BEWARE OF THE NEW SPY IN THE SKY - APPLEGOOGLE

APPLEGOOGLE plan military-grade cameras to take powerful satellite images...

By VANESSA ALLEN
DAILY MAIL
June 10, 2012
Image credit above: DRUDGEREPORT

Spy planes able to photograph sunbathers in their back gardens are being deployed by Google and Apple.

The U.S. technology giants are racing to produce aerial maps so detailed they can show up objects just four inches wide.

But campaigners say the technology is a sinister development that brings the surveillance society a step closer.

Hyper-real: 3D mapping services used by C3 Technologies (as purchased by Apple) will form the main part of the software giant's new mapping service.

Google admits it has already sent planes over cities while Apple has acquired a firm using spy-in-the-sky technology that has been tested on at least 20 locations, including London.

Apple’s military-grade cameras are understood to be so powerful they could potentially see into homes through skylights and windows. The technology is similar to that used by intelligence agencies in identifying terrorist targets in Afghanistan.

All powerful: Apple's newly-acquired technology uses military-grade camera equipment to produce realistic 3D maps of big cities and residential streets

Google will use its spy planes to help create 3D maps with much more detail than its satellite-derived Google Earth images.

Apple hopes its rumoured mapping service for the iPhone and iPad will overtake the hugely popular Google Maps

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, warned that privacy risked being sacrificed in a commercial ‘race to the bottom’.

‘The next generation of maps is taking us over the garden fence,’ he warned. ‘You won’t be able to sunbathe in your garden without worrying about an Apple or Google plane buzzing overhead taking pictures.’

He said householders should be asked for their consent before images of their homes go online. Apple is expected to unveil its new mapping applications for its iPhone and other devices today – along with privacy safeguards. Its 3D maps will reportedly show for the first time the sides of tall buildings, such as the Big Ben clock tower.

Google expects by the end of the year to have 3D coverage of towns and cities with a combined population of 300million. It has not revealed any locations so far.

Apple hopes its rumoured mapping service for the iPhone 

and iPad will overtake the hugely popular Google Maps 

Current 3D mapping technology relies on aerial images taken at a much lower resolution than the technology Apple is thought to be using. This means that when users ‘zoom in’, details tend to be lost because of the poor image quality.

Google ran into trouble when it emerged that its Street View cars, which gathered ground-level panoramic photographs for Google Maps, had also harvested personal data from household wifi networks.

Emails, text messages, photographs and documents were taken from unsecured wifi networks all around Britain.

Google claimed it was a mistake even though a senior manager was warned as early as 2007 that the extra information was being captured. Around one in four home networks is thought to be unsecured because they lack password protection.

Little has been revealed about the technology involved in the spy planes used to capture the aerial images.

But they are thought to be able to photograph around 40 square miles every hour, suggesting they would be flying too quickly and at too great a height to access domestic wifi networks.
Like Google Maps, the resulting images would not be streamed live to computers but would provide a snapshot image of the moment the camera passed by.

MILITARY TECHNOLOGY
     Apple’s spy planes are believed to be equipped with technology developed by defence 
     agencies to guide missile strikes.

     Each plane is equipped with multiple cameras taking high-resolution photographs of 
     buildings and landmarks from every possible angle, which are then compiled to make three-
     dimensional images.

     The military-grade images are taken at a height of around 1,600ft, meaning people below 
     are very unlikely to realise they are being photographed.

     The cameras can be installed on planes, helicopters or even unmanned drones, although 
     there are safety restrictions about the use of the latter in Britain.

     A small plane carrying the cameras can photograph up to 100 square kilometres (38.6 
     square miles) every hour.

Google pixellates faces and car number plates but faced criticism after its service showed one recognisable man leaving a sex shop and another being sick in the street.

Amie Stepanovich, of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre in America, said she believed Apple and Google would be forced to blur out homes in the same way Street View pixellates faces.

She said: ‘With satellite images, privacy is built in because you can’t zoom down into a garden. Homeowners need to be asked to opt in to show their property in high definition – otherwise it should be blurred out.’

Apple has previously used Google for its mapping services but last year it emerged it had bought C3 Technologies, a 3D mapping company that uses technology developed by Saab AB, the aerospace and defence company.

At the time C3 had already mapped 20 cities and it is believed to have added more with Apple’s backing. Its photographs have been shot from 1,600ft and one C3 executive described it as ‘Google on steroids’.

There are already 3D maps available online for most big city centres, but the images are often low resolution, meaning they are of little use for navigation and users cannot zoom in on detail.
Critics have argued that Apple and Google will face a backlash if they offer detailed 3D mapping of residential areas in suburbs and rural locations.

CIA chief wants 'smart' gadgets to spy on Americans...well its been happening for a while now, nothing new

CIA Head: We Will Spy On Americans Through Electrical Appliances
Global information surveillance grid being constructed; willing Americans embrace gadgets used to spy on them

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
March 16, 2012

CIA Chief David Petraeus

CIA director David Petraeus has said that the rise of new “smart” gadgets means that Americans are effectively bugging their own homes, saving US spy agencies a job when it identifies any “persons of interest”.

Speaking at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s technology investment operation, Petraeus made the comments when discussing new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously ‘dumb’ home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.
Wired reports the details via its Danger Room Blog: 

“‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”

“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” Petraeus said.

“the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.” the CIA head added.

Petraeus also stated that such devices within the home “change our notions of secrecy”.

Petraeus’ comments come in the same week that one of the biggest microchip companies in the world, ARM, unveiled new processors that are designed to give practically every household appliance an internet connection, in order that they can be remote controlled and operate in tandem with applications.

ARM describes the concept as an “internet of things”.

Where will all the information from such devices be sent and analyzed? It can be no coincidence that the NSA is currently building a monolithic heavily fortified $2 billion facility deep in the Utah desert and surrounded by mountains. The facility is set to go fully live in September 2013.

“The Utah data center is the centerpiece of the Global Information Grid, a military project that will handle yottabytes of data, an amount so huge that there is no other data unit after it.” reports Gizmodo.

Photo: Name Withheld; Digital Manipulation: Jesse Lenz 

“This center—with every listening post, spy satellite and NSA datacenter connected to it, will make the NSA the most powerful spy agency in the world.”

Wired reports that the incoming data is being mined by plugging into telecommunications companies’ switches, essentially the same method the NSA infamously uses for warrantless wiretapping of domestic communications, as exposed six years ago.

Former intelligence analyst turned best selling author James Bamford, has penned a lengthy piece on the NSA facility and warns “It is, in some measure, the realization of the ‘total information awareness’ program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.”

—————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Dangers of Facebook, now a massive government spying machine

The Terrible Truth About Facebook

Uploaded by TheVideoPatriot on Jul 19, 2009
http://youtu.be/UJqGbA2tLww

Think you have any privacy when it comes to a social networking site? Think again. Just take a look at who has invested in the site and open your eyes.
[Video property and courtesy of The Video Patriot`s Channel, please give proper credit and citation]    

Zack says FB is losing ground with young people
who find the relationships built there are shallow
ones., credit: NYPost/Angel Chevrestt

Why I quit Facebook
A New York City high-school senior, 18, explains why he quit Facebook
By ZACH PROCHNIK
NY POST
Last Updated: 2:23 AM, February 12, 2012
Posted: 10:34 PM, February 11, 2012

It’s Saturday night, and I am at the house of a good friend. After the usual hours spent playing Xbox and watching “1000 Ways To Die,” I ask him if it would be OK if I used his computer. I want to check my Facebook, because I’d last checked it that morning — and who knows what I’d been missing since then? Best-case scenario: a notification from the girl who — despite the fact that our passion is unspoken — has posted on my wall claiming that she was checking my page and has suddenly realized her true feelings for me. Maybe on top of that a cool, funny kid sent me a friend request saying that I was “the man” and we should be homies for life. No big deal, I get that all the time.

I hit enter. My eyes immediately jump to the top left of the screen. The page loads and my heart drops. All I can see is blue. Blue, the color of 21st century social mediocrity. The color of people’s indifference towards you. I quickly realize the reality of my situation: The world does not revolve around me. My friends all have other friends. Every minute that I spend navigating the Facebook universe, I am shrinking.
But as I scroll down my home page, I realize that I’m not the only one desperate for attention. Every status and post seems to be saying “I’m here! Tell me that I’m somebody!” Hundreds of kids are selling their identities — like livestock at a market — for a couple of comments and “likes.”

As I scan my alleged friends’ profiles, I’m seized with feelings of jealousy and rejection. I want to say to them “I thought I was your friend! So who the are these 200 other guys commenting on your stuff?” As our circles get wider, our interactions become fewer.
I joined Facebook four years ago. and at first it was amazing. You’d friend someone, and you’d be linked to all their friends. In fact, the standard that classified a kid as your friend was quickly dropped. That girl your friend told you about was now your “friend”; that friend of your sibling was now your “friend.” You now shared everything with anyone whose name or face looked vaguely familiar.

This quickly wore me down. Being constantly informed that you make up just a small portion of another person’s life erodes the feeling that you are at all meaningful to them.
Adolescence, to begin with, is a time of awful social anxiety. Now a website exists that exacerbates your most irrational social fears to the point of paranoia. Instead of just a private hormonal case of nerves, this is a massive, corporate crowd-sourced paranoia that a huge economic sector is encouraging us to take part in.
On Facebook, I saw how I was taking time away from being with my real friends to feel bad about all the other people who were hardly even part of my life.

Leaving it was easier said than done, however. I couldn’t find where to deactivate my account. I had to look up “how to deactivate Facebook” on Google. After navigating multiple pages, I found a tiny link at the bottom of the security-settings page. After clicking the link, a page popped up with bright photos of my good friends and me. “Jake will miss you,” one caption read. “Jules will miss you,” and another saying “Aaron will miss you.” All of my friends were smiling at me and telling me they would miss me.

I was struck by the irony of this statement about how my different friends would miss me when I left. When you’re an adolescent, what Facebook is really all about is creating a sense of distance between you and your friends, not about strengthening the relationships. Distance because it makes you realize that you’re both lost in a crowd. Worse still, this website that profits off the data it collects about me by selling it to advertising companies is now trying to hold onto me by enlisting my friends to seduce me into staying.

Why are my friends going to miss me? My friend Raymond is still sitting next to me playing video games. I’m still talking to people in the halls at school. Maybe next time someone takes a cool picture, they’ll call me up to hang out and stare at a screen side-by-side, which is what real friends do.

I’m not the only one who is deactivating my Facebook account. I’ve had other friends tell me that they’re sick and tired of going on Facebook everyday hoping to connect, but ending up feeling only more disconnected. Lost in the hype of the company’s stock-market debut this year is that while Facebook is ubiquitous, it may also be a fad.

Before I went off Facebook, my friend made a status update saying,“Deleting your Facebook is like running away from home. You do it for attention but you’ll be back one day.” But I’m not doing it for attention. I’m doing it so I won’t go there when I’m hungry for attention, only to end up feeling more alone.

Zach Prochnik attends a Manhattan public high school.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/unfriend_VhP9QLXispf2RzznaNHPNK#ixzz1mPdgmpnn

Copyright Disclaimer [Rubaiat`s Blog]:

The use of incidental copyrighted material is covered under 'Fair Use' (Copyright Act, 1976) Title 17 U.S.C Section 107, with particular emphasis on such use for educational and non-profit purposes. Under Sec. 107 of the Copyright Act (1976), allowance is made for 'Fair Use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair Use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of Fair Use (Moe, AllSeeingEye). If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'Fair Use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act-

In Aug 2008, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, California, ruled that copyright holders cannot order a deletion of an online file without determining whether that posting reflected "fair use" of the copyrighted material.
[View the blog`s full Fair Use Copyright Disclaimer at the end of the homepage]