DPS plans to spend millions in taxpayer dollars on a controversial software, used first as part of Governor Abbott’s border crackdown, to “disrupt potential domestic terrorism.”
In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web. Tangles’ premier add-on feature, WebLoc, is controversial among digital privacy advocates. Any client who purchases access to WebLoc can track different mobile devices’ movements in a specific, virtual area selected by the user, through a capability called “geofencing.” Users of software like Tangles can do this without a search warrant or subpoena. (In a high-profile ruling, the Fifth Circuit recently held that police cannot compel companies like Google to hand over data obtained through geofencing.) Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products.
WebLoc can even be used to access a device’s mobile ad ID, a string of numbers and letters that acts as a unique identifier for mobile devices in the ad marketing ecosystem, according to a US Office of Naval Intelligence procurement notice.
Wolfie Christl, a public interest researcher and digital rights activist based in Vienna, Austria, argues that data collected for a specific purpose, such as navigation or dating apps, should not be used by different parties for unrelated reasons. “It’s a disaster,” Christl told the Observer. “It’s the largest possible imaginable decontextualization of data. … This cannot be how our future digital society looks like.”
If you don’t want to network in person locally, you will need to find a forum whose sole purpose is activism and direct action.
It will not be brought to you, and you will not be recruited. You have to actively go seek it out.
The forum you’re on now is called “technology”. Similar ones, like “news” or literally any other topic that doesn’t solely focus on mobilizing activists will not get you what you’re asking for here.
I appreciate your position. I don’t think you’re going to start a cultural revolution on any comment section. If you’re looking for a place to make real change, you need to network with local communities.
The the best you’ll get for “town square” value from internet forums is the expression of sentiment. People are angry, like you are, and they are using humor to literally reframe the narrative to point out the state’s fallacy.
I can’t speak to your experience but I’ve been farting around on the Internet since the mid 90s and I promise nothing ever changes.
Smaller communities tend to be more concise, that is true.
But what you have here is the hand you’re dealt. Complaining isn’t going to change anything any more thank joking. You can be the change you seek here by suggesting a course of action that isn’t asking others to suggest a course of action to you. If you’re seeking a course of action, you can try asking here.
But commenters on tech news aren’t likely to be expert activists, especially in whatever issue is your top concern.
My best advice to you is
practice acceptance of reality, not as defeat but as the first step to understanding and deciding an action
determine how much capacity you, as a person, have to contribute to a cause
determine one cause you care about and can be effective at contributing to
After doing those things, SEEK OUT like minded groups who have leadership and self discipline and are effective.
This is sarcastic, but it’s as much of a joke as Stephen Colbert - it’s touching on something pretty real. Not sure what’s wrong with pointing out hypocrisy.
Texas law enforcement doesn’t need a language model to blame false positives on. They can false positively shoot whomever they want with no reprocussion.
Should gather Abbott’s device id and his families, and post all of their data in a constant stream of location, search results, and such. Soon as his and his families families data is being posted they’ll rethink it as a privacy issue.
So they only needed to say that all this shit is completely depersonalized and so on for the time being, until they did this like thieves they are.
Typical.
It’s also really funny when people say “oh but it’s a democratic country with institutions and rule of law doing this, so it’s fine”, because this is how a country stops being that. Well, people don’t say this about anything in USA, they usually say this about the EU.
This is why we the humanity can’t have nice things.
Because when we build a nice thing, some jerks decide that we can break it and still have it, because we “already have it”. Completely illogical, but all proponents of government control against freedom and rules-based order against humanism are like that.
Remember that one time in Batman where they built a mass surveillance program using phones and decided it was so morally objectionable they immediately destroyed it after?
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I just learned you can delete you device id on Android 12 or higher under privacy settings.
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Thank you for stopping the massive expansion of surveillance in Texas.
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Let me reframe my previous comment:
If you don’t want to network in person locally, you will need to find a forum whose sole purpose is activism and direct action.
It will not be brought to you, and you will not be recruited. You have to actively go seek it out.
The forum you’re on now is called “technology”. Similar ones, like “news” or literally any other topic that doesn’t solely focus on mobilizing activists will not get you what you’re asking for here.
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You wield the power. Wield it well.
I appreciate your position. I don’t think you’re going to start a cultural revolution on any comment section. If you’re looking for a place to make real change, you need to network with local communities.
The the best you’ll get for “town square” value from internet forums is the expression of sentiment. People are angry, like you are, and they are using humor to literally reframe the narrative to point out the state’s fallacy.
removed by mod
I can’t speak to your experience but I’ve been farting around on the Internet since the mid 90s and I promise nothing ever changes.
Smaller communities tend to be more concise, that is true.
But what you have here is the hand you’re dealt. Complaining isn’t going to change anything any more thank joking. You can be the change you seek here by suggesting a course of action that isn’t asking others to suggest a course of action to you. If you’re seeking a course of action, you can try asking here.
But commenters on tech news aren’t likely to be expert activists, especially in whatever issue is your top concern.
My best advice to you is
practice acceptance of reality, not as defeat but as the first step to understanding and deciding an action
determine how much capacity you, as a person, have to contribute to a cause
determine one cause you care about and can be effective at contributing to
After doing those things, SEEK OUT like minded groups who have leadership and self discipline and are effective.
Are they? I see ones like
This is sarcastic, but it’s as much of a joke as Stephen Colbert - it’s touching on something pretty real. Not sure what’s wrong with pointing out hypocrisy.
Small government.
Ahh yes, the freedom loving state. Texas. That’s right.
Don’t worry, it’s AI. It won’t work properly.
This might be good for the false negatives but not for the false positives.
Texas law enforcement doesn’t need a language model to blame false positives on. They can false positively shoot whomever they want with no reprocussion.
Weird ass fcking state. Can we pawn this one off to Mexico?
Jesus just bomb them if you hate them that much.
Yeah thats true. I love Mexico. I shouldn’t wish a fate like sending Texans upon them.
Texas reeks of freedom.
Texas reeks
of freedomftfy
China is number one. The USA needs to be number one. The USA wants to be China. Illuminati Confirmed.
Will they finally see or hear me say
FUCK GREG ABBOTT
I hope they can, I’m doing it as hard as I can …
This is something that was going to happen eventually it’s just kind of ironic that it’s a deep red state going for government surveillance like this
Totally on brand really. Republicans want to eliminate white collar crime (by never prosecuting it) and catch 110% of blue collar crimes.
Should gather Abbott’s device id and his families, and post all of their data in a constant stream of location, search results, and such. Soon as his and his families families data is being posted they’ll rethink it as a privacy issue.
Red states have more poor, desperate people with guns so better keep them from getting uppity.
EFF recommendation on Ad Tracking: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/how-disable-ad-id-tracking-ios-and-android-and-why-you-should-do-it-now
Just used thanks
Freedom rations are going up this week from 10 to 8!
Isn’t the US already a surveillance country?
It is, but mostly at the Federal level and depending on who’s in the Whitehouse they’re not apt to share that data with the states.
Not to this extent.
So they only needed to say that all this shit is completely depersonalized and so on for the time being, until they did this like thieves they are.
Typical.
It’s also really funny when people say “oh but it’s a democratic country with institutions and rule of law doing this, so it’s fine”, because this is how a country stops being that. Well, people don’t say this about anything in USA, they usually say this about the EU.
This is why we the humanity can’t have nice things.
Because when we build a nice thing, some jerks decide that we can break it and still have it, because we “already have it”. Completely illogical, but all proponents of government control against freedom and rules-based order against humanism are like that.
Remember that one time in Batman where they built a mass surveillance program using phones and decided it was so morally objectionable they immediately destroyed it after?