Police

Darnella Frazier, who documented George Floyd’s murder, receives Pulitzer Prize citation

Darnella Frazier — the teen who used her smartphone to film the video of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 that sparked a wave of Black Lives Matter protests worldwide, which culminated in the murder conviction of former police officer Derek Chauvin — will receive a special citation from the Pulitzer Board. Frazier was given… Read more

This $2,700 robot dog will carry a single bottle of water for you

Boston Dynamics isn’t the only company that makes futuristic quadrupedal robots. Chinese firm Unitree Robotics has also been at it for years, and this week revealed its latest creation: the Unitree Go1, a robust-looking four-legged bot that’s remarkably cheap, with prices starting at just $2,700. (For comparison, Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot costs $74,500.) What is… Read more

The FBI secretly launched an encrypted messaging system for criminals

An encrypted phone service called Anom was secretly run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a yearslong international sting operation. Law enforcement agencies across Europe, the US, and Oceania revealed Anom’s origins earlier today, saying they had arrested 800 criminal suspects based on intercepted communications. According to public statements, the FBI and other agencies… Read more

India reportedly warns Twitter of ‘unintended consequences’ if it fails to follow new rules

India’s government has told Twitter it could face “unintended consequences” if it fails to comply with the country’s new social media rules, Reuters reported. India’s technology minister wrote in a June 5th letter to Twitter that the company’s responses to previous government letters about the new rules did not confirm whether Twitter was in full… Read more

The pandemic was the bloodiest year for driving in over a decade

Road deaths jumped 7.2 percent in 2020 from the year before, hitting a 13-year high, even though people weren’t driving as much, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). But while NHTSA’s numbers paint a grim picture, they offer only a glimpse at what’s shaping up to be a historically bloody year of… Read more

Ring adds new public way for agencies to request video clips in Neighbors app

Ring is adjusting how public agencies such as police and fire departments are able to request video clips from Ring camera owners in its Neighbors app. Starting next week, agencies will only be able to request clips be sent to them through public posts that are viewable in the app’s main feed; they will no… Read more

I broke off a tiny piece of the world with a self-flying drone

With photogrammetry, hundreds of still photos can be transformed into an incredibly realistic 3D model of a real place on Earth — assuming you capture them all. This Memorial Day weekend, a self-flying robot cameraman did that entire job for me. I simply designated where to fly and where not to fly, kicked back in… Read more

Judge dismisses charges against Apple chief accused of bribing police officers with iPads

A Californian court has dismissed bribery charges against Apple’s Chief Security Officer Thomas Moyer, Reuters reports, who was accused of offering iPads as bribes to obtain concealed-weapons permits for Apple employees. Judge Eric S. Geffon dismissed arguments of corrupt intent as “pure speculation” that were “not supported by the evidence presented to the grand jury.”… Read more

States pass laws limiting use of DNA searches for criminal investigations

Maryland and Montana recently became the first states in the nation to pass laws limiting law enforcement’s use of DNA databases to solve crimes. The strategy, sometimes called genetic genealogy, has been used to find dozens of people accused of violent crimes, including the Golden State Killer, but raises genetic privacy concerns. The laws focus… Read more

UK police surprised to learn energy-intensive weed farm is actually a Bitcoin mine

Police in the United Kingdom raided an industrial unit outside Birmingham under suspicion it was housing an indoor marijuana growing operation, CNBC reported. They were surprised to discover instead an extensive Bitcoin mining setup which was illegally siphoning electricity from a mains supply. Prior to the raid, police observed multiple people going in and out… Read more

UK Police Surprised Electricity Thieves Were Mining Crypto, not Growing Weed

Home News (Image credit: Shutterstock) The world grows stranger every day. Case in point: The BBC today reported that West Midlands Police discovered a cryptocurrency mining operation comprised of “about 100 computer units” while they were searching a suspected cannabis farm. Mining cryptocurrency isn’t all that different from growing cannabis. Both can lead to surprising… Read more

Clearview AI hit with sweeping legal complaints over controversial face scraping in Europe

Privacy International (PI) and several other European privacy and digital rights organizations announced today that they’ve filed legal complaints against the controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI. The complaints filed in France, Austria, Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom say that the company’s method of documenting and collecting data — including images of faces it… Read more

WhatsApp sues Indian government over new rules it says break encryption

Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp is suing India’s government over new internet rules it claims are unconstitutional and will “severely undermine the privacy” of its users, The New York Times reports. The Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, which was introduced in February and comes into effect today, contains a requirement that messaging apps identify… Read more

Google now lets you password-protect the page that shows all your searches

Google has added a way to put a password on your Web and Activity page, which shows all your activity from across Google services, including your searches, YouTube watch history, and Google assistant queries (via Android Police). Without the verification, anyone who picks up a device you’re logged into could see that activity. To activate… Read more

Citizen CEO offered to personally fund LA arson manhunt — for the wrong person

Photo by Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Image ‘We make this sort of heinous crime impossible to escape from’ As wildfires raged through Southern California last weekend, an app called Citizen offered an unorthodox bounty over livestream and in push alerts to local residents: “hunt down” the alleged arsonist, and we’ll give… Read more