“The worst offender was Nissan, Mozilla said. The carmaker’s privacy policy suggests the manufacturer collects information including sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic data, though there’s no details about how exactly that data is gathered. Nissan reserves the right to share and sell “preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes” to data brokers, law enforcement, and other third parties.”

https://gizmodo.com/mozilla-new-cars-data-privacy-report-1850805416

https://www.itnews.com.au/news/password-crackers-and-metadata-used-to-check-centrelink-users-relationship-status-592649

Services Australia is using telecommunications metadata and password-bypassing software to investigate welfare recipients suspected of claiming single payments while in relationships.

Amy Westervelt (@amywestervelt) has posted an excellent in-depth article at The Intercept about the strategies fossil fuel companies use to convince everyone (especially politicians) that we should carry on with business as usual for as long as possible.

I've excerpted a few highlights below, but I encourage you to read the whole thing.

https://theintercept.com/2022/12/24/oil-gas-climate-disinformation/
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As part of its investigation into climate disinformation, the U.S. Congress subpoenaed documents in November 2021 from four of the world’s largest oil companies. The more than 1,500 pages include internal communications about media relations, advertising, and marketing campaigns from 2015 to 2021.

Taken together, they reveal that the industry’s approach on climate really hasn’t changed since scientists first started warning that the burning of fossil fuels was becoming a problem: push “solutions” that keep fossil fuels profitable, downplay climate impacts, overstate the industry’s commitments, and bully the media if they don’t stay on message.

They’re pushing the idea that methane gas — a fossil fuel that emits a greenhouse gas some 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide — is somehow an alternative to fossil fuels. The plan for extending the life of the industry as long as possible appears to lean on “low-carbon solutions”: a reduction in operational emissions and carbon capture and storage, or CSS, which they’re banking on as a way to sell business-as-usual as “low carbon.”

The documents make clear that the industry is intent on maximizing a small window of opportunity for CCS — getting the government to invest heavily in this “solution” before everyone figures out it’s not a solution so much as an enabler of the status quo.

The industry wants to see so much government funding for CCS locked in that there’s no choice but to continue down that path. And the purpose is clear: enabling the continued burning of fossil fuels.
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#Greenwashing #ClimateChange

I really truly think a social media hack is enthusiasm.

People (maybe a majority) follow me on Twitter who have no career focus on computer security.
I follow farmers on YouTube just talking about their tractor repair tribulations with perseverance. I will absolutely never drive a tractor or put any direct tractor knowledge they give me into practice. But I care because they communicate larger fundamental insights into finding solutions.

This is a magic ingredient. You can't really fake it. And people know when they see it. It's one of those inescapably human manifestations the brain recognizes micro-signals from.

The 2022 Headline of the Year Nominees

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