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Category: law enforcement – Page 19

Tune in tomorrow (Thursday, Nov 10, 2016) at 4:30PM Eastern. Find out what Edward Snowden has to say on the future of the US. [Source: StartPage via Engadget]

edward-snowden

American technology policies could change significantly under Donald Trump, and that includes its stance on privacy. How will the new leader alter government surveillance, for example? Edward Snowden might have an answer. The whistleblower and Dutch search engine StartPage are hosting a live event on November 10th at 4:30PM Eastern to address what happens to privacy in the Trump era, among other questions. Snowden speaking engagements are nothing new, but this is special — he’s more than a little familiar with government spying activities, and this is his first chance to opine on how things might be different under a new administration.

Snowden hasn’t said much of anything about the subject as of this writing. However, Trump doesn’t exactly have a stellar record on internet privacy so far. He has proposed reauthorizing the Patriot Act and the previous, less restrained NSA mass surveillance that took place while the Act was in force. He tends to “err on the side of security” over privacy, even if he’s not especially fond of it. As such, Snowden probably won’t have many kind things to say. He’s in favor of more privacy wherever possible, and that could easily put him at greater odds with the US government than he is now.

A Chinese man has been sentenced to three years in a U.S. prison for conspiring to steal high-tech U.S. corn seeds with the intention of transporting them to China, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday.

Mo Hailong, 46, pleaded guilty in January in federal court in Iowa to conspiring to steal patented corn seeds from DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto Co. Mo was employed as director of the international business of the Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co Ltd.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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SEOUL: China is investigating executives of a North Korean bank believed to finance the illicit procurement of arms and materials related to the isolated country’s banned nuclear programme, South Korea’s JoongAng Daily reported on Monday.

China and the United States have agreed to step up cooperation in the U.N. Security Council and in law enforcement channels after North Korea’s fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9, the White House said last week.

While China is North Korea’s sole major ally, it disapproves of its nuclear and missile programmes.

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My new story for VentureBeat on the coming of robot bodyguards. I’ll be speaking about this next week at RoboBusiness 2016, a major robotics conference in San Jose:

I recently consulted with the US Navy on all things “transhuman.” In those conversations about how science and technology can help the human race evolve beyond its natural limits, it was clear that military is keen on replacing human soldiers with both fighting and peacekeeping machines so American military lives never have to come under fire or be in harm’s way.

However, it’s the peacekeeping technology that is particularly interesting for many civilians. While you wouldn’t want an armed Terminator in your home, you might like a robot that travels with you and offers personal protection, like a bodyguard. In a survey by Travelzoo of 6,000 participants, nearly 80 percent of people said they expect robots to be a significant part of their lives by 2020 — and that those robots might even join them on holidays.

The robotics industry is already considering this, and recently debuted some security models. A few months ago China came out with its Anbot, which can taser people and be used for riot control. And South Korea already uses mobile robot guards in its prisons. Even in San Francisco, you can rent out robot guards to protect your businesses and property. However, the rent-a-robot company, Knightscope, recently came under fire for accidentally running over a toddler at the Stanford Shopping Center.

Continue reading “The robot bodyguard is coming — and you’ll want one” | >

Interesting — imagine now how this can be used in so many areas (legal/ law enforcement, government, etc.)

Because that’s basically what researchers from MIT and Georgia Tech are able to do with a new imaging system that can read individual pages without opening the cover.

So far the system, designed by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been able to distinguish the lines on the first nine pages in a stack of paper.

MIT researchers are developing a camera system that can read closed books.

Continue reading “Scientists Can Now Read Books Without Opening Them” | >

I see a future in TSA, FBI, CIA, local law enforcement, insurance companies’ fraud units, etc.

Purdue is leading part of an international effort to develop a system for the military that would detect doctored images and video and determine specifically how they were manipulated.

“This team has some of the most senior and skilled people out there in the field, some of whom helped to create the area of media forensics,” said Edward Delp, Purdue’s Charles William Harrison Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, in a press release.

The project is funded over four years with a $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The research also involves the University of Notre Dame, New York University, University of Southern California, University of Siena in Italy, Politecnico di Milano in Italy, and University of Campinas, in Brazil.

Continue reading “System might detect doctored images and videos for the military” | >

Dark Net v. Law Enforcement — who is winning and who is struggling.

The Dark web is a privileged place for cyber criminals that, under specific conditions, could operate in anonymity.

The United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has published its annual report that contains a specific mention to the illicit trade of goods and drugs in this hidden part of the web.

The crooks seem to be one step ahead many countries’ law enforcement agencies that in many cases are not able to target black markets in the dark web.

Continue reading “Law enforcement and the Dark Web, a never ending battle” | >

Their back.

Cyber Mafias The internet has always been the most preferred platform for carrying out illicit activities. The underground black markets are not a new phenomenon in the virtual world. However, these black markets are now becoming more sophisticated and organized. Darkness is one such underground marketplaces which are rising and becoming uglier. Though law enforcement agencies have brought down the number of such illegal platforms, the Darknet markets are up and running. Darknet markets are growing bigger than ever with over $50 million UDS transactions reportedly flowing through these marketplaces and it is a big challenge in front of security agencies and governments to finish this underground industry from its roots.

Decoding Darknet

As the name suggests, the Darknet market, also known as Cryoto market is a commercial website on the dark web that operates via darkness such as Tor and I2P. These markets primarily indulged in illicit activities such as drug peddling, trade of cyber-arms and weapons, counterfeited currencies, stolen credit card details, forged documents and other illicit goods. Though Darknet started gaining popularity from 2006 onwards, the traces of underground market lie in the early 70s when students at Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology created, dubbed as the first Darknet marketplace, ‘ARPANET’ to purchase cannabis. Since then, many such dark markets have mushroomed such as Cyber-arms Bazaar, ShadowCrew, the Farmer’s Market, Silk Market 2.0, Agora, AlphaBay etc.

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