“Both local police and the FBI are seeking information about individuals who were ‘actively instigating violence’ in Washington, DC, on January 6,” writes Ars Technica. Then they speculate on which tools will be used to find them:
While media organizations took thousands of photos police can use, they also have more advanced technologies at their disposal to identify participants, following what several…
Tag: cell towers
Was this mystery radio signal really from Proxima Centauri?
Astronomers with Breakthrough Listen have detected a mysterious radio signal coming from the direction of the nearest star to the sun, Proxima Centauri. But is it really an alien signal or something more terrestrial? Source: https://earthsky.org/space/wow-signal-2020-blc1-proxima-centauri…
Google’s AI can keep Loon balloons flying for over 300 days in a row
An artificially intelligent pilot created by Google and Loon can keep huge stratospheric balloons in the air for hundreds of days at a time to act as floating cell towers in remote areas Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261369-googles-ai-can-keep-loon-balloons-flying-for-over-300-days-in-a-row/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Alphabet Project Uses Light Beams To Bring Broadband To Remote Regions
An Alphabet X innovation lab project has been working on a high-speed wireless optical communications network that uses beams of light instead of cables or radio waves, and folks in Kenya will be the first to benefit from the fruits of these labors. New Atlas reports: Project Taara, a part of Alphabet’s X moonshot factory, has been working on a wireless…
The NSA’s Guidelines for Protecting Location Data
American’s National Security Agency (NSA) “has shared new guidance with U.S. military and intelligence personnel, suggesting they take additional precautions to safeguard their location data,” reports Engadget. “The agency argues the information devices and apps collect can pose a national security threat.” Ars Technica reports:
The National Security Agency is recommending that some government workers and people generally concerned about privacy turn…
‘5G Just Got Weird’
SuperKendall (Slashdot reader #25,149) shared this review of the recent 5G standards codified by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) in Release 16 (finalized on July 3). “5G just got weird,” writes IEEE Spectrum: 4G and other earlier generations of cellular focused on just that: cellular. But when 3GPP members started gathering to hammer out what 5G could be, there was…
Twitter Struggles To Label Misleading COVID-19 Tweets
Automated technology that Twitter began using this month to label tweets containing coronavirus misinformation is making mistakes, raising concerns about the company’s reliance on artificial intelligence to review content. From a report: On May 11, Twitter started labeling tweets that spread a conspiracy theory about 5G causing the coronavirus. Authorities believe the false theory prompted some people to set fires to…
Cell-Tower Attacks By Idiots Who Claim 5G Spreads COVID-19 Reportedly Hit US
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly issuing alerts to wireless telecom providers and law enforcement agencies about potential attacks on cell towers and telecommunications workers by 5G/coronavirus conspiracy theorists. The DHS warned that there have already been “arson and physical attacks against cell towers in several U.S. states.” The preposterous claim…
The iPhone 11 Pro’s Location Data Puzzler
Brian Krebs: One of the more curious behaviors of Apple’s new iPhone 11 Pro is that it intermittently seeks the user’s location information even when all applications and system services on the phone are individually set to never request this data. Apple says this is by design, but that response seems at odds with the company’s own privacy policy. The privacy…
Israel Accused of Planting Mysterious Spy Devices Near the White House
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: The U.S. government concluded within the past two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cellphone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. But unlike most other occasions when flagrant…