Showing posts with label surveillance industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surveillance industry. Show all posts

Monday, 3 August 2020

Condemn Or Else.


         In today's society it seems that if something happens the state doesn't particularly like and you don't jump up and condemn the action, then your are a suspect. 
The following article appeared on the site, finimondo, 
English version from Act For Freedom Now:


Lecce, Italy: A stupendous thought
August 2, 2020 by actforfreedom
        Some local news. We don’t know when, we don’t know who, we don’t know why, we only know where. And that alone is enough to open your heart, even if what happened seems not to have been very successful. But, as is well known, in some things it’s the thought that counts.
      A thought like the one someone left on the wall of a company in the outskirts of Lecce last weekend. It wasn’t a poster, or a slogan, no, it was a pot full of petrol with a couple of gas canisters attached to it, equipped with a rudimentary, possibly defective, fuse. There was a big blaze, but no explosion. The local media have no idea when it happened. Um, between the evening of Friday April 24 and the morning of Monday the 27th? They don’t even say who it could have been, or for what reason. Um, an act of intimidation or retaliation by some criminal or unbalanced element? On the other hand, they were very precise about where it occurred: in via del Platano 7, in the Castromediano district, headquarters of Parsec 3.26.
       But what is it involved in, this Parsec 3.26? It is a computer company specializing in digital technologies for the local authorities. For example, it created the software that is used by the police and the banks for the facial recognition of those filmed by video surveillance cameras. Ah, that’s all? Could it have been targeted because of, as we learn by browsing the site with the dreadful techno-Anglo-cretinising language, its “passion is E-Government”?
       Just because «it has started a division called Reco 3.26, active in the production of software systems in the field of smart recognition … in research in biometric systems and makes use of interdisciplinary teams that include Engineers and Scientists … The sectors in which it is currently introducing this technology are transport, finance, security (public and private). Growth is driven primarily by governments’ security initiatives. Companies belonging to sectors such as retail and banking are adopting facial recognition systems for identifying customers and monitoring their behaviour. To date, the solutions produced by Parsec 3.26 represent the state of the art of recognition technologies in Italy for public security. In fact, the company has distinguished itself for having created a biometric recognition solution currently used by the Ministry of the Interior – Central Anti-Crime Direction within the SARI system “?
        Is it possible that there is anyone hostile to this “distinguished” society just because it helps the State to fill the prisons and the banks to protect their safes? Whoever would have thought such a thing!
        Here, the fact that in times of confinement, checkpoints, self-certifications, tracking, surveillance with drones and so on … — stuff to shame those weaklings of the totalitarian regimes of the past — someone who had such a thought shortly before, during or after the anniversary of the Liberation from nazifascism, leaves us spellbound. Perhaps it was just a blaze, but how much splendid light amidst the darkness of today’s voluntary servitude.
        Light of revenge, light of dignity, light of freedom.
        Some time after the article was published the writers were paid a visit. The following is their report of the incident, again from Act For Freedom Now: 


Lecce, Italy: A little thought
        This is what the investigators looking into the unexpected blaze at the Parsec 3.26 on April 27, on the outskirts of Lecce in full lockdown, have had. And since Finimondo published a text which did not condemn what happened and were not outraged by it, quite the contrary, and as the animators of Finimondo live not far from the headquarters of that company whose social and economic reason for being is to embody Big Brother, you want to bet that 1 + 1 +
      So today, Monday July 27th, we were dragged out of bed early in the morning. No, it wasn’t the alarm clock, it was the Digos [political police]. They came to carry out a search and to give one of us a notice of investigation. They suspect he was the one who left “a pot containing petrol and two camping gas canisters” near the techno-cop company in Salento. The search, particularly attentive to computer equipment (which allows “understanding of the actual purposes of the act”) and clothing (being strangely attracted to multicolour, black must have gone out of fashion), had a positive outcome. No, but what are we saying, positive is too little, we would go as far as to say very positive. In fact, it seems they have discovered that there are traces of Finimondo’s text on the computer used by the suspect who has fired the Prosecutor’s imagination so much (you don’t say?). Moreover two camping gas canisters were seized (oh really?). Finally – you will never believe it! – they even found pots in his kitchen (seriously?). They didn’t seize them, only photographed them, for everlasting evidence. As we anticipated, 1 + 1 + …
 
       So just remember, when you see or hear of something the state doesn't like just whisper, "shame on you", you may be able to sleep longer in the morning.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Saturday, 16 November 2019

Invisible Ears And Eyes.

       There can be no doubt that we live in a surveillance society. Surveillance is a necessary tool for the state to keep control of the population, knowing where you are, what you are doing and who you are with, is information the state needs to survive. What we see of this surveillance apparatus, the CCTV cameras etc., in and around our towns and cities is just the tip of the iceberg. There is a plethora of hidden devices, small pieces of equipment hidden away in unsuspecting places, listening, watching and recording, someone's activities, how do you know it is not you?
      All this equipment is not due to spontaneous birth, it is manufactured by large and small companies across the globe, producing ever more tiny, ever more sophisticated, ever more intrusive means to track and record your every movement, without your knowledge. These companies are not the friends of the people, they are another branch of the population control and management system operated by the state. We should know more about these companies, what they are doing, and why, who is the money behind them. Like the arms companies, they are not for a free and democratic society. 
This from Ears and Eyes:


        When cops decide to spy on us using surveillance devices, they need to get the devices from somewhere. It seems that they often buy these devices from private companies. The companies that manufacture and market surveillance-related products and services to law enforcement agencies, governments, and armed forces, form what we can call the surveillance industry.
         Although on this website we limit ourselves to the study of hidden physical surveillance devices, the surveillance industry develops all kind of repression tools to be used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide. Internet monitoring, interception of cellular communications, counter-surveillance equipment and biometrics technologies are only a few examples.
The companies participating in this industry aren’t spread evenly on the world map. In their 2016 report about the global surveillance industry, Privacy International commented on the geographical breakdown of the 528 surveillance companies taken into account in the report :
These companies are overwhelmingly based in economically advanced, large arms exporting states, with the United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), France, Germany, and Israel comprising the top five countries in which the companies are headquartered.
        Despite this, many of these companies export their products, so that surveillance devices manufactured in one country can sometimes be sold everywhere in the world.
        Due to the nature of the industry, these companies often work in relative secrecy and it is sometimes hard to obtain reliable information about their activities, their clients, and their products. Documents leaked by whistleblowers, such as the Spy Files, a large collection of documents about the surveillance industry published from 2011 to 2014 by Wikileaks, are a precious source of information.
       We think that understanding how the surveillance industry works, who sells the surveillance devices to the cops and what the devices look like will help us to oppose this surveillance. On this website, you will find a list of companies that sell physical surveillance devices to law enforcement agencies, a list of the trade shows and other events of the industry, a glossary of the specific terms of the surveillance industry, and a list of other resources on the subject.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk