word-reader

It didn't have to be someone at Project Zero. Anyone with a bunch of network logs could have searched for some of the fingerprints or URLs that were publicly available and deduced the target from associated traffic.

So we now know that drive-by rooting of even "locked-down" and "secure" user devices like the iPhone is possible and in active use by state actors. What are the odds that other governments, even the US (which has the additional advantage of being able to gag Apple and Google), are doing this? Seems like it would become a more important way to do surveillance as more data and networks become encrypted.

One of the pellets in this scattershot is basically, because sometimes beards are associated with being a man, and sometimes being clean-shaven is associated with being a man, there are surely no cross-cultural or cross-temporal ideals about masculinity at all and being a man can be completely redefined by lecturers in early modern masculinity or whoever.

That being said, as someone who can't grow a great beard, I'll always have the Romans; can't blame it on gas masks or TV ads back then.

People put their lives and their children's lives in danger to illegally enter the United States, frequently paying human traffickers substantial money in the process, because the border and enforcement is weak. They know that if they can get past the border they have a very good chance of spending as long as they want living and working in the US.

This is absurd. Where on earth are these "racist and horrible" Pepe memes coming from? In reality, 90% of uses of the Pepe character (which is now a fading meme) are as an avatar or highlight of a post's emotion. Seriously, the majority of all Pepes ever posted have been either a sad frog, a smug frog, or a happy frog. People use the meme to help express themselves along with their text, and then people spazz out worse than a bored housewife hearing about D&D in 1985 or NWA in 1995.

Peterson may not even be able to see the flag in the photo, but he has known about Pepe for a while, and even mentioned the meme in his livestreams as "interesting", possibly because as a Jungian psychologist he sees some association with Abraxas, which is a kind of "god of nature" / good+evil archetype in some of Jung's writing.

FICO scores are definitely worth comparing to this new emerging system, but there are key differences. The input data to FICO scores is broadly public (but not the exact weighting), and they only relate to financial and credit history. They are also regulated by the FCRA, making it so people can see the data that is being held about them and requiring negative information to be removed after a certain amount of time. People can and do receive damages from credit agencies and creditors if they don't correct erroneous information or violate other parts of the law.

It's regrettable that they're are used for things like employment, but on the other hand, you won't be prohibited from using a taxi (Uber), hotel (Airbnb), entering a restaurant (PatronScan), or using a phone or the mail (WhatsApp) because of your FICO score.

Nobody knows what data goes into the reputation systems of tech companies, where it's collected, or who it's shared with. You usually can't look at it. You usually have no recourse as there is no regulatory oversight and no contract to use their services besides "we can kick you off at any time for any reason or no reason at all".

Exactly; let's say you have a social media record or even a browsing history that indicates labor activism (or drug use, or health issues, or any other kind of activism). That data is saved somewhere, associated with you directly or just assembled into a behavioral profile for ad targeting purposes -- at least for now and as far as we can tell. And like racial bias, this data can be dumped into a neural net with a score at the end to launder what exactly is going on.

Just imagine how bad the rent would be (for everyone, student or no) if they hadn’t built up West Campus. It is easily the densest neighborhood in Texas, comparable to Queens in terms of population density. The student loan credit supply definitely bumps up rents around any campus, but please.

To put this in perspective, the key “problem” example in this article is that median rent in a safe, popular neighborhood with relatively new housing stock, in one of the country’s fastest growing cities, is a whopping $916 a month. (And you can still make it less than that if you live with a roommate in a slightly older building)

Muslims aren't a race, the affected countries were about 10% of global Muslim population, and the countries of concern listed in the travel ban were designated in late 2015 under a different administration.

How has immigration policy in the US become "explicitly racist"? Immigration law has essentially remained unchanged. DACA was repealed, but DACA was an executive action not partial to country of origin. H-1B denials have increased, but based on pre-existing requirements and quotas. Administrative changes in asylum rules and public charge requirements affect every immigrant regardless of country of origin or race.