RIP Mark Klein
2006 AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein has died.
Entries Tagged "surveillance"
Page 4 of 93
Rayhunter: Device to Detect Cellular Surveillance
The EFF has created an open-source hardware tool to detect IMSI catchers: fake cell phone towers that are used for mass surveillance of an area.
It runs on a $20 mobile hotspot.
Atlas of Surveillance
The EFF has released its Atlas of Surveillance, which documents police surveillance technology across the US.
The Scale of Geoblocking by Nation
Interesting analysis:
We introduce and explore a little-known threat to digital equality and freedomwebsites geoblocking users in response to political risks from sanctions. U.S. policy prioritizes internet freedom and access to information in repressive regimes. Clarifying distinctions between free and paid websites, allowing trunk cables to repressive states, enforcing transparency in geoblocking, and removing ambiguity about sanctions compliance are concrete steps the U.S. can take to ensure it does not undermine its own aims.
The paper: “Digital Discrimination of Users in Sanctioned States: The Case of the Cuba Embargo”:
Abstract: We present one of the first in-depth and systematic end-user centered investigations into the effects of sanctions on geoblocking, specifically in the case of Cuba. We conduct network measurements on the Tranco Top 10K domains and complement our findings with a small-scale user study with a questionnaire. We identify 546 domains subject to geoblocking across all layers of the network stack, ranging from DNS failures to HTTP(S) response pages with a variety of status codes. Through this work, we discover a lack of user-facing transparency; we find 88% of geoblocked domains do not serve informative notice of why they are blocked. Further, we highlight a lack of measurement-level transparency, even among HTTP(S) blockpage responses. Notably, we identify 32 instances of blockpage responses served with 200 OK status codes, despite not returning the requested content. Finally, we note the inefficacy of current improvement strategies and make recommendations to both service providers and policymakers to reduce Internet fragmentation.
Secret Service Tracking People’s Locations without Warrant
This feels important:
The Secret Service has used a technology called Locate X which uses location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on phones. Because users agreed to an opaque terms of service page, the Secret Service believes it doesn’t need a warrant.
Mapping License Plate Scanners in the US
DeFlock is a crowd-sourced project to map license plate scanners.
It only records the fixed scanners, of course. The mobile scanners on cars are not mapped.
Are Automatic License Plate Scanners Constitutional?
An advocacy groups is filing a Fourth Amendment challenge against automatic license plate readers.
“The City of Norfolk, Virginia, has installed a network of cameras that make it functionally impossible for people to drive anywhere without having their movements tracked, photographed, and stored in an AI-assisted database that enables the warrantless surveillance of their every move. This civil rights lawsuit seeks to end this dragnet surveillance program,” the lawsuit notes. “In Norfolk, no one can escape the government’s 172 unblinking eyes,” it continues, referring to the 172 Flock cameras currently operational in Norfolk. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and has been ruled in many cases to protect against warrantless government surveillance, and the lawsuit specifically says Norfolk’s installation violates that.”
The Present and Future of TV Surveillance
Ars Technica has a good article on what’s happening in the world of television surveillance. More than even I realized.
Take a Selfie Using a NY Surveillance Camera
This site will let you take a selfie with a New York City traffic surveillance camera.
EDITED TO ADD: BoingBoing post.
Surveillance Watch
This is a fantastic project mapping the global surveillance industry.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.