Don't Like AI? Anthropic Appears to Be Building an Enemies List

What could possibly go wrong? Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists - The American Prospect

Job postings and interviews with senior security officials at Anthropic show that the frontier AI lab is building out an extensive monitoring system to keep tabs on activists who oppose the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

How are they finding people? Why through the press, media, social media, etc. In effect, they are spying on everyone looking for people who disagree with their business model.

The article is long, but here is where they reference their "Pre-crime" division, as in the Tom Cruise movie.

This kind of pre-crime policing, encouraged without due process, is referenced as an explicit goal by Anthropic’s security program manager in the podcast reviewed by the Prospect. “The goal would be transforming operations from reactive information to gathering proactive and predictive and preventative threat engagement and management,” he said, adding, “That’s the kind of operational maturity that makes sense for protecting high-value targets in any industry.”

They are not going to wait for people to actually break the law, they are going to sick the cops on them based on what they say, which is seems they have already done. You will be silenced, if you disagree with them.

Hat tip to The Loyal Moses Video They're Using AI to Arrest You Before You Do Anything. (I haven't watched all of the video)

Your LG Smart Television IS Spying on you

Not maybe. Not perhaps. LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices - Notebookcheck News

An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.

They map all devices in your home by monitoring the WiFi, even if they are not connected. They record audio collected even when they appear to be off or in standby, and are disconnected from the internet. That data will be uploaded when the internet connection is restored.

Hat tip to Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 7 September 2026: Fantasy Dimension Edition

For once this is not even overstated.

LG has not responded to requests for comment.

Here is how it was described on X

What the TV does by design:

— scans your entire home network continuously. in their test: one TV identified 38 unrelated devices including phones, smartwatches, printers, and thermostats belonging to people not involved in the test.

— collects the names and signal strengths of… https://t.co/lI82KjneyP pic.twitter.com/32ogLlN3qs

— IT Guy (@T3chFalcon) September 7, 2026

Flock Cameras, Liberty, and Justice

From The Law Dog Files: It is better that ten guilty persons escape - by Ian: Than that one innocent suffer.

The title to this article is Blackstone’s Ratio, quoted from his seminal work: “Commentaries on the Laws of England”.

John Adams, Founding Father and second President of the United States, expounded further on Blackstone’s Ratio.

Flock cameras treat everyone as guilty. The surveillence state, once established, will find more ways to "punish the guilty," and more things for you to be guilty of.

A deputy sheriff in Bugscuffle County, Texas is able to look for a license plate registered to Los Angeles, California; or New York City, New York; or Toadstomp, Montana — with no Constitutional protections for the owners of that plate whatsoever.

There are — as one might imagine — multiple issues here, not the least of which is that there are no active audits being run. Since a search warrant is not required, LEOs are getting caught running searches for license plates using “Test”, “Training”, and the always popular generic “Investigation” — if they even input a reason. Several officers didn’t either bother entering a reason for the search.

Is anyone shocked that cops are using Flock to stalk people, their ex-partners, their girlfriends/wives, people that they are interested in romantically.

Click thru for the "If you've got nothing to hide..." argument, and how it falls apart.

Minnesota City Has All (8) Flock Cameras Stolen

Eight is not a lot of cameras, but it's a start. All 8 Flock cameras stolen in this Minnesota city as nationwide scrutiny grows | Mashable

All eight license plate readers operated by the Winona Police Department disappeared sometime between July 29 and Aug. 1, according to police. Officers discovered the thefts after one noticed that the system had not recorded any recent activity.

The poles were cut, and the cameras stolen.

At least five devices were stolen and another was damaged in Duluth during June and July. In Plymouth, one was found in pieces beneath its pole, while another had its power cord cut. Similar incidents have also been reported in Edina, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, and Anoka County.

People don't want to live in a Panoptican.

Welcome to the Panoptican

FLOCK is not alone, of course, they are just the most well-known company building the surveillance state. When Every Streetlight Becomes A Surveillance Tower

For years, Americans were told that the greatest privacy battles would happen online. The debate centered around social media, smartphones, and internet tracking. Few imagined that one of the most controversial surveillance technologies would instead appear quietly on neighborhood streets, mounted atop poles at busy intersections and neighborhood entrances.

Today, those poles have become a flashpoint in a much larger debate over technology, artificial intelligence, and the future relationship between citizens and government.

Read the whole, disturbing thing, and the few signs that people have had enough of the creeping technology and are pushing back. (Hat tip to MaddMedic.)

And you vocabulary word of the day (Courtesy of Merriam-Webster): Panoptican

a circular prison built with cells arranged radially so that a guard at a central position can see all the prisoners

Has AI Destroyed Privacy?

Probably. From The Register: LLMs killed the privacy star, we can't rewind, we've gone too far

Add privacy to the list of potential casualties caused by the proliferation of AI, because researchers have found that large language models (LLMs) can be used to deanonymize internet users – even those who use pseudonyms – more efficiently than human sleuths.

Click thru for the details.

The technique employed by the authors is not a universal privacy solvent – it's only successful some of the time. But it's successful often enough that those posting online under a pseudonymous account should not assume their identities will remain unknow

Probably enough that journalists or activists in questionable countries should be worried. And you can add United Kingdom to the list of countries that don't like freedom of speech.

Age verification schemes that being pushed in UK, Australia, and Europe are not about protecting children; they are about destroying privacy. The upcoming war on VPNs is about the same thing.

Reason 417 to Turn Your Phone Off Once in a While

Privacy is such a 20th Century concept. Amazon sued for alleged secret tracking of data through mobile apps

Amazon provided a software development kit called Amazon Ads SDK to developers. Embedded in that SDK was a whole bunch of tracking.

This allegedly enabled Amazon to collect an enormous amount of timestamped geolocation data about where consumers live, work, shop and visit, revealing sensitive information such as religious affiliations, sexual orientations and health concerns.

No one agreed to this, because Amazon didn't bother to ask.

"Amazon has effectively fingerprinted consumers and has correlated a vast amount of personal information about them entirely without consumers' knowledge and consent," the complaint said.

The complaint was filed by Felix Kolotinsky of San Mateo, California, who said Amazon collected his personal information through the "Speedtest by Ookla" app on his phone.

Do I think that anything will change because of this? No.

If You Bought a Smart Air Fryer, It Is Spying on You

Why? Because they make money off you, that's why. Why is my air fryer spying on me? Which? reveals the smart devices gathering your data - and where they send it - Which? Policy and insight

Both the title to this article and the title to my post strike me as being parodies. They aren't. All I can say is that the future is stupid.

"Which?" is the UK’s version of Consumer Reports. Or that is what they would have you believe. And it seems to be the case.

Which? research has found evidence of excessive smart device surveillance - from air fryers demanding permission to listen in on conversations and sharing data with TikTok, to TVs wanting to know users’ exact locations at all times

Your TV app - so convenient for choosing shows, and controlling volume - wants to know your exact location at all times, not just when you are watching the TV.

In the air fryer category, as well as knowing customers’ precise location, all three products wanted permission to record audio on the user’s phone, for no specified reason. The Xiaomi app linked to its air fryer connected to trackers from Facebook, Pangle (the ad network of TikTok for Business), and Chinese tech giant Tencent (depending on the location of the user). The Aigostar air fryer wanted to know gender and date of birth when setting up an owner account, again for no clear reason, but this was optional. The Aigostar and Xiaomi fryers both sent people’s personal data to servers in China, although this was flagged in the privacy notice.

OK, don't buy a smart air fryer. Or washing machine. Or ...

Smart watches, smart speakers, smart TVs, ... they are all spying on you. And no, you do not need a smart air fryer. I can't even believe they exist.

Click thru for the details by major brands, together with some suggestions about limiting access to invasive apps. (Most will work without all those permissions, they just want to make even more money off you.)

What Happens When the .gov Mandates Security Loopholes?

Hackers take advantage. White House links ninth telecom breach to Chinese hackers

And the .gov isn't saying which carrier was breached, but I can't even think of 9 telcom companies, so I guess all of them have been breached. (OK so I looked - there are more regional telcoms than I remembered, even before you include Verizon and Sprint and the rest.)

The Salt Typhoon Chinese cyber-espionage group who orchestrated these attacks (also tracked as Earth Estries, FamousSparrow, Ghost Emperor, and UNC2286) is known for breaching government entities and telecom companies throughout Southeast Asia and has been active since at least 2019.

The White House's deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, Anne Neuberger, told reporters today that this new victim was discovered after the Biden administration released guidance to help defenders spot Chinese hackers' activity in their networks.

"The reality is that China is targeting critical infrastructure in the United States. Those are private sector companies, and we still see companies not doing the basics," Neuberger said, according to Bloomberg. "That's why we're looking forward and saying 'Let's lock down this infrastructure.' And frankly, let's hold the Chinese accountable for this."

So remember when the .gov says "we need to be able to violate your privacy" they are not the only ones who will be violating your privacy.

Do you want privacy? Use Signal.

Hat tip to Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 28 December 2024: Topological Maps Edition

A 9th US phone company has been hacked by Chinese spies. (AP)

No, you're not allowed to know which one.

Privacy Is Such a 20th Century Concept

KrebsOnSecurity has an update on how your mobile phone is letting everyone spy on you. The Global Surveillance Free-for-All in Mobile Ad Data

Not long ago, the ability to digitally track someone’s daily movements just by knowing their home address, employer, or place of worship was considered a dangerous power that should remain only within the purview of nation states. But a new lawsuit in a likely constitutional battle over a New Jersey privacy law shows that anyone can now access this capability, thanks to a proliferation of commercial services that hoover up the digital exhaust emitted by widely-used mobile apps and websites.

The details are depressing to contemplate.

Suffice it to say, if you carry your cellphone around with you, chances are you are in so many databases, that anyone who is interested can find where you live, work, etc. This is not good for a lot of people, and shouldn't be the case in any event.

The End of Free Speech in France

Free speech. Freedom from government intrusion in your life, and the freedom to think thoughts that are not government approved. Pixy Misa has an important story out of France. Daily News Stuff 25 August 2024: Pour Encourager Les Autres Edition

Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, has been arrested in Paris on charges of... Fuck charges, he's a libertarian and this is France. (Ars Technica)

Durov founded Russian social network VKontake before resigning because... We don't know exactly, but allegedly because the Russian government had assumed de facto control of the company, wanted him gone, and wasn't too fussy about how he left.

The reason? The French government is upset that Telegram makes it possible to communicate ideas not approved by the government. How do you spell "Fascism?"

If you need to read the Ars Technica article, you can find it at the following link. Shocker: French make surprise arrest of Telegram founder at Paris airport

Right wing and crypto influencers are likewise angry over the arrest, writing things like, "This is a serious attack on freedom. Today, they target an app that promotes liberty tomorrow, they will go after DeFi. If you claim to support crypto, you must show your support #FreeDurov it's time for digital resistance."

Freedom is under attack everywhere.

Patreon - Your Whole Life Belongs to Us

Patreon has decided that their terms of service controls everything you do in your whole life, even if it never makes a hint of an appearance on Patreon. Patreon: "We shall punish you for what you do outside our platform."

It seems that Patreon does not allow gun content in its platform, which is fine and you know it when you join, and [@Mrgunsngear] did not violate, but the final reason why he was canceled was because he does provide gun-related content outside Patreon and they can’t have that.

And so there is another platform I can no longer do business with. "Don't give money to people who hate you."

Microsoft Will Enable Hacking. Again. Even More. In October.

They say they value security, but then they do crazy stuff like this. Microsoft will try the data-scraping Windows Recall feature again in October | Ars Technica

If I hated Microsoft before (and I did), I really hate it now.

For those unfamiliar, Recall is a Windows service that runs in the background on compatible PCs, continuously taking screenshots of user activity, scanning those screenshots with optical character recognition (OCR), and saving the OCR text and the screenshots to a giant searchable database on your PC. The goal, according to Microsoft, is to help users retrace their steps and dig up information about things they had used their PCs to find or do in the past.

The problem was that other users on the same PC, or attackers with physical or remote access to your PC, could easily access, view, and export those screenshots and the OCR database since none of the information was encrypted at rest or protected in any substantive way.

And they say "Oh, don't worry! We fixed that." And they won't turn it on by default. At least not at first. But you know they want to. And I hate to see what the End User License Agreement will look like. Or eventually look like, because they always give themselves the right to change the agreement later on. It will likely say that you give Microsoft access to all of your data.

Linux Mint is the way to go. Easy to install. Looks mostly like windows, and while there are a couple of rough edges it works for me. I have 3 different browsers, my email client of choice, an Office Suite that looks a lot like Microsoft Office without all of the online-all-the time, pay-through-your-nose craziness. And I can watch videos.

Hat tip to Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony. Daily News Stuff 22 August 2024: Let's Not And Never Talk About It Again Edition

Microsoft is planning to try again with its obviously insane Windows "Total" Recall spyware system. (Ars Technica)

This is the feature - key to the so-called Copilot Plus platform - that takes screenshots of everything you do on your computer - passwords, bank account details, confidential emails - and puts them in a single conveniently labelled and indexed box for AI assistants and Russian/Chinese/North Korean/Iranian hackers to search for you.

It isn't like Microsoft's code is completely riddled with exploitable software problems. Or is it?

But what could possibly go wrong oh there's another critical vulnerability in Microsoft's Copilot Studio AI platform. (Dark Reading)

Huh.

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Geofence Warrants Illegal Under Fourth Amendment

In a rare win for privacy, we get the following from Ars Technica: 5th Circuit rules geofence warrants illegal in win for phone users’ privacy

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that geofence warrants, which are used to identify all users or devices in a geographic area, are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.

The ruling was issued by the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit

How can the .gov survive if they can't indiscriminately round up people they don't like? I expect the feds, if no one else, will appeal to SCOTUS.

New Hampshire Protects Privacy of Gun Owners

From AmmoLand we get the following: Shout Out to N.H. Gov. Sununu For Signing Firearm Purchaser’s Privacy Act

The law prohibits financial institutions from requiring the use of a firearm code, also known as a Merchant Category Code (MCC), from being assigned to firearm and ammunition purchases at retail when using a credit card. Additionally, the law gives enforcement authority to the state attorney general for any business entity found in violation of the law.

Banks, with the blessing of the anti-gun-owner, federal government, was going to use the codes to build a database of gun owners. (Moral of the story: Pay Cash!)

Why would banks do this? Because they hate gun owners, and want to help future authoritarians confiscate guns.

Adobe Has Decided That They "Own" All of Your Content

"You will own nothing and be completely pissed off"

From Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 8 June 2024: On Beyond Zebra Edition

Adobe isn't stealing your content, says Adobe. (Adobe)

Adobe did change its license terms to grant itself permission to steal your content, but Adobe says Adobe would never do that except in certain very specific circumstances, such as if it really wanted to.

To be clear, Adobe requires a limited license to access content solely for the purpose of operating or improving the services and software and to enforce our terms and comply with law, such as to protect against abusive content.

Which terms are so broad you could launch a Boeing 737-800 from them without any risk of running out of runway.

While Pixy Misa cuts to the heart of the matter, if you want a more standard tech-journalism view of the situation, you can peruse Adobe Sparks Backlash Over AI Terms That Let It 'Access, View Your Content' from PC Magazine.

Filmmakers condemn Adobe's latest terms of use update, which 'may analyze your content...to improve our Services and Software.' Those who don't accept may be locked out of their accounts.

Time to research alternatives to Adobe. Monopolies are never a good idea for customers.

Your Smart Digital Assistant Is Spying on You

Convenience or Security? You can rarely have both. Alexa and Siri can hear this hidden command, but you can’t

Researchers can send secret audio instructions, undetectable to the human ear, to artificial-intelligence systems on smartphones and smart speakers. They could command them to dial phone numbers or open websites.

And if recent history has shown us anything, once researchers prove that some bit of security can be breached, it probably will be, at least targeting high-value targets, like politicians, and celebrities.

In the past two years, researchers in China and the United States have begun demonstrating that they can send hidden commands that are undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant. Inside university labs, researchers have been able to secretly activate the artificial intelligence (AI) systems on smartphones and smart speakers, making them dial phone numbers or open websites. In the wrong hands, the technology could be used to unlock doors, wire money or buy stuff online — simply with music playing over the radio.

The various companies have said that they have mechanisms to guard against this, such as Apple saying that the iPhone and iPad need to be unlocked to accept commands, but if your using your iPad to read, while music is playing... In the war against security, I usually bet on the hackers. (Who do you think invented the internet? Al Gore?)

Did You Think Your Facebook Messages Were Private?

Why would you think such a thing, you sweet summer child? Facebook let Netflix see user DMs to help them tailor content as part of a close collaboration between the two tech giants, new court documents claims | Daily Mail Online

If you use F*c*book, you don't pay for that service. That is because YOU, or more precisely your activities online, are the product being sold.

Lawyers alleged that 'within a month' of [Netflix's co-founder Reed] Hastings joining Facebook's board of directors, the two companies signed an 'Inbox API' (Application Programming Interface) agreement that 'allowed Netflix programmatic access to Facebook's user's private message inboxes.'

There is more about Cambridge Analytica, fines levied by Ireland and other political entities.

If I'm not using Signal, I assume that my messages are not private, and even Signal is subject to issues if my phone is hacked. But protests to the contrary, if you're not using Signal, I wouldn't count on your messages staying private.

General Motors Admits to Invading Your Privacy

Because why not? Your Driving Data May Be Sold To Insurers, General Motors Admits

Driving data is collected with surprising detail. One trip in a Chevrolet Bolt, for example, recorded the duration of the trip, fast acceleration and hard braking incidents, speeding, and other data. The location details of the trip were not reported.

So don't take your new Corvette to the track for a day of seeing what it can actually do. GM will sell that info - without any context - to your insurance company. Well, there may be some consent somewhere, but it will be on page 27 of a document designed to put you to sleep on page 1.

While auto insurance companies are the most logical customers for your driving data, presumably other types of firms could request it as well. Could life insurers or car rental companies find value in this information, for example? Attorneys trying to show a pattern of reckless driving?

The hat tip for this goes to Louis Rossmann and his video General Motors sells detailed driver logs without your consent.

Why Do You Trust Cloud Companies With Your Privacy and Security?

Louis Rossman is the owner of a PC/Phone repair service, and he runs a video channel - not limited to YouTube. I found him because he is an advocate of Right to Repair stuff you own. Today's video is about the oxymoron of Cloud Security.

Recently Wyze cameras had a "security incident" in which it let people see into cameras that they did not own. Literally seeing into other's home

Uploading your data to the cloud does not make it secure. As the people who have Wyze cameras have recently discovered, it may make you less secure. They were trusting that a bunch of people - interns? - at Amazon's Cloud service (AWS) and Wyze to get security right while they were rushing to recover from an outage.

I assume they were rushing because management never likes outages. Uptime is a metric, and if you don't know anything about tech you can measure uptime. And even if they were feeling time pressure, they still screwed up by the numbers.

This is Louis Rossman's video Wyze cameras let other people view her home: why cloud security is an oxymoron.