Category Archives: Science And Technology

Science And Technology

U.S. Senator Seeks Probe into Russian “FaceApp” Due to Security Concerns

FaceApp is currently the most popular app in Google Plays store. The app allows users to edit their photos to make themselves appear older or younger. There are more than 100 million users after celebrities posted pictures, which used the app, on social media went viral.  However the app has raised concerns over user privacy.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the FBI and the FTC, the US consumer protection body, to “look into the national security & privacy risks” The Russian developed app uploads users photos to their own servers raising questions as to the use the company could make to the vast amounts of data they are amassing.

“FaceApp’s location in Russia raises questions regarding how and when the company provides access to the data of U.S. citizens to third parties, including potentially foreign governments,” the New York senator said in a letter to the FBI.

“It would be deeply troubling if the sensitive personal information of US citizens was provided to a hostile foreign power actively engaged in cyber hostilities against the United States,” he added.

Read More: France 24

Science And Technology

Elon Musk’s Neuralink Reveals Plans For Implant to Read Your Thoughts

Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s start up Neuralink has been working on a “brain-machine interface” . This week the secretive start-up revealed it has been testing brain implants on animals, and that it has successfully placed an implant in a monkey brain allowing it to control a computer.

Musk hopes that the implant will be used initially on patients with serious brain injuries of diseases allowing them to communicate their thoughts. He plans to seek FDA approval to begin clinical trials as early as 2020.

Neuralink works by inserting thin strands into the brain, via a tiny robot controlled by a neurosurgeon. The stands then interface with the electrical activity of the brain.

Musk’s worry about the current threat AI poses to humanity is well know. And he hopes his new technology will allow humans and machines to work together in “symbiosis”, so humans will not be left behind in the AI revolution.

Read More: The Guardian 

Science And Technology

Banned Chinese Security Camera’s Almost Impossible to Remove

Federal Agencies have five weeks to remove Chinese security cameras in order to comply with the ban imposed by Congress on such devices.

A complex supply chain and a failure to know if cameras were made in China or have Chinese components which would violate the new laws have meant it is almost impossible to find and remove all Chinese security devices before the ban.

The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA,  Included an amendment that would ban the purchase and use of Chinese security devices this fiscal year. The amendment singles out Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., both of which have raised security concerns with the government and surveillance agencies.

The Chinese government has a 42% stake in Hangzhou Hikvision. And Dahua devises were found in 2017 to have a hidden back doors that unauthorised persons could tap into and send data back to China.

Read More: Bloomberg

Science And Technology

25 Million Android Phones Infected with Malware Hiding in What’s App

It is thought as many as 25 million Android phones have been infected with Malware dubbed Agent Smith. The malware replaces installed apps like What’s App with evil versions that bombard users with adverts.

Most of the infected phones have been in India, however a surprising number have been in the US and UK. The malware has spread via a third party app store 9apps.com, which is owner by China’s Alibaba.

Read More: Forbes

News, Science And Technology

Project Veritas Uncovers Google’s Plans for Social Engineering and To Stop Trump in 2020

Project Veritas has received confidential documents from a Google insider. The documents and information, from the insider, show that since the 2016 election Google have been training their learning algorithms to ensure the narrative fed to those using the platform contains the content they [Google]  want to be heard.

The “Fairness” algorithms are being trained to return searching that fit with the narrative and idea of society they wish to create, thus programming the thinking of their users to agree with that narrative. This also affects YouTube, also owned by Google.

Furthermore Project Veritas has secretly filmed an interview with top Google executive, Jen Gennai, Head of Responsible Innovation, at Google. In the interview she is heard saying:

We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again.

We’re also training our algorithms, like, if 2016 happened again, would we have, would the outcome be different?

Read More: Breitbart

News, Science And Technology

Big Techs Economic Goals: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

In her new book Shoshana Zuboff, Professor at Harvard Business School, outlines the goals of the tech giants like Google and Facebook. Zuboff argues that their “goal is to automate us” by trading in our personal experiences as their raw material. She says we are now in an age of surveillance capitalism.

In an interview with Democracy Now Zuboff explains what this means:

Read More: The Guardian 

Science And Technology

Google and Other Tech Giants Move Business Out of China

Google and other tech giants are making moves to move their business out of China in order to avoid the 25% tariffs being introduced.

Google is reportedly moving the production of servers and motherboards out of the nation.

Wistron Corp, a Taiwanese firm which produces hardware for tech giants like Facebook and Microsoft are also looking to move operations out of China, and perhaps to the U.S.

Read More: The Daily Caller

Science And Technology

Monsanto ordered to pay $2bn in damages to couple

Monsanto the manufactures of the lead brand of weedkiller Round Up, have been ordered to pay a Californian couple $2bn in damages. The couple both contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) cancer after using the weedkiller for 30 years on their property.

Pressure has been mounting on Bayer (the German owners of Monsanto) and Monsanto as more lawsuits have been filed. This is the third successful lawsuit against the company of its kind.

The company has been accused of bullying scientists and “ghostwriting” scientific papers claiming Round Up is safe for years. Their has also been close scrutiny over Monsanto’s relationship with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  who continue to approve the use of glyphosate (the active ingredient in Round Up) despite growing evidence to suggest that it is carcinogenic.

Read More: The Guardian

Connecting The Dots, Science And Technology

California’s “Earthquake Pause” is Leaving Scientists Baffled.

We all grew up being told in school how California is along a major fault line, and that to expect to see a major earthquake there sometime, anytime, soon. Well, scientists are being left baffled by why they have not seen any major ground-rupturing quakes in the region in 100-years.

The computer models they have run for the fault lines in the region say there is only a 0.3% chance of this happening. As a result geophysicists are wondering if something else is causing the “earthquake pause”.

Read More: Live Science