We are willingly being spied on

Read 'em and weep:

"How Your Phone Betrays Democracy"

A trove of location data with more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans obtained by Times Opinion helps to illustrate the risks that such comprehensive monitoring poses to the right of Americans to assemble and participate in a healthy democracy.
 

Within minutes, with no special training and a little bit of Google searching, Times Opinion was able to single out and identify individuals at public demonstrations large and small from coast to coast.

By tracking specific devices, we followed demonstrators from the 2017 Women’s March back to their homes. We were able to identify individuals at the 2017 Inauguration Day Black Bloc protests. It was easy to follow them to their workplaces. In some instances — for example, a February clash between antifascists and far-right supporters of Milo Yiannopolous in Berkeley, Calif. — it took little effort to identify the homes of protesters and then their family members.

Of course, there are people who do this full time - and they sell our identities and location data to anyone who will pay.

Now even the FBI is warning about your smart TV's security

“Beyond the risk that your TV manufacturer and app developers may be listening and watching you, that television can also be a gateway for hackers to come into your home. A bad cyber actor may not be able to access your locked-down computer directly, but it is possible that your unsecured TV can give him or her an easy way in the backdoor through your router,” wrote the FBI.

The FBI warned that hackers can take control of your unsecured smart TV and in worst cases, take control of the camera and microphone to watch and listen in. ...

 The FBI recommends placing black tape over an unused smart TV camera, keeping your smart TV up-to-date with the latest patches and fixes, and to read the privacy policy to better understand what your smart TV is capable of.

At least use a different router for all connected devices than the one to your computers and tablets and phones.

Pentagon warns US military not to use home DNA testing kits

Companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry allow people to get a breakdown of their genetic makeup and geographic heritage, from providing a saliva sample. Ancestry boasts some 15 million users, while 23andMe says it has 10 million.

But a department of defence memo, obtained by Yahoo News, warned that the kits could put members of the military at risk.

“Exposing sensitive genetic information to outside parties poses personal and operational risks to Service members,” wrote Joseph D. Kernan, the undersecretary of defence for intelligence, and James N. Stewart, the assistant secretary of defence for manpower. ...
 
“There is increased concern in the scientific community that outside parties are exploiting the use of genetic data for questionable purposes, including mass surveillance and the ability to track individuals without their authorization or awareness.”

The memo reflects a wider concern about biometrics like DNA, fingerprints and facial recognition.

The DNA-testing companies are extremely inaccurate in their testing anyway. I remember reading of a journal that sent samples from several individuals to three different home-DNA testing companies and got back very different reports on each person. Then there was the example of the Dahm identical triplets whose samples also varied significantly. As Science News reports, "Results can vary widely depending on which company you use."

And when you sign the forms to send the sample back in, almost all of them include paragraphs by which you assign permanently and completely all rights to your DNA use for medical or commercial purposes to the company. That's right, when you send off your saliva sample, you are literally transferring ownership of your own DNA to the company.

Skynet is already here and it's not on our side

Why Nothing Works Anymore - Technology has its own purposes.

“No… it’s a magic potty,” my daughter used to lament, age 3 or so, before refusing to use a public restroom stall with an automatic-flush toilet. As a small person, she was accustomed to the infrared sensor detecting erratic motion at the top of her head and violently flushing beneath her. Better, in her mind, just to delay relief than to subject herself to the magic potty’s dark dealings. 

It’s hardly just a problem for small people. What adult hasn’t suffered the pneumatic public toilet’s whirlwind underneath them? Or again when attempting to exit the stall? So many ordinary objects and experiences have become technologized—made dependent on computers, sensors, and other apparatuses meant to improve them—that they have also ceased to work in their usual manner. It’s common to think of such defects as matters of bad design. That’s true, in part. But technology is also more precarious than it once was. Unstable, and unpredictable. At least from the perspective of human users. From the vantage point of technology, if it can be said to have a vantage point, it's evolving separately from human use.

Boldface added. And now, Customer Service Chatbots Are About to Become Frighteningly Realistic

I refer you back to my post about robot priests offering blessings to people. Quite apart from the theological questions it raises, the first model is very primitive and looks like something out of a Robbie and the Robot series or a bad 1950s space opera. But,

What will BlessU2 be like in 30 years when it is fully integrated with Artificial Intelligence and you can actually have an intelligent conversation with it that would seem indistinguishable from one with a real person? And ponder about a robot consecrating and serving Holy Communion.

I am not saying it will happen, but, well, consider this:  Neuroscience will give us what we’ve sought for decades: computers that think like we do.

I am reminded of what Winston Churchill said in 1938,

Science bestowed immense new powers on man, and, at the same time, created conditions which were largely beyond his comprehension.

He also said later, "Scientists should be on tap, not on top." True that.