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Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are always watching you — even when you’re browsing pornography websites in incognito mode. What these companies might be doing with pornography-site browsing data is a mystery. Oracle, which owns a number of large data brokers and has been called a “privacy deathstar,” could, for example add data collected by trackers with its current profiles. Dr. Maris argues that this lack of disclosure is similar to the issue of sexual consent. “As in any sexual interaction, silence must not be mistaken for consent,” she said. “Individuals should have a clear understanding of the power dynamics of...

Detectives monitored the video on flat-screen TVs inside a secure room in the sheriff’s office.

Advocates of "body hacking" will gather in Austin this weekend to promote everything from bionic limbs to human microchips that can serve as anything from identification to a car key... Goodman showed off his own most recent "hack," a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip in his left hand. It's the same technology veterinarians implant into pets as a way to identify dogs and cats, but humans are using them to make their lives simpler or, in some cases, safer. "You can log into your computer, you could open your doors" with the chips, Goodman said. "I know people who start their...

Your smart lightbulb is probably storing your wifi password in the clear, ready to be recovered by wily dumpster-divers; Limited Results discovered the security worst-practice during a teardown of a Lifx bulb; and that's just for starters: the bulbs also store their RSA private key and root passwords in the clear and have no security measures to prevent malicious reflashings of their ROMs with exploits, network probes and other nasties.

Full tile: Jeff Bezos Protests the Invasion of His Privacy, as Amazon Builds a Sprawling Surveillance State for Everyone Else IF BEZOS WERE the political victim of surveillance state abuses, it would be scandalous and dangerous. It would also be deeply ironic. That’s because Amazon, the company that has made Bezos the planet’s richest human being, is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive, militarized and sprawling surveillance state. Indeed, one of the largest components of Amazon’s business, and thus one of the most important sources of Bezos’ vast wealth and power, is working with...

A former police clerk is accused of filming nearly 70 of his male colleagues using the restroom without their knowledge, authorities said. And where did this brazen act allegedly take place? A second-floor bathroom inside the headquarters of the Long Beach Police Department. KCAL9’s Tom Wait says the 28-year-old ex-employee — identified as Sergio Nieto — was in possession of about 115 tapes in all. Nieto has been charged with 115 misdemeanor counts of invasion of privacy. The formal complaint lists 69 victims. The videos show the men dressing and using the facilities. Officials say Nieto filmed the men using...

The Times reported late Tuesday that it obtained internal Facebook (FB) documents that show how the social media arranged to share data with more than 150 companies. The deals helped Facebook gain more users, according to the report, and its partners were able to add new features to their products while effectively avoiding Facebook’s usual privacy rules. Many of the partnerships ended years ago, but the details reported by the Times are striking. Amazon (AMZN) got access Facebook users’ names and contact information through their friends on the social network, according to the report, while Microsoft’s (MSFT) search engine Bing...

Blockchain technology has been the talk of the tech world for the last several years. That said, it is also something of a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. There are plenty of great books that effectively promote it, such as Don and Alex Tapscott’s nearly canonical Blockchain Revolution, published in 2016. Fast forward the revolution by two years. There’s more to say. George Gilder, in the most important recent book on blockchain, is here to say it. He not only dazzles but demystifies the blockchain, making vivid exactly how it is going to transform the internet and...

The FBI has asked Facebook not to reveal who was behind the recent data breach that saw hackers steal contact information of 30 million users, according to a Facebook security update Friday.

Killing America With Kindness: Google provides a curated one-world curriculum preloaded onto its Chromebooks The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy. Convenience is prioritized in 21st century life. Electronic devices that communicate with each other are marketed with the flattering descriptor “Smart” devices. Futuristic Smart Homes feature everything Smart from appliances, lighting, heating, air conditioning, TVs, computers, entertainment audio & video systems, security, and camera systems that can communicate with each other and be...

Facebook is asking British users to send naked photos of themselves to the social network, to try to stop revenge porn. If you're worried an intimate photo of you could be shared by someone else, the idea is to get it blocked before it appears online. Similar technology is used to try to stop the spread of child abuse images. Facebook's been testing the system in Australia and is extending the trial to the UK, the USA and Canada. A spokesman told Newsbeat the idea is open to people in the UK now. Facebook hasn't revealed any details about how...

A leaked internal video from Google portrays the company’s vision of “total data collection.” The 2016 video made by Google X’s Head of Design Nick Foster was obtained by the Verge, and discusses how users could choose a “life goal,” which Google then attempts to steer them towards through personalization. “It imagines a future of total data collection, where Google helps nudge users into alignment with their goals, custom-prints personalized devices to collect more data, and even guides the behavior of entire populations to solve global problems like poverty and disease,” declared the Verge, who reported that “the middle section...

SACRAMENTO - DNA is back in the spotlight, cracking cold cases. But questions are being raised after the state spent decades collecting the DNA of infants without parents realizing it. California has been collecting newborn blood samples since 1983. Many parents were shocked to hear their children’s blood is being stored in a state database, and possibly even sold to outside researchers. Pricking the toes newborns, to test their blood for certain disorders. The remaining blood becomes “property of the state,” and could be shared with outside researchers. “I feel like that’s something that should have been discussed with us,...

A mysterious, cone-shaped device, shown in a demo Monday at Microsoft's Build event in Seattle, hinted at a big leap in capability for the company's digital assistant: the ability to see and identify people. In the ruthless war among Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Google's Assistant, this is a feature we haven't yet seen from the competition. What we don't know is what this prototype is, and whether it will ever come out. Microsoft’s official, overshadowed demonstration showed us the conference room of the future. Microsoft incorporated Cortana, the Surface Hub, and Skype’s translation and transcription features, together with PowerBI...

NEW hi-tech cameras that detect drivers using their mobile phones without them even knowing and automatically issues fines could soon change everything. -- DISTRACTION is one of the leading causes of fatal road crashes in Australia but new hi-tech cameras that detect drivers using their mobile phones without them even knowing could soon change everything. A New South Wales Police spokesman told news.com.au that officers currently "use a variety of methods to detect drivers using their phones while driving". "Line-of-site, by trained officers is the primary method of detection, however, long-ranged cameras have been used with success, and helmet cameras...

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christoper Wylie, appearing before a committee of British MPs on Tuesday, said that Facebook has the ability to spy on users in their homes and offices. The British parliament is investigating Cambridge Analytica's involvement in the Brexit election. MP Damian Collins, who chaired the committee, asked Wyle whether Facebook has the ability to listen to what people are talking about in order to better target them with ads. "There's been various speculation about the fact that Facebook can, through the Facebook app on your smartphone, listen in to what people are talking about and discussing and using...

Owners of Amazon Echo devices with the voice-enabled assistant Alexa have been pretty much creeped out of their damn minds recently. People are reporting that the bot sometimes spontaneously starts laughing — which is basically a bloodcurdling nightmare.

MENLO PARK, CA—Giving his arms and legs a nice little stretch while reclining in his office chair Friday afternoon, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, confirmed that he had successfully completed another long day of deciding what people around the world should believe. The tech titan, worth $71 billion, went on to describe the weight that comes along with being the arbiter of moral fitness and objective truth, able to make or break nearly any website on the internet by lowering the organic reach of their posts or outright banning them, based upon Facebook’s opinion of the views expressed in their...

Facebook is not a privacy company; it’s Big Brother on PCP. It does not want to anonymize and protect you; it wants to drain you of your privacy, sucking up every bit of personal data. You should resist the urge to let it, at every turn. There’s a new menu item in the Facebook app, first reported by TechCrunch on Monday, labeled “Protect.” Clicking it will send you to the App Store and prompt you to download a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service called Onavo. (“Protect” shows up in the iOS app. Gizmodo looked for it on an Android device...

This move also relocates Chinese customers' iCloud data from the US to China.... Per a clause in the terms and conditions,.... Apple and GCBD "will have access to all data that you store on this service, including the right to share, exchange and disclose all user data, including content, to and between each other under applicable law." China passed a controversial cybersecurity law last July that required companies that operated data centers in China to store all data in the country.