Searching for "surveillance"
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluetooth-wireless-tracking-privacy.html
Recent reports have noted how companies use data gathered from cell towers, ambient Wi-Fi, and GPS. But the location data industry has a much more precise, and unobtrusive, tool: Bluetooth beacons.
Most people aren’t aware they are being watched with beacons, but the “beacosystem” tracks millions of people every day. Beacons are placed at airports, malls, subways, buses, taxis, sporting arenas, gyms, hotels, hospitals, music festivals, cinemas and museums, and even on billboards.
Companies like Reveal Mobile collect data from software development kits inside hundreds of frequently used apps. In the United States, another company, inMarket, covers 38 percent of millennial moms and about one-quarter of all smartphones, and tracks 50 million people each month. Other players have similar reach.
A Software Development Kit is code that’s inserted into an app and enables certain features, like activating your phone’s Bluetooth sensor. Location data companies create S.D.K.s and developers insert them into their apps, creating a conduit for recording and storing your movement data.
Beacons are also being used for smart cities initiatives. The location company Gimbal provided beacons for LinkNYC kiosks that provoked privacy concerns about tracking passers-by. Beacon initiatives have been started in other cities, including Amsterdam (in partnership with Google), London and Norwich.
Familiar tech giants are also players in the beacosystem. In 2015, Facebook began shipping free Facebook Bluetooth beacons to businesses for location marketing inside the Facebook app. Leaked documents show that Facebook worried that users would “freak out” and spread “negative memes” about the program. The company recently removed the Facebook Bluetooth beacons section from their website.
Not to be left out, in 2017, Google introduced Project Beacon and began sending beacons to businesses for use with Google Ads services. Google uses the beacons to send the businesses’ visitors notificationsthat ask them to leave photos and reviews, among other features. And last year, investigators at Quartz found that Google Android can track you using Bluetooth beacons even when you turn Bluetooth off in your phone.
Companies collecting micro-location data defend the practice by arguing that users can opt out of location services. They maintain that consumers embrace targeted ads because they’re more relevant.
You can download an app like Beacon Scanner and scan for beacons when you enter a store. But even if you detect the beacons, you don’t know who is collecting the data.
The Times’s guide on how to stop apps from tracking your location. For Android users, the F-Droid app store hosts free and open- source apps that do not spy on users with hidden trackers.
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More on surveillance in this IMS Blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=surveillance
Edtech’s Blurred Lines Between Security, Surveillance and Privacy
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-03-05-edtech-s-blurred-lines-between-security-surveillance-and-privacy
Tony Wan, Bill Fitzgerald, Courtney Goodsell, Doug Levin, Stephanie Cerda
SXSW EDU https://schedule.sxswedu.com/
privacy advocates joined a school administrator and a school safety software product manager to offer their perspectives.
Navigating that fine line between ensuring security and privacy is especially tricky, as it concerns newer surveillance technologies available to schools. Last year, RealNetworks, a Seattle-based company, offered its facial recognition software to schools, and a few have pioneered the tool. https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2019/02/02/facial-recognition-technology-in-schools/
The increasing availability of these kinds of tools raise concerns and questions for Doug Levin, founder of EdTech Strategies.acial-recognition police tools have been decried as “staggeringly inaccurate.”
acial-recognition police tools have been decried as “staggeringly inaccurate.”School web filters can also impact low-income families inequitably, he adds, especially those that use school-issued devices at home. #equity.
Social-Emotional Learning: The New Surveillance?
Using data to profile students—even in attempts to reinforce positive behaviors—has Cerda concerned, especially in schools serving diverse demographics. #equity.
As in the insurance industry, much of the impetus (and sales pitches) in the school and online safety market can be driven by fear. But voicing such concerns and red flags can also steer the stakeholders toward dialogue and collaboration.
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more in this IMS blog on
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=surveillance
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=security
Classified revisions accepted by secret Fisa court affect NSA data involving Americans’ international emails, texts and phone calls
The FBI has quietly revised its privacy rules for searching data involving Americans’ international communications that was collected by the National Security Agency, US officials have confirmed to the Guardian.
Pro Domo Sua: Are We Puppets in a Wired World? Surveillance and privacy revisited…
More on privacy in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/page/2/?s=privacy&submit=Search
more on surveillance in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=surveillance&submit=Search
Privacy in the Surveillance Age: How Librarians Can Fight Back.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
2pm Eastern (11am Pacific | 12pm Mountain | 1pm Central)
Description:
In the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA and FBI dragnet surveillance, many Americans are concerned that their rights to privacy and intellectual freedom are under threat. But librarians are perfectly positioned to help our communities develop strategies to protect themselves against unwanted surveillance. In this webinar, Alison Macrina and April Glaser of the Library Freedom Project will talk about the landscape of surveillance, the work of the LFP, and some tips and tools librarians can use to resist pervasive surveillance in the digital age.
About the Presenters:
Alison Macrina is a librarian, privacy rights activist, and the founder and director of the Library Freedom Project, an initiative which aims to make real the promise of intellectual freedom in libraries by teaching librarians and their local communities about surveillance threats, privacy rights and law, and privacy-protecting technology tools to help safeguard digital freedoms. Alison is passionate about connecting surveillance issues to larger global struggles for justice, demystifying privacy and security technologies for ordinary users, and resisting an internet controlled by a handful of intelligence agencies and giant multinational corporations. When she’s not doing any of that, she’s reading.
April Glaser is a writer and an activist with the Library Freedom Project. She currently works as a mobilization specialist at Greenpeace USA, where she focuses on ending oil extraction in the Arctic. Prior to Greenpeace, April was at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, organizing around the net neutrality campaign and EFF’s grassroots programming. April also previously worked with the Prometheus Radio Project, where her efforts helped propel the passage of the Local Community Radio Act, the largest expansion of community radio in U.S. history. She lives in Oakland, California and continues to work with local organizations on a range of digital rights issues.
Can’t make it to the live show? That’s okay. The session will be recorded and available on the Carterette Series Webinars site for later viewing.
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To register for the online event
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2. Complete and submit the form.
3. A URL for the event will be emailed to you immediately after registration.
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Contact a member of the Carterette Series planning team with questions or suggestions:
More on privacy in this IMS blog:
New Documents and Reports Confirm AT&T and NSA’s Longstanding Surveillance Partnership
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3h64l2/new_documents_and_reports_confirm_att_and_nsas/
Please consider previous IMS blog entries on this topic:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2014/09/25/online-privacy-its-time-for-a-new-security-paradigm/
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2014/07/01/privacy-and-surveillance-obama-advisor-john-podesta-every-country-has-a-history-of-going-over-the-line/
Obama Adviser John Podesta: ‘Every Country Has a History of Going Over the Line’
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/interview-with-obama-advisor-john-podesta-on-nsa-and-cyber-security-a-978297.html
Instead of a no-spy deal, the US has begun a Cyber Dialogue with Germany. In a SPIEGEL interview, John Podesta, a special adviser to President Barack Obama, speaks of the balance between alliances and security and says that changes are being made to NSA espionage practices.
Pls consider the following additional resources on the topic:
Power, Privacy, and the Internet
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/gallery/2014/feb/07/power-privacy-and-internet-conference/
- Governments, Corporations and Hackers: The Internet and Threats to the Privacy and Dignity of the Citizen:
https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/126066881/download?secret_token=s-QvmZz&client_id=0f8fdbbaa21a9bd18210986a7dc2d72c
- The Internet and the Future of the Press
https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/126066391/download?secret_token=s-v6mpP&client_id=0f8fdbbaa21a9bd18210986a7dc2d72c
- The Internet, Repression and Dissent
https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/126066389/download?secret_token=s-Udzom&client_id=0f8fdbbaa21a9bd18210986a7dc2d72c
Merkel calls for separate EU internet
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2014/02/merkel-calls-separate-eu-internet-201421955226908928.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/edward_snowden_here_s_how_we_take_back_the_internet
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/07/are-we-puppets-wired-world/
Are We Puppets in a Wired World?
But while we were having fun, we happily and willingly helped to create the greatest surveillance system ever imagined, a web whose strings give governments and businesses countless threads to pull, which makes us…puppets. The free flow of information over the Internet (except in places where that flow is blocked), which serves us well, may serve others better. Whether this distinction turns out to matter may be the one piece of information the Internet cannot deliver.
by Evgeny Morozov
PublicAffairs, 413 pp., $28.99
by Cole Stryker
Overlook, 255 pp., $25.95
by John Naughton
Quercus, 302 pp., $24.95
by Eric Siegel
Wiley, 302 pp., $28.00
by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier
Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 242 pp., $27.00
by Alice E. Marwick
Yale University Press, 368 pp., $27.50
by Terence Craig and Mary E. Ludloff
O’Reilly Media, 108 pp., $19.99 (paper)
BLEND-ONLINE : Call for Chapter Proposals– Privacy and Remote Learning
Digital Scholarship Initiatives at Middle Tennessee State University invites you to propose a chapter for our forthcoming book.
Working book title: Privacy and Safety in Remote Learning Environments
Proposal submission deadline: January 21, 2022
Interdisciplinary perspectives are highly encouraged
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Privacy policies of 3rd party EdTech platforms (Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Schoology, etc)
- Parental “spying” and classroom privacy
- Family privacy and synchronous online schooling
- Online harassment among students (private chats, doxing, social media, etc)
- Cameras in student private spaces
- Surveillance of student online activities
- Exam proctoring software and privacy concerns
- Personally Identifiable Information in online learning systems and susceptibility to cybercriminals
- Privacy, storage, and deletion policies for recordings and data
- Handling data removal requests from students
- Appointing a privacy expert in schools, universities, or districts
- How and why to perform security/privacy audits
- Student attitudes about online privacy
- Instructor privacy/safety concerns
- Libraries: privacy policies of ebook platforms
- Libraries: online reference services and transcripts
- Identity authentication best practices
- Learning analytics and “big data” in higher education
More details, timelines, and submission instructions are available at dsi.mtsu.edu/cfpBook2022
WHY TECHNOLOGY FAVORS TYRANNY
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/yuval-noah-harari-technology-tyranny/568330/
Artificial intelligence could erase many practical advantages of democracy, and erode the ideals of liberty and equality. It will further concentrate power among a small elite if we don’t take steps to stop it.
liberal democracy and free-market economics might become obsolete.
The Russian, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions were made by people who were vital to the economy but lacked political power; in 2016, Trump and Brexit were supported by many people who still enjoyed political power but feared they were losing their economic worth.
artificial intelligence is different from the old machines. In the past, machines competed with humans mainly in manual skills. Now they are beginning to compete with us in cognitive skills. And we don’t know of any third kind of skill—beyond the manual and the cognitive—in which humans will always have an edge.
Israel is a leader in the field of surveillance technology, and has created in the occupied West Bank a working prototype for a total-surveillance regime.
The conflict between democracy and dictatorship is actually a conflict between two different data-processing systems. AI may swing the advantage toward the latter.
As we rely more on Google for answers, our ability to locate information independently diminishes. Already today, “truth” is defined by the top results of a Google search.
The race to accumulate data is already on, and is currently headed by giants such as Google and Facebook and, in China, Baidu and Tencent. So far, many of these companies have acted as “attention merchants”—they capture our attention by providing us with free information, services, and entertainment, and then they resell our attention to advertisers.
We aren’t their customers—we are their product.
Nationalization of data by governments could offer one solution; it would certainly curb the power of big corporations. But history suggests that we are not necessarily better off in the hands of overmighty governments.
What is AI? Here’s everything you need to know about artificial intelligence
An executive guide to artificial intelligence, from machine learning and general AI to neural networks.
https://www-zdnet-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/what-is-ai-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-artificial-intelligence/
What is artificial intelligence (AI)?
It depends who you ask.
What are the uses for AI?
What are the different types of AI?
Narrow AI is what we see all around us in computers today — intelligent systems that have been taught or have learned how to carry out specific tasks without being explicitly programmed how to do so.
General AI
General AI is very different and is the type of adaptable intellect found in humans, a flexible form of intelligence capable of learning how to carry out vastly different tasks, anything from haircutting to building spreadsheets or reasoning about a wide variety of topics based on its accumulated experience.
What can Narrow AI do?
There are a vast number of emerging applications for narrow AI:
- Interpreting video feeds from drones carrying out visual inspections of infrastructure such as oil pipelines.
- Organizing personal and business calendars.
- Responding to simple customer-service queries.
- Coordinating with other intelligent systems to carry out tasks like booking a hotel at a suitable time and location.
- Helping radiologists to spot potential tumors in X-rays.
- Flagging inappropriate content online, detecting wear and tear in elevators from data gathered by IoT devices.
- Generating a 3D model of the world from satellite imagery… the list goes on and on.
What can General AI do?
A survey conducted among four groups of experts in 2012/13 by AI researchers Vincent C Müller and philosopher Nick Bostrom reported a 50% chance that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) would be developed between 2040 and 2050, rising to 90% by 2075.
What is machine learning?
What are neural networks?
What are other types of AI?
Another area of AI research is evolutionary computation.
What is fueling the resurgence in AI?
What are the elements of machine learning?
As mentioned, machine learning is a subset of AI and is generally split into two main categories: supervised and unsupervised learning.
Supervised learning
Unsupervised learning
Which are the leading firms in AI?
Which AI services are available?
All of the major cloud platforms — Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform — provide access to GPU arrays for training and running machine-learning models, with Google also gearing up to let users use its Tensor Processing Units — custom chips whose design is optimized for training and running machine-learning models.
Which countries are leading the way in AI?
It’d be a big mistake to think the US tech giants have the field of AI sewn up. Chinese firms Alibaba, Baidu, and Lenovo, invest heavily in AI in fields ranging from e-commerce to autonomous driving. As a country, China is pursuing a three-step plan to turn AI into a core industry for the country, one that will be worth 150 billion yuan ($22bn) by the end of 2020 to become the world’s leading AI power by 2030.
How can I get started with AI?
While you could buy a moderately powerful Nvidia GPU for your PC — somewhere around the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 or faster — and start training a machine-learning model, probably the easiest way to experiment with AI-related services is via the cloud.
How will AI change the world?
Robots and driverless cars
Fake news
Facial recognition and surveillance
Healthcare
Reinforcing discrimination and bias
AI and global warming (climate change)
Will AI kill us all?
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more on AI in this iMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=artificial+intelligence+education
