Digital Consequences
…When Congress comes back into session next Tuesday, it will only have a few short weeks to accomplish one of the most important tasks before it: ensuring that control of the internet does not fall into the hands of those who would actively censor it to the detriment of free speech and American interests.…
The Commerce Department is finalizing the transition of control of the internet from U.S. hands to a "multi-stakeholder" model that includes Russia and China.
None of this was approved by Congress. The administration is acting unilaterally to strip U.S. control of the internet and give it to totalitarians and religious fanatics.…
A mother from Texas was horrified to learn that the cameras she used to keep watch on her 8-year-old girls had been hacked and were being live streamed on the internet.… “We have security cameras to protect them. I feel like I’ve failed. People are watching my kids in their home, dressing, sleeping, playing.” She added that she is not currently allowing her children to use the internet, saying that she “just can’t chance it again.”…
Serious security flaws that could give attackers complete access to a phone's data have been found in software used on tens of millions of Android devices. … However, there is no evidence of the vulnerabilities currently being used in attacks by cyberthieves. … "It's always a race as to who finds the bug first, whether it's the good guys or the bad."…
Europe’s growing army of robot workers could be classed as “electronic persons” and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution.…
A robot escaped from a testing area in Perm, a city not far from the Urals, and made it on to a busy junction, baffling passersby, but also disturbing traffic. …“The robot was learning automatic movement algorithms on the testing ground… Our engineer drove onto the testing ground and forgot to close the gates. So the robot escaped and went on his little adventure.…”
…What is MouseJack?
IoT firm Bastille researchers call it a “massive vulnerability in wireless mice and keyboards that leaves billions of PCs and millions of networks vulnerable to remote exploitation via radio frequencies.” It is “essentially a door to the host computer,” the MouseJack FAQ explained. The PR release warned that it could “potentially lead to devastating breaches.”…
A LEADING scientist involved in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has warned that it could rise up against us and end humanity within decades.…
Joyce Vogelman Taylor, of Potwin, Kansas, has been on the receiving end of years of harassment over an Internet mapping glitch that defaulted IP address locations to her farmhouse… Her home only contains an old Gateway computer that is used by Taylor to type up her monthly Sunday school lesson for the nearby Hillside Christian Church.…
Google has announced the launch of a cloud-based machine learning platform.
The search giant's new large-scale platform will be able to learn and make predictions 'across a whole variety of scenarios', and is reminiscent of the fictional Skynet service from Terminator.
A limited preview of the service is now available for users to build their own machine-learning models 'that work on any type of data, of any size'.…
…After the Benghazi attack Hillary's State Department emails show her administration was in contact with Google regarding a blocked YouTube video after President Obama admitted that the Benghazi attack was a preplanned act of terror.…
A robot, operating on the behalf of the pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs, has been accused of harassing students at the Ivy League Brown University in the US after it attended a discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The incident has been branded "dystopian" by a student group.
The debating cyborg, operated by one of the right-wing group's directors, Shahar Azani, was accused of "policing academic discourse" at the Rhode Island university, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz reported.…
A major step was taken Thursday in the U.S. government's plan to hand off oversight of the Internet domain name system.
A nonprofit international group approved a plan and forwarded it to the Obama administration Thursday for review and approval.…
ICANN officials said Thursday the plan should meet the U.S. government's priorities to protect the open Internet and to prevent any other government from gaining control. It also includes security and accountability measures, they said, and if the plan is implemented, Internet users should see no real difference. …
Perhaps this is the reason: Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, who in 2011 invested $300 million in the social network, now owns 34.9 million shares of Twitter’s common stock, making him the second largest shareholder…
What’s more damaging to the ability to share politically incorrect news than “shadow bans” and shutting down accounts of right-wing bloggers? How about banning a blogger’s URL so nobody can share links to thought criminal bloggers’ posts on social media?
The counter-jihad blog BareNakedIslam has apparently been URL banned by Twitter…
…Despite Twitter’s shady dealings, conservatives should not leave twitter for several reasons. …if conservatives leave, nobody will be around to expose Twitter’s duplicity. …if conservatives abandon Twitter, it just cedes the territory to liberals, again. …using Twitter frankly doesn’t make Twitter or its shareholders any money. …quitting Twitter just won’t work. …quitting Twitter is something the liberal, social justice warrior, safe spacers would do.…
…I think I do think twitter owes me something: a clear set of rules with even enforcement. Transparency would be a bonus (but I’m not going to get my hopes up).… Basically I’ll I’m asking from twitter is for the terms of the contract under which we operate. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so.…
…It’s only been a few weeks since Twitter announced it would ask a panel full of left-wing nutjobs to police their social media platform and shut down supposed “bullying…” I’ve started seeing people say that minor accounts were being banned… Breitbart’s @Nero lost his “verified” blue checkmark status… Stacy McCain… isn’t allowed anymore.… I guess it’s back to the only refuge from conservative free speech: email chainmails and tincans linked together through strings.…
…The TPP… is the bizarre, mostly-secret trade agreement which our current anti-capitalist president is ramming through. …we just want to focus on one seemingly teeny-tiny element which was recently changed (and which the Obama administration is no doubt hoping will fly under the radar). …in a nutshell the TPP will allegedly extend "copyright protection" for things like online content by allowing the government to bring charges against anyone suspected of copyright infringement even if the "copying" (like a simple link to a news story) does no harm to the copyright owner and, indeed, may even be encouraged by the copyright owner. …
THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT filed a motion this morning asking a federal court to compel Apple to help the FBI hack into an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooter suspects.… Apple responded on Friday evening saying the FBI changed the password to Farook’s phone and then forgot it.… Apple could have recovered information from the iPhone had the iCloud password not been reset,…
…According to Buzzfeed, the latest, radical alteration to Twitter’s user experience could come as early as next week, although the online outlet did not confirm whether the new system would be mandatory.
The news has led to the greatest backlash from Twitter’s userbase this year. #RIPTwitter has been trending internationally all day, with close to a million tweets on the hashtag. Celebrities and users from across the political spectrum are adding their voices to the online protest, and a change.org petition urging Twtter to change course is quickly gathering steam. Troublingly for Twitter, it doesn’t look like the controversy will fade anytime soon.…
Internet anonymity should be banned and everyone required to carry the equivalent of a license plate when driving around online.
That's according to Erik Barnett, the US Department of Homeland Security's attaché to the European Union. …
…On Monday the Supreme Court declined to hear a petition from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that sought to force the Department of Homeland Security to release details of a secret “killswitch” protocol to shut down cellphone and internet service during emergencies. …
When most people visit BackgroundAlert, they are surprised by the amount of personal information that is available for anyone to search.
Simply enter someone's name and BackgroundAlert will instantly search over 37 billion public records from thousands of federal, state and commercial databases to provide you with a background report with tons of personal details.
With the click of a mouse you can now have access to anyone's criminal records, arrest history, marriage records, divorce records, address history, known relatives, associates, licenses, sex offenders search, mug shots and the list goes on and on.…
Huma Abedin Just Joined Twitter. Hilarity Ensued. (DO NOT CLICK If You Can't Deal With Inappropriate Humor. Seriously. Just Don't.)
FCC Commissioner Ajit Varadaraj Pai said mobile content such as music that some service providers exempt from data limits could be in violation of the agency’s new Internet conduct standard. …
'If the internet goes down, half the planet will come to a standstill': why 'preppers' will be the last ones standing…
…This is a dangerous bill, and the vague language here is almost Orwellian with what could be severe ramifications.…
In a speech today in South Korea, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Internet "needs rules to be able to flourish and work properly." This, according to Kerry, is necessary even for "a technology founded on freedom." … [Doublespeak]
A prominent hacker and security researcher who was kicked off a United Airlines flight last month had previously admitted to the FBI that he had taken control of a plane and made it fly sideways.
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