Great, so we should start reuptake now because it’s already too late. I know it’s a controversial subject and I know why but we better get used to the idea of it now because it has to happen.
The Irish government is set to investigate a digital surveillance alliance that has been accused of letting its smartphone spyware “run wild across the world”, BBC News NI understands.It comes after Intellexa Limited and its parent company Thalestris were named in a damning report by a leading human rights body., externalThe firms are registered at a building in north Dublin and are part of a wider Israeli group that sells Predator intelligence software.According to Amnesty International, Predator is “invasive sypyware” that has been used in “brazen” attempted hacking attacks against politicians and journalists.It can be used to turn a smartphone into a surveillance tool and has serious “human rights implications", Amnesty said.The report has called on the Irish government, and others, to investigate and increase regulation on spyware firms.
The alliance, Amnesty said, was “a complex and often changing group of companies”, which advertised itself as “EU-based and regulated”, but had “done nothing to limit who is able to use this spyware and for what purpose”.In July, US officials placed Intellexa on a blacklist, external after determining its surveillance tools posed a threat to national security and foreign policy.The Dublin-registered Intellexa office was set up in 2019, according to a European Parliament briefing paper.Amnesty’s report called on Irish and other European governments to "immediately revoke all marketing and export licences issued to the Intellexa alliance”.The report also called for governments to transparently investigate the alliance’s practices and to enforce legislation “that requires all corporate actors to respect human rights”.
Amnesty has said that once a device was infiltrated with Predator software, the user had unfettered access to its microphone and camera and all its data, while the target was entirely unaware.This sort of spyware is typically sold to governments for legitimate intelligence operations, however there are concerns it has been abused, as is claimed to have happened in the case of the Greek Watergate scandal.A new report from the human rights body, in partnership with European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), claims the software has been used in “zero-click attacks” - meaning it can infiltrate a device without the user having clicked on a link.It said those targeted included President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-Wen, French MEP Pierre Karleskind and several United States politicians.
"Intellexa alliance’s products have been found in at least 25 countries across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and have been used to undermine human rights, press freedom, and social movements across the globe.”Multiple companies linked to Intellexa have been asked by the BBC for comment on the report’s findings, but none of them have responded.Intellexa Ltd is part of a complex international web of companies either fully or partly controlled by the Israeli businessman Tal Dilian.On his website, Mr Dilian said Intellexa "developed and integrated technologies empowering law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies to collect and analyse data in the most advanced methods”.
Intellexa has also been criticised in Ireland by European Parliament member Barry Andrews, who asked the Oireachtas Justice Committee in August to investigate the firm.
Amnesty International said it had also reached out to the entities involved, but received no response, while the European Investigative Collaborations network did hear from the main shareholders of the Nexa Group – part of the Intellexa Alliance.It said the alliance no longer existed and its entities had “scrupulously respected export regulations”.
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Amazon is trialling humanoid robots in its US warehouses, in the latest sign of the tech giant automating more of its operations.
It said it was testing a new robot called Digit, which has arms and legs and can move, grasp and handle items in a similar fashion to a human.
We’ve already seen hundreds of jobs disappear to it in fulfilment centres," said Stuart Richards, an organiser at UK trade union GMB.
As the announcement was made, Amazon said its robotics systems had in fact helped create “hundred of thousands of new jobs” within its operations.
Amazon Robotics’ chief technologist, Tye Brady, told reporters at a media briefing in Seattle that people were “irreplaceable”, and disputed the suggestion that the company could have fully-automated warehouses in the future.
Scott Dresser of Amazon Robotics told the BBC this allowed it to “deal with steps and stairs or places in our facility where we need to move up and down”.
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A company which enables its clients to search a database of billions of images scraped from the internet for matches to a particular face has won an appeal against the UK’s privacy watchdog.
Clearview AI offers its clients a system that works like a search engine for faces - users upload a photo and it finds matches in a database of billions of images it has collected.
In March, Clearview’s founder Hoan Ton-That told the BBC it had run nearly a million searches for US police, helping them to solve a range of crimes, including murders.
In the past Clearview AI had commercial customers, but since a 2020 settlement in a case brought by US civil liberties campaigners, the firm now only accepts clients who carry out criminal law enforcement or national security functions.
Clearview does not have UK or EU clients, but its customers are based in the US and in other countries including Panama, Brazil, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, Tuesday’s judgement revealed.
“The appeal turned exclusively on the fact that Clearview’s customers were overseas national security and law enforcement bodies, and so shouldn’t be relied on as granting a blanket permission for such scraping activities more generally.”
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I mean we’re increasing restrictions on solar and some fairly high profile politicans are talking about the lost benefits of oil and coal so… I’m pretty sure going our own way involves some kind of reversion to steam power medicine based on the four humours.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. You do you I guess.
I will say it’s not technically free, game pass has a fee, ergo you’re paying for it.
I don’t know enough, nor care enough to weigh in on the implications of this deal.
I play Minecraft Java and Factorio and really am not interested in any other games as I found these two be be good for what I enjoy and they don’t ask me for more money all the time.
No one’s blaming the citizens that were killed. A better analogy would be that staff at a club were made aware of a predator on the premises and allowed them to victimize someone.
We’re also talking about a political party that literally funded Hamas at its inception to ensure it was more successful than the moderate coalition.
These times are increasingly giving me the eerie feeling that we have forgotten very, very important lessons that we learned in the previous century. Is fascism making a very powerful comeback?
Jesus, drivers these days. Come on guys, it’s unsafe to be drinking tea like that - you could burn yourself, and then get distracted and crash! Think of the other road users. Be better. It’s much safer to drink something cool and refreshing, like an ice-cold Stella or a Carling.
The British Museum has asked the public to help identify and recover ancient artefacts that have gone missing from its collection.
Last month a member of staff was sacked and police launched an investigation after around 2,000 treasures were reported “missing, stolen or damaged” over a “significant” period of time.
In an attempt to recover the rest, it has put details and images of the types of objects that are missing on its website.
As well as classical Greek and Roman gems, there are rings, earrings and other pieces of jewellery - some dating back to the late Bronze Age.
The museum also said said it would work alongside an international panel of experts to identify and recover the items, and had placed them on the Art Loss Register.
James Ratcliffe, director of recoveries at the Art Loss Register, said the museum had “carefully balanced the need to provide information to the public to assist the recovery efforts with the fact that providing too much detail risks playing into the hands of those who might act in bad faith”.
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