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Government

Submission + - Amazon Poised to Get Cut of CA Sales Taxes

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Eager to host Amazon warehouses and receive a cut of the tax on sales to customers statewide, the LA Times reports that two California cities are offering Amazon most of the tax money they stand to gain. After agreeing to collect California sales taxes beginning in the fall, Amazon is setting up two fulfillment centers in San Bernardino and Patterson, which will gain not only jobs but also a tax bonanza: Sales to Amazon customers throughout California will be deemed to take place there, so all the sales tax earmarked for local government operations will go to those two cities. The windfall is so lucrative that local officials are preparing to give Amazon the lion's share of their take as a reward for setting up shop there. 'The tax is supposed to be supporting government,' said Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Assn., of the proposed sales-tax rebate. 'Instead, it's going back into Amazon's pocket.' Sen. Mark DeSaulnier added: 'It seems like the private sector finds a way to pit one city against the other. You can't give away sales tax in this manner.'
Piracy

Submission + - Who's Pirating Game of Thrones, And Why? (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "With over 3 million downloads per episode, the HBO hit series Game of Thrones is without doubt the most pirated TV-show of the season. Data gathered by TorrentFreak shows that most of the pirates come from Australia, while London tops the list of pirate cities. But why have these people turned to BitTorrent?

In a few hours a new episode of Game of Thrones will appear on BitTorrent, and a few days later between 3 and 4 million people will download this unofficial release.

Statistics gathered by TorrentFreak reveal that more people are downloading the show compared to last year, when it came in as the second most downloaded TV-show of 2011. The number of weekly downloads worldwide is about equal to the estimated viewers on HBO in the U.S., but why?

One of the prime reasons for the popularity among pirates is the international delay in airing. In Australia, for example, fans of the show have to wait a week before they can see the latest episode. So it’s hardly a surprise that some people are turning to BitTorrent instead.

And indeed, if we look at the top countries where Game of Thrones is downloaded, Australia comes out on top with 10.1% of all downloads (based on one episode).

But delays are just part of the problem. The fact that the show is only available to those who pay for an HBO subscription doesn’t help either. This explains why hundreds of thousands of people from the U.S. prefer to use BitTorrent."
Censorship

Submission + - Pakistan blocks Twitter over 'blasphemous' Muhammad drawings (venturebeat.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "Social networking service Twitter has been blocked in Pakistan after the site refused to remove tweets concerning “blasphemous” Muhammad cartoons, according to Pakistan’s Express Tribune.

Twitter was targeted by the Pakistani government after some users organized a competition for people to draw the Prophet Mohammed, something that many Muslims consider blasphemous. Pakistan reportedly asked Twitter officials to stop tweets about the Prophet Muhammad, but “Twitter refused our request,” Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Mohammad Yaseen told the Express Tribune. Yaseen said that once Twitter removes the offending tweets, Twitter will be unblocked.

The Associated Press reports that Facebook complied with Pakistan’s requests about the competition. Facebook site was banned briefly in Pakistan about two years ago for refusing to remove a similar user-created contest. After two weeks, it eventually complied and removed the offending content.

A Pakistani government official claimed yesterday (on Twitter!) that Facebook and Twitter would not be blocked, saying, “Dear all, I assure u that Twitter and FB will continue in our country and it will not be blocked. Pl do not believe in rumors.”

Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch, criticized the move to block Twitter, saying it hindered users’ right to free speech.

“The government of Pakistan’s ban on Twitter is ill-advised, counterproductive and will ultimately prove to be futile as all such attempts at censorship have proved to be,” Hasan said, in a statement. “The right to free speech is nonnegotiable, and if Pakistan is the rights-respecting democracy it claims to be, this ban must be lifted forthwith. Free speech can and should only be countered with free speech.”

Officials from Twitter and Facebook did not immediately respond to us with request for comment about the ongoing event."
Security

Submission + - NATO protests in Chicago: Police van drives into protesters, web video reporters (boingboing.net)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: ""Occupy" movement participants and an array of protest groups are among those gathering in Chicago this wekeend to demonstrate outside the NATO summit. Sunday, protesters are ramping up for the largest demonstration of the weekend. So are police and Homeland Security agents. Today, thousands of demonstrators are marching to the convention center where President Obama and other world leaders are meeting. Four men have been arrested on terror charges. Their lawyers claim undercover agents set up a bomb plot, and entrapped them.

Saturday night, at about 10:40PM local time, a Chicago Police van "drove into a crowd of demonstrators who were attempting to cross westbound over the Jackson Street bridge at the Chicago River," according to this video report and testimony from people who were present."
United States

Submission + - Cocktail for disaster: Three arrested over attempted terror attack on Obama Rea (news.com.au) 1

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "THREE men arrested when police raided a Chicago apartment ahead of the NATO summit had been planning to attack President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's home and other targets, including police stations and squad cars, prosecutors say.
The trio was arrested on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) in a nighttime raid in the Bridgeport neighbourhood on the South Side.
They're accused of trying to make Molotov cocktails ahead of the two-day NATO summit that starts today.
The three were charged with providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of explosives.
Defence lawyers told a judge that undercover police are the ones who brought the Molotov cocktails, and that their clients had been entrapped. The men were each being held on $US1.5 million ($1.52 million) bond.
They apparently came to Chicago late last month to take part in May Day protests. Six others arrested Wednesday in the raid were released on Friday without being charged.
Chicago police Lieutenant Kenneth Stoppa declined to elaborate on the case beyond confirming the charges against the three who were still in custody.
Police identified the men being held as Brian Church, 20, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Jared Chase, 24, of Keene, New Hampshire; and Brent Vincent Betterly, 24. A police spokesman gave Betterly's hometown as Oakland Park, Massachusetts, but no such town exists. There is an Oakland Park, Florida, that is near Fort Lauderdale.
Activist Bill Vassilakis, who said he let the men stay in his apartment, described Betterly as an industrial electrician who had volunteered to help wire service at The Plant, a former meatpacking facility that has been turned into a food incubator with the city's backing.
Vassilakis said he thought the charges were unwarranted.
"All I can say about that is, if you knew Brent, you would find that to be the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard. He was the most stand-up guy that was staying with me. He and the other guys had done nothing but volunteer their time and energy," he said."
Businesses

Submission + - MS will remove OEM 'crapware' for $99 (zdnet.com)

Submitted by
walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: "Microsoft even offers up numbers to show how detrimental this OEM-installed crapware is to your system. Microsoft claims that Signature systems start up 39 percent faster, go into sleep mode 23 percent faster, and resume from sleep a whopping 51 percent faster compared to their crapware-ladened counterparts. (A "Signature" system is one without crapware). But now, Microsoft will offer customers the opportunity to give their Windows 7 PC the Signature treatment by bringing it to a Microsoft Store and paying $99, according to the Wall Street Journal."
Security

Submission + - White House Hires a New Cybersecurity Boss (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "Cybersecurity and the government have been a volitile combination lately, with proposed bills like SOPA, PIPA, and the still-up-in-the-air CISPA at the center of on-and-off internet outrage. So it's kind of a big deal when the White House replaces its chief of cybersecurity affairs.

Last week, longtime chief Howard Schmidt stepped down. He's replaced by Michael Daniel, who's been in the Office of Management and Budget's national security division for 17 years. What does that mean for the future of the cybersecurity issue? Probably that we can expect his knowledge of the intelligence community to play a part in not just tracking down hackers, but determining the lines that need to be crossed with future SOPA-like bills. So while this sounds like a relatively nondescript appointment, Daniel will almost definitely be a major player the next time someone comes for your internet."

Submission + - Will Smith Slaps Reporter For Kissing Him On The Mouth (techfleece.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "At the Premier of Will Smiths new movie, Men In Black 3, in Moscow today, a Ukrainian reporter known for trying to ‘kiss-ambush’ celebrities on the mouth, got what most people would have done in the same situation; a warning that it’s not acceptable.

There are a few stories running around the net at the moment making Will Smith out to be completely homophobic for his reactions, despite his personal backing of gay marriage. Looking at the video, you can see that the Ukrainian reporter is completely out-of-order in pushing himself on Mr Smith. Just because he is a famous celebrity doesn’t mean that he has to put up with people like that.

If it were me, I know for a fact that it wouldn’t have been a gentle slap. Sorry, but I just think that the reporter was completely in the wrong here; if it had have been the other way round, then people would have been screaming law suits."

Submission + - File-Sharing Is Linked to Depression, Researchers Find (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "A new paper published by researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology reveals that people with depressive symptoms are more avid file-sharers than those without them. The research in question was conducted among students whose connections to the campus network were monitored. Perhaps more worrying than the results themselves, the lead researcher suggests that it might be a good idea to monitor people’s file-sharing habits for use as a diagnostic tool.

Nearly every day we write about negative associations towards file-sharing, and today is no different. A new academic paper now reveals how file-sharing is linked to depressive symptoms.

The paper carries the self-explanatory title “Associating Depressive Symptoms in College Students with Internet Usage Using Real Internet Data” and will be published in an upcoming issue of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine."
Censorship

Submission + - The 'Tax the Rich' Talk TED Deemed 'Too Political' to Post (UPDATE: Now with Vid (gawker.com) 1

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "After he delivered a well-received talk on income inequality at the TED University conference on March 1st, multimillionaire investor and Amazon.com early adopter Nick Hanauer was all-but-assured by organizers that his talk would be published on the TED website.

That never happened.

Instead, he was informed earlier this month that his talk was "too political" for the nonpartisan nonprofit to seemingly endorse by making it available for public consumption.

The sticking point appears to be Hanauer assertion that "rich businesspeople like me don't create jobs," but rather it's the middle class consumers who fuel business growth and subsequent job creation by spending their hard earned money on stuff.

According to Hanauer, it follows from this, then, that "taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.""
Facebook

Submission + - I "get" Google+ Now and Apparently so do Others (Facebook May Have a Problem) (wordpress.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "I liked the service since day 1. Within a week I was almost ignoring Facebook. But it wasn’t until about a week ago that I really understood why it was that I checked Google+ more religiously than I ever checked Facebook. And as if by magic people seemed to start sharing the same thoughts in my stream which only validated what I’d discovered. Google+ is far more about content than it is about friends. I think the critics just don’t “get” Google+..yet. But a comment on yet another article missing the power of the service sparked me to think and respond so strongly with the following that I decided to bring it to my blog.

How many people do I know in my friends list on FB. All of them. How many of them post content that I actually find interesting? Hardly any of them. Why? Because the list is built almost solely on physical contact from some point and time in life. None of it is based on interest in the content that they are posting or that I am posting. My stream is therefore a bunch of random noise about peoples lives. Sometimes there’s something interesting in there but most of it I could do without. I don’t exactly want to remove these people because it gives me a general idea of where they are in life and an easy way to contact them. But on a day to day basis I don’t care to see what they are saying."

Comment Re:Wow (Score 3, Insightful) 456

by TheGift73 (#40028587) Attached to: Online Loneliness At Google+
Agreed. I have used it every day since the private Beta in June 2011. For me, I like it mainly due to my obsession with photography and geeky subjects of which there is a constant abundance of information. As the poster above stated, "If you're not following anyone, no wonder it seems barren." To be honest, compared to the useless crap and continuous flow of drivel that I used to find on Facebook on a daily basis, Google+ has been a life saver for people wanting to find a place where they can easily communicate with like minded people via Hangouts or just messaging. The noise filters are also great. Also, the ability to chat to the Google devs behind the system directly to get things fixed is a great sign that the development is ongoing and something important to them. There are also constant improvements to the site and how people use it, that I never saw on Facebook. Yes, I know that FB would have GUI and back end updates, but they were always annoying at best, and fairly useless in usability. Remember, Google+ is still less than a year old. Take a look at what Facebook was like when it was a year old.
Iphone

Submission + - Siri Caught Recommending The Nokia Lumia, Promptly Reprogrammed (techdirt.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "The Apple marketing machine has always thrived on organic media buzz. Devices like the iPad launch to such massive anticipation that whole TV news segments turn into commercials for the product, then hand off to on-the-scene reporters covering the line outside the Apple store, without the company paying a dime. Unfortunately, it seems like Apple didn't account for two things: the cold, cold heart of the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine, and the dutiful messenger that is Siri.
Last week, CNET reported that iPhone users who asked Siri "what's the best smartphone ever?" (no doubt seeking reaffirmation of their consumer savviness) were told to their amusement and/or horror that the Nokia Lumia 900 is in fact the fairest of them all. It now seems like Apple engineers did some tinkering over the weekend, because Siri has suddenly changed its tune:

"When iPhone 4S owners now ask Siri which smartphone is the best ever, she replies with a sarcastic, "you're kidding, right?" A reader who tipped CNET to the change said Siri will also reply with "the one you're holding" when asked the question. A CNET staffer on the West Coast also got "the one you're holding" as an answer.""
Music

Submission + - BitTorrent Piracy Boosts Music Sales, Study Finds (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "A new academic paper by a researcher from the North Carolina State University has examined the link between BitTorrent downloads and music album sales. Contrary to what’s often claimed by the major record labels, the paper concludes that there is absolutely no evidence that unauthorized downloads negatively impact sales. Instead, the research finds that more piracy directly leads to more album sales.

For more than a decade researchers have been looking into the effects of music piracy on the revenues of the record industry, with mixed results.

None of these researchers, however, used a large sample of accurate download statistics from a BitTorrent tracker to examine this topic. This missing element motivated economist Robert Hammond, Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University, to conduct his own research."
Privacy

Submission + - Most CCTV Systems Easily Access (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The use of CCTV cameras for physical surveillance of all kinds of environments has become so pervasive that most of us don't give the devices a second thought anymore. But, those individuals and organizations who actually use and control them should be aware that most of them come with default settings that make them vulnerable to outside attacks. According to Gotham Digital Science researcher Justin Cacak, standalone CCTV video surveillance systems by MicroDigital, HIVISION, CTRing, and many other rebranded devices are not only shipped with remote access enabled by default, but also with preconfigured default accounts and passwords that are banal and easy to guess.

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