Criminal fly-tipping gangs are costing governments millions – AI and drones can help track waste dumpers

Illegal dumping of waste is costing the UK government over a £1 billion per year. malaha/Shutterstock Illegal waste dumping in the UK is no longer a marginal nuisance. It is increasingly operating at an industrial scale, with serious consequences. The reported dumping of around 30,000 tonnes of waste at a protected site of special scientific […]

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Germany pulled the plug on flagship FCAS fighter jet – the implications for European defence are worrying

The effective collapse of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) fighter jet programme is a major setback for European defence cooperation. France, Germany and Spain have spent nearly a decade trying to develop what was intended to become Europe’s premier next-generation combat aircraft, only for the programme to succumb to disputes over leadership, the distribution […]

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Yes to California's Bill to Ban Surveillance Pricing

Corporations harvest and monetize ever-growing amounts of our personal data, such as our browsing history and physical location. One bitter fruit of this poisonous tree is known as “surveillance pricing”: corporations offer the same product to two different people at two different prices, based on scrutiny of these people’s respective personal data. Surveillance pricing is […]

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‘News’ Site Keeps Hallucinating EFF Staffers

What do EFF staffers Sarah Chen, Javier Morales, Caitlin Chin, Emma Rodriguez, and Mikko Kopponen have in common?  For one thing, they don’t exist.  For another, all have been quoted as EFF experts in articles published in the past two months on a site called News-USA Today, which describes itself as “an independent news publisher focused […]

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Forced labour in West African cybercrime academies: how fear traps young men

Forced labour in cybercrime might call to mind scam compounds in south-east Asia. A growing body of scholarship, journalism and policy attention has entrenched that stereotype. Images of fortified compounds, armed guards and confiscated passports are shaping how courts worldwide interpret cybercriminal participation. But new research challenges that template. There are different kinds of coercion. […]

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The fraudsters’ playbook: our study of Enron traders shows how easily the language of trust can be abused

From election debates to job interviews, language shapes our perceptions of how trustworthy other people are. This power can be used to build healthy relationships, but it can also be used to manipulate and deceive. To better understand this darker side of building trust, my colleagues and I turned to the corporate world – a […]

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Congress Just Rushed Through a Disastrous Copyright Office Overhaul

In a voice vote earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6028, the “Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act.” The legislation is presented as a technical reorganization of some government agencies, but it’s much more than that.  H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office, and not in a good way. The bill […]

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The 702 Ultimatum: Warrant Requirement or Bust

For months now, Congress has been kicking the ball down the road—temporarily postponing the expiration of the mass surveillance authority Section 702 of FISA in hopes that some consensus could be reached. Now, with the deadline looming, the stakes have never been higher. Nearly every time the statute has come up for renewal, the people […]

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