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Submission + - US Senate Approves NDAA'S backdoor Surveillance on American Citizens

Submitted by Maestro 785
Maestro 785 writes: In an eleventh-hour push to secure funding before the year's end, the Senate passed a $886 billion defense spending proposal on Wednesday, backed by President Joe Biden. The bill, which includes provisions for Ukraine, annual pay increases for military personnel, and the reauthorization of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), has sparked significant controversy due to concerns over warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

The NDAA allocates funding for various Pentagon objectives, such as training and equipment. It received bipartisan approval in the Senate, with a majority vote of 87-13. This marks the 61st consecutive year that Congress has moved forward with the crucial defense budget measure.

Amidst mounting global security challenges, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer emphasized the significance of passing the NDAA. He underscored the need to confront Russia, stand firm against the Chinese Communist Party, and ensure that America's defense capabilities remain cutting-edge.
Read more here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/p...

Submission + - AI Cameras Took Over One Small American Town. Now They're Everywhere (404media.co)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This is a demonstration of Fusus, an AI-powered system that is rapidly springing up across small town America and major cities alike. Fusus’ product not only funnels live feeds from usually siloed cameras into one central location, but also adds the ability to scan for people wearing certain clothes, carrying a particular bag, or look for a certain vehicle.

404 Media has obtained a cache of internal emails, presentations, memos, photos, and more which provide insight into how Fusus teams up with police departments to sell its surveillance technology. All around the country, city councils are debating whether they want to have a system that qualitatively changes what surveillance cameras mean for a town’s residents and public agencies. While many have adopted Fusus, others have pushed back, and refused to have the hardware and software installed in their neighborhoods.

Submission + - SPAM: Israeli's Tesla saved him. Hamas shot for the engine then chased him at 110mph 2

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: This Israeli's Tesla saved him. Hamas tried to shoot the engine but when they saw it was electric they hopped in their trucks ... the Tesla outran them at 110mph ON FLAT TIRES all the way to the ER

An Israeli man, only identified by the initial "C" found himself surrounded by Hamas on the day of the invasion on his way to report to the city's emergency squad.

The Hamas fighters started immediately firing upon the man in his Tesla Model 3, aiming at the back and the front of the car. However, since the Tesla is an electric vehicle with no front engine, they were unable to disable the car with the shots.

"They did not realize that it was an electric vehicle, so they shot at the front, hoping to hit the engine that was not there, and at the back, trying to set the fuel tank on fire that the car doesn't have. They shot my tires. I stepped on the gas and they started chasing me," C. said.

C. was chased by the jihadists and reached speeds of over 110 miles per hour. This is while the Tesla had a flat tire.

C. credited the Tesla's all-wheel drive mode for keeping him on the road. He was able to outrun the truck that was chasing him and made it to the hospital to receive treatment for the gunshot wounds he sustained.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - 'Verified' OSINT Accounts Are Destroying the Israel-Palestine Information Ecosys (404media.co)

Submitted by samleecole
samleecole writes: Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, many people across the world were first introduced to the term “OSINT,” which stands for open source intelligence. The practice of using photographs posted to social media, free-to-access satellite images, and other readily available sources of information to confirm where, how, and when important world events took place has existed for many years, but has been popularized during the biggest conflicts as more people signed up to social networks, which allowed anyone with an internet connection to participate in or consume it.

OSINT’s appeal is obvious. Rather than relying on government sources and narratives, and with new access to information on the internet, outside organizations or experts could attempt to confirm or deny those claims for themselves. And OSINT is a useful way to try and verify claims; it's accessible to anyone, though experienced groups often use more sophisticated techniques than others.

But what the current war in Israel and Gaza has made clear in recent days is that there are many verified, popular accounts on X (formerly Twitter) that use the OSINT term to give legitimacy to shoddy work that only creates more confusion. What exists now is a profit and engagement driven ecosystem of non-experts who in some cases may be spreading videos for the clout and cash, rather than to inform readers about what is actually true. One respected OSINT expert, known as Obretix, told 404 Media that Twitter now is “self promoting aggregators, posting thousands of tweets to get some revenue share from Elon.”

And everyone stands to lose when the quality of information on Twitter makes it harder for ordinary readers, or even some experts, to understand what is true and what is not. Pawe Wójcik, who has been an analyst on Twitter for years with a particular focus on terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, told 404 Media in an online chat that “there has always been misinformation and fakes, however for people who have been observing wars on this platform for over a decade, today's problem is unprecedented.”

Comment Re:Not hard to guess where this will go. (Score 1) 14

by detritus. (#63896391) Attached to: Spotify Is Adding Auto-Generated Transcripts To Millions of Podcasts

They won't do anything that brazen. What they'll do instead is automatically flag and remove/shadowban/depromote any problematic conversations transcribed and fed through their LLM AI bot. Same shit done for years on social media as well as youtube. Spotify is just catching up and applying the latest tech.

Comment We have the tech now to end the controversies (Score 2) 112

by detritus. (#63793228) Attached to: The Community Pushing AI-Generated Porn To 'the Edge of Knowledge'

I imagine a future where porn sites are required to automatically augment the faces of all actors involved. Why wouldn't this make sense? Actors who take up other careers will never have their real face in prior videos. All victims involved in pornography's distribution is effectively eliminated at this stage and the damage done from revenge porn becomes highly mitigated.

What's left in this, beyond the powers at be wanting to criminalize thought and fantasy?

Submission + - 'CS in Every School' is the 2024 Presidential Campaign's 'Chicken in Every Pot' 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: During the presidential campaign of 1928, a circular published by the Republican Party claimed that if Herbert Hoover won there would be "a chicken in every pot". Times change. When talk turned to education at Wednesday night's 2024 Republican Presidential Debate, candidate Asa Hutchinson promised there will be 'CS in every school' if he wins (YouTube).

"Look at Arkansas," the former Arkansas Governor explained. "We have to compete with China. I built computer science education. We led the nation in Computer Science education, going from 1,100 students to 23,000 students taking it. This is how you compete with China. As President of the United States, I will make sure we go from 51% of our schools offering computer science to every school in rural areas and urban areas offering computer science for the benefit of our kids and we can compete with China in terms of technology."

In his last year in office, Hutchinson served as Chair of the National Governors Association (NGA) and rallied the nation's Governors around tech CEOs' demands for more K-12 CS education to culminate his year-long CS evangelism initiative, which the NGA noted enjoyed the support of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Hutchinson's pitch to the Governors included a video challenging them with a question: "Will it be American students who learn to code," Hutchinson asked, "or will industry be required to go overseas to find the talent that we need here in the United States of America?"

Comment Yeah right.... (Score 2) 65

by detritus. (#63750722) Attached to: Now You Can Block OpenAI's Web Crawler

I thought that if I gave over my retinal scans and get a bunch of worldcoins as a reward, I could use worldcoin digital passport to access all websites to prevent those pesky bots they created.

This will never be abused though! It's not just about being human, it'll be about being of legal age, not spreading "disinformation", in good legal standing, etc.
New problems created by the solution to the problem they originally created.

Comment Keepasss XC (Score 1) 154

by detritus. (#63743504) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What's the Best (Encrypted) Password Manager?

KeePaxxXC (linux davfs) + KeePass2Android (native webdav support) behind a shared webdav file, database protected with HMAC-SHA1 yubikeys + keyfile stored locally + static key.

For browser integration with Firefox I have KeepassXC extension. It fills in forms on sites and in apps, on android I can use the Keepass keyboard to form-fill everything including TOTP where occasionally form fields aren't detected.

This has been a solid solution for years.

Comment Dissident monitoring/RFID in the tires (Score 1) 155

I expect ALPR will eventually go away for RFID solutions - most tire manufactures are embedding unique identifiers into them that can be passively read to a scanner and are all tied to your VIN. The ALPR stuff is still very useful for tracking not just the vehicle descriptions and plates, but also the bumper stickers on a person's car - want to find every last car with a Trump sticker on it to put on a watch list? Done and done.

Already you can pull into tire shops and they know the age of your tires without looking.

Comment Too many interests to stifle this (Score 2) 170

by detritus. (#63674503) Attached to: Big-Tech Cities Are Still 'Facing a Reckoning' from Remote Work

There's far too many political interests that will stifle WFH - Levels of revenue for real estate, retail, food, hell, vehicle sales, fuel sales, even road construction/projects cash cow might be threatened if people no longer need to commute daily.

WFH would be far better for the environment and mental health overall. Repurposing these now empty office buildings rather than new construction would also significantly help our carbon footprint as well.

Comment EFF is a partisan circus now (Score 1, Flamebait) 240

California is probably the most dystopian and orwellian state in the union that has normalized this kind of stupid high tech surveillance. It's not progressive, it's regressive. Citizens that permitted states to use oppressive technology to control and monitor their citizens for so-called benevolent intentions should have predicted this outcome.

One can only wonder how many Jan 6 protestor info they CA police willingly shared with other law enforcement agencies without a wimper or concern from EFF. EFF doesn't give a shit about privacy, they only care about data sharing with laws/causes they care about. Just as evident in the recent Missouri v Biden release to not defend a liberal interpretation of the first amendment, they absolutely are mouthpieces for the state and neoliberal causes now.

Don't expect anything but partisan hypocrisy on this issue.

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