Deconstructing Code

Court limits in-car FBI spying

Court limits in-car FBI spying
The feature, designed to listen-in on car thieves as they cruise around in a stolen auto, turns on a dashboard microphone and pipes conversations out over a cellphone connection -- normally to the company's response center, but in this case to an FBI listening post.

Posted by rshah on November 20, 2003| Comments (0)

Cars' `Black Boxes' Hold Crash Data, New Privacy Issues

Cars' `Black Boxes' Hold Crash Data, New Privacy Issues
Like millions of Americans, Matos had no idea his car contained an electronic device recording what he did just before the crash, but it was information that would help send him to prison.

Posted by rshah on June 16, 2003| Comments (0)

RFID backlash prompts 'kill' feature

RFID backlash prompts 'kill' feature
Concerned over public perceptions that radio-frequency identification chips are an invasion of privacy that could be used to track individual buying habits, several chip makers are building a “kill” command into their upcoming RFID chips. Initial prototypes with the feature, which effectively removes a chip's ability to communicate, are expected to be available in June.

Posted by rshah on May 02, 2003| Comments (0)

Is Your Television Watching You?

Is Your Television Watching You?
Could the federal government find out what you're watching on TV? Even if you're not the subject of a criminal investigation? If you're a satellite TV or TiVo owner, the answer is yes, according to legal experts and industry officials under the USA Patriot Act.

Posted by rshah on April 01, 2003| Comments (0)

Old hard drives yield data bonanza

Old hard drives yield data bonanza
Simson Garfinkel and Abbi Shelat, students at MIT’s Laboratory of Computer Science, said Wednesday that they bought 158 disk drives for less than $1,000 on the Web and at swap meets. Scavenging through the drives, they found more than 5,000 credit card numbers, medical reports, detailed personal and corporate financial information, and several gigabytes worth of personal e-mail and pornography.

Posted by rshah on January 15, 2003| Comments (0)

RFID tags: Big Brother in small packages

RFID tags: Big Brother in small packages
The generic name for this technology is RFID, which stands for radio frequency identification. RFID tags are miniscule microchips, which already have shrunk to half the size of a grain of sand. They listen for a radio query and respond by transmitting their unique ID code. Most RFID tags have no batteries: They use the power from the initial radio signal to transmit their response.

Posted by rshah on January 14, 2003| Comments (0)

New Billboards Sample Radios as Cars Go By, Then Adjust

New Billboards Sample Radios as Cars Go By, Then Adjust
As part of a $20 million investment, Mr. Langeland, a Sacramento-based entrepreneur, has erected 10 billboards that can display both video and text and can be programmed with changing messages and images. In addition, the billboards include fledgling technology that is designed to identify the radio frequencies of passers-by.

Posted by rshah on December 30, 2002| Comments (0)

Black box or Pandora's box?

Black box or Pandora's box?
Most new vehicles come equipped with data recording technology that can help accident investigators. But the computer device has its critics, who fear the overstepping of "Big Brother."

Posted by rshah on March 31, 2002| Comments (0)

Finding Pay Dirt in Scannable Driver's Licenses

Finding Pay Dirt in Scannable Driver's Licenses
ABOUT 10,000 people a week go to The Rack. One by one, they hand over their driver's licenses to a doorman, who swipes them through a sleek black machine. If a license is valid and its holder is over 21, a red light blinks and the patron is waved through. But most of the customers are not aware that it also pulls up the name, address, birth date and other personal details from a data strip on the back of the license. Even height, eye color and sometimes Social Security number are registered.

Posted by rshah on March 21, 2002| Comments (0)

Car spy pushes privacy limit

Car spy pushes privacy limit
Rental car companies have used GPS devices since the mid-1990s, installing systems to give drivers directions while they're on the road. "Fleet management" companies such as AirIQ and Fleetrack are also selling newer tracking services that help companies monitor their vehicles. Acme recently decided to equip its cars with GPS technology and uses tracking services from AirIQ to find stolen rental cars and charge customers for "dangerous" conduct

Posted by rshah on June 25, 2001| Comments (0)

Surveillance Cameras in England

Surveillance Cameras in England
In England, where the unblinking eyes of security cameras are as much a part of the landscape as Big Ben, police argue the systems are one of their best tools for controlling crime. Although the British Home Office (U.S. equivalent of the Justice Department) surveys say that surveillance cameras are widely accepted by the general public, some analysts disagree, see also Slashdot

Posted by rshah on April 05, 2001| Comments (0)

Smile, You're On Scan Camera

Smile, You're On Scan Camera
When football fans learned that their faces were scanned and compared to mugshots of common criminals at this year's Super Bowl, many were outraged. But they shouldn't have been surprised. In the United States, face scans are used by casinos to look for cheats; law enforcement to digitalize mug shots; welfare departments to look for double-dippers; drivers' license bureaus to reduce I.D. forgers; and ATMs to separate clients from crooks.

Posted by rshah on March 14, 2001| Comments (0)

Cameras scanned fans for criminals

Cameras scanned fans for criminals
At the Superbowl at Raymond James Stadium every face was captured by a video camera and each facial image was digitized and checked electronically against the computer files of known criminals, terrorists and con artists of the Tampa Police Department, the FBI and other state and local law enforcement agencies, see also Slashdot

Posted by rshah on February 01, 2001| Comments (0)

Digital Angel Is Watching You

Digital Angel Is Watching You
Bio-digital implants that monitor–and broadcast–your every move could save your life in an emergency. Or destroy your last vestige of privacy

Posted by rshah on January 18, 2001| Comments (0)

Location

Location
As the use of GPS spreads, data on your location and movement could be sold