Maybe the prevalent business model on the Internet is about to change? Into what though?
Majorities think their personal data is less secure now, that data collection poses more risks than benefits, and believe it is not possible to go through daily life without being tracked.
The situation in China apparently heralds an era of ubiquitous facial recognition, when greater tech-supported convenience comes at the cost of privacy. In China, however, the name of the game is "ease to use." There is no particularly strident criticism in the country, at least for now, about the use of the software by the government or companies.…But most people read only the headlines, and if they read the body at all, it's not past the first couple of paragraphs. So this is used as a tool in narrative control.
Sales of a mobile phone with crypto-protection technology Kruiz-K, which is immune to hacking and wiretapping, have started in Russia, the press service of Russian state corporation Rostec told Sputnik on Sunday, specifying that the price of the device amounted to around 85,000 rubles ($1,298)….Sputnik International
The harvesting of our personal details goes far beyond what many of us could imagine.The Guardian
A majority of the American public believe that the U.S. government engages in widespread monitoring of its own citizens and worry that the U.S. government could be invading their own privacy. The Monmouth University Poll also finds a large bipartisan majority who feel that national policy is being manipulated or directed by a “Deep State” of unelected government officials. Americans of color on the center and left and NRA members on the right are among those most worried about the reach of government prying into average citizens’ lives.
Just over half of the public is either very worried (23%) or somewhat worried (30%) about the U.S. government monitoring their activities and invading their privacy. There are no significant partisan differences – 57% of independents, 51% of Republicans, and 50% of Democrats are at least somewhat worried the federal government is monitoring their activities. Another 24% of the American public are not too worried and 22% are not at all worried.
Fully 8-in-10 believe that the U.S. government currently monitors or spies on the activities of American citizens, including a majority (53%) who say this activity is widespread and another 29% who say such monitoring happens but is not widespread. Just 14% say this monitoring does not happen at all. There are no substantial partisan differences in these results.
“This is a worrisome finding. The strength of our government relies on public faith in protecting our freedoms, which is not particularly robust. And it’s not a Democratic or Republican issue. These concerns span the political spectrum,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute....
Few Americans (13%) are very familiar with the term “Deep State;” another 24% are somewhat familiar, while 63% say they are not familiar with this term. However, when the term is described as a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy, nearly 3-in-4 (74%) say they believe this type of apparatus exists in Washington. This includes 27% who say it definitely exists and 47% who say it probably exists. Only 1-in-5 say it does not exist (16% probably not and 5% definitely not). Belief in the probable existence of a Deep State comes from more than 7-in-10 Americans in each partisan group, although Republicans (31%) and independents (33%) are somewhat more likely than Democrats (19%) to say that the Deep State definitely exists. ...
It is necessary to improve the security of the Russian Internet (known colloquially as Runet). This was stated by President Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the Russian Security Council . For this he proposed to adopt additional normative acts. At the same time, the head of state stressed that it is not about limiting access to the internet and not about "total barriers and filters" for citizens.Fort Russ
"We must fight against those and those who use the information space to propagate radical ideas, justify terrorism, extremism, resolutely stop attempts to post materials that threaten the security of our state, society and individual citizens," Putin said at the meeting.
According to RBC, members of the Association of European Businesses (AEB) are concerned by the impact of the new law that may complicate or even ban the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) by international companies operating in Russia. As we have reported, according to this law any VPN services or anonymizers will have to restrict users’ access to the websites officially prohibited in Russia (which are currently accessible via these VPNs). As for VPNs and proxies that do not comply with the rules, Russian authorities plan to block their domains and remove their apps from App Store and Google Play....Awara
In recent weeks, investigators looking at how people acting on behalf of Russia targeted American voters have focused on Trump’s data operation. But although the FBI obtained a court order against Facebook to make it disclose evidence, the exact way in which US citizens were profiled and targeted remains largely unknown.
But British data protection laws may provide some transparency on the company at the heart of Trump’s data operation – Cambridge Analytica – and how it created profiles of 240 million Americans. In January, Carroll discovered he – and a group of other citizens – had the right under UK law to ask for his personal data back from the company, and when it failed to supply it, he started filing pre-trial actions to sue the company under British law. The lawsuit is the result of a unique situation, according to Ravi Naik of Irvine Thanvi Natas, the British solicitor who is leading the case. It arose because although Cambridge Analytica is largely owned by Trump’s biggest donor, hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and though its vice-president at the time of the US election was Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, the company was spun out of an older British military and elections contractor, SCL, with which it still shares staff, directors and a London office....
David Carroll, an associate professor at Parsons School of Design in New York, has discovered a transatlantic legal mechanism that he hopes will give him access to information being sought by both the FBI and the Senate intelligence committee....
“There are so many disturbing aspects to this. One of the things that really troubles me is how the company can buy anonymous data completely legally from all these different sources, but as soon as it attaches it to voter files, you are re-identified. It means that every privacy policy we have ignored in our use of technology is a broken promise. It would be one thing if this information stayed in the US, if it was an American company and it only did voter data stuff.
It isn't just "Russia" that is involved in the attempt to "manipulate democracy."But, he argues, “it’s not just a US company and it’s not just a civilian company”. Instead, he says, it has ties with the military through SCL – “and it doesn’t just do voter targeting”. Carroll has provided information to the Senate intelligence committee and believes that the disclosures mandated by a British court could provide evidence helpful to investigators.
News headlines, articles and videos like these highlight the fear and concern which many in our society have over the rising power of the surveillance state. Moore’s Law and the continuing exponential advancement of computing and telecommunications capabilities are (arguably) inexorably drawing us as a culture closer to the singularity. While transformative and unprecedented global digital sharing is empowered by these technological changes, the rise of the surveillance state and manipulative corporations like Cambridge Analytica (which allegedly was a prime mover supporting the electoral surprises of Brexit in June 2016 and the Trump presidential victory in November 2016) are also empowered entities in our culture landscape which we can ill afford to ignore.
This brings us to the oft cited slogan from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.”Moving at the Speed of Creativity
China will adopt from Thursday a law that mandates strict data surveillance and storage for firms working in the country, the official Xinhua news agency said.|
The law, passed in November by the country's parliament, bans online service providers from collecting and selling users' personal information, and gives users the right to have their information deleted, in cases of abuse.
“Those who violate the provisions and infringe on personal information will face hefty fines,” the news agency said on Monday.
Until now, China's data industry has had no overarching data protection framework, being governed instead by loosely defined laws.
However, overseas critics say the new law threatens to shut foreign technology companies out of sectors the country deems “critical”, and includes contentious requirements for security reviews and data stored on servers in China. The West finds this law controversial as usual....China exercises sovereign control of its information space.
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is calling for Americans to boycott Apple products until the tech giant complies with a court order and helps the FBI hack into San Bernardino killer Syed Farook’s iPhone.
“Boycott Apple until such time as they give that information,” he said on Friday in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. …The Intercept
Europe’s already rocky trading relationship with the U.S. just got a whole lot worse. Thanks to one young man’s battle against one of the world’s biggest tech companies, data traffic underpinning the world’s largest trading relationship has been thrown into jeopardy.
As the Wall Street Journal warns, hanging in the balance could be billions of dollars of trade in the online advertising business, as well as more quotidian tasks such as storing human-resources documents about European colleagues.
When, in 2013, the Austrian law graduate Max Schrems filed a data-privacy-infringement lawsuit against Facebook after Edward Snowden had revealed the full extent of the company’s collusion with the NSA, little could he have imagined the impact he would end up having. Now, two years later, the European Court of Justice has ruled that the Safe Harbor Agreement that has governed EU data flows across the Atlantic for some 15 years is no longer valid.…
As WOLF STREET previously reported, TiSA appears to have three primary goals: 1) privatize all services; 2) rip up national and regional financial regulations and 3) spread the U.S. approach to data protection — i.e. no protection — around the world…
The European Union no longer considers the United States a “safe harbor” for data because the National Security Agency surveillance exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden “enables interference, by United States public authorities, with the fundamental rights of persons.”
The EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice, declared on Tuesday that an international commercial data-sharing agreement allowing U.S. companies free-flowing access to large amounts of European citizens’ data was no longer valid.The Intercept
"Everybody should be safe all the time, else we let others choose who will be safe or not," whistleblower tells meeting of independent internet engineersCommon Dreams
“At a base minimum, people should be able to walk down a public street without fear that companies they’ve never heard of are tracking their every movement — and identifying them by name — using facial recognition technology,” the privacy advocates wrote in a joint statement. “Unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain agreement even with that basic, specific premise....
“This should be a wake-up call to Americans: Industry lobbyists are choking off Washington’s ability to protect consumer privacy,” Alvaro Bedoya, executive director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, said in a statement.
“People simply do not expect companies they’ve never heard of to secretly track them using this powerful technology. Despite all of this, industry associations have pushed for a world where companies can use facial recognition on you whenever they want — no matter what you say. This position is well outside the mainstream.”The Intercept
Marketed as pro-privacy reform of the rancid Patriot Act, the USA Freedom Act is about to become law. Though nothing could be further from the truth, many Americans will believe that the NSA is being reined in, and move on another issue.Ted Rall
The Freedom Act has been characterized as another vindication of Edward Snowden — and, considering the fact that we wouldn’t be discussing the balance between individual privacy rights and national security if he hadn’t made the NSA’s spying against us public, it is.
We’re also being told that the Freedom Act will protect us from the NSA.
It won’t....
What is the precise connection between human surveillance, the collection of different forms of data and metadata, and a system of corporate capitalism? Many have argued that the increasing push to collect private information or metadata is for the sake of our national security, and only secondarily, about commercial interests. However, this line of argument would be much more persuasive if the boundary between government and corporate interests were clear and unambiguous. It is not. In fact, as corporate capitalism becomes globalized, the distinction between government power and corporate power is all but erased.
Given this, it is not difficult to imagine that the surveillance infrastructure designed and built by powerful communications and tech industries, and implemented and enforced by way of government institutions and bureaucratic systems, would tend to serve the interests of the corporation first and foremost, with governments playing a parasitic or subsidiary role. To properly address the question of whether government or corporate interests are at the center, we need to first think about how to visualize or articulate the boundary between public and private....
It is crucial to understand here that the free-trade zone of individual privacy is not merely the creation of a new capitalist commodity or the realization of an untapped potential for profit. At the human level of lived experience, the eradication of privacy also creates a widespread sense of impotence, powerlessness and apathy before powerful governmental institutions and corporate hegemonies. This state of affairs will be pivotally important in the furtherance of rampant capitalist exploitation. Why? Precisely because eradicating the private sphere is also extinguishing the possibility that individuals can act in concert to resist what is happening to them. The truth is that we discover and sustain our sense of solidarity and commonality with others when we grasp that we are unique and irreplaceable beings who need to relate to ourselves and to each other in both a private and a public way. The condition of possibility for individual reflection, for community, for acting in concert, is that the distinction between the private and the public remains inviolable. The corporate capitalist system has achieved its singular totalitarian purpose when it is able to violate the inviolable.Truthout | Op-Ed
