Polish protestors launch their own drone aircraft to monitor police
There are two sides to surveillance technology. As it first becomes available, only nation-states and wealthy private firms can afford the equipment. Then, as it becomes ubiquitous, it falls into...
View ArticleLos Angeles police crack down on drone aircraft – run by civilians
Oh, I love it when we get into some classic Futurist stuff – robots, drones, genetic modifications that let you have wings and claws, flying cars, all of it. I get caught in discussions about coal and...
View ArticleFor those of you still unaware of Facebook’s business model
The company known as Facebook has 800 million users who pay nothing to post digital profiles and keep in touch with friends. They have no physical goods, but they have inventory for sure. The inventory...
View ArticleThe smartphone is really a tracking device
Two journalists from ProPublica have written an insightful OpEd in the New York Times about how we should really think of smartphones, not as phones, but as tracking devices that happen to make...
View Article“If you’re concerned, maybe there’s a reason we should be flying over you”
There is a whole industry propping up around surveillance by drone aircraft. Naturally, it started with America’s wars of adventure in Central Asia, providing reconnaissance without risking the lives...
View ArticleCould big data be our generation’s civil rights issue?
This is a fascinating analysis of how the coming era of “big data” could push issues of discrimination to the fore in the way it has in past generations, and that this could be the civil rights fight...
View ArticleMinority report report
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations has launched a $1 billion project called the Next Generation Identification program, which will bring identification of a wide variety of citizens into the...
View ArticleMy 2007 forecast on the future of surveillance technology
Back in 2007, my consulting firm Competitive Futures produced a monthly report for regular clients – the STEEP Report. For you foresight nerds, that stands for social, technological, economic,...
View ArticleIs the surveillance society a good financial investment?
I can always rely on my friend and colleague Jim Lee to figure out the financial implications of future trends. He is the only trained futurist I know who is also a serious financial engineer. As...
View ArticleJello Biafra, futurist
“The conveniences you have demanded are now mandatory.” -Jello Biafra, lead singer, The Dead Kennedys
View ArticlePolice photographing millions of drivers
When the city of San Leandro, Calif., purchased a license-plate reader for its police department in 2008, computer security consultant Michael Katz-Lacabe asked the city for a record of every time the...
View ArticleDear Intelligence Community – Cut the Crap
Hello esteemed member of America’s Intelligence Community, member of Congress, or more likely, the summer interns for some ancient Senator, My name is Eric and I have been writing about intelligence...
View ArticleThere will not be an Occupy Wall Street for the NSA
The revelations of mass surveillance by the National Security Agency now stretch on into the second month. The response from the American government has been awesomely inchoate, ranging from simply not...
View ArticleThe tech sector pushes back against the Feds
As I predicted in my piece There will not be an Occupy Wall Street for the NSA the next move will not be from the general public or the US Government, but from the tech sector itself, recognizing the...
View ArticleThe FBI can now monitor facial recognition en masse
My consultancy, Competitive Futures, predicted this way back in 2007, and now it’s reality.
View Article
