security – Page 2 – Impact Lab

Crime Prevention, Google, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News, security

Google Maps may soon highlight well-lit streets for walkers

December 8, 2019

New Lighting layer could make walking at night safer.

Google Maps is great for getting directions while driving and using public transport, but in the last year it has been rolling out more features focused on traveling by foot as well. Recently, the company introduced AR walking directions and detailed spoken walking directions for people with vision impairments. In the future, Google may be adding a new feature to help people find safer streets to walk at night.

According to XDA Developers, an Android development community whose members have analyzed the Android APK to look for unreleased features, there are indications of a new Lighting layer in Google Maps. This layer would indicate which streets are brightly lit by street lights by showing a yellow highlight.

Continue reading… “Google Maps may soon highlight well-lit streets for walkers”

Home Technology, Law Enforcement, Science & Technology News, security

Amazon’s Ring wanted to use 911 calls to activate its video doorbells

September 28, 2019

Ring wanted 911 calls to activate its doorbells.

The company worked with police and cities to build in this real-time feature, emails showed.

Ring considered building a tool that would use calls to the 911 emergency number to automatically activate the video cameras on its smart doorbells, according to emails obtained by CNET. The Amazon-owned company isn’t currently working on the project, but it told a California police department in August 2018 that the function could be introduced in the “not-so-distant future.”

In the emails, Ring described a system in which a 911 call would trigger the cameras on Ring doorbells near the site of the call. The cameras would start recording and streaming video that police could then use to investigate an incident. Owners of the Ring devices would have to opt in to the system, the emails said.

“Currently, our cameras record based on motion alerts,” Steve Sebestyen, vice president of business development for Ring, said in an email that CNET obtained through a public records request. “However, we are working with interested agencies and cities to expand the device owners controls to allow for situations where a CFS [call-for-service] event triggers recording within the proximity of an event.”

It’s unclear how long Ring had contemplated this idea and how many cities it proposed this plan to, but the project is no longer being pursued.

Continue reading… “Amazon’s Ring wanted to use 911 calls to activate its video doorbells”

communication, Computer Security, Science & Technology News, security

How a trivial cell phone hack is ruining lives

July 11, 2019

On a Tuesday night in May, Sean Coonce was reading the news in bed when his phone dropped service. He chalked it up to tech being tech and went to sleep. When he woke up, his Gmail account had been stolen and by Wednesday evening he was out $100,000.

“This is still very raw (I haven’t even told my family yet),” Coonce wrote in an anguished Medium post. “I can’t stop thinking about the small, easy things I could have done to protect myself along the way.”

On a Monday night in June, Matthew Miller’s daughter woke him up to say that his Twitter account had been hacked. He had no cell phone service; within a few days Miller lost his Gmail and Twitter account and $25,000 from his family bank account.

Continue reading… “How a trivial cell phone hack is ruining lives”

Biotech, Engineering, Science & Technology News, security

The Pentagon has a laser that can identify people from a distance—by their heartbeat

July 11, 2019

The Jetson prototype can pick up on a unique cardiac signature from 200 meters away, even through clothes.

Everyone’s heart is different. Like the iris or fingerprint, our unique cardiac signature can be used as a way to tell us apart. Crucially, it can be done from a distance.

It’s that last point that has intrigued US Special Forces. Other long-range biometric techniques include gait analysis, which identifies someone by the way he or she walks. This method was supposedly used to identify an infamous ISIS terrorist before a drone strike. But gaits, like faces, are not necessarily distinctive. An individual’s cardiac signature is unique, though, and unlike faces or gait, it remains constant and cannot be altered or disguised.

Continue reading… “The Pentagon has a laser that can identify people from a distance—by their heartbeat”

Amazon.com, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News, security

Amazon wants to sell “surveillance as a service”

July 8, 2019

In case Amazon’s surveillance capabilities weren’t extensive enough with its Echo, Ring, and Key products, not to mention all the data Amazon routinely collects on its customers, the company recently received a US patent to provide “surveillance as a service.”

The patent is for an “unmanned aerial vehicle”—the technical term for a drone—that “may perform a surveillance action at a property of an authorized party” and could “image the property to generate surveillance images.” Amazon suggests in its patent, filed June 12, 2015, and granted June 4 of this year, that drone-based surveillance would be superior to traditional video-camera installations that have limited range, are liable to miss things, and can be manipulated or damaged by an intruder.

Continue reading… “Amazon wants to sell “surveillance as a service””

Crime, Internet, Science & Technology News, security

Email sextortion scams are on the rise and they’re scary — here’s what to do if you get one

July 1, 2019

Overall, extortion by email is growing significantly, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3). Last year, these complaints rose 242% to 51,146 reported crimes, with total losses of $83 million.

“The majority of extortion complaints received in 2018 were part of a sextortion campaign in which victims received an email threatening to send a pornographic video of them or other compromising information to family, friends, coworkers or social network contacts if a ransom was not paid,” according to the FBI

“Shame can be a tremendous weapon that these criminals use,” one expert explains.

Continue reading… “Email sextortion scams are on the rise and they’re scary — here’s what to do if you get one”

cutting edge, Engineering, new technology, Science & Technology News, security

Move over, silicon switches: There’s a new way to compute

May 9, 2019

Logic and memory devices, such as the hard drives in computers, now use nanomagnetic mechanisms to store and manipulate information. Unlike silicon transistors, which have fundamental efficiency limitations, they require no energy to maintain their magnetic state: Energy is needed only for reading and writing information.

One method of controlling magnetism uses electrical current that transports spin to write information, but this usually involves flowing charge. Because this generates heat and energy loss, the costs can be enormous, particularly in the case of large server farms or in applications like artificial intelligence, which require massive amounts of memory. Spin, however, can be transported without a charge with the use of a topological insulator—a material whose interior is insulating but that can support the flow of electrons on its surface.

Continue reading… “Move over, silicon switches: There’s a new way to compute”

facebook, privacy, Science & Technology News, security

Alternatives to Facebook

March 11, 2019

Facebook has been under relentless attack since the Cambridge Analytica scandal in early 2018. Broadcasters and news publishers have declared open season on Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and other senior executives at the company. And while not quite ubiquitous, #deletefacebook pops up every time there’s a story about data privacy. The EU has fined them, the US is trying to figure out how to regulate them, and the notion that free services should be absolutely free (as opposed to checking a box on a terms and conditions page that allows the free service to use your data as payment) is gaining traction.

Whether or not Facebook deserves the scrutiny it is under is a great topic for another article. Today, I want to have a look at alternatives. If you don’t like Facebook, what might work for you? Is the time right for the reemergence of focused social networks?

Continue reading… “Alternatives to Facebook”

Analysis, Hot Issues, Internet, security, Social Media

Your digital identity has three layers, and you can only protect one of them

February 5, 2019

Your online profile is less a reflection of you than a caricature.

Whether you like it or not, commercial and public actors tend to trust the string of 1s and 0s that represent you more than the story you tell them. When filing a credit application at a bank or being recruited for a job, your social network, credit-card history, and postal address can be viewed as immutable facts more credible than your opinion.

But your online profile is not always built on facts. It is shaped by technology companies and advertisers who make key decisions based on their interpretation of seemingly benign data points: what movies you choose to watch, the time of day you tweet, or how long you take to click on a cat video.

Continue reading… “Your digital identity has three layers, and you can only protect one of them”

government, Legal Issues, security

World leaders at Davos call for global rules on tech

February 2, 2019

DAVOS, Switzerland — Leaders of Japan, South Africa, China and Germany issued a series of calls on Wednesday for global oversight of the tech sector, in a clear signal of growing international interest in seizing greater regulatory supervision of an industry led by the United States.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said his country would use its chairmanship of the Group of 20 nations this year to push forward a new international system for the oversight of how data is used. Data governance will be the theme when the group’s presidents and prime ministers gather in June in Osaka for their annual summit meeting.

The emphasis will be on expanding World Trade Organization rules to encompass trade in data as well as goods and services, he said. “I would like Osaka G20 to be long remembered as the summit that started worldwide data governance,” Mr. Abe said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Continue reading… “World leaders at Davos call for global rules on tech”

Internet, Latest Trend, Legal Issues, privacy, security

The ‘deep web’ may be 500 times bigger than the normal web. Its uses go well beyond buying drugs

September 9, 2018

The dark web is a hidden portion of the internet that can only be accessed using special software.

TOR, or The Onion Router, is a popular anonymous browsing network used to connect to the dark web.

While the dark web offers anonymity and a way to bypass internet censorship, it is commonly associated with illegal activities such as the buying and selling of drugs and other contraband.

The so-called dark web, a portion of the hidden internet, is usually associated with a host of illegal activities including the buying and selling of drugs, firearms, stolen financial data and other types of valuable information. The selling point? Total anonymity.

Continue reading… “The ‘deep web’ may be 500 times bigger than the normal web. Its uses go well beyond buying drugs”

Analysis, Crime Prevention, Law Enforcement, security

Engineers discover a glaringly simple way to detect bombs and hidden weapons

August 22, 2018

How did we not know this already?

You probably use Wi-Fi on the regular to connect your smartphone, computer, or other electronic device to the glory of the world wide web.

But soon, that same technology could also keep you safe in real-life public areas.

According to a peer-reviewed study led by researchers from Rutgers University-New Brunswick, ordinary Wi-Fi can effectively and cheaply detect weapons, bombs, or explosive chemicals contained within bags.

Continue reading… “Engineers discover a glaringly simple way to detect bombs and hidden weapons”