devices – a lesson in life-and-death consequences of data privacy

By Margaret Hu | In the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul and the ouster of the Afghan national government, alarming reports indicate that the insurgents could potentially access biometric data collected by the U.S. to track Afghans, including people who worked for U.S. and coalition forces. Afghans who once supported the U.S. have […]

Government surveillance

Calls to hold Israel and its NSO Group Accountable for Global hacking scandal, as UAE Role bulks Large

Middle East Monitor

By Nasim Ahmed | – The global hacking scandal involving Israel’s notorious NSO Group has sparked fury around the world as the full extent of the industrial scale spying operation targeting politicians, academics and activists begin to emerge. As many as 50,000 phone numbers were said to have been targeted for surveillance by NSO Group’s […]

Dissent

Drones and Protesters: How High-Tech Surveillance Amplifies Police Bias and Overreach

The Conversation

By Andrew Guthrie Ferguson | – Video of police in riot gear clashing with unarmed protesters in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has filled social media feeds. Meanwhile, police surveillance of protesters has remained largely out of sight. Local, state and federal law enforcement organizations use […]

Corporate Surveillance

Did Saudi prince Bin Salman personally Hack Jeff Bezos’s Phone, Vacuuming up Secrets? What about Jared Kushner?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Update 1/25/20: Subsequent reporting at WSJ and elsewhere has raised questions about how solid the conclusions were, of the cyber-security firm hired by Jeff Bezos, that pointed with certainty to a hack coming from the cell phone of Mohammed Bin Salman. We’ve long known that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s phone […]

Featured

That’s not Good. Popular ToTok App is Emirates Spyware

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – ( Lily Hay Newman at Wired explores the implications of the revelation that the ToTok app is actually spyware for the United Arab Emirates. The app is fiendishly clever in the sense that there is nothing virus-like about it. It is just a communications application that wants to know who […]

Government surveillance

How the Emirates Weaponized ex-NSA Spying Expertise against Democracy Activists

Middle East Monitor

US officials and former NSA employees build UAE secret surveillance unit

Corporate Surveillance

Snowden: If Israel’s NSO had Refused Sale to Saudis, Khashoggi would be Alive

Middle East Monitor

Three people, all of whom were in contact with [Khashoggi] suffered from hacking attempts by what appeared to be Saudi intelligence

Corporate Surveillance

Are You Ready for the Trump Admin. to Know Everything about You?

Tomdispatch

By Judith Coburn | – (Tomdispatch.com) – Now that we know we are surveilled 24/7 by the National Security Agency, the FBI, local police, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, hackers, the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, data brokers, private spyware groups like Black Cube, and companies from which we’ve ordered swag on the Internet, is there […]

Government surveillance

Orwell knew: we willingly buy the screens that are used against us

Henry Cowles

Ann Arbor (Aeon) – Sales of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 (1949) have spiked twice recently, both times in response to political events. In early 2017, the idea of ‘alternative facts’ called to mind Winston Smith, the book’s protagonist and, as a clerk in the Ministry of Truth, a professional alternator of facts. And in […]