The family voted to get one month of Disney Plus to watch the Mandalorian and see what else that they have to offer. We did a quick binge on the Marvel movies less anything Spider-Man (Sony stills owns the rights so not much Peter Parker on the Mouse channel) and then moved on to Star Wars.
Folks, the Star Wars franchise is one that editors tweak on a regular basis. Even before Disney bought the franchise from George Lucas, the original trilogy had been released in at least three different edits. As a rule, each of the edits added more special effects and content to the films. When Disney bought the franchise, they promptly killed-off almost every spin-off, series, or story idea marketed during the thirty or so years that Lucas owned the rights. In effect, Disney purged the “Star Wars cannon” so they could make the new Star Wars universe in their image—oh and market the crap out of the galaxy far, far away…
The latest trilogy—episodes seven thru nine—haven’t been out that long. Tonight, we watched #8 The Last Jedi (2017) and while the movie is much as I remember it, there was a noticeable edit at the end that didn’t escape my attention. I’m not that immersed in the Star Wars lore, but I do remember the end of episode 8 because it completely undid everything in all the previous films except maybe Jar Jar Binks. After Luke Skywalker dies, goes to his reward, or whatever— (“Die” just seems like the wrong word because just like a comic book, when is someone really dead enough not to come back to life? Even the grave didn’t keep Carrie Fisher out of the ninth movie.) — anyway, the last scene of the movie had shots of random children exercising “The Force” with the idea that it was now freely available to everyone. The Force was unleashed. When I saw it the first time, I was really angry that the whole idea of wrong versus right was gone and replaced by shades of gray and moral relativity. At the time I even blogged on my feelings. However, watching it this time, the stuff that offended me was absent. Magically, some uncredited person at Disney removed the offending material and set the story on a path more in tune with the concept used by Lucas of good versus evil. Star Wars was again a morality play in a galaxy far, far away…
As much as I disliked the theatrical release of The Last Jedi, I have a problem/gripe/concern with what I witnessed (or in this case didn’t witness). Most people will never own a physical copy of this or any other film that they can stream from the internet but folks, doesn’t the idea that some mega corporation can change content on a whim bother you just a little? If something can be added or removed without letting you know then isn’t that just a step or two nearer the dystopia of Orwell? Truth is reduced to what government or mega-corp. says it is. Isn’t that why many of us have left Facebook and Twitter? Yet when it comes to digital media, we usually don’t notice when they edit your eBook or flat out delete it from your Kindle reader. Real books are portable and immutable, but the internet and other forms of digital communication are malleable, ethereal, and transient.
So, while in this particular case, I think the edit strengthens the story, it bothers me that it was done without notice or disclaimer. How many other things have I streamed into my living room that have received edits which change the plotline of the story and I never knew the difference?
Folks, please keep my experience in mind when you interact with anything digital. It can be manipulated or removed from your device without any notice to you. If it’s important enough then buy a copy of the physical media whether that be a book, DVD, or whatever. If the content lives on some else’s computer then you don’t really own it no matter how much you paid for the illusion of ownership.
In my last installment I talked about cancelling some of my social media accounts and then detailed cancelling my 11-year-old Facebook account. In the course of these discussions, I also mentioned exploring options. This post is to provide more information on that search. This post will explore Internet options which are either friendly to conservatives or those wishing more privacy and less tracking by “Big Tech” companies. As always, I value feedback from readers.
Brave
Many of the companies that make web browsers have censored Conservatives or have pledged to punish them for their views. These include Google (Chrome), Apple (Safari), Microsoft (Internet Explorer, Edge), Mozilla (Firefox). An exception to this trend appears to be Brave. It is made by a guy that helped found Mozilla and another guy that created JavaScript. These guys have made a Chromium based browser with privacy built in. You can opt-in to their system of advertising but if you do, it won’t track your computer with personally identifiable information or your IP address as you sail the Internet.
Brave is on a mission to fix the web by giving users a safer, faster and better browsing experience while growing support for content creators through a new attention-based ecosystem of rewards.
Oh, and Brave has DuckDuckGo baked-in as a choice for Internet searches. If you’re tired of being tracked by Google and others, try browsing with privacy.
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is the go-to search engine for privacy and searches not prioritized by Google’s pay-to-play advertising and political bias algorithms.
MeWe is not as mature and feature rich as Facebook is but it also lets you speak your mind without repercussions or warning banners placed on your posts because you dare to disagree with Big Tech.
Now that Donald Trump is off Twitter, there’s no reason to be on there anymore. You can try Signal.org if you want to communicate mostly on an IOS or Android device.
Parler
When Amazon, Apple, and Google coordinated their attack on Parler, Parler was claiming 15 million users and a valuation of over half a billion dollars. I expect Parler to be back up soon. Perhaps with new software and backend support.
Wouldn’t it be funny if Parler found a home in Russia or some Eastern European country? Then suppose they let Trump have a big presence there too. CNN and the Huffington Post would really go ballistic with conspiracy theories. Fact is, such a move would be an indictment of the Democrats. Think about it, this would show there’s more freedom in the former Soviet Union than in the United States.
That’s my Internet alternatives round-up for now. Watch this space for more as the situation warrants.
This will be a recurring theme in the years ahead, but the obvious question is how do they know? Who is providing Airbnb with a list of people that they should be banning? Google? Facebook? Microsoft? Apple? Amazon?
“If we confirm that guests are associated with a violent hate group or otherwise not allowed on our platform for violating certain community policies prohibiting violence or engaging in criminal activity, we will cancel those reservations and ban them from Airbnb,” the San Francisco-based home rental company said on Sunday.
Airbnb said that it could also share information with local law enforcement.
Please note that Airbnb is not getting the list from law enforcement, they are offering to provide the information to law enforcement. This is scary dystopian future stuff. This is China or Soviet Secret Police tactics being practiced by US based corporations. The fact that US corporations are enabling China to rule over their people with such things as internet censoring and social scores is the antithesis of want America stands for or at least the principles that we were founded upon.
Folks there is a theme in science fiction where nation states are virtually irrelevant (or impotent), and everything is run by large mega-corporations. Is this censorship and persecution of dissidents—which happen to be people on my end of the political spectrum—the result of the kids in Silicon Valley trying to implement on new social order which just happens to be indistinguishable from totalitarian rule? If politics is power and knowledge is power, then isn’t all that metadata they are collecting on us just a way of gaining political power over us? Coupled with the tech push for AI (Artificial Intelligence) aren’t we being culled into being sheep to be monetized to serve them?
The other aspect of the above story is this idea that violent protests are planned at the Nation’s Capital and the capitol buildings of all 50 states. Such protests are supposed to coincide with the coronation of Kamala Harris and her Crazy Uncle Joe. What a crock of excrement. Folks this is such a stupid claim. I don’t believe anybody that is a Trump supporter is behind such an idea. The fact that the FBI is the one ringing the bell is even more suspect. The FBI is a corrupt and partisan tool which has a track record of incompetence and partisanship. They don’t enforce the law and have no interest in justice.
Folks the bottom line is that you could do the Tom Clancy thing—fly a fully fueled 747 into the Capitol building and wipe-out the government—and nothing would change. Sadly, the replacements for these politicians would be worse than the guys in office now. Our people are corrupt, defective, irredeemable, and ungrateful. The people in office are just as immoral as the average guy on the streets of America. The bottom line is that our cure is not in power or party but in repenting and turning to God. Such is an unpopular notion. Thankfully, this is God’s department. We just need to pray for it to happen and try to live the way He instructs us.
First, backup your data from FB. To get there, click on down icon next to your name.
Select Settings and Privacy then select Settings then select Your Facebook Information then select Download Your Information
On the Download page, you have the choice of two file formats: HTML file(s) or JSON. HTML is to view the information (think webpages), JSON is to create a copy that could be used on another server. I chose the default of HTML.
Facebook Backup creation screen
Facebook will show you any copies of your data made or requested on Available Copies tab
Below are screen shots showing the categories of data that you can download. Please note that the download file creation takes a lot of time. You might wish to request the file and then stay busy while the servers at Facebook crunch all the data that they are willing to share with you. Except for my blog posts which I’ve only been sharing on Facebook for about two years, I don’t really post that much. I usually just give people thumb’s ups or other reactions.
Above are all the categories of data that Facebook says they track on you. This information is how they make money off of something you think is free.
I was tired of waiting for FB to create the file, so I took to dog for a walk. Nothing appeared to change on the status of creating a backup file, so I hit refresh on my web browser and there it was. A shiny new 311 MB zip file, ready for download.
I downloaded and unzipped it and clicked on the index.html file and was able to view my data as a series of web pages.
You can click on any sub-heading to see what is there. Posts are listed from most recent at the top to oldest at the bottom.
Satisfied that I had all the data that I was able to retrieve, it was time to hit the back button and delete my account.
As silly as this sounds, you do need to know your Facebook password to delete your account. I guess this is why so many dead people remain on social media after reregistering as Democrats–oops, I mean dying. Please keep a paper copy of you passwords so your digital fingerprints can be removed after you go to your reward.
If you try to get back into Facebook you will see this warning or something similar.
So there you have it. I’m off Facebook for good. I know many folks are migrating to MeWE and other social media homes. As Isaac Air Freight used to say, “See you there or in the air.”
I have grown tired of my friends being attacked by Facebook, Google, Twitter, and the rest. I’m tired of fearing for my employment because I disagree with the Liberal agenda. No, I don’t have a solution— although I am looking for alternatives to “Big Tech” and I hope to blog on that soon.
Folks, the boys in Silicon Valley only understand one thing and that’s money. Less users or subscribers is less money they can charge advertisers. To that end, I encourage you to do what you can to deprive them of revenue. Dump products and services that you don’t really need. To the extent that you can, demonetize FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google). So far Netflix is sitting this latest purge out, as is Microsoft, but given a chance to get involved, they probably would.
FAANG is Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google
Is there a viable operating system for a computer that isn’t made by Apple or Microsoft? Nope, not one that does what I need for work or pleasure. Cell phones are dominated by Apple and Google (Android). There are Linux alternatives for PCs and even Smartphones but I don’t know if there are enough apps to keep casual users happy in this alternative ecosystem.
I have taken some actions and am considering more.
I have cancelled my Twitter account. I only got Twitter at the insistence of Sebastian Gorka. I got free tickets to hear him speak in Roseville a few years ago. He had worked for President Trump and had high praise for Trump. He encouraged folks to actually see what Trump was saying and not wait for the media’s take on what was said—because it was often out of context with what actually happened. I took Gorka’s advice, and you know what, Gorka was right. Rarely did Trump ever fire the first shot at anyone but he often responded to attacks from other platforms by posting his reaction on Twitter. (If Republicans had the spine to defend the President then the whole Twitter thing would never had been necessary.) As a platform, I was disappointed with Twitter because there was often a 12-to-24-hour delay between a Trump post and Twitter sending me a notification–which often never happened at all. Banning Trump for life left me with literally zero reason to keep my account open so I cancelled it a few days ago.
While Microsoft has thus far not interjected itself into the jihad on Conservatives, I decided to dump my Linked-In account. I never used it anyway. I only had it because when Sue Blake was rising to power as chair of the Sacramento Republican Central Committee, she encouraged us to open Facebook and Linked-In accounts.
On my to-do list is dumping my Facebook account. If Zuckerberg lifts the Trump ban in the next few days, I might keep it, otherwise I’m gone from their platform too.
If you leave social media platforms, please be aware that there are usually ways to download your content before killing your account.
I plan to explore this option before dumping Facebook so I can keep some photos and other things. I will let you know what the file looks like after I’ve done that. Here is where to find it in Facebook’s settings.
Where to find download option in Facebook Settings>Your Facebook Information>Download Your Information
Oh, I plan to write a blog dedicated to a scathing post on Facebook by an Admin for one of the groups that I have belonged to for many years. Folks, the post is long but its really eye opening in a bad way.
Meanwhile, if you have any comments or suggestions related to this topic, please pass them on to me.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the crash of a speeding Tesla that killed two people in a Los Angeles suburb, the agency announced Tuesday.
Agency spokesman Sean Rushton wouldn’t say whether the Tesla Model S was on Autopilot when it crashed on Dec. 29 in Gardena. That system is designed to automatically change lanes and keep a safe distance from other vehicles.
The black Tesla had left a freeway and was moving at a high rate of speed when it ran a red light and slammed into a Honda Civic at an intersection, police said.
Another Tesla crash killed a woman Sunday in Indiana. State police said the driver, Derrick N. Monet, 25, of Prescott Valley, Arizona, was seriously injured after he rear-ended a fire truck parked along Interstate 70 in Putnam County. His wife, Jenna N. Monet, 23, was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Folks, Tesla’s Autopilot is starting to attract the attention of regulators and I suspect the lawyers will soon follow. It will be curious how the company responds when it finally gets held to the same standards as other automakers.
NHTSA … has inspected a total of 13 crashes involving Tesla vehicles that the agency believed were operating on the Autopilot system. Results were published in two of those cases, one of which involved Autopilot. Results are pending in the other 10 cases, the agency said in a statement.
Not only is the Autopilot system being looked at for deaths, but a lawsuit in Florida is underway concerning the vehicle’s door design. The door handles retract into the door. A Tesla involved in a crash resulted in the driver’s door failing to open because electrical power was lost in the vehicle. This resulted in failed rescue attempts to save the driver while the vehicle burned.
Omar Awan was driving his dream car when he lost control. The sleek, blue Model S Tesla careened across a road in South Florida and slammed into a palm tree.
But it wasn’t the crash that killed him, his family’s lawyers said — it was the car’s futuristic design features.
The last moments of Awan’s life were gruesome and excruciating. After the crash, the Tesla’s lithium ion battery caught fire, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit. Smoke — and then flames — filled the car, suffocating Awan and burning him from his feet up. Outside, a crowd gathered but couldn’t help.
That’s because the car’s retractable door handles, which are supposed to “auto-present” when they detect a key fob nearby, malfunctioned and first responders weren’t able to open the doors and save Awan, the suit alleges.
“The fire engulfed the car and burned Dr. Awan beyond recognition — all because the Model S has inaccessible door handles, no other way to open the doors, and an unreasonably dangerous fire risk,” the complaint reads.
Awan’s death is one in a string of recent incidents that have been blamed on Tesla’s innovative technology. A lawsuit stemming from a May 2018 crash that killed two teens also blamed a battery fire for at least one of the deaths.
In Awan’s case and others, the carmaker has argued that high-speed crashes can result in fires whether the car is powered by gasoline or batteries. But Awan survived the crash, and he could have escaped the smoke and fire, too, Grossman said — if only the police officer who arrived on the scene could have opened the car’s doors.
The lawsuit asserts that the features rendered the car “defective” and “dangerous” — the door handles compounding the problem of an “inherently unstable” battery.
“Tesla failed to warn users about the scope and extent of the defective and unreasonably dangerous conditions of the Model S,” the complaint says.
The Broward County autopsy report, obtained by The Washington Post, lists Awan’s cause of death as “inhalation of products of combustion with a contributory cause of death of thermal injuries.”
The medical examiner who responded to the crash wrote that Awan “was not identifiable on scene.” His clothes and hair were burned and a yellow metal ring was found on his left ring finger.
Oh, if you recall the article that I posted a few months ago on Tesla fires, the following will be no surprise to you.
After the crash, and after firefighters extinguished the blaze, Awan’s Tesla was transported to a tow yard. Once there, it reignited and burned again.
Yep, reigniting of the vehicle following a fire is typical for Tesla and other electric cars. In the old days, we called this a Class D fire.
Class D fires involve combustible metals – especially alkali metals like lithium and potassium, alkaline earth metals such as magnesium, and group 4 elements such as titanium and zirconium.
I was looking at a few of the tech websites that I regularly visited when I came across this article by an author that I think is Hindu and even he finally gets it.
The perceived wisdom is that the “War on Christmas” is merely a right-wing delusion and in general companies themselves are deciding to be more inclusive in celebrating the holidays rather than responding to complaints from anti-religious people who are offended by Christmas decorations.
It turns out Microsoft has proven that this was not the case, after responding to a complaint about adding a small Santa hat to VSCode, Microsoft’s open-source IDE.
Due to one complaint by an anonymous guy on the internet, the offending Santa hat was banished.
Here’s the complaint.
The Santa Hat on vscode insiders and pushing of religion is very offensive to me, additionally xmas has cost millions of Jews their lives over the centuries, yet even if that was not the case, pushing religious symbols as part of a product update is completely unacceptable. Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika.
Christian-Schiffer referred to an article on Sefaria listing the sins associated with Christmas which include:
Christmas has always been a holiday celebrated carelessly. For millennia, pagans, Christians, and even Jews have been swept away in the season’s festivities, and very few people ever pause to consider the celebration’s intrinsic meaning, history, or origins.
Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, a Christian god who came to rescue mankind from the “curse of the Torah.”
At its origin, Christmas is a 24-hour declaration that Judaism is no longer valid.
December 25 is a day on which Jews have been shamed, tortured, and murdered.
Many of the most popular Christmas customs – including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are modern incarnations of some extremely offensive and violent rituals
Microsoft responded to the complaint by saying:
@Christian-Schiffer we’re sorry we hurt your and other’s feelings. We’ll remote the Santa Hat.
The author of the article concludes:
In short, the war on Christmas appears to be very real.
Folks, I’m glad whenever other people agree with us—especially, that there really is a war on Christmas. The logical fallacies in the article cited as the reasons to oppose Christmas are frankly ill-informed, inaccurate, and just dumb.
Second, a Santa hat is a winter symbol not a Christian one and people really wear similar hats in certain cultures. Oh, and there is zero proof that the real Saint Nicholas ever wore said hat.
Third, any holiday—Christian or not—can be celebrated by tradition and the real meaning can be forgotten. For example, in the United Stated we celebrate our Independence Day on July Fourth, but do you really believe that our people shun tyranny as a result? No. We have forgotten the reason and lessons of the Revolution. Our current government is much more tyrannical and oppressive than the British rule of the 1770’s. Our tax rates are way higher than those of the Stamp Act and tea taxes imposed by King George back in the day.
Jesus came to rescue mankind from the curse of sin not the Torah. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the Torah and perfectly kept the Law. He ever said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” Matthew 5:17.
Christmas is a 24 hour declaration of nothing anti-Jewish. Where does that come from? Christmas is a 12 day celebration in the Church’s liturgical calendar beginning on December 25th and going thru January 6th.Twelve days of Christmas anyone?Messiah has come, first to the Jews—angels declare peace on earth and goodwill to all men on December 25th and January 6th—known as Epiphany—celebrates salvation coming to the Gentiles, as symbolized by the arrival of the wise men. Jesus was probably not really born in December although the 25th day of a month is mentioned in some early Christian literature. Since we don’t use the same calendar as they did back then, this discussion can’t go much beyond what I have just stated.
Evil doesn’t take a holiday and not all Christians celebrate Christmas on December 25th so what does the fact that someone of a certain faith might be killed on a particular date? I’m sure I could find examples of people from almost any faith group that were killed on December 25; especially, over a span of over 2,000 plus years. I don’t deny that Christians have persecuted Jews at certain points in history but it’s not a teaching of the New Testament or tenant of our faith. In fact, persecution of Jews is the opposite of Christianity properly understood. There’s that pesky command to love our neighbor thing that gets in the way of such behavior.
The claim that popular Christmas customs are all the result of offensive and violent rituals is silly. We give gifts to others as a symbol of peace on earth and goodwill towards men—we keep circling back to this phrase—because God gave us His greatest gift in the form of sending His son to become a man and fulfill the requirements of the Law (Torah) and be the once and for all time sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Santa Claus is a composite of many traditions but Saint Nicholas was a real man that was best known for two things, giving gifts to the poor in the name of Christ and hitting a heretic (Arius) at the Council of Nicaea in about 325 AD. This was the first recorded time that any Christian decked someone in the halls.
Folks, the fact that one anonymous complaint can force a trillion dollar company to change something as trivial and innocuous as a Santa hat should really bother you and I hope it does. Especially when the same company is perfectly willing to repeatedly attack my Christian beliefs on issues of marriage and family and doesn’t care what I think.
A few weeks ago, local media reported something that I had heard from my wife several weeks ago; namely, the shelves were bare at the local Fry’s Electronics store. Mrs. ReallyRight reported that she was assured by Fry’s employees that there was a glitch in their supply chain but that they weren’t going anywhere, the business was here to stay.
Here’s the report:
The parking lot was nearly empty, a sign on the door said “now hiring full-time merchandisers” and inside the store the shelves were largely bare.
On a Saturday afternoon just over two weeks before Christmas, the Toy Land at Fry’s Electronics in Roseville was deserted. There were no customers, there were no toys. One of the few salespeople on the floor said the Fry’s store in Natomas looked the same. He said staff had been told the company was “restructuring.”
Online reports show the same thing is happening at other Fry’s stores around the country and suggest the company is switching to a consignment business model, where shelves are stocked with products that Fry’s doesn’t have to pay for until they are sold.
A Fry’s spokesman told the Dallas Morning News the company is not liquidating or planning to close any stores. Spokesman Manuel Valerio told the Dallas newspaper the company’s 34 stores in nine states will have product again “over the next several weeks,” but that report was published Nov. 15.
Empty shelves @ Fry’s Electronics photo from KOVR-TV
Empty shelves @ Fry’s Electronics photo from KOVR-TV
Sounds to me like they are adopting the Best Buy/grocery store model of selling shelf space to others and just running the cash registers.
So how is this working for Best Buy? In my opinion not that well. I went into Best Buy over the weekend to get an item that I need for a Christmas gift. Much to my surprise, I was the line. There was one cash register open and I was the only one waiting. The good news is that I waited less than a minute. My thought was black what? Nobody is earning money tonight. The store was a ghost town. The employee to customer ratio was about one to one.
Let me know how your retail experience went but based on this, color me concerned about the future of brick and mortar technology stores. Will the rest go the way of the Good Guys and Incredible Universe in 2020?
Here are a few things worth a look as you ponder getting new tech toys for Christmas giving.
1Ring in the New Year with Santa and his creepy friends.
Only four days after installing it, her 8-year-old daughter, Alyssa, heard music and a banging noise coming from the room where the camera was installed.
Alyssa says that when she began looking for the source of the noise, she heard a voice saying, “I’m Santa Claus, don’t you want to be my best friend?”
Lemay says the voice taunted Alyssa and encouraged her to mess up her room and break her TV before her dad came into the room and shut the camera off.
2Lest you think Amazon is the only guys watching whether you are naughty or nice; Facebook is too, but only if you use a smartphone made by Tim Cook.
The glitch affects iPhone owners, who said their camera suddenly switched itself on while they were scrolling through their feed, watching videos or looking at photos.
When people turned the video to full-screen mode and then switched back to Facebook’s normal view, they could see a little open space on the left and the camera app in the background. Several people have tweeted about the bug and it has been replicated by tech journalists.
Daryl Lasafin, a creative director, tweeted: ‘Facebook app on iOS 13.2.2 opens my phone’s rear camera when I open a profile photo swipe down to return (look at the little slit on the left of the video). Is this an app bug or an iOS bug??’
Joshua Maddox, a web designer and digital strategist, tweeted: ‘Found a Facebook security & privacy issue. When the app is open it actively uses the camera. I found a bug in the app that lets you see the camera open behind your feed.’
3However, if you thought Android devices were safer, you’d be very wrong.
The security research team at Checkmarx has made something of a habit of uncovering alarming vulnerabilities, with past disclosures covering Amazon’s Alexa and Tinder. However, a discovery of vulnerabilities affecting Google and Samsung smartphones, with the potential to impact hundreds of millions of Android users, is the biggest to date. What did the researchers discover? Oh, only a way for an attacker to take control of smartphone camera apps and remotely take photos, record video, spy on your conversations by recording them as you lift the phone to your ear, identify your location, and more. All of this performed silently, in the background, with the user none the wiser.
The vulnerabilities themselves (CVE-2019-2234) allowed a rogue application to grab input from the camera, microphone as well as GPS location data, all remotely.
Once the app is installed and started, it would create a persistent connection to that command and control server and then sit and wait for instructions. Closing the app did not close that server connection. What instructions could be sent by the attacker, resulting in what actions? I hope you are sitting down as it’s a lengthy and worrying list.
Take a photo using the smartphone camera and upload it to the command server.
Record video using the smartphone camera and upload it to the command server.
Wait for a voice call to start, by monitoring the smartphone proximity sensor to determine when the phone is held to the ear and record the audio from both sides of the conversation.
During those monitored calls, the attacker could also record video of the user at the same time as capturing audio.
Capture GPS tags from all photos taken and use these to locate the owner on a global map.
Access and copy stored photo and video information, as well as the images captured during an attack.
Operate stealthily by silencing the smartphone while taking photos and recording videos, so no camera shutter sounds to alert the user.
The photo and video recording activity could be initiated regardless of whether the smartphone was unlocked.
Since the whole world is watch you anyway, “you’d better be good for goodness sake…”
4In other news, Tim Cook not only knows whether you’re good or bad but where you are (or have been too).
Apple has admitted that the company still collects location data of iPhones even when the user has turned off location settings. This comes just after a security researcher found that iPhone 11 Pro was collecting data after the location settings were turned off.
KrebsOnSecurity identified the issue and published a video showcasing the location data collection after the user had selected ‘never’ for all individual system services and apps. The researcher then forwarded the issue to Apple who gave a generic reply stating that some services require location data and they continue to collect it even when the user has turned off location settings.
Krebs noted that the statement contradicts with Apple’s claim that users get granular control over sharing their location. Apple hasn’t discussed more about the issue but for now, the company has confirmed that it indeed allow apps to collect location data even when the user has specifically blocked the app from doing so.
5On Christmas, there is a tradition that if you find yourself under the mistletoe with a beautiful woman that you are obligated to kiss her; however, there might be repercussions; especially if you are equipped with a Fitbit.
There’s no ideal way to find out that your partner is cheating on you, but thanks to modern technology, there are at least more ways to learn the truth. This week, NFL Network correspondent Jane Slater has shared the story of how she discovered her boyfriend was being unfaithful after his Fitbit data exposed him.
The couple had both previously synced their Fitbit devices, so when Slater didn’t know where her boyfriend was at 4 o’clock in the morning, she checked her Fitbit account. Let’s just say, he was getting in some exercise.
6Fitbit was just recently purchased by Google although some regulators aren’t sure they want Google to be exposed to Fitbit data.
By next year, the health data Fitbit has on its users today will become Google’s data – a valuable acquisition for Google, undoubtedly, but one that I predict could make consumers uncomfortable.
7Meanwhile, Microsoft discovers that computer users tend to reuse passwords for different accounts. Like no duh. I have an active list of at least forty different online accounts that I frequently use. Its somewhere between inconvenience and impossible to remember them all. I use technology to track my technology access. Microsoft has one password to access all their products on any platform. I guess they decided to look at their users and got a surprise.
Microsoft performed a threat assessment of their services and the users between January and March of this year and the results are shocking. According to the Microsoft threat research team, millions of users are reusing their passwords on Microsoft’s services.
As a part of the threat assessment, Microsoft checked over 3 billion credentials, out of which 44 million Microsoft services and Azure AD accounts matched indicating that the aforementioned accounts were reusing credentials. Microsoft also noted that out of the 3 billion credentials, many were leaked online and the company forced a password reset to ensure the accounts aren’t abused.
Furthermore, Microsoft said that 30% of the reused or modified passwords can be cracked within just 10 guesses.
8Finally, another Tim Cook story, this one from Germany where Apple has been ordered to allow other vendors to use NFC capabilities of the iPhone for pay services other than Apple’s.
We reported in October that Apple was drawing attention from the European Competition Commission over their monopoly over the NFC reader on the iPhone which prevented other payment companies such as banks from supporting contact-less payments directly on the handset.
Instead, banks had to subscribe to Apple Pay and pay Apple a percentage for the privilege. This is in contrast to Android, where users are able to set up any app as their contact-less payment provider.
Today Reuters report that last night a German parliamentary committee voted to force Apple to open up the payment platform on the iPhone. The legislation, which does not name Apple directly, was added as an amendment to an anti-money laundering law.
So that’s it for Friday the 13th. Be careful out there ‘cause lots of tech companies are depending on you so they can monetize your data, fill their coffers, and keep their Asia workforce employed for another year.
Folks, I know I keep harping on Elon Musk and the utopian dream of all electric homes, cars, and life in general but as Clint Eastwood once famously said in one of his many Dirty Harry movies, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
Now
Tesla has hardly any market penetration in the United States but is gaining in popularity in California but not without consequences. As I keep saying, charging these cars is a big deal. Look at the ridiculous lines over the Thanksgiving vacation just to keep Elon’s fleet on the road. Drivers waited up to an hour to get to a charger and then a decent charge takes 45 minutes.
Footage out of Kettleman City, the location of one of the largest supercharging sites boasting up to 40 chargers, shows drivers queued up back-to-back in a line about a half mile long.
Testy drivers attempting to juice up after Black Friday sounded off on social media, claiming the wait time was anywhere from thirty minutes to well over an hour.
Predictions of the future are worse. If 10 percent of California households owned a Tesla and try to charge them overnight, the resulting electric demand would crash the electric grid and that’s assuming PG&E and Southern Cal Edison are maintaining their gear.
As we have previously documented on this blog, given current rates of worldwide mineral production and demand, Great Britain cannot achieve its goal of an all-electric fleet of vehicles by 2040—this calculation is assuming that nobody else in the world like maybe California is simultaneously trying to do the same thing.
Long-term
Worse yet, another battery (pun intended) of reports has even more dire warnings about our dependence on technology. At current rates of production, six vital minerals used in high tech devices like self-driving cars and smartphones will be gone within 100 years.
Besides the raw waste, mobile devices contain “conflict elements” like gold, toxic elements such as arsenic and rare elements like indium, the Royal Society of Chemistry said. “Natural sources of six of the elements found in mobile phones are set to run out within the next 100 years,” it added.
Another concern over the recycling of unused devices is that they often contain what are known as “conflict elements” such as tin, gold, tungsten and tantalum, which are mined in areas where battles and child labour are often a routine part of their mining.
“There are about 30 different elements just in a smartphone,” said Elisabeth Ratcliffe from the Royal Society of Chemistry, “and many of them are very rare.”
The metal indium, she explained, is used in a unique compound called indium tin oxide, which is vital for touch screens, because it conducts electricity and is transparent. “It’s also used in solar panels, so we’re going to need a lot of it in the future.
“There’s not a lot of it in the Earth and you need a kilo of ore to extract just a few milligrams of indium.”
Most of us will not have heard of tantalum, but it’s a highly corrosion-resistant metal that is “perfect for small electronic devices like our phones”, explained Ms Ratcliffe. “But it’s also perfect for hearing aids and pace-makers,” she told BBC News.
Scientists estimate that indium and tantalum mines, among others, could run out within a century. Meanwhile, our demand for new technology continues to increase.
“Even the copper in all that wire is not endlessly abundant,” added Ms Ratcliffe.
Elements in smart phones that could run out within the next 100 years
Gallium: Used in medical thermometers, LEDs, solar panels, telescopes and has possible anti-cancer properties;
Arsenic: Used in fireworks, as a wood preserver;
Silver: Used in mirrors, reactive lenses that darken in sunlight, antibacterial clothing and gloves for use with touch-screens;
Indium: Used in transistors, microchips, fire-sprinkler systems, as a coating for ball-bearings in Formula One cars and solar panels;
Yttrium: Used in white LED lights, camera lenses and can be used to treat some cancers;
Tantalum: Used in surgical implants, electrodes for neon lights, turbine blades, rocket nozzles and nose caps for supersonic aircraft, hearing aids and pacemakers.
Before this series of articles, I’d never heard the term “conflict elements.” I guess folks were successful with turning “conflict diamonds” into “blood diamonds” so I guess now we can call things “blood Teslas” or “blood iPhones” or “blood solar panels”, the possibilities are seemingly endless. Oh, and child/slave labor also gets a shout-out in these articles too.
It seems that Liberals are torn between telling you to recycle your old gizmos and guilt tripping folks that love technology. Maybe they’ll try doing both. Folks look for this pending shortage to be a way to raise even more taxes on recycling when you buy new stuff—even if it really ends up in the landfill. And if the predictions start to pan-out as being true, look for Elon Musk to propose mining asteroids, the Moon, or some other astronomical body to keep our stuff in production.
Bottom-line: Government planners and technology manufacturers seem to be on a collision course with reality. Mineral production is far less than long term demand and nothing will change that anytime soon.
Lastly, look for this as a future way to weaponize a movement against technology for the masses.
