UK consumer group Which? finds some everyday items including watches and speakers are ‘stuffed with trackers’ Air fryers that gather your personal data and audio speakers “stuffed with trackers” are among examples of smart devices engaged in “excessive” surveillance, according to the consumer group Which? The organisation tested three air fryers, increasingly a staple of British kitchens, each of which requested permission to record audio on the user’s phone through a connected app. Continue reading...

By focusing on its strengths and pooling information, the west can disrupt Russia’s war machine – but there’s no time to lose Russia is a “mafia state” trying to expand into a “mafia empire”, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, told the UN, nailing the dual nature of Vladimir Putin’s political model. On one hand Russia represents something very old – a world of bullying empires that invade smaller countries, grab their resources and indoctrinate their people into thinking they are inferior. But it is also something very new, weaponising corruption, criminal networks, assassinations and tech-driven psy-ops to subvert open societies. And if democracies don’t act to stop it, this malign model will be imitated across the globe. Ukraine is resisting the older, zombie imperialism every day on the battlefield, and democracies will have to arm Ukraine and ourselves to constrain Russia properly. But how should we fight the more contemporary tools of political warfare that Russia pioneers? These are becoming ever more prevalent. Globalisation was meant to make us all so integrated that it would diminish the risk of wars. Instead, the free flow of information, money and people across borders also made subversion easier than ever. At the Labour party conference, Lammy indicated that democracies need to work together to stop Russia: “Exposing their agents, building joint capability and working with the global south to take on Putin’s lies.” Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Paul Givan says details of 407 people mistakenly sent out included names, addresses and personal comments The education minister in Northern Ireland has “unreservedly” apologised after the personal details of more than 400 people who had offered to contribute to a review of special education needs were breached. The embarrassing data breach came to light on Thursday after the education department said it had mistakenly sent to 174 people a spreadsheet attachment that contained the names, email address and titles of 407 individuals who had expressed an interest in attending the end-to-end review of special education needs (SEN) events across Northern Ireland. Continue reading...

Officials seized documents from NSO Group to try to stop handover of information about notorious hacking tool, files suggest The Israeli government took extraordinary measures to frustrate a high-stakes US lawsuit that threatened to reveal closely guarded secrets about one of the world’s most notorious hacking tools, leaked files suggest. Israeli officials seized documents about Pegasus spyware from its manufacturer, NSO Group, in an effort to prevent the company from being able to comply with demands made by WhatsApp in a US court to hand over information about the invasive technology. Continue reading...