Beware of persons wearing Google Glass

Google Glass GlassholesAnother reason they are called Glassholes.

From Wired.com:

Google Glass Snoopers Can Steal Your Passcode With a Glance

by Andy Greenberg

The odds are you can’t make out the PIN of that guy with the sun glaring obliquely off his iPad’s screen across the coffee shop. But if he’s wearing Google Glass or a smartwatch, he probably can see yours.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Lowell found they could use video from wearables like Google Glass and the Samsung smartwatch to surreptitiously pick up four-digit PIN codes typed onto an iPad from almost 10 feet away—and from nearly 150 feet with a high-def camcorder. Their software, which used a custom-coded video recognition algorithm that tracks the shadows from finger taps, could spot the codes even when the video didn’t capture any images on the target devices’ displays.

“I think of this as a kind of alert about Google Glass, smartwatches, all these devices,” says Xinwen Fu, a computer science professor at UMass Lowell who plans to present the findings with his students at the Black Hat security conference in August. “If someone can take a video of you typing on the screen, you lose everything.”

Read the rest of the article carefully; there is good information regarding situational awareness of your surroundings.

Be aware of your passcodes, as you enter them into your phone or your tablet or your iPad or your ATM or any device requiring such a code.  It’s not just people watching; it’s people with devices able to divulge your keystrokes, the placement of your eyes, your fingers, accomplished with apps designed for just such a thing.

BZ

 

Journalist Wearing Google Glass Claims He Was Attacked; Device Smashed In SF Mission District

US-TECHNOLOGY-GOOGLE-GLASSFrom CBS KPIX 5:

by Carlos E. Castañeda

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — A man said he had his Google Glass snatched of his face and smashed to the ground in San Francisco’s Mission District Friday evening.

20-year-old journalist Kyle Russell, a reporter for Business Insider, said the attack happened as he was walking on the sidewalk with a colleague. A woman came up to him and yelled, “Glass!” and grabbed the device off his face and sprinted away, he said.

Russell said he chased the woman through traffic for a block before she stopped and flung the $1,500 device onto the ground, breaking it – then running away again.

Google Glass Tweet 1Let me make a statement, and let there be no mistake: good for her.  Good for the unknown woman who smashed this “man”s” privacy-invading device into the ground.

Because there has to be, there must be, consequences for the invasion of privacy of individuals in our society.

If not lawfully, then societally.

As a cop, I fully realize that anyone and everyone has a complete and full right to record whatever my actions may be in public as a result of my response to various calls.  And that I have no lawful ability to stop said persons from recording my reactions and my events.  That much is certain.

On the other hand, cops are now wearing body and eye cams, as well as implementing LPR technologies.

Fine.  Monitor me as I take a dump at work.  You want to see that, you are welcome to it.

But my off duty time is my off duty time.  And the first person that I see in a bar or in a restaurant or in line awaiting service for something/anything or recording “casually” my life on Google Glass will be rewarded with an unfortunate result.

My private life does not exist as an entertainment value for someone else, to be immured for infinity on a hard drive or the internet.  I do not exist for your “amusement” or for your pleasure or for your diversion.

Meaning: if I see you recording me in a private venue via Google Glass, things won’t go well.  For you, I mean.

And clearly I’m not alone.

BZ

 

The average person: now violating your privacy

Civilian Body CamsMany police and sheriff departments throughout the nation are moving to body cams for their officers.  Some units reside in glasses that are worn; some are located on the shoulder epaulets.  Some clip to the front of the shirt.

Police Body-Glasses CamThough not all agencies have aligned themselves with these units, and some agencies are struggling with the policies to attend their utilization, there is an excellent chance that if you now come in contact with a law enforcement officer these days — including officers on motors — you are either on a dashcam or a body cam, or both.

Now, there are two new cams becoming more popular with the public, the Narrative and the Autographer.  From this article in the Wall Street Journal, the reviewer believes:

by Geoffrey A. Fowler

I’ve been snapping photos of everything in front of me for the last week. If we’ve passed, even for a moment, I probably have a picture of your face.

I’m not a spy, but I’ve been using gear you might associate with 007. New matchbook-size cameras that clip to your tie or shirt let you capture a day’s worth of encounters, then upload them to the Internet to be remembered forever.

Why on Earth would anybody want to do that? After trying out two devices that recently began shipping, the $279 Narrative Clip and $399 Autographer, I think the answer for many will be why wouldn’t you?

Allow me to reply.  Why would you?  If you’re a large chunk of a self-centered asshole, perhaps you would.  The author readily admits: if I walked by you, I have you caught on my cam.  It’s not a terribly unforeseen thing that your location and the time of your presence there could easily be determined.  At best, creepy; at worst, I’m going to punch you in the face for recording me.

But there’s a cost to amassing so much photographic evidence. The tiny cameras made others uncomfortable when they found out they were being recorded. Some friends wouldn’t hug me; gossiping colleagues kept asking, “Is that thing on?” These devices upset a fundamental (though arguably flawed) assumption that even in public, you aren’t being recorded.

Makes you squirm, doesn’t it? One reason I wanted to review these cameras is that this kind of technology isn’t going away. “Always on” cameras are becoming popular in home electronics like the Xbox One and a new wave of streaming video security systems. Now you can buy cameras that attach to your wrist, ear, bike helmet and eyeglasses. They’re also fast becoming part of the uniforms of cops, soldiers and doctors.

Your thoughts?

Is this really where you want technology to go?  Where we want our civilization to go?

I say: this isn’t my world.  I once had actual privacy.  I’d like to at least kid myself for a few more years that I have a partial semblance of privacy left.

Do you really want to live in a country where your every waking moment is watched, gauged, monitored, prone to greater regulations and enforcement, and subject to critical examination from now until the end of time?

I’m not a robot, I’m a human being.

The cops don’t have a choice.

You do.

BZ

 

Fornicalia seeks a replacement for the license plate — RFID chipping your car?

Big Brother B&WA Fornicalia government insider brought this to my attention, with some salient comments.  First, the confirmation that this is not a pie-in-the-sky idea.  From GCN.com (and please read the entire story):

California pilots electronic license plates — will other states follow?

California is piloting electronic license plates to improve efficiency,  lower the cost of DMV vehicle registration services and eliminate the need for vehicle owners, particularly fleet owners, to receive physical registration tags by mail, according to a bill analysis by California’s Senate Rules Committee. 

The Assembly Appropriations Committee said it will cost less than $50,000 for the DMV to administer the pilot program and complete the evaluation report. However, the plates most likely will come at a cost for drivers, said David Findlay of Compliance Innovations,  an electronic license plate manufacturer. Findlay told Time magazine the plates could cost around $100, at least five times the price of a typical license plate fee.

The electronic plates would serve as alternatives to California’s traditional metal license plate, plastic-coated registration stickers and paper registration cards. California’s DMV annually registers approximately 26 million vehicles and performs over 10 million renewals.

Senate Bill 806, signed by California Gov. Jerry Brown in early October, calls for the pilot to be established by Jan. 1, 2017. The pilot will be limited to no more than 0.5 percent of registered vehicles and vehicle owners who have voluntarily chosen to participate.

And just what would an “electronic license plate” consist of?  I can only think of one thing: an RFID chip/tag.

RFID Railroad TagThe bulk use of RFID chips began in the railroad industry, with one purpose: to track the locations of railroad cars.

While the bill does not specifically state which devices will be tested, the bill analysis did mention a provider, Smart Plate Mobile, which was incorporated in 2009 and is based in San Francisco, as being “the company most interested in participating in such a pilot project.” Smart Plate Mobile’s plates are computer screens that would take on the size and appearance of a standard California license plate. Since the plates can receive wireless updates from a central server, they could also display additional messages such as “stolen” or “expired.”

Perfect.  Now the state would mandate that you possess a plate which displays EXPIRED if you happen to be either late with fees, or DMV (and this occurs frequently in Fornicalia) screws up your paperwork.

But not just STOLEN or EXPIRED — how about a venue for selling advertisements and making Fornicalia some more revenue, to be given away to more parasites?

A similar bill proposed in California in 2010 would have allowed advertisements to scroll on the screen if a car was stopped for more than three seconds, Ars reported. The ads were envisioned as an additional revenue source for the DMV. The current bill does not include provisions for advertising, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Now your vehicle would be a rolling billboard, and you would have NO CHOICE but to comply.

And just as the NSA has LIED and said it is not tracking your e-mails and cell phones, the state of Fornicalia SWEARS it would not track your vehicle’s movements.  Trust them.

Responding to concerns about tracking expressed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an amendment was added to California’s bill to limit the data exchanged “to that data necessary to display evidence of registration compliance. The department shall not receive or retain any information generated during the pilot program regarding the movement, location or use of a vehicle participating in the pilot program.”

So read this:

Still, Lee Tien, an attorney at Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that while the DMV will not be receiving location information in the pilot, the company providing the plates would, and it would control what is on the plates, reported the Capitol Hill Daily.

And of course, if it’s digital, just like all your private information in ObamaKare, it can be hacked.

RFID chips are the wave of the future, in order to track and force compliance with whatever illegal and freedom-killing government mandate can be conjured.  I already wrote about RFID chips here:

This is a perfect way to track your vehicle, micromanage your life, know where you and your car are all the time, read your location, know your speed at all times, know your rate of acceleration, your rate of deceleration, the weight transfer involved in taking corners, and monitor your every possible vehicle code violation.

You could find yourself instantaneously fined by the government for an infraction and then, in that same instant, have your insurance rates raised or your policy canceled.

Paranoid, am I?

No, just utilizing what I call the Logical Extension.  When has government been able to do a thing, and not done it?  Because, after all, the government has proven itself trustworthy time and time again.

If for no other reason than “for the children.”

Welcome, Big Brother.

BZ

P.S.
And if it’s coming to Fornicalia, you can be assured that “Progressives” in your state are conjuring up the same thing.