46742719
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Asked last week, at a Senate hearing, how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, “At least 10 to 20 years.” A spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today. This is additional to the 12 years this conflict has already been pursued. Members of the Senate panel expressed shock that Sheehan envisioned such a broad, long war, unconfined by defined and measurable objectives or any territorial limitation. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) declared that the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), was specifically bounded to al-Qaida as then defined, for the 9/11 attacks. The AUMF does not contain the words "associated forces", repeatedly invoked in the session by Pentagon chief lawyer, Robert Taylor. John McCain (R-Ariz.), protested the Pentagon’s interpretation of the AUMF. "None of us could have envisioned authority [to strike] in Yemen and Somalia," McCain said.
46384737
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Yesterday, the Senate began debating creation of a national biometric database including virtually every adult in the U.S. Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation, is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID. The "Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act" is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo. “The most worrying aspect is that this creates a principle of permission basically to do certain activities and it can be used to restrict activities,” says David Bier, an analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “It’s like a national ID system without the card.”
46189601
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Bruce Schneier, security expert (and rational voice in the wilderness), explains in an editorial on CNN, why "Connecting the Dots" is a "Hindsight Bias". In heeding calls to increase the amount of surveillance data gathered and shared, agencies like the FBI have impaired their ability to discover actual threats, while guaranteeing erosion of personal and civil freedom. "Piling more data onto the mix makes it harder, not easier. The best way to think of it is a needle-in-a-haystack problem; the last thing you want to do is increase the amount of hay you have to search through. The television show 'Person of Interest' is fiction, not fact."
46015389
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Silicon chips are unarguably at the basis for nearly every aspect driving today's global economy. The advanced fabrication technology that enables 14-nanometer etching — now poised to drive the next wave in 2014 — is held by just four companies. "The fabs in which microchips are made, ...cost billions of dollars. And they make the microchips on which all nearly all advanced smartphones, PCs, servers, and other critical pieces of IT infrastructure depend." This level of investment for nano-scale manufacturing is possible today from Intel, Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), and GlobalFoundries, the last of which announced today that it aims to be the world’s leading contract chip manufacturer by both volume and revenue. Almost every new electronic device in the next year will use chips fabbed in one or more of these factories, meaning greater dependency than ever on just a handful of manufacturers. What does this mean for supply chain capacity and the possibility for increased risk of constraint and disruption?
45978945
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Facebook and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur. "The importance to us is pretty clear," says Andrew Weissmann, the FBI’s general counsel. "We don’t have the ability to go to court and say, 'We need a court order to effectuate the intercept.' Other countries have that." Under the draft proposal, a court could levy a series of escalating fines, starting at tens of thousands of dollars, on firms that fail to comply with wiretap orders, according to persons who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. "This proposal is a non-starter that would drive innovators overseas and cost American jobs," said Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "They might as well call it the Cyber Insecurity and Anti-Employment Act."
45977107
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center says, "Alarm bells should be going off," after a FOIA request that returned more than 1,000 pages of internal government documents. "Those documents show the National Security Agency and the Defense Department were deeply involved in pressing for the secret legal authorization, with NSA director Keith Alexander... The Justice Department agreed to grant legal immunity to the participating network providers in the form of what participants in the confidential discussions refer to as '2511 letters', a reference to the Wiretap Act codified at 18 USC 2511 in the federal statute books. An industry representative told CNET the 2511 letters provided legal immunity to the providers by agreeing not to prosecute for criminal violations of the Wiretap Act. It's not clear how many 2511 letters were issued by the Justice Department." EPIC staff attorney Amie Stepanovich says the banner the government proposed is so broad and vague that it would allow ISPs not only to monitor the content of all communication, including private correspondence, but also potentially hand over the monitoring activity itself to the government. She also notes that the banner notice would be one-sided since it would be given only to the employees of participating companies.
43988491
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
The White House ceremony confirming and swearing John Brennan as the new Director for the CIA contained rich and bitter symbolism. By his own selection, Brennan chose to swear his oath on a manuscript copy of the U.S. Constitution, drawn from the George Washington presidential archive. "Director Brennan told the president that he made the request to the archives because he wanted to reaffirm his commitment to the rule of law as he took the oath of office as director of the CIA,” The fly in the ointment is that this copy of the Constitution, with Washington's handwritten marginalia, pre-dates including the protections from the Bill of Rights, required by states to ratify the document as foundation law for the nation. Given the recent record of CIA activity in the last two administrations, is possible another intention is being heralded?
42571531
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Blogger Adam Howard, at Port3000, has a post about Google's exposure of thousands of publicly accessible printers. "A quick, well crafted Google search returns "About 86,800 results" for publically accessible HP printers." He continues, "There's something interesting about being able to print to a random location around the world, with no idea of the consequence." He also warns about these printers as a possible beachhead for deeper network intrusion and exploitation. With many of the HP printers in question containing a web listener and a highly vulnerable and unpatched JVM, I agree that this is not an exotic idea. In the meanwhile? I have an important memo for all Starbucks employees. ;-)
42442021
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Researchers with the European Food Safety Authority discovered variants of the Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S in the most widely harvested varieties of genetically-modified crops, including Monsanto's RoundupReady Soy and Maze. According to researchers, Podevin and du Jardin, the particular "Gene IV" is responsible for a number of possible consequences that could affect human health, including inhibition of RNA silencing and production of proteins with known toxicity. The EFSA is endorsing "retrospective risk assessment" of CaMV promoter and its Gene VI sequences — in an attempt to give it a clean bill of health. It is unknown if the presence of the hidden viral genes were the result of laboratory contamination or a possible recombinant product of the resultant organism. There are serious implications for the production of GMO for foodstuffs, given either possibility.
41183667
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
"Is that the Singularity in your pocket" Dept:
Ray Kurzweil confirmed today that he will be joining Google as Director of Engineering this Monday, December 17, to work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing.
“I’m thrilled to be teaming up with Google to work on some of the hardest problems in computer science so we can turn the next decade’s ‘unrealistic’ visions into reality.” said Kurzweil. Peter Norvig, Google's director of research, said "We appreciate his ambitious, long-term thinking, and we think his approach to problem-solving will be incredibly valuable to projects we're working on at Google."
Kurzweil is famous for his breakthroughs in OCR, computer speech synthesis and digital music creation — as well as his theory of “The Singularity,” that point when technology is sufficiently advanced that it contests and surpasses human intelligence.
40329739
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
"Le Cyberattaque?" Unnamed French officials have been cited in L'Express , claiming that the U.S. directed targeted attacks with the Flame malware, targeting computers belonging to top advisers to, then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The United States quickly rebutted such accusations, with an emailed statement by Department of Homeland Security spokespersons, "We categorically deny the allegations by unnamed sources that the U.S. government participated in a cyber attack against the French government." The alleged attacks were made during the cycle of elections in April and May of 2012, when Nicolas Sarkozy failed in his bid to maintain the French presidency against Francois Hollande in a runoff. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has never acknowledged the US sponsorship of Flame, "These programs were never attributed in any way to the U.S. government," and continued affirm her role of protecting civilian infrastructure and that of France as an ally.
37448293
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
In Japan's Miyagi prefecture, harmful levels of cesium-137 were detected in compulsory school lunches served to Elementary and Middle School students, as recently as August.
In response to the public disclosure of the radioactive school lunches, Takao Abe, The Mayor of Kawasaki City, said having to eat radioactive food serves an educational purpose. "Students need to know they live in (a world with) danger by consuming radioactive school lunches. It’s wrong to educate children to be conscious about this level of radiation. There is a risk of being hit by car, there is also a risk of being stabbed by a passerby."
Kawasaki City is some 130km from Tepco's failed Fukushima nuclear plant. On August 30, 12 Bq/kg of cesium were detected in the lunches served to Nakaniida junior high school. Similar levels have been recorded in frozen tangerines and canned apples served in prefecture school lunches, since at least April.
36362861
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
According to Associate Press, the Air Force announced the failure of the X-51A Waverider, after being dropped by a B-52 bomber off the California coast. The unmanned experimental aircraft was designed to reach Mach 6, or 3,600 mph. suffered a control failure during an attempt to fly at six times the speed of sound. But the Air Force said that a faulty control fin prevented it from starting its exotic scramjet engine and the craft was lost. The first Boeing-designed X-51A achieved Mach 5 for about 140 seconds in 2010. A second Waverider flight last year ended prematurely with the craft trying to restart its engine until it plunged into the Pacific.
36253439
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
The Electronic Privacy Information Center posted a brief and detailed notice about the removal of a petition regarding security screenings by the TSA at US airports and other locations.
At approximately 11:30 am EDT, the White House removed a petition about the TSA airport screening procedures from the White House "We the People" website. About 22,500 of the 25,000 signatures necessary for a response from the Administration were obtained when the White House unexpectedly cut short the time period for the petition. The site also went down for "maintenance" following an article in Wired that sought support for the campaign.
35444595
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
WalMart — the retail king of Big Data analytics — will be meeting Mark Zuckerberg for two days in Bentonville, to "deepen" their relationship with Facebook. The CEO-level strategy summit is intended to bolster the relationship between the world's No. 1 social network and the world's largest retailer. WalMart has been left in the dust online, by the behemoth Amazon. An alliance may be poised to challenge this dominance, particularly in light of Amazon's planned foray into same-day delivery, nationwide. The companies share James Breyer, who sits on the boards of both Facebook and Wal-Mart. Adding another angle to this, Yahoo's new CEO Marissa Mayer was elected to Wal-Mart's board in early June, while she was still at Google. Earlier this month, Facebook and Yahoo settled a patent dispute and announced plans to form another "strategic alliance" involving advertising and distribution. The implications for online privacy in this series of relationships are uncertain.
