So, we're done. Welcome to a world where Google knows exactly what sort of porn you all like, and more about your interests than your spouse does. Welcome to a world where your cell phone company knows exactly where you are all the time. Welcome to the end of private conversations, because increasingly your conversations are conducted by e-mail, text, or social networking sites. And welcome to a world where all of this, and everything else that you do or is done on a computer, is saved, correlated, studied, passed around from company to company without your knowledge or consent; and where the government accesses it at will without a warrant.

That a Facebook fans of "Barack Obama" might be Democrats or people who liked the "No H8" campaign were more likely to be gay seems obvious, but other correlations were far less intuitive. "Curly Fries" and "Thunderstorms" seem to be surprisingly linked with a high IQ, while "That Spider is More Scared Than U" happens to draw a non-smoking fan base. Predictors of male heterosexuality include "Being Confused After Waking Up From Naps." An appreciation of "Hello Kitty" tended to be associated with people who were more open and less emotionally stable. [Sounds like overtraining to me, but surely they wouldn't make such a fundamental mistake? Right?]

The section in the so-called Foreign Intelligence Amendments Act (FISAAA) grants the US government sweeping powers to collect foreign intelligence information stored in US Cloud computing providers like Amazon or Google.

The article specifically states the US Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence may authorise jointly, for a period of up to one year from the effective date of the authorisation, the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information.

Tahoe-LAFS is a Free and Open cloud storage system. It distributes your data across multiple servers. Even if some of the servers fail or are taken over by an attacker, the entire filesystem continues to function correctly, including preservation of your privacy and security.

A one-page summary explains the unique properties of this system.

Carnegie Mellon university researchers have developed a surveillance system that can not only recognize human activities but can also predict what might happen next.

Researchers, through the Army-funded research dubbed Mind's Eye, have created intelligent software that recognizes human activities in video and can predict what might just happen next; sounding an alarm if it detects anomalous behavior.

A comparison of the leaked draft Canada-EU agreement shows the treaty includes a number of the same controversial provisions, specifically concerning criminal enforcement, private enforcement by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and harsh damages. These provisions are particularly problematic, and were the key reasons why the European Parliament rejected ACTA. However, given the lack of transparency associated with the CETA discussions (both Canada and EU insist that the draft text remain secret), the concerns that CETA may replicate ACTA appear to be very real despite denials from some members of the European Commission.

Whonix is an anonymous general purpose operating system based on Virtual Box, Ubuntu GNU/Linux and Tor. By Whonix design, IP and DNS leaks are impossible. Not even malware with root rights can find out the user's real IP/location.

Whonix consists of two machines, which are connected through an isolated network. One machine acts as the client or Whonix-Workstation, the other as a proxy or Whonix-Gateway, which will route all of the Whonix-Workstation's traffic through Tor. This setup can be implemented either through virtualization and/or Physical Isolation.

Random patdowns began at 30 international airports across Japan this week.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the random body searches are being conducted to check for chemical and plastic explosive materials that are not picked up by metal detectors, TBS reported.

Oh good, Japan joins in the fun of groping passengers in the name of security. I feel safer already.

The bills will prohibit universities and employers from making their applicants hand over their email or social media account passwords, and in a statement [Governor Jerry] Brown said that California is leading where others should be following.

Personally, I'm amazed that any employer anywhere could possibly think it's reasonable to demand that employees fork over their passwords. What's next, employers wanting copies of house keys so they can have a look in employees' homes?

According to one source, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, the current plastic IDs will be replaced with cards containing circuit chips which store data about the cardholder, including address, family background, and record of travel.

“North Korean people will be made to bring the new ID cards when they travel so security officers can know everything about their trip, such as the person’s destination, when he or she has traveled, and how many times they have traveled,” the source said.

And remember, when North Korea does this, it's oppression. When Western countries do it, it's for your protection and perfectly harmless. You have nothing to hide, do you?