By Claire Bernish

Facebook may have finally met its match. By directly targeting the social media behemoth’s lack of messaging encryption, infamously opaque algorithms, and government and advertiser accessibility, Minds.com has earned the attention of privacy advocates, activists, and frustrated Facebook users—and has even garnered active support from Anonymous. By employing many similar features found on Facebook and other social media giants, Minds gives its users a familiar platform without the numerous privacy concerns plaguing the long-established sites.

Users will find the typical status updates, comments, and link-sharing as other social media, but Minds takes the government’s eyes out of the equation by encrypting private messages and using open-source code that any programmer can check. The platform uses a “reward’ system based on points to earn “views” for posts, so the more active you are, the more the network will promote your posts—-without hindrance from advertisers and profit models.

“For every mobile vote, comment, remind, swipe & upload you earn points which can be exchanged for views on posts of your choice. It’s a new web paradigm that gives everyone a voice,” explains the website.

Minds.com founder Bill Ottman told Business Insider, “Our stance is the users deserve the control of social media in every sense.”

As an answer Facebook’s enigmatic algorithm that has contentiously manipulated users’ newsfeeds for years—essentially strangling organic post reach, even for wildly popular pages—Minds has vowed its formula for boosting posts will be transparent and available. Instead of using inexplicable formulas that rely on Orwellian features like how much time a user lurks on a post, the new platform logically bases its system on user interaction.

These features have been so appealing, the site had 60 million visitors before the official launch on Monday—the majority of whom listed an interest in “alternative media” as their primary reason to be there. In fact, the Facebook page Anonymous Art of Revolution—with a following of over one million users—boosted the Minds website when it announced a hackathon. According to the post:

Anonymous is initiating a call to hackers, designers, creators and programmers to unite worldwide. Let us collaborate on the code of Minds.com and build a top site that is truly of the people, by the people and for the people.

There have been many attempts to build alternatives to Facebook, but Minds.com—with its heavy emphasis on privacy and transparency—appears to be the most promising yet.

Claire Bernish writes for theAntiMedia.org, where this article first appeared. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific.

By Claire Bernish

As is typical for the Pentagon’s continuous mismanagement of its enormous budget, the F-35 fighter program — with its $1.5 trillion cost to taxpayers so far — continues to be fraught with complications and failures.

According to an 82-page report released Monday, myriad flaws still plague the Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, including an ejection system likely to break the necks of pilots under 136 pounds.

“Testing showed that the ejection seat rotates backwards after ejection. This results in the pilot’s neck becoming extended, as the head moves behind the shoulders in a ‘chin up’ position,” the report states.

In fact, less hefty pilots of all F-35 jets have already been restricted, as this issue is ongoing. According to the report, after recent failures of the ejection system as tested using 103- and 136-pound manikins,

[T]he Program Office and Services decided to restrict pilots weighing less than 136 pounds from flying any F-35 variant … Pilots weighing between 136 and 165 are considered at less risk than lighter weight pilots, but still at an increased risk (compared to heavier pilots). The level of risk was labeled ‘serious’ by the Program Office based on the probability of death being 23 percent, and the probability of neck extension (which will result in some level of injury) being 100 percent.

Lockheed Martin manufactures the fighters, but severe deficiencies listed in the new report call to question whether the F-35 program — which is “currently the most expensive in history,” as RT reported — should continue at all. In fact, the Pentagon has already spent over $400 billion, nearly twice its original estimate, on almost 4,500 F-35s. To attempt to keep costs under control, the military has proposed a “block buy” of 270 planes; but as the report asks:

Is it premature to commit to the ‘block buy’ given that significant discoveries requiring correction before F-35s are used in combat are occurring, and will continue to occur, throughout the developmental and operational testing?

Is it prudent to further increase substantially the number of aircraft bought that may need modifications to reach full combat capability and service life? As the program manager has noted, essentially every aircraft bought to date requires modifications prior to use in combat.

Not surprisingly, politicians — including Bernie Sanders — have cashed in on the F-35 program, despite its flawed manifestation. Though Sanders’ supporters often, and somewhat mistakenly, point to his anti-war stance, in 2014 the senator proudly brought the F-35’s manufacturing to Vermont — despite outrage from activists. Sanders argued the benefits would go directly to his state’s National Guard and economy, while blatantly ignoring the known flaws in the program — as well as the enormous costs.

The F-35 program might have been doomed from the beginning, considering the decision was made by the Pentagon to begin building the fighters before they were fully tested.

Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, executive officer of the F-35 program, said there were “no surprises” in the new report, according to Military.com. “All of the issues are well known to [us], the U.S. services, international partners, and our industry team,” he stated, noting the analysis does indicate progress has been made.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

That progress may only exist in the eye of the (budget) beholder, though, as Maxim noted Bogdan’s rather predictive statement from 2012 about the already issue-ridden F-35 program: “I don’t see any scenario where we’re walking back away” from it.

Apparently not.

This article (Pentagon’s $1.5 Trillion F-35 Better at Killing Its Own Pilots than Enemy Combatants) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

By Claire Bernish

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Internet of Things (IoT) — so-called “smart” devices, vehicles, and appliances which employ various computer technologies — may be used to spy and keep tabs on people in the future.

“In the future, intelligence services might use the IoT for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,” Clapper’s prepared testimony claimed.

Though his remarks were ostensibly, and not surprisingly, directed toward the fight against ‘terrorism,’ the potential implications for all civilians cannot be ignored — particularly considering the IoT comprises everything from smart cars and fitness tracking devices to televisions and Barbie dolls. Clapper warns the threat from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and such non-state actors as ISIL and al-Qaeda. can be expected in the form of cyber attacks, gathering information about individuals, and even psy-ops, which make the IoT vulnerable to malicious intent — and ideal for U.S. intelligence-gathering purposes.

“Future cyber operations will almost certainly include an increased emphasis on changing or manipulating data to compromise its integrity (i.e., accuracy and reliability) … Broader adoption of IoT devices and AI [artificial intelligence] — in settings such as public utilities and health care — will only exacerbate these potential effects,” said Clapper.

No matter the possible veracity in concerns of National Intelligence, the agency’s desire to thwart terrorism with an exponential increase in surveillance should be disquieting to all civilians wishing to maintain a modicum of privacy. As researchers with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard warned in their recent report, Don’t Panic:

The Internet of Things promises a new frontier for networking objects, machines, and environments in ways that we [are] just beginning to understand. When, say, a television has a microphone and a network connection, and is reprogrammable by its vendor, it could be used to listen in to one side of a telephone conversation taking place in its room — no matter how encrypted the telephone service itself might be. These forces are on a trajectory towards a future with more opportunities for surveillance.

In fact, the IoT has presented a veritable gold mine for the surveillance community. Former CIA Director David Petraeus, as pointed out by the Guardian, discussed the enormous potential for spying found in common appliances and devices in 2012.

“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing, the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing,” Petraeus said, according to Wired.

Nest is a home automation producer of programmable, self-learning, sensor-driven, Wi-Fi-enabled thermostats, smoke detectors, and other security systems. It’s also one of the devices can be used to spy on people in their homes.

Clapper’s testimony carefully constructs a potential legal justification for expanding surveillance via, say, your dishwasher, in his assertion that homegrown violent extremists — who have now earned an acronym, HVEs — present the greatest looming threat inside the United States. According to his remarks:

U.S.-based HVEs will probably continue to pose the most significant Sunni terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland in 2016. The perceived success of attacks by HVEs in Europe and North America, such as those in Chattanooga and San Bernardino, might motivate others to replicate opportunistic attacks with little or no warning, diminishing our ability to detect terrorist operational planning and readiness.

How to Disappear Off the Grid Completely (Ad)

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

With terrorists, foreign actors, and the U.S. intelligence community eager to take command in varying degrees through the Internet of Things, including smart phones, smart homes, smart cars, smart fridges, smart toys, and even smart toothbrushes, the choice to designate such devices “smart” should perhaps be revisited.

Image Credit

This article (Intel Chief Confirms Our Worst Nightmares: Home Smart Devices Are Ideal for Spying on You) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: Medill DC. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

By Claire Bernish

A recent examination of National Security Agency documents previously released by whistleblower Edward Snowden shows that the CIA and other U.S. agencies may be killing innocent people as a result of their reliance on metadata.

The NSA’s SKYNET is a program that surveils phone metadata in order to track suspected terrorists. Through SKYNET, the security agency engages in mass surveillance of Pakistan’s mobile phone network, affecting 55 million people — but that’s not all. Once the data is gathered, it’s run through a machine learning algorithm that attempts to rate whether a particular individual is more or less likely to be a terrorist.

According to Human Rights Data Analysis’ executive director Patrick Ball, the NSA’s methods are “ridiculously optimistic” and “completely bullshit.” If Ball is correct, SKYNET’s methodology may be putting thousands of innocent lives in danger because they are being falsely identified as terrorists.

While Ball has raised many issues, one of the most important points, which NSA officials appear to be ignoring, is that the machine is only able to identify a terrorist if it has access to details pertaining to a great number of other known terrorists. According to New York Magazine, however, “there just aren’t that many known terrorists” who could be added to the machine’s list, “especially in comparison to the number of phones the NSA is monitoring in Pakistan.”

The documents made available by The Intercept show the NSA works with the data of only seven known terrorists. NSA officials reportedly feed six of the terrorists’ information into the machine, tasking SKYNET with the duty of finding the seventh in a random group of 100,000 citizens.

Ball says this system cannot work.

According to Ars Technica, there were about 120 million cellular handsets in use in Pakistan at the end of 2012. At the time, the NSA analyzed 55 million of those records. With only “80 variables on 55 million Pakistani mobile phone users, there is obviously far too much data to make sense of manually,” Ars Technica explained.

Like any other application targeting big data, SKYNET is used as a substitute for “human reason and judgment,”Ars Technica’s Christian Grothoff and J.M. Porup explain.

Similar apps, like the one used by Facebook, are prone to making major mistakes, but the consequences of Facebook’s errors are relatively innocuous. When SKYNET makes similar mistakes by wrongly identifying a terrorist, the consequences are deadly.

Ars Technica contends that the information harvested and analyzed by NSA is “likely” used by the CIA or the U.S. military, two agencies that execute “Find-Fix-Finish” strategies with the help of Predator drones or “on-the-ground death squads.”

Before feeding the information to the CIA or the military, SKYNET uses information on people’s typical daily routines to tell a story. According to the NSA documents, the Ars Technica analysis details, the “program … is based on the assumption that the behaviour of terrorists differs significantly from that of ordinary citizens” when it comes to the more than 80 different properties they use to rate people.

With terrorist organizations upping their efforts to remain undetected, it’s hard to see how SKYNET could be effective, especially after learning that Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Islamabad, Ahmad Zaidan, was once SKYNET’s highest rated target.

In 2014, the former director of both the CIA and NSA, Michael Hayden, proudly claimed they “kill people based on metadata.”

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

To Ball, the NSA has a major problem on their hands if they “are using the same records to train the model as they are using to test the model.”

Because there is such a small number of known terrorists to work with, the number of possible terrorists is not sufficiently narrowed down. Ball explains the “usual practice is to hold some of the data out of the training process so that the test includes records the model has never seen before. Without this step, their classification fit assessment is ridiculously optimistic.”

If the NSA is serious about being accurate, Ball told Ars Technica, the agency should mix the terrorists into the population set “before random selection of a subset.” But the low number of known terrorists makes this particular step hard to follow. Without a “scientifically-sound statistical analysis,” there is no accuracy.

President Barack Obama has been under heavy scrutiny for authorizing drone campaigns that result in gross mistakes, killing a great number of innocent people while targeting “confirmed terrorists.” Since 2004, there have been 401 US drone strikes in Afghanistan, alone, killing 3,058 people total. In Pakistan, hundreds, including children, have died in pursuit of a mere two dozen declared terrorists.

This article (The NSA Actually Has A Program Called SKYNET — And It’s Terrifying) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Clarice Palmer and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article toedits@theantimedia.org.

By Claire Bernish

Police are now voicing their concerns about domestic drone use — specifically, they want the option to be able to employ weaponized drones in the future, should the need arise.

As if police brutality and aggression weren’t already an epidemic in the United States, police departments in Connecticut oppose a bill to outlaw the weaponization of drones. The bill also addresses unmanned aerial vehicles fitted with cameras, and their potential to violate the privacy rights of individuals. But law enforcement departments in the state appear far more concerned with being deprived of the possibility of arming them with weapons, rather than cameras.

As FOX 61 reported, bills currently being considered would both restrict drone use and classify arming them with any weapons — such as firearms or flamethrowers — as a Class C felony. Employing drones to set off explosives, deadly weapons, tear gas, and the like would be punishable by ten years in prison — and, at the moment, that would include law enforcement. As written, the bill would require law enforcement to procure a warrant prior to using a drone for any reason.

Connecticut legislators seem to be taking practically the opposite route of those in North Dakota.

In 2015, North Dakota passed a law granting police the right to arm drones with “less than lethal” weaponry. Quietly slipping under the radar of the public and the media, the bill as originally written by its sponsor, Representative Rick Becker, banned all weapons on police drones — until a powerful police lobby had its way with the original draft.

“Bruce Burkett of the North Dakota Peace Officer’s Association was allowed by the state house committee to amend HB 1328 and limit the prohibition only to lethal weapons. ‘Less than lethal’ weapons like rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers are therefore permitted on police drones,” Justin Glawe reported for The Daily Beast in August.

Of course, ‘less than lethal’ is quite a misnomer. Besides maiming and seriously injuring people, many of those options can also be fatal — particularly Tasers.

“This is not one I’m in full agreement with. I wish it was any weapon,” Becker rued at a hearing in March. “In my opinion, there should be a nice, red line: Drones should not be weaponized. Period.”

He noted the potential for police to mimic U.S. use of drones abroad, as in fighting ISIL — particularly because, he added, “When you’re on the ground, and you’re making decisions, you’re sort of separate. Depersonalized.”

North Dakota may have succumbed to Big Drone’s wishes — as the Daily Beast described the booming industry and its lobbyists — but it’s almost inevitable that privacy rights groups, legislators, concerned citizens, and law enforcement will point to its and Connecticut’s laws as reference precedents. Depending on which turn the bills before the Connecticut legislature take, that state could be added to what will likely be a growing list of laws for how to deal with weaponized drones.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Joining the battle to prevent police spying by drone, the ACLU was slated to testify about the Connecticut bill on Tuesday.

For now, the prospect of law enforcement arming drones remains a legal gray area — at least, in most areas of the U.S.

Also Read:
India to Use Weaponized Drones For Crowd Control
The Orwellian ‘Non-Lethal’ War Waged Against Peaceful Citizens
5 Things You Need to Know About This Week’s Drone Wars

This article (So It Begins: American Police Start Pushing to Weaponize Domestic Drones) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

By Claire Bernish

Thanks to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, the warrantless use of cell-site simulators, known as Stingrays, is now considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

“Police should now be on notice,” said staff attorney Nate Wessler of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, as The Intercept reported. “Accurately explain your surveillance activities to a judge and get a warrant, or risk your evidence being thrown out.”

This potentially precedent-setting decision upheld an earlier ruling by Baltimore Circuit Judge Kendra Ausby. According to The Intercept, “the trial court had suppressed evidence obtained by the warrantless use of a Stingray — the first time any court in the nation had done so.”

In a separate case before the courts in April last year, the revelation by a Baltimore police detective that the department had used Stingrays 4,300 times in eight years alarmed privacy-rights advocates around the country.

Wednesday’s ruling concerns a suspect in a 2014 shooting, Kerron Andrews, whom police needed to locate in order to effect an arrest. A judge granted police a “pen register” application — which isn’t a warrant, and doesn’t require probable cause — to gather information from Andrews’ wireless provider.

Instead of following through with the wireless service provider, police used “Hailstorm” — a high-tech version of Stingray. “This is a very expensive and very invasive technology developed for military use, now on the streets of America,” Wessler stated in April 2015.

Police repeatedly failed to inform the judge of their change in strategy to locate Andrews, but eventually had to reveal the use of Hailstorm in court — evidence the trial court threw out. Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh argued the mere act of turning on a cell phone grants consent to be tracked by police — a position almost certain to be rejected as part of the summary decision in this case.

Department of Justice guidelines requiring warrants to use cell-site simulators only pertain to seven agencies — and as The Intercept noted, state and local police are not among them.

In November, The Free Thought Project reported the alarming discovery by the ACLU, after their lengthy battle for the release of pertinent documents, that Stingrays “may be capable of intercepting the contents of communications.”

On Tuesday, a House Oversight Committee hearing on Geolocation Technology and Privacy for a proposed bill attempted to reckon continued technological advances with the rights of people to maintain their privacy. The bill in question would require all police departments to obtain warrants — not the nebulous and comparatively flimsier pen register applications — prior to employing Stingrays.

Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz summarized,

Just because it’s easier in 2016 for law enforcement to track our location and learn intimate details about our lives, it doesn’t mean those details are somehow less worthy of Constitutional protection.

Also Read – Records: U.S. Marshals Used Stingray Surveillance Nearly 6,000 Times

Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

By Claire Bernish

After needlessly contaminating Flint’s water supply with lead, a new report reveals the government now monitors social media for hints subversive communications relating to the Flint Water Crisis.

According to MLive, officials with the Michigan State Police have been conducting online surveillance for comments about Flint’s lead contamination crisis. One of over 127,000 emails released by Gov. Rick Snyder’s office shows one man’s allegedly threatening Facebook post concerning the government’s mishandling of the Flint crisis — which led to the initiation of criminal proceedings.

“It’s time for civil unrest. Burn down the Governor [sic] mansion, elimionate [sic] the capitol where legislators RE-INSTATED the emergency dictator law after the PEOPLE voted it down, and tell the Mich [sic] State Police if they use military force, we will return with same,” the unnamed Copper City man’s Facebook post stated, according to MLive.

The Free Thought Project contacted the state police who declined to comment for this article and for the MLive report about ongoing investigations stemming from such social media surveillance, though police did say appropriate agencies would be notified should they be affected.

“In the interest of protecting our residents, the MSP monitors any incidents that have the potential to result in criminal activity and/or violence,” wrote Michigan State Police spokesperson Shanon Banner in an email to MLive. “Threats against individuals and organizations are shared with the individual/organization so they have situational awareness.”

In the case of the Copper City man, previous troubles with law enforcement — including an armed standoff with police in April last year — led to his being on probation at the time he wrote the alleged threat on social media.

As Snyder’s and the government’s emergency managers’ handling of the Flint water crisis has been rightly the subject of contention and criticism, the police monitoring of social media may perhaps add fuel to the conflagration.

Another man was arrested in February for a Facebook post about the Flint crisis, which called for Snyder’s arrest, as The Free Thought Project reported.

Last week, an announcement the Flint lead contamination crisis would be investigated and prosecuted as a crime led to the arrest of three officials — and the vow by prosecutors more charges would be forthcoming.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Though Snyder has become the subject of multiple lawsuits — for which he’s using over $500,000 in taxpayer money to defend himself — he has thus far managed to escape criminal charges for his role in the Flint debacle. In fact, he hasn’t even been questioned yet.

An official with the Flint water treatment facility mysteriously and inexplicably dropped dead at age 43. Then a woman, who had been key to an incredibly important lawsuit concerning the Flint crisis, was recently found murdered in her home.

As the government’s nefarious role in the Flint crisis becomes clear, it can be no wonder officials are conducting surveillance of social media — paranoia undoubtedly rules in the minds of those who had a part in poisoning thousands of innocent people.

Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

By Claire Bernish

For the first time since the implementation of the USA Freedom Act, Yahoo! published three National Security Letters — perhaps the most secretive and contentious method the FBI has for obtaining information on individuals — after the lifting of repressive and equally-contentious gag orders.

Mainstays of the USA PATRIOT Act, National Security Letters (NSLs) generally request customer data information from businesses such as banks, internet service providers, travel agencies, and phone and telecommunications companies — without a warrant required. Worse, NSLs include onerous, mandatory orders prohibiting their recipients from disclosing to anyone — including coworkers, friends, and family — that they even received the letter.

“Yahoo has always maintained a strong commitment to protecting our users’ safety, security and privacy,” the company said in an announcement of the disclosure. “The release of these documents and information regarding NSLs today is consistent with our commitment to share as much information as we legally can regarding government data requests. We believe there is value in making these documents available to the public to promote an informed discussion about the legal authorities available to law enforcement.”

“Each NSL included a nondisclosure provision that prevented Yahoo from previously notifying its users or the public of their existence,” the company ominously stated.

Largely due to these mandatory nondisclosure orders, gauging exactly how many NSLs have been issued remains impossible — though as of 2013, the Obama administration admitted an average of 60 per day were being issued. Alarmingly, in its latest transparency report, Apple claimed the number of “national security orders” — including NSLs — had doubled in just six months. Yahoo! said it plans updates to its own transparency report as additional nondisclosure orders are lifted.

Though they haven’t received quite the notoriety of more sweeping surveillance programs — perhaps due to the extensive reporting after revelations from Edward Snowden — NSLs are at least equally troubling. As EFF previously noted, “in march 2007 the Department of Justice’s inspector general released a report confirming extensive misuse of NSLs in a sample of four FBI field offices. An internal audit by the FBI confirmed that the problem was far more extensive than first thought.”

So insidious are NSLs, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) once described them as “one of the most frightening and invasive” facets of the PATRIOT Act.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Essentially anything surrounding the account of the user targeted by the FBI must be disclosed, except for the actual content of communications. But plenty of information can be derived, without having to delve into the content, Vocativ noted, as metadata could include “the dates when an account was opened, IP addresses used to log in, any physical address or phone number associated with the account, the credit card number it used to pay for any service, any listed aliases — pretty much anything a user gives when they create an account.”

“Our understanding is that the vast majority of NSLs of these kind that are issued go to tech companies, and that it’s a basic tool that the FBI uses to start investigations involving people’s communications,” Andrew Cocker, staff attorney at EFF, told Vocativ in discussing NSLs specific to companies like Yahoo!.

Yahoo!’s decision to disclose these NSLs marks the company’s “ongoing commitment to transparency.” A minor concession in the Freedom Act requires the FBI to periodically assess whether gag orders should remain in place. In the case of Yahoo!’s three NSLs, the termination of ongoing nondisclosure indicates the FBI completed those investigations.

“We believe this is an important step toward enriching a more open and transparent discussion about the legal authorities law enforcement can leverage to access user data,” Yahoo! stated.

While the Freedom Act basically continued many of the same programs from the PATRIOT Act that had expired, minor changes like the requirement to review FBI nondisclosure arrangements provide a degree of transparency desperately needed. Now, thanks to Yahoo!, NSLs became a little less secretive.

Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

By Claire Bernish

Once thought to be too approachable for their own good — as in, able to efficaciously perform the tasks they’ve been designed to do — robots are now being programmed with self-defense capabilities.

Now, robots which, say, patrol for criminal or suspicious activity come with a blend of humanoid characteristics and self-defense programs which prevent them from being perceived as too cute — or too menacing.

“Because of all the doomsday scenarios people imagine with robots, their makers have to insert some cuteness,” explained Golden Krishna, a designer with Alphabet’s Google, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

“When humans see a robot that doesn’t have eyes,” said Rodolphe Gelin, SoftBank Group Corp. robotics unit chief scientific officer, “they think it doesn’t care about them.”

That perception — however Orwellian it might sound — can be detrimental to a robot’s ability to function on the job in the presence of humans.

After several failed design attempts to find the appropriate balance between relatable and threatening — and a number of incidents in which robots faced ‘abuse’ or ‘assault’ by humans — newer robots employ self-defense capabilities.

One incident of, well, ‘roboticide’ occurred with the failed experiment of HitchBOT. This cylindrical robot with an LED smile was dropped off on the roadside to see how if robots could “depend on people”  — but the experiment came to an abrupt halt when HitchBOT “was found decapitated in Philadelphia last summer,” the WSJ noted.

“While the project showed that they can indeed trust humans,” HitchBOT’s creators said generally of robots, “there are also exceptions to the rule.”

Experts on the interaction between humans and their new mechanical counterparts observed “robot abuse” in action in Okinawa, Japan, in 2014, when robots designed to assist the elderly in purchasing groceries came under attack by children, who kicked it, beat it with a bottle and bent its neck.

“The robot said ‘Someone help me!’ and Ouch, that hurt,” said researcher, Dražen Bršcic, with ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communications Laboratories, as cited by the WSJ. “But it didn’t stop the children.”

Those experiments led, in part, to robots with human-like facial features that can also employ defensive tactics if someone gets spooked or wishes to cause harm.

Instead of reacting as if they’re being hurt, some newer robots have been designed to simply stop moving altogether — in theory, to cause attackers to lose interest. Thus, the K5 — a robot who performs all the functions of security patrols except offense — was born.

The WSJ described the K5:

The camera ended up at nose position. A row of ultrasonic sensors, to help it avoid running into people, looks like buttons. A navigation laser resembles a hat. Curved lights are eye-like.

The K5 patrols with buddy bots. If someone messes with one, its partner can document the offense. The K5’s shape and 300 pounds offer protection: The lack of edges make it hard for bad guys to lift and steal. Knightscope rents a K5 for $7 and hour or about $60,000 a year.

This 5-foot, 3-inch, glossy-white, graffiti-resistant K5 now appears almost neutral and can interact with humans more readily than some previous designs — such as a robot resembling a small tank — but is built with the ‘play dead’ reflex if attacked.

Knightscope, the start-up responsible for the K5, sought to create a beat cop robot; and the company’s vice president of marketing and sales, Stacy Stephens — as a former Dallas police officer — has offered input for the project.

“When it comes to mischievous activities,” she said in the WSJ, “I know a bit about what people do.

While the world might not be quite ready for armed robots-on-patrol, it would be a question worth considering as designs improve and people become familiarized to their presence. Armed, unmanned aerial vehicles — drones — have been responsible for a highly-contentious number of deaths in conflicts around the world, and particularly, the Middle East.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Can armed, unmanned, non-aerial, ‘human-esque’ robots really be that far in our future?

Below is a video of the K5 in action.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ0keOYO4OE]

Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

Image Credit

Also Read:
China to Unleash Killer Robot Army to Fight Terrorism
New Sophisticated Humanoid Robot Declares “I Will Destroy Humans”

By Claire Bernish

On Saturday, the United States ceded oversight of one of the Internet’s most basic and fundamental functions — the so-called “root zone,” which governs new domain names and addresses — handing it over to a small non-profit group by allowing a 47-year contract to expire.

For decades, the U.S. Commerce Department held a contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) — whose executives and board of directors must now report to an Internet “stakeholder community,” loosely comprised of academics, activists, engineers, government officials, and corporate interests.

In theory, this advisory panel could revoke ICANN’s authority entirely should it not live up to expectations — but all actions “are supposed to be done by consensus.”

With the lapse of the contract, the U.S. fulfilled its objective to “privatize” the Internet — something proponents claim would help bolster its integrity around the world. As the Internet rapidly expanded around the planet, many felt U.S. oversight anachronistic.

“This transition was envisioned 18 years ago,” said Stephen Crocker, board chairman of ICANN and an engineer who helped develop early Internet protocols, in a statement cited by AFP, “yet it was the tireless work of the global Internet community, which drafted the final proposal, that made this a reality.

This community validated the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance. It has shown that a governance model defined by the inclusion of all voices, including business, academics, technical experts, civil society, governments and many others is the best way to assure that the Internet of tomorrow remains as free, open and accessible as the Internet of today.

But the move didn’t come without vehement opposition, including from some U.S. lawmakers who felt giving up oversight could permit less scrupulous regimes to seize total or partial control of this vital Internet function — with potentially disastrous results.

Attorneys general from Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Nevada staged a last-minute effort to intervene, by requesting a temporary restraining order which was heard in federal court in Texas on Friday. Despite their understandable fears the contract lapse would put the U.S. and the Internet in uncharted territory — and could threaten the integrity of .gov addresses and more — the judge denied their request.

Opposition to handing oversight to ICANN has largely, but not entirely, come from the GOP. Sen. Ted Cruz asserted this week after a failed attempt to halt the move by adding legislation to a funding measure,

President Obama intends to give increased control of the Internet to authoritarian regimes like China, Russia, and Iran. Like Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama Canal, Obama is giving away the Internet.

Technical experts say it isn’t as simple as ‘giving away’ the Internet, since the U.S. didn’t ‘own’ it in the first place; but placing control of the root zone — officially, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) — in the hands of ICANN does present pertinent questions.

This little device delivers turnkey Internet privacy and security (Ad)

As the Chicago Tribune reports:

While the Internet itself was designed to function without a central authority, ICANN has played a small but crucial role since its founding in 1998 at the urging of the Clinton administration, replacing a program run under the authority of the Defense Department. ICANN oversees the process of assigning domain names and the underlying Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses, allowing users and anyone on the Internet to navigate to sites such as Washingtonpost.com. Private companies called registrars and approved by ICANN – such as GoDaddy.com or Name.com – sell the domain names to companies or individuals.

ICANN’s decisions haven’t been without controversy, however, and the U.S. had the option of offering the contract to another entity.

“Somebody has to be responsible for this. This is a common space,” explained Garth Bruen, a cybersecurity expert who sits on an ICANN advisory board, as quoted by the Tribune. “There’s no checks and balances anymore. . . . Before, there was a threat of accountability.”

And as The Economist noted, whoever controls the Internet’s “address book” also holds the power to censor — any domain name can be revoked and the website no longer found.

Critics have also noted the eagerness of proponents of the transition, such as notorious globalist George Soros, as an indicator ceding control should be considered more carefully — or at least delayed significantly to give the American public some say in the matter.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Still, experts say such fears are wildly overblown.

“There is absolutely no way that this is going to imperil freedoms,” asserted Matthew Shears, director of Global Internet Policy for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based advocacy group largely supported by the tech industry, per the Tribune. “There is absolutely no way that this is going to allow Russia or Iran or anybody to take control of the Internet. This has nothing to do with that.”

Whether the transition will ultimately prove beneficial or detrimental likely won’t be fully realized for some time.

Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

By Claire Bernish

Thanks to what’s known as the Internet of Things — the growing number of ‘smart’ devices and appliances connected to the Web and to each other — will be used by police to solve violent crimes.

Your fridge, law enforcement says, might help solve a murder.

However beneficial that sounds, it indicates a number of circumstances to send chills down the spines of privacy rights advocates — or anyone who doesn’t find the idea of, say, a washing machine spying on their every move.

“Wireless cameras within a device, such as fridge, may record the movement of owners and suspects,” Metropolitan Police head of the digital, cyber and communications forensics unit, Mark Stokes told The Times.

Doorbells that connect directly to apps on a user’s phone can show who has rung the door and the owner or others may then remotely, if they choose, to give controlled access to the premises while away from the property.

All these leave a log and a trace of activity. The crime scene of tomorrow is going to be the internet of things.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1526143560956-5'); });

Stokes explained detectives are already being trained to hunt for such devices at crime scenes in order to map both victims’ and suspects’ digital footprints. So many appliances and personal devices are now linked to the Internet under the premise of convenience, Stokes’ assessment isn’t an exaggeration.

Indeed, many privacy advocates and domestic surveillance critics — like whistleblower Edward Snowden — have long warned the consumer culture’s lust for convenience and saving time would usurp more rational goal of keeping the government’s prying eyes out of our homes.

Instead, as the Telegraph explains, in just one example,

The new Samsung Family Hub Fridge has cameras that carry a live feed of its contents, so shoppers can tell what they need when they are out at the shop. The dates and times that people logon to the fridge, therefore could provide alibis or prove people were not were they said they were.

Further, authorities have been working to create a portable “digital forensics toolkit” —  for analyzing microchips and downloading information on the spot — so police would not be forced to remove large appliances from a crime scene for testing.

RFID Scan Blockers – Available for Free (Ad)

As Stokes noted, however, private corporations — the manufacturers of these devices — could create obstacles to this potential gold mine of information. Concern for customers’ privacy has, indeed, been a barrier for investigators in Bentonville, Arkansas, who have filed search warrants to obtain the information from murder suspect James A. Bates’ Amazon Echo.

Law enforcement have filed search warrants with Amazon for recordings from the device in hopes it had been voice activated and captured clues to explain how Victor Collins was strangled to death in Bates’ hot tub in 2015 — but, thus far, the company has not complied.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

“It is believed that these records are retained by Amazon.com and that they are evidence related to the case under investigation,” the search warrant reads.

Police have already obtained information from the electric water meter on Bates’ house, and feel the Echo — a voice-activated device which plays music, can answer questions, turns on home appliances, and uses artificial intelligence to improve service over time — might have recorded information vital to parsing out the murder.

When it comes to the Internet of Things and the accommodating features such devices provide, costs to personal privacy far outweigh the benefits of saved time. Indeed, considering law enforcement and government authorities are far from infallible, the thought your connected devices have an astonishing amount of information about your otherwise private life should be of sharp concern.

While it might be noble to solve violent crime using any means necessary, the potential for abuse — police trumping up charges after accidentally ‘discovering,’ for example, non-violent, victimless crimes a person committed — is unparalleled.

For owners of the Amazon Echo worried about privacy, instructions for deleting audio recordings can be found here.

Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

Image Credit: Pixabay.com

By Claire Bernish

Nevada — A new bill — proposed by a senator who sees the potential for tracking humans to come to fruition — would make mandatory microchipping of humans a Class C felony.

Nevada State Senator Becky Harris believes Senate Bill 109 could be a pre-emptive measure against the worldwide push to implant humans with microchips — and the inspiration for the bill came from one of her constituents.

“As I began to look into the issue I was surprised with the merit that I believe the issue warrants,” Harris told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.

Under the legislation, radio frequency identification (RFID) chips — or any technology storing personal information that could be used to locate a person — may not be implanted in people without their consent.

“This is a completely new issue,” Harris continued. “I just want a safety measure in place until we better understand the technology and the reasoning behind people’s desire to require implanting chips.”

Many reflexively balk at the idea of having a glass tube-enclosed chip roughly the size of two grains of rice injected under the skin, but businesses overseas — specifically in Belgium and Sweden — have already begun implanting employees with RFIDs.

“It’s done under the idea to unlock doors or use copy machines or maybe pay for lunch, you could use your hand,” Harris explained.

Or, at least, that’s the premise for microchipping at the moment.

“Besides privacy concerns,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted, “Harris said the concept raises ethical questions, such as who owns the chip or the information contained on it. And how does someone get ‘de-chipped’ if they are no longer employed by the company that required it.”

Microchips are already commonplace in the United States, to track pets, goods, and — perhaps more controversially — people with Alzheimer’s disease or late-stage dementia. Despite laudable intentions, Nevada’s proposed legislation isn’t devoid of contention, as ABC News reports:

Sean Sullivan, Washoe County deputy public defender, said the bill may also prohibit radiologists from using tattoos as permanent identifiers of where on patients to aim treatment. Others voiced concerns that it would forbid families and legal guardians of Alzheimer’s patients from deciding to put computer chips in those patients, who often wander in later stages of the disease.

RFID Scan Blockers – Available for Free (Ad)

Injecting a tiny chip containing personal information under one’s skin has long been the subject of dystopian nightmares, as fears some fascist despot could rise to power and exhort total control over the citizenry. Indeed, because the technology is still developing and could be far advanced by the time any government would seek to make microchips mandatory, legal safeguards couldn’t come soon enough.

Senate Bill 109 leaves the option for chip implants up to individuals and removes it from the hands of nosy employers and the State — that is, unless the person injecting the chip doesn’t mind being slapped with a felony.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

“There really aren’t, under any circumstance, any justifications for that type of a tracking device on a human being,” ACLU of Nevada Policy Director Holly Welborn told ABC News, adding ‘there’s no impending need to protect people against mandatory microchipping, but there’s no question the technology would violate rights to personal autonomy and privacy.’

Microchips were first approved for human implantation 13 years ago, but have sparked furious debate over the potential for misuse or abuse — whether unintentional or malicious.

Should the new bill pass, Nevada would join California, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin — all passed similar measures after an incident in 2006, in which two employees at an Ohio-based surveillance firm implanted chips in their arms to ‘access protected vaults and police images.’

According to the Review-Journal, virtually no opposition to the legislation was voiced in committee, but no further action has been taken on the bill.

That precautionary legislation has to be introduced to prevent a potentially unprecedented invasion of personal autonomy speaks to both advancements in technology and the human penchant to rush to use it without first considering long-term implications.

Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

By Claire Bernish

While most Americans would consider the CIA, and perhaps the NSA, household names, one U.S. spy agency — whose headquarters surpasses the U.S. Capitol in size — has managed to keep to the shadows while possessing cutting edge tools of the surveillance trade.

Called the  National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), even former President Barack Obama didn’t know of its existence when he first took office — despite that the agency employs some 15,400 people.

“So, what do you [do]?” Obama asked a customer at a Washington, D.C., Five Guys hamburgers in May 2009.

“I work at NGA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency,” he answered.

“Outstanding,” then-president Obama asserted. “How long have you been doing that?”

“Six years.”

“So, explain to me exactly what this National Geospatial …” Obama asked, unable to recall the agency’s full name.

Timidly, the man replied, “Uh, we work with, uh, satellite imagery.”

“Obama appeared dumbfounded,” Foreign Policy’s James Bamford reports. “Eight years after that videotape aired, the NGA remains by far the most shadowy member of the Big Five spy agencies, which include the CIA and the National Security Agency.”

The NGA’s secretive identity belies the agency’s massive physical size and the scope of its surveillance activities, as Bamford continues,

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1526143560956-5'); });

Completed in 2011 at a cost of $1.4 billion, the main building measures four football fields long and covers as much ground as two aircraft carriers. In 2016, the agency purchased 99 acres in St. Louis to construct additional buildings at a cost of $1.75 billion to accommodate the growing workforce, with 3,000 employees already in the city.

The NGA is to pictures what the NSA is to voices. Its principal function is to analyze the billions of images and miles of video captured by drones in the Middle East and spy satellites circling the globe. But because it has largely kept its ultra-high-resolution cameras pointed away from the United States, according to a variety of studies, the agency has never been involved in domestic spy scandals like its two far more famous siblings, the CIA and the NSA. However, there’s reason to believe that this will change under President Donald Trump.

Originally tasked primarily with cartography — before a mammoth expansion, the spy arm had been called the National Imagery and Mapping Agency — until a name and mission switch in 2003 gave the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency its name, with the hyphen allowing a three-letter acronym so enamored by the government.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose fondness for imagery intelligence became known when he served as a general during World War II, created the National Photographic Interpretation Center shortly before leaving office — an agency also later absorbed by the NGA.

Now, the NGA works in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force to analyze the staggering amount of data collected through aerial surveillance abroad — mostly by unmanned aerial systems, such as drones with high-powered cameras.

According to at least one source, as of 2013, the NGA was integral in the analysis of surveillance data pertaining to Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Revelations on the depth and breadth of the Central Intelligence Agency’s domestic capabilities, long believed out of its territory, was exposed by WikiLeaks Vault 7 recently to be on par with National Security Agency programs — so much so, analysts say it constitutes a duplicate Big Brother.

Data provided to the NGA by military officials has assisted in various U.S. operations in the Middle East by tracking vehicles believed responsible for planting improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, and for monitoring hot spots for insurgent breakouts.

But the NGA hardly only keeps to support operations, as David Brown — author of the book, Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry — explained,

Before the trigger was pulled on NEPTUNE’S SPEAR, the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden, SEAL Team Six had access to a perfect replica of the Abbottabad compound where the terrorist mastermind was hiding. The details for the replica were gathered by the NGA, which used laser radar and imagery to construct a 3D rendering of the compound. How precise were its measurements and analysis? The NGA figured out how many people lived at the compound, their gender, and even their heights. But the NGA didn’t stop there: Its calculations also helped the pilots of the stealth Black Hawks know precisely where to land.

With a combined budget request for 2017 of $70.3 billion, the National and Military Intelligence Programs — NGA falls under the latter — have seen a quickening of support from the authoritarian-leaning, pro-military Trump administration. This and additional factors — such as the astonishingly sophisticated equipment at the agency’s disposal — have ignited fears the NGA could be granted authority to bring its expert microscope into focus against the American people.

“While most of the technological capacities are classified, an anonymous NGA analyst told media the agency can determine the structure of buildings and objects from a distance, has some of the most sophisticated facial recognition software on the planet and uses sensors on satellites and drones that can see through thick clouds for ‘all-weather’ imagery analysis,” reports news.com.au.

Efforts to bolster NGA’s innovate staff pool ratcheted up on Thursday, as Business Wire reported,

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

From navigating a U.S. aircraft to making national policy decisions, to responding to natural disasters: today’s U.S. armed forces rely on Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) to meet mission requirements. As the nation’s primary source of GEOINT for the Department of Defense and the U.S. Intelligence Community, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) depends on the National Geospatial-Intelligence College (NGC) to produce top-tier talent to deliver intelligence with a decisive advantage. Today, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) announced that it has been awarded a five-year, $86 million contract by NGA-NGC to lead the Learning Management and Advancement Program (LMAP) that will provide high-quality learning solutions to equip a diverse workforce with the knowledge and skills necessary to meet current and future GEOINT mission requirements.

Bamford points out for Foreign Policy that the Trump administration intimated a significant expansion of spying on mosques and Islamic centers, while others admonish said surveillance could put Black Lives Matter and other protest groups in the NGA’s silent crosshairs.

RFID Scan Blockers – Available for Free (Ad)

Of distinct concern for privacy advocates are drones with uncanny zooming capabilities — features used against U.S. citizens before. Bamford continues,

In 2016, unbeknownst to many city officials, police in Baltimore began conducting persistent aerial surveillance using a system developed for military use in Iraq. Few civilians have any idea how advanced these military eye-in-the-sky drones have become. Among them is ARGUS-IS, the world’s highest-resolution camera with 1.8 billion pixels. Invisible from the ground at nearly four miles in the air, it uses a technology known as ‘persistent stare’ — the equivalent of 100 Predator drones peering down at a medium-size city at once — to track everything that moves.

With the capability to watch an area of 10 or even 15 square miles at a time, it would take just two drones hovering over Manhattan to continuously observe and follow all outdoor human activity, night and day. It can zoom in on an object as small as a stick of butter on a plate and store up to 1 million terabytes of data a day. That capacity would allow analysts to look back in time over days, weeks, or months. Technology is in the works to enable drones to remain aloft for years at a time.

With cutting-edge technology, a rapid enlargement underway, and billions in budgetary funds at the ready, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is the cloaked, mute sibling of the nefarious Intelligence Community — but it’s time to pull the protective shell off this potential ticking time bomb before reining it in becomes an impossibility.

Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

/* */




/* */