I spy!!

 

                                                Image courtesy of Who What Why.

         The following extract is from Freedom News and refers to the U$A, but I don't for a minute think that it is only in that country that the surveillance culture is out of control, well as far as the public is concerned, but hasn't gone far enough as far as the powers that be are concerned. Here in the UK we are continually filmed, photographed by CCTV, tracked by our mobile phones and cash machines, and car number plate identification is everywhere. I go to a dance display of my grand daughter and I'm not allowed to take photos or film the kids, but the state can photograph kids running around and playing in the park, or just doing what kids do, and they do it with impunity. The state can only exist with control over the population and in their eyes that means more surveillance, more of your data available to their prying eyes. The existence of a state controlled surveillance system nullifies any possible semblance of a democracy. and makes a mockery of freedom.

From Firestorm Books

            

        The opening of our bookstore on Sunday had unexpected guests. Throughout the afternoon, a police drone hovered conspicuously over Haywood Road, directly in front of our shop. Occasionally it flew back to the nearby APD substation, only to be replaced a few minutes later. As we handed out homemade popsicles to celebrate our big day, some community members were alarmed. People wanted to know if the drone was ours. A neighbor arriving with her family asked if she and her children were being filmed.
         It seemed that our shop and the hundreds of people who visited it were being surveilled. While the quadcopter sat in the sky and stared creepily down at us, police cars drove by slowly. Sometimes the drivers appeared to be filming with their cellphones. One officer hollered unintelligibly at folks sitting on our patio. This wasn’t a covert operation—Asheville cops wanted to make sure our customers knew they were being watched.
        This bizarre abuse of power is worth talking about, not because it’s exceptional but because it’s increasingly normal. We live in a city where the surveillance capabilities of the police have greatly outpaced restraints, and elected officials ostensibly tasked with oversight are eager to appease a tough-on-crime audience. That’s an Asheville story, but it’s also a national story, with cities across the US being reshaped by a conservative backlash to the George Floyd Uprising and its call for a reckoning with the white supremacist roots of policing.

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Spaces.

 

         We live in a society where control is the main pillar of its existence. The society whose yoke we live under can't function without control of the population, by what ever means they deem necessary. We are surrounded by surveillance equipment, we have undercover police, embedded in our personal lives, we have technology gathering and sifting through our personal details, creating profiles to be used against us if need be. Hence the reason that social centres, autonomous spaces, squats are necessary boltholes where we can meet, act and communicate in a free and safe environment. Spaces outwith the control of the state, that function on libertarian socialist principles are a wrecking ball to this type of society, so should be built and supported by all free thinking individuals. However these spaces at present, function in the midst of the capitalist system and do require funding, we should support them in the best way we can and whenever we can. 

The following extract from Enough is Enough.

 

         In 2016, after the self-dissolution of the “Self-managed social centre” collectivity, which had the political responsibility for 18 years of the space that had the same name with the collectivity, people and groups who had developed political and social relations within the “Self-managed social centre” during its years of operation decided to establish a new public space of the leftish movement with the name “Self-managed Social Center Perasma“. In this social center political/social collectivities with references to social anarchy and libertarian communism, collectivities around gender, patriarchy and anti-sexism, self-education groups, group for art from below and structures, meet together (radio, lending library, bookstore, space for the distribution of cooperative products and basic goods without mediators, in direct contact and communication with producers who do not work in the opposite direction to our basic principles).

Continue reading:

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Anger.

 

 

    What is always omitted from the mainstream media, is the anger across the planet at the brutal repressive actions of the various states. The anger at the continual savagery against those who demand change from this insane exploitative system based on privileges to the wealthy and struggle and poverty to the many. No matter the brutality, the struggles intensify, the anger of the people grows. This struggle is marked by the deaths of thousands of ordinary people, the beating of many more and the incarceration of millions across the planet. However, the struggle continues and the anger grows, there can only be on outcome, the destruction of the state/corporate stranglehold on the liberty of the people.

The latest from SubMedia, System Fail 12.

 

 

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Thoughts?

     

      I, and many others, have always claimed that this pandemic, irrespective of cause or seriousness of the illness, has been a wonderful opportunity for the state to increase its authoritarian legislation, and tighten its control over our lives. An opportunity that they certainly were not going to let pass. Gathering the population like sheep, training them to wait for their every move to be indicated to them by the shepherd and his dogs. All for our own good of course, but the deed is done, people wait for the next directive, people are split among themselves, vaxxers and non-vaxxers, when we should be focusing on our freedoms and how they have been striped away, how that the state has more data on you and your daily life than it ever had, and of course will use it for its aim of a total submissive population. It is harder to win back that which you have lost than to fight to keep what you have. freedom is ours by right, not a demand we request from others. 

The following "food for thought" from Act For Freedom now:

           In order to “convince” people to be vaccinated, but above all to loyally follow the imposed rules and be obedient, the State through its Governments with the support of its technicians and the media, has terrorized and blackmailed, taken away rights and freedom, threatened, humiliated, denigrated and ridiculed, censored, suspended work, prevented work, divided society in two, nourished the epidemic, pointed the finger, condemned, criminalized, lied, misled, confused, created anxiety and fear. Still before and even worse, it murdered 14 prisoners in March 2020, prisoners who were demanding not to die like mice in a cage by rebelling along with many others.
          The State chose to eradicate the problem by murdering some so that it would be clear to everyone that the so-called emergency phase that was opening up would take on precise connotations. Restrictions on freedom and abundantly spread terror, but with the leitmotif of “everything will be all right”.

Read the full article HERE: 

 

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Google!

            Millions of people use Google Maps, your friendly find the way companion. However, like all large corporations Google tend to work hand and glove with powers that be. With Google's advance technology, it has now become much more sinister and a tool for the state and its various appendages. Apart from the total surveillance in our towns and cities, cameras in pubs, shops, shopping malls, bus and train station etc., we now have the Google giant capturing your every movement, and making it all available to the state and and its various tentacles. From the sky, from the lamppost, from the corner of a building, from the road, you are being filmed, photographed and logged to assist the state with its endless desire for total control over the population. How do we recover our right to privacy and to roam without being photographed, logged and profiled without your prior consent?

The following from Act For Freedom Now:
    

 

          A mafia boss was arrested in Spain in December after 20 years on the wanted list after Italian anti-mafia cops used Google Street View to confirm their ‘traditional methods’ which led to information that he was running a hairdressing salon, a restaurant and a grocery shop in Galapagar, Spain. To his “How did you find me? It’s been ten years since I even called my family on the phone.” “We saw you on Google Maps”, was the reply.

 

 Read the full article HERE:

 

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Please Sir!!

          Looking at the Bristol action against the new police powers bill, to me it looked somewhat different from the normal run of protests, violent or otherwise. I don't recall ever seeing crowds battering a police van with police inside and the other police standing back and letting it happen, normally there would have been a charge with batons swinging. The protestors seemed to have a free hand to get things rolling in a particular direction, with lines of police officers standing in well disciplined rows. Of course I wasn't there, so rely on photos and videos and the written word. 

        Could this be the new form of policing in these events, with excellent surveillance and police having a camera on every uniform, plus special police with excellent cameras taking photos continuously and CCTV footage, they can let the damage go on for a while and make few arrests. The bulk of arrests will come from the surveillance information, with a knock on the door in the early hours of the morning, just like a normal police state. Less bad publicity of the police brutality while wrestling people to the ground. The following avalanche of media coverage of the damage will give the media a field day in calling for the need of more police powers to prevent such scenes happening again. The state will hold onto the powers they gave themselves during covid19, they will not relinquish these powers and the new police powers bill is there to increase and cement those powers. The state never willing relinquish power.

Please sir, will you share your millions equally with us all?

 

       I'm not advocating a be nice policy, as I doubt that that would have any effect what so ever. It is obvious that the controllers of the system with their billions in the bank and off-shore, are not going to willing dismantle this corrupt system of inequality and injustice. They will fight tooth and nail to hold on to their wealth, power and privileges. As they adapt their methodology to meet their desires and hold onto power, so we must adapt our methodology in attacking the system which enslaves us. Confrontation with the police is only one aspect of the armoury, the system is so vulnerable in so many ways. However we should have no doubt that to bring down a system so corrupt and ingrained in the minds of so many will take a wider range of tactics other than Bristol.

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Fawkes V.

         Surveillance keeps spreading its ever refined net over our world, apart from companies wanting to know what your up to, so they can target you with crap ads, and the state ever fearful that you are a bad apple, wants to build a very complete profile of you, from your habits, whereabouts, friends and what you actually look like. So anything that can hamper that process has to be welcomed. 

      A recent article from The Verge offers you free software that can go some way to making your facial recognition that bit more difficult. It's called Fawkes, after the Guy Fawkes mask worn in V for Vendetta.. Surely anything that might in some small way stick to fingers up at our surveillance masters is worth spreading around.

      The following is from The Verge:

    Ubiquitous facial recognition is a serious threat to privacy. The idea that the photos we share are being collected by companies to train algorithms that are sold commercially is worrying. Anyone can buy these tools, snap a photo of a stranger, and find out who they are in seconds. But researchers have come up with a clever way to help combat this problem.
      The solution is a tool named Fawkes, and was created by scientists at the University of Chicago’s Sand Lab. Named after the Guy Fawkes masks donned by revolutionaries in the V for Vendetta comic book and film, Fawkes uses artificial intelligence to subtly and almost imperceptibly alter your photos in order to trick facial recognition systems.
       The way the software works is a little complex. Running your photos through Fawkes doesn’t make you invisible to facial recognition exactly. Instead, the software makes subtle changes to your photos so that any algorithm scanning those images in future sees you as a different person altogether. Essentially, running Fawkes on your photos is like adding an invisible mask to your selfies.
        Scientists call this process “cloaking” and it’s intended to corrupt the resource facial recognition systems need to function: databases of faces scraped from social media. Facial recognition firm Clearview AI, for example, claims to have collected some three billion images of faces from sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Venmo, which it uses to identify strangers. But if the photos you share online have been run through Fawkes, say the researchers, then the face the algorithms know won’t actually be your own.
            According to the team from the University of Chicago, Fawkes is 100 percent successful against state-of-the-art facial recognition services from Microsoft (Azure Face), Amazon (Rekognition), and Face++ by Chinese tech giant Megvii.
           “What we are doing is using the cloaked photo in essence like a Trojan Horse, to corrupt unauthorized models to learn the wrong thing about what makes you look like you and not someone else,” Ben Zhao, a professor of computer science at the University of Chicago who helped create the Fawkes software, told The Verge. “Once the corruption happens, you are continuously protected no matter where you go or are seen.”
          The group behind the work — Shawn Shan, Emily Wenger, Jiayun Zhang, Huiying Li, Haitao Zheng, and Ben Y. Zhao — published a paper on the algorithm earlier this year. But late last month they also released Fawkes as free software for Windows and Macs that anyone can download and use. To date they say it’s been downloaded more than 100,000 times.
In our own tests we found that Fawkes is sparse in its design but easy enough to apply. It takes a couple of minutes to process each image, and the changes it makes are mostly imperceptible. Earlier this week, The New York Times published a story on Fawkes in which it noted that the cloaking effect was quite obvious, often making gendered changes to images like giving women mustaches. But the Fawkes team says the updated algorithm is much more subtle, and The Verge’s own tests agree with this.
        But is Fawkes a silver bullet for privacy? It’s doubtful. For a start, there’s the problem of adoption. If you read this article and decide to use Fawkes to cloak any photos you upload to social media in future, you’ll certainly be in the minority. Facial recognition is worrying because it’s a society-wide trend and so the solution needs to be society-wide, too. If only the tech-savvy shield their selfies, it just creates inequality and discrimination.
       Secondly, many firms that sell facial recognition algorithms created their databases of faces a long time ago, and you can’t retroactively take that information back. The CEO of Clearview, Hoan Ton-That, told the Times as much. “There are billions of unmodified photos on the internet, all on different domain names,” said Ton-That. “In practice, it’s almost certainly too late to perfect a technology like Fawkes and deploy it at scale.”
          Naturally, though, the team behind Fawkes disagree with this assessment. They note that although companies like Clearview claim to have billions of photos, that doesn’t mean much when you consider they’re supposed to identify hundreds of millions of users. “Chances are, for many people, Clearview only has a very small number of publicly accessible photos,” says Zhao. And if people release more cloaked photos in the future, he says, sooner or later the amount of cloaked images will outnumber the uncloaked ones.
           On the adoption front, however, the Fawkes team admits that for their software to make a real difference it has to be released more widely. They have no plans to make a web or mobile app due to security concerns, but are hopeful that companies like Facebook might integrate similar tech into their own platform in future.
          Integrating this tech would be in these companies’ interest, says Zhao. After all, firms like Facebook don’t want people to stop sharing photos, and these companies would still be able to collect the data they need from images (for features like photo tagging) before cloaking them on the public web. And while integrating this tech now might only have a small effect for current users, it could help convince future, privacy-conscious generations to sign up to these platforms.
           “Adoption by larger platforms, e.g. Facebook or others, could in time have a crippling effect on Clearview by basically making [their technology] so ineffective that it will no longer be useful or financially viable as a service,” says Zhao. “Clearview.ai going out of business because it’s no longer relevant or accurate is something that we would be satisfied [with] as an outcome of our work.”

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Disappearing.

The Met Police has announced that it’s rolling out facial recognition cameras across the UK capital in the hopes of tackling ‘serious crime’ Mirror Jan. 24, 2020.

     There is no doubt that we live in the surveillance society, and the means of that surveillance is ever growing with the advances in technology, from face recognition technology to sophisticate drones, you are being watched. Greater detail of you and your movements are being gathered, whether you are aimlessly wandering around your city, on a peaceful protest, picnic or picket, it is all being logged and a profile of you is being built. Perhaps these details will find there way to some advertising agency, but most likely, onto some state register for further use.

     Obviously we would rather not be followed, logged and profiled, without our permission, by some corporate or state body. So disappearing from their myriad of prying eyes is a very desirable aim. So with the increase in drones what steps can we take?

You are being watched over from on-high!

    The following article is from The Conversation:

Law enforcement drone over demonstrators June, 5, 2020, Atlanta.

           Drones of all sizes are being used by environmental advocates to monitor deforestation, by conservationists to track poachers, and by journalists and activists to document large protests. As a political sociologist who studies social movements and drones, I document a wide range of nonviolent and pro-social drone uses in my new book, “The Good Drone.” I show that these efforts have the potential to democratize surveillance. But when the Department of Homeland Security redirects large, fixed-wing drones from the U.S.-Mexico border to monitor protests, and when towns experiment with using drones to test people for fevers, it’s time to think about how many eyes are in the sky and how to avoid unwanted aerial surveillance. One way that’s within reach of nearly everyone is learning how to simply disappear from view.
        Over the past decade there’s been an explosion in the public’s use of drones – everyday people with everyday tech doing interesting things. As drones enter already-crowded airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration is struggling to respond. The near future is likely to see even more of these devices in the sky, flown by an ever-growing cast of social, political and economic actors. Public opinion about the use and spread of drones is still up in the air, but burgeoning drone use has sparked numerous efforts to curtail drones. These responses range from public policies exerting community control over local airspace, to the development of sophisticated jamming equipment and tactics for knocking drones out of the sky. From startups to major defense contractors, there is a scramble to deny airspace to drones, to hijack drones digitally, to control drones physically and to shoot drones down. Anti-drone measures range from simple blunt force, 10-gauge shotguns, to the poetic: well-trained hawks. Many of these anti-drone measures are expensive and complicated. Some are illegal. The most affordable – and legal – way to avoid drone technology is hiding.
How to disappear
      The first thing you can do to hide from a drone is to take advantage of the natural and built environment. It’s possible to wait for bad weather, since smaller devices like those used by local police have a hard time flying in high winds, dense fogs and heavy rains. Trees, walls, alcoves and tunnels are more reliable than the weather, and they offer shelter from the high-flying drones used by the Department of Homeland Security.
      The second thing you can do is minimize your digital footprints. It’s smart to avoid using wireless devices like mobile phones or GPS systems, since they have digital signatures that can reveal your location. This is useful for evading drones, but is also important for avoiding other privacy-invading technologies.
     The third thing you can do is confuse a drone. Placing mirrors on the ground, standing over broken glass, and wearing elaborate headgear, machine-readable blankets or sensor-jamming jackets can break up and distort the image a drone sees. Mannequins and other forms of mimicry can confuse both on-board sensors and the analysts charged with monitoring the drone’s video and sensor feeds. Drones equipped with infrared sensors will see right through the mannequin trick, but are confused by tactics that mask the body’s temperature. For example, a space blanket will mask significant amounts of the body’s heat, as will simply hiding in an area that matches the body’s temperature, like a building or sidewalk exhaust vent.
       The fourth, and most practical, thing you can do to protect yourself from drone surveillance is to get a disguise. The growth of mass surveillance has led to an explosion in creative experiments meant to mask one’s identity. But some of the smartest ideas are decidedly old-school and low-tech. Clothing is the first choice, because hats, glasses, masks and scarves go a long way toward scrambling drone-based facial-recognition software. Your gait is as unique as your fingerprint. As gait-recognition software evolves, it will be important to also mask the key pivot points used in identifying the walker. It may be that the best response is affecting a limp, using a minor leg brace or wearing extremely loose clothing. Artists and scientists have taken these approaches a step further, developing a hoodie wrap that’s intended to shield the owner’s heat signature and to scramble facial recognition software, and glasses intended to foil facial recognition systems.
      These innovations are alluring, but umbrellas may prove to be the most ubiquitous and robust tactic in this list. They’re affordable, easy to carry, hard to see around and can be disposed of in a hurry. Plus you can build a high-tech one, if you want.

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FREE Open Source Software.

        FREE open source software, FREE open source software, Free opensource software. Why wouldn't you shout it from the roof tops, you're braking the chains that bind you to the big internet beasts, like, Google, Apple and Microsoft, you're keeping your personal details personal, and it's Free.
         This little video makes it quite clear why you should dump the big internet beasts and go for FREE open source software.

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Let's Think.

        We are certainly living through a time of unprecedented problems and unknown outcomes, nobody knows the final outcome in any detail. There are plans by the powers that be to rescue their sinking rat infested ship and continue on the journey of planet plunder. Among the public there must be plans to forever free themselves from this voyage of disaster. How will the new world form, what shape will it take, well that depends on the planners, and the people must guarantee that they are the planners of that new world, or they will sink with that old rat infested ship of the past.

      The following is an extract from an article made up of extracts from letters from a comrade in a Spanish gaol.

       This from Act For Freedom Now:

     The other day I saw an astonishing (or maybe not) story on TV: a Portuguese TV channel (TVI) was giving «news» of a hospice… all of a sudden this «team» of cameramen realize that an old lady is trying to escape from the back by removing a fence… What did the «journalists» who were «informing» (in alarmist tones) about the drama unfolding inside there do? Call the carers to lock up the old lady again! The moral of the story is very simple: there is no empathy and/or sympathy towards the old person looking for freedom, the possibility of a life, no. The drama is for those who stay stuck to their television set, it is the objectivity and rigour of information… then they pull out their phone and become snitches so that the presumed «infected-old lady» threatening «our» safety is recaptured: the victim is a criminal! So… I sympathized with the old lady and wished the worst death to these snitches.
    (…) I’m very curious to see how people will react after this forced imprisonment, how the economy will be, how people will relate to one another, exactly. Will the European invention survive? Will the borders be opened? Will planes come back to sail the skies from one place to another? If unemployment is to be as massive as expected, what will people do? What will the «effects» of forced coexistence be? These are questions that really arouse my interest and curiosity. I also wonder up to what point and for how long «citizens» will be prepared to remain in compulsory «quarantine».

4th April
       (…) I’m looking at (and analysing) the regime «news» concerning the serum tests they are proposing to do (or are doing directly) in countries such as Germany, England, France, Italy, the United States and China to find out which people are immune to the virus. All this is showing us how the new liberal market is already selecting the «most suitable» workforce… this global «emergency» has given States and capital a huge quantity of «private» data concerning their «citizens» and customers… so now these will experience on their own skin what it means to be under a high surveillance regime such as F.I.E.S., in first grade, second grade and/or open regime. All day long, uniforms everywhere: police, soldiers and jailers; controllers and bankers… (…) and anyway the «quarantine» experience has already prepared them for their entrance into «live-prisons»: locked up and with no rights; watched over and with no «control» over their lives.

Now that we are all prisoners

Now that we are all prisoners we know what it is to feel longing, to hate and to love…

To feel longing for walking under the sky with the sea breaking against the rocks.

To feel longing for meeting up with friends and being able to hug them.

To feel longing for the loves we adore kissing.

To feel longing for everything they don’t let us enjoy today.

Now that we are all prisoners we know what it is to hate…

To hate monotony and the boring conversations we can’t escape from.

To hate the septic imprisonment that limits and suffocates our freedom.

To hate the days and nights that follow on from one another like that, without anything else.

To hate the selfish behaviour of others, which alone we can’t avoid.

Now that we are all prisoners we know what it is to love…

To love nature that allows us to breathe.

To love intelligence that invites us to dream.

To love sensitivity that makes us enjoy.

To love the freedom to be and to stay.

Now that we are all prisoners: it’s time to think…

Read the full article HERE:

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Surveillance Epidemic.

       There is a lot of concern by several states over the coronavirus in China, with fear that it could become an epidemic, and rightly so, but there is another epidemic that most states are willing and trying to spread, it's called surveillance. This particular virus is spread by authoritarian states and seeps into ever aspect of our lives. From a few CCTV cameras it has now spread to every pub, shop, street, public transport, hospital, bank and a multitude of other places we frequent. This particular epidemic has morphed from a simple camera to an extremely complex system among its tentacles are number plate recognition, monitoring and profiling individuals as they do what ordinary people do. The latest development in this particular epidemic is "facial recognition". This new phase has been silently developing in cities across the UK, waithing for the moment it can be set among the people, and we now learn that London will be hit with a full blown version of this anti-human rights virus.

       The Met in London have just announced that they will unleash this new phase on the general public in that city. This despite the fact that EU lawmakers are mulling over a temporary ban on this part of the epidemic, to safeguard individuals rights, as part of their risk assessment to regulate AI

      When it comes to the abuse of human rights we can always rely on the UK government to go it alone.
     This technology is lurking in cities across the UK all waiting to flip the switch and and get a good look at your face as you go about your daily chores.
     I don't know if it would work, but perhaps before we go out we could all wear very large sunglasses, a large nose from a joke shop, plus very large ear muffs and paint our face various colours, and finish off with a large floppy hat. Might be worth a try, at least it would brighten up our cities and towns.
The following From TecCrunch 

       The Met says its hope for the AI-powered tech is that it will help it tackle serious crime, including serious violence, gun and knife crime and child sexual exploitation, and that it will “help protect the vulnerable.”
     However, its phrasing is not a little ironic, given that facial recognition systems can be prone to racial bias, for example, owing to factors such as bias in data sets used to train AI algorithms.
       So in fact there’s a risk that police use of facial recognition could further harm vulnerable groups who already face a disproportionate risk of inequality and discrimination.

         Yet the Met’s PR doesn’t mention the risk of the AI tech automating bias.
Instead it makes pains to couch the technology as an “additional tool” to assist its officers.
       “This is not a case of technology taking over from traditional policing; this is a system which simply gives police officers a ‘prompt’, suggesting ‘that person over there may be the person you’re looking for’, it is always the decision of an officer whether or not to engage with someone,” it adds.
        While the use of a new tech tool may start with small deployments, as is being touted here, the history of software development underlines how potential to scale is readily baked in.
       A “targeted” small-scale launch also prepares the ground for London’s police force to push for wider public acceptance of a highly controversial and rights-hostile technology via a gradual building out process… AKA surveillance creep.

Read the full article HERE: 

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The One-Way Mirror Society.

       We live in a glass bubble that has been constructed around us all by state spying agencies, city council surveillance CCTV and of course our corporate masters. Your mobile phone is a direct link to most of these surveillance groups, your computer is a suction machine for the spying class. Go out and leave you phone at home and your are followed, monitored and profiled by CCTV, facial recognition and car number plate logging. All this data collection is not done with your consent nor is it for your benefit, but for the benefit of the state and the consumer juggernaut that is capitalism.

      You may believe that you lead a private life minding your own business, but your privacy is an illusion and the details of your life are big business. You are the pawn in their vile and secretive constructed glass bubble. Today's society is a one way mirror, and we are at the wrong end. Privacy is not a given, in this society the opposite is the case, it is a privilege for those who have the time and the money. Your privacy is something you have to work at and even then you will not be completely successful in your aim. However there are things you can do to curtail some of the extremities of their prying eyes.

         There are some interesting info which we can all follow to this end in the article from Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Read the report here:  Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Download the report here: Surveillance Report:

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Public Being Groomed To Do Cops' Work.

     Facial recognition is the new eyes of big brother, and in this society big brother  is co-joined twins, one the state, the other big corporate business, they are joined at the hip. Each piece of technology sold to the public finds itself firmly linked to the state surveillance wing, and the public are the unsuspecting assistants in the control and monitoring of the population. Your are monitored and profiled every where you go, from the CCTV in places indoors and out, and there is always the cop in your pocket, the smart phone. Believe we it is smarter than you could believe.

      Now their is a new toy being sold by big business that is being incorporated into the state surveillance system, the door bell camera.

This from325:

      Report from insurrectionary anarchist publication Anathema on the growth of networks of surveillance being developed by Amazon and local police departments.
     In November, The Intercept reported that internal documents at Ring, the home security company owned by Amazon, reveal that the company is planning to create automated neighborhood “watch lists” by incorporating facial recognition technology into its increasingly vast network of “smart home” doorbell cameras. The feature would alert camera-owners via smartphone when someone deemed “suspicious” pops up on their cameras. Like the old-fashioned “neighborhood watch” that Ring wants to replace, the feature would extend the power of the police and as well as make certain areas of town more dangerous for anyone Ring camera owners deem “suspicious.”
      Ring’s documents do not define what “suspicious” means. In practice, this will likely be defined by gentrifiers and cops, whose systemic racism is well documented. At its core, the watch list would identify people who “don’t belong” in certain areas; this means black and brown people, poor people, and anyone whose appearance deviates from social norms. Ring’s Neighbors program — an online discussion forum between camera owners — is already well known for its aggressive racism and for generally heightening distrust and paranoia within neighborhoods. For many people, Ring’s new feature would make it dangerous to be in certain neighborhoods at all — a victory for the forces of gentrification everywhere. Ring doorbell cameras have already allowed police to significantly expand their operations, simply by appropriating private citizens’ technology for no additional expense. The technology therefore has immense “value,” not only for the company, but for the state. For decades it’s been steadily expanding policing in order to keep its increasingly immiserated people under control, while struggling to balance its own budgets.

  Read the rest of this entry

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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

Beware The Cop In Your Pocket.

       This is a re-hash of something I wrote about some time ago, but think it is worth repeating. It is impossible to deny that as far as the state is concerned, we are living in glass bowl. We are monitored every where we go, with CCTV, facial recognition and cameras in every pub, shop, bus, train, shopping mall, library, etc. and so it goes on. However their is another tool in the state's  widespread surveillance, that little gadget most of us carry everywhere, the mobile phone.  

       You’re heading out the door, ooops, better not forget my phone, perhaps it should be, ooops, better not take my phone!! One thing that we should always be aware of, you’re never alone with a phone. The phone is a conduit into the nitty-gritty of your personal life, an archive of your life. In it are all those personal texts, emails, photos, contacts, personal details etc. As you walk about your business that simple little gadget in your bag/pocket monitors your movements, and can pinpoint you down to the metre. On the pretext of being able to send you all your emails and texts, the phone company keeps a very accurate record of all your whereabouts at all times, you are continually monitored. Your phone contains transcripts of years of private conversations, data on all your friends associates and partners, your phone is your personal “black-box” and can be used against you in a court of law. Your phone is a cop in your pocket.
       Let’s not forget “Stingray”, a devise that the powers that be, can set up anywhere, in a vehicle, in any street, in a public park,  and it imitates a genuine phone mast, all the phones in the area are tricked to sending all their transmissions to this phoney mast, the information from the phones is scooped up, sorted, stored then with in minutes, the original signal is sent to the nearest genuine mast to continue its journey, and you are unaware that anything has happened. “Stingray”, can swoop up thousands of mobile phone data in minutes in one fell swoop, just by a vehicle sitting quietly in a street.
      Heading out, oops must remember to take the cop from my pocket and leave the creep in a drawer. Where ever you go, what ever you do, never forget the cop in your pocket.

 Hi, I'm your friendly cop.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk