Co-Founder of Swiss SMS Giant 'Mitto AG' Accused of Government Surveillance

Swiss tech company Mitto AG is trusted by companies such as Twitter and Google to deliver SMS security codes to users, appointment reminders, sales promotions, and more. It’s co-founder and COO Ilja Gorelik has been accused of selling access to Mitto’s networks for surveillance.

The existence of the alternate service was only known to a small number of people within the company, these former employees said. Gorelik sold the service to surveillance companies which in turn contracted with government agencies, according to the employees.

Contract Lawyers Latest Sector to Face Remote Surveillance Programs

As WP reports, businesses are increasingly using surveillance software to monitor what their employees do on computers. Contract lawyers are the latest group to face this.

The monitoring is a symptom of “these pervasive employer attitudes that take advantage of these technologies to continue these really vicious cycles … that treat employees as commodities,” she said. “The irony in this situation is that it’s attorneys, who traditionally advocate for employee rights or justice when they’re made aware of intrusions like these.”

'ShadowDragon' Helps Michigan State Police Surveil its Citizens

An investigation on Thursday shows how Michigan State Police use software called ShadowDragon to collect online data. This helps them identify “persons of interest.”

By providing powerful searches of more than 120 different online platforms and a decade’s worth of archives, the company claims to speed up profiling work from months to minutes. ShadowDragon even claims its software can automatically adjust its monitoring and help predict violence and unrest. Michigan police acquired the software through a contract with another obscure online policing company named Kaseware for an “MSP Enterprise Criminal Intelligence System.”

Examining Apple's Carefree Attitude Towards Employee Privacy

Zoe Schiffer, writing for The Verge, investigates Apple employees and “the blurring of personal and work accounts.”

This is how it starts: a new Apple employee is told during onboarding that collaborating with their colleagues will require them to make extensive use of iCloud storage, and their manager offers a two terabyte upgrade. This will link their personal Apple ID to their work account — in fact, the instructions for accessing this upgrade explicitly say “you must link your personal Apple ID with your AppleConnect work account.”