this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024

528 points (99.1% liked)

Technology

60042 readers

1944 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

528

Texas State Police Gear Up for Massive Expansion of Surveillance Tech (www.texasobserver.org)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

104 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web. Tangles’ premier add-on feature, WebLoc, is controversial among digital privacy advocates. Any client who purchases access to WebLoc can track different mobile devices’ movements in a specific, virtual area selected by the user, through a capability called “geofencing.” Users of software like Tangles can do this without a search warrant or subpoena. (In a high-profile ruling, the Fifth Circuit recently held that police cannot compel companies like Google to hand over data obtained through geofencing.) Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products.

WebLoc can even be used to access a device’s mobile ad ID, a string of numbers and letters that acts as a unique identifier for mobile devices in the ad marketing ecosystem, according to a US Office of Naval Intelligence procurement notice.

Wolfie Christl, a public interest researcher and digital rights activist based in Vienna, Austria, argues that data collected for a specific purpose, such as navigation or dating apps, should not be used by different parties for unrelated reasons. “It’s a disaster,” Christl told the Observer. “It’s the largest possible imaginable decontextualization of data. … This cannot be how our future digital society looks like.”

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240827115133/https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-surveillance-tangle-cobwebs/

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Every fucking top comment in this thread are all jokes.

We're officially reddit, there isn't any more intelligent discourse here about important topics, it's all just fucking memes and jokes and 'lol the world is fucked'

Every one of you disgusts me, you are 75% of the reason they KEEP getting away with this shit.

Because they know ALL you will EVER do is meme and joke.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

How dare people cope with something horrible by making jokes. Everyone knows it's impossible to make those jokes while simultaneously being horrified by and pushing back against the thing they're joking about.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Are they? I see ones like

Small government

This is sarcastic, but it's as much of a joke as Stephen Colbert - it's touching on something pretty real. Not sure what's wrong with pointing out hypocrisy.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for stopping the massive expansion of surveillance in Texas.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Your sarcasm is not appreciated, I am willing to do what is needed to be done but the only ideas we have in this thread is jokes.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Let me reframe my previous comment:

If you don't want to network in person locally, you will need to find a forum whose sole purpose is activism and direct action.

It will not be brought to you, and you will not be recruited. You have to actively go seek it out.

The forum you're on now is called "technology". Similar ones, like "news" or literally any other topic that doesn't solely focus on mobilizing activists will not get you what you're asking for here.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Fucking useless bougie navelgazer, I ban you from my internet forever.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

You wield the power. Wield it well.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I appreciate your position. I don't think you're going to start a cultural revolution on any comment section. If you're looking for a place to make real change, you need to network with local communities.

The the best you'll get for "town square" value from internet forums is the expression of sentiment. People are angry, like you are, and they are using humor to literally reframe the narrative to point out the state's fallacy.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

. I don’t think you’re going to start a cultural revolution on any comment section

Where the fuck are they supposed to start then? The internet is our current social method, and places like lemmy the subversive coffee shops where people whisper about putting rags in vodka bottles.

Look a bunch of rancid enthostatists used the internet to organize fucking armed and trained militias that are operating RIGHT NOW, and most of them organized on the web and dark web.

I'm tired of being fractured and ineffectual shitposters all wasting energy telling everyone how terrible every decision they've ever made is. It's DESIGNED to keep us from organizing.

Reddit used to be ideas, I literally watched it in realtime turn to shitposts.

Lemmy is going that same way at a ridiculously rapid pace, LARGELY in fact due to the shitposting and constant thought terminating cliches thrown out as some kind of profound knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

I can't speak to your experience but I've been farting around on the Internet since the mid 90s and I promise nothing ever changes.

Smaller communities tend to be more concise, that is true.

But what you have here is the hand you're dealt. Complaining isn't going to change anything any more thank joking. You can be the change you seek here by suggesting a course of action that isn't asking others to suggest a course of action to you. If you're seeking a course of action, you can try asking here.

But commenters on tech news aren't likely to be expert activists, especially in whatever issue is your top concern.

My best advice to you is

practice acceptance of reality, not as defeat but as the first step to understanding and deciding an action
determine how much capacity you, as a person, have to contribute to a cause
determine one cause you care about and can be effective at contributing to

After doing those things, SEEK OUT like minded groups who have leadership and self discipline and are effective.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Don't worry, it's AI. It won't work properly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It can not work properly in the wrong way though

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

That is the more likely scenario sadly, and the cops will say "don't blame us those kids got killed, we just listened to the AI" and some judge will say "yea, that's ok . the officer did what he was told like he is supposed to, unlike that bus of kindergarteners who didn't lie down and put their hands behind their heads when commanded"

But after they install cameras everywhere and after a bunch of misses despite surveillence on everyone they actually get someone the amount of self back patting and chest puffing will be off the charts.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This might be good for the false negatives but not for the false positives.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Texas law enforcement doesn't need a language model to blame false positives on. They can false positively shoot whomever they want with no reprocussion.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago

Small government.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ahh yes, the freedom loving state. Texas. That's right.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

As a reminder, Texas has been Republican controlled for roughly 28 years.

Texas doesn't have Texan problems; it has Republican ones.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And what would you call that ? A Texas problem. Republicans. Somebody has to vote for the fuckers

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

The venn diagram is a circle.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Make sure to support the government in the next elections so they can spend more public money on "security"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

And they'll "catch" just enough "criminals" (read: non-white people) to give Fox News some metrics they can blow out of proportion for the gullible, rural rubes.

load more comments