Archives 25 November 2018

blockquote>When I decided to record every time my phone or laptop contacted a server on the internet, I knew I’d get a lot of data, but I honestly didn’t think it would reveal nearly 300,000 requests in a single week.

On average, that’s about one request every two seconds.

Are your devices sending and receiving data when you’re not using them?

They sure are. The quietest times fall — predictably — overnight. But even while I’m sleeping my devices are pretty busy talking to various companies. For example, here are the 841 times my devices made contact with 46 different domains between 10pm and 6:30am on the second night of the experiment. Most of these requests are background updates for things like my email and calendar or synchronisation that various apps like Dropbox or iCloud perform.

But exactly what each of them is doing is quite difficult to tell.

“Influencers” are being paid big sums to pitch products on Instagram and YouTube. If you’re trying to grow a product on social media, you either fork over cash or pay in another way. This is the murky world of influencing, reports Wired. Brands will pay influencers to position products on their desks, behind them, or anywhere else they can subtly appear on screen. Payouts increase if an influencer tags a brand in a post or includes a link, but silent endorsements are often preferred.

Marketers of literature, wellness, fashion, entertainment, and other wares are all hooked on influencers. As brands have warmed to social-media advertising, influencer marketing has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry. Unlike traditional television or print ads, influencers have dedicated niche followings who take their word as gospel.

There’s another plus: Many users don’t view influencers as paid endorsers or salespeople—even though a significant percentage are—but as trusted experts, friends, and “real” people. This perceived authenticity is part of why brands shell out so much cash in exchange for a brief appearance in your Instagram feed.

In the state of Chhattisgarh, the chief minister, Raman Singh, has promised a smartphone in every home — and he is using the government-issued devices to reach voters as he campaigns in legislative elections that conclude on Tuesday.

The phones are the latest twist in digital campaigning by the B.J.P., which controls the national and state government and is deft at using tools like WhatsApp groups and Facebook posts to influence voters. The B.J.P. government in Rajasthan, which holds state elections next month, is also subsidizing phones and data plans for residents, and party leaders are considering extending the model to other states.

A French police officer has been charged and arrested last week for selling confidential data on the dark web in exchange for Bitcoin,” reports ZDNet. French authorities caught him after they took down the “Black Hand” dark web marketplace. Sifting through the marketplace data, they found French police documents sold on the site. All the documents had unique identifiers, which they used to track down the French police officer who was selling the data under the name of Haurus.

Besides selling access to official docs, they also found he ran a service to track the location of mobile devices based on a supplied phone number. He advertised the system as a way to track spouses or members of competing criminal gangs. Investigators believe Haurus was using the French police resources designed with the intention to track criminals for this service. He also advertised a service that told buyers if they were tracked by French police and what information officers had on them.