Facebook: World’s Most Appalling Spying Machine
Madison Ruppert | Activist Post
A report published by the LondonSunday Times has revealed that Facebook has been accessing and reading the personal text messages of users of their social networking app.
Unfortunately the report itself islocked behind a pay wall, but the report has been partially summarized by Fox News (let’s just hope it’s more accurate than most of their reporting).
Facebook has reportedly even admitted reading the text messages, claiming that they were accessing data without the knowledge of users as part of a trial in an effort to launch their own messaging service.
This is just another piece of evidence which supports statements made by individuals like Julian Assange of WikiLeaks who said in an interview with RT, “Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented.”
It appears that Facebook is not alone, although my readers who have been keeping up on my coverage of Big Brother technology likely assume as much.
Some of the other culprits mentioned in Fox’s summary are Flickr, which is now under the Yahoo! umbrella, as well as Yahoo! Messenger itself.
The Sunday Times also reported that dating site Badoo has accessed the private data of smartphone users while also reporting that some apps allow companies to delve much deeper into the private lives of users.
Some apps apparently can even allow companies to intercept phone calls, although that isn’t all that surprising given that it is essentially what Google is allowing themselves to do with their new privacy policy which is not only impossible to opt-out of, but also steps up their Big Brother practices to new heights.
Of course this is just yet another way the massive and accelerating data collection arms race amongst Silicon Valley giants manifests itself in our lives.
The newspaper’s investigation found that some apps are even capable of hijacking users’ devices in ways which are much more troubling than just the reading of text messages.
This includes YouTube which is apparently able to remotely access and operate smartphone cameras, even the controls of such cameras allowing for photographs or videos to be taken at any time.
It is unclear if the YouTube app automatically loaded on to all Apple iPhones has this capability as well. This would be even more troubling, because it is actually impossible to remove; and newer versions of the iPhone are outfitted with dual cameras, making for a top-notch covert surveillance device.
read on ...
Lissynote: Lovely article to read after hearing Brezinski speaking in 1970 about how they would one day have *up to the minute* files on everyone...( in *The Change* featured video)
Lissynote to FBI/mossad/M16/ASIO/superman/the joker etc : You can listen to my phone calls all day long, search my computer, search my undies for skiddies - you will find I am fairly innocent compared with the capers you jackasses carry on with. So, blog about me all you want but please stop trying to kill me! I am not a useless eater! I am useful! I can make pies! And tell jokes! While stretching!
I'd suggest using ghostery for anybody who wants to surf a little more anonymously. It's a really good free product which lets you know exactly which cookies and bugs are trying to collect info on you at every site you visit (and blocks them too). It's very satisfying watching Gooogle analytics getting batted back. Give it a go:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ghostery.com/about
2342