|Friday, August 23, 2019

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Technology

Big Tech censorship or government moderation?

For the most part, it is evident that expression should not be moderated, cured and certainly not censored, but both the great communication monopoly holders and the governments coincide in wanting to “edit” what their users say on internet platforms. The fact that some private companies have control over what happens on social networks is not good at all. But can government intervene? Should government intervene to level the ...Read full article...

Apple suspends spying: Hold the Cheers

Until now, none of the three major tech giants Google, Amazon and Apple have been transparent in explaining to users who listens to their conversations. For many privacy advocates, the day these companies are subdued in their attempts to learn everything about their users, could be around the corner. For starters, Apple says it has suspended the program for listening to user conversations which operates via Siri. The Cupertino ...Read full article...

There is no anonymity or privacy on the web

The Internet is full of personal information that many times we happily deliver to the big internet technology companies. There are also many data that, in principle, have been anonymized – which have been stripped of any detail that allows us to identify ourselves – and which we have given our consent to be public. We refer, for example, to medical information used for research purposes or census information. ...Read full article...

13,000 apps spy on you without permission

The case of FaceApp, the application that uses artificial intelligence to age a face, has put the spotlight on a common trend to which more users are paying attention. When FaceApp is installed, it warns that all user data will be used and even transferred to third parties, so by agreeing to its terms and conditions, users lose control of their privacy. Unfortunately, few users pay attention to the ...Read full article...

When blame is misdirected, everyone becomes the victim

Weapons of mass murder are blamed for the crimes committed by a few with the intention to disarm us all. In the same way, digital platforms are blamed for homophobia, racism and anti-feminism to censor us all. It is true, the Internet is not reality, but it is also true that it is cyber reality. Social networks are today’s public squares. Facebook and Twitter are platforms for dialogue, exchange of ...Read full article...

Will technology be humanity’s ruin?

As presented in many Hollywood movies the technological race will also create a group of “drop-offs” that will be the growing field of new terrorism. The emergence of new technologies without the anticipation of their effects on work, privacy or political and social relations generates technophobia, a fear of technologies that will be the trigger for a new wave of terrorism in the next two decades. At least, that ...Read full article...

Trump Administration puts the magnifying glass on Big Tech

Last Monday the alarms went off on Wall Street. Google, Amazon and Facebook fell sharply on the stock market after it was divulged that US authorities are closing in on possible monopolistic practices by those companies and Apple. The US House of Representatives announced that it was opening an investigation into this matter. According to The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, the US Department of Justice is ...Read full article...

1984-style Totalitarian control is already in your home

The dystopia imagined by George Orwell in his book 1984 is the most recurrent example when we want to explain what a dictatorial society we live in right now. The novel, which was not meant to be a manual for current governments and technology companies, but that has become just that, describes a State that is governed by Big Brother through a series of mechanisms and devices that, far ...Read full article...

Internet interaction: Compulsive, competitive and anxious

The obsession with metrics on the Internet, by the number of our followers who say I like it, leads us to compulsive, competitive and anxious behavior, and pushes us to create more and more content pursuing an opaque idea of social success. To combat this crazy desire to like companies are now offering software that hides all the data in social networks, with the intention of curbing the apparent ...Read full article...

This is the virtual world where your identity lives

The virtual world is painted as an invisible environment that we do not see or touch, but which in reality is very palpable. The Cloud, or The Clouds, seem to be empty spaces located somewhere we do not know or understand where they are, but it is closer than we think. The Cloud is not a cushy place. Moreover, it is not even in heaven. It is anchored in ...Read full article...

Internet: It’s all about Surveillance and little about Democracy

The Internet was, from its inception, financed and promoted by the Pentagon and Wall Street. One is tempted to miss the simpler and optimistic times before the internet was out of control, or perhaps, too much under the control of so few. In a manifesto published in September 2018, Tim Berners-Lee himself recognized that “despite all the good that we have achieved, the Internet has become an engine division ...Read full article...

The terrifying future of facial recognition

Although we do not notice it, automatic learning is an element present in our lives. Different algorithms learn on their own and choose the ads we see, identify us when we cross borders, let our cars know when they have to brake, etc. Among all these cases, facial recognition is perhaps the most powerful. Current technology allows us to recognize tens of thousands of points of our face in ...Read full article...

This is how Google and social networks erode our ability to think

The Internet has turned the human being into a superficial animal, far from the depth that is presupposed to his reasoning. Twitter is just a place to express personal minutiae. It offers a refuge for insignificance because that is what opinions without facts are: insignificant. We have lost our innocence with respect to the digital realm. We have become disillusioned. Social networks are infested with people with depression, anxiety, ...Read full article...

Technology shapes our human identity

The human essence is modified by technology every day. We can’t see it or feel it. It just happens every time we interact with computers, cellphones, tablets and other devices. Advances in the digital era lead us to new brain-machine interfaces that could modify our mental abilities, for better and for worse. We know that human brains have been changing, adapting and developing for centuries in response to external ...Read full article...

Digital Isolation may be the only way to protect yourself from cyber crimes

Powerful governments understand the dangers of being on the grid and are already creating their own internet infrastructure, independent of the world wide web. A good part of the soldiers of our day does not carry firearms. Not even knives, unless the keyboard of a computer or a wireless mouse can be considered sharp elements. Neither are the battlefields the same: wars between nations take place on the internet and ...Read full article...