Weekly Axis Of Easy #20
In this issue:
- [ironic] Equifax wins no-bid contract with IRS to secure personal data of citizens
- [scary] Proposed laws in UK to jail people who read extremist websites for 15 years
- [skynet] Uber drivers and soccer moms vacuum up license plates for NSA and repomen
- [automation] Newest Silicon Valley darling is a robotic pizza delivery service
- [easyDNS] Ethereum is now a payment method
[ironic] Equifax wins no-bid contract with IRS to secure personal data of citizens
Equifax, the company who won hearts and minds of practically the entire adult population of North America by getting hacked and leaking everybody’s private credit details has done it again. This time by revealing that they’ve secured a multi-million dollar no-bid contract with the US Internal Revenue Service to verify taxpayer identities and prevent fraud. Bang up job so far, guys.
[scary] Proposed laws in UK to jail people who read extremist websites for 15 years
Amber Rudd, the UK cabinet minister is proposing that citizens who repeatedly view “online terrorist materials” be sent to prison, maximum terms of 15 years.
“I want to make sure those who view despicable terrorist content online face the full force of the law”, said Rudd, who previously cemented her technology creds by confusing cryptographic hashing with twitter hashtags.
It is already illegal in the UK to “possess information likely to be useful to a terrorist”, this initiative is meant to close the loopholes to include streaming and viewing online.
Sounds pretty thought-crime-ish to me. What is also interesting is that Rudd specifically included “far right propaganda” in her targeted material, which can mean pretty well anything but is conspicuous in its omission of far left propaganda. Does this mean extremism is only punishable in the UK if it’s on one side of the political spectrum and not the other?
[skynet] Uber drivers and soccer moms vacuum up license plates for NSA and repomen
Interesting article about mass vacuuming of license plates everywhere on a daily basis. I already knew about this, but didn’t realize the practice had trickled down to soccer moms and Uber drivers. They can supplement their income by equipping their vehicles with camera systems and selling the feeds off to various parties, such as repo men and ultimately the NSA (who subscribe to all of the generated data feeds).
[automation] Newest Silicon Valley darling is a robotic pizza delivery service
The newest hot start-up in San Francisco (where else?) is in the “food automation” segment, in this case it’s a robotic pizza delivery company. They’ve just raised a 48 million dollar Series B to fund their quest to create a pizza company that makes, bakes and delivers your pizza completely by robots. The pie is actually baked on the truck en route to its destination (which will obviously be driverless in version 2).
According to the founders, eliminating all humans from the process puts robots into the “harmful jobs” (apparently pizza ovens kill and maim millions annually) , and frees up people to undertake more fulfilling and creative work. Because the first thing an unemployed worker or bankrupt pizzeria owner will do is write the Great American Novel.
[easyDNS] Ethereum is now a payment method
Light gloating coming up, brace yourself. We were the first in the world to accept Bitcoin (kinda, sorta) now we’re the first in the world to accept ether as a payment method at easyDNS.
See: https://www.easydns.com/blog/2017/10/04/ethereum-payments-now-accepted-for-all-services/
Previously on #AxisOfEasy
If you missed the previous issues, they can be read online here:
- October 2, 2017: Russia Threatens To Ban Facebook
- September 25, 2017: Over 20 Million Users Installed An Infected Computer Utility
- September 18, 2017: Turn Off Your Phone’s Bluetooth Before You Even Read This
- September 11, 2017: Equifax Breach Exposes Millions Millions Of Customers Data
- July 31, 2017: RIP Flash, Adobe To Kill Prolific Security Nightmare