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Esra'a

Pleased to announce the launch of Surveillance Watch, an interactive map and resource that documents the hidden connections within the opaque surveillance industry: surveillancewatch.io/

By mapping out the intricate web of surveillance companies, their subsidiaries, partners, and financial backers, we hope to expose the enablers fueling this industry's extensive rights violations, ensuring they cannot evade accountability for being complicit in this abuse.

@alshafei The irony of this only apparently working on Chrome or Safari

@narinarinari Loads fine on Firefox & Brave as well, admittedly not on Tor & Mullvad - we're extremely limited by resources so there's only so much we can do as volunteers here. It's not perfect.

@alshafei @narinarinari it's laudable the work you guys have done..but this is about less not more. The page being broken or not working properly on some browsers, especially privacy and security oriented ones, is a product of excessively/unnecessarily using web technologies that might not be as safe as core web technologies (perfectly able to display the same information) that have existed for a couple of decades.

I highly recommend releasing this as a free software project, then the community can contribute and help make it accessible to everyone, especially those living in the targeted countries who tend to use secure browsers for their safety's sake.

@unexpectedteapot @alshafei @narinarinari you realize you’re talking to the experts living in those countries who are targeted? Those are the volunteers who worked on this on top of their daily struggles. And instead of thank you for your service, how can I help YOU, you’re doing whatever this is.

@timnitGebru You do realise you don't actually know most of the people you converse on the internet, what their background or expertise is, right? Maybe consider that before you make assumptions about who's who and where. (And yes, I also volunteer and live in one of the few top countries in that list, not that it should matter in this context!)

Opening up the software allows people from outside their circle to volunteer and make suggestions that might improve the website's accessibility while also reducing the burden on them, that's what I was recommending.

I am not sure what's outrageous in pointing that out, and I did praise the amazing work they have put before I did so. Have a nice day regardless.

@alshafei @narinarinari Works in mobile Firefox too, but admittedly quite slowly. Still, good job!

@alshafei wow, really amazing work!!!!!! Detailed info, well-presented ... and beautiful too!

@alshafei This is great! Thanks!

If I read the comments, I understand you are involved? If not, please ignore this feedback.

Feedback: It looks like countries listed under 'Used on targets in' and 'Technology provided to' are both listed under 'Known targets'. Please see the screenshot about what I mean. This is not very helpful I think. I would advise to only list the 'Used on targets in' under 'Known targets'.

@alshafei
Works well on Android (Pixel 7) Firefox.

@alshafei I only saw the preview image and it's so badass I feel intimidated, and I'm not even a surveillance company! 😅

@alshafei spy vs spy...i'm the black or white?

@alshafei Mfs were like "we're making an evil surveillance company we gotta give it evil surveillance company names"

@alshafei
The Surveillance Olympics
Gold medal - US - 60 entities
Silver - UAE - 49 entities
Bronze - Israel - 42 entities
Honorable Mention - Palestine - 37 entities

@alshafei Wow, those companies are really from a broad range of locations.

Let's see... I'm seeing... Israel... and Israel... and the U.S.... and Israel... and Spain... and China... and Israel...and the U.S.... and the U.K... and Israel... and Russia... and the U.S. ... oh, and Israel's on the list too.

@alshafei Fully behind this great work. Thank you for fighting for the people.

@alshafei The billionaire boys clubs like the Young Presidents club, Ziklag, project 2025, Skull and Bones, Federalist society, assorted white nationalists, every christo-fascist church, and the NRA. AND SCOTUS of course.

Website shows the following on firefox.

@luke Are you on the latest version, 129.0.1?

@alshafei You announced the launch of a surveillance watch, my first thought was, “I already have an Apple Watch, that’s enough surveillance watch for me”.

@alshafei amazing work! We should make it easy for other people to understand 'surveillance tech' and is in the right direction. Well done👏

@alshafei This is awesome, thank you so much. is there an open data base of this?

@0v1 Thank you! Not yet, but it's on the roadmap for sure.

@alshafei Great, that would be really interesting. I'd also love to see an additional datapoint where could filter by survelliance type (i.e, spyware)

@alshafei Good work but UI is heavy as hell. There should be another wiki-style frontend using motherfuckingwebsite.com/ as it's design guidelines linked in a <noscript> tag and somewhere else visible.

motherfuckingwebsite.comMotherfucking Website

@alshafei It's a pity it doesn't work with browsers that resist surveillance.

@alshafei are you planning on maintaining this list yourself or perhaps starting a community for it?

@alshafei this methodology and approach rules. Nice work all involved.