A weekly roundup after skipping a week
This post is migrated from the old Wordpress blog. Some things may be broken.
Here are more things I saw, read, tooted, skeeted, clicked or blogged on from the last week or so… give or take, and possibly breif attempts at sarcasm or humour when describing them. Or not.
Managing your digital footprint while getting an abortion in America
A guide on how to adopt digital security practices when looking to get an abortion in the U.S. is unfortunately needed in the 21st century. The Digital Defence Fund website has a good and well organised one, covering mobiles, social media and other data points that could put women at risk when seeking out what is a normal medical procedure, as recognised in any sane country. Knowing what your devices, online services and even your car may be collecting is important when the law has been weaponised against you.
Apple’s attempt to interpret reality for its users
I haven’t paid much attention to Apple Vision, it comes in a long line of attempts to get the consumers to strap some tech over their eyes, and I still remember the Seattle reaction to Google Glass a few years ago. But one thing that’s particularly frustrating from Apple is to suggest something is augmented reality when it’s actually virtual reality. There is enough of a mixup between the two terms in pubic discourse as it is, and as more gadgets enter the market that attempt to create value-added reality it becomes more and more important. Fortunately we have Rob Horning to explain how pointless Apple’s new head gear seems to be.
Free free Ghost(Pro) accounts for recently laid off journalists
Ghost is making it really easy for journalists to switch from Substack right now, or just start selling their work online. It’s certainly still trying to leverage the anti-Substack trend. It’s now set up a foundation to offer recently laid-off journalists a free onling publication through which to market their work. A user under this plan can monetise up to 10,000 subscribers before Ghost takes a service provider bite. I’m not one to shill for the gig economy, but if you’ve been sacked from a news outlet and are looking to kick start your online, community supported independent journalism career, this seems like a good offer. If you want to know more about the profit-driven blood-letting that has been hitting journalists this year, well Marisa Kabas explains it here.
Anti-UNRWA sock puppet accounts spreading disinformation
Marc Owen Jones, an associate Professor of Middle East Studies, author and an occasional dab hand as in OSINT investigative journalism has published a thread exposing hundreds of sock-puppet social media accounts that recently went active with the single goal of spreading rumours and disinformation about UNRWA —the UN aid agency that has provided basic subsistence and support for Palestinian refugees since 1949 — following allegations that 12 of its employees may have been part of the October 7 Hamas attack in Southern Israel. The Israel state’s use of online trolls, brigades and sock puppet accounts to shape a narrative bears a lot of similarity to Russia’s GRU tactics but doesn’t get nearly the attention. Jones is the author of Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East, which is one on my to-read list. Anyhow, you don’t have to lurk in X.com for this one as it’s syndicated on Threadreader. Nitter is dead, long live Threadreader!
Gruesome deaths of monkeys in Neuralink’s animal testing of implants could mean an SEC investigation
Whistleblowers and an investigation by Wired Magazine has revealed that the monkeys involved in Neuralink’s research likely suffered agonising deaths — which included bouts of bloody diarrhea, partial paralysis, and cerebral edema (brain swelling) — primarily due to complications from implant procedures. The details directly contradict Elon Musk’s assertions that the the monkey’s deaths were not linked to Neuralink’s implants, but either way if these labs were somehow doxxed for the ALF… well I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware used to target journalists, human rights activists and others in Jordan
Access Now has published, in collaboration with Citizen Lab and others, an Incredibly thorough investigation showing how at least 35 individuals have been targeted with Israeli firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware between 2021 and as recently as October of last year. These have included journalists, lawyers, human rights activists and NGO staff. The report includes a lot of screenshots showing how targets were contacted in social engineering campaigns to get them to take some action that would compromise their mobiles.
Everyone’s a sellout now: the age of the “self brand”
One of the worst side effects of the digital economy, side-hustle culture of our age is that everyone who works in it is expected to be a brand unto themselves. “The internet has made it so that no matter who you are or what you do — from nine-to-five middle managers to astronauts to house cleaners — you cannot escape the tyranny of the personal brand,” writes Rebecca Jennings. I’ve seldom read anything good from anyone who finds the whole self-marketing thing to be a good time. The best creators are cynics and critical about the times in which they live. The more insightful commentary doesn’t come from people who like to sell themselves. But we’re entering a period where everyone needs to be back slapping and glad handing around the clock. I still remember a time when authors knew the value of being able to bite the hand that feeds them, and it was better.
The NSA is still collecting mass surveillance data on American citizens, it just buys some it now
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is still doing the lord’s work. In an unclassified letter obtained by the New York Times Wyden has asked the National Security Agency (NSA) to stop purchasing data on U.S. citizens’ web browsing habits from commercial brokers. This is remarkably similar to recently published concerns published by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) about Real time Bidding Data being purchased by adversarial states to find intelligence on European government officials or security personnel. Online brokers are often fairly loose about data protection regulations, and it’s a loophole, ostensibly aiding marketers sell you shoes at the right time on Facebook, but which has far darker implications. You don’t need advanced spyware or half the stuff that was listed in the leaks by Edward Snowden to obtain a lot of data on someone or some group, just a reasonably sized payment account. It’s a contender as a subject for one of this site’s next blog posts, but if you’ve noticed the publishing cycle here isn’t terribly rapid. Watch this space, but don’t hold your breath.
KOSA is the latest threat from Congress to censor the web in the U.S.
Speaking of abortion rights, internet freedom, privacy, and Senator Ron Wyden, the misleadingly titled “Kids Online Safety Act” (KOSA) poses a serious threat to access to information about safer sex, healthcare and birth control. KOSA’s stated aim is to protect children from harmful online content, however it could easily be weaponised by conservative state Attorneys General to block access to all kinds of content within their states. That hasn’t stopped X/Twitter, Microsoft, and Snap Inc. from endorsing it. Because I like being fair about this things, while Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg was at the hearing, he didn’t endorse the bill at it. Joining Wyden’s opposition was the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the tech trade group NetChoice. You should oppose it, too.
The quiet spyware vendor
By now you’ve likely heard of dodgy spyware makers NSO Group and Hacking Team, but here’s a digital spook mercenary outfit that has flown under the radar: India based Appin Technology. That’s no accident. A group known as the “Association of Appin Training Centers” that’s largely filled with company executives and lawyers has been aggressively using legal action to suppress news about it’s services that focus on illegal hacking operations, targeting various individuals and organisations around the world. A lawsuit against Reuters led to the news agency temporarily removing an investigative piece detailing Appin’s hacking operations.
