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Submission + - lawmakers demanding obama fire clapper for lying (msnbc.com)

Submitted by the simurgh
the simurgh writes: Lawmakers is urging President Obama to fire his intelligence chief for allegedly misleading Congress about the scope of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs.

the letter, is signed by six House lawmakers. They include Republicans Darrell Issa of California, Paul Broun and Doug Collins of Georgia, Walter Jones of North Carolina, Ted Poe of Texas and Democrat Alan Grayson of Florida.

Lying to Congress is illegal. but, Ironically, Clapper himself could rely on the defense that he was misleading the public, rather than Congress. earlier this month the director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, wrote that the Senate intelligence committee couldn’t have been misled by Clapper, because they already knew the truth.

Submission + - FBI Has Tor Mail's Entire Email Database (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Tor Mail was an anonymized email service run over Tor. It was operated by a company called Freedom Hosting, which was shut down by the FBI last August. The owner was arrested for 'enabling child porn,' and the Tor Mail servers suddenly began hosting FBI malware that attempted to de-anonymize users. Now, Wired reports on a new court filing which indicates that the FBI was also able to grab Tor Mail's entire email database. 'The filings show the FBI built its case in part by executing a search warrant on a Gmail account used by the counterfeiters, where they found that orders for forged cards were being sent to a TorMail e-mail account: "platplus@tormail.net." Acting on that lead in September, the FBI obtained a search warrant for the TorMail account, and then accessed it from the bureau’s own copy of "data and information from the TorMail e-mail server, including the content of TorMail e-mail accounts," according to the complaint (PDF) sworn out by U.S. Postal Inspector Eric Malecki.'

Submission + - The 'Triple Package' Explains Why Some Cultural Groups Are More Successful

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Yale Law School professors Amy Chua, the self-proclaimed “Tiger Mom,' and her husband Jed Rubenfeld write in the NYT that it may be taboo to say it, but certain ethnic, religious and national-origin groups are doing strikingly better than Americans overall and Chua and Rubenfeld claim to have identified the three factors that account some group's upward mobility. "It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success," write Chua and Rubenfeld. "The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good enough. The third is impulse control." Ironically, each element of the Triple Package violates a core tenet of contemporary American thinking. For example, that insecurity should be a lever of success is anathema in American culture. Feelings of inadequacy are cause for concern or even therapy and parents deliberately instilling insecurity in their children is almost unthinkable. Yet insecurity runs deep in every one of America’s rising groups; and consciously or unconsciously, they tend to instill it in their children. Being an outsider in a society — and America’s most successful groups are all outsiders in one way or another — is a source of insecurity in itself. Immigrants worry about whether they can survive in a strange land, often communicating a sense of life’s precariousness to their children. Hence the common credo: They can take away your home or business, but never your education, so study harder. "The United States itself was born a Triple Package nation, with an outsize belief in its own exceptionality, a goading desire to prove itself to aristocratic Europe and a Puritan inheritance of impulse control," conclude Chua and Rubenfeld adding that prosperity and power had their predictable effect, eroding the insecurity and self-restraint that led to them. "Thus the trials of recent years — the unwon wars, the financial collapse, the rise of China — have, perversely, had a beneficial effect: the return of insecurity...America has always been at its best when it has had to overcome adversity and prove its mettle on the world stage. For better and worse, it has that opportunity again today."

Submission + - Edward Snowden says NSA engages in industrial espionage (www.cbc.ca) 2

Submitted by Maow
Maow writes: Snowden has been interviewed by a German TV network and stated that the NSA is involved in industrial espionage, which is outside the range of national security.

He claims that Siemens is a prime example of a target for the data collection.

I doubt this would suprise AirBus or other companies, but it shall remain to be seen what measures global industries take (if any) to prevent their internal secrets from falling into NSA's — and presumably American competitors' — hands.

Comment Features != Capabilities (Score 2) 129

by Okian Warrior (#46069741) Attached to: ChipSiP Smart Glass Specs Better Than Google Glass?

When will product managers understand that trying to compete by stuffing features into products does not a better product make? Has the tech design industry learnt *nothing* from the likes of Apple?

You are confusing features with capabilities. The problem with features is mostly about complexity and interface.

A non-smart phone had many features, but was complex to use. You had to memorize which keys enabled which feature, and the unit was stuffed with things that the programmers felt were easy-to-program such as a calculator, timer, and texting.

In contrast, an iPhone has two or three orders of magnitude *more* features than a typical non-smart phone, but presents these with a much-simplified interface. For example, Icons are visually mnemonic to their function, and navigating the virtual display space (paging through lists of applications) is intuitive.

That the new hardware has better capabilities than Google glass means that people have an incentive to purchase the new hardware. It says nothing about the feature-set or complexity of the unit.

Submission + - Massive Game of Thrones Arrests (yolkregion.ca) 4

Submitted by rueger
rueger writes: "Dozens of "Game of Thrones" fans were taken into custody last Sunday morning after a midnight battle reenactment at turned ugly. The trouble began on Saturday when throngs of participants arrived in medieval armor, along with swords, battle shields, ballistas and 6 war horses. It was supposed to be an evening of friendly rivalry between the Keswick and Newmarket “armies” featuring displays of swordsmanship, battleaxe ice-carving and a reenactment of the Battle of the Blackwater.

The actual battle was intended primarily as a photo session, a chance for both armies to show off their costumes and strike fearsome poses for the cameras. Unfortunately, the Keswickians had prepared several 40-gallon barrels of green Jello to be used as “Wildfire”. Several witnesses said that Joffrey Baratheon, a 15-year-old Tim Hortons server from Keswick, escalated the conflict when he ordered his forces to pour the green goo into a replica catapult and launch it at the Newmarket ranks."

(it's considered by many that there something serious wrong with the water supply in Keswick, Ontario)

Comment Re:Oh, the data! (Score 1) 523

by Okian Warrior (#46068115) Attached to: RNC Calls For Halt To Unconstitutional Surveillance

Oh, the irony: From the party that brought us the PATRIOT act.

Oh, the data!

Here's the roll-call vote for the Patriot act.

tl;dr: Democrats: 145 yea, 62 Nay (with 4 abstentions).

I've been thinking of changing my party affiliation recently (and no, not making this up).

Which party do you recommend? I'd like to see if your party votes in the interests of the republic. Do you know any accomplishments that you think are noteworthy? Excluding health care, since everyone already knows about that.

Even attempted accomplishments would be a good indicator of intent, even if they came to naught. I want to throw my weight and online debating skills behind an organization I can believe in.

Who can you recommend?

Submission + - RNC Calls For Halt To Unconstitutional Surveillance

Submitted by Bob9113
Bob9113 writes: According to an article on Ars Technica, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has passed a resolution that "encourages Republican lawmakers to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's data collection programs." The resolution, according to Time, was approved by an overwhelming majority voice vote at the Republican National Committee's Winter Meeting General Session, going on this week in Washington, DC.

Submission + - New England Burns Jet Fuel to Keep Lights On (forbes.com) 1

Submitted by inqrorken
inqrorken writes: During the recent cold snap, New England utilities turned to an unconventional fuel: jet fuel. Due to high demand for heating, natural gas supplies dropped and prices skyrocketed to $140/mmBtu and prompting the midatlantic RTO to call on demand response in the region. With 50% of installed generation capacity natural-gas fired, one utility took the step of running its jet fuel-based turbines for a record 15 hours.

Submission + - Michaels Stores Investigating Possible Data Breach (krebsonsecurity.com)

Submitted by tsu doh nimh
tsu doh nimh writes: Michaels Stores In., which runs more than 1,250 crafts stores across the United States, said Saturday that it is investigating a possible data breach involving customer cardholder information. According to Brian Krebs, the journalist who broke the story and news of the Target and Neiman Marcus breaches, the U.S. Secret Service has confirmed it is investigating. Krebs cited multiple sources in the banking industry saying they were tracking a pattern of fraud on cards that were all recently used at Michaels Stores Inc. In response to that story, Michaels issued a statement saying it "recently learned of possible fraudulent activity on some U.S. payment cards that had been used at Michaels, suggesting that the Company may have experienced a data security attack.” In 2011, Michaels disclosed that attackers had physically tampered with point-of-sale terminals in multiple stores, but so far there are no indications what might be the cause of the latest breach. Both Target and Neiman Marcus have said the culprit was malicious software designed to steal payment card data, and at least in Target's case that's been shown to be malware made to infect retail cash registers.

Submission + - VC Likens Google Bus Backlash to Nazi Rampage

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Valleywag reports on legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tom Perkins' WSJ op-ed on class tensions, in which the KPCB founder and former HP and News Corp. board member likens criticism of the techno-affluent and their transformation of San Francisco to one of the most horrific events in Western history. "I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent,' namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the 'rich.'" Perkins writes. "There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these 'techno geeks' can pay...This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?"

Submission + - How Do We Know How Many Galaxies There Are In The Universe?

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: It's hard to believe that just 100 years ago, we were pretty well convinced that the entire Universe was no bigger than the extent of our Milky Way galaxy. Fast-forward to today, and we know that just the observable part of our Universe is vast — some 46 billion light-years in radius — and full of at least many billions of galaxies. But how many billions? Thanks to the amazing deep fields taken with Hubble, including the eXtreme Deep Field with a 23-day integration time most recently, we can safely extrapolate that there are at least 200 billion galaxies in the Universe. The method is very simple: 5,500 galaxies in that tiny angular region of the sky covered by XDF, and it would take 32 million such regions to fill the entire sky. And that's a safe low estimate; likely many more will be found when the James Webb Space Telescope finally flies.

Submission + - So you thought your GP records were confidential in the UK?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From March 2014, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 mandates that GP surgeries must on a monthly basis upload all patient data, unanonymised, to a central HSCIC database. While the NHS argues that this will help with planning and service provision, there is already a list of other organisations who have already been approved to have access to the data including the UK Government, BUPA and Dr. Foster. While it is possible to "opt-out" (which incidentally means that your data is still sent but is anonymised), it is not the default option and you must individually contact your GP surgery to arrange this. With the "opt-out" deadline of the end of January 2014 approaching, what will you do? And what could possibly go wrong if you don't?

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