Evil is Baked into Big Tech’s Business Plan. Now What?
In her new book, Don’t Be Evil, Rana Foroohar explores how companies like Google and their tech brethren stampede over all of us.
Read more...Category Archives: Surveillance state
Fleeing the Hellscape of Google Search with Qwant
Comparing Google to Qwant for user interface/user experience, privacy under the GDPR, and the “filter bubble”
Read more...US Medical Data Security Gets Worse 2 Months After Expose of Hundreds of Millions of Images, Related Patient Info Open on the Internet
Another medical data horrorshow.
Read more...The Joker to Guy Fawkes: Why Protesters Around the World are Wearing the Same Masks
Discussion of role of masks in global protest, as Hong Kong’s mask ban is ruled unconstitutional by High Court.
Read more...Blockbuster WSJ Investigation: How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results
WSJ publishes results documenting how Google tweaks its search algorithms and adjusts your search results, to privilege large over small, and muddled middle perspectives.
Read more...Google Collecting Medical Data on Millions Without Informing Patients or Doctors
Google now wants to play doctor.
Read more...Electronic Voting Machine Debacle Continues in 2019, Setting Dangerous Precedent for 2020
Bloomberg’s recent story on electronic voting machines is good, but ignores their private equity owners, soft-pedals the role of corruption, and ignores the incursion of the intelligence community into the voting process.
Read more...What’s Inside That Black Box: What Regulating Data Privacy and Policing Drunk Driving Have in Common
Two recent NYT stories – on data privacy and drunk driving – highlight the dangers of unquestioned reliance on omnipotent back boxes.
Read more...Trump’s Border Wall is a Multi-Billion Dollar Corporate Handout
How Trump made the long-standing border boondoggle even bigger.
Read more...To Stop Threat of ‘For-Profit Surveillance,’ Rights Groups Demand End to Partnerships That Give Cops Access to Amazon Ring Data
Civil rights groups demand that Amazon Ring’s spy program be put behind bars.
Read more...America’s Final Patriots: An Interview + Book Review of Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud by Tom Mueller (Riverhead Books, 2019)
A new, “brutally researched” book on whistleblowers describes their importance and the price they often pay.
Read more...How Facial Recognition Technology Is Bringing Surveillance Capitalism to Our Streets
Facial recognition cameras are bringing the datafication of the internet to the real world, threatening our right to privacy and public space.
Read more...Cory Doctorow: Permanent Record: Edward Snowden and the Making of a Whistleblower
A review of Edward Snowden’s new book.
Read more...Big Tech ‘Nudges’ Our Behavior for Its Own Greed: Here’s a 4-Step Social Media Self-Defense Class
Some simple suggestions for how to keep tech from running your life.
Read more...California Privacy Law Looms
Businesses race to comply with California’s new data privacy law by 1st January; meanwhile, efforts continue to weaken its protections.
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