The FTC and four state attorneys general this week struck a $9.4 million settlement with Google over allegations that Google covertly paid celebrities money to promote a phone none of them had ever used.
Google Strikes $9.4 Million Settlement With FTC For Paying DJs And Influencers To Praise Phones They Never Touched
Tag: smartphones
The FBI and Zero-Click
During the Trump administration, the FBI paid $5 million to an Israeli software company for a license to use its “zero-click” surveillance software called Pegasus. Zero-click refers to software that can download the contents of a target’s computer or mobile device without the need for tricking the target into clicking on it. The FBI operated the software from a warehouse in New Jersey.
The FBI and Zero-Click
Related:
NSO Group Pitched Phone Hacking Tech to American Police
A former NSO employee told Motherboard that Phantom was “a brand name for U.S. territory,” but the “same Pegasus,” referring to NSO’s phone hacking tool that the company has sold to multiple countries including the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia for millions of dollars. Infamously, Saudi Arabia used the software to surveil associates of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Motherboard granted the source anonymity to protect them from retaliation from NSO
Germany, Freedom of Speech: With house searches against Facebook likes
Can a Like be punishable? The district court of Meiningen affirmed this question for the first time and even justified house searches. The questionable verdict thus allows law enforcement agencies to use bazookas to shoot at sparrows – and pushes the boundaries of freedom of expression. A comment.
With house searches against likes (original in German)
H/T: Steve Lehto
Revealed: The Former Israeli Spies Working In Top Jobs At Google, Facebook And Microsoft
A MintPress study has found that hundreds of former agents of the notorious Israeli spying organization, Unit 8200, have attained positions of influence in many of the world’s biggest tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon.
Revealed: The Former Israeli Spies Working In Top Jobs At Google, Facebook And Microsoft
H/T: Alan MacLeod on the Former Israeli Spies in Top Social Media Jobs
What is Fog Reveal? Police use new app to track people without a warrant
New tool shows where and when people work and live, with whom they associate and what places they visit
What is Fog Reveal? Police use new app to track people without a warrant
DOJ, Senate Leader Continue To Stoke Irrational Fear That Drug Dealers Are Targeting Kids With Multicolored Fentanyl
People who fail to understand the basics of supply and demand continue to insist suppliers want to kill potential customers.
DOJ, Senate Leader Continue To Stoke Irrational Fear That Drug Dealers Are Targeting Kids With Multicolored Fentanyl
The DEA is just looking for more 💰 for the idiotic war on drugs! Most likely, they’ll just imprison more people for nonviolent offenses!
MIT professor wrongfully accused of spying for China helps make a major discovery
Months after an MIT professor was cleared of spying for China, he helped make a major scientific discovery. But he says the success has been bittersweet.
MIT professor wrongfully accused of spying for China helps make a major discovery
The U.S. Lost the 5G Race…after an Immigrant was Forced to Leave
The U.S. Lost the 5G Race…after an Immigrant was Forced to Leave via Newsthink
Related:
The U.S. Needs a Million Talents Program to Retain Technology Leadership (archived)
It’s not just a matter of enticing new immigrants but of retaining bright minds already in the country. In 2009, a Turkish graduate of the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Erdal Arikan, published a paper that solved a fundamental problem in information theory, allowing for much faster and more accurate data transfers. Unable to get an academic appointment or funding to work on this seemingly esoteric problem in the United States, he returned to his home country. As a foreign citizen, he would have had to find a U.S. employer interested in his project to be able to stay.
Back in Turkey, Arikan turned to China. It turned out that Arikan’s insight was the breakthrough needed to leap from 4G telecommunications networks to much faster 5G mobile internet services. Four years later, China’s national telecommunications champion, Huawei, was using Arikan’s discovery to invent some of the first 5G technologies. Today, Huawei holds over two-thirds of the patents related to Arikan’s solution—10 times more than its nearest competitor. And while Huawei has produced one-third of the 5G infrastructure now operating around the world, the United States does not have a single major company competing in this race. Had the United States been able to retain Arikan—simply by allowing him to stay in the country instead of making his visa contingent on immediately finding a sponsor for his work—this history might well have been different.
CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders
CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders
The documents reveal the expansive plan the CDC had last year to use location data from a highly controversial data broker. SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence [Turki bin Faisal Al Saud] among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June.
The CDC used the data for monitoring curfews, with the documents saying that SafeGraph’s data “has been critical for ongoing response efforts, such as hourly monitoring of activity in curfew zones or detailed counts of visits to participating pharmacies for vaccine monitoring.” The documents date from 2021.
Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher who closely follows the data marketplace, told Motherboard in an online chat after reviewing the documents: “The CDC seems to have purposefully created an open-ended list of use cases, which included monitoring curfews, neighbor-to-neighbor visits, visits to churches, schools and pharmacies, and also a variety of analysis with this data specifically focused on ‘violence.’” (The document doesn’t stop at churches; it mentions “places of worship.”)
Related:
Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics
Location data broker SafeGraph stops selling information on visits to abortion providers
SafeGraph Provides CDC and 1000+ Organizations With Data to Fight the COVID-19 Crisis
Google Bans Location Data Firm Funded by Former Saudi Intelligence Head:
On its website SafeGraph says “We believe places data should be open for all.” In April 2017, Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, the former head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, invested in SafeGraph as part of a $16 million Series A funding round. SafeGraph said it had “assembled the deepest policy thinkers.” Beyond Faisal Al Saud, SafeGraph said it had enlisted the help of former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, author Sam Harris, Meghan O’Sullivan who ran Iraq and Afghanistan policy under President George Bush, former Deputy Chief of Staff to President Obama Mona Sutphen, and former German Minister of Defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, among others. Peter Thiel is also an investor in the company.
More investors: SafeGraph Raises $16 Million Series A
Anomaly Six Demo’d Surveillance Powers by Spying on CIA And NSA
Anomaly Six, a secretive government contractor, claims to monitor the movements of billions of phones around the world and unmask spies with the press of a button.
Anomaly Six Demo’d Surveillance Powers by Spying on CIA And NSA
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
You must be logged in to post a comment.