Matt Blaze computer and information science at University of Pennsylvania and blogs about security at Exhaustive Search. His recent post on mistakes in spying techniques, protocols, and hardware caught my interest: Indeed, the recent history of electronic surveillance is a veritable catalog of cautionary tales of technological errors, risks and unintended consequences. Sometime mishaps lead […] » about 400 words
It’s not truly “Google’s own,” but the internet giant will get exclusive use of the images for mapping purposes, according to Reuters: GeoEye Inc said it successfully launched into space on Saturday its new GeoEye-1 satellite, which will provide the U.S. government, Google Earth users and others the highest-resolution commercial color satellite imagery on the […] » about 100 words
Aaron Swartz‘s Bubble City, Chapter 8:
He sent the report to his superior and wandered off for a bit to dwell on the power he had as a faceless person deep inside an office park in Mountain View to know every detail of another person’s life. He wondered what it would be like if he came across that person on the street, he would know every detail of his life, his household budget, the secrets he confided over IM, even what he looked like naked.
<a href="http://troyb.net/">Troy</a> expressed both great amusement and trepidation in his message alerting me to <a href="http://www.riya.com/">Riya</a>, a new photo sharing site: <blockquote>I don't know whether to say cool, or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E33W1W/ref=maisonbisson-20/">zool</a>.</blockquote> <a href="http://www.riya.com/learnMore">The tour</a> explains that you upload photos, Riya identifies faces in your photos, then asks you to name them (or correct its guesses!). Then you get all your friends to join up and we can all search for everybody by people, location, and time. So say "hi" to <a href="http://www.riya.com/search?btnSearch=btnSearch&faceID=34848e86a2df7a0a9228e0a3a18f2a9f65841d7d_0&acct=&scope=99 ">Andrejs</a> and <a href="http://www.riya.com/search?btnSearch=btnSearch&faceID=34848e86a2df7a0a9228e0a3a18f2a9f65841d7d_1003&acct=&scope=99">Nora</a>. » about 400 words
Engadget yesterday had a story about the Mobile Plate Hunter 900, a device that mounts on police cars and scans 500 to 800 license plates an hour. More details are in the Wired News story, where LA County police commander Sid Heal notes that the system is hands-off: “It doesn’t require the [officer] to do […] » about 200 words