Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: surveillance – Page 10

Over the past decade, digital cameras have been widely adopted in various aspects of our society, and are being massively used in mobile phones, security surveillance, autonomous vehicles, and facial recognition. Through these cameras, enormous amounts of image data are being generated, which raises growing concerns about privacy protection.

Some existing methods address these concerns by applying algorithms to conceal sensitive information from the acquired images, such as image blurring or encryption. However, such methods still risk exposure of sensitive data because the raw images are already captured before they undergo digital processing to hide or encrypt the sensitive information. Also, the computation of these algorithms requires additional power consumption. Other efforts were also made to seek solutions to this problem by using customized cameras to downgrade the image quality so that identifiable information can be concealed. However, these approaches sacrifice the overall for all the objects of interest, which is undesired, and they are still vulnerable to adversarial attacks to retrieve the that is recorded.

A new research paper published in eLight demonstrated a new paradigm to achieve privacy-preserving imaging by building a fundamentally new type of imager designed by AI. In their paper, UCLA researchers, led by Professor Aydogan Ozcan, presented a smart design that images only certain types of desired objects, while instantaneously erasing other types of objects from its images without requiring any digital processing.

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A documentary exploring how artificial intelligence is changing life as we know it — from jobs to privacy to a growing rivalry between the U.S. and China.

FRONTLINE investigates the promise and perils of AI and automation, tracing a new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our world, and allow the emergence of a surveillance society.

This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: http://www.pbs.org/donate.

Love FRONTLINE? Find us on the PBS Video App where there are more than 250 FRONTLINE documentaries available for you to watch any time: https://to.pbs.org/FLVideoApp.

Continue reading “In the Age of AI (full documentary) | FRONTLINE” | >

* At Long Last, Mathematical Proof That Black Holes Are Stable * Who Gets to Work in the Digital Economy? * Mice produce rat sperm with technique that could help conservation.

* Quantum computer can simulate infinitely many chaotic particles * Radar / AI & ML: Scaling False Peaks * Cyber security for the human world | George Loukas | TEDx.

* Can Airbnb Outperform a Potential Recession? | WSJ * San Diego joins other cities in restricting cops’ use of surveillance technology * Blue Origin launches crew of 6 to suborbital space, nails landings.

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🗑️ Space junk (space debris, space pollution, space waste, or space garbage) is defunct man-made objects in space (mainly in Earth orbit) that no longer serve a useful function.

👀 And here is how its number has changed over the past 60 years.

*As of January 2021, the US Space Surveillance Network reported 21,901 artificial objects in orbit above the Earth, including 4,450 operational satellites. However, these are just objects large enough to be tracked.

#spacejunk #satellites #earth

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As organizations increasingly look to employ drones for everything from deliveries to pest control to surveillance, safety in the skies is becoming an issue that demands more attention. Regulations around drones and their flight vary widely between countries and regions, but to really start scaling the technology there will need to be more standardization in terms of who can fly where, how fast, how high, etc.

The UK is taking the lead on drone mobility, with an announcement this week of plans to build a 165-mile (265 kilometer) “drone superhighway.” Project Skyway is being led by Altitude Angel, a UK aerospace and unified traffic management company, and involves a consortium of other stakeholders, including British Telecommunications Group.

So how do you build a highway in the air? Picture a corridor of airspace running between various cities, with drones zooming back and forth in the designated segments of sky. The differentiating factor here is that rather than each drone using its own onboard sensors to navigate the route, they all tap into a ground-based network of sensors. This network brings together data from multiple sources to create a real-time, high-resolution moving map of the airspace and guides drones to their destinations.

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If radars wore pants, a lot of them would still be sporting bell-bottoms.

Significant aspects of haven’t fundamentally changed since the 1970s, said Kurt Sorensen, a senior manager who oversees the development of high-performance radio frequency imaging technologies at Sandia National Laboratories. Like a record player, most military-grade systems are still analog.

Now, Sandia is giving radar a major digital makeover. Researchers are working to replace legacy analog radars commonly used by the military with a new, digital, software-defined system called Multi-Mission Radio Frequency Architecture. The overhauled design promises U.S. warfighters unprecedented flexibility and performance during intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations, even against sophisticated adversaries.

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A scientist with the Aeronautical Development Establishment told Defense News that the flight test of the aircraft — also referred to as the Stealth Wing Flying Testbed, or SWiFT — took place to demonstrate its of ability to take off, climb in altitude, cruise midair, navigate to waypoints, descend and land autonomously.

He noted that the next step is to develop a proven autonomous combat surveillance platform. The scientist spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The 1-ton SWiFT platform is powered by a Russian NPO Saturn 36MT turbofan engine. The platform had completed taxi trials in September 2021.

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Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) has blocked dozens of malicious domains and websites used by hack-for-hire groups in attacks targeting high-risk targets worldwide.

Unlike commercial surveillance vendors whose tools are deployed in attacks by clients, hack-for-hire operators are directly involved in attacks and are usually employed by a firm offering such services. In some cases, they can also be “freelance” threat actors.

They’re hired for their hacking skills by clients who lack them or who want to conceal their identity if the attacks are detected and investigated.

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An Israeli military technology startup called Camero-Tech has unveiled a radar-based device that it claims allows soldiers to literally “see through walls,” Insider reports, raising significant questions about surveillance and privacy.

The Xaver 1,000 is a futuristic gadget that can give intelligence units “an unprecedented situational awareness 3D visual picture,” according to the company’s website, and has the ability to detect “live objects (static or dynamic) behind walls and building obstacles.”

That means tactical teams could soon get a highly detailed picture of what’s going on behind a variety of obstructions, allowing them to prepare ahead of breaching urban environments.

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