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A roundup of some items that caught our eye recently, but we haven鈥檛 had a chance to write about.

San Francisco鈥檚 MUNI train system is installing new 鈥渋ntelligent鈥� cameras that will , raising an alarm when it spots 鈥渁nomalous activities,鈥� which it will identify by learning over time what is 鈥渘ormal.鈥� It always surprises me when cutting-edge surveillance technologies are introduced in the Bay Area (see BART, phone cutoffs in, and ). Don鈥檛 people know that Northern California is home to perhaps the most tech-savvy and privacy-aware population in the country?

As I mentioned in this post on big data, it may be that we鈥檝e only hit the tip of the iceberg for the possibilities of extracting meaning from vast data sets. Here鈥檚 an article on to begin unlocking value in the vast sea of data it鈥檚 collecting on its users. Among other things, it shows that Facebook鈥檚 data scientists sometimes manipulate users as part of experiments鈥攂locking some users from seeing their friends鈥� links, for example. It鈥檚 just a little reminder of the enormous power that the network could potentially wield.

Jon Fox at CalPirg posted a nice piece on the . IPv6 is the new, updated version of the Internet Protocol鈥攖he technological standard that allows different computer networks around the world to connect together into what we call the internet. The bottom line is that this new standard will have bad effects on our privacy. That does not mean it is a bad thing鈥攊t is a necessary technological upgrade. If we actually had strong overarching privacy rules in this country, we could benefit from the upgrade and leave it at that. Sadly, we can鈥檛. However, as Fox explains, the new standard does go out of its way to allow those implementing it to protect privacy鈥攊t鈥檚 just that many companies may not do so, because they have strong incentives to spy on their customers.

On the other side of the coin, CNET鈥檚 Declan McCullagh writes today that that IPv6 will diminish compliance with record-keeping chores that help police quickly identify the source of an IP address.

Always a lot happening on drones. A found that while Americans approve when asked if they support using drones to 鈥渢rack down runaway criminals,鈥� an overwhelming majority disapproves of their use to issue speeding tickets. We could have predicted that鈥攁ctually, we did. Overall, 64% were very or somewhat concerned over privacy, while only 15% were 鈥渘ot at all concerned.鈥� As we posted about earlier, a couple drone-related items have been proposed in Congress. An unmanned Navy in Maryland, making headlines. Turns out this drone cost $176 million, which is pretty incredible. Speaking of fatuously expensive military-industrial hardware, Wired reports that the Air Force has decided not to pursue this $211 million . But, the Navy may take it over. The New York Times ran a on drones, but this one from is much more biting, and funnier too. Our friends at EFF have launched a crowdsourced program to try to 鈥攚e think participating would be a great idea.