The history of surveillance is one of control. As monitoring technologies accelerate, one not-for-profit noticed a concerning rise in unethical police cell phone observation. Their objections led to new, stronger digital rights legislation.

Stingrays and cell phones: Is your pocket private?

Smartphones have improved our lives more than we could have imagined. We work on them, use them to take and store private photos and they know where we are at any moment. But with advanced surveillance techniques, phones have become a powerful way for law enforcement to observe and identify us, ethically or not.

Last year’s change to remote life made us all digital. Are we now in danger of trading private digital data for convenient digital services? Check out Kaspersky’s privacy predictions for 2021 and learn how this year is going to affect our privacy in cyberspace.

One Chicago not-for-profit, Lucy Parsons Labs, is demanding government agencies like the police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) be more transparent about how and why they track people through their phones. Defenders of Digital episode three speaks with Lucy Parsons Labs’ Executive Director Freddy Martinez about how law enforcement use technologies to covertly observe people, what it means for digital rights and how his team made US legal history.

Hackers hijacked a US Air Force satellite with just $300 worth of TV equipment to show just how easy it is.

There are security problems in space – and they can spell disaster

Every time you use your phone, GPS or a connected device you’re dialling up a satellite. And yet many orbiting satellites are protected by cybersecurity tech from the 1990s. This leaves the systems and sensitive data vulnerable to hacking, with dangerous consequences.

In partnership with Freethink, season 3 of Coded explores the latest trends in hacking. In episode 4 we meet a young scholar who hacked a satellite with $300 of TV equipment. And we visit one of the teams from 2020’s Hack-a-Sat competition who are helping the government to identify and close security gaps in the thousands of satellites orbiting the earth.

Taylor Rees is one of the most exciting filmmakers around, making documentaries from forgotten volcanic archipelagos to red-hot reflections on the American civil war. Who is Taylor Rees and what other documentaries has she made that you must see?

Who is Taylor Rees?

Director. Adventurer. Photographer. Environmental documentary filmmaker. The list goes on, but this description gives you an idea of her versatility and talent.

Taylor Rees’ work focuses on environmental and humanitarian issues, exploring stories beneath the surface with insatiable curiosity, deepening public understanding of natural resource conflicts, climate change and human rights. Her middle name is Freesolo: No moniker but a lasting reminder of her parents’ love of free climbing.

Where did Taylor Rees start making films?

Her career dates back to a Masters’s degree from Yale in environmental management and anthropology. This is the foundation for her stories, giving them a rigorous scientific and social justice approach.

Taylor Rees’ filmmaking style

Stylistically, Taylor’s work uses the power of landscape – skies, mountain ranges and large expanses. She also looks at a landscape’s story – the intricacies of its beauty, connection and how life interacts within different places. For storytellers out there, her TED talk is a must.

Taylor Rees said in a recent interview with culture and adventure journalist Simon Schreyer, “The love of what’s beautiful to me is deeply personal and it gives me a lot of intention, desire and drive to find aspects of beauty within a human life, or in a landscape, or in a way to incorporate that beauty in my own life. It’s like an indescribable phenomenon, that we don’t even know how to talk about rationally.”

Taylor Rees films

Down To Nothing (2015)

Her first film Down To Nothing follows a five-person team who set out on an ambitious trek to find out whether Burmese peak Hkakabo Razi is really Southeast Asia’s highest point.

Life Coach (2017)

Alaska’s Ruth Glacier is a climber’s dream. When director Taylor Rees and climbers Renan Ozturk and Alex Honnold choose a specific route to the top, unfortunately – or perhaps, fortunately – the weather puts a swift stop to their expectations. What follows is remarkable.

Watch Taylor Rees’ film Life Coach

Mentors: Hilaree Nelson (2018)

Is there room for glamour in the testosterone-filled world of ski mountaineering? Taylor and her team ask big questions as they follow ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson in a stunning depiction of masculinity and femininity in sport.

Watch Taylor Rees’ film Mentors: Hilaree Nelson

Ashes To Ashes (2019)

Both Black history and US history, Ashes to Ashes is one of Taylor Rees’ more poignant and at times horrific explorations of humanity. She follows Winfred Rembert, an artist and rare survivor of a Jim Crow-era attempted lynching, as he explains a dark past.

From Kurils With Love (2020)

When the guardian of an almost unreachable archipelago in the Far East of Russia hitched a ride with Taylor and her team, no one expected the result. From Kurils With Love’s team includes Rees’ spouse and fellow filmmaker Renan Ozturk. They set out to make a classic adventure story but what they got was something far more powerful.

The Ghosts Above (2020)

Taylor’s most recent work is set on Mount Everest and narrated by Renan Ozturk. The big question: Who was the first to reach the summit? Rees directs this gripping and sometimes strained look at the history of Everest expeditions, the fraught relationship between indigenous guides and the commercialization of a sacred mountain.

What will Taylor Rees do next?

If her previous work is anything to go by, the future is bright. To make sure you don’t miss her next project, keep up to date with Taylor’s adventures on her Instagram or the Taylor Freesolo Rees website.

Read More Show Less

blob:https://www.tomorrowunlocked.com/f1dab77e-d576-498f-93c0-22f396cd54cf

Mars myths explained by a NASA Scientist

Watch as Dr. Lori Glaze separates Mars facts from fiction for Wired

Taylor Rees is one of the most exciting filmmakers around, making documentaries from forgotten volcanic archipelagos to red-hot reflections on the American civil war. Who is Taylor Rees and what other documentaries has she made that you must see?

Who is Taylor Rees?

Director. Adventurer. Photographer. Environmental documentary filmmaker. The list goes on, but this description gives you an idea of her versatility and talent.

Taylor Rees’ work focuses on environmental and humanitarian issues, exploring stories beneath the surface with insatiable curiosity, deepening public understanding of natural resource conflicts, climate change and human rights. Her middle name is Freesolo: No moniker but a lasting reminder of her parents’ love of free climbing.

Where did Taylor Rees start making films?

Her career dates back to a Masters’s degree from Yale in environmental management and anthropology. This is the foundation for her stories, giving them a rigorous scientific and social justice approach.

Taylor Rees’ filmmaking style

Stylistically, Taylor’s work uses the power of landscape – skies, mountain ranges and large expanses. She also looks at a landscape’s story – the intricacies of its beauty, connection and how life interacts within different places. For storytellers out there, her TED talk is a must.

Taylor Rees said in a recent interview with culture and adventure journalist Simon Schreyer, “The love of what’s beautiful to me is deeply personal and it gives me a lot of intention, desire and drive to find aspects of beauty within a human life, or in a landscape, or in a way to incorporate that beauty in my own life. It’s like an indescribable phenomenon, that we don’t even know how to talk about rationally.”

Taylor Rees films

Down To Nothing (2015)

Her first film Down To Nothing follows a five-person team who set out on an ambitious trek to find out whether Burmese peak Hkakabo Razi is really Southeast Asia’s highest point.

Life Coach (2017)

Alaska’s Ruth Glacier is a climber’s dream. When director Taylor Rees and climbers Renan Ozturk and Alex Honnold choose a specific route to the top, unfortunately – or perhaps, fortunately – the weather puts a swift stop to their expectations. What follows is remarkable.

Watch Taylor Rees’ film Life Coach

Mentors: Hilaree Nelson (2018)

Is there room for glamour in the testosterone-filled world of ski mountaineering? Taylor and her team ask big questions as they follow ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson in a stunning depiction of masculinity and femininity in sport.

Watch Taylor Rees’ film Mentors: Hilaree Nelson

Ashes To Ashes (2019)

Both Black history and US history, Ashes to Ashes is one of Taylor Rees’ more poignant and at times horrific explorations of humanity. She follows Winfred Rembert, an artist and rare survivor of a Jim Crow-era attempted lynching, as he explains a dark past.

From Kurils With Love (2020)

When the guardian of an almost unreachable archipelago in the Far East of Russia hitched a ride with Taylor and her team, no one expected the result. From Kurils With Love’s team includes Rees’ spouse and fellow filmmaker Renan Ozturk. They set out to make a classic adventure story but what they got was something far more powerful.

The Ghosts Above (2020)

Taylor’s most recent work is set on Mount Everest and narrated by Renan Ozturk. The big question: Who was the first to reach the summit? Rees directs this gripping and sometimes strained look at the history of Everest expeditions, the fraught relationship between indigenous guides and the commercialization of a sacred mountain.

What will Taylor Rees do next?

If her previous work is anything to go by, the future is bright. To make sure you don’t miss her next project, keep up to date with Taylor’s adventures on her Instagram or the Taylor Freesolo Rees website.

Read More Show Less

In a remote New Zealand landscape, you’ll find a billboard with impressive tech: Powered by a neural network, it answers your questions about the future.

A glimpse into the future

The future is unknown, and full of questions: How will technology change us? How can we make our future more secure? Kaspersky has launched Safer Tomorrow with a feature that might help answer humankind’s greatest questions. With answers powered by a neural network, selected questions will be livestreamed on the billboard from the east coast of New Zealand. The easterly site was chosen as it’s one of the places on Earth that experiences the new day first.

Get answers about tomorrow’s big questions and watch the billboard live from one of the world’s most forwarded time zones on Safer Tomorrow.

Described by Europol as “one of most significant botnets of the past decade,” Emotet left a trail of destruction in its wake as it rampaged across the world. Here’s everything you need to know about this devastating malware.

Spread by spam emails, Emotet’s goal was to compromise devices and networks and sell back-door access to anyone.

Emotet was much more than just malware. The cybercriminals behind it behaved like a commercial business, offering their weapon for hire to other cybercriminals. This allowed these third parties to install all kinds of malicious software – like banking trojans, ransomware, botnets and cryptocurrency miners – onto their victims’ networks.

The scale of the damage.

With an estimated clean up cost of $1m per attack, the US Department of Homeland Security concluded Emotet had enormous destructive power. Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security called Emotet the “king of malware.”

There’s no question Emotet is one of the most complex and dangerous malware ever. It left a trail of expensive attacks in its wake, partly because it’s polymorphic, which means its code changes a little bit every time it’s accessed. This made it almost impossible for antivirus software to defeat.

Like their code, the cybercriminals behind Emotet were constantly on the move. Because of this dynamic and nebulous strategy, a coordinated effort by eight law enforcement agencies was needed to finally take Emotet down.

The victims of Emotet.

After being infected with Emotet, German hospital Fuerstenfeldbruck shut down almost 500 computers and had to resort to paper based documentation in the rescue control center to control the infection. Unconfirmed reports claimed this led to lives being put in danger, the attack was considered by many to be the lowest point of Emotet’s regime of destruction.

In 2019, the Berlin Court of Appeal and the University of Giessen were attacked and suffered major disruption. The Medical University of Hannover and the city administration of Frankfurt am Main also fell victim to Emotet, with countless other organisations likely to have been attacked.

The king of malware.

Nobody truly knows who is behind Emotet. As you’ll see in hacker:HUNTER, the group was eventually traced to Ukraine but speculation remains that those arrested were not the only perpetrators and that Emotet could morph and rise again to cause carnage around the world.

Watch the episode now and see the full story for yourself.

How many people you know started self or home improvement projects when the quarantine started? We were all stuck at home and trying to find something productive to do with our time, besides finally getting through the Netflix watchlist. In fact, “DIY home improvement projects” and “smart home” had a worldwide search peak on Google in April – right in the time when a lot of shops, restaurants, and bars were closed, and a lot of people had to spend their time indoors. So, it seems creating the right personal comfort zone is more than just having the perfect outdoor pouf for your balcony: With today’s technology we have the opportunity to create a comfort zone online which translates into our offline world and it feels just like magic. Have a look at our tips and find out how you can create your own digital comfort zone and feel safe and sound online.

1. Convenience through Automation

Do you not love to be wakened by the sun rising, birds chirping, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee? With the right smart helpers, you can recreate beautiful Tuscany mornings in your own apartment in the middle of the largest cities. I use Alexa to automate some of my routines and make my life more convenient. All you need for the perfect Tuscany morning routine is a smart light, a normal coffee machine connected to a smart power switch, and your favorite sound to wake up to. I personally prefer bird sounds, as they annoy me the least in the morning. And then all that is left to do is to choose the settings on the Alexa app, like gradually brighten the light, have the birds chiming in. When I am done getting ready, my coffee has already been brewed and I can have some relaxing time for myself, drinking my coffee until I have to leave the house and get to work. You can create your smart routines with any assistant, be it from Google or Microsoft.

2. Use Productivity Apps

When I get too comfortable, I tend to slack and procrastinate. Which makes me feel unproductive and therefore less comfortable. To avoid this I tried using bulletin journals to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but this did not really work for me. A simple yet effective way for me is using productivity apps. Simple habit trackers such as HabitNow (Android) or Momentum Habit Tracker (iOS). If you don’t want to use an app you can also organize your habits via Google calendar. I prefer it because let’s face it, Google already has all my data and it plans the time I want to use for my goals, according to my free time in the calendar. Just press on the “plus” on your Google calendar app and choose “Goal”. The system will then guide you through the target creation process.​

3. Use the right hardware and software for you!

Photo by James McDonald on Unsplash

It doesn’t matter if you are an iOS, Android, Microsoft, or Linux user: use the right products for you. Check online and with your friends for recommendations, but in the end, it is you who has to use them. Make sure your devices are compatible with each other, so you are able to connect them with your smart assistant. Also, make sure your data is protected by keeping your software up to date and only chose trusted providers.​

4. Have fun!

Another very important part: Do not forget to have fun with your smart assistant. Playing with your devices and trying out new things and skills is always the best way to understand what their real potentials are to make your life more convenient. Plus, what is comfort without the right amount of humor?

We have all been in some kind of pandemic-changed life for months now. While the strictest lockdowns are being lifted, the next wave might already be coming back. But besides all the bad news which came up in our daily news ticker, there have been also many positive news and quite creative outcomes. So, enjoy some of the greatest positive outcomes during corona-crisis.