Schneier on Security

AUGUST 20, 2019

Excellent op-ed on the growing trend to tie humanitarian aid to surveillance. Despite the best intentions, the decision to deploy technology like biometrics is built on a number of unproven assumptions, such as, technology solutions can fix deeply embedded political problems.

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Schneier on Security

AUGUST 22, 2023

Neither is using them for bulk surveillance. What’s new is that AI is being used on the data, identifying “suspicious” vehicle behavior: Typically, Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology is used to search for plates linked to specific crimes. License plate scanners aren’t new.

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Schneier on Security

MARCH 12, 2019

Technology can take on management functions, such as sending workers automated "nudges" or adjusting performance benchmarks based on a worker's real-time progress, while gamification renders work activities into competitive, game-like dynamics driven by performance metrics. I don't agree with the ordering, but the sentiment is correct.

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Surveillance Data collection Technology Risk 225

Schneier on Security

FEBRUARY 21, 2020

I teach cybersecurity policy and technology at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. My most recent two books, Data and Goliath -- about surveillance -- and Click Here to Kill Everybody -- about IoT security -- are really about the policy implications of technology. Technology is inherently future focused.

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Schneier on Security

JANUARY 20, 2022

Last summer, the San Francisco police illegally used surveillance cameras at the George Floyd protests. The EFF is suing the police: This surveillance invaded the privacy of protesters, targeted people of color, and chills and deters participation and organizing for future protests. It’s feels like a pretty easy case.

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Security Affairs

DECEMBER 12, 2024

Chinese law enforcement uses the mobile surveillance tool EagleMsgSpy to gather data from Android devices, as detailed by Lookout. Researchers at the Lookout Threat Lab discovered a surveillance tool, dubbed EagleMsgSpy, used by Chinese law enforcement to spy on mobile devices. ” reads the report published by Lookout.

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Schneier on Security

MAY 21, 2019

Basically, the Internet makes it increasingly possible to generate a good cover story; cell phone and other electronic surveillance techniques make tracking people easier; and machine learning will make all of this automatic. Interesting article about how traditional nation-based spycraft is changing.

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Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 13, 2019

EFF has published a comprehensible and very readable "deep dive" into the technologies of corporate surveillance, both on the Internet and off. Well worth reading and sharing. Boing Boing post.

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Daniel Miessler

MARCH 22, 2020

In other words, I think we can predict the future of technology through a strong understanding of what humans ultimately want as a species. Just yesterday I tweeted that the COVID-19 situation was going to finally make large-scale video surveillance endemic to our society. The Real Internet of Things, January 2017.

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Schneier on Security

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

Senators have reintroduced the EARN IT Act, requiring social media companies (among others) to administer a massive surveillance operation on their users: A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. It’s a framework for private actors to scan every message sent online and report violations to law enforcement.

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Surveillance Backups Media Technology 359

Security Affairs

DECEMBER 16, 2024

Researchers warn of previously undetected surveillance spyware, named NoviSpy, that was found infecting a Serbian journalist’s phone. Then he requested help from Amnesty Internationals Security Lab fearing to be the target of surveillance software like other journalists in Serbia. ” reads the report published by Amnesty.

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Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 18, 2020

Gizmodo is reporting that schools in the US are buying equipment to unlock cell phones from companies like Cellebrite: Gizmodo has reviewed similar accounting documents from eight school districts, seven of which are in Texas, showing that administrators paid as much $11,582 for the controversial surveillance technology.

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Malwarebytes

JANUARY 20, 2025

The name for this method is surveillance pricing, and the FTC has just released initial findings of a report looking into that practice. In July 2024, the FTC requested information from eight companies offering surveillance pricing products and services that incorporate data about consumers characteristics and behavior.

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Surveillance Artificial Intelligence Consumer Protection Retail 120

Adam Shostack

MAY 6, 2021

They’re unreasonable because ever year in the United States, 1,000 to 1,600 women die at the hands of their male partners, and some fraction of those are enabled by technology-aided surveillance. The National Institute of Justice Journal’s issue on Intimate Partner Homicide is mainly disturbing and also fascinating.

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Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 5, 2023

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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Schneier on Security

MAY 24, 2024

New paper: “ Zero Progress on Zero Days: How the Last Ten Years Created the Modern Spyware Market “: Abstract: Spyware makes surveillance simple. Individually, countries should focus on export controls and other sanctions that target specific bad actors, rather than focusing on restricting particular technologies.

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Schneier on Security

AUGUST 5, 2019

Deibert, and John Scott-Railton of Citizen Lab published an editorial calling for regulating the international trade in commercial surveillance systems until we can figure out how to curb human rights abuses. The purchase of surveillance technology by law enforcement in any state must be transparent and subject to public debate.

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Security Affairs

JULY 12, 2020

Google announced that starting from August it will update its policies to reject ads proposed by organizations offering surveillance software. The move aims at fighting the advertising of any form of surveillance. Google wants to halt the use of ads for technology that could allow monitoring a person’s online activity (i.e.

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Surveillance Spyware Advertising Marketing 141

CyberSecurity Insiders

JULY 22, 2021

Chine Foreign Ministry has issued a public statement condemning the distribution and usage of Pegasus Spyware surveillance software by various countries. Now, to those uninitiated, Israel-based NSO Group developed Pegasus surveillance software that was meant for government organizations to spy on criminal suspects.

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Security Affairs

JANUARY 9, 2022

The US NCSC and the Department of State published joint guidance on defending against attacks using commercial surveillance tools. In the last years, we have reported several cases of companies selling commercial surveillance tools to governments and other entities that have used them for malicious purposes. Pierluigi Paganini.

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Security Affairs

NOVEMBER 28, 2021

Nexa Technologies was indicted for complicity in acts of torture, the French firm is accused of having sold surveillance equipment to the Egypt. Nexa Technologies offers a range of solutions for homeland security, including surveillance solutions. ” reported the website LeMonde. ” continues Télérama.

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Adam Shostack

JANUARY 2, 2025

There's an interesting paper by Becky Kazansky, "It depends on your threat model": the anticipatory dimensions of resistance to data-driven surveillance. First, normal people don't "work on" technology the way technologists do. They're working on living their lives, and hoping technology helps.

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Technology Surveillance Risk 130

Schneier on Security

APRIL 15, 2019

This opinion piece looks at undersea communications cables: But now the Chinese conglomerate Huawei Technologies, the leading firm working to deliver 5G telephony networks globally, has gone to sea. As I have repeatedly said , we need to decide if we are going to build our future Internet systems for security or surveillance.

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Internet Internet Surveillance Technology 279

We Live Security

MARCH 19, 2021

When a breach captures a part of us that is unchangeable, does it mean that we have allowed technology to pry too deeply into our lives? The post Trust your surveillance? Why hacked cameras are very bad appeared first on WeLiveSecurity.

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Schneier on Security

NOVEMBER 16, 2018

Both the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are hiding surveillance cameras in streetlights. Fifty thousand dollars doesn't buy a lot of streetlight surveillance cameras, so either this is a pilot program or there are a lot more procurements elsewhere that we don't know about.

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Schneier on Security

NOVEMBER 5, 2019

This essay discusses the futility of opting out of surveillance, and suggests data obfuscation as an alternative. But against broad systems of financially motivated corporate surveillance, it might be enough. I think of this basically as a signal-to-noise problem, and that adding random noise doesn't do much to obfuscate the signal.

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SecureWorld News

NOVEMBER 21, 2023

In a groundbreaking investigative report, the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) media network, with technical assistance from Amnesty International's Security Lab, has exposed the shocking extent of the global surveillance crisis and the glaring inadequacies of EU regulation in curbing it. Chairman, Cedric Leighton Associates, LLC.

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Surveillance Spyware Media Technology 118

Schneier on Security

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Meanwhile, the chairman of China's technology giant Huawei has pointed to NSA spying disclosed by Edward Snowden as a reason to mistrust US technology companies. Even so, these examples illustrate an important point: there's no escaping the technology of inevitable surveillance.

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Malwarebytes

JANUARY 21, 2025

Graylark Technologies who makes GeoSpy says its been developed for government and law enforcement. But the investigative journalists from 404 Media report thatthe tool has also been used for months by members of the public, with many making videos marveling at the technology, and some asking for help with stalking specific women.

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Security Boulevard

JANUARY 20, 2025

Specifically, stories and news items where public and/or private organizations have leveraged their capabilities to encroach on user privacy; for example, data brokers using underhanded means to harvest user location data without user knowledge or public organizations using technology without regard for user privacy.

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Schneier on Security

JUNE 23, 2021

To evade detection, the malware makes use of the company’s so-called “invisible low stealth technology” and its Android product is advertised as having “low data and battery consumption” to prevent people from suspecting their phone or tablet has been infected.

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Manufacturing Spyware Surveillance Marketing 301

Adam Shostack

JANUARY 2, 2025

They're unreasonable because ever year in the United States, 1,000 to 1,600 women die at the hands of their male partners, and some fraction of those are enabled by technology-aided surveillance. The National Institute of Justice Journal's issue on Intimate Partner Homicide is mainly disturbing and also fascinating.

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Surveillance Information Security Risk Accountability 130

Tech Republic Security

MAY 24, 2021

While many employers are tapping technologies to monitor workflows, a new report highlights potential drawbacks and even resentment among surveilled employees.

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Security Affairs

NOVEMBER 3, 2021

sanctioned four companies for the development of surveillance malware or the sale of hacking tools used by nation-state actors, including NSO Group. LTD from Singapore, and Positive Technologies from Russia. Positive Technologies and Computer Security Initiative Consultancy PTE. Department of Commerce. Pierluigi Paganini.

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Schneier on Security

MARCH 8, 2022

Yet another method of surveillance : Radar can detect you moving closer to a computer and entering its personal space. These technologies are coming. This might mean the computer can then choose to perform certain actions, like booting up the screen without requiring you to press a button.

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Schneier on Security

JULY 12, 2023

No surprise, but Google just changed its privacy policy to reflect broader uses of all the surveillance data it has captured over the years: Research and development : Google uses information to improve our services and to develop new products, features and technologies that benefit our users and the public.

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Schneier on Security

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

MIT Technology Review published an interview with Gil Herrera, the new head of the NSA’s Research Directorate. NSA views the kind of “vast access and collection” that it talks about internally as both an achievement and its own set of problems.

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