Met Police officers to be ‘microchipped’

Wow, I didn’t expect this to happen so quick. Policemen getting chipped for tracking… Read what Philip discovered on his blog: Crossing Point of Light.

Met Police officers to be ‘microchipped’

Wow, I didn’t expect this to happen so quick. Policemen getting chipped for tracking… Read what Philip discovered on his blog: Crossing Point of Light.

Comcast denies it wants to spy on TV viewers

CABLE GIANT Comcast is backpedalling furiously away from the unguarded revelation by its Senior Vice President of User Experience, Gerald Kunkel, that it’s developing spy cameras built into cable boxes to monitor customers.

The bombshell was dropped by Chris Albrecht at newteevee.com a week ago after interviewing Comcast’s Kunkel at the Digital Living Room conference in San Francisco. There, he said Comcast is “experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.”

Readers were shocked and incensed to learn that companies are planning the imposition of such privacy-invasive surveillance technology in their commercial products and services.

A mortified Comcast responded by hurriedly attempting to minimise the scope of its customer monitoring ambitions, claiming that its device was “in no way designed to or capable of monitoring your living room.”

Albrecht was having none of it, however. He pointed out to Kunkel, “After you granted me our initial video interview, you brought up the topic of Comcast knowing who was in the living room in a conversation between you, myself and another conference attendee.”

“I actually left and came back to follow up on this point while you were talking with that same attendee. At this point, you were aware that I was a reporter and I took handwritten notes in front of you as we talked to make sure I had an accurate accounting of what you were saying,” Albrecht continued, nailing him.

TiVo, Microsoft, Google and others have over recent years let slip plans to add similarly invasive technologies to products and services, including computers.

It seems that Orwell’s dystopian vision of a fascist society in 1984 is on the way after all, and will be imposed by corporations under the guise of marketing.

(Source: http://the0011.com)

Government wants personal details of every traveller

Hummm… Big Brother? Well, that marks off one destination for my next trips.

Passengers travelling between EU countries or taking domestic flights would have to hand over a mass of personal information, including their mobile phone numbers and credit card details, as part of a new package of security measures being demanded by the British government. The data would be stored for 13 years and used to “profile” suspects.

Brussels officials are already considering controversial anti-terror plans that would collect up to 19 pieces of information on every air passenger entering or leaving the EU. Under a controversial agreement reached last summer with the US department of homeland security, the EU already supplies the same information [19 pieces] to Washington for all passengers flying between Europe and the US.

But Britain wants the system extended to sea and rail travel, to be applied to domestic flights and those between EU countries. According to a questionnaire circulated to all EU capitals by the European commission, the UK is the only country of 27 EU member states that wants the system used for “more general public policy purposes” besides fighting terrorism and organised crime.

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(Source: http://www.dvorak.org)
(Original Full Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk)

The Manchurian Bot

by Rebecca Sato

If you think governmental “spying” is out of control, wait until you read about this…

In the popular sci-fi movie, Minority Report, the public of the future is heavily monitored by the government. Remember those small disks surveillance microrobots that spied on citizens? That type of technology may not be sci-fi for long. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding research for stealth surveillance robots that can fly and are the size and appearance of a common housefly. They believe the robot’s small size and fly-like appearance will be an invaluable tool in their eavesdropping arsenal.

“Nature makes the world’s best fliers,” says Robert Wood, leader of Harvard’s robotic-fly project and a professor at the university’s school of engineering and applied sciences. They chose the tiny housefly for the model because “you probably wouldn’t notice a fly in the room, but you certainly would notice a hawk.”

If you’re paranoid about being spied on—get out your flyswatters. A life-size, robotic fly has already taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot’s movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines will likely eventually be used as spies as well as for other less controversial applications.

If you think being worried about government spying is silly—you might have missed the news in January of this year when President Bush announced that he’s allowed to open Americans’ mail. We also learned about undisclosed Pentagon and CIA demands for citizens’ financial records.

For five years now, the National Security Agency has been reading email and tapping phones without a warrant—actions explicitly forbidden by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This legislation was the result of the violations the last time a president (Nixon) authorized the wiretapping of Americans citizens.

The FBI delivers tens of thousands of National Security Letters that demand personal records from businesses, and gags recipients barring individuals from speaking out. Phone companies are now forced to “work in cooperation” with the feds by giving the NSA access to customers’ private records.

I’m not saying whether or not it’s wrong for the government to use illegal means in order to catch the “bad guys”. I’m just pointing out a few similarities between reality and one of my favorite sci-fi movies.

Link 1

Link 2

(Source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/07/if-you-think-go.html)