What You Need to Know about Iran’s Surveillance Tech

Posted on November 11, 2022 by esimantiras

What You Need to Know about Iran’s Surveillance Tech

source: scientificamerican.com | image: pexels.com

Scientific American technology editor Sophie Bushwick explains how Iran is using surveillance tech against vulnerable citizens.

Tulika Bose: This is 60-Second Science. I’m Tulika Bose. Iranians have been fiercely and relentlessly protesting against their government. This was sparked by the death of a 22-year old Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini who died in the custody of the country’s “morality police.” The demonstrations have been led by young women, who refused to accept restrictive laws like hijab requirements, but authorities have been cracking down with violence, arrests, and with surveillance. I’m here with Sophie Bushwick, our tech editor at Scientific American. Sophie interviewed Amir Rashidi, who is the director of digital rights and security at Miaan Group, an Austin, Texas based advocacy organization working to improve human rights in Iran.

Bose: Hey, Sophie.

Sophie Bushwick: Hi. Sophie.

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FBI investigation details former CIA operative’s efforts…

Posted on November 11, 2022 by esimantiras

FBI investigation details former CIA operative’s efforts to help Qatar’s World Cup bid, influence US policy

source: wfin.com | image: pexels.com

An FBI investigation into alleged unlawful activity to help Qatar obtain World Cup 2022 hosting privileges may have extended further to help improve Qatar’s image in the U.S. and influence U.S. policy, according to an Associated Press report.

The initial investigation focused on former CIA officer Kevin Chalker’s work to help Qatar through alleged foreign lobbying, surveillance and exporting sensitive information to undermine the country’s rivals in bidding for the World Cup, according to individuals with knowledge of the investigation.

Chalker’s company Global Risk Advisors employed a number of methods, such as a Facebook “honeypot” trap, in which an attractive woman connected with a target, or someone posed as a photojournalist to keep tabs on one nation’s bid.

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Microsoft Warns of Uptick in Hackers Leveraging…

Posted on November 11, 2022 by esimantiras

Microsoft Warns of Uptick in Hackers Leveraging Publicly-Disclosed 0-Day Vulnerabilities

source: thehackernews.com | image: pexels.com

Microsoft is warning of an uptick among nation-state and criminal actors increasingly leveraging publicly-disclosed zero-day vulnerabilities for breaching target environments.

The tech giant, in its 114-page Digital Defense Report, said it has “observed a reduction in the time between the announcement of a vulnerability and the commoditization of that vulnerability,” making it imperative that organizations patch such exploits in a timely manner.

This also corroborates with an April 2022 advisory from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which found that bad actors are “aggressively” targeting newly disclosed software bugs against broad targets globally.

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Web inventor wants us to ‘ignore’ Web3…

Posted on November 11, 2022 by esimantiras

Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee wants us to ‘ignore’ Web3: ‘Web3 is not the web at all’

source: cnbc.com | image: pexels.com

LISBON, Portugal — The creator of the web isn’t sold on crypto visionaries’ plan for its future and says we should “ignore” it.

Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989, said Friday that he doesn’t view blockchain as a viable solution for building the next iteration of the internet.

He has his own web decentralization project called Solid.

“It’s important to clarify in order to discuss the impacts of new technology,” said Berners-Lee, speaking onstage at the Web Summit event in Lisbon. “You have to understand what the terms mean that we’re discussing actually mean, beyond the buzzwords.”

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What You Need to Know about Iran’s Surveillance Tech

Full Transcript

FBI investigation details former CIA operative’s efforts to help Qatar’s World Cup bid, influence US policy

Microsoft Warns of Uptick in Hackers Leveraging Publicly-Disclosed 0-Day Vulnerabilities

Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee wants us to ‘ignore’ Web3: ‘Web3 is not the web at all’