Posts by wchr@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AjZ6xiIMJWun2hAsBU by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-07-03T19:46:04Z
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Now the Supreme Court stated that "millions of algorithmic decisions made every day by social media platforms are protected by the First Amendment", weakening "the ability of the government to regulate so-called common carriers like railroads and airlines — a traditional state function since medieval times"."Even if one has concerns about the wisdom and questionable constitutionality of the Florida and Texas laws (as I do), the breadth of the court’s reasoning should serve as a wake-up call".
(DIR) Post #AjZ6xiqkFgQ8lLGKmW by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-07-03T19:46:58Z
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"In our era, the power of private actors has grown to rival that of nation-states. Most powerful are the Big Tech platforms, which in their cocoon-like encompassing of humanity have grown to control commerce and speech in ways that would make totalitarian states jealous. In a democracy, the people ought to have the right to react to and control such private power ... But thanks to the Supreme Court, the First Amendment has become a barrier to the government’s ability to do that."
(DIR) Post #AjZ6xjNMIQVaOUWNcG by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-07-03T19:59:29Z
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The far-right oligarch aggressively attacked Tim Wu's piece, which is of course not discussing *your* or *our* freedom of speech, but the freedom of corporations and billionaires to exert their power aka "speech" without any democratic control, from arbitrary account bans to private mass surveillance to institutionalized political bribery.
(DIR) Post #AjZ6xk2poDgYT7vVGS by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-07-03T20:05:28Z
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Yes, this is a highly controversial debate, including within the digital rights and civil society communities.While the EFF basically sides with big tech, EPIC and others take a different position.I generally believe that the expansion of corporate "speech" rights in the US has generally proven to be a disaster for democracy, from Citizen United to the impossibility to pass privacy or data protection legislation (because digital mass profiling and personal data sales is corporate "speech").
(DIR) Post #AjZ6xmNp79f9inlIG0 by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-07-03T20:32:35Z
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Introducing some form of common carrier regulation (and also expanding intermediary liability) for platform giants clearly poses risks, especially if the US should turn fully authoritarian.However, allowing big tech to continue to act as they see fit as private regulators also poses massive risks to democracy, perhaps even greater risks.It's complicated.
(DIR) Post #AjZ6xoeueaWMmNlyAi by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-07-03T20:34:04Z
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If I lived in a fully authoritarian state, I'd perhaps prefer private platforms as regulators. Not so in democracies under the rule of law.I'm afraid that the less we risk with regulation, the more likely we'll end up with both authoritarian platforms AND states.In the worst case, it's already too late :/
(DIR) Post #AjZ6xr97PFs4Udv7Wy by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-07-03T20:59:00Z
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In any case, I believe it's now really time to say goodbye to cyberlibertarian dogmatism and rethink everything from speech maximalism to liability minimalism to general government-regulation aversion to choice, interoperability and competition as catch-all fixes.There is no such a thing as "internet utopia". Perhaps it never existed, or it existed in some way before economic and political power went all-in and digital infrastructure became essential infrastructure. Certainly, it's long gone.
(DIR) Post #AjzrD8ZvWQxvX7tDhA by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-07-16T14:55:08Z
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The German public broadcaster @br_data and @netzpolitik_feed received 3.6 billion location records from a consumer data broker, revealing the places visited by millions of Germans, where they live+work, including tens of thousands of military/intelligence/government personnel.The data comes from mobile apps and digital marketing. A US data broker is selling it via a German data marketplace. BR and netzpolitik.org received it as a 'free sample':https://interaktiv.br.de/ausspioniert-mit-standortdaten/en/index.htmlhttps://netzpolitik.org/2024/data-broker-files-how-data-brokers-sell-our-location-data-and-jeopardise-national-security/
(DIR) Post #AjzrDBZgNnYKpEnZEO by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-07-16T15:31:01Z
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Ironically, they identified, for example, the home address and travel routes of a person working in the so-called 'tin can' building on a site operated by the German federal intelligence agency BND. The NSA used this building for its mass surveillance programs according to the Snowden leaks.Now any criminal or Russian/Chinese agency can easily buy location records on people who work at military bases or intelligence sites in Germany and other countries from the marketing surveillance industry.
(DIR) Post #AlP8J9733DaQtuLXfM by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-08-27T20:30:24Z
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I published a new report that shows how today's cybersecurity and risk profiling systems are turning into employee mass surveillance and predictive policing tools.Based on log, device and network data, they let companies monitor almost everything employees do or say.We need a serious debate about what is necessary and proportionate for what purpose and about safeguards that prevent misuse.My 76-page report focusing on software from Forcepoint/Everfox and Microsoft:https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/securityriskprofiling
(DIR) Post #AlP8J9wnwmzFUQYsL2 by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-08-27T20:34:17Z
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The report is part of a larger project which examines how employers (mis)use worker data, funded by Austrian Arbeiterkammer:https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-workTo illustrate wider practices, the report investigates software for cybersecurity and risk profiling from two major vendors including Microsoft. While employers can use these systems for legitimate purposes, the report focuses on potential implications for employees.The Register's @thomasclaburn wrote about my research:https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/27/microsoft_workplace_surveillance/
(DIR) Post #AlP8JArAZE4cJEvtC4 by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-08-27T20:49:58Z
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First, the report investigates insider risk and behavioral monitoring technology offered by Forcepoint, a major US cybersecurity vendor that is affiliated with the defense/intelligence sector.Forcepoint promises to help organizations identify cyberattacks and employees who are considered a risk, whether by carelessness, negligence or intention.Potential threats include “disgruntled employees” who had a “huge fight with the boss” and “internal activists” who leak information to journalists.
(DIR) Post #AlP8JBrunwGRRqHzzk by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-08-27T20:59:12Z
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Forcepoint's systems can analyze:- data from employee computers/devices, e.g. file, web, app, clipboard, keyboard, screen activity- employee communication contents, e.g. email, chat, voice calls- networking data, e.g. firewall, proxy- performance reviews from HR systems- data on physical access to buildings and rooms via badging systems- activity log data from many other software systems, e.g. Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, Cisco- external data, e.g. criminal history, financial distress
(DIR) Post #AlP8JCdPxKGHpAVw2K by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-08-27T21:01:37Z
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Based on behavioral profiling, Forcepoint's technology continuously calculates risk scores for employees, singles out those who are assessed as suspicious, ranks them by risk and raises alerts.To identify 'anomalous' behavior, it can analyze behavioral data on many or all employees, which is recommended by Forcepoint.
(DIR) Post #AlP8JDY8YRdEf53ERc by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-08-27T21:04:01Z
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The system uses 'behavioral risk models' to assess whether employees are in financial distress, show 'decreased productivity' or intend to leave the job, how they communicate with colleagues and whether they access 'obscene' content or show 'negative sentiment' in their communications.Here's a list of built-in risk models, see p. 16 in my report:https://crackedlabs.org/dl/CrackedLabs_Christl_SecurityRiskProfiling.pdf
(DIR) Post #AlP8JERREprrQavOds by wchr@mastodon.social
2024-08-27T21:10:14Z
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Forcepoint was until recently owned by defense giant Raytheon. Its behavioral surveillance tech was initially funded by the CIA's venture capital firm In-Q-Tel.A co-founder of RedOwl which later became Forcepoint Behavioral Analytics is a former US army intelligence and NSA officer who was previously the CEO of Berico, which was involved in a large-scale plan to discredit labor unions in the US.Overall, Forcepoint claims to analyze 5 billion activity records per day from 900 million devices.
(DIR) Post #AtUeGP38VvJYgibM1I by wchr@mastodon.social
2025-04-26T19:21:03Z
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CNN reports that the oligarch is building a "master database to speed-up immigration enforcement and deportations by combining sensitive data from across the federal government" with the help of Palantir.The Trump regime sees the project as a way to build "targeting lists" to find and arrest people. A former IRS employee "with knowledge of the plans" told CNN that this may represent "designing a deportation machine".That all sounds very very bad.https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/25/politics/doge-building-master-database-immigration/index.html
(DIR) Post #AtUeGQAGMubq96wYlc by wchr@mastodon.social
2025-04-26T19:33:54Z
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"DOGE is knitting together immigration databases from across DHS and uploading data from outside agencies including the Social Security Administration (SSA), as well as voting records ... likely ... hosted on [Palantir] Foundry"Previous reporting by Wired:https://www.wired.com/story/doge-collecting-immigrant-data-surveil-track/
(DIR) Post #AtUeGRGgGXKxZIxCPQ by wchr@mastodon.social
2025-04-26T19:51:09Z
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Eichmann-esque public record on an ICE contract awarded on Apr 11, 2025:ICE "urgently requires the following system ... hereby referred to as ICE’s Immigration Lifecycle Operating System (ImmigrationOS)":- "streamlining selection and apprehension operations of illegal aliens"- "streamlined end to end immigration lifecycle from identification to removal, with increased efficiency in deportation logistics, minimizing time and resource expenditure"https://sam.gov/opp/f71acee6010c423db4902446a59a690c/view
(DIR) Post #AyWbf5lxI7RT8rtW4m by wchr@mastodon.social
2025-09-23T15:46:32Z
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I was really hoping things might get better with GDPR enforcement at its Irish lead regulator, but this is Ireland giving the middle finger to EU data protection and to a democratically governed digital society.https://noyb.eu/en/former-meta-lobbyist-named-dpc-commissioner-meta-now-officially-regulates-itself