Today: Our year in surveillance

Pokemon Go is spying on you. Mysterious drones are probably spying on you. And now Microsoft wants to install a spy to watch whatever you do on the web. Mark Hurst discusses a year that was full of surveillance.

• Watchdog to issue new guidance after report finds air fryers may be listening (Sky News, Dec 14, 2024): a recently published “report found two air fryer manufacturers have been sending personal data to servers in China.” . . . “Three air fryers, made by the Chinese brands Xiaomi, Tencent and Aigostar, wanted to record audio on their owner’s phone for no specified reason, according to the study.” . . . “the Huawei Ultimate smartwatch which requested nine ‘risky’ phone permissions - the most of all the devices in the study. [The report] defines ‘risky’ as giving invasive access to parts of someone’s phone. This includes knowing the user’s precise location, the ability to record audio, access to stored files or an ability to see all other apps installed.”

• As 23andMe Slides Into Bankruptcy, Your DNA Hangs in The Balance (Futurism, Oct 24, 2024): “if [23andMe] were to go under, what would happen to all of that extremely personal DNA data? . . . 23andMe is surprisingly open about its willingness to share private customer DNA data with service providers. ‘If we are involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be accessed, sold or transferred as part of that transaction,’ the company notes in its privacy statement, ‘and this Privacy Statement will apply to your Personal Information as transferred to the new entity.’ In other words, your DNA information could easily be passed on to an entirely separate company.”

• Pokémon Go Players Have Unwittingly Trained AI to Navigate the World (by Emanuel Maiberg in 404 Media, Nov 19, 2024). As 404 Media’s Joseph Cox writes about Niantic, “the company behind Pokemon Go has announced it is using data collected by its millions of players to build an AI model that can navigate the real world, and could be used for robots.”

    --> In response, past Techtonic guest Roger McNamee posts (Nov 20, 2024): “Pokemon Go users have unwittingly trained an AI to navigate the world. Reminder: when Google Glass died, it was reborn as Pokemon Go. It was then further repackaged as Sidewalk Labs. Surveillance has ALWAYS been the point. It is central to every tech product.”

• An AI that sees what you see (Vox, Dec 11, 2024): “Microsoft wants an AI companion to follow you around the web. . . . It’s called Copilot Vision. The basic idea is that Vision allows Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot, to see what you’re seeing in an internet browser. . . . If you’re shopping for furniture on Wayfair, for instance, you can ask Copilot to find something with a bit of a Memphis design vibe, even if you have no idea what a “Memphis design vibe” even means. Copilot then scans the entire webpage, looking for images that match what you’re asking for, and then points you in that direction. In other words, it can see what you’re seeing on Wayfair, and it can answer all your questions about it.”

    --> The article also reassures readers that Microsoft claims to Microsoft also delete “all of the information from every session after you’re done.” Right in line with Microsoft’s stellar privacy track record - see below.

• Microsoft re-launches ‘privacy nightmare’ AI screenshot tool (BBC, Sep 27, 2024): Recall, which continuously screenshots online activity, “was labelled a potential ‘privacy nightmare’ by critics when it was unveiled in May 2024 - prompting the tech giant to postpone its release. It now plans to relaunch the AI-powered tool in November on its new CoPilot+ computers.”

• Fearful of crime, the tech elite transform their homes into military bunkers (Washington Post, Dec 5, 2024) – a story about tech startup called Sauron: “Cameras and sensors surveil the perimeter, scanning bystanders’ faces for potential threats. Drones from a ‘deterrence pod’ scare off trespassers by projecting a searchlight over any suspicious movements. A virtual view of the home is rendered in 3D and updated in real time . . . This is the vision of home security pitched by Sauron, a Silicon Valley start-up boasting a waiting list of tech CEOs and venture capitalists. . . . Sauron is still figuring out how to incorporate drones, but it is already imagining more aggressive countermeasures, [cofounder Kevin] Hartz said. ‘Is it a machine that could take out a bad actor with a bullet or something?’”

• WTF Is Going on With the New Jersey Mystery Drones? Maybe Mass Panic Over Nothing (by Jason Koebler, Dec 12, 2024): quotes Faine Greenwood, past Skeptech speaker. “My best guess about what’s actually happening is some form of confidential US aerial testing or contractor testing is happening and the federal authorities are communicating very badly with each other and others. . . . People are remarkably bad at identifying objects in flight.” (I figure it’s unlikely that aliens would happen to start launching drones the moment we do so.)

Other surveillance stories in 2024

Here are some of the top news stories this year about surveillance. Some of them showed up in two Techtonic episodes devoted to surveillance: the Feb 26 show (Dystopia update) and the Sep 9 show (Even more devices are spying on you).

    --> Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies, writes Jon Keegan in The Markup (Jan 17, 2024), in an article copublished by Consumer Reports

    --> AI “Black Box” placed in more hospital operating rooms to improve safety (Ars Technica, Jan 16, 2024)

    --> N.S.A. Buys Americans’ Internet Data Without Warrants, Letter Says (NYT, Jan 25, 2024)

    --> When Eyes in the Sky Start Looking Right at You (NYT, Feb 20, 2024): an article on Albedo, a Colorado-based spy-satellite startup founded by engineers from Facebook and Lockheed Martin, and funded by Bill Gates and others

    --> Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students (Ars Technica, Feb 23, 2024)

    --> Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies (NYT, March 11, 2024)

    --> Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla — and they might tow it (SF Chronicle, Aug 31, 2024)

    --> It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy (Mozilla, Sep 6, 2023)

    --> Social media and online video firms are conducting ‘vast surveillance’ on users, FTC finds (Guardian, Sep 19, 2024): “Agency accuses Meta, Google, TikTok and other companies of sharing troves of user information with third-parties.” I’m shocked.

    --> Lawsuit: City cameras make it impossible to drive anywhere without being tracked (Ars Technica, Oct 22, 2024): “Norfolk [Virginia], a city with about 238,000 residents, ‘has installed a network of cameras that make it functionally impossible for people to drive anywhere without having their movements tracked, photographed, and stored in an AI-assisted database that enables the warrantless surveillance of their every move. . . .’”

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