Comment Re:The national debt is completely inevitable (Score 1) 696
FRB is not a governmental agency. It is a private corporation controlled by a few bankers. Deficit spending from the government is a way to counter the action of the FRB.
UK Government Says More Spying Needed 297
An anonymous reader writes "Our wonderful government here in the UK has decided we're not being surveilled enough, and agreed to spend £12 billion on a programme to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage. According to various sources, upwards of £1 billion has already been spent on the uber-database. Rationale? Terrorism, of course (no prizes for guessing).
Needless to say, not everyone is as happy as Larry over this: Michael Parker pointed out how us Brits are being 'stalked.' I'm just looking forward to when the data gets lost."
Submission + - Nintendo faces Wii, GameCube sales ban
New_Age_Reform_Act writes: Nintendo Co., the world's biggest maker of handheld game machines, is facing a ban on sales of the Wii and GameCube systems after it lost a bid to overturn a $21 million patent-infringement verdict.
China Says There's No Antitrust Probe On Microsoft 87
natenovs writes "China's intellectual-property rights enforcer said the government isn't probing Microsoft Corp. for breaching antitrust laws, denying yesterday's report by a state-owned newspaper. 'We are not conducting an anti-monopoly investigation against Microsoft and have no plans to do so,' Yin Xintian, a spokesman and legal director at the State Intellectual Property Office, said by telephone today in Beijing. The newspaper's report is 'completely untrue,' the agency said on its Web site."
Submission + - CCTV boom fails to reduce crime
New_Age_Reform_Act writes: Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact , despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.
Inside the Secret War Against Internet Spies 116
ahess247 brings us a lengthy BusinessWeek story on the increasing amount of attacks against the US government's online presence as well as its contacts in the private sector. Hackers are gaining a greater awareness of where valuable data might reside, and that awareness is leading to more precise, more sophisticated attacks. Quoting:
"The U.S. government, and its sprawl of defense contractors, have been the victims of an unprecedented rash of similar cyber attacks over the last two years, say current and former U.S. government officials. 'It's espionage on a massive scale,' says Paul B. Kurtz, a former high-ranking national security official. Government agencies reported 12,986 cyber security incidents to the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. last fiscal year, triple the number from two years earlier. Incursions on the military's networks were up 55% last year, says Lieutenant General Charles E. Croom, head of the Pentagon's Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations. Private targets like Booz Allen are just as vulnerable and pose just as much potential security risk. 'They have our information on their networks. They're building our weapon systems. You wouldn't want that in enemy hands,' Croom says. Cyber attackers 'are not denying, disrupting, or destroying operations--yet. But that doesn't mean they don't have the capability.'"
Journal Journal: Google being sued for invading private property
Faced with a lawsuit by a Pittsburgh couple who claims that their privacy was invaded by Google's "Street View" mapping technology, the search giant has removed images of the family's home from its servers. Several photos of the Oakridge Lane home of Aaron and Christine Boring have been yanked from Google Maps and replaced with a black image, as seen below. But while photos of the Boring property have been scrub
Using Tire Pressure Sensors To Spy On Cars 203
AngryDad writes "Beginning last September, all vehicles sold in the US have been required to have Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) installed. An article up at HexView enumerates privacy issues introduced by TPMS, and some of them look pretty scary. Did you know that traffic sensors on highways can be adopted to read TPMS data and track individual vehicles? How about an explosive device that sets itself off when the right vehicle passes nearby? TPMS has been discussed in the past, but I haven't seen its privacy implications analyzed before. Fortunately the problem is easy to fix: encrypt TPMS data the way keyless entry systems do."
Aerial Drones To Help Cops In Miami 274
Catoonsis writes "Reuters is reporting that 'Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to use cutting-edge, spy-in-the-sky technology to beef up their fight against crime.' The police force is
planning to make use of a small aerial drone, capable of hovering and quick maneuvers, to monitor the Miami-Dade area and alert officers of potential problems. The device, manufactured by Honeywell, is awaiting FAA approval before it can be put into use. This decision is just the latest chapter in the developing relationship between law enforcement and robotic assistants. 'U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been flying drones over the Arizona desert and southwest border with Mexico since 2006 and will soon deploy one in North Dakota to patrol the Canadian border as well. This month, Customs and Border Protection spokesman Juan Munoz Torres said the agency would also begin test flights of a modified version of its large Predator B drones, built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, over the Gulf of Mexico.'"
Journal Journal: College Gossip Site Under Scrutiny; subpoena issued
Are you operating a blog or a forum for college students to rant or vent their fumes? Chances are you may be prosecuted if you are in New Jersey.
