Spyware and Pegasus: How Democracies Spy on Their Citizens
Writing for the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow reports on Pegasus, "a spyware technology designed by NSO Group, an Israeli firm, which can extract the contents of a phone, giving access to its texts and photographs, or activate its camera and microphone to.....»»
Trust hardly makes us careless and complacent in crisis situations, says study
A new study highlights the importance of mutual trust between citizens and authorities when society is facing a crisis. Moreover, data from the COVID-19 crisis indicates that general trust in our fellow citizens is unlikely to make us less compliant.....»»
Corruption episodes haunt democracies for decades, study finds
The short-term effects of corruption are often obvious. Numerous sources, both in Russia and in the West, consider the military's endemic corruption one of the main reasons of the logistical problems, very low troop morale, and massive casualties of.....»»
President Biden bans federal agencies from using some spyware
US government agencies are banned from using commercially-built spyware apps......»»
Biden’s executive order limits government’s use of commercial spyware
Move comes as "clickless exploits" targets journalists and others accused of no crimes. Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) President Joe Biden on Monday signed an executive order barring many uses by the federal government.....»»
Apple, Alphabet, Meta push back against US spy law
Apple, Alphabet, and Meta are lobbying to curtail a tool that grants intelligence agencies the right to collect and view the personal information of American citizens.Big Tech seeks to change the way Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillan.....»»
These Android apps are spying on you — and there’s no easy way to stop them
Recent research has uncovered just how dangerous and easily accessible spyware apps are. These apps are a ticking privacy time bomb with little recourse......»»
US government launches criminal investigation into TikTok parent, reports say
The US government has launched a criminal investigation into TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, over improper access to the personal information of several US citizens, according to Forbes and The New York Times......»»
A new approach to measuring and understanding multidirectional polarization
Germany, India, Mexico, and Spain. As multiparty democracies, these countries present a more complex picture of what brings people together—or divides them. Using social media data, a group of researchers proposes a novel approach to measuring pola.....»»
Congressman confronts FBI over “egregious” unlawful search of his personal data
Section 702 unlikely to be reauthorized without reforms to protect US citizens. Enlarge / Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) (credit: Bill Clark / Contributor | CQ-Roll Call, Inc.) Last month, a declassified FBI report revealed.....»»
Americans remain hopeful about democracy despite fears of its demise—and are acting on that hope
President Joe Biden will convene world leaders beginning on March 29, 2023, to discuss the state of democracies around the world......»»
Report: The world is becoming increasingly authoritarian, but there is hope
For the first time in two decades, there are more closed autocracies than liberal democracies in the world, but the future is not entirely bleak. This is shown in this year's democracy report from the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem Institute.....»»
Switzerland"s citizens want a circular economy, but not to share products
Reuse, share, collect and recycle—in times of faltering supply chains, circular economies are in great demand. When products and materials circulate in closed material flows, it saves resources and avoids waste. Whether this succeeds also depends h.....»»
Better communication leads to more international vaccine solidarity, find researchers
What promoted citizens to favor a fair distribution of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic? This is the focus topic in the current study of Konstanz researchers, political scientists Dirk Leuffen, Pascal Mounchid and Max Heermann as well as sociolo.....»»
Locating poor air quality in cities
People in big cities breathe bad air. Bad air that consists of particulate matter and other pollutants, which pose health risks to urban citizens. Researchers led by Dr. Martin Ramacher of the Hereon Institute of Coastal Environmental Chemistry, in c.....»»
Tribes in Maine left out of Native American resurgence by 40-year-old federal law denying their self-determination
Hundreds of the 574 federally recognized Indian nations in the U.S. now routinely provide their citizens with the full array of services customarily expected from state and local governments, from tax collection to environmental protection regulation.....»»
The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat
Review of FBI’s access to foreign intelligence reveals misuse of surveillance tech. Enlarge (credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) An existential fight over the US government’s ability to spy on its own citizens is.....»»
Social media and the protection of refugees
Respect for human rights is one of the central goals of democracies. Wars and displacement, however, continue to pose major challenges to these universal rights, as Russia's current war in Ukraine or the "refugee crisis" in 2015/16 dramatically demon.....»»
Pegasus spyware journalists had to take extreme measures to avoid becoming victims
Pegasus spyware journalists Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud were the first to discover an extensive list of specific people being targeted by NSO’s clients. In working on the story, they said they had to take extreme privacy precautions to avo.....»»
U.S. lender Citizens stepping back from auto loans
Citizens cut back on auto lending last year and plans to reduce its auto loans further this year......»»
Pegasus spyware defended by NSO’s CEO, as researcher compares it to a nuclear weapon
Pegasus spyware – a zero-click way of remotely hacking an iPhone, and gaining access to all the personal data stored on it – has been defended by the company’s CEO. NSO chief exec said that the company had made “mistakes” in selling it to.....»»