If we’re being honest, Black Friday might be one of the most disturbing pop culture events in the United States.

It’s consumerism run rampant, and it reeks of excess in ways that few other materialistic machinations do.  It’s a declaration to the rest of the world that Americans are so focused on what they have, that they are willing eschew their own morality to get more for less.

Witnessing the inevitable violence and chaos of these Black Friday events can be more than a little bit disheartening, and there are certainly dangers to be had for those foolish enough to brave the doorbuster madness.

But what if it were the items themselves that you need to be wary of, and not the lesser inclinations of your rival shoppers?

The FBI’s Portland, Oregon, field office shared some tips this week for anyone who needs to secure a smart TV.

Some models of smart TVs include built-in cameras. They can be used for video chatting with friends and family, and some can let the TV recognize who is watching and suggest programming based on their past preferences.

To prevent being a victim of hackers via your new television, the FBI has a few tips for would-be buyers.

• Because each smart TV is different, owners should search for the exact model number online and words like “microphone,” “camera” and “privacy” to learn how to control those features.

• Don’t leave security settings on the default option and chance passwords if possible. It’s also a good idea to check how to turn off microphones, cameras and personal data collection ahead of making a purchase, and considering a different model if they can’t be turned off.

• A piece of black tape can help when a camera can’t be turned off.

• Check whether the manufacturer can and whether it does update the device with security patches.

• Also check the privacy policy for the manufacturer and any streaming services, including what data they collect, how they store it and what they do with it.

The FBI is also concerned that some smart TV’s could be used as a sort of backchannel into accessing your home router and wifi, which could lead to any number of issues more devastating than unwanted camera access.

Elon Musk is a bit of a character, that’s for sure.

He’s a man who, at every turn, seems to channel his inner-Nikola Tesla – quite blatantly in the naming of his car company – but also a bit more subtly through his enthusiasm for conjuring his own mythos.  Tesla, the man, was eccentric and odd, and so Musk puts on that mask when he can, attempting to glean something from the behavior that might help him to truly unlock the Nikola narrative.

But it doesn’t work that way.  Tesla’s eccentricities were a product of his genius, not the other way around, and Musk’s frantic character development just feels forced.

Today, Tesla, (the car company), released their Cybertruck – a futurist utility vehicle that was equal parts Delorean and Lamborghini, with perhaps a dash of Tonka Truck thrown in for the sake of Musk’s manufactured mania.

Also, as has become a staple of Elon’s eccentricity, the truck was over-built – including what was advertised as “bulletproof glass”.

Turns out that this was perhaps a feature to be added after launch.

how'd the unveil go? smashingly! pic.twitter.com/vXyCZuOBkn

— Lora Kolodny (@lorakolodny) November 22, 2019

You see those wholes in the “bulletproof” windows?  A metal ball thrown with the gusto of a pre-teen little leaguer created them.

Tesla's demo of its first electric pickup didn't go quite according to plan. The "Tesla armor glass" windows shattered when hit with a metallic ball #CyberTruck pic.twitter.com/rRrrs2E0Jy

— Bloomberg TicToc (@tictoc) November 22, 2019

I’ve seen more heat in tee ball.

Surely, Musk will get the window issued fixed before these angular activity pods hit the streets, but will he do anything to repair how they look?

Throughout the entirety of Donald Trump’s presidency, there have been concerns regarding the tilt of the mainstream media, but also a shift in tactics being deployed by the leviathans of the social media scene as well.

It has been patently obvious that companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are being helmed by figures who find themselves on the left side of the political aisle, and, given the heightened state of agitation among the Democratic Party in the days following Trump’s electoral victory, these figures seemed unafraid of pursuing their political goals throughout their platforms.

This, quite simply put, is a violation of the First Amendment rights of many Americans, both constitutionally and ethically.

Now, as President Trump looks to turn the tide back into the favor of freedom its very self, Senator and presidential candidate Liz Warren is raising an objection.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren tore into Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for attending a previously undisclosed meeting with President Trump at the White House in October, accusing the tech billionaire of intentionally cozying up to the administration as his company faces increased scrutiny from regulators and Democratic lawmakers.

“Amid antitrust scrutiny, Facebook is going on a charm offensive with Republican lawmakers,” Warren wrote in a series of tweets on Thursday. “And now, Mark Zuckerberg and one of Facebook’s board members—a major Trump donor—had a secret dinner with Trump. This is corruption, plain and simple.”

If elected next year, Warren said she “won’t cozy up to Facebook.”

“It’s time to root out corruption in Washington,” she said.

Warren is essentially telling the nation that the limits put on free speech by Facebook over the course of the last three years, particularly as it pertains to domestic American politics, should be the new norm despite the very obvious conflict that this creates with the constitution.

Google is secretly blacklisting conservative sites to prevent them from appearing in search results, despite public denials of doing so.

The tech giant has claimed that it does not manipulate its search results to exclude conservative sites and also denies manipulating results to benefit certain big corporations. But a new report finds that the search giant has lied. It absolutely manipulates the results in those ways.

The report at the Wall Street Journal claims that Google blacklists certain sites going back as far as the early 2000s, including sites that continually break copyright laws and sites that contain certain types of pornography.

But Google also blacklists conservative sites so that they do not appear in searches for news.

Explaining the results of the report, Google claims that sites that do not adhere to its “inclusion policies” are “not eligible to appear on news surfaces or in information boxes in Search.”

Even though it appears that mostly conservative sites are blacklisted, Google maintains that it does not employ “political bias” to exclude sites from search results.

Indeed, just last year Google said it doesn’t blacklist conservatives at all. In a public statement, Karan Bhatia, Google’s vice president of public policy, said, “We don’t use blacklists/whitelists to influence our search results.”

Google also slammed the Journal’s story. In a statement this week, Google said:

This article contains a number of old, incomplete anecdotes, many of which not only predated our current processes and policies but also give a very inaccurate impression of how we approach building and improving Search.

Google adds that it only works to quash sites that are “actively deceptive.” By that they mean sites that hide true identities of owners, writers, and participants of the site, or sites that actively push false stories.

The Journal also found that Google pushes sites of big corporations over other small companies, especially big corporations that are Google advertisers.

Finally, the Journal report found that Google screens negative searches from its autocomplete results for Democrats to help maintain the left’s positive veneer.

The paper noted that if you type in “Joe Biden” in a number of search engines, one of the autocomplete choices is always “creepy” except when you use Google. “Creepy” is never associated with Biden in a Google search because, the paper says, Google purposefully prevents such results for Democrats.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.

Tech giant Google has been caught red-handed secretly collecting the medical data about millions of Americans without telling the doctors or patients involved.

The spy program even had a slick little name: “Project Nightingale.”

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Google began Project Nightingale in secret last year with St. Louis-based Ascension, a Catholic chain of 2,600 hospitals, doctors’ offices and other facilities, with the data sharing accelerating since summer.

The data involved in the initiative encompasses lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, including patient names and dates of birth.

“Neither patients nor doctors have been notified,” the paper added. “At least 150 Google employees already have access to much of the data on tens of millions of patients, according to a person familiar with the matter and the documents.”

Google’s program was launched last year in cooperation with Ascension, a Catholic chain of 2,600 hospitals spread out over 21 states and in Washington D.C., along with other doctors.

According to Forbes, Google’s program “involves Ascension moving patient records onto Google’s cloud servers and includes a search product that allows Ascension healthcare providers to see an ‘overview page’ about their patients. The page includes complete patient information as well as notes about patient medical issues, test results and medications, including information from scanned documents, according to presentations viewed by Forbes.”

The financial magazine added, “A source familiar with the project said that patients are not aware of Google’s access to their data, though patient privacy laws generally allow the sharing of patient data with third parties without notification if it is for purposes that ‘help it carry out its health care activities and functions. Ascension employees have raised concerns internally, according to documents, about patient data privacy.”

Despite the secrecy of the program and the fact that patients were not told, both news sources claim that Google’s actions were not in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

Google claims that the goal of ‘Project Nightingale’ was to collect patient data to create a better system of diagnosis. Google claimed that the program could spot things that a doctor or hospital missed.

Google is already being sued or a similar agreement with the University of Chicago Medical Center.

The New York Times recently reported that a lawsuit argues that Google violated patient privacy with its program with the Chicago medical center.

Big tech companies such as Apple and Google are making huge strides in taking over America’s medical sector.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.

The size and scope of Amazon.com is stupefying, to say the least.

What began as a small online bookstore in the dawning of the internet age has become one of the most valuable and powerful corporations this planet has ever seen.  Founder Jeff Bezos now has his hands in just about everything, from mainstream newspaper news, to grocery chains; web server solutions to streaming entertainment.

Of these varied disciplines, Amazon itself does one thing better than anyone else on the planet, however, and that is Cloud computing.

A recent study showed that Bezos’ company was responsible for 33% of the world’s Cloud market share; more than double that of their nearest competitor, Microsoft, who account for only 16%.

So, when The Pentagon went looking for a company to revitalize its data systems, preferably in Cloud format, Amazon seemed like the natural choice.

Then, this happened:

On October 25, the Pentagon awarded Microsoft (MSFT) with the ten-year cloud contract for JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure). The government contract, worth $10 billion, will put the US DoD (Department of Defense) on the cloud. As a result, all of the data from the military’s computer systems will be moved to a single cloud system. According to the New York Times, a lot of the military data still operates on technology from the 1980s and 1990s. The deal would modernize the military data and address security concerns. The DoD can access the company’s networks easily from cloud platforms.

Amazon was even considered the frontrunner in the race for the JEDI contract at one point, but this alleged favoritism was a problem as well.

Reportedly, President Trump received complaints about Amazon getting the Pentagon’s contract. Other companies, including Oracle, also raised concerns about Amazon. They thought that Amazon was a favorite to win the JEDI contract. For example, Oracle CEO Safra Catz met with President Trump in 2018 to discuss the issue.

After complaints related to Amazon and the JEDI contract, President Trump delayed the decision-making process. He stated that the administration would review the process to make sure that the decision was fair. Later, Defense Secretary Mark Esper quit the Pentagon review process despite working on it for months.

Trump and Bezos have a bit of a history, with the President often lashing out at both Amazon and its founder via Tweet.

“The American Media has changed forever. News organizations that seemed like a big deal are now extinct. Those that remain have now degraded themselves beyond recognition, like the New Yorker – or they’ve been purchased by Jeff Bezos to conduct unregistered lobbying for………

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2019

Washington Post employees want to go on strike because Bezos isn’t paying them enough. I think a really long strike would be a great idea. Employees would get more money and we would get rid of Fake News for an extended period of time! Is @WaPo a registered lobbyist?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2018

The @washingtonpost, which loses a fortune, is owned by @JeffBezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, @amazon.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015

Bezos’ seemingly unending desire for power and wealth have made him a poster child for corporate greed over the course of his rise to prominence.  That, along with this never-ending criticisms of Donald Trump, set the two on a collision course years ago.

Amazon is expected to appeal The Pentagon’s decision.

…the decision surprised an AWS spokesperson. The spokesperson said, “AWS is the clear leader in cloud computing and a detailed assessment purely on the comparative offerings lead to a different conclusion.” The Pentagon stated that the bid offers and the decision were fair. However, Amazon might challenge the Pentagon’s decision.

The deal could benefit Microsoft, which has a smaller share in the cloud market than Amazon. Recently, Amazon reported disappointing third-quarter results. However, the company earned $9 billion in revenues from AWS in the third quarter.

The deal is expected to boost Microsoft’s stock value for years to come, should the contract remain intact under the weight of Bezos’ possible legal assault.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

It’s a saying that we’ve heard time and time again throughout our lives, from any number of sources.  It’s the sort of cliché that has a place in almost any workplace or strategic planning session.  It’s simple to understand, and it cuts to the core of individual responsibility.

Heck, we’ve even used this principle in our legislative efforts, particularly in the realm of avoiding monopolies and taking up anti-trust efforts against those who look to consolidate any market into submission.

One place where we’ve failed to keep all of our eggs out of one basket is on the internet.  Part of the reason for this is that the world wide web itself boomed swiftly and uncontrollably, much like the early days of the California gold rush, where shrewd businessman understood the value of lawlessness and greed.  Get your fortunes while the gettin’s good, because soon, the law will come to town and button up the easy money, and make things fair.

Google is just that baron of bandwidth, soaking up an inordinate amount of the traffic online and redirecting it wherever they please.  Looking for a home assistant?  They’re not likely to steer you toward an Amazon Alexa.  Searching for a new cellular device?  You can bet that the iPhone doesn’t get the same algorithmic advantages as Android devices do.

And, of course, when exploring the wide world of news, Google is only going to give you what they want you to see.

This manipulation of our assumed freedom online is a travesty, and is indoctrinating those too naive to recognize the biases into believing that Google is a fair reputation of the world at large.  Worse still is the fact that Google is nearly inescapable.

Case in point:  This afternoon, a worrisome email chain began coursing throughout the workplace here at The Washington Sentinel.  We, along with our allies in the fight for alternative media’s rights, noticed that Google Analytics was behaving strangely.  Across the board, and across a number of websites in and outside of our purview, an 80% drop in traffic took place at precisely the same time.

Were we being throttled?  Not likely, (at least in this instance), as the reporting parties had no real common denominator other than their conservative roots.

No, Google Analytics was simply FUBAR, and for some time.  The folks at DownDetector.com reported several issues with the world’s most powerful online corporation, starting on the 17th and continuing through today.

And while the search engine leviathan was eventually able to bring its services back up to speed, the fact that this minor hiccup had such wide-ranging ramifications should, in and of itself, be cause for concern.  What if the next glitch at Google comes in the form of a Maps outage during rush hour, or a Google Pay fiasco on the first of the month?  What happens if a terror group decides to annihilate Google’s server farms one afternoon?

All of our eggs are in Google’s basket…and you know what they say about that sort of thing.