When Apple’s App Store launched in 2008, it was widely hailed as a breakthrough in computing, a “curated experience” that would transform the chaos of locating and assessing software and replace it with a reliable one-stop-shop where every app would come pre-tested and with a trusted seal of approval. But app stores are as old as consumer computing. From the moment that timeshare computers started to appear in research institutions, college campuses, and large corporations,…
The number of law enforcement agencies Ring partners with continues to grow — up to nearly 900 by the latest count. Ring pitches its devices to homeowners as a better way to keep their homes secure. And maybe it is. But the pitches it makes to law enforcement agencies are something else. Ring drives this particularly questionable engagement by insinuating people who’ve received free or cheap cameras will become part of a surveillance network overseen…
A police investigator in Spain is trying to solve a crime, but she only has an image of a suspect’s face, caught by a nearby security camera. European police have long had access to fingerprint and DNA databases throughout the 27 countries of the European Union and, in certain cases, the United States. But soon, that investigator may be able to also search a network of police face databases spanning the whole of Europe and…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2020/02/21/eu-facial-recognition-database/
Amazon’s surveillance doorbell company Ring has announced extra layers of security and control for users after a wave of backlash from civil liberties and cyber security organizations like EFF and Mozilla. Organizations raised major concerns over Ring’s lack of effort in protecting the data and security of users, including permitting multiple log-in attempts that allowed bad actors to take control of people’s Ring cameras; not requiring two-factor authentication; and allowing a number of undisclosed third-party…
That’s right, we’re throwing another CYBERDELIA on Friday, February 28 — which is just four weeks from now! It’s a bit short notice, so please help us out by sharing this far and wide.The last time we threw this party was three years ago, but now it’s the 25th anniversary of the release of HACKERS, so we’re going all-out this time. A screening of Hackers at 7pm; Hackers costume contest at 10:45pm; Head-to-head Wipeout XL…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2020/02/05.html
On Tuesday, January 28, 2020, the Trump Administration revealed its vision for an Israel-Palestine peace plan. The proposed two-state solution would leave the state of Palestine completely surrounded by Israel, with tunnels connecting different sections. The “deal” was brokered in part by Jared Kushner. I put “deal” in quotes because no actual Palestinian humans were included in the conversations. This, to me, seems like a poor approach to solving such a famously contentious issue. Of…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/29/jared-kushner-says-palestinian.html
Introduction I recently did some work with a customer who had some strange behavior happening in his database. When I asked for his logs, I found that each line had a message, and just one timestamp prefixed to it. In other words, he had log_line_prefix = ‘%t ‘. This made it hard for me to figure out who did what, especially as his database was serving many clients and applications. It got me thinking, and…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/4Ea
Recently I was in a situation where autovacuum couldn’t keep up with changes. To solve the problem I finally decided to manually vacuum analyze all tables (manual vacuum/analyze is faster than one ran by autovacuum daemon). But it irritated me that I didn’t have ready way to check which tables are waiting for autovacuum to … Continue reading “Which tables should be auto vacuumed or auto analyzed?”
External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/4E2
Today Facebook announced the roll-out of its Off-Facebook Activity tool (initially introduced as “Clear History” nearly two years ago). The tools shows you a list of apps, websites, and businesses that Facebook knows you have visited through its business tools (including Facebook Login, Facebook’s tracking Pixel, social widgets such as Like and Share buttons, and other less visible features for developers). It also gives you options to “clear” or “disconnect” the identifiable information they have…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/facebook-history-welcome-incomplete-move
For my latest podcast, I read my Guardian Cities column, “The case for … cities that aren’t dystopian surveillance states,” which was the last piece ever commissioned for the section. The Guardian commissioned the piece after reading my Toronto Life blurb about how a “smart city” could be focused on enabling its residents, rather than tracking and manipulating them. In the article, I revisit my 2015 Locus column on the idea of an Internet of…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/27/podcast-the-case-for-citi.html
Ring isn’t just a product that allows users to surveil their neighbors. The company also uses it to surveil its customers. An investigation by EFF of the Ring doorbell app for Android found it to be packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of customers’ personally identifiable information (PII). Four main analytics and marketing companies were discovered to be receiving information such as the names, private IP addresses, mobile network carriers, persistent identifiers, and…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/ring-doorbell-app-packed-third-party-trackers
$300 smart hubs that are suddenly bricked when the manufacturer is sold. Video game consoles that mysteriously lose features after you bring them home. Books or films you purchase that you suddenly and inexplicably lose the ability to access. Printers that don’t print without an ink subscription. In the modern internet era, it’s increasingly clear that consumers no longer actually own the things we buy. Instead, we’re shelling out big bucks for products that can…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3a8dpn/sonos-makes-it-clear-you-no-longer-own-the-things-you-buy
Twenty years ago today, Boing Boing became a blog. Mark Frauenfelder’s first post linked to Street Tech, a now-dormant gadget blog. Now there are 160,000 more posts just like it and the impossible task of summarizing the best of them in yet another. Founded as a print zine in 1988 by Mark and Carla Sinclair, Mark’s personal retrospective posted earlier today is a must-read; following are a few of our greatest hits, proudest accomplishments, clickiest…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/21/20-years-of-blogging-at-boing.html
We’re taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, addressing what’s at stake and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.Copyright rules are made with the needs of the entertainment industry in mind, designed to provide the legal framework for creators,…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/serving-big-company-interests-copyright-crisis
Today is the twentieth anniversary of Boing Boing in its current incarnation. It looked like this in 2000. Here’s a brief history of Boing Boing, which actually goes back 33 years. Carla and I conceived of it as a print zine in 1987. The first issue of bOING bOING came out in 1988. We printed 100 copies on a Xerox machine. I sent a copy to Factsheet Five, which was a zine that reviewed zines.…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/21/boing-boing-is-20-or-33-year.html
On Tuesday, a federal prosecutor in Brazil announced a denunciation of American journalist and Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald related to his work on a series of stories published on The Intercept and The Intercept Brasil. The denunciation is a criminal complaint that would open the door to further judicial proceedings. It alleges that Greenwald “directly assisted, encouraged and guided” individuals who reportedly obtained access to online chats used by prosecutors and others involved in Operation Car Wash, a…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2020/01/21/glenn-greenwald-brazil-denunciation/
Last night, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) deported an Iranian student with a valid visa, despite a federal court order prohibiting his removal. Shahab Dehghani arrived at Boston Logan Airport on Sunday, January 19 to study at Northeastern University, where he was enrolled. Customs officials detained him and questioned him for hours, abruptly revoking his student visa, which the State Department granted after a year of intense vetting. As CBP tried to put Shahab…
New York’s luxury real-estate market has been in freefall for years, and now the city’s super-luxe buildings are sitting empty — even as property prices in the city remain stubbornly high, prompting 300 New Yorkers to move out of the city every day, and filling the homeless shelters to capacity and beyond. New York — like most overpriced cities — has failed to build enough low- and middle-income housing of the sort that people use…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/18/a-luxury-product.html
