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. 🎙

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614941/internet-that-never-forgets-bad-for-young-people-online-permanence/

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.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/

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.

https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3042122/chinese-criminal-gangs-spreading-african-swine-fever-force

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.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21029499/decade-fails-flops-tech-science-culture-apple-google-data-kickstarter-2010-2019

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-navy-idUSKBN1YO2HU

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/17/tech/epilepsy-strobe-twitter-attack-trnd/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/12/apple-google-and-amazon-team-up-for-joint-smart-home-standard/

“The goal of the Connected Home over IP project is to simplify development for manufacturers and increase compatibility for consumers.”

https://ww.9to5mac.com/2019/12/18/facebook-accesses-your-location/