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Submission + - Hertz puts cameras in its rental cars, says it has no plans to use them (fusion.net)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Hertz has added a camera to many of its newer cars that uses the “NeverLost” navigational device.

So why is Hertz creeping out customers with cameras it’s not using? “Hertz added the camera as a feature of the NeverLost 6 in the event it was decided, in the future, to activate live agent connectivity to customers by video. In that plan the customer would have needed to turn on the camera by pushing a button (while stationary),” Imperatrice explained. “The camera feature has not been launched, cannot be operated and we have no current plans to do so.”

Submission + - The FAA Says You Can't Post Drone Videos on YouTube (vice.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: If you fly a drone and post footage on YouTube, you could end up with a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Earlier this week, the agency sent a legal notice to Jayson Hanes, a Tampa-based drone hobbyist who has been posting drone-shot videos online for roughly the last year.

The FAA said that, because there are ads on YouTube, Hanes's flights constituted a commercial use of the technology subject to stricter regulations and enforcement action from the agency. It said that if he did not stop flying “commercially,” he could be subject to fines or sanctions.
Crime

LAPD Police Claim Helicopters Stop Crimes Before They Happen 160

Posted by samzenpus from the bear-in-the-air dept.
HughPickens.com writes True Angelenos don't even bother to look up when one of the LAPD's 17 helicopters rattles their windows searching for a car-jacked Camry or an assault suspect hiding under a jacaranda but few doubt that more bad guys would get away without the nation's largest police helicopter fleet to help chase them. Now the LA Times reports that data shows that LA's helicopters are stopping crimes before they happen. Tapping into the data-driven policing trend, the department uses heat maps, technology and years of statistics to identify crime "hot spots." Pilots then use their downtime to fly over them, on the theory that would-be criminals tend to rethink their nefarious plans when there's "ghetto birds," as Ice Cube calls them, hovering overhead [explanatory video with annoying sound]. Months of data show that the number of serious crimes reported in the LAPD's Newton Division in South L.A. fell during weeks when the helicopters conducted more flights. During the week of Sept. 13, when the helicopter unit flew over Newton 65 times, the division recorded 90 crimes. A week later, the number of flights dropped to 40 and the number of reported crimes skyrocketed to 136, with rises seen among almost all types of crime, including burglary, car theft and thefts from vehicles. "It's extremely cutting edge," says Capt. Gary Walters, who heads the LAPD's air support unit. "It's different. It's nothing that we've ever done before with this specificity."

But Professor Geoffrey Alpert. a policing expert who has studied the use of police helicopters in Miami and Baltimore, says the choppers can deter crime in the short-term but criminals will likely return when they're not around (PDF). "You are deterring the criminals but you aren't getting rid of them and their intent. Those criminals could strike in a different time and place," says Alpert. "I mean that's the whole thing about random patrol. You see a police car and it's the same thing. You hide, he goes around the block and you go back to your breaking and entering."

Submission + - Mysterious spy cameras collecting data at post offices in Colorado (fox4kc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Within an hour of a KDVR reporter discovering a hidden camera, which was positioned to capture and record the license plates and facial features of customers leaving a Denver post office, the device was ripped from the ground and disappeared.

A customer first noticed the data collection device, hidden inside a utilities box, around Thanksgiving 2014. It stayed in place, taking photos through the busy Christmas holidays and into mid-January.

Submission + - Reporters Without Borders unblocks access to censored websites (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: Online censorship is rife. In many countries, notably China, citizens are prevented from accessing certain websites at the behest of their government. To help provide access to information and unbiased news, freedom of information organization Reporters Without Borders has set up mirrors to nine censored websites so they can be accessed from 11 countries that blocked them.

As part of Operation Collateral Freedom, Reporters Without Borders is mirroring the likes of The Tibet Post International which is blocked in China, and Gooya News which is blocked in Iran. Mirrored sites are hosted on Amazon, Microsoft and Google servers which are unlikely to be blocked by a censoring country.

Submission + - Survey: Trust in Public Key Encryption Nearing Breaking Point (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: A Ponemon survey of more than 2,000 IT professionals in the U.S., U.K. Germany, France and Australia finds increased reliance on and fading faith in Public Key encryption — a dangerous combination. Data collected in the survey found that the number of keys and certificates deployed within organizations has grown by 34% to almost 24,000 per enterprise. At the same time, 54% percent of organizations surveyed acknowledged that they did not know where all their keys and certificates are located, the report said.

Submission + - Traveling to Portugal? Bring Cash!!

Submitted by dkatana
dkatana writes: Only tourist places, hotels, high-end shops and luxury restaurants accept plastic, and there is a reason why.

In 2012 the government in Lisbon slapped an additional 10 percent on value added tax for restaurants — 10 percent that came straight out of business profits. Restaurants were now paying a total of 23 percent VAT. On top of that, credit card companies charge merchants an average 2% fee — small businesses can pay up to 4% — one of the highest in Europe and twice the average in Spain.

Those extra fees were the proverbial straw for many business owners in Portugal. A protest ensued and many simply refused to take plastic in any form — debit or credit. Little signs went up, like the ones we had seen taped to the counter, and cash became king again. So much for first-world sophistication.

Submission + - The White House's $100M, H-1B funded tech job plan comes under fire (computerworld.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: The White House has established a $100 million program that endorses fast-track, boot camp IT training efforts and other four-year degree alternatives. But this plan is drawing criticism because of the underlying message it sends in the H-1B battle.

The federal program, called TechHire, will get its money from H-1B visa fees, and the major users of this visa are IT services firms that outsource jobs.

Submission + - FedEx drops shipping Defense Distributed's Ghost Gunner (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: FedEx declines to ship DD's Ghost Gunner on grounds that there is on laws or regulations that would prohibit them from shipment. Politically motivated? Operation Chokepoint?

Submission + - A Search Warrant for Your Brain? (insidescience.org)

Submitted by benonemusic
benonemusic writes: Will signals from your brain be protected under the Fourth or Fifth Amendment in the future? Experts at the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science suggest that the Supreme Court may ultimately have to weigh in, and that search warrants for brain scans may someday be a possibility.
Privacy

Omand Warns of "Ethically Worse" Spying If Unbreakable Encryption Is Allowed 392

Posted by samzenpus from the don't-make-it-hard-for-us dept.
Press2ToContinue writes In their attempts to kill off strong encryption once and for all, top officials of the intelligence services are coming out with increasingly hyperbolic statements about why this should be done. Now, a former head of GCHQ, Sir David Omand has said: "One of the results of Snowden is that companies are now heavily encrypting [communications] end to end. Intelligence agencies are not going to give up trying to get the bad guys. They will have to get closer to the bad guys. I predict we will see more close access work." According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which reported his words from a talk he gave earlier this week, by this he meant things like physical observation, bugging rooms, and breaking into phones or computers. "You can say that will be more targeted but in terms of intrusion into personal privacy — collateral intrusion into privacy — we are likely to end up in an ethically worse position than we were before." That's remarkable for its implied threat: if you don't let us ban or backdoor strong encryption, we're going to start breaking into your homes.
United States

Secret Service Investigating Small Drone On White House Grounds 146

Posted by samzenpus from the a-little-off-course dept.
An anonymous reader sends word that the Secret Service is investigating a "device," described as a small drone, found on the grounds of the White House. "A small drone was found on the White House grounds overnight, two law enforcement sources told ABC News, but White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the situation 'does not pose any sort of ongoing threat.' The Secret Service is investigating the device, Earnest said. Police, fire and other emergency vehicles swarmed around the White House in the pre-dawn hours, with several clustered near the southeast entrance to the mansion. The White House was dark and the entire perimeter was on lockdown until around 5 a.m., when pass holders who work in the complex were allowed inside."

Submission + - Decades Of Failed Promises From Verizon: It Promises Fiber To Get Tax Breaks... (techdirt.com)

Submitted by jehan60188
jehan60188 writes: A decade ago, we wrote about how Verizon had made an agreement in Pennsylvania in 1994 that it would wire up the state with fiber optic cables to every home in exchange for tax breaks equalling $2.1 billion. In exchange for such a massive tax break, Verizon promised that all homes and businesses would have access to 45Mbps symmetrical fiber by 2015. By 2004, the deal was that 50% of all homes were supposed to have that. In reality, 0% did, and some people started asking for their money back. That never happened, and it appeared that Verizon learned a valuable lesson: it can flat out lie to governments, promise 100% fiber coverage in exchange for subsidies, then not deliver, and no one will do a damn thing about it.

Submission + - Amazing reduction in privacy (govtech.com)

Submitted by AtWorkInChicago
AtWorkInChicago writes: An Atlanta-based company, AirSage, collects real-time data (15 billion data points every day) from cell phone tower interactions — whenever a person sends a text, makes a phone call or when a phone is searching for the next cell phone tower.... ...Because AirSage knows the home (or where the device seems to call home and sleeps on a daily basis) and its Census Block Group, it can infer demographic information (such as average household income) about the devices’ owners.
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I'm surprised carriers are allowed to send this data to a commercial aggregator and more surprised that the company is allowed to sell details of my daily activity to any who will pay — am I being naive?

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