Wolfie Christl

Public-interest researcher https://crackedlabs.org | Tech and society. Tracking, surveillance, consumer data, platform power, algorithmic decisions, datafication of work.

https://wolfie.crackedlabs.org/en

Public Key

npub1ulz79kl639eds904ydp3wkqq7r9upj52lr5sjtd5agexr5cj0y2s64pe8c

NIP-05 Address

wchr_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsw030zm0agjukczh6jxschtqq0pj7qe29036gf9k6w5vnp6vf8j9gprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqyvhwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddakk7um5wgh8q6twdvhshrf0yy

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

relay.nostr.band

Author Public Key

npub1ulz79kl639eds904ydp3wkqq7r9upj52lr5sjtd5agexr5cj0y2s64pe8c

Show more details

Last Notes

2024-11-06 12:42:18

It is a dark day, also for the idea of democratizing digital infrastructure in the US through politics, regulation and institutions, and through curbing the power of the tech industry.
If anything, the Trump-Musk oligarchy will likely use what the FTC, DOJ, CFPB and others have started in recent years selectively against their opponents.
The EU, itself infiltrated by corrupt corporate interests, geopolitical 'constraints' and authoritarian zealots, remains the only potential global actor here.

2024-09-05 16:04:26

Revisiting 2 of the 5 docs from the Snowden leaks that mention 'cookies'.
GCHQ 2009 on 'target detection identifiers':
https://snowden.glendon.yorku.ca/items/show/188/
NSA 2011 on 'selector types':
https://snowden.glendon.yorku.ca/items/show/172
...featuring cookie/browser IDs from Google/Doubleclick, Facebook, Microsoft and many more.
It's breathtaking how the surveillance marketing industry has still managed to claim for many years that unique personal identifiers processed in the web browser are 'anonymous', and sometimes still does.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/085/790/541/058/531/original/755076ee22ffbe2b.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/085/791/264/808/272/original/ae1595b557b450b9.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/085/791/468/397/170/original/40bcca06063e8e3c.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/085/791/961/030/932/original/878807c0f322fdba.png

2024-09-04 19:54:46

"Seems like more people should be talking about how a libertarian charter city startup funded by Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, and Peter Thiel is trying to bankrupt Honduras. Próspera is suing Honduras to the tune of $11B (GDP is $32B) and is expected to win, per the NYT"
Via [thread]:
https://x.com/GarrisonLovely/status/1831104024612896795
Foreign Policy article:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/24/honduras-zedes-us-prospera-world-bank-biden-castro/
NY Times article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/magazine/prospera-honduras-crypto.html
(both articles available via archive .is)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/081/033/885/643/178/original/6ebc3f36a20da9af.png

2024-08-27 21:10:14

- reply

Forcepoint was until recently owned by defense giant Raytheon. Its behavioral surveillance tech was initially funded by the CIA's venture capital firm In-Q-Tel.
A co-founder of RedOwl which later became Forcepoint Behavioral Analytics is a former US army intelligence and NSA officer who was previously the CEO of Berico, which was involved in a large-scale plan to discredit labor unions in the US.
Overall, Forcepoint claims to analyze 5 billion activity records per day from 900 million devices.

2024-08-27 21:04:01

- reply

The system uses 'behavioral risk models' to assess whether employees are in financial distress, show 'decreased productivity' or intend to leave the job, how they communicate with colleagues and whether they access 'obscene' content or show 'negative sentiment' in their communications.
Here's a list of built-in risk models, see p. 16 in my report:
https://crackedlabs.org/dl/CrackedLabs_Christl_SecurityRiskProfiling.pdf
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/036/004/168/435/717/original/6c5cdcf386402d7a.png

2024-08-27 21:01:37

- reply

Based on behavioral profiling, Forcepoint's technology continuously calculates risk scores for employees, singles out those who are assessed as suspicious, ranks them by risk and raises alerts.
To identify 'anomalous' behavior, it can analyze behavioral data on many or all employees, which is recommended by Forcepoint.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/035/999/256/226/928/original/599e5b7c0154909e.png

2024-08-27 20:59:12

- reply

Forcepoint's systems can analyze:
- data from employee computers/devices, e.g. file, web, app, clipboard, keyboard, screen activity
- employee communication contents, e.g. email, chat, voice calls
- networking data, e.g. firewall, proxy
- performance reviews from HR systems
- data on physical access to buildings and rooms via badging systems
- activity log data from many other software systems, e.g. Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, Cisco
- external data, e.g. criminal history, financial distress
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/035/981/526/912/855/original/db6a6d9cb6ef4cc1.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/035/982/007/014/494/original/c40d163b548ad268.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/035/982/981/996/891/original/51a66a37c8262a71.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/035/983/544/088/431/original/8b5c9469e0acbf19.png

2024-08-27 20:49:58

- reply

First, the report investigates insider risk and behavioral monitoring technology offered by Forcepoint, a major US cybersecurity vendor that is affiliated with the defense/intelligence sector.
Forcepoint promises to help organizations identify cyberattacks and employees who are considered a risk, whether by carelessness, negligence or intention.
Potential threats include “disgruntled employees” who had a “huge fight with the boss” and “internal activists” who leak information to journalists.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/035/930/065/202/984/original/2e8b85904c0f6d98.png

2024-08-27 20:34:17

- reply

The report is part of a larger project which examines how employers (mis)use worker data, funded by Austrian Arbeiterkammer:
https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work
To illustrate wider practices, the report investigates software for cybersecurity and risk profiling from two major vendors including Microsoft. While employers can use these systems for legitimate purposes, the report focuses on potential implications for employees.
The Register's @npub160w…p722 wrote about my research:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/27/microsoft_workplace_surveillance/

2024-08-27 20:30:24

I published a new report that shows how today's cybersecurity and risk profiling systems are turning into employee mass surveillance and predictive policing tools.
Based on log, device and network data,
they let companies monitor almost everything employees do or say.
We need a serious debate about what is necessary and proportionate for what purpose and about safeguards that prevent misuse.
My 76-page report focusing on software from Forcepoint/Everfox and Microsoft:
https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/securityriskprofiling
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/035/877/977/327/598/original/65e82c7a2f77ac8d.png

2024-07-03 20:59:00

- reply

In any case, I believe it's now really time to say goodbye to cyberlibertarian dogmatism and rethink everything from speech maximalism to liability minimalism to general government-regulation aversion to choice, interoperability and competition as catch-all fixes.
There is no such a thing as "internet utopia". Perhaps it never existed, or it existed in some way before economic and political power went all-in and digital infrastructure became essential infrastructure. Certainly, it's long gone.

2024-07-03 20:34:04

- reply

If I lived in a fully authoritarian state, I'd perhaps prefer private platforms as regulators. Not so in democracies under the rule of law.
I'm afraid that the less we risk with regulation, the more likely we'll end up with both authoritarian platforms AND states.
In the worst case, it's already too late :/

2024-07-03 20:32:35

- reply

Introducing some form of common carrier regulation (and also expanding intermediary liability) for platform giants clearly poses risks, especially if the US should turn fully authoritarian.
However, allowing big tech to continue to act as they see fit as private regulators also poses massive risks to democracy, perhaps even greater risks.
It's complicated.

2024-07-03 20:05:28

- reply

Yes, this is a highly controversial debate, including within the digital rights and civil society communities.
While the EFF basically sides with big tech, EPIC and others take a different position.
I generally believe that the expansion of corporate "speech" rights in the US has generally proven to be a disaster for democracy, from Citizen United to the impossibility to pass privacy or data protection legislation (because digital mass profiling and personal data sales is corporate "speech").

2024-07-03 19:59:29

- reply

The far-right oligarch aggressively attacked Tim Wu's piece, which is of course not discussing *your* or *our* freedom of speech, but the freedom of corporations and billionaires to exert their power aka "speech" without any democratic control, from arbitrary account bans to private mass surveillance to institutionalized political bribery.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/724/289/274/742/871/original/e49b661583c59629.png

2024-07-03 19:46:58

- reply

"In our era, the power of private actors has grown to rival that of nation-states. Most powerful are the Big Tech platforms, which in their cocoon-like encompassing of humanity have grown to control commerce and speech in ways that would make totalitarian states jealous. In a democracy, the people ought to have the right to react to and control such private power ... But thanks to the Supreme Court, the First Amendment has become a barrier to the government’s ability to do that."

2024-07-03 19:46:04

- reply

Now the Supreme Court stated that "millions of algorithmic decisions made every day by social media platforms are protected by the First Amendment", weakening "the ability of the government to regulate so-called common carriers like railroads and airlines — a traditional state function since medieval times".
"Even if one has concerns about the wisdom and questionable constitutionality of the Florida and Texas laws (as I do), the breadth of the court’s reasoning should serve as a wake-up call".

2024-07-03 19:41:57

- reply

"Over the past decade or two, however, liberal as well as conservative judges and justices have extended the First Amendment to protect nearly anything that can be called 'speech,' regardless of its value or whether the speaker is a human or a corporation".
...from corporate donations to political campaigns (Citizen United) to companies selling consumer data (Sorrell v. IMS Health)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/724/255/761/557/236/original/b02395cc553380f2.png

2024-07-03 19:39:06

"Free speech rights have been hijacked to suppress the sovereignty of humans in favor of the power of companies and machines"
Tim Wu on how the First Amendment turned from "a constitutional provision meant to protect unpopular opinion" and help the "underdog" into "a tool of legislative nullification that now mostly protects corporate interests", because "nearly any law that has to do with the movement of information can be attacked in the name of the First Amendment":
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/opinion/supreme-court-netchoice-free-speech.html

2024-05-22 11:17:40

Excellent and very comprehensive 137-page report on how consumer data brokers trade personal information on everyone by the Australian competition and consumer protection regulator ACCC, in part informed by my work with reset.tech Australia and the revelations about Microsoft's data broker subsidiary Xandr published by @npub1svp…js2d, @npub1tw4…7pv8 and me in 2023:
https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Digital-platform-services-inquiry-March-2024-interim-report.pdf
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/484/444/727/928/721/original/49382eabba7cf0fb.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/484/445/070/591/530/original/ab50b19a54fd2beb.png