Technology

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/14229483

Toyota signs Huawei to help accelerate smart driving development

Highlighting, exposing, and actively working against the proliferation and normalization of surveillance technology is crucial in protecting human rights worldwide. At the Tor Project, we know that it is through collective awareness and action that we can all build and contribute to privacy-preserving technologies that aim to protect people everywhere from the prevalence of surveillance and oppression. It is equally important to hold companies accountable and recognize the source and enablers of surveillance tech, especially now as we see these technologies being aggressively utilized in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

This post delves into the impact of Israeli surveillance technologies in Palestine, illustrating how localized instances of its use can have extensive repercussions that pave the way for the widespread acceptance and global adoption of such oppressive practices.

There is a growing need for a global stance against the use of technology for oppression. Tech workers and the broader international community are urged to prioritize integrity over profit to protect privacy and prevent the deleterious impacts of pervasive surveillance on our lives. There is even more urgency to address these issues in the face of growing demand for surveillance solutions enhanced and exacerbated by AI.

The XZ Utils backdoor, discovered last week, and the Heartbleed security vulnerability ten years ago, share the same ultimate root cause. Both of them, and in fact all critical infrastructure open source projects, should be fixed with the same solution: ensure baseline funding for proper open source maintenance.

Silicon Valley was supposed to be “different,” or so veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher wanted to believe. Facebook was going to bring people together, in the process strengthening our communities, our democracies, our world; Google was going to deliver the vast stores of human knowledge to our fingertips; Tesla was going to save us from fossil fuel-driven ecological collapse, etc., etc. For years, Swisher held onto a dogged faith in these companies and their “gauzy credo to change the world” for the better.

But then, in 2016, Silicon Valley “went off the rails.” Swisher dates this cataclysm to December 10, 2016, when the heads of the most powerful tech companies—including Amazon, Tesla, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet, Google’s parent company—were “summoned to tromp into Manhattan’s Trump Tower and meet the man who had unexpectedly just been elected president and was the antithesis of all they supposedly represented.”

Last month, the Justice Department charged tech giant Apple with serious antitrust violations related to the iPhone. It’s a relatively aggressive suit — but likely an inadequate response to Apple’s outsize power.