Pegasus

Pegasus spyware can bypass your cellphone’s security and access your emails, messages, GPS location, photos, video, and even turn on your phone’s microphone. Manufacturer NSO Group has sold Pegasus to some of the world’s most oppressive regimes. These clients have used to spy on journalists, world figures, and human rights groups. Read about The Guardian‘s extensive investigation.

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Mobile is Murdering the Cyber Café

Internet Cafés are an endangered species. Why? Because everyone has a smartphone now, even in Rwanda, Bangladesh, China, India and Nigeria. In the USA, some cyber cafés are staying solvent by offering an extra amenity: Illegal gambling.

More:

“Internet cafes in the developing world find out what happens when everyone gets a smartphone,” Newley Purnell, Quartz

“No takers: After the smartphone boom, cybercafés dying a slow death in Mumbai,” Debasish Panigrahi, Hindustan Times

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Image (“Au Cyber Cafe, after Jean Béraud”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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Cellphone Spies in the Sky

The Wall Street Journal reports that, for the last seven years, the U.S. Marshals Service has flown Cessna aircraft over America’s cities, collecting cellphone location data from thousands of people with “dirtbox” devices that mimic cellular towers. The Marshals Service, a unit of the Department of Justice, predominately searches for federal fugitives, but its Special Operations Group conducts “tactical operations for sensitive and classified missions involving homeland security, national emergencies, domestic crises and the intelligence community.” Flying spying and data harvesting on such a broad scale raises serious Fourth Amendment questions.

More:

“Report: Secret government program uses aircraft for mass cellphone surveillance,” Gail Sullivan, Washington Post

“WSJ: A Secret U.S. Spy Program Is Using Planes to Target Cell Phones,” Kate Knibbs, Gizmodo

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Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-kdB

Image (“Flying Phone Spy, after a 1964 comic book”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com 

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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Push for Pizza

And they say American Innovation is dead.

“Push For Pizza sounds like something a stoned teenager would come up with while weighing the pros and cons of ordering food late at night: ‘I’m super hungry, but I don’t want to interact with people or decide between a bunch of options. If only there were another way…’”

— “Push For Pizza Is Yo For Food Delivery,” Kyle Russell, Techcrunch