Ring Fired Employees for Watching Customer Videos - VICE
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3mdvk/ring-fired-employees-abusing-video-data
The news highlights a risk across many different tech companies: employees may abuse access granted as part of their jobs to look at customer data or information. In Ring’s case this data can be particularly sensitive though, as customers often put the cameras inside their home.
US Coast Guard discloses Ryuk ransomware infection at maritime facility - ZDNet
The maritime facility — believed to be a port authority — was forced to shut down its entire operations for more than 30 hours, the Coast Guard said.
Sony surprises with an electric concept car called the Vision-S - The Verge
is meant to showcase the Japanese tech conglomerate’s many different strengths, from entertainment products to camera sensors and more.
Hackers steal data for 15 million patients, then sell it back to lab that lost it - Ars Technica
Canada’s biggest provider of specialty laboratory testing services said it paid hackers an undisclosed amount for the return of personal data they stole belonging to as many as 15 million customers.
Company shuts down because of ransomware, leaves 300 without jobs just before holidays - ZDNet
As a result of the botched ransomware recovery process, the company’s leadership decided to suspend all services, leaving more than 300 employees without jobs.
Over the past two years, there have been many cases where smaller companies decided to shut down for good, lacking the funds to pay a ransom demand to get their data back or lacking the funds needed to rebuild their IT infrastructure
Amazon Echo Dot Kids: Privacy violations puts kids at risk, lawsuit alleges - CBS News
fails to adequately protect children’s privacy by illegally keeping data on children even after their parents try to delete it
Which emoji scissors close
https://wh0.github.io/2020/01/02/scissors.html
Unlike the real world tool it represents, the emoji’s job is to convey the idea, especially at small sizes. It doesn’t need to be able to swing or cut things. Nevertheless, let’s judge them on that irrelevant criterion.
BMW and Hyundai hacked by Vietnamese hackers, report claims - ZDNet
https://www.zdnet.com/article/bmw-and-hyundai-hacked-by-vietnamese-hackers-report-claims/
Many experts have speculated that the Vietnamese government has taken a page out of China’s book and is using hacking groups to carry out economic espionage on foreign companies, stealing intellectual property, and then using it for its state-funded corporations.
China used this strategy to prop its airplane manufacturing sector, and now experts believe Vietnam is doing the same for its fledgling automotive startup VinFast, which started rolling out its first cars out factory lines this year.
Will humans become extinct by the end of the century? - The Inquiry – BBC
https://castro.fm/episode/leoXku
What is the chance of the human race surviving the 21st century? There are many dangers – climate change for example, or nuclear war, or a pandemic, or planet Earth being hit by a giant asteroid. Around the world a number of research centres have sprung up to investigate and mitigate what’s called existential risk. How precarious is our civilisation and what can be done to stop a global catastrophe? David Edmonds talks to four expert witnesses to try and find the answer. 🎙
What sci-fi can tell us about the future - The World in 2020 – The Economist
https://www.economist.com/the-world-in/2019/12/31/what-sci-fi-can-tell-us-about-the-future
Instagram will be the new front-line in the misinformation wars – The Economist
FACEBOOK WAS a breeding-ground for partisanship, crackpot articles and conspiracy theories long before America’s presidential election in 2016. The social network is optimised for “engagement”, and encourages people to keep scrolling, clicking and commenting by promoting content that triggers strong reactions. Yet it took the revelation of a massive Russian propaganda campaign before lawmakers, journalists and Facebook users began to take notice of the risks this entails. Something similar will happen with the election in 2020—but this time to Instagram (which is owned by Facebook).
Why an internet that never forgets is especially bad for young people - MIT Technology Review
As past identities become stickier for those entering adulthood, it’s not just individuals who will suffer. Society will too.
The risk is that this will produce generations of increasingly cautious individuals—people too worried about what others might find or think to ever engage in productive risks or innovative thinking.
The second potential danger is more troubling: in a world where the past haunts the present, young people may calcify their identities, perspectives, and political positions at an increasingly young age.
Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines - The Washington Post
Short-range phone sensors and campuswide WiFi networks are empowering colleges across the United States to track hundreds of thousands of students more precisely than ever before. Dozens of schools now use such technology to monitor students’ academic performance, analyze their conduct or assess their mental health.
But some professors and education advocates argue that the systems represent a new low in intrusive technology, breaching students’ privacy on a massive scale. The tracking systems, they worry, will infantilize students in the very place where they’re expected to grow into adults, further training them to see surveillance as a normal part of living, whether they like it or not.
US Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices citing a cybersecurity threat, will block devices with the app from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet - Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-navy-idUSKBN1YO2HU
The 84 biggest flops, fails, and dead dreams of the decade in tech - The Verge
It Seemed Like a Popular Chat App. It’s Secretly a Spy Tool. - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/22/us/politics/totok-app-uae.html
ToTok, an Emirati messaging app that has been downloaded to millions of phones, is the latest escalation of a digital arms race.
ToTok is a cleverly designed tool for mass surveillance, according to the technical analysis and interviews, in that it functions much like the myriad other Apple and Android apps that track users’ location and contacts.
On the surface, ToTok tracks users’ location by offering an accurate weather forecast. It hunts for new contacts any time a user opens the app, under the pretense that it is helping connect with their friends, much like how Instagram flags Facebook friends. It has access to users’ microphones, cameras, calendar and other phone data. Even its name is an apparent play on the popular Chinese app TikTok.
Chinese criminal gangs are using drones to spread African swine fever to force farmers to sell pigs cheaply so they can profit - South China Morning Post
Facebook accesses your location even when you’ve opted out, confirms company - 9to5Mac
https://ww.9to5mac.com/2019/12/18/facebook-accesses-your-location/
Apple, Google, and Amazon team up to create “CHIP,” a new smart home standard - Ars Technica
“The goal of the Connected Home over IP project is to simplify development for manufacturers and increase compatibility for consumers.”