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Privacy - this is getting ridiculous (1 Viewer)

There aren't enough "oh, #### no" memes that adequately cover my feelings of having this roaming my house.
Seriously.  I like the detect unidentified humans “feature”.  For only $1K you can have Amazon keep a log of every human that enters your house.  What a Deal!

 
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/16/1064628654/facebook-bans-surveillance-firms-that-spied-on-50000-people

A few snipets

"try to trick them into handing over sensitive personal information so that the firms could install spyware on their devices,

Gleicher said the companies were "indiscriminate" about whom they targeted. "We are seeing politicians. We're seeing human rights activists. We're seeing lawyers, doctors, clergy, in some cases ordinary citizens. Anyone who might be party to a lawsuit," he said.

It's less clear who is hiring these companies. Meta was able to determine in some cases that the spyware firms were working on behalf of governments, law firms and individuals, Gleicher said. But, he added, customers go to surveillance companies in order to hide their activities, and the firms don't seem to be choosy about their clients.

"Almost anyone can hire one of these firms," he said. "These firms both democratize these threats and they give an added layer of deception to the worst actors."

They're selling the ability for governments to turn people's phones into spies in their pockets, digital snitches," said Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton.

The researchers traced the Predator malware to WhatsApp messages Nour had received, with images and links that appeared to point to news stories. When he clicked on them, his phone was infected.

spoofed legitimate news outlets and social media sites to carry out phishing attacks 

Almost every autocrat and dictator around the world is being pitched this kind of technology for surveillance," 

 
Crazy NYT Magazine story (also a Daily podcast episode) on the Pegasus spyware developed by Israeli company NSO Group. Now in use by various governments worldwide (including the US) - sometimes for good and sometimes for much more nefarious purposes. Meanwhile, it also seems NSO is leveraging access to its spyware for political purposes.

Pegasus is essentially a no-click spyware that gives the user complete access to an apple or android phone without the phone's owner doing anything or knowing its there. They just have to know your phone number to install it, at which point they can track location, read everything, hear and see everything through your mic/camera with no detection.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/magazine/nso-group-israel-spyware.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6hyMqoNcPHTsOcnO8SKipE

Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti investigate Pegasus, an Israeli spying tool that was acquired for use by the F.B.I., and which the United States government is now trying to ban.

Pegasus is used globally. For nearly a decade, NSO, an Israeli firm, had been selling this surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising to consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.

The software has helped the authorities capture drug lords, thwart terrorist plots, fight organized crime, and, in one case, take down a global child-abuse ring, identifying suspects in more than 40 countries. But it has been prone to abuses of power: The Mexican government deployed Pegasus against journalists and political dissidents; and it was used to intercept communications with Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, whom Saudi operatives killed and dismembered in Istanbul in 2018.

 
Crazy NYT Magazine story (also a Daily podcast episode) on the Pegasus spyware developed by Israeli company NSO Group. Now in use by various governments worldwide (including the US) - sometimes for good and sometimes for much more nefarious purposes. Meanwhile, it also seems NSO is leveraging access to its spyware for political purposes.

Pegasus is essentially a no-click spyware that gives the user complete access to an apple or android phone without the phone's owner doing anything or knowing its there. They just have to know your phone number to install it, at which point they can track location, read everything, hear and see everything through your mic/camera with no detection.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/magazine/nso-group-israel-spyware.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6hyMqoNcPHTsOcnO8SKipE


That's an interesting article but I think the bold claim above is incorrect.  Per the article the U.S. tested it but then decided not to use it:

The discussions at the Justice Department and the F.B.I. continued until last summer, when the F.B.I. finally decided not to deploy the NSO weapons. It was around this time that a consortium of news organizations called Forbidden Stories brought forward new revelations about NSO cyberweapons and their use against journalists and political dissidents. The Pegasus system currently lies dormant at the facility in New Jersey.


Also per the article, Pegasus cannot access U.S. phones, by design.  The testing the U.S. did was on phones registered in foreign countries.    They have another system, Phantom, that they offered the U.S. that apparently can access U.S. phones.  But the U.S. is not using either system.

 
That's an interesting article but I think the bold claim above is incorrect.  Per the article the U.S. tested it but then decided not to use it:

Also per the article, Pegasus cannot access U.S. phones, by design.  The testing the U.S. did was on phones registered in foreign countries.    They have another system, Phantom, that they offered the U.S. that apparently can access U.S. phones.  But the U.S. is not using either system.


I listened to the podcast a month or so ago. My recollection is they noted the CIA and FBI acknowledged they both have Pegasus but said they are using it for "testing purposes only." Then everyone had a good laugh.

 
You think your face is private?

Facial recognition has been a great success at customs.   Makes the whole thing much more efficient.
I haven't been thru customs in years.  My face should be private, but even if not I'm not going to volunteer it.

 
How the hell is your face private? Do you wear a Darth Vader mask anytime you go out. Privacy paranoia is really getting out of hand. 

 
Not to speak for Sand, or the issue of having facial scanning at airports, but I can understand the distrust of facial scanning. I don't need somebody to have an easy way to track my every move simply by having facial scanning cameras everywhere. (Yes, my cellphone already does that and I don't like that either, and turn off location tracking to the extent possible). 

Also, facial recognition isn't that accurate, especially for non-caucasians. I don't want to be incorrectly identified as being someplace in not, especially if say the police are investigate a crime and some computer thinks I was there based on inaccurate facial recognition. 

Facial recognition technology has lots of good use cases. But it doesn't mean it can't be abused. Also, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you. 😉

 
American airlines is rolling out face scanning

:lmao:

Yeah, no thanks guys.


This actually looks like a great addition to the TSA process.  Fumbling around with my documents while toting my bags has always been a pain in the ###.  Just walking through would be amazing.  Your face is already being recorded through cameras at the checkpoints. So nothing new there. Relax.  

 
Facial recognition is just about the most obvious permeating future technology there is.  You can't watch a sci-fi movie without it.

 
A few interesting updates here on helpful objects that really have nefarious purposes.

California digital license plates - full on tracking by the state. Funny how they "fixed" it, but that functionality will always be accessible by those who want to track you.

Roomba vacuum cleaners use video to figure out where it is. And evidently to capture pictures of you on the pot and post those pics to the net.

Gotta be wary of allowing these amoral companies (and the state) from having access. These companies don't have enough of a vested interest in your privacy to protect against these things and in many cases the whole point is to insert the surveillance state into your life.
 
A few interesting updates here on helpful objects that really have nefarious purposes.

California digital license plates - full on tracking by the state. Funny how they "fixed" it, but that functionality will always be accessible by those who want to track you.

Roomba vacuum cleaners use video to figure out where it is. And evidently to capture pictures of you on the pot and post those pics to the net.

Gotta be wary of allowing these amoral companies (and the state) from having access. These companies don't have enough of a vested interest in your privacy to protect against these things and in many cases the whole point is to insert the surveillance state into your life.

Something has gone wrong.​

You can try refreshing the page. The problem may be temporary.

We have been notified of the problem, and are working to resolve it.

Are you trying to get spyware installed on my computer?
 
A few interesting updates here on helpful objects that really have nefarious purposes.

California digital license plates - full on tracking by the state. Funny how they "fixed" it, but that functionality will always be accessible by those who want to track you.

Roomba vacuum cleaners use video to figure out where it is. And evidently to capture pictures of you on the pot and post those pics to the net.

Gotta be wary of allowing these amoral companies (and the state) from having access. These companies don't have enough of a vested interest in your privacy to protect against these things and in many cases the whole point is to insert the surveillance state into your life.

Something has gone wrong.​

You can try refreshing the page. The problem may be temporary.

We have been notified of the problem, and are working to resolve it.

Are you trying to get spyware installed on my computer?

His roomba is probably sending signals to disable access. Gotta adjust those tin foil hats folks.
 
A few interesting updates here on helpful objects that really have nefarious purposes.

California digital license plates - full on tracking by the state. Funny how they "fixed" it, but that functionality will always be accessible by those who want to track you.

Roomba vacuum cleaners use video to figure out where it is. And evidently to capture pictures of you on the pot and post those pics to the net.

Gotta be wary of allowing these amoral companies (and the state) from having access. These companies don't have enough of a vested interest in your privacy to protect against these things and in many cases the whole point is to insert the surveillance state into your life.

Something has gone wrong.​

You can try refreshing the page. The problem may be temporary.

We have been notified of the problem, and are working to resolve it.

Are you trying to get spyware installed on my computer?
They know.
 
For me it’s never been “I’m not a criminal so I don’t have to worry.”

For me it’s more “what harmful stuff has anyone actually done with all this private data out there and is it happening on a wide enough scale that I really need to worry.”

It’s always “somebody could do this or that” but I keep waiting for this big privacy doomsday to happen.
 
For me it’s never been “I’m not a criminal so I don’t have to worry.”

For me it’s more “what harmful stuff has anyone actually done with all this private data out there and is it happening on a wide enough scale that I really need to worry.”

It’s always “somebody could do this or that” but I keep waiting for this big privacy doomsday to happen.
It's as if the pandemic didn't happen.
 

Guy loses access to his house for a week when Amazon shuts off his Alexa service due to a false allegation of saying a naughty word to a delivery person.

And this is what you get for trusting third parties with your 🏰, particularly something as annual as Amazon.
 

Guy loses access to his house for a week when Amazon shuts off his Alexa service due to a false allegation of saying a naughty word to a delivery person.

And this is what you get for trusting third parties with your 🏰, particularly something as annual as Amazon.

Couple of things to unpack here. No he did not lose access to his house. From the article:

I do want to note that since I host many of my own local services and many devices are local only. I only lost the ability to use Alexa.

Also, this is an extreme use case. This is a guy who seemingly has his entire house/life run by Amazon, and even then he was smart enough to have things run locally. I think most of us who use these devices also have things like light switches and keys and manual thermostats to allow us to function normally if something like this rare occurrence were to happen.
 
So it turns out that Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey are collaborating to collect license plates and other information over the major byways in these states. They used this over a period of a couple years to arrest a guy who was "driving criminally" - i.e. making trips up and down the state like they think a criminal smuggler would. The guy's conviction is being fought, but this kind of surveillance is breathtaking. And there is no way to avoid it.

 
CA says hold my beer:
Drivers may soon get speeding tickets without ever talking to an officer, if a bill gets approved authorizing speed limit cameras. The program would give speeding drivers a ticket by using speed cameras and an automatic billing system, according to Assembly Bill 645. "The speed safety system shall capture images of the rear license plate of vehicles that are traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit and notices of violation shall only be issued to vehicles based on that evidence," the bill states. Fines would start at $50 for going 11 mph over the posted speed limit and increase from there. The new pilot speed camera program would be implemented as soon as January 2024 in several major cities, including San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Los Angeles, Long Beach and the city and county of San Francisco. :wall:

 
CA says hold my beer:
Drivers may soon get speeding tickets without ever talking to an officer, if a bill gets approved authorizing speed limit cameras. The program would give speeding drivers a ticket by using speed cameras and an automatic billing system, according to Assembly Bill 645. "The speed safety system shall capture images of the rear license plate of vehicles that are traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit and notices of violation shall only be issued to vehicles based on that evidence," the bill states. Fines would start at $50 for going 11 mph over the posted speed limit and increase from there. The new pilot speed camera program would be implemented as soon as January 2024 in several major cities, including San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Los Angeles, Long Beach and the city and county of San Francisco. :wall:

Illinois has had these for a bit now, in addition to red light cameras, and now prolific license plate readers all over the place.
 
CA says hold my beer:
Drivers may soon get speeding tickets without ever talking to an officer, if a bill gets approved authorizing speed limit cameras. The program would give speeding drivers a ticket by using speed cameras and an automatic billing system, according to Assembly Bill 645. "The speed safety system shall capture images of the rear license plate of vehicles that are traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit and notices of violation shall only be issued to vehicles based on that evidence," the bill states. Fines would start at $50 for going 11 mph over the posted speed limit and increase from there. The new pilot speed camera program would be implemented as soon as January 2024 in several major cities, including San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Los Angeles, Long Beach and the city and county of San Francisco. :wall:

They had these in phx just as I was leaving. They got rid of them. We also used to have red light cameras in CA. Those also were litigated away. 🤷‍♂️
 
California has laws prohibiting law enforcement agencies from sending license plate info to other states, but sheriffs in certain counties are sending info of out of state plates found at abortion clinics back to the state of origin where abortions are illegal.
 
CA says hold my beer:
Drivers may soon get speeding tickets without ever talking to an officer, if a bill gets approved authorizing speed limit cameras. The program would give speeding drivers a ticket by using speed cameras and an automatic billing system, according to Assembly Bill 645. "The speed safety system shall capture images of the rear license plate of vehicles that are traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit and notices of violation shall only be issued to vehicles based on that evidence," the bill states. Fines would start at $50 for going 11 mph over the posted speed limit and increase from there. The new pilot speed camera program would be implemented as soon as January 2024 in several major cities, including San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Los Angeles, Long Beach and the city and county of San Francisco. :wall:

They had these in phx just as I was leaving. They got rid of them. We also used to have red light cameras in CA. Those also were litigated away. 🤷‍♂️
sounds like they are thriving in Chicago and plenty of cities in California still have red light camera's after they changed part of the california vehicle code section.
 
CA says hold my beer:
Drivers may soon get speeding tickets without ever talking to an officer, if a bill gets approved authorizing speed limit cameras. The program would give speeding drivers a ticket by using speed cameras and an automatic billing system, according to Assembly Bill 645. "The speed safety system shall capture images of the rear license plate of vehicles that are traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit and notices of violation shall only be issued to vehicles based on that evidence," the bill states. Fines would start at $50 for going 11 mph over the posted speed limit and increase from there. The new pilot speed camera program would be implemented as soon as January 2024 in several major cities, including San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Los Angeles, Long Beach and the city and county of San Francisco. :wall:

They had these in phx just as I was leaving. They got rid of them. We also used to have red light cameras in CA. Those also were litigated away. 🤷‍♂️
sounds like they are thriving in Chicago and plenty of cities in California still have red light camera's after they changed part of the california vehicle code section.
Yea, they’re gone done here in south OC. 🤷‍♂️
 
CA says hold my beer:
Drivers may soon get speeding tickets without ever talking to an officer, if a bill gets approved authorizing speed limit cameras. The program would give speeding drivers a ticket by using speed cameras and an automatic billing system, according to Assembly Bill 645. "The speed safety system shall capture images of the rear license plate of vehicles that are traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit and notices of violation shall only be issued to vehicles based on that evidence," the bill states. Fines would start at $50 for going 11 mph over the posted speed limit and increase from there. The new pilot speed camera program would be implemented as soon as January 2024 in several major cities, including San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Los Angeles, Long Beach and the city and county of San Francisco. :wall:

I got an official warning for speeding in a construction zone in PA with one of these cameras
 
I got an official warning for speeding in a construction zone in PA with one of these cameras
Yeah they're definitely a thing in construction zones on the PA Turnpike.

I've also come across them in OH.

One insidious thing about them is that it is weeks until you get the notice, so if you're travelling the same road often you could in theory have a whole pile of them in a queue waiting to be sent out.
 
Closer and closer to Demolition Man.

I’m shocked they don’t spend more time repairing them than collecting money. It will already be too late but people will eventually tear all these down.
 
I got an official warning for speeding in a construction zone in PA with one of these cameras
Yeah they're definitely a thing in construction zones on the PA Turnpike.

I've also come across them in OH.

One insidious thing about them is that it is weeks until you get the notice, so if you're travelling the same road often you could in theory have a whole pile of them in a queue waiting to be sent out.
Yes, they exist in Ohio. I have been busted this way. :bag: I am surprised you only got a warning, @belljr
 
I got an official warning for speeding in a construction zone in PA with one of these cameras
Yeah they're definitely a thing in construction zones on the PA Turnpike.

I've also come across them in OH.

One insidious thing about them is that it is weeks until you get the notice, so if you're travelling the same road often you could in theory have a whole pile of them in a queue waiting to be sent out.
Yes, they exist in Ohio. I have been busted this way. :bag: I am surprised you only got a warning, @belljr
I also got a warning in PA versus the fine in OH. The letter that came with it made it sound like they give everybody one warning. Actually, the Ohio one was technically my wife driving, but the car is registered to me so I got the fine. Really immaterial though, because she wasn't that far over and I probably would have been driving just as fast if we had been swapped.
 
I had a friend when I was in the Army in Belgium that got a speeding ticket in roughly 1989 on the autobahn. The ticket was mailed to him with a photo of the front of the car where the license plate was fully visible and the driver could be recognized.
 
Texas is using those license plate readers to catch people transporting illegal aliens. The police get real time data on the readers and can check drivers' stories on where they're coming from and what route they took.
 
Driving from Detroit to DC next week, reading this thread I’m 100% getting a ticket mailed to me

I did manage to get the Pacifica over 100 in North Carolina earlier this year :drive:
 
Worth reading the whole article, plus possibly others it links to. But some snippets:



It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy

The ways that car companies collect and share your data are so vast and complicated that we wrote an entire piece on how that works. The gist is: they can collect super intimate information about you -- from your medical information, your genetic information, to your “sex life” (seriously), to how fast you drive, where you drive, and what songs you play in your car -- in huge quantities. They then use it to invent more data about you through “inferences” about things like your intelligence, abilities, and interests.

Nissan review:

They come right out and say they can collect and share your sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic information and other sensitive personal information for targeted marketing purposes. We absolutely aren't making that up. It says so in their Nissan USA privacy notice. And that's not all! They also say they can share and even sell "Inferences drawn from any Personal Data collected to create a profile about a consumer reflecting the consumer’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes" to others for targeted marketing purposes. Yes, Nissan says they can infer things like how smart you are, if you have a predisposition to drink, if you are acting depressed, and if you are any good at chess (we're guessing that's what they can infer..it could be even worse than that), and then they say they can make as much money off that very personal information as they can. Nissan, you suck.
 
Worth reading the whole article, plus possibly others it links to. But some snippets:



It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy

The ways that car companies collect and share your data are so vast and complicated that we wrote an entire piece on how that works. The gist is: they can collect super intimate information about you -- from your medical information, your genetic information, to your “sex life” (seriously), to how fast you drive, where you drive, and what songs you play in your car -- in huge quantities. They then use it to invent more data about you through “inferences” about things like your intelligence, abilities, and interests.

Nissan review:

They come right out and say they can collect and share your sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic information and other sensitive personal information for targeted marketing purposes. We absolutely aren't making that up. It says so in their Nissan USA privacy notice. And that's not all! They also say they can share and even sell "Inferences drawn from any Personal Data collected to create a profile about a consumer reflecting the consumer’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes" to others for targeted marketing purposes. Yes, Nissan says they can infer things like how smart you are, if you have a predisposition to drink, if you are acting depressed, and if you are any good at chess (we're guessing that's what they can infer..it could be even worse than that), and then they say they can make as much money off that very personal information as they can. Nissan, you suck.
Yeah - I got a call from Ford last week asking about service and noting that my oil was at 0%. ####. I don't need Big Brother watching over my oil consumption. I found the connection setting and turned the damn thing off.

Funny thing is that they evidently sell this info for relatively small sums. And, of course, mostly to insurance companies. This is an easy federal law that could be passed.
 

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