If it wasn’t enough that people tag photos on Facebook 100 million times a day, Big Brothering themselves silly, now there’s a handy-dandy new facial recognition web-trinket. You can’t run. You can’t hide behind a “don’t tag me” t-shirt. Facebook will track your mug down for you, in your friends’ albums. Dislike? You’ll have to disable it in Privacy Settings. Until then, enjoy the improved convenience of overexposing yourself and boring the world.
There’s a new law enforcement trend sweeping the nation wherein the police arrest citizens who lawfully videotape them and then charge them with wiretapping and other ridiculous offenses. Read more »
When our sneakers are checking into Foursquare for us, we know that we’ve officially become our own Big Brother and the end is nigh. Stalk-a-rrefic! Beware! Unless you’re boring. Then no one cares you’re at the Bean anyway.
That public school district in Pennsylvania that secretly spied on a student at home by remotely activating a webcam on his school-issued laptop was intensely voyeuristic, “snapping nearly 56,000 images” of students reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The collection included this photo of sleeping high school student Blake Robbins.
According to the Daily News, the NYPD kept a watchful eye during that not as fun as it looks pillow fight in Union Square. Their Intel division conducted surveillance and was there to make sure things didn’t get too out of hand fluffy.
Photo: Marina Galperina
A food-snatching seagull in the UK was one of the many strange images captured by Google’s all pervasive Street View. The thieving scavenger swooped in and stole someone’s french fry in the seaside city of Brighton and the search engine’s cameras caught the getaway. |Daily Mail|
The Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained documents detailing how various federal agencies are using popular social networking sites to gather information for their investigations. Read more »
So, that high school in Philadelphia remotely spying on a student by activating the webcam on his school-issued laptop, while he was at HOME, without his knowledge? A federal judged ordered the school to disable the feature ASAP. It also turns out that the improper behavior the school accused the teen boy of was drugs, a charge he says is way mistaken: “They thought I was selling drugs because they thought I was popping pills when really I was just eating Mike & Ikes.” |FoxPhilly|
A public school in Philadelphia has been sued by the parents of a student recently disciplined by the school. The reason for the discipline and subsequent lawsuit? The school issues laptops to all students and apparently it’s been using the webcams to monitor the students away from school, like, AT HOME. Read more »
Not content with just ruining movies with those piercing emergency warning messages, the state of NY is developing a system that will seize control of video game consoles too in the event of a disaster, bad weather, or an Amber alert. |NYP|
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