As smartphone apps track our every move, a group of technologists in the US and UK this week offered guidelines for the ethical uses of location data. Leaders of the American Geographical Society and Britain’s mapping agency, the Ordnance Survey, want companies to commit to 10 principles, including minimizing data collection and actively seeking consent […]
One afternoon in the fall of 2019, in a grand old office building near the Arc de Triomphe, I was buzzed through an unmarked door into a showroom for the future of surveillance. The space on the other side was dark and sleek, with a look somewhere between an Apple Store and a doomsday bunker. […]
In 2010, British designer Harry Brignull coined a handy new term for an everyday annoyance: dark patterns, meaning digital interfaces that subtly manipulate people. It became a term of art used by privacy campaigners and researchers. Now, more than a decade later, the coinage is gaining new, legal, heft. Dark patterns come in many forms […]
Michael Williams’ every move was being tracked without his knowledge—even before the fire. In August, Williams, an associate of R&B star and alleged rapist R. Kelly, allegedly used explosives to destroy a potential witness’s car. When police arrested Williams, the evidence cited in a Justice Department affidavit was drawn largely from his smartphone and online […]
In September 2019, the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued its first-ever warning for an attack on a commercial artificial intelligence algorithm. Security researchers had devised a way to attack a Proofpoint product that uses machine learning to identify spam emails. The system produced email headers that included a “score” of how likely a […]
Apple has long been the lone wolf of the personal computer industry in maintaining its own operating system instead of licensing Microsoft’s Windows as rivals do. Tuesday it struck out further from the pack by launching its first laptops and desktops built on processors designed wholly in house. The silicon shift gives Apple new control […]
As the most important outcome of the 2020 election remains in flux, voters in California and Michigan approved new privacy laws Tuesday: California’s Prop 24, which extends provisions of a 2018 privacy law, and Michigan’s Prop 2, which consolidates piecemeal orders into a requirement for police to seek search warrants before seizing electronic data. Strengthening […]
Smartphone security measures have grown increasingly sophisticated in recent years, evolving from passcodes to thumbprints to face recognition and advanced encryption. A new report from the Washington, DC-based research nonprofit Upturn uncovers how police have maintained access to suspects’ phones even as these defenses grow more complex: by contracting with digital forensic firms that specialize […]
Preston Dunlap, chief architect of the Air Force, says the exercise was a success but declined to discuss the contributions of individual companies. Despite all the fancy hardware, seen in a bombastic official video, Dunlap says he was most impressed by how better networking, software, and some novel AI algorithms made it possible for forces […]
Google and Apple have taken steps this year they say will help users shield themselves from hundreds of companies that compile profiles based on online behavior. Meanwhile, other companies are devising new ways to probe more deeply into other aspects of our lives. In January, Google said it would phase out third-party cookies on its […]