Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/ijAM7

>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.” Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240827115133/https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-surveillance-tangle-cobwebs/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240826162608/https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/08/14/1096534/homeland-security-facial-recognition-immigration-border/

>Inconsistencies in phone call records; a confusing time stamp on a Google search to learn how long it would take for a person to die in the cold; health data that showed a person descending a stairway — or maybe in a car. > >While some forensic work is well established, such as DNA evidence, other technologies aren’t quite as grounded, as the Read trial showed. In particular, the field of digital forensics continues to evolve, shaped by court challenges and advancing technology. So, questions around the validity of that data have become the latest frontier in what legal observers call the “battle of experts”: dueling interpretations of an unsettled science. > >And, with enough legal prowess — and financial resources — defendants can line up parades of experts to try to undermine a prosecution witness’s interpretation of forensic data, from the timing of a Google search to the movement of a human body. Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240814121648/https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/08/12/metro/karen-read-digital-forensics/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240814123445/https://www.curbed.com/article/oren-alexander-tal-alexander-brothers-luxury-real-estate.html

>Mr. Miller, 43, died on July 3 at a Southampton hospital. A suicide note indicated he had killed himself while his wife and children were on vacation on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, according to a Suffolk County law enforcement official. He said Mr. Miller wrote that a business deal he had hoped would ease the family’s financial strain had collapsed. > >His family was stunned. When Ms. Miller was contacted for comment, a family spokesman said she and the children were overwhelmed by grief. “Candice is devastated by the loss of her soul mate, and her two young daughters’ lives are forever impacted by the loss of their beloved daddy,” he said. > >The Millers’ downfall has become the focus of obsessive talk in the Hamptons and among internet sleuths who have scoured Ms. Miller’s social media presence for clues to what went wrong. Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240814035733/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/nyregion/brandon-miller-suicide-debt.html

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240722215141/https://www.dailydot.com/debug/kamala-twitter-account-follow-limit-elon-musk/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240603122116/https://www.npr.org/2024/06/02/nx-s1-4985877/25-years-ago-napster-changed-how-we-listen-to-music-forever

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240603120548/https://theintercept.com/2024/05/31/jail-construction-justice-architecture-firms/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240503114919/https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/05/many-universities-calling-in-police-today-also-celebrate-campus-protests-of-the-past-elite-capture/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240424123318/https://www.thecut.com/article/she-was-fined-thousands-of-dollars-for-sleeping-outside.html

>Zhang, an electrical engineer in Boston, decided to post about trying to unlock his Justice Tech Solutions Securebook 5 on the social platform X. The thread went viral — also catching the attention of Washington corrections officials, who have used the device for college programming since 2020. > >Of particular concern was an article about Zhang’s thread published on a hacker website that shared the default password for the underlying software that starts the laptop’s operating system, presenting what the Department of Corrections considered a security concern. > >The department then announced Thursday, five days after Zhang’s viral post, that it would collect all secure laptops from incarcerated students statewide “to provide an immediate system update.” By Saturday, corrections staff had collected around 1,200 laptops, spokesperson Chris Wright said in an email. > >Wright confirmed no one incarcerated in Washington prisons had attempted to unlock their devices but said the decision was “made out of an abundance of caution.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether other states whose corrections departments use Securebook 5 laptops have also pulled the devices. Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/LS3co e; updated the title due to popular demand

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240215123711/https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/closing-data-broker-loophole

I haven't thought enough about it to endorse these ideas, but it seems like a really interesting discussion and one the open source development community ought to be thinking about >A few ideas for what this could look like: >* A modern, content-focused subset of HTML and CSS. I think companies should be trusted to brand and promote themselves, and the failure to make this part of the RSS specification may be one factor that might have turned off publishers from investing more deeply into RSS. So, let’s give it to them in the form of some basic design, including access to fonts, graphics, and simple layout intended for a narrow space. The content should be static, to be clear—no JavaScript here—but it should allow for enough flexibility that if people want to experiment, they can. We already have an existing spec that does much of this—the open-source AMP standard, developed primarily by Google—though I understand if we don’t want to use it, due to its controversial history. Whatever this theoretical looks like, it should be flexible and easy for end users to implement. >* Features to encourage use of rich text. Adding features like data visualizations, graphics, and embedded video that are not part of the regular RSS specification could add appeal to this new format by offering something that newsletters do not have, while giving it advantages over a standard RSS feed. >* Built-in access management. If you, as a publisher, want to gate all or part of a feed item, you can do so, and offer your own integration as to how to resolve the block. Essentially, build subscriptions or regwalls directly into the feed—and make it so that you don’t have to work with a middleman like a Substack to do so. Don’t want the bots or the LLMs to access your life’s work? Build in a regwall. >* Built-in integrations for distribution. RSS is built for distribution, but I wonder if this new thing I’m suggesting should talk ActivityPub, or easy to distribute in a newsletter format for people who still want to read in their inbox. Make it so that people can follow you wherever they’re comfortable, rather than being forced to read in a newsletter format, or a social media format. >* Limited, but useful, analytics. You should know how many people read your newsletters, and you should know how they’re read, but you probably shouldn’t know much else. Podcasting has benefited from a lack of data poisoning the well—and honestly, resetting the conversation around data could really help strengthen the content ecosystem at this juncture. Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240207155759/https://tedium.co/2024/02/06/rss-creator-economy-rethink/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240206132148/https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bwp4/axon-acquires-fusus-ai-surveillance-retail-healthcare

Archived at https://archive.is/nB7Db

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240125153829/https://www.npr.org/2024/01/24/1226035539/npr-ceo-katherine-maher-wikimedia

>Retailers increasingly are using facial recognition software to patrol their stores for shoplifters and other unwanted customers. But the technology’s accuracy is highly dependent on technical factors — the cameras’ video quality, a store’s lighting, the size of its face database — and a mismatch can lead to dangerous results. Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240124124645/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/22/facial-recognition-wrongful-identification-assault/

>Retailers increasingly are using facial recognition software to patrol their stores for shoplifters and other unwanted customers. But the technology’s accuracy is highly dependent on technical factors — the cameras’ video quality, a store’s lighting, the size of its face database — and a mismatch can lead to dangerous results. Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240124124645/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/22/facial-recognition-wrongful-identification-assault/

>Private security footage is nothing new to criminal investigations, but two factors are rapidly changing the landscape: huge growth in the number of devices with cameras, and the fact that footage usually lands in a cloud server, rather than on a tape. > >When a third party maintains the footage on the cloud, it gives police the ability to seek the images directly from the storage company, rather than from the resident or business owner who controls the recording device. In 2022, the Ring security company, owned by Amazon, admitted that it had provided audio and video from customer doorbells to police without user consent at least 11 times. The company cited “exigent circumstances.” Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240116132800/https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/01/13/police-video-surveillance-california

>Federal agencies skirt local jurisdictions by purchasing comprehensive identifying data and information technology from private companies Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240111131347/https://prismreports.org/2024/01/09/surveillance-capitalism-taken-over-immigration-enforcement/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231215133247/https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/time-online-how-technology-is-changing-prison.html

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231215133300/https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1218643254/israel-is-using-an-ai-system-to-find-targets-in-gaza-experts-say-its-just-the-st

>Want to know when your favorite government agency posts new information? Wondering if a corporate press release might see some post-publication revisions? We’ve brought the power of The Marshall Project’s Klaxon site monitoring tool into DocumentCloud, and it’s now easier than ever to track changes and get alerts from websites you care about. > >The Marshall Project originally launched the open-source reporting tool Klaxon in 2016 as a way to assist with beat reporting and breaking news. With Klaxon, anyone could quickly mark a web page or just part of a page for monitoring. Klaxon then regularly “pings” that webpage and grabs a copy. If there’s any changes in the two versions, it will send an alert to the user, indicating what changed. > >This can be useful in a broad range of scenarios, such as monitoring a court’s website for newly posted orders — in The Marshall Project’s case, potentially a stay of execution or a denial of an appeal. It can also be used to get alerts when new data sets or documents are posted, or, as in the example below, updates when the White House issues new statements. > >At MuckRock, we’ve been using Klaxon to monitor for new contact information to add to our agency database as well as newly posted FOIA logs. > >Klaxon has always been free and open source, but required each newsroom to set up, configure and maintain its own server, creating one more thing to manage. To help broaden who can take advantage of this powerful tool, we worked with The Marshall Project to bring a version of Klaxon into DocumentCloud (read more from them here). > >The result is Klaxon Cloud, which anyone can start using immediately with their existing MuckRock or DocumentCloud account (no verification required). Our goal was to make it easy as possible to get started: > >*Go to the Klaxon Cloud Add-On (via that link or by searching for “Klaxon” under Add-Ons). > >* Drag the bookmark link into your bookmark menu. > >* Visit the webpage you want to monitor, click the bookmark and then follow the prompts. > >You’ll then get email notifications whenever there is an update to the page, as well as a link to the new snapshot, an option to download a copy of changes, and the ability to visualize the changes in the Wayback Machine.

Original: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/11/technology/microsoft-activision-deal-ftc.html