National retail federation

The Future of Privacy Forum recently published a paper on the regulation of and best practices for facial recognition technology. The paper proposes that common-sense regulation needs to start from a position of “opt-in, explicit affirmative consent” for enrollment in the systems. Verdi says there are going to be exceptions, as in law enforcement, where criminals won’t opt in, which will require another paradigm. Verdi also says that opt-in doesn’t make sense for FR systems in schools, which may mean there are some situations where the technology shouldn’t be used at all. FPF supports a moratorium in certain cases, as in schools, but not for useful applications that raise few private risks, like unlocking mobile devices with faceprints. … [Read more...] about Due to weak oversight, we don’t really know how tech companies are using facial recognition data

With offices around the globe, Magnet Forensics is also an ICE vendor, and contracts with other agencies like the U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CPB), FBI, and the Inspector General’s office. Since 2018, the company has had five different contracts with ICE, totaling over $1.4 million. Magnet Forensics most recent contract with ICE was awarded on September 20th for $999,401—an IT software license to be used by HSI. … [Read more...] about Despite the controversy, plenty of smaller tech startups work with ICE

A market of exploits Karsten Nohl, a cryptographer and managing director at Security Research Labs, says that there are two dimensions to lawful intercept tools: is the smartphone an iPhone or not, and does the exploit require “help” from the phone’s user. Some exploits require users to do something like install a security update—despite warnings—that downloads malware onto their device. Nohl says the simplest exploits are those for Android phones, and that the preferred exploits work over the internet, while others only work in Wi-Fi range. Nohl says that NSO Group can hack most versions of the iPhone and many Android phones, and that this usually happens remotely. … [Read more...] about Inside the shadowy world of spyware makers that target activists and dissidents

Soderbergh favors the kind of entertaining “content” that establishes aesthetic and emotion, rather than hitting selling points. “My favorite kind of advertising comes at things from an oblique angle,” he says. “When somebody does something that surprises you in a way you find either funny or emotional, some sort of switch has been flipped and you start to think about their product in a different way.” If the brand takes off, there’s an idea for a deliciously weird content series that Soderbergh’s noodling with a famous friend. In the meantime, the brand has scored its first product placement deal–and it’s a doozy. Singani 63 appears in a long scene (seriously, the duration and variety of shots of the bottle in the scene would make a brand integration pro weep) in David Fincher’s hit, Gone Girl. Rather than an official placement, it was more a favor or perhaps just a gag–Fincher had called Soderbergh to ask for a … [Read more...] about Steven Soderbergh’s Latest, Years-In-The Making Creative Project Will F#*& You Up

Months later, following Khashoggi’s murder and the Post‘s subsequent investigations, MBS sent Bezos two WhatsApp messages suggesting he knew of the CEO’s private communications. On November 8, 2018—around the time that Bezos and his wife were communicating about a divorce—Bezos received a message from the MBS account that included a photo of a woman who resembled Lauren Sanchez. The caption read: “Arguing with a woman is like reading the software license agreement. In the end you have to ignore everything and click I agree.” On February 16, 2019, two days after Bezos received a briefing by phone about the Saudis’ online campaign against him, he received a new message from MBS, contending “there is nothing against you or Amazon from me or Saudi Arabia.” … [Read more...] about How Saudi Arabia allegedly hacked Jeff Bezos