John Whitehead: A Graduation Message for a Dark Age
"Overcoming the evils of our age will require more than intellect and activism. It will require decency, morality, goodness, truth and toughness."
John Whitehead: The Age of Petty Tyrannies
"70 years ago, one out of every 20 U.S. jobs required a state license; today, almost 1 in 3 American occupations requires a license."
Amazon is selling police departments a real-time facial recognition system
"Rekognition is currently used by police in Orlando and Oregon’s Washington County, often using nondisclosure agreements to avoid public disclosure."
Palantir, LAPD Use Predictive Policing to Monitor Specific People
"Both Operation LASER and PredPol are sponsored by the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance’s SMART Policing Initiative, which aims to use 'evidence-based, data-driven' policing strategies to try and pre-empt and prevent crime."
Boston Dynamics’ robots can now run, jump and climb
"Boston Dynamics, the company known for its 'nightmare-inducing' backflipping robots, has unveiled two new videos that show them autonomously navigating through different terrains, including an office and a lab, and jogging in a grass field."
The Creepy Genetics Behind the Golden State Killer Case
"In the end, it wasn’t stakeouts or fingerprints or cell phone records that got him. It was a genealogy website."
US spy lab hopes to geotag every outdoor photo on social media
"The ability to combine this location data with information about who appears in those photos—and any social media contacts tied to them—would make it possible for government agencies to quickly track terrorist groups posting propaganda photos. (And, really, just about anyone else.)"
China Bans People With “Bad Social Credit” From Planes, Trains
"China said this week it will begin applying its so-called social credit system to flights and trains and stop people who have committed misdeeds from taking such transport for up to a year."
Authorities deactivate transit pass after biohacker implants it in his hand
"New South Wales' authorities deactivated the card under Meow-Meow's name after his surgery in April 2017 made headlines. However, since the chip implanted in his hand wasn't registered to him, he was able to use it for almost a whole year -- only downside was that he sometimes had to swipe his palm over the scanner more than once. It was only after he traveled back to Australia from a cyborg convention in the US that authorities were successfully able to cut off the card he's been using."
Teenage Dystopia: The Cycle of Oppression and Resistance
"If legal adults were treated like American teenagers, that government would be considered one of the most oppressive on Earth."