The Palantir Panopticon

Michael Rectenwald | REKT

In my book Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom (2019), I argued that the main danger with AI is not a rogue super-intelligence that might rebel against humanity; the far greater danger is perfect AI obedience. AI could function as the ultimate instrument of authoritarian "elites," faithfully executing total surveillance, behavioral scoring, and preemptive social control.

Further, AI reliance risks the wholesale abdication of human agency and the flattening of human intelligence and sociality. As decision-making authority is ceded to algorithms, people will become passive nodes in a system that replaces human thinking with AI information processing — "Bots R Us" — eroding autonomy, creativity, and genuine deliberation.

Geopolitically, AI threatens to produce unrivaled systems of ideological and political dominance and cohesion. The dominant worldview is the worldview that dominates AI. The AI race is not toward liberation but toward a hybrid post-human order in which freedom is rendered obsolete, and free will, as Yuval Noah Harari says, is "history."

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The War for Greater Israel

Craig Murray | craigmurray.co.uk

"Iran has provided, directly and through proxies, the only military opposition to the creation of Greater Israel. This war is for Greater Israel. But it is also a wider effort to re-establish the failing economic dominance of the United States by military control of key resources.

There is no part of the world which will be safe from the fallout".

There has scarcely been an attempt to pretend any justification in international law for the attack on Iran and murder of its leader. The response of the UK government, focusing almost entirely on condemning Iran for exercising its legitimate right of self-defence, takes the Starmer dishonesty meter further off the scale.

The RAF has been actively involved in genocide in Gaza for two years with its surveillance and logistic support for the IDF. It is now fighting for Israel again; intercepting Iranian missiles is not defensive; it is joining in the attack on an already vastly overmatched opponent.

I am afraid that the truth is the Iranian attempt to defend itself militarily will be less impactful than many anti-imperialists hope. The astonishing amounts of money spent by the US government on military and surveillance technology simply do have real-world effect.

Here in Venezuela, having seen the major sites struck by the US on 3 January, I have concluded that no act of betrayal was needed. Just overwhelming force and precision technology applied against a technologically unequal opponent whose key capabilities were all on open hilltops or in unhardened barracks.

Iran is much more militarily sophisticated, but facing exponentially more force. Khamenei was killed in his own home, not hiding away. He is going to prove a lot more powerful as a martyr than as a ruler with his internal critics.

We are facing not only a period of unapologetic imperialism to which virtually all Western countries are prepared to defer, but a return of medievalism, both in the sheer barbarity and scale of physical abuse, as witnessed in Gaza and in general Israeli brutality, and in use of kidnap and murder as methods of high policy. Legitimising the killing and kidnap of leaders of opposing states is of course a double-edged sword.

Having sanctioned genocide, mass killings and deliberate destruction of medical facilities and staff, the mass murder of children, as well as the kidnapping and murder of Heads of State, it is hard now to imagine almost any atrocity which the Western powers are in any moral position to condemn.

While Iran's military ability to strike back is limited, the ramifications of this attack will not be. The rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have reverted to the norm of being not only reliable US and Israeli satraps, but promoters of atavistic hatred of Shia Muslims.

The West is deliberately exploiting the Shia/Sunni divide, as it has for centuries; but this will now destabilise the region for decades. Iraq in particular is going to be convulsed, and so will Pakistan. In Bahrain, the Shia population has been held in check by its Sunni rulers using systematic Western-sponsored murder and torture. Using it as a base to murder the Ayatollah is going to blow back.

It would appear that we are going to witness an aerial campaign to destroy Iran's civilian infrastructure, as in Iraq where 65% of clean drinking water, 50% of hospitals and clinics and 80% of electrical generation was destroyed by "liberation" by the NATO powers.

The object is the destruction of Iran as a viable state. 

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Israel's high-tech investment boom is fuelled by genocide

Comment: It's nothing new. Israel has always been obsessed with technology that kills, be it germ, chemical, atomic or psychological warfare. 

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Farah Choucair | Middle East Eye

Brutal technology field-tested on Palestinians has helped to propel the state's economy to the top of global performance charts

Late last year, the Economist published an article titled “Which economy did best in 2025?” The annual ranking of 36 mostly rich countries, conducted for the fifth year in a row, aimed to pinpoint the “economy of the year”. 

The Economist compiled data on five indicators: inflation, GDP, jobs, stock market performance, and “inflation breadth”, measuring the share of product categories with an annual price increase of more than two percent.

Countries were ranked on each measure, creating an “overall score of economic success” in 2025. To my surprise, Israel ranked third, after Portugal and Ireland. 

Two main indicators have driven this “economic success”. Israel’s economy recorded a GDP growth rate of 3.5 percent, surpassing the global average of around 3.2 percent. More surprisingly, its stock market soared, with share prices growing by 53 percent over the previous year - outperforming the world’s major stock markets.

Although Israel has been waging war on Gaza for more than two years now, such figures typically reflect a strong economy, with companies reporting solid earnings and growth, and domestic and foreign investors expressing their confidence in the country.

According to a Times of Israel report, foreign investors “flocked to Israeli markets to buy shares starting in mid-2024 after a sell-off at the outbreak of the war in 2023”. 

Citing data from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the report noted that as of last September, “the value of holdings by foreign financial institutions in Tel Aviv stocks, excluding dual-listed stocks, reached a historic record of $19.2 billion, more than double the figure before the outbreak of war”.  

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Privacy for the Powerful, Surveillance for the Rest: EU’s Proposed Tech Regulation Goes Too Far

Elen Irazabal Arana and Nikolai G. Wenzel | The Daily Economy

Protecting kids is a weak pretext for total digital surveillance. What's worse, the EU's monitoring exempted its own politicians from scrutiny. Their privacy matters, but not yours.

Last month, we lamented California's Frontier AI Act of 2025. The Act favors compliance over risk management, while shielding bureaucrats and lawmakers from responsibility. Mostly, it imposes top-down regulatory norms, instead of letting civil society and industry experts experiment and develop ethical standards from the bottom up.

Perhaps we could dismiss the Act as just another example of California's interventionist penchant. But some American politicians and regulators are already calling for the Act to be a "template for harmonizing federal and state oversight." The other source for that template would be the European Union (EU), so it's worth keeping an eye on the regulations spewed out of Brussels.

The EU is already way ahead of California in imposing troubling, top-down regulation. Indeed, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act of 2024 follows the EU's overall precautionary principle. As the EU Parliament's internal think tank explains,

"the precautionary principle enables decision-makers to adopt precautionary measures when scientific evidence about an environmental or human health hazard is uncertain and the stakes are high."

The precautionary principle gives immense power to the EU when it comes to regulating in the face of uncertainty — rather than allowing for experimentation with the guardrails of fines and tort law (as in the US). It stifles ethical learning and innovation. Because of the precautionary principle and associated regulation, the EU economy suffers from greater market concentration, higher regulatory compliance costs, and diminished innovation — compared to an environment that allows for experimentation and sensible risk management. It is small wonder that only four of the world's top 50 tech companies are European.

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Toilet bowl wars: The next frontier in the attack on privacy

Collapse Life

Who knew Number 2 would be number 1 in monitoring your health?

First, they came for your sleep, then your heart rate, then your step counts, and ovulation, oxygen levels, and blood sugar. It was only a matter of time before they targeted the most personal of all details: the contents deposited in your porcelain throne.

Companies like Kohler and Withings are marketing devices that install in your toilet to track various health metrics. Withings first announced its U-Scan “ecosystem” at the Consumer Electronics Show two years ago and launched them in the US and Europe this week. Two different cartridges inside the seashell-shaped device allow users to monitor their health and nutrition by measuring urinary biomarkers such as hydration, ketones, vitamin C, and calcium levels.

Kohler’s Dekoda, on the other hand, uses a camera to analyze your poop. The $599 clip-on camera stares into your toilet bowl and provides insights about gut health and hydration, even alerting users when it may have found blood in water or stool.

While Kohler carefully reminds you that the camera only points downward, making it impossible to photograph your private parts, once your toilet identifies you, there’s no pretending privacy still lives in your home.

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YouTube erases hundreds of videos of alleged Israeli war crimes

RT 

The hosting platform has cited US sanctions against NGOs that investigated the abuses as the reason.

YouTube has removed hundreds of videos documenting alleged human rights violations by Israel in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including eyewitness accounts, investigative reports, and humanitarian footage, according to the American non-profit news outlet The Intercept.

Since October, the video hosting platform has reportedly deleted more than 700 videos and suspended the accounts of prominent Palestinian human-rights groups Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The deleted materials reportedly included an investigation into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces, footage of home demolitions in the West Bank, and a documentary about mothers who survived Israeli attacks in Gaza.

The Intercept described the removals as part of a broader US-backed effort to suppress documentation of alleged Israeli war crimes. The same Palestinian organizations targeted by YouTube were sanctioned by Washington in September for submitting evidence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The ICC issued arrest warrants for both officials in 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

A YouTube spokesperson, Boot Bullwinkle, told The Intercept that the platform's owner Google "is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions."

Washington's influence over tech companies became a national controversy during the Joe Biden presidency. In the Murthy v. Missouri case, federal agencies were accused of pressuring Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to suppress disfavored opinions under the pretext of combating misinformation. The Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2024 on procedural grounds, leaving unresolved whether such government-platform coordination violates the constitutional right to freedom of speech.

The removals come amid Washington's military and diplomatic support for Israel during the Gaza conflict. The US has provided additional arms to Israel and repeatedly blocked UN resolutions calling for ceasefires and condemning civilian casualties. Critics argue that such moves shielded Israel from accountability and weakened international efforts to end the violence.

The latest violence started when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health authorities, over 68,000 Palestinians have been killed since.

Comment: It's more probably hundreds of thousands. And no mention of how many Silicon Valley companies are controlled by the Zionist Establishment.

The AI Drones Used In Gaza Now Surveilling American Cities

Nate Bear | ¡Do Not Panic!

 

AI-powered quadcopter drones used by the IDF to commit genocide in Gaza are flying over American cities, surveilling protestors and automatically uploading millions of images to an evidence database.

The drones are made by a company called Skydio which in the last few years has gone from relative obscurity to quietly become a multi-billion dollar company and the largest drone manufacturer in the US.

The extent of Skydio drone usage across the US, and the extent to which their usage has grown in just a few years, is extraordinary. The company has contracts with more than 800 law enforcement and security agencies across the country, up from 320 in March last year, and their drones are being launched hundreds of times a day to monitor people in towns and cities across the country.

Skydio has extensive links with Israel. In the first weeks of the genocide the California-based company sent more than one hundred drones to the IDF with promises of more to come. How many more were delivered since that admission is unknown. Skydio has an office in Israel and partners with DefenceSync, a local military drone contractor operating as the middle man between drone manufacturers and the IDF. Skydio has also raised hundreds of millions of dollars from Israeli-American venture capitalists and from venture capital funds with extensive investments in Israel, including from Marc Andreessen's firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z.

And now these drones, tested in genocide and refined on Palestinians, are swarming American cities.

According to my research almost every large American city has signed a contract with Skydio in the last 18 months, including Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, Cleveland and Jacksonville. Skydio drones were recently used by city police departments to gather information at the 'No Kings' protests and were also used by Yale to spy on the anti-genocide protest camp set up by students at the university last year.

In Miami, Skydio drones are being used to spy on spring breakers, and in Atlanta the company has partnered with the Atlanta Police Foundation to install a permanent drone station within the massive new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Detroit recently spent nearly $300,000 on fourteen Skydio drones according to a city procurement report. Last month ICE bought an X10D Skydio drone, which automatically tracks and pursues a target. US Customs and Border Protection has bought thirty-three of the same drones since July. 

 

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YouTube: A Digital Form of Occupation Designed to Silence Palestinian Voices

21st Century Wire

For years, with a net increase since Oct 7, YouTube has quietly engaged in what digital rights groups are calling a systematic erasure of Palestinian voices. Videos documenting Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, footage of airstrikes, home demolitions, and civilian casualties, have been vanishing from the platform. Entire channels belonging to Palestinian human rights organisations such as Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights were suspended, along with their archives and hundreds of videos that once served as vital evidence for international investigators.

YouTube has defended these removals by citing sanctions and trade compliance laws. The company claims that it must adhere to U.S. restrictions imposed during the Trump administration, which targeted several Palestinian organisations for cooperating with the International Criminal Court’s investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes. In other words, videos documenting potential atrocities were taken down not for violating YouTube’s community guidelines, but because of political designations rooted in Washington’s foreign policy.

Critics say this marks a chilling intersection of geopolitics and algorithmic power. A platform built on the promise of open expression is now intentionally enforcing the narratives of powerful states. Under pressure from both U.S. and Israeli officials, YouTube and other major tech companies have shown a willing readiness to remove content deemed critical of Israel, even when that content is factual, documentary, or journalistic in nature.

The result is a double standard that runs deep. Pro-Israel content, including inflammatory material and obvious propaganda, often remains online with minimal scrutiny. Hebrew-language videos glorifying military campaigns or mocking Palestinian suffering circulate freely, while Arabic and English-language uploads depicting the human cost of war are swiftly flagged, restricted, or deleted. One notorious example, an Israeli rap video containing explicit calls to violence, was allowed to stay up; YouTube argued it targeted “terrorists,” not Palestinians as a people. Meanwhile, Palestinian groups uploading evidence of civilian humiliation and deaths were accused of spreading “graphic violence” or “terrorist propaganda.”

This asymmetry reveals more than inconsistent moderation; it exposes a structural bias built into the very fabric of Silicon Valley’s global platforms. Algorithms designed in English, guided by Western definitions of “harm,” and informed by U.S. geopolitical priorities, inevitably weigh some lives, and some stories, more heavily than others. What is presented as a neutral enforcement of policy often amounts to a digital form of occupation: the silencing of a people’s testimony at the moment they most need to be heard.

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Ex-Mossad Head: We've 'Boobytrapped And Manipulated' Equipment in 'All Countries You Can Imagine'

Chris Menahan | InformationLiberation

Ex-Mossad head Yossi Cohen boasted during a recent podcast that Israel has "boobytrapped" and "manipulated" equipment like that used in their pager attack in Lebanon in "all countries that you can imagine."

He said he "invented" the "manipulated equipment method" in 2002 to 2004 and had already used it in the "Second Lebanon War" back in 2006.

WATCH

Cohen's comments were made on the Oct 16 episode of the Zionist propaganda podcast The Brink.

I said after the pager and walkie talkie attacks on Lebanon that "any goods connected to Israel must now be assumed to be rigged with explosives until proven otherwise."

For a country that's so obsessed with getting laws passed in America and throughout the West to ban engaging with BDS, the decision to rig consumer goods with explosives and then boast about having boobytrapped and manipulated equipment throughout the world is truly remarkable.

This clearly represents a global security threat. 

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They Are Planning A Complete FINANCIAL LOCKDOWN" - Whitney Webb's 2026 Warning

 

Comment: Disregard the "most people won't make it" comment which is clickbait. The video is well worth watching however. 

 

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Jamie Tree YouTube Channel: 

 

One blink, and your identity unlocks a programmable wallet. That’s the latest message from writer and journalist Whitney Webb.

Governments and global institutions are standardizing digital IDs built on biometrics, then wiring those IDs to your money. In this model, your face, fingerprints, or iris confirm every transaction and gate access to basic services. 

The stated goal is inclusion through Know Your Customer or KYC rules and safer payments. The design also concentrates power, since the same ID can switch your wallet on or off. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase links identity, wallets, and policy in one infrastructure. More

Faster Than Truth: Quantum-Enhanced AI and the Next Frontier of Information Warfare

Joshua Nieubuurt | Propaganda in Focus

In the very near future disinformation will target you autonomously in fractions of a second. As the quantum computing age draws near, Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality will coalesce with Edward Bernays’ notion of a crystalized public opinion: creating consensus through individualized reality creation. The methods of the deployment of the past will give way to an infrastructural inevitability: GenAI, guided by algorithmic troves of personalized information, will be weaponized into personally targeted mis/disinformation campaigns that cost pennies on the dollar. Propaganda will no longer be an international foxtrot of moving actors and action but will become an autonomous force plowing into the synapses of the masses on micro scales. As this occurs, humanity’s long-smoking gun will be turned back on the gunman — obliterating the boundary between the real and its simulation through recursive, accelerated, and increasingly personal targeted information operations.

Your Data Used on You

This process has already begun and – for the time being – is being spat forth into the world at the speed of an AI prompt. According to the findings of Goldstein et al. (2024), Generative AI is capable of “generating text that is nearly as persuasive for US audiences as content we sourced from real-world foreign covert propaganda campaigns.” In other words, the digital machines we have created to help us are already being used to persuade our ideas and actions. As public facing models increase their aptitude, more advanced private models will likely follow. This extends far beyond text-based modalities and into the realms of photo and video generated by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models.

In fact, AI-generated propaganda is already being deployed en masse. The 2024 election in the United States was rife with examples flooding social media feeds and creating alternative narratives to not only the election, but also real-world events. In more recent world events, the conflict between Israel and Iran, and the infamous black bags being thrown from a window of the White House, have also produced increasingly potent misinformation across the web. There are currently varying degrees of virility with AI-generated propaganda. The newness of the technology and the experimentation of finding ways of making it effective to skulk into the minds of people still maintains a firehose approach. Meaning that it is created with a widespread in mind: reach as many people as possible and hope that it lands with some of them. If attempts at virility are stymied – it fails. But what if AI-generated propaganda were to be tailored to individual users en masse? One of the key elements in potentially deploying tailor-made propaganda at scale is already part of how the internet-connected world works: Surveillance Capitalism. 

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AI could wipe out 100 million US jobs - Bernie Sanders report

RT / Sott.net

The technology is being developed not for public benefit, but to increase corporate profits, Senator Benie Sanders has claimed.

Artificial intelligence and automation technologies pose a threat to nearly 100 million jobs in the US over the next decade, according to a report released on Monday by Senator Bernie Sanders.

The report suggests the disruption will be widespread, affecting both white- and blue-collar professions.

According to Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, AI and automation could replace 40% of registered nurses, 47% of truck drivers, 64% of accountants, 65% of teaching assistants, and 89% of fast food workers.

The report said:

"The agricultural revolution unfolded over thousands of years. The industrial revolution took more than a century. Artificial labor could reshape the economy in less than a decade."

The warning contrasts with the stance of the Trump administration, which has championed American leadership in AI development, arguing that losing the technological race to China poses a national security threat.

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Neuralink Seeks ‘Telepathy’ And ‘Telekinesis’—Is Mind Control Next?

Ana Maria Mihalcea, MD, PhD | Humanity United Now

I am reposting this article discussing the advancement of neuralink. It is self explanatory, confirms what I have been discussing for several years now. Please be informed. Technocracy is advancing at enormous speed.

Forbes Article Neuralink Seeks ‘Telepathy’ And ‘Telekinesis’—Is Mind Control Next?

Elon Musk's Neuralink has taken remarkable steps toward realizing a future that once seemed confined to science fiction and metaphysics by filing trademark applications for "Telepathy" and "Telekinesis" with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). These applications, submitted on March 3, 2025, offer fascinating insights into the company's ambitious vision beyond its current brain-computer interface technology.

From Medical Applications to Human-to-Human Communication

The Telepathy trademark application specifically includes descriptive text such as, “Downloadable and recorded computer software and hardware for use in relation to assistive technology…” and “implantable brain to computer interface for facilitating communication and control of software and hardware.” While Musk has previously indicated that Telepathy would be Neuralink's first product aimed at helping people with paralysis control computers through thought alone, the application language suggests even broader ambitions that could include enabling telepathic communication between humans equipped with Neuralink implants.

Trademark attorney Josh Gerben notes that “The ethical, privacy, and security concerns surrounding thought-based communication and control are immense.” These filings were made on an “intent-to-use” basis, which legally requires Neuralink to have genuine plans to develop and commercialize these concepts within the coming years.

Such aspirations align with statements Musk made on the Lex Fridman Podcast in August 2024, where he discussed potential “new ways of interacting with other humans” through Neuralink's technology, provided individuals on both ends have the implant.

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All messenger apps are 'transparent' to spy agencies - Kremlin

RT

Governments and corporations should be aware of the risks associated with electronic communications, Dmitry Peskov has said.

Messaging apps are "absolutely transparent" to intelligence agencies and security services, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. People who use them to share sensitive information should be aware of the risks, he added.

"All messengers are absolutely transparent systems, and people who use them should understand that they are transparent... to the security services," Peskov told journalists on Friday at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia.

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AI for dummies: AI turns us into dummies

Of Two Minds|Charles Hugh Smith

Given that AI is fundamentally incapable of performing the tasks required for authentic innovation, we're de-learning how to innovate.

CHS's note: I just got called out by a programmer who uses AI who was furious and wrote "students cheat, always have, tell us something we don't already know". I responded: "did you read the MIT paper or the other link?" Of course he didn't: TL/DR, which proves my point. Even the programmer admitted he has to check AI's work.

The point here is *those who received real educations can use AI because they know enough to double-check it, but the kids using AI as a substitute for real learning will never develop this capacity.*

Those who actually have mastery can use AI and not realize the point I'm making isn't that AI is useless, the point is it fatally undermines real learning and thinking.

The MIT paper is 206 pages long, the last section being the stats of the research, but the points it makes are truly important. So is the other article linked below.

That AI is turning those who use it into dummies is not only self-evident, it's irrefutable. 

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The Agenda

 

 https://theagendafilm.com/ Watch Free

The Agenda

'The Agenda: Their Vision | Your Future' is a feature-length independent documentary produced by Mark Sharman; former UK broadcasting executive at ITV and Sky (formerly BSkyB).

In fiction and fact, there have always been people and organisations with ambitions to control the world. And now the oligarchs who pull the strings of finance and power finally have the tools to achieve their global objectives; omnipresent surveillance, artificial intelligence, digital currency and ultimately digital identities. The potential for social control of our lives and minds is alarmingly real.

The plan has been decades in the making and has seen infiltration of Governments, local councils, big business, civil society, the media and, crucially, education. A ceaseless push for a new reality, echoing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, or George Orwell’s 1984.

The Agenda: Their Vision, Your Future examines the digital prison which awaits us if we do not push back right now. How your food, energy, money, travel and even your access to the internet could be limited and controlled; how financial power is strangling democracy and how global institutions like the World Health Organisation are commandeered to champion ideological and fiscal objectives.

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In death tech we trust: Report reveals depth of Microsoft's contribution to Israeli killing machine

Press TV

 

An investigative report has provided further solid evidence of Microsoft's ongoing collaboration with the Israeli regime towards further empowerment of Tel Aviv's deadly ambitions for Palestinians.

The evidence was provided in a Wednesday report by The Guardian, which showed how the company has been quietly entangled in the regime's vast surveillance dragnet targeting Palestinians.

The bombshell investigation revealed that Unit 8200, the Israeli military's notorious cyber-intelligence arm, has been storing millions of intercepted Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft's Azure cloud servers in Europe since at least 2022.

The surveillance apparatus, which captures calls "by the million each hour," is fueled by a staggering trove of data housed primarily in the Netherlands and Ireland, the probe found.

It monitors Palestinian life in microscopic detail, from the Gaza Strip's bomb-scarred neighborhoods to every corner of the occupied West Bank, the daily showed.

One insider, meanwhile, described a rising eagerness among Israeli officials, who see this system as the bedrock of "long-term control" in Gaza as the stored data continues to inform operations, despite telecoms destruction across the Palestinian territory.

Officers sifted through intercepted calls made near bombing targets to justify airstrikes in heavily populated civilian areas.

As one insider put it, "When they need to arrest someone and there isn't a good enough reason to do so, that's where they find the excuse."

 

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"Scariest Thing You'll Read All Day": Report Sounds Alarm Over Brain-Reading Technology and Neurocapitalism

Common Dreams

A Vox report that swiftly sparked alarm across the internet Friday outlined how, "in the era of neurocapitalism, your brain needs new rights," following recent revelations that Facebook and Elon Musk's Neuralink are developing technologies to read people's minds.

As Vox's Sigal Samuel reported:

Mark Zuckerberg's company is funding research on brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that can pick up thoughts directly from your neurons and translate them into words. The researchers say they've already built an algorithm that can decode words from brain activity in real time.

And Musk's company has created flexible "threads" that can be implanted into a brain and could one day allow you to control your smartphone or computer with just your thoughts. Musk wants to start testing in humans by the end of next year.

Considering those and other companies' advances and ambitions, Samuel warned that "your brain, the final privacy frontier, may not be private much longer" and laid out how existing laws are not equipped to handle how these emerging technologies could "interfere with rights that are so basic that we may not even think of them as rights, like our ability to determine where our selves end and machines begin."

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You Won't See Quantum Internet Coming

Ryan F. Mandelbaum
Singularity Hub

The quantum internet is coming sooner than you think—even sooner than quantum computing itself. When things change over, you might not even notice. But when they do, new rules will protect your data against attacks from computers that don’t even exist yet.

Despite the fancy name, the “quantum internet” won’t be some futuristic new way to navigate online. It won’t produce any mind-blowing new content, at least not for decades. The quantum internet will look more or less the same as the internet you’re using now, but scientists and cryptographers hope it could provide protection against not only theoretical threats but also those we haven’t dreamed up yet. 

“The main contribution of a quantum internet is to allow encrypted communication in a perfectly secure fashion that can’t be broken in principle, even if in the future we develop a more fundamental theory of physics,” Ciarán Lee, a researcher at University College, London, explained to Gizmodo. In short, the quantum internet would hopefully protect us from planned new computers, along with every theoretical computer for the foreseeable future. 

So what’s the quantum internet? It’s what happens when you apply the weird rules of quantum mechanics to the way computers communicate with one another. 

Quantum mechanics says that the smallest things, like subatomic particles, are restricted to a list of distinct values for certain properties (their energy, for example). When you’re not looking at them, they might enter a superposition of states, meaning taking on several values simultaneously—both the lowest and the second-lowest energy states, for example. But once they are measured, they assume only one of the values. The value you see is determined based on some innate probability. But you can also entangle these particles’ states, meaning when you repeat the measurements many times, they seem more related than you’d expect from two independent things following the usual rules of probability. 

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Same Scheme May Have Been Used for Suspending Jordan Peterson, Tulsi Gabbard – Google Whistleblower

Sputnik

Tulsi Gabbard, a vocal proponent of breaking up the tech monopolies, had her campaign’s advertising account suspended by Google after the Democratic debate in late June and is currently seeking $50 million in damages.

Zach Vorhies, a former Google employee who has been leaking documents suggesting political biases within the company, has rendered assistance to the representatives of 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who is suing Google for disabling her search ads account.

In an open letter on the social media network Minds, Vorhies said that he had investigated the suspension of the Google account of conservative thinker Jordan Peterson in 2017.

He wrote: “What I found was that Google had a technical vulnerability that, when exploited, would take any gmail account down. Certain unknown 3rd party actors are aware of this secret vulnerability and exploit it.”

According to the whistle-blower, “malicious actors” would change one letter in a target’s email address to create a “spoof” account and repeat this process until there is a network of bogus accounts.

These accounts, not linked with the original one in any way except for their similar name, would then start generating spam emails, triggering an AI system which fixed the problem by taking down the spam accounts and also Jordan Peterson’s original account.

“To my knowledge, this bug has never been fixed,” Vorhies said. “When Google says an account was deactivated because of ‘suspicious’ activity, this is how they often do it.”

While his revelation does not mean that Google itself was behind the scheme, it indicates that the company had failed to address the vulnerability in a timely manner.

He suggested that this knowledge may be of use to Tulsi Gabbard’s attorneys. 

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