CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought data from the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ precise movements over time, in a process that often involves siphoning data from ordinary apps like video games, dating services, and fitness trackers, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by 404 Media. The document shows…

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Google Calls ICE Agents a Vulnerable Group, Removes ICE-Spotting App ‘Red Dot’

Both Google and Apple recently removed Red Dot, an app people can use to report sightings of ICE officials, from their respective app stores, 404 Media has found. The move comes after Apple removed ICEBlock, a much more prominent app, from its App Store on Thursday following direct pressure from U.S. Department of Justice officials….

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Meta Is Blocking Links to Decentralized Instagram Competitor Pixelfed

Meta is deleting links to Pixelfed, a decentralized Instagram competitor. On Facebook, the company is labeling links to Pixelfed.social as “spam” and deleting them immediately.  Pixelfed is an open-source, community funded and decentralized image sharing platform that runs on Activity Pub, which is the same technology that supports Mastodon and other federated services. Pixelfed.social is…

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Podcast: Inside a Small Town’s Fight Against a $1.2 Billion AI Datacenter

We start with Matthew Gault’s dive into a battle between a small town and the construction of a massive datacenter for America’s nuclear weapon scientists. After the break, Joseph explains why people are 3D-printing whistles in Chicago. In the subscribers-only section, Jason zooms out and tells us what librarians are seeing with AI and tech,…

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