Tag Archives: Surveillance

Artificial Intelligence, Business, Magazines, Reviews, Technology

MIT Technology Review – March/April 2025 Preview

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MIT Technology Review

MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW (February 26, 2025): The ‘Relationships Issue’ features AI, Automation, and Surveillance will improve productivity. Or else.

This issue explores the many ways technology is transforming our relationships, from the AI chatbot revolution that’s changing how we connect with one another to the increasing power imbalance in the workplace that’s happening as monitoring increases and protections fall far behind. Plus animating ancient animals, lab-grown spandex, and adventures in the genetic time machine.

The AI relationship revolution is already here

Chatbots are rapidly changing how we connect to each other—and ourselves. We’re never going back.

Adventures in the genetic time machine

Ancient DNA is telling us more and more about humans and environments long past. Could it also help rescue the future?

Your boss is watching

Monitoring technology is increasing the power imbalance between companies and workers. Protections lag far behind.

Analysis, Economics, Finance, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Technology Report: “Spycraft” – July 6, 2024

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Technology Quarterly: Watching the watchers

The Economist SPECIAL REPORTS (July 2, 2024): The ‘Watching The Watchers’ issue features Tools of the spy trade have changed and so has the world in which they are used, says Shashank Joshi

The tools of global spycraft have changed

Illustration of two magnifying glasses with eyes inside on a background of digital files and pointing cursors.
illustration: claire merchlinsky

And so has the world in which they are used, says Shashank Joshi

Afew years ago intelligence analysts observed that internet-connected cctv cameras in Taiwan and South Korea were inexplicably talking to vital parts of the Indian power grid. The strange connection turned out to be a deliberately circuitous route by which Chinese spies were communicating with malware they had previously buried deep inside crucial parts of the Indian grid (presumably to enable future sabotage). The analysts spotted it because they were scanning the internet to look for “command and control” (c2) nodes—such as cameras—that hackers use as stepping stones to their victims.

Ubiquitous technical surveillance has made spying more difficult

Signals intelligence has become a cyber-activity

Sometimes the old ways of espionage are the best

Artificial intelligence can speed-sort satellite photos

Private firms and open sources are giving spies a run for their money

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – May 12, 2023

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Times Literary Supplement (May 12, 2023) – This week’s @TheTLS, features Peter Thonemann on The Triumph of the West; @joemoransblog on imagination; @michaelscaines on The Motive and the Cue; @DrAliceKelly on graphic novelizations of Gatsby; @helenlpgordon on stones; @rinireg on surveillance – and more.