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Sometimes, it already seems like the websites you visit know more about you than you know about yourself — but this is just the beginning. Every day you're helping to generate masses more data, which computers are getting better and better at crunching. How long will it be before the predictive power of these systems becomes so powerful, they're almost magical? More »
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Welcome to Privacy Club. You cannot find Privacy Club on the internet. More »
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A federal judge's decision requiring the government to get a court warrant before obtaining mobile-phone location data is one of a string of conflicting opinions on the topic. It comes as lawmakers and the Supreme Court weigh in on the hot-button issue of locational privacy. More »
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Worried about privacy on the Internet? It may be even worse than you thought - with rapidly improving face recognition technology, your automatically tagged Facebook pictures could help a stranger, or the authorities, quickly identify you on the street. More »
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Generating truly random numbers is notoriously difficult. But now, using a quantum system, researchers have managed to create 42 genuinely random numbers. Their discovery is a major breakthrough for cryptography, and could one day enable truly private communication online. More »
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Are we drawing closer to a day when everything that's a "thing"—from spoons to shirts to skateboards—comes with an electronic sensor that hooks it into a global network of trillions of objects? Maybe. Is that a good thing? More »
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Need another reason to be paranoid about companies and governments watching what you're doing online? A technology researcher has created a web tool that shows just how easy it is to identify you based on nothing more than a click. More »
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This isn't concept art for Dr. Manhattan or CG work for a nude android — it's the body of a random man, walking through an airport scanner. You won't meet the person viewing this ultra-revealing image, but still. More »
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These glowing images look like a kind of luminescent jellyfish at the bottom of the ocean, but they're actually the trails left by an LED attached to a RFID tag. These tags create invisible patterns as they move through cities. More »
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The idea of making personal genetic information public evokes images of genomic Google searches and gene-testing job interviews straight out of Gattaca. But there are many who believe genetic openness could go a long way toward advancing disease research. Tomorrow, ten volunteers will take the first steps away from genetic privacy, allowing their personal genetic information to be posted online without the veil of anonymity. More »
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Writing in Playboy in 1968, Alan Westin predicted that in just seven short years, improved techniques in computerized data gathering would result in “a record-control society that could make George Orwell’s Oceania almost look like a haven of privacy.” We've got a few spookily familiar moments from his dystopian vision of the future, below. More »
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It's been 21 years since Dennis Quaid pioneered the field of implantable communications technology by sending traveler's dispatches from inside Martin Short's body (and briefly Meg Ryan's too, hubba hubba!) in Innerspace. Now, Dennis, it seems you've been outdone. The UK's Office of Communications has just issued a report describing tests underway on a Bluetooth wireless sensor network that gets implanted inside people's bodies to monitor their vital signs and automatically alert the paramedics in case they collapse or have a heart attack, according to the Times of London. More »
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With countries like China, Pakistan, and even the US spying on their citizens, it's nice to know a remedy might be on its way in the form of the Quantum Internet. As researchers like Seth Lloyd of MIT make progress toward the goal of quantum computing, they've found that the same architecture used to build quantum random access memory (QRAM) could apply across the whole of the internet. This could put an end to internet spying for good, and would mean that Batman could send email to the JLA without fear of discovery. More »
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Gene-sequencing technology is taking off, but George Church at Harvard University is taking it to the next level: he wants to sequence the genomes of 100,000 people. Right now, about 12 human genomes have been sequenced and Church's ambitious plan is likely to cost cost around $1 billion to complete. Recently Google — who in February announced its Google Health software for storing electronic medical records — agreed to foot a major part of the bill. Google gives us free email, chat, search, a shopping client, and so on and all they've ever asked is that we let them look at all over our most private information. Seems like a fair trade, but does that extend to our DNA? More »
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Security checkpoints could do a full-body scan and check your skeleton against the bone structures of known terrorists in a few years. A new patent, issued on Friday, covers a system that would scan some, or all, of your skeleton and compare it with a database of skeletons. The database would also pull up data such as your name, address, social security number, and passport number. Worst of all, you might not even know your skeleton is being scanned from a distance. More »
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