Thousands of Android smartphone applications "have secretly been colluding to mine our information," according to researchers at Virginia Tech, who released a new study funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) this week. The study looked at more than 110,000 pairs of Android apps, "including 100,206 of Google Play’s most popular apps and … Continue reading Android apps ‘colluding’ to share data without permission, study says
Last year, U.S. police used a robot to kill someone for the first time following a mass shooting in Dallas, Texas. Now, this disturbing trend towards automation in policing could move a step further towards normalization. A familiar piece of American foreign policy -- the use of lethal weaponized drones -- may become a part … Continue reading Connecticut bill would allow lethal police drones
Last week, a top propagandist for the Islamic State extremist group (a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) was reportedly killed in an airstrike. The death comes as new details of the group's internal propaganda instruction strategy are emerging. Despite such setbacks for the media-savvy terrorist organization's psychological warfare initiatives, however, ISIS' propaganda continues to threaten the … Continue reading ISIS propaganda suffers setbacks, but remains steps ahead of US
Though marked "for official use only" and "not for public release," the 2017 edition of a National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) document offering guidance to law enforcement agencies has surfaced on the internet, raising questions about the kinds of activities the government considers "homegrown violent extremist mobilization indicators." Some of the signs that a person might … Continue reading Federal ‘violent extremist’ guidelines for law enforcement published
The development of artificial intelligence involves huge inherent risks, as anyone who has seen a few science fiction movies could probably tell you. Despite understanding this, however, tech tycoons are recklessly pushing to develop dystopian brain-implanted cyborg technologies as they see a chance to profit -- and that the potential for things to go wrong, … Continue reading Tech industry players push for ‘brain-computer interface’
While former President Barack Obama recently left office with a much higher approval rating than his predecessor, George W. Bush, his dramatic escalation of drone strikes around the world remains an undeniable and controversial component of his legacy -- and one that, like his healthcare reform law, appears to be continuing under the new … Continue reading U.S. airstrike civilian deaths escalate, no end in sight
Last summer, a coalition of American civil rights groups came together to denounce the increasing proliferation of "predictive policing" technologies that they described as "profoundly flawed." Nevertheless, the development of these technologies hurtles forward both in the United States and around the world. In the U.S., President Donald Trump appears enthusiastic about the prospects for … Continue reading Police want Minority Report tech, but problems persist
As the U.S. carries on its "counter-terror" crusade against a wide range of non-state actors within its own borders and outside of them into an era of ever-increasing information flows, the Pentagon is having trouble keeping up with its own intelligence collection capabilities. "The Department of Defense is grappling with an overwhelming preponderance of data, … Continue reading More A.I. suggested as solution to Pentagon intel overload problem
Back in December, following his election win but prior to his inauguration, President Donald Trump made headlines with tweets criticizing America's largest military contractors, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. If investors were spooked, however, recent developments should ease their fears, as these same companies are set to profit handsomely if Trump's newly proposed budget is approved. … Continue reading After Twitter outrage, Trump rewards biggest defense contractors
In the wake of Wikileaks' bombshell "Year Zero" disclosures on Tuesday, former Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, a frequent defacto spokesman for the intelligence establishment, appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, of all places, to awkwardly attempt to explain the stunning revelations. Hayden cracked a joke or two … Continue reading Plausible deniability surrounding surveillance abuse wears thin
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