Shackled.

 

           What appears innocuous, friendly, convenient,and in common use, can in fact, often be like a shackle on your ankles. The surveillance cameras, "to help stop crime", to whose description of crime are we referring? Then there is the all encompassing Facebook, now Meta Platforms. Millions use its various tentacles, all the while their personal data is being stored, sifted, traded to various organisations all with control and the profit motive as its aim. Your world is being shaped for you, subtly and for other peoples interests. 

The following from Enough is Enough:

         We live in the age of the algorithm. Every day, our lives are mediated by forces that we cannot see and do not understand. Our actions, movements, decisions, and unconscious desires are monitored, recorded, and stripped down to lines of code. A vast trove of behavioural data is mined, primed, and manipulated on an individual level, producing billions of unique newsfeeds and different ways of experiencing reality.

         

         As one of the primary architects of this new social order, Facebook has dramatically re-shaped the world in its image. And with its recent rebranding as Meta Platforms and the official launch of the so-called Metaverse, Facebook has staked a claim to worlds not yet born.

        A collaboration by anarchist filmmakers subMedia, Antimídia, and Wind Born Films, The Social Empire is a forthcoming film about just what type of world that Facebook has created, and the implications for those of us fighting for new worlds of our own.

Coming summer 2022.

Interested in connecting with us or organizing a screening? Get in touch.

thesocialempire.net/contact

Twitter: @SocialEmpireMov
Instagram: @SocialEmpireMovie
Facebook: @SocialEmpireMovie

 Visit ann arky's home at 

http://strugglepedia.co.uk/index.php?title=Main_Page

 

disconnect

            It is now becoming ever more obvious that the system is falling apart, for generations we have been subject to our rulers rampant aggression and utter contempt, yet the populace at large, continued to hold onto that mythical thought of some sort of alliance between rulers and ruled. Now the truth is so blatantly obvious that this myth has evaporated, leaving bare the true nature of this incompatible relationship. The powerful rulers of society are aware of this now complete disconnect between ruled and ruler, aware that the illusion no longer holds, and the populace see the glaring truth. This makes them extremely dangerous, if they can’t hold onto their power by smoke and mirrors, by weaving illusions, then they will try to do so by force, we must prepare for this inevitability. The disconnect between ruled and ruler is now complete, the glaring inequality and disparity inherent in the system shows that their reality and ours is completely incompatible. We the public can no longer march to their tune, no longer pick up the sword to defend their wealth, no longer shed our blood in their petty power struggles, no longer sweat our lives away cementing their privileged position. Across the globe people are showing that they have finally grasped this irrefutable truth, open rebellion is in the air. The attempted containment will become more brutal, ever increasing restrictions, ever greater surveillance, ever greater punishments for dissent. We organise in solidarity and face it full on, or we revert to that illusion that there is compatibility between rich and powerful rulers and the ruled and once again accept our serfdom, in a tighter and more frightening new world order.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info 

I Spy!

          Every state moves inexorably towards fascism, small steps, large steps, slow and fast, the direction is the always greater control over the population and harsher treatment for dissenters and those who chose not to fit into their little catalogue of boxes. The UK's latest crime bill is one massive step firmly into the realms of fascism. Protests can and will be classified as acts of terrorism, protesters terrorists, Travellers and Romani will come under ever great harassment with the risk of losing their vehicles, making their way of life impossible. This bill affects us all, we will have to conform or be singled out  for special attention by the state apparatus. Under no circumstances can these new legislations come under the category of a democratic country, that illusion has long been dispelled. We live in a country of total surveillance, monitoring and profiling, your ever move photographed and logged, we are subject to the prying eyes of the state as it clamps down on any form of dissent, any form of activity that strays from their legislated pattern.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Big Brother.

          Coming to a supermarket near you, biometric cameras that capture your every move, even eye movements. Supermarkets in France are introducing this new level of surveillance, which sends a photo to  security guard of any suspicious movement or action. So have no doubt they will eventually arrive here in the  UK. What's more there is no doubt that they will proliferate to our streets, bars, transport, bus-stops and stations, etc.. Do you think it is acceptable, when out for a stroll with the kids or meeting up with friends, that you should have your every personal movement recorded without your knowledge. Surveillance is one of the many cancers inherent within this state system, the state wants to know your ever move, where you are going, why, and should you be there or should you be somewhere else. The state needs to monitor, record and profile every individual, it can only survive by total control over the population, and surveillance is its best tool to back up its police/judicial/prison apparatus to guarantee the wealth, power and privileges stay where they are.

The following extract from Act For Freedom Now:

           Biometric video surveillance in our supermarkets
In order to detect theft, Carrefour, Monoprix, Super U and Franprix [and Intermarché] are experimenting with biometric analysis software to monitor our every move in their stores. The health crisis had already unleashed the desire of private companies for biometric surveillance: thermal cameras at company entrances, detection of physical distances in offices, tracking of eye movements for remote university exams… Several French companies are now proposing to automatically detect thefts in stores “in real time” thanks to biometric analysis software directly connected to the cameras already present in the stores [behavior detection software that then sends an immediate alert to the security guard’s smartphone with a copy of the images]. While the idea of automatically detecting theft in stores has already been tested in Japan, several French companies have not hesitated to develop their own software:
          “Anaveo”, a company of 320 people with a turnover of 70 million euros works in video surveillance for mass retail. Its “SuspectTracker” software promises to capture the flow of images from the cameras to analyze “suspicious behavior”, for example “gestures towards a stroller, backpack, trouser or jacket pocket”. Their presentation videos mention in passing that theft detection feeds into a database to further improve the algorithm.
         “Oxania, a start-up founded in 2019, has produced a “Retail Solutions” software that would be able to “recognize gestures associated with theft in real time, detect behaviors, dangerous situations, customer journey and much more”. The video presentation calmly assumes to make a biometric analysis of the behaviors of people present in the store (body heat, gestures, body …).
         And above all “Veesion”, a Parisian start-up that sells a “gesture recognition” product with “an algorithm that has several bricks that work together and can tell at any time if there has been a gesture that can be associated with shoplifting or not. There is a brick that locates the human, another that locates the limbs on this human body, another that locates the objects of interest, the shopping cart, a purse, a shopping cart, the shelf itself, the items that come off the shelf. And these bricks work together to give a probability of theft at each moment. Then, the store employees have a mobile app that receives the videos as soon as a suspicious gesture has been spotted”, explains Benoit Koenig, director of the company Veesion. (France Bleu, August 19, 2020). As a bonus, Veesion proposes to analyze “your flight history and [provide] personalized recommendations”.

source: Sans Nom
via: darknights.noblogs

Continue reading HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Covid Gains.

      I keep repeating myself, this pandemic has been seized upon by the state and the corporate world. The state has seen this a an opportunity to increase population control, introducing a raft of measures, usually without any parliamentary scrutiny, which will be modified rather than eliminated, attempting to get people into a more receptive mode and more acceptable to total surveillance, scrutiny and a submissive attitude. While the corporate world grasp this as an opportunity to slash at workers wages and working conditions, while at the same time having billions of taxpayers money poured into their already well filled coffers. To the state and the big boys in the corporate world, covid19 has been a win-win situation. Only the concerted effort of the people can turn this round to an opportunity for the people to change that old normal, into a new normal that puts the people at the heart of fair and just society that sees to the needs of all our people and doesn't kneel before the altar off the economy and profit.

 Columbian mine.

This from LabourStart:

        Once again, a company has taken advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to attack workers' rights. This time, it's coal miners in Colombia who have had to go on strike. Workers at the Cerrejón coal mine are in the middle of bitter dispute with three multinational mining companies, Anglo American, BHP and Glencore.
When the pandemic broke out back in February the union, in good faith, withdrew its list of demands and suspended collective bargaining negotiations.
        When negotiations resumed in July, the company refused to respond to the union proposals, and instead demanded concessions in rights and benefits. Then the company unilaterally announced a radical shift change roster, without consulting the union and in violation of Colombian law. The new shift roster, which workers call the 'death shift' will lead to the loss of 2,500 direct and indirect jobs, will require workers to work an additional 72 days a year for the same wage, will cause turmoil in workers' family lives and will lead to an increase in fatigue and thus an increase in accidents. The company has boycotted the government labour ministry’s facilitation to end the strike, now in its fourth week.
        The union in Colombia and IndustriALL global union have a launched an online campaign on LabourStart in support of the miners. Please take a moment to show your support - click here.
       And please don't forget our campaign in support of miners in Ukraine, who have taken their fight for justice underground - into the mines. Learn more and show your support here. 

Ukraine striking miners.

 

       Please share this message with your friends, family and fellow union members. 

 

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

New Normal!!

       I hope the public are alive to the possible outcomes of the legislation being put in place and experimented with by the establishment. They are not thinking of your welfare, they are not taking care of you, they are doing their best to protect the business world, the millionaire/billionaire/shareholders that is where the bulk of taxpayers money is going, yes there is a spin off and we get some wage support, but that is to keep their partners and shareholders afloat, and to placate public anger from spilling over.   

     They are putting in place a world where congregating in numbers will be limited and controlled, social distancing will be the norm, total surveillance will be a way of life. Let's not sleepwalk quietly into the new advanced 21st century Orwellian world, let's not blindly accept that the state knows best and will protect you. It is a state controlled world once entered, it will be extremely difficult to exit.

The following is an extract from Acorn:   

 No to the "New Normal"

        Looking beyond the immediate measures being taken to “control the virus”, there is also criticism of the “new normal” which seems to be on its way, a post-coronavirus world of “biosecurity” and virtual “connectivity” which looks very much like the beginnings of a nightmare high-tech dystopia.

        “We’re accelerating into a future in which a digitally connected privileged class performs virtual labor in isolation while a massive police state protects them from an expendable underclass that takes most of the risks. In this context, there is bound to be revolt. It is likely that we will see some social reforms aimed at placating the population—at least temporary ones to mitigate the impact of the pandemic—but that they will arrive alongside the ever-increasing violence of a state that no one can imagine doing without, insofar as it is misunderstood as the protector of our health”.

         “This outbreak is the dream and an experimental laboratory for the expansion of surveillance and control and the enforcement of power”.

“Once the pandemic is finally over, we don’t want to see a permanent shift to cashless payment and the eventual elimination of cash”.

             Among the details of this “new normal” now emerging are “terrifying” plans for a mobile phone app that tracks people to check if they have been in contact with someone testing positive for the virus – initially optional, this may become obligatory in the post-crisis smart-fascist world.

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

The Cyborg Society.

       Have the Swedes gone mad, not only in having more trust in their government than most citizens of other countries, but by jumping on the "chipping" bandwagon with greater enthusiasm? The Swedes don't seem to carry all the fears that once chipped it can open doors for you, but perhaps it can also close doors, shutting you out of certain benefits etc. I suppose with a few tweaks it could also be used to track you. Of course when it comes to tracking in our society, we should not be too complacent. Forgetting the almost total CCTV surveillance here in the UK, as we walk around with our smart phones in our pockets/purses we are being tracked, your phone is an excellent tracking device. However, I feel a chip in your body to be able to get in touch with technical gadgets is a gateway for the authorities to continue their desire to control your every action. Is the chip the gateway to the cyborg society? Perhaps in the near future we will see lots of Swedes with small holes in their hands where they pulled the chip out.

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

Break The Ranks.

 

       Not forgetting the UK's super prison being built in North Wales.

An interesting article and poster from Contra Info:

       Everyone should fall in line. That’s what they want, from our first to our last breath. We should be in line for the classrooms, for the checkouts of the supermarket, for work; we should queue up on the roads, in front of the counters of bureaucracy, at the polling stations… until the end of the line, in rows of tombstones.  An entire existence that drags on like this – our muscles only contract to kneel down, our hearts only beat for goods – in the safety of a prison.
      The cities are looking more and more like prisons, with every corner planned to be better surveilled, controlled, patrolled. The inhabitants are like prisoners escorted by capitalist exploitation and handcuffed by social obligations, always under the artificial eyes of security cameras. Everyone directed towards craving the consumption of feelings, carefully calculated, delivered by omnipresent screens.
This prison-society promises well-being, but delivers mostly massacres, as it is demonstrated by the drowned dreams of those who have tried to cross its moat and the bombarded bodies of those who rise up at its gates. Those who take the freedom to not beg but would rather trace their own paths, will be confronted by an army of politicians, judges, police and journalists.
     While in Brussels a new maxi-prison is being built, in Athens a special regime is being imposed on combative prisoners; while in Paris they are laying the first brick of the new Justice Palace, in Zürich and Munich other monstrous Police and Justice Centres are being planned; while powers are making agreements beyond national borders on how to carry out counter-insurgency strategies, research laboratories and surveillance industries are set up to produce social peace. And everywhere, from Spain to Greece to Italy, repression hits anyone who is tainted by the most intolerable crime: ending with obedience and inciting others to do so as well.
      However, these huge projects of repression are not only met with applauses, silences or complaints. Sometimes they crash against a hostility that is resolute and daring. It is the case, for example, of the biggest Belgian prison to date, currently under construction. A project whose path has already been studded by direct actions against those who collaborate, both public institutions and private enterprises. From paint to stones, from hammers to flames, from destruction to sabotage, it’s a constellation of attacks that completely breaks away from the penal code, political strategy or complacency with the State. If the defenders of this order want to smother this struggle, it’s because a breath of freedom can become contagious. Everywhere.
     The human being was not born to fall in line, to keep his head low, to wait for a permission to live. But by raising our heads, arming our hands and challenging power – that’s where life begins: by the destruction of all ranks.

Download the poster HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The End Of Privacy.

         We are moving ever closer to a society of total control, total surveillance. On top of countless thousands of CCTV cameras in all avenues of our life, we have a company in Sweden placing chips in the arms of employees, Glasgow's new experimental, mood and profiling surveillance system, and kids in schools useing palm or finger prints to access parts of the school. Do you honestly think that your life will be enhanced by your every movement, mood and conversation being monitored? Or is your welfare and well-being not on the list at all? 

This very interesting article from Politics in The Zeros:

Woo-hoo, little microscopic sensors will soon be everywhere, tracking us constantly, happily sending data back to motherships somewhere. This of course, will be done solely to help us all make informed decisions. So, no need to worry your silly little heads about, oh, businesses collaborating with governments and sending the data along to them or about what happens when these systems get hacked and exploited. Instead, let us behold our new surveillance society.

I recently wrote about Humanyze, a new startup that has created a smart employee badge to help track employee movements and social interactions throughout the day and correlate the data to company goals.

Humanyze, which doesn’t seem very human to me, monitors everything serfs employees say, including tone of voice, to insure they are being “loyal, plastic robots for a world that doesn’t care.” Whoops, how did that Frank Zappa lyric sneak into a discussion about the wonderfulness of your employer monitoring everything you do? my bad. “I’m sorry Bob, but you’ve been spending far too much time at the coffee maker and we’ve sent a message about this to your boss., and further, your tone of voice has been sarcastic and unhelpful lately.”

But wait, there’s more.

Oral B has a smart toothbrush. The toothbrush uses Bluetooth and a mobile app to capture data about your tooth brushing habits. It includes a timer to make sure you’re brushing for a full two minutes, and it maps your brushing so if you concentrate really hard on your bottom front and give short shrift to your upper molars, the app lets you know and gives you feedback.

Will it spend a nasty note to my dental insurance provider should I not properly brush my molars?

Cheaper sensors will fuel the age of smart everything, says TechCrunch, in a relentlessly perky article mentioning none of the downsides of such monitoring.

Who benefits from this? Hint, the consumer and the citizen are at the bottom of the list, after business and governments.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Medical Records For Sale!

        According to this government, there is nothing that can't be sold for a profit. Up until now your medical records were private, personal between you and your doctor, well now that is all about to change. Your medical records are now just another product from which profit can be made. It could influence whether you can get insurance or not, your job application, whether you can get a mortgage or not. All and sundry will be able to buy your personal medical details for their own personal gain. Another step down the road to total surveillance, your are watched, spied on and now your personal medical records are up for scrutiny. 

This from SumOfUs: 

Your medical records are about to be sold to the highest bidder.

       Starting this year, private companies will be able to buy information on us from the NHS’s new universal patient database -- including everything from mental health conditions, sexually transmitted infections and diseases like cancer -- all linked to your postcode, gender and ethnicity.

      We’ve all been opted into the scheme by the government without our knowledge. And the clock is ticking -- the government has said they will upload our data in a matter of just a few weeks. If we’re going to stop this, we have to act now.

Tell Jeremy Hunt and the Department of Health not to sell our medical records.

      It doesn’t really get more personal than what you discuss with your doctor. They know the most personal things about us -- like whether we’ve ever been depressed, had an embarrassing infection or struggled with drug & alcohol problems.

      The government claims that individuals won’t be able to be identified. However, many experts have warned that under the current plans, we could easily be singled out through simple cross-referencing of other databases -- especially if you have a rare or unusual condition. Imagine your employer finding that you might have had an abortion when you were a teenager. Or your insurance company finding out you are HIV positive. The consequences for us as individuals could be huge.

     We know that when we act together, we can bring about real change. When we fought to get High Street names like River Island and Edinburgh Woollen Mill to sign up to protect Bangladeshi factory workers, we won! Now we need to step up to defend something precious -- our right to privacy.

Tell Jeremy Hunt to stop the sale of our personalised patient data to big corporations.

Thanks for all that you do,
Martin, Hanna and the rest of us.
More Information:

NHS patient data to be made available to drug and insurance firms, The Guardian, 19 January 2014.
Price list for access to medical data, Health & Social Care Information Centre, January 2014

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

A LAND OF TOTAL SURVEILLANCE.

This from Liberty:

How private is your private life?

I am writing to let you know what is happening with the Government’s Draft Communications Data Bill, also known as the Snoopers’ Charter.

The Government plans to instruct private companies to collect and store our ‘communications data’. That means records of emails, web activity, texts and phone calls – for the entire population. This amounts to mass, blanket surveillance - outsourced to the private sector.
Find out more about the Draft Communications Data Bill here

Your privacy is under threat

Your communications data can build up a very detailed picture of your life: who you have texted, emailed, skyped or phoned on any given day; where you were when the contact was made and for how long; which websites you have visited in the privacy of your own home; details of social media activity…and more.

We can stop the Snoopers’ Charter

Since we learned of the draft bill last year, we have submitted expert evidence to Parliament, secured public statements against the measures at all three main party conferences and encouraged thousands of Liberty members to write to their MPs or sign petitions.

This new law is being reviewed right now so we need your help urgently. We stopped this proposal under the last Government, and together we can stop it again.

Please visit www.nosnooperscharter.org.uk to help us stop the Snoopers’ Charter.

Thank you for your support



Shami Chakrabarti

Director of Liberty

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