Electronic Frontier Foundation
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Decrypted: The tech police use against the public
There is a darker side to cybersecurity that’s frequently overlooked.
Just as you have an entire industry of people working to keep systems and networks safe from threats, commercial adversaries are working to exploit them. We’re not talking about red-teamers, who work to ethically hack companies from within. We’re referring to exploit markets that sell details of security vulnerabilities and the commercial spyware companies that use those exploits to help governments and hackers spy on their targets.
These for-profit surveillance companies flew under the radar for years, but have only recently gained notoriety. But now, they’re getting unwanted attention from U.S. lawmakers.
In this week’s Decrypted, we look at the technologies police use against the public.
THE BIG PICTURE
Secrecy over protest surveillance prompts call for transparency
Last week we looked at how the Justice Department granted the Drug Enforcement Administration new powers to covertly spy on protesters. But that leaves a big question: What kind of surveillance do federal agencies have, and what happens to people’s data once it is collected?
While some surveillance is noticeable — from overhead drones and police helicopters overhead — others are worried that law enforcement are using less than obvious technologies, like facial recognition and access to phone records, CNBC reports. Many police departments around the U.S. also use “stingray” devices that spoof cell towers to trick cell phones into turning over their call, message and location data.
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Minds, the blockchain-based social network, grabs a $6M Series A
Minds, a decentralized social network, has raised $6 million in Series A funding from Medici Ventures, Overstock.com’s venture arm. Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne will join the Minds Board of Directors.
What is a decentralized social network? The creators, who originally crowdfunded their product, see it as an anti-surveillance, anti-censorship, and anti-“big tech” platform that ensures that no one party controls your online presence. And Minds is already seeing solid movement.
“In June 2018, Minds saw an enormous uptick in new Vietnamese of hundreds of thousands users as a direct response to new laws in the country implementing an invasive ‘cybersecurity’ law which included uninhibited access to user data on social networks like Facebook and Google (who are complying so far) and the ability to censor user content,” said Minds founder Bill Ottman.
“There has been increasing excitement in recent years over the power of blockchain technology to liberate individuals and organizations,” said Byrne. “Minds’ work employing blockchain technology as a social media application is the next great innovation toward the mainstream use of this world-changing technology.”
Interestingly, Minds is a model for the future of hybrid investing, a process of raising some cash via token and raising further cash via VC. This model ensures a level of independence from investors but also allows expertise and experience to presumably flow into the company.
Ottman, for his part, just wants to build something revolutionary.
“The rise of an open source, encrypted and decentralized social network is crucial to combat the big-tech monopolies that have abused and ignored users for years. With systemic data breaches, shadow-banning and censorship, people over the world are demanding a digital revolution. User-safety, fair economies, and global freedom of expression depend on it – we are all in this battle together,” said Ottman.
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