New Drone City

Scary drone. (Photo: Flickr/Don McCullough)

Seattle Man Hovers Drone Over a Family’s House for ‘Research’

A Seattle man ascended to a new level of creepiness recently when he flew a drone just a “few feet away” from a family’s home and defended his right to do so because he was flying it in the air, and thus not trespassing. He also claimed it was for research. The camera-equipped device emitted a loud noise, similar to that of a weed-whacker, which caught the attention of a woman inside.

She told Capitol Hill Seattle Blog that she saw the man on the sidewalk controlling the device near a third-story window in the eastern neighborhood. Her husband approached the man, who was standing on the sidewalk, and told him to desist from being creepy. The man told him that he was doing “research” and the camera was transmitting the images to his glasses. They called the police, but they didn’t show up since Inspector Gadget had already left. Read More

Privacy Police

Creepy. (Screengrab)

Meet FinSpy, the Favorite Spyware of Oppressive Governments Everywhere [Video]

Google engineer Morgan Marquis-Boire and Ph.D. computer science student Bill Marczak introduced New York Times readers today to FinSpy, one of the scariest spyware packages you’ve probably never heard of. Mr. Marquis-Boire and Mr. Marczak have been on FinSpy’s trail, mapping all its nasty flavors, since earlier this year. The software suite is available to law enforcement for legitimate investigative use, but the researchers have found it is also being used by oppressive governments to track the communications, activities and personal connections of political dissidents.

In a report  linked by the Times, Mr. Marquis-Boire and Mr. Marczak detail how they first learned of the spyware as a Trojan payload attached to emails sent to Bahraini human rights activists, then began peeling apart its other, much creepier uses–tracking everything a target does with a smart phone. Pretty much any smart phone. The researchers’ list of what FinSpy Mobile can do is chilling: Read More