Among the various calls for help on behalf of Ukraine during the Russian invasion, software company Skylum offered a way for you to donate a surveillance drone that could help safeguard Ukrainian civilians from the ravages of war.

“You can help Ukrainians to protect themselves as your drone will provide real-time pictures of the situation on the ground,” Skylum said in a blog post Thursday.

Reached for comment via email from Western Ukraine, Skylum Marketing Manager Sabina Iliasova told Cult of Mac how drone deployment will work and why it’s so crucial. She is the contact who will handle donations.

Multiple companies that created software to hack into mobile phones now offer versions of their products to trace the spread of COVID-19, according to a published report Tuesday.

Very different from contact-tracing technologies that focus on finding the virus but at the same time protect privacy, these new systems would not need a patient’s consent to gain entry into the device.

Good news everyone: The NSA no longer wants to collect your phone calls and text messages. Apparently.

Despite once being all-in on its electronic spying program, the National Security Agency now supposedly wants to abandon its mass data collection practices.

A few months back, we started hearing a lot of creepy stories about folks having real-life, in-person conversations with friends, and then getting Facebook ads on the same subject soon after. Was Facebook using their iPhone/iPad’s microphone to eavesdrop on them, then serving ads based on what it heard? Technically, it’s not much different to Google scanning your email and serving ads based on their content. In reality, it’s a whole ‘nother level of creepy.

Logitech wants to help keep your home safe — and push devices like the Nest Cam out of it.

Its new Circle smart camera, which is being launched under the new Logi brand, delivers real-time HD video that lets you monitor your home remotely from an Android or iOS device.

If you think that the conceit behind Ubisoft’s hacker-themed video game Watch Dogs isn’t real enough, be sure to take a look at this website.

Watch_Dogs We Are Data takes real world, publicly-accessible location-based data and parses it into a display ripped directly from the video game of the same name. You can visit Berlin, Paris, or London, and zoom on down into the various regions of each city to see where mobile phones are, read tweets originating from specific spots, and see icons that represent CCTV feeds, traffic lights, and more.

If this doesn’t freak you out even just a little, then more power to you.

It shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg to keep your home or business safe. That’s where Mobiscope comes in. It makes simple, affordable and effective video surveillance available for everyone.

Mobiscope streams live video feeds from IP or web cameras to any mobile device.
Easily connect your iPhone or Android to the Mobiscope app or simply sign into your account on Mobiscope’s website to view your security network cameras or regular webcams – anywhere, anytime. And Cult of Mac Deals is offering you one year of home service and a free webcam from Mobiscope for only $99.

While accusations about NSA backdoors to Apple devices have been doing the rounds for a while now, yesterday’s revelations about spying agencies using so-called “leaky apps” to capture user data has reignited the debate. Below is a Q&A covering everything we’ve learned so far:

Q) What is a leaky app?

A) An app that transmits private user information across the Internet. While apps have come under fire for collecting private user information before, the current outcry follows revelations leaked by Edward Snowden, suggesting that leaky apps have been the focus of spying organizations such as the NSA and its UK counterpart, GCHQ (Government Communications HQ). The NSA has cumulatively spent more than $1 billion in its phone targeting efforts. A 2010 NSA presentation cites poor secured apps as a “golden nugget” for gathering user information — including, but not limited to, address books and friend lists.

With a new story concerning the extraordinary lengths the U.S. Government is seemingly taking to spy on its citizens’ digital lives hitting the news every day now, President Obama met Apple CEO Tim Cook and a number of other tech executives to discuss government surveillance.

Since we posted about AirBeam’s free giveaway (it’s usually $4), developer Heiko Straulino has been busy improving his powerful iDevice surveillance app — and the newest update, released over the weekend, now let’s users stream and record audio as well, and adds an audio detection feature similar in function to motion detection.