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Support Yasha Levine’s “Surveillance Valley” — a book about how Silicon Valley created the world’s most effective surveillance apparatus
As regular Pando readers know, for the past year-and-a-half I’ve been covering the “Surveillance Valley” beat — investigating the for-profit surveillance business that powers Silicon Valley and the way this technology is increasingly being used to monitor and control our lives. My reporting has taken me deep inside the modern surveillance state — a place where giant tech companies work hand in hand with the military-industrial complex and make billions by spying on our private lives. I have exposed Google’s… -
How leading Tor developers and advocates tried to smear me after I reported their US Government ties
“I contract for the United States Government to build anonymity technology for them and deploy it.” — Roger Dingledine, cofounder of Tor, 2004 * * * About three months ago, I published an article exploring the deeply conflicted ties between agencies of the U.S. National Security State, and the Tor Network—an online anonymity tool popular among anti-surveillance privacy groups and activists, including Edward Snowden. My article traced… -
Refugees, neo-Nazis, and super patriots: Heading into the Ukrainian war zone
CHUGUYEV, UKRAINE — It’s just before noon on August 29 when we pull into a dilapidated military depot filled with Ukrainian armor, sitting just south of Kharkov and a couple of hours north of the rebel breakaway People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk. I can count nine green Soviet-era APCs — the kind with six wheels, small turrets and sharp angular noses — parked between two rows of crumbling single-story garages. Two mechanics are tinkering with one of them, swearing loudly and trying to… -
Welcome to The Luhansk People’s Republic: Following the Russian convoy into rebel-held Ukraine
IZVARINO, LUHANSK PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC — It’s around 12:30 pm and pushing 100 F when Russia’s humanitarian aid convoy finally starts rumbling across the Russian border and into rebel-held Ukrainian territory under heavy militia guard. In the lead truck, a Russian Orthodox priest rides shotgun, armed with icons and holy water for good luck. There are 300 trucks in all — tank-like army KamAZ semis painted white for the occasion. They spew black exhaust and kick up clouds of grime as they… -
Hall of Mirrors: Wikileaks volunteer helped build Tor, was funded by the Pentagon
Last week, I wrote an article about the Tor Network, an anonymity tool developed, built, and (currently) financed by the US National Security State: the Pentagon, the State Department, and a CIA spinoff, the International Broadcasting Bureau, that also operates a propaganda outfit aimed at subverting Cuba’s communist regime. While most of the story — Tor’s NatSec sponsors, military functionality, and the people involved — is relatively straightforward, at times the narrative threads can veer into weird and murky territory. One of these spooky… -
Almost everyone involved in developing Tor was (or is) funded by the US government
“The United States government can’t simply run an anonymity system for everybody and then use it themselves only. Because then every time a connection came from it people would say, “Oh, it’s another CIA agent.” If those are the only people using the network.” —Roger Dingledine, co-founder of the Tor Network, 2004 *** In early July, hacker Jacob Appelbaum and two other security experts published a blockbuster story in conjunction with the German press. They had obtained leaked top secret… -
Why’s Google aligning itself with hated ISPs? It plans on being one of them
Remember Occupy Google, the gaggle of protesters whose struggle for a Free Internet involved trying to squat on a chunk of Google HQ’s vast manicured lawn? They were a somewhat confused bunch of kids trying to do right in our incredibly confused era, and doing right meant demanding that Google, the mega-corporation, defend net neutrality with more vigor than they seemed to be showing. What made it all weirder was that they insisted they were not there to protest Google, but rather, to sort of nudge Google to do the People’s… -
No, Facebook doesn’t need better “self-regulation.” We need better laws to protect us from Facebook
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum… …Dave Winer, blog pioneer and arbiter of all that is right and wrong on the Internet, has weighed in on the FBULTRA scandal. In a post titled “About Facebook users and Facebook,” Winer criticizes the social network megacorp for experimenting on users like lab rats. To Winer, Facebook’s experiment broke the most important rule… -
The Fog of Twitter: Ukraine’s civil war and the limits of social news gathering
Just in case you missed it, there’s a real fucking civil war raging in Eastern Ukraine. On July 2, a day after newly elected billionaire President Petro Poroshenko called off a ceasefire, residential areas in several towns and villages in the Lugansk and Donestk regions came under intense shelling and air bombardment. The town of Slavyansk, which has seen a lot of fighting, was shelled. The Ukrainian Air Force bombed the village of Stanytsia Luhanska. The attack obliterated an entire residential area, shredding houses, people and pets, and… -
Uhhhh… Occupy Google gets help with “messaging” from Google-funded Silicon Valley think tank
Earlier this week, a group of 10-30 people descended on Google HQ in Mountain View, California. They were armed with tents, canopies and foldable tables. They called themselves “Occupy Google.” The protesters were there to stand up for a Free Internet, and were prepared to squat on Google property however long it took. “We are committed to occupying the Google Headquarters until the company gets involved in honest dialogue on net neutrality, and until real action is taken to…
The Week in Review
Monday
Oscars, Surveillance Valley and Paul’s horrible music taste: Listen again to tonight’s PandoLIVE
Apple posts job listing for a music journalist. More evidence that traditional music criticism is dying?
PandoLIVE is LIVE with media bribes, Greenwald outrage (part 356), Ruxin on Oscar night, and Yasha
Autodesk at the Oscars
Despite being deemed “irresponsible” by Greenwald, Snowden laughs at NPH’s “treason” joke at Oscars
Consumers are using Slack beyond the enterprise, whether the company likes it or not
Crowdfunders attempt to bribe Pando into covering their project
Researchers say Superfish is just the beginning of consumers’ woes
Support Yasha Levine’s “Surveillance Valley” — a book about how Silicon Valley created the world’s most effective surveillance apparatus
Report claims Facebook runs afoul of Belgian privacy laws
ThredUp acquires Kindermint, further proving that pre-owned and premium aren’t mutually exclusive
Tuesday
Watch the full video of our PandoMonthly fireside chat with Lyft cofounder John Zimmer
Math does not bow to guns: Bitcoin poker site to relaunch after founder’s home was raided by armed police
Silicon Valley’s War on Sex continues as Google bans adult blogs
Immigration reform: It’s time for the lucky few to stand with the millions still living in fear
The FTC cracks down on health apps that promise to detect diseases without proof
The War Nerd: Tomb Raiders of Kobane
Pebble Time proves once and for all that, no matter what it says, Kickstarter is a store
NexTravel launches out of Y Combinator to make booking corporate travel easier and less expensive
Waffle House offers a safe(r) place to use Roadie, the scandal waiting to happen
This company wants to use drones to track your location through WiFi
Wednesday
LaunchTN settles Pando’s legal complaint, will stick to agreement it signed months ago
Palantir founder hates that women have the vote… but apparently quite likes Hillary Clinton
Pao v. Kleiner Perkins: Weeks v. Baker McKenzie revisited?
Always inept Bitcoin Foundation badly bungles board vote, asks for a do-over
The return of Guitar Hero and the days when “social gaming” meant playing in the same room
As Ellen Pao gets her day in court, Valley investors still support those who harass and abuse women
Company that tried to bribe Pando apologizes, “takes back” its offer
Startups Anonymous: Failed Startups & Founders – The Silver Lining of Our Economy
Yo introduces the “Yo Store,” further validating what you all thought was a joke
Unlocking the power of high frequency-shopping: A lesson from India’s data marketers
Uber faces possible IP ban in India, if it doesn’t comply with regulatory demands
How Instagram data exposed a Congressman’s expensive travel budget
Six months after the celebrity photo scandal, Reddit finally tries to protect women’s privacy
Thursday
Capping a big month for coffee startups, Blue Bottle Coffee acquires Perfect Coffee
Join Cloudera founder and “Data God” Jeff Hammerbacher at our next San Francisco PandoMonthly
Strange new legal complaint alleges that Google tried to steal employees’ lunch
Uber says it loves the military. So why is its auto-loan partner screwing over veterans?
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Why do we watch “House of Cards”? Stay up with me tonight to find out as Season Three premieres
Twenty20 raises $8M, removes the velvet rope on its crowdsourced stock photo platform
Poetic justice: Revenge porn operator wants stories about his misdeeds to disappear from Google
Facebook offers help to at-risk users without placing them under a microscope
Do you know what your stuff’s worth? Trov raises $6.5M to reinvent insurance for the mobile generation
Yesterday
Fair warning: Pandoland is not that kind of conference
Read all 13 recaps from our sleepless House of Cards marathon
Courts deem CallFire a common carrier, setting a major precedent at intersection of telecom and tech law
Facebook now allows its users, not a drop-down menu, to define their genders
Kim Dotcom’s Mega is dropped by PayPal over end-to-end encryption, may adopt Bitcoin instead
The War Nerd: Why did Mohammed Emwazi become Jihadi John?
Twitter keeps Dick Costolo’s promise with new anti-harassment tools
SF’s real income inequality issue isn’t hipsters priced out of homes — It’s the homeless
