Technology Archive

On July 5, 2015, the Italy-based company Hacking Team, which sells technologies designed to access computer networks and collect data, was hacked. The intruders not only changed the firm’s Twitter account to “Hacked Team” but exposed some 400 gigabytes of proprietary data to the public. Subsequent media analysis shed light on Hacking Team’s client relationships with security agencies in over 20 countries, including some with dubious human rights records such as Sudan and Uzbekistan. Yet, governments do not exclusively use technologies sold by Hacking Team and similar companies within their own borders. A federal court in Washington is currently weighing […]

What global phenomenon has emerged as a pressing dilemma for politicians from Mumbai to Montevideo, from Tuscaloosa to Fukuoka? It’s not climate change, ideological extremism or economic inequality. No, it’s Uber. The overwhelmingly successful ride-sharing app is spreading its disruptive technology rapidly across the planet, creating a political crisis wherever it goes in the process. Uber has become a test of loyalties for elected officials torn between important segments of their constituencies, as well as a challenge to their political skills and a complicated experiment revealing their views about the role of government in society. At the same time, it […]