IT WAS THE talk most anticipated at this year’s inaugural Usenix Enigma security conference in San Francisco and one that even the other speakers were eager to hear. Rob Joyce, the nation’s hacker-in-chief, took up the ironic task of telling a roomful of computer security professionals and academics how to keep people like him and his…
Category: The Surveillance State
Singularity- Future Tense or Tense Future?
A Sci-Fi short story about homeland security at the edge of humanity Singularity Secretary Turing was still half asleep, restlessly tossing in bed, trying to shake the visceral angst she had been building up throughout the night. She was somnolent enough to continue her dream yet awake enough to realize it was rapidly becoming…
Regimes and Revolt: Authoritarian Ways of Counterinsurgency
Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from the author’s article in the Journal of Strategic Studies, “‘The People are Revolting’: An Anatomy of Authoritarian Counterinsurgency.” Scores of dead civilians, smoldering wastelands where villages used to be, a cowering people, and a regime thriving on tyranny and fear — these are the images evoked by the mention…
The Encryption Debate: Is Privacy More Important Than National Security?
The title to this article IMHO, aims to make the reader CHOOSE SIDES as to what is more important, Privacy or National Security. I propose to you that the expectation of Privacy, which is clearly defined in the 4th Amendment, and the DEFENSE of that Right, is what makes the United States unique as a…
Calculating your “Threat Score”
As technology advances in our society, those sci-fi movies that everybody thought were outlandish and far-fetched will start being seen as harbingers. After reading this article, watch a few minutes of the movie “Minority Report”. “Psychic Technology” is nothing more now than an advanced algorithm. -SF FRESNO, Calif. — While officers raced to a recent…
Surveillance is the Business Model of the Internet
The Internet of Things That Talk About You Behind Your Back SilverPush is an Indian startup that’s trying to figure out all the different computing devices you own. It embeds inaudible sounds into the webpages you read and the television commercials you watch. Software secretly embedded in your computers, tablets, and smartphones pick up the…