This is the first in a continuing series of “callouts” detailing the onslaught of the ubiquitous surveillance and behavioral influence state. Remember, whether the state seizes industry, or industry seizes the state, the result is still fascism.
BIG BIZ
- Volvo wants to spy on you while you drive. Two thoughts immediately came to mind: (1) Isn’t Volvo owned by those “social credit” folks, the Chinese? and (2) I find it impossible to utter the phrase hot-rod Volvo without laughing.
- Google tracks users’ phones–even when their location history is turned off. If you want to keep your movements to yourself, you need to do two things: (1) turn location services OFF and (2) don’t keep any of that GoogleSh1t on your phone.
- Heck, I didn’t even realize that email tracking was a thing. How naive of me.
BIG STATE
- Facial recognition is coming to an airport near you. With sketchy privacy controls, and a less-than-upfront opt-out policy. Our reporter makes the classic statistical of drilling down on the false positive rate, and ignoring the false negatives.
- Know your surveillance cameras. They’re everywhere.
- How did the police know you were near a crime scene? Google told them What did I just say about that GoogleSh!t?
BIG ED
- Public schools are enabling Google to track kids in school. Glenn Reynolds is right: In the future, we’ll view sending your kids to public school as a form of child abuse.
BIG MED
- Rwanda has proposed the world’s first country-wide DNA database…in an effort to crack down on crime. Really? Rwanda? No way THAT could be abused.
ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is pretty much a blight on society, a timewasting temptation to reveal way too much information that should be kept private. The rise of cyberbullying and online outrage mobs are symptoms of what I call the Cyber Sturmabteilung, the Internet incarnations of san-coulottes, lynch mobs, Red Guards, Khmer Rouge. The only way to win that game is to not play.
- Chelsea Clinton(!) called out for NZ Muslim massacre
- When Kids Realize Their Whole Life Is Already Online
GOING DARK
- Cybersocials get freaked out by The Antisocial
- Google Chrome may be improving incognito browsing. Why do I suspect a catch?
The Random Texan 
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