A man with intense eyes crouches over a laptop in a darkened room, his face and hands hidden by a black ski mask and gloves. The scene is lit only by the computer screen’s eerie glow. Exaggerated portraits of malicious hackers just like this keep popping up in movies and TV, despite the best efforts…
Category: Cyber-Security
Surveillance State: Hackers Have Found a Pulsating New Way to Spy on You on Your Phone and FitBit
Hackers may be pickin’ up good vibrations from your phone. All the better to surveil you with, my dear. Researchers at the Electrical and Computer Engineering school of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discovered that the vibration motor in your devices can operate like a microphone, according to the researchers’ paper. That means, if…
Surveillance State: DIVA Software Designed to Spot Suspicous Behavior BEFORE it Happens
The program is called Deep Intermodal Video Analytics—or DIVA—and it seeks to locate shooters and terrorists before they strike. The intelligence community is working on amping up people-recognition power to spot, in live videos, shooters and potential terrorists before they have a chance to attack. Part of the problem with current video surveillance techniques is the difficulty…
Espionage Files: Counterintelligence for U.S. Companies Operating Abroad
In January, the CEO of American Superconductor publicly detailed how traditional economic espionage methods carried out by a small Chinese firm resulted in over a billion dollars in loss to his company. Since at least 2011, much attention has been given to the rampant cyber espionage threat against U.S. firms, ultimately pushing U.S. businesses to…
Surveillance State: Push To Expand FBI Surveillance Authority Threatens U.S. Email Privacy Bill
Not sure if you guys have been paying attention to the clowns in the Senate lately, in typical backdoor fashion (kind of like the secret night time session where they passed CISA 74 to 21) they are attempting to pass legislation that if it goes through, Online Privacy will truly be an afterthought in the…
Surveillance State: New Israeli Facial Imaging Claims to Be Able to ID Terrorist and Pedophiles?
I know we joke a lot about national security technology becoming more and more like “Minority Report”, but folks, this is already been purchased by DHS. This is Happening. -SF “Faception” Technology can match an individual with various personality traits and types with a high level of accuracy A Tel-Aviv based start-up company says it…
Surveillance State: The FBI’s Secret Biometric Database
FBI wants to keep secret who’s stored in its massive biometric database The FBI said it would retain the data to “aid in establishing patterns of activity” to help discover new criminals when they arise. The FBI is proposing keeping information that it stores as part of a massive biometric database private — even to…
Surveillance State: Smart Policing
Power Loves the Dark Police Nationwide Are Secretly Exploiting Intrusive Technologies With the Feds’ Complicity By Matthew Harwood and Jay Stanley Can’t you see the writing on the touchscreen? A techno-utopia is upon us. We’ve gone from smartphones at the turn of the twenty-first century to smart fridges and smart cars. The revolutionary changes to…
Cyber-Security Threat Update: Don’t Get Juice-Jacked
You are racing through the airport. The low power light is blinking red. You are desperate to plug into any outlet you can find. Watch out. You could get juice jacked. Guess what? In every smart phone—no matter what the model—power and data flow through the same USB port and power cable. That creates a potential attack…
Surveillance State: Inside The NSA’s Real-Time Regional Gateway (RT-RG)
It is a very common trend to see “Counter-Terrorism” programs and technology that were once used to save American Military and Civilian lives in war get re-directed to spy on American citizens in Peace time. This is something to keep in mind with this program. -SF Relentless attacks on American military personnel at the height…