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January 27, 2015 Peter Yeh

The GHOST vulnerability is the hot new software bug and the end is nigh. It lets anyone take over a vulnerable Linux machine without knowing anything prior about it. Google, Facebook, and most of the internet runs on Linux, so this is a problem, a big one. WHAT THE FUCK GHOST means attackers could take […]

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November 12, 2014 Rhett Jones

Jon Rafman’s 9-Eyes Of Google Street View project showed us just how unsettling and surreal images captured around the world by Google’s surveillance van can be.  Rafman travels the streets of the world from the comfort of his home, snapping screenshots of the most striking vignettes. Sometimes he finds surprising violence in broad daylight, other times an […]

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October 7, 2014 Rhett Jones

Titan — the outdoor advertising company responsible for placings ads on pay phone booths throughout the city and equipping hundreds of them with “beacons” that track passing cellphones — has announced that they will get rid of the controversial devices. A City Hall spokesman tells Buzzfeed that the pseudo-surveillance gizmos “will be removed over the coming days.” Gimbal, the […]

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October 6, 2014 Rhett Jones

Hundreds of “beacons” have been installed in phone booths throughout New York City in order to collect data from passing cellphones, bringing us one step closer to dystopian science fiction where ads follow everyone around. Titan, an advertisement placement company, uses the bluetooth enabled devices to push ads to a phone and transmit “anonymous” data to a third-party server. As […]

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August 6, 2014 Peter Yeh

A hacktivist calling himself Phineas Fisher, has hacked into Gamma International, a UK-based spyware company that makes malware for governments, and leaked 40 GB of internal documents including the source code of their premier spy agency tool, FinSpy or FinFisher. The tools’ source has been released on BitTorrent, meaning now you too can be your […]

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October 14, 2013 Marina Galperina

Activist? Hacker? About to have your cover blown, your data drive read or your phone searched? Not to worry. From F.A.T. artist Addie Wagenknecht, meet Prism Break Barbie.  The Barbie is equipped with a 3-inch and .6 ounces concealed spring-loaded spike which can be activated by hand or by sitting the doll on a USB or […]

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October 4, 2013 Kyle Chayka

Artist and composer Ben Grosser created a new Google Chrome extension that, when enabled, automatically adds a passage of additional algorithmically generated text to your emails containing many of the keywords known to trigger the National Security Agency‘s email surveillance systems. This extension, in theory, works as a trap to not only force these systems to […]

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June 14, 2013 Kyle Chayka

A new piece by artist Jeffrey Alan Scudder allows its participants to play four copies of Grand Theft Auto IV simultaneously, gradually transitioning between each individual game environment. This uncontrollable displacement from one instance of the game to another causes a jarring effect for players of the game. At the same time, it functions as a […]

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March 13, 2013 Marina Galperina

“I wanted to create a game that touched infinity,” Jonathan Minard explains. We’re in the dark lower level of 319 Scholes at the opening Art Hack Day: God Mode. To his right, bio-glitch artists in lab-coats explain How to be Anonymous in the Age of the DNA Surveillance. Behind him, visitors wave their arms, commanding mountains to morph […]

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March 12, 2013 Marina Galperina

We’ve been having a lot of fun with the Vine, adapting the nifty 6-second video sharing social media app for various creative mischief — with it can do and with what it supposedly can’t. And no, we didn’t ask permission. We made a 20-second Vine! And you can too! Just watch our instructional video below… Vine can’t […]

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