Pass a billboard while driving in the next few months, and there is a good chance the company that owns it will know you were there and what you did afterward. Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, which has tens of thousands of billboards across the United States, will announce on Monday that it has partnered with…
Category: The Surveillance State
Speak Into the Microphone: Devices on Public Buses in Maryland Listening in on Public Conversations
The Maryland Senate on Tuesday delayed action on a bill that would clamp down on when public buses and trains can record the private conversations of their passengers. Sen. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County), chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings, which unanimously voted for the measure to move to the Senate floor, said he wanted…
Technology Update: Feds Don’t Need Apple to Get Into Your iPhone
IT’S A SHOWDOWN that has the country mesmerized. In court battles brewing across the nation, the FBI is trying to force Apple to help it extract data from iPhones seized in more than a dozen cases. The government is so intent on forcing Apple’s hand that in each case the Justice Department has invoked the…
Immigration or an iPhone
The public argument between Apple and the FBI over cracking the encryption on an iPhone used by the San Bernardino Muslim terrorists is one of those ongoing civil liberties debates that negotiate the terms on which we are asked to sacrifice our civil liberties for the sake of Muslim immigration. We have already made a…
Cyber-Security: Googles New “Neural Network” can Locate the Location of any Photo on the Web
For those of you that are “seasoned” Science Fiction fans like myself, perhaps you remember the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the HAL Computer? Yeah this “neural network” called PLaNET kinda reminds me of that…unsettling in a way, no? -SF Here’s a tricky task. Pick a photograph from the Web at random. Now…
The FBI’s War on Phones Is Bigger Than You Think
What a surprise, the Government Lied and are trying to access other phones not part of the investigation…I seem to remember Apple’s CEO warning about this, no? -SF Apple’s lawyers revealed the feds want access to about a dozen devices after San Bernardino. James Comey, the director of the FBI, has insisted that his agency’s…
Your Next “Recon” Drone
Something to put on your “Man Toys” list. Never know when you might need some aerial surveillance of something or someone, and the best part is you can own it off the books. -SF The palm-sized ONAGOfly is an affordable GPS-enabled drone that automatically takes photos using smile and obstacle recognition technology. Normally the Federal…
A Bite of the Apple: Privacy Versus National Security
There is an interesting conundrum in the works between the FBI and Apple. But interestingly enough, while several other companies (Like Google) have come out in support, the public sector is not raising the same cry as they should. Perhaps they don’t understand the issue. When the smart phone hit the scene, it took the world…
Cyber-Crime: JP Morgan Invents Algorithm to “Sniff Out” Rogue Traders
I swear every day we get closer to the movie “Minority Report” being a reality..the “authorities” knowing you are guilty of a crime before you commit it! Combine this with the current fight with Apple and the FBI you start to see the big SCARY picture. -SF Wall Street traders are already threatened by…
Matthew Bracken Talks SHTF and Dirty Civil War
MATTHEW BRACKEN is a former Navy SEAL (BUD/S Class 105), a Constitutionalist, and a self-described “freedomista”. This interview was first published in the Fall 2014 issue of Forward Observer. You might think that the most courageous thing Matt Bracken’s ever done is taking a SEAL team to Beirut, Lebanon in 1983, the same year of…