Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘privacy’ category

May 17, 2024

Security Checks Reaching Towards Your Brain

Posted by in categories: ethics, neuroscience, privacy, security

When Descartes said “I think therefore I am” he probably didn’t know that he was answering a security question. Using behavioral or physical characteristics to identify people, biometrics, has gotten a big boost in the EU. The Orwellian sounding HUMABIO (Human Monitoring and Authentication using Biodynamic Indicators and Behavioral Analysis) is a well funded research project that seeks to combine sensor technology with the latest in biometrics to find reliable and non-obtrusive ways to identify people quickly. One of their proposed methods: scanning your brain stem. That’s right, in addition to reading your retinas, looking at your finger prints, and monitoring your voice, the security systems of the future may be scanning your brain.

How could they actually read your brain? What kind of patterns would they use to authenticate your identity? Yeah, that haven’t quite figured that out yet. HUMABIO is still definitely in the “pre-commercial” and “proof of concept” phase. They do have a nice ethics manual to read, and they’ve actually written some “stories” that illustrate the uses of their various works in progress, but they haven’t produced a fieldable instrument yet. In fact, this aspect of the STREP (Specific Targeted Research Project) would hardly be remarkable if we didn’t know more about the available technology from other sources.

May 6, 2024

NSA, FBI Alert on N. Korean Hackers Spoofing Emails from Trusted Sources

Posted by in categories: government, privacy

U.S. government warns of North Korean hackers sending spoofed emails to gather intelligence.

Apr 21, 2024

Artificial intelligence can predict political beliefs from expressionless faces

Posted by in categories: privacy, robotics/AI

Scientists have demonstrated that facial recognition technology can predict a person’s political orientation with a surprising level of accuracy.


Researchers have demonstrated that facial recognition technology can predict political orientation from neutral expressions with notable accuracy, posing significant privacy concerns. This finding suggests our faces may reveal more personal information than previously understood.

Feb 20, 2024

Your fingerprints can be recreated from the sounds made when you swipe on a touchscreen — Chinese and US researchers show new side channel can reproduce fingerprints to enable attacks

Posted by in categories: privacy, security

An interesting new attack on biometric security has been outlined by a group of researchers from China and the US. PrintListener: Uncovering the Vulnerability of Fingerprint Authentication via the Finger Friction Sound [PDF] proposes a side-channel attack on the sophisticated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The attack leverages the sound characteristics of a user’s finger swiping on a touchscreen to extract fingerprint pattern features. Following tests, the researchers assert that they can successfully attack “up to 27.9% of partial fingerprints and 9.3% of complete fingerprints within five attempts at the highest security FAR [False Acceptance Rate] setting of 0.01%.” This is claimed to be the first work that leverages swiping sounds to infer fingerprint information.

Biometric fingerprint security is widespread and widely trusted. If things continue as they are, it is thought that the fingerprint authentication market will be worth nearly $100 billion by 2032. However, organizations and people have become increasingly aware that attackers might want to steal their fingerprints, so some have started to be careful about keeping their fingerprints out of sight, and become sensitive to photos showing their hand details.

Feb 7, 2024

Samsung Galaxy Ring Tipped for Late 2024 Launch: What We Know So Far

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, privacy

A patent from Samsung also suggests the ring will contain a biometric sensor and two narrow screens on the ring’s outside edges to display notifications.

Feb 4, 2024

How to use Apple Vision Pro’s Optic ID authentication

Posted by in categories: privacy, security

The Apple Vision Pro uses Optic ID as biometric authentication for payments and certain visionOS actions. Here’s how it works, and how to use it.

Jan 27, 2024

Documents Show NSA Freaking Out Over Furbies

Posted by in categories: privacy, robotics/AI, security

Their “AI” was considered a threat to security.

Nov 28, 2023

AWS brings Amazon One palm-scanning authentication to the enterprise

Posted by in categories: computing, privacy, security, surveillance

It comes 3 years after Amazon debuted its ‘handy’ authentication service for consumers.

Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary AWS (Amazon Web Services) has lifted the lid on a new palm-scanning identity service that allows companies to authenticate people when entering physical premises.

The announcement comes as part of AWS’s annual Re: Invent conference, which is running in Las Vegas for the duration of this week.

Continue reading “AWS brings Amazon One palm-scanning authentication to the enterprise” »

Oct 30, 2023

Exclusive: G7 to agree AI code of conduct for companies

Posted by in categories: economics, privacy, robotics/AI, security

BRUSSELS, Oct 29 (Reuters) — The Group of Seven industrial countries will on Monday agree a code of conduct for companies developing advanced artificial intelligence systems, a G7 document showed, as governments seek to mitigate the risks and potential misuse of the technology.

The voluntary code of conduct will set a landmark for how major countries govern AI, amid privacy concerns and security risks, the document seen by Reuters showed.

Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) economies made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States, as well as the European Union, kicked off the process in May at a ministerial forum dubbed the “Hiroshima AI process”.

Oct 10, 2023

BBC Will Block ChatGPT AI From Scraping Its Content

Posted by in categories: privacy, robotics/AI

The BBC has blocked the artificial intelligence software behind ChatGPT from accessing or using its content.

The move aligns the BBC with Reuters, Getty Images and other content providers that have taken similar steps over copyright and privacy concerns. Artificial intelligence can repurpose content, creating new text, images and more from the data.

Rhodri Talfan Davies, director of nations at the BBC said the BBC was taking steps to safeguard the interests of licence fee payers as this new technology evolves.

Page 1 of 3012345678Last