Category Archives: Surveillance

Lazy press watch: Just what are "global communications," anyway?

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Orwell advises against using the vague language found in the Independent’s story about the dead MI6 guy, saying Gareth Williams worked for an MI6 division that “eavesdrops on global communications.”

Better to have said “international calls and email messages,” or “between the UK and other countries.” “Global,” though often used, is so vague as to be meaningless.

The Independent (link and excerpt, below) also seems in a hurry to shoot down, based on no evidence either way, any suggestion the agent’s murder might be work-related:

The reality, however, is likely to be more mundane. Sources within the murder inquiry led by the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command insisted that “the suggestion there are terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities”. They are believed to be concentrating on Mr Williams’ private life.

via Mystery of the MI6 man who was found dead in his bath – Crime, UK – The Independent.

Second Life shocker: Avatars betray our true selves to marketers

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Photo: Mauro Monti/Flickr CC

You might think that each time you inhabit your World of Warcraft character, or Second Life avatar, you are escaping reality and being creative.

Truth is, you are doing neither.

By looking at an avatar’s physical characteristics, researchers now say, marketers “can form accurate personality impressions about targets.”

(“Targets,” in case you were wondering, are those individuals being targeted to receive advertising messages.)

From an announcement:

The findings support the premise that real-life companies that intend to expand to virtual worlds can use member avatars as a proxy for member personality and lifestyles. As a future research direction, avatars and other consumer-generated media could be used as the basis for targeting and segmentation of online consumers.

via Avatars as information: Perception of consumers based on their avatars in virtual worlds. Jean-François Bélisle. 2010; Psychology and Marketing – Wiley InterScience.

Verizon's "Rule the Air" message: "Be the surveillance you fear"

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Rules nothing. Photo: Ed Yourdon/Flickr CC

Given that Verizon allowed the NSA to secretly tap millions of calls in the past decade, it’s stunning to see the company selling surveillance as sexy and empowering.

I am referring, of course, to Verizon’s new “Rule the Air” campaign.

In what might pass for a scenes from a remake of John Carpenter’s “They Live,” Verizon’s ads have buildings, a parking meter and other objects flowering into antennae that stalk cell phone-wielding models.

One blogger (excerpt and link below), notes the disturbing surveillance theme in “Rule the Air.”

But it is not enough to say that “Rule the Air” is Orwellian, just because it evokes a surveillance state nightmare. (Invariably, when people say, “Orwellian,” they are referring to “1984.”)

Even more insidious, and Orwellian, is the ad campaign’s vague and contradictory slogan. (Orwell warns of the perils of using imprecise language in his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language.”)

The truth, dear Verizon customers, is that you rule nothing.

Rather, as you can read here, Verizon and the US Federal Communications Commission “rule you.”

If you ask me the whole thing seems a bit Orwellian and the Verizon red coupled with the vintage logo and the tag line, “Rule the air”, strangely evoked old-time war propaganda to me, but the effects are cool—and who doesn’t like the concept of reception everywhere.

via Verizon Sets Out to “Rule the Air”.

The Secret Sun sees a new symbol in ISS

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Christopher Knowles (The Secret Sun), taking his typically sweeping, epic view of the symbols being hurled at us, notes that the otherwise ugly International Space Station resembles the cross of Lorraine, the alchemical symbol to which some have attributed the religious meaning, “As above, so below.”

From Knowles’ blog:

But it’s all good. Very clever, actually- keep the malcontents busy with celebrity gossip while the real action goes on under our noses – or over our heads. For instance, we all know about ISiS- the International Space Station- but did you know it was shaped like the Cross of Lorraine?

via The Secret Sun.

Swann’s latest security device has that sinister vibe – The Boston Globe

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From my latest Boston Globe column, and the US Department of “Start Snitchin’”…

Swann made its name in the security business, with cameras designed to catch shoplifters and home invaders in the act.

But the company’s RemoteCam pinhole video camera, which will cost about $100 when it becomes available in a few days, is meant only for what I would classify as “offensive’’ purposes.

Journalists and police officers might find the RemoteCam handy for their undercover investigations. But so might perverts on the T, as well as private detectives spying on unfaithful spouses at North End restaurants.

via Swann’s latest security device has that sinister vibe – The Boston Globe.

Space junk? MSM provides "cloaking device" for military space mission

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The US military on July 8 will toss a $500 million satellite into orbit to observe space junk circling Earth.

At least, that’s what the AP is reporting about the July 8 launch of the US Air Force’s new “Space-Based Space Surveillance” (SBSS) satellite.

But the sat will be much more than a space junk surveyor: It will serve at the core of the Air Force’s ongoing space-based missile defense program. If you read the words of the military’s top brass on the subject of SBSS, you will find that the Air Force’s priorities for the program are to track (if not disable) Iran’s and North Korea’s sats.

A snip from the AP story:

Currently, the Air Force relies on a ground-based network of radar and optical telescopes around the globe to monitor about 1,000 active satellites and 20,000 pieces of debris. The telescopes can be used only on clear nights, and not all radar stations are powerful enough to detect satellites in deep space orbit, about 22,000 miles from Earth.

via New US satellite to monitor debris in Earth orbit – USATODAY.com.

MBN LIVE on USTREAM: Weekly live broadcasts from the producers @ MobileBroadcastNews.org featuring that weeks new content with commentary by the videos cre…

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Free TV : Ustream
via MBN LIVE on USTREAM: Weekly live broadcasts from the producers @ MobileBroadcastNews.org featuring that weeks new content with commentary by the videos cre….

Government will divine travel history from strand of your hair

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The water will give her away. Photo: Julio Rojas/Flickr CC

I can see why some people in government might want us to start drinking locally. A study funded by a murky water forensics firm finds that the number and types of isotopes in water supplies are peculiar to each location.

That means a record of the water you are drinking, and where it came from — in other words, your travel history — can now be plucked from a strand of your hair.

The same goes for commercial drinks, which come with their own isotope signatures, based upon where their manufacturers get their water.

A snip from the study:

When combined with probability-based assignment approaches, collections of stable isotope measurements like these may eventually allow investigators to predict the original source of water used in beverage production from the stable isotope analysis of a beverage.

via Links between Purchase Location and Stable Isotope Ratios of Bottled Water, Soda, and Beer in the United States – Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (ACS Publications).

Smoothing wrinkles blunts emotions

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If you treasure your very soul, but are tempted to buy a new(er) face, here’s my advice: Run, run like an outlaw Sandman, from the plastic surgeon. (The iconic, Farah Fawcett-plastic surgery scene from Logan’s Run, appears, below.)

Because so much of our human emotions are tied to our bodies’ abilities to express them, it makes sense that docs are reporting a measurable, soul-sucking effect of cosmetic procedures:

“For at least some emotions, if you take away some part of the facial expression, you take away some of the emotional experience,” says study researcher Joshua Ian Davis, PhD, a term assistant professor in the department of psychology at Barnard College in New York City.

via Botox May Affect Ability to Feel Emotions. Thanks to the Secret Sun for continuing inspiration, and to River Bottom Video, for putting Logan’s Run back in my brain.

Smart appliances will tell Google when you rise, and hit the shower

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Now that we know Google — the search engine giant and revolving door operation for CIA analysts — has been spying on Wi-Fi laptop users, we can expect corporations and governments to next target so-called smart appliances: toasters, clock radios (such as this prototype, left) and dishwashers connected directly to the Internet.

Add these gadgets to the smart meters being promoted by the likes of the Boston-based “consumer group,” ConsumerUnited.com (actually, the organization lists utility companies as its “partners”), and you will find it impossible to flip a switch in your house without someone knowing about it.

Here’s a bit from my column this week, below the fold, about a Wi-Fi (and therefore, apparently, vulnerable) alarm clock that factors-in your commute time, and the time it takes you to shave and shower before work, to calculate when you wake up:

“The Dynamically Programmable Alarm Clock will not make getting out of bed easier. But it will do a better job than your current bedside gadget to make sure you’re on time for that meeting.

The DPAC (egaertner.com/dpac), as its developers at Northeastern University call it, connects to Google Calendar via Wi-Fi. It then grabs your first task of the day as a starting point for its calculations.”

Note: Special thanks to Alan Watt (and his Cutting Through the Matrix listeners) for sharing your thoughts about my research, here.

via Power up, with juice from the yard – The Boston Globe.