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Facebook’s Extensive Surveillance Network

Schneier on Security

Consumer Reports is reporting that Facebook has built a massive surveillance network: Using a panel of 709 volunteers who shared archives of their Facebook data, Consumer Reports found that a total of 186,892 companies sent data about them to the social network. Here’s the Consumer Reports study. And then the report gives specifics.

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Banning Surveillance-Based Advertising

Schneier on Security

The Norwegian Consumer Council just published a fantastic new report: “ Time to Ban Surveillance-Based Advertising. Banning surveillance-based advertising in general will force structural changes to the advertising industry and alleviate a number of significant harms to consumers and to society at large.

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Own Your Own Government Surveillance Van

Schneier on Security

A used government surveillance van is for sale in Chicago: So how was this van turned into a mobile spying center? A videoscope and a borescope are very similar as they’re both cameras on the ends of optical fibers, so the same tech you’d use to inspect cylinder walls is also useful for surveillance. Kind of cool, right?

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The Internet Enabled Mass Surveillance. AI Will Enable Mass Spying.

Schneier on Security

Spying and surveillance are different but related things. If I hired that same private detective to put you under surveillance, I would get a different report: where you went, whom you talked to, what you purchased, what you did. Before the internet, putting someone under surveillance was expensive and time-consuming.

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AI and the Evolution of Social Media

Schneier on Security

A decade ago, social media was celebrated for sparking democratic uprisings in the Arab world and beyond. In a 2022 survey , Americans blamed social media for the coarsening of our political discourse, the spread of misinformation, and the increase in partisan polarization. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. AI also has those attributes.

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Computers and Video Surveillance

Schneier on Security

It used to be that surveillance cameras were passive. Recent developments in video analytics -- fueled by artificial intelligence techniques like machine learning -- enable computers to watch and understand surveillance videos with human-like discernment. The result is a level of surveillance that was impossible just a few years ago.

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Palantir's Surveillance Service for Law Enforcement

Schneier on Security

All of this information is aggregated and synthesized in a way that gives law enforcement nearly omniscient knowledge over any suspect they decide to surveil. Meanwhile : The FBI wants to gather more information from social media. Today, it issued a call for contracts for a new social media monitoring tool. Boing Boing [link].