ACLU Surveillance Manifesto
Hacking Pacemakers / Privacy At The Dawn Of Robots / Facebook Hate Agents Revealed
Zack Whittaker writes: Bugs in a popular hospital pump may let attackers alter drug dosages
An infusion pump widely used in hospitals and medical facilities has critical security flaws that allow it to be remotely hijacked and controlled, according to security researchers…healthcare security firm CyberMDX found two vulnerabilities in the Alaris Gateway Workstation, developed by medical device maker Becton Dickinson.
Infusion pumps…control the dispensing of intravenous fluids and medications, like painkillers or insulin. They’re often hooked up to a central monitoring station so medical staff can check on multiple patients at the same time.
But the researchers found that an attacker could install malicious firmware on a pump’s onboard computer, which powers, monitors and controls the infusion pumps. The pumps run on Windows CE, commonly used in pocket PCs before smartphones.
In the worst-case scenario, the researchers said it would be possible to adjust specific commands on the pump — including the infusion rate — on certain versions of the device by installing modified firmware.
The researchers said it was also possible to remotely brick the onboard computer, knocking the pump offline.
The bug was scored a rare maximum score of 10.0 on the industry standard common vulnerability scoring system, according to Homeland Security’s advisory.
Read more about what hospitals are doing to secure such devices and how the FDA is getting involved in cybersecurity of pacemakers and insulin pumps over at TechCrunch.
ACLU posts 50 page report: THE DAWN OF ROBOT SURVEILLANCE — AI, Video Analytics, and Privacy
Imagine a surveillance camera in a typical convenience store in the 1980s. That camera was big and expensive, and connected by a wire running through the wall to a VCR sitting in a back room. There have been significant advances in camera technology in the ensuing decades — in resolution, digitization, storage, and wireless transmission — and cameras have become cheaper and far more prevalent. Still, for all those advances, the social implications of being recorded have not changed: when we walk into a store, we generally expect that the presence of cameras won’t affect us. We expect that our movements will be recorded, and we might feel self-conscious if we notice a camera, especially if we’re doing anything that we feel might attract attention. But unless something dramatic occurs, we generally understand that the videos in which we appear are unlikely to be scrutinized or monitored. All that is about to change.
Today’s capture-and-store video systems are starting to be augmented with active monitoring technology known variously as “video analytics,” “intelligent video analytics,” or “video content analysis.” The goal of this technology is to allow computers not just to record but also to understand the objects and actions that a camera is capturing. This can be used to alert the authorities when something or someone deemed “suspicious” is detected, or to collect detailed information about video subjects for security or marketing purposes. Behind all the dumb video camera “eyes” that record us will increasingly lie ever-smarter “brains” that will be monitoring us. As we will see, technologists are working on teaching computers to do that monitoring in remarkable ways across a broad variety of dimensions.
Elizabeth Vaughn writes: It’s Not Paranoia, You Are Being Watched: Inside Facebook’s New Process To Label You As A ‘Hate Agent’
Breitbart’s Technology analyst Allum Bokhari has obtained a document (from a source within Facebook) which outlines their “process” of tracking an individual’s offline activity to determine if they should be labeled as a “hate agent.”
The document is called the “Hate Agent Policy Review.” It lists a “series of signals” which will establish whether or not one is worthy of this distinction. If your offline behavior meets their criteria, you may be “banned from Facebook.”
According to Bokhari, “these signals include a wide range of on and off-platform behavior.” Here are several examples cited in the document:
If you praise the wrong individual, interview them, or appear at events alongside them.
If you self-identify with or advocate for a “Designated Hateful Ideology.”
If you associate with a “Designated Hate Entity” (one of the examples cited by Facebook as a “hate entity” includes Islam critic Tommy Robinson).
If you have “tattoos of hate symbols or hate slogans.” (The document cites no examples of these, but the media and “anti-racism” advocacy groups increasingly label innocuous items as “hate symbols,” including a cartoon frog and the “OK” hand sign.)
If you possess of “hate paraphernalia.” (The document does not specify what this would include.)
For “statements made in private but later made public.” (Bokhari points out that “Facebook holds vast amounts of information on what you say in public and in private — and as we saw with the Daily Beast doxing story, the platform will publicize private information on their users to assist the media in hitjobs on regular American citizens.)
Paul Joseph Watson was designated as a “hate agent because he praised Tommy Robinson and interviewed him on his YouTube channel.” Others include conservative activist and writer Candace Owens, and conservative author and terrorism expert Brigitte Gabriel and British politicians Carl Benjamin and Anne Marie Waters.
Who will be next on the Silicon Valley gestapo’s hit list? Check it out over at Red State.
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