Techdirt. – California HOAs Are Buying Up Flock License Plate Readers; Giving Cops Open Access To Them

Apr 032024
 

Flock Safety — a relatively recent entrant to the surveillance tech arena — is branching out. It’s courting cops with cheap ALPR cameras, unproven claims about crime reduction, and a little lawbreaking of its own.
But it hasn’t abandoned its roots. It first hit the scene with plate readers it pitched to the Fun Police: homeowners associations and the even deeper pockets overseeing our nation’s many gated communities.
Flock tells HOAs and the heads of carefully curated communities things like “Flock Safety is the only security camera that stops property crime.” It’s a laughable claim. For one, Flock’s cameras are cameras and pretty much any security camera will have some effect on crime. Second, cameras don’t prevent crime….

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/04/03/california-hoas-are-buying-up-flock-license-plate-readers-giving-cops-open-access-to-them/

 2024-04-03  Comments Off on Techdirt. – California HOAs Are Buying Up Flock License Plate Readers; Giving Cops Open Access To Them

Richard Stallman’s Political Notes – Julian Assange’s political, legal hopes

Apr 022024
 

The US cannot assure Britain that that the First Amendment will apply to Julian Assange outside
the US, because an old Supreme Court decision says it does not. This probably means that
Assange’s last appeal will proceed, and go on for a long time during the US election campaign.

The article contends that Biden’s interest, as well as justice, argues for
dropping the charges
against Assange.

To ask (even rhetorically) whether Assange has been “punished enough” is to normalize
horrible abuse. The conditions that Assange has suffered in Belmarsh prison are too cruel even
for the worst criminals. No one should be
kept alone in a cell
for 23 hours a day.
Giving Assange a plea bargain would be better than trying him as
a spy,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2024-jan-apr.html#2_April_2024_(Julian_Assange’s_political,_legal_hopes)

 2024-04-02  Comments Off on Richard Stallman’s Political Notes – Julian Assange’s political, legal hopes

Techdirt. – Because Facial Recognition Tech Just Isn’t Sketchy Enough, Cops Are Now Running Searches Using AI-Generated Faces

Apr 022024
 

Facial recognition tech is probably improving as time goes on. Given enough providers, controversy, and individuals who definitely want this tech to stop being so terrible at correctly identifying women and minorities, anything is possible.
Rather than wait for the tech to catch up to the promises made by promotional materials, cops are apparently moving ahead with efforts that will cause even more problems for future tech adoption.
We’re already afflicted by at least one tech company that believes it’s perfectly OK to stock its database of billions of photos with any content not locked down on the internet. Beyond that, there’s the problems inherent to the systems themselves, which aggravate biased policing by doing their most…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/04/01/because-facial-recognition-tech-just-isnt-sketchy-enough-cops-are-now-running-searches-using-ai-generated-faces/

 2024-04-02  Comments Off on Techdirt. – Because Facial Recognition Tech Just Isn’t Sketchy Enough, Cops Are Now Running Searches Using AI-Generated Faces

INDY Week – UPDATED: Raleigh Cops Tell Judge that Allowing the Public to See Footage of a Botched Raid Would be “Dangerous”

Apr 012024
 

Update: On Thursday, Special Superior Court Judge Matthew Houston ruled that there is no “compelling public interest” to release body-camera footage of the botch raid. More below. On Tuesday, the Raleigh Police Department asked a judge to block the release of body-camera footage from the botched raid of Amir and Mirian Ibrahim Abboud’s home in April 2021. On Thursday, the judge obliged. According to court records, an RPD SWAT team “suddenly and without warning, broke and busted open the Abbouds’ front door with a battering ram, pointing their long, AR-styled firearms at Mr. Abboud, Mrs. Abboud, and their 11-month-old son.” Though the search warrant was ultimately based on mistaken identity—State Bureau of Investigation agents confused…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://indyweek.com/news/wake/raleigh-cops-tell-judge-that-allowing-the-public-to-see-footage-of-a-botched-raid-would-be-dangerous/

 2024-04-01  Comments Off on INDY Week – UPDATED: Raleigh Cops Tell Judge that Allowing the Public to See Footage of a Botched Raid Would be “Dangerous”

Hackaday – Playing Chess Against Your Printer, with PostScript

Mar 312024
 

Can you play chess against your printer? The answer will soon be yes, and it’s thanks to [Nicolas Seriot]’s PSChess. It’s a chess engine implemented in PostScript, of all things. It’s entirely working except for one last hurdle, but more on that in a moment.
What’s it like to play PSChess? Currently, one uses a PostScript interpreter (such as GhostScript) to run it, much like one would use the Python interpreter to run Python code. The user inputs moves by typing in commands like d2d4 (representing a piece’s source coordinate and a destination coordinate on the 2D board). Then the program makes a move, and outputs an updated board state to both the console and a PDF…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/03/30/playing-chess-against-your-printer-with-postscript/

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INDY Week – Raleigh Cops Tell Judge that Allowing the Public to See Footage of a Botched Raid Would be “Dangerous”

Mar 282024
 

On Tuesday, the Raleigh Police Department asked a judge to block the release of body-camera footage from the botched raid of Amir and Mirian Ibrahim Abboud’s home in April 2021.  According to court records, an RPD SWAT team “suddenly and without warning, broke and busted open the Abbouds’ front door with a battering ram, pointing their long, AR-styled firearms at Mr. Abboud, Mrs. Abboud, and their 11-month-old son.” Though the search warrant was ultimately based on mistaken identity—State Bureau of Investigation agents confused Abboud with a neighbor who is also of Arab descent—the police refused to pay for the damage, court records show.  In February 2023, the Abbouds filed a complaint against the SBI with the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://indyweek.com/news/wake/raleigh-cops-tell-judge-that-allowing-the-public-to-see-footage-of-a-botched-raid-would-be-dangerous/

 2024-03-28  Comments Off on INDY Week – Raleigh Cops Tell Judge that Allowing the Public to See Footage of a Botched Raid Would be “Dangerous”

Techdirt. – ShotSpotter Pitches In To Help Cops Open Fire On A Teen Setting Off Fireworks

Mar 282024
 

Back in 2021, the Chicago Office of the Inspector General released a report on the PD’s ShotSpotter tech. The acoustic detection system was apparently mostly useless, no matter what ShotSpotter may have commented in response.
Residents of Chicago are paying nearly $11 million a year for this system. But it’s obvious they’re not getting much bang for their buck, so to speak. ShotSpotter (which has since rebranded to SoundThinking) claims its detection system is worth every penny blown on it, stating that it is “highly accurate” and “benefits communities battling gun violence.”
Plenty of cities that have spent money on this product say otherwise. So do lawsuit plaintiffs and other victims of civil rights abuses, who…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/27/shotspotter-pitches-in-to-help-cops-open-fire-on-a-teen-setting-off-fireworks/

 2024-03-28  Comments Off on Techdirt. – ShotSpotter Pitches In To Help Cops Open Fire On A Teen Setting Off Fireworks

Shelterforce – Soaring Property Insurance Rates Threaten Affordable Housing Development

Mar 262024
 

Rapidly rising insurance premiums are forcing affordable housing developers to cut back on programming, lay off staff, and even sell. To add insult to injury, some insurers also seem to be adding penalties or withdrawing coverage for housing voucher holders.

The post Soaring Property Insurance Rates Threaten Affordable Housing Development appeared first on Shelterforce.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://shelterforce.org/2024/03/26/soaring-property-insurance-rates-threaten-affordable-housing-development/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=soaring-property-insurance-rates-threaten-affordable-housing-development

 2024-03-26  Comments Off on Shelterforce – Soaring Property Insurance Rates Threaten Affordable Housing Development

Biometric Update – Florida town installs live facial recognition to protect against 3 trespassers

Mar 262024
 

Lakeland, Florida is not known as a particularly violent city. It does not appear on lists of America’s most crime-ridden towns. But it is home to one of the first installations of real-time public facial recognition in the U.S. The first among the cameras have been installed by the Lakeland Downtown Development Authority (LDDA), according to local NBC affiliate WFLA. The Ledger counts 14 cameras in the project, and says they are running Verkada software. The installation is expected to be complete at the end of April. The cameras cost $115,000. Three individuals, specifically, are concerning enough to be placed on a biometric watchlist so they can be identified in real-time. They have histories of…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202403/florida-town-installs-live-facial-recognition-to-protect-against-3-trespassers

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The Register – Vernor Vinge, first author to describe cyberspace and ‘The Singularity,’ dies at 79

Mar 222024
 

CompSci and math professor by trade, he envisaged a galactic Usenet, and was utterly brilliant

Obituary  Science fiction author and academic Vernor Vinge has departed this life, aged 79.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/22/vernor_vinge_obituary/

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World Socialist Web Site (en) – Democratic Party escalates efforts to block third parties from US presidential ballot

Mar 222024
 

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the Democratic Party has assembled a “new team of lawyers” tasked with blocking third-party candidates from appearing on the ballot.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/22/nzvc-m22.html

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Planet Mozilla – Manifest V3 & Manifest V2 (March 2024 update)

Mar 132024
 

Calling all extension developers! With Manifest V3 picking up steam again, we wanted to provide some visibility into our current plans as a lot has happened since we published our last update.
Back in 2022 we released our initial implementation of MV3, the latest version of the extensions platform, in Firefox. Since then, we have been hard at work collaborating with other browser vendors and community members in the W3C WebExtensions Community Group (WECG). Our shared goals were to improve extension APIs while addressing cross browser compatibility. That collaboration has yielded some great results to date and we’re proud to say our participation has been instrumental in shaping and designing those APIs to ensure broader applicability across…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manifest-v2-march-2024-update/

 2024-03-13  Comments Off on Planet Mozilla – Manifest V3 & Manifest V2 (March 2024 update)

Techdirt. – Leaked Data Details The Reach And Breadth Of ShotSpotter’s Gunshot Detection Systems

Mar 052024
 

The leader in gunshot detection tech rebranded recently. Following several months of sustained negative press, ShotSpotter decided it wanted to be called something else: SoundThinking.
But a raffelesia by any other name smells the same. ShotSpotter had experienced a bit of quick uptake by law enforcement agencies, but in recent years, it was more well-known for having contracts terminated by major cities, allegedly altering data to better fit police report narratives, and suing reporters for covering nothing more than allegations made against the company in court.
No one’s going to stop calling ShotSpotter by its original Christian name. SoundThinking may be the new brand, but if anyone wants readers to instantly understand the tech being discussed, ShotSpotter…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/04/leaked-data-details-the-reach-and-breadth-of-shotspotters-gunshot-detection-systems/

 2024-03-05  Comments Off on Techdirt. – Leaked Data Details The Reach And Breadth Of ShotSpotter’s Gunshot Detection Systems

Ars Technica – European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

Mar 052024
 

Enlarge / A car’s hazard warning lights will need a physical control to get a five-star EuroNCAP score in 2026.
Some progress in the automotive industry is laudable. Cars are safer than ever and more efficient, too. But there are other changes we’d happily leave by the side of the road. That glossy “piano black” trim that’s been overused the last few years, for starters. And the industry’s overreliance on touchscreens for functions that used to be discrete controls. Well, the automotive safety organization European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) feels the same way about that last one, and it says the controls ought to change in 2026.
“The overuse of touchscreens…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=2007776

 2024-03-05  Comments Off on Ars Technica – European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls

Deeplinks – Voting No on Prop E Is Easy and Important for San Francisco

Mar 052024
 

San Francisco’s ballot initiative Proposition E is a dangerous and deceptive measure that threatens our privacy, safety, and democratic ideals. It would give the police more power to surveil, chase, and harm. It would allow the police to secretly acquire and use unproven surveillance technologies for a year or more without oversight, eliminating the hard-won protections backed by a majority of San Franciscans that are currently in place. Prop E is not a solution to the city’s challenges, but rather a threat to our rights and freedoms. 
Don’t be fooled by the misleading arguments of Prop E’s supporters. A group of tech billionaires have contributed a small fortune to convince San Francisco voters that they would be safer…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/voting-no-prop-e-easy-and-important-san-francisco

 2024-03-05  Comments Off on Deeplinks – Voting No on Prop E Is Easy and Important for San Francisco

Jacobin – Israel’s Flour Massacre in Gaza Is a Horrific War Crime

Mar 022024
 

Continuing the relentless assault on civilians in Gaza, Israeli troops killed more than 100 starving Palestinians waiting for flour from aid trucks yesterday. Emboldened by US complicity, Israel persists in acting with impunity in Gaza.
Palestinians mourn following an early morning incident when residents rushed toward aid trucks in Gaza City and were met with Israeli gunfire on February 29, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images) On Thursday at dawn, Israeli troops unleashed a barrage of gunfire on a crowd of starving Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City, killing over one hundred people and wounding more than one thousand others. The death toll is expected to rise as most hospitals…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobin.com/2024/03/israel-flour-massacre-war-crime-gaza/

 2024-03-02  Comments Off on Jacobin – Israel’s Flour Massacre in Gaza Is a Horrific War Crime

Internet Archive Blogs – Fair Use in Action at the Internet Archive

Mar 022024
 

As we celebrate Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week, we are reminded of all the ways these flexible copyright exceptions enable libraries to preserve materials and meet the needs of the communities they serve. Indeed, fair use is essential to the functioning of libraries, and underlies many of the ordinary library practices that we all take for granted. In this blog post, we wanted to describe a few of the ways the fair use doctrine has helped us build our library. Fair use in action: Web Archives and the Wayback Machine The Internet Archive has been archiving the web since the mid-1990’s. Our web collection now includes more than 850 billion web pages, with hundreds of millions…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://blog.archive.org/2024/03/01/fair-use-in-action-at-the-internet-archive/

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Hackaday – Pi 5 and SDR Team Up for a Digital Scanner You Can Actually Afford

Feb 112024
 

Listening to police and fire calls used to be a pretty simple proposition: buy a scanner, punch in some frequencies — or if you’re old enough, buy the right crystals — and you’re off to the races. It was a pretty cheap and easy hobby, all things considered. But progress marches on, and with it came things like trunking radio and digital modulation, requiring ever more sophisticated scanners, often commanding eye-watering prices.
Having had enough of that, [Top DNG] decided to roll his own digital trunking scanner on the cheap. The first video below is a brief intro to the receiver based on the combination of an RTL-SDR dongle and a Raspberry Pi 5. The Pi is…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/02/10/pi-5-and-sdr-team-up-for-a-digital-scanner-you-can-actually-afford/

 2024-02-11  Comments Off on Hackaday – Pi 5 and SDR Team Up for a Digital Scanner You Can Actually Afford

jwz – Hostile Architecture Survey

Jan 082024
 

The Mission’s response to homelessness: More than 2,000 planters:

There are some 2,078 planters across the neighborhood, according to a block-by-block count conducted by Mission Local reporters. About 200 of these are the large metallic containers and another 400 are wooden barrels. There are 155 wooden troughs. The remaining 1,307 are a mixture of receptacles ranging in size from tiny clay pots to massive sidewalk gardens filled with an assortment of vessels.

Kudos to the web designers for making this article be both: an interactive scrolling 3d-ish map thingy; and also, completely legible in Reader Mode! One usually does not get both.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/hostile-architecture-survey/

 2024-01-08  Comments Off on jwz – Hostile Architecture Survey

Deeplinks – Kids Online Safety Shouldn’t Require Massive Online Censorship and Surveillance: 2023 Year in Review

Dec 282023
 

There’s been plenty of bad news regarding federal legislation in 2023. For starters, Congress has failed to pass meaningful comprehensive data privacy reforms. Instead, legislators have spent an enormous amount of energy pushing dangerous legislation that’s intended to limit young people’s use of some of the most popular sites and apps, all under the guise of protecting kids. Unfortunately, many of these bills would run roughshod over the rights of young people and adults in the process. We spent much of the year fighting these dangerous “child safety” bills, while also pointing out to legislators that comprehensive data privacy legislation would be more likely to pass constitutional muster and address many of the issues that these…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/kids-online-safety-shouldnt-require-massive-online-censorship-and-surveillance

 2023-12-28  Comments Off on Deeplinks – Kids Online Safety Shouldn’t Require Massive Online Censorship and Surveillance: 2023 Year in Review
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