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Submission + - NSA Phone Program Likely Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Rules (huffingtonpost.com) 3

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency's phone surveillance program is likely unconstitutional, Politico reports.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon said that the agency's controversial program, first unveiled by former government contractor Edward Snowden earlier this year, appears to violate the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which states that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” Leon wrote in the ruling.

The federal ruling came down after activist Larry Klayman filed a lawsuit in June over the program. The suit claimed that the NSA's surveillance “violates the U.S. Constitution and also federal laws, including, but not limited to, the outrageous breach of privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and the due process rights of American citizens."

Submission + - FDA Not Convinced Antibacterial Soaps Stop the Spread of Germs (washingtonpost.com) 5

Submitted by barlevg
barlevg writes: It's long been a concern that the widespread use of antibacterials soaps is contributing towards the evolution of drug-resistant "superbugs," but as the Washington Post reports, the Food and Drug Administration also does not believe that there is any evidence to support that the antibacterial agents in soaps are any more effective at killing germs than simply washing with soap and water. Under the terms of a proposal under consideration, the FDA will require that manufacturers making such claims will have to show proof. If they fail to do so, they will be required to change their marketing or even stop selling the products altogether.

The Washington Post cites concerns that triclosan interferes with hormone production, but it should be noted that is is based on animal studies, and that at least one human study has shown no effect on hormone levels in adults using toothpaste containing triclosan.

Submission + - I Tested Google's Augmented Reality Game in Vienna (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Ingress, developed by Google startup Niantic Labs, is a prime example of the gamification effect. It shows how our actions can contradict the moral we defend; we love to emphasise the value of privacy, but renounce it in the blink of an eye as soon as things get fun.

The game was made available in the Google Play store at the end of October. Not wanting to be a complainiac and denounce people's behaviour without having a clue about what they actually do, I decided to download the game onto my smartphone and try it for myself. Just for academic reasons, of course, as a PhD student in the philosophy of technology. A few weeks later, and I'm totally immersed in the game.

Submission + - Power of CSS, developer creates Simpsons entirely in CSS (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Developer Chris Pattle has created Simpsons characters using CSS, demonstrating how powerful and capable CSS has become. The advantage of this kind of usage is that one doesn’t need scalable vector images for the web anymore. The developer says, "I put a side project on "Github the other day, Simpsons in CSS. CSS is becoming more and more powerful and often with a bit of though you can replace basic graphics with CSS. The advantages of this are obviously better performance and graphics that scale. I wanted to see how much I could achieve with just pure CSS and cartoon characters seemed liked something that is very do-able."

Submission + - Time to forgive Ed Snowden and let him come home (computerworld.com) 2

Submitted by rsmiller510
rsmiller510 writes: When Edward Snowden began showing us the extent of the US surveillance state back and in June, he was doing us a huge favor. He peeled back that curtain and let us see exactly what our government was doing, and in the process, while he surely embarrassed US officials, he didn't reveal any US government secrets that put US security at risk. For that reason, Snowden should be allowed to come back home without fear of retribution to testify before Congress, so that we can discuss these issues in the open and find the level of surveillance we are willing to tolerate in a free society in the name of keeping us safe.

Submission + - Feds confiscate investigative reporter's confidential files during raid (dailycaller.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Using a warrant to search for guns, Homeland security officers and Maryland police confiscated a journalist’s confidential files.

The reporter had written a series of articles critical of the TSA. It appears that the raid was specifically designed to get her files, which contain identifying information about her sources in the TSA.

        “In particular, the files included notes that were used to expose how the Federal Air Marshal Service had lied to Congress about the number of airline flights there were actually protecting against another terrorist attack,” Hudson [the reporter] wrote in a summary about the raid provided to The Daily Caller.

        Recalling the experience during an interview this week, Hudson said: “When they called and told me about it, I just about had a heart attack.” She said she asked Bosch [the investigator heading the raid] why they took the files. He responded that they needed to run them by TSA to make sure it was “legitimate” for her to have them. “‘Legitimate’ for me to have my own notes?” she said incredulously on Wednesday.

        Asked how many sources she thinks may have been exposed, Hudson said: “A lot. More than one. There were a lot of names in those files. This guy basically came in here and took my anonymous sources and turned them over — took my whistleblowers — and turned it over to the agency they were blowing the whistle on,” Hudson said. “And these guys still work there.”

Submission + - Ron Paul found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking in domain dispute (domainnamewire.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ron Paul lost his two cybersquatting complaints against RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org.

In the case of RonPaul.org, Paul was been found guilty of "reverse domain name hijacking".

A reverse domain name hijacking finding means that the arbitration panel believes the case was filed in bad faith, resulting in the abuse of the administrative process.

The panel ruled this way since Paul filed the case after the owner of RonPaul.org had already offered to give him the domain for free.

The panel also ruled against Paul for the RonPaul.com domain name.
Security

Submission + - Journalist Identifies 20-year-old Hacker Who Sent SWAT Team to his House (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by
DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: "Carrying out a cyber attack against a renowned security reporter and investigator and sending a SWAT team to their house, is probably not the best idea. The idea is an even bigger mistake when your are already known to a big selection of the security industry for having carried out an attack on a Wired journalist recently with all your personal details (name address and telephone number) available freely online.
Then again, some people will just never learn."

Submission + - "FEMA Won't Let Us Rebuild Our Home" (youtube.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This is the story of a family who found themselves caught in a bureaucratic nightmare when they tried to rebuild their fire-damaged home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhhkhmCbcZk

The Taylor family lives in the Natomas community in Sacramento, California. On August 24, 2012, Brad and Jennifer Taylor were driving home with their two young children when they saw smoke in their neighborhood. As they got closer to home, they realized that their house was on fire. Jennifer jumped out of the car to get the family's elderly dog and two cats to safety while Brad drove the kids to their grandmother's house down the street. Though shaken, both Brad and Jennifer were relieved that no one had been hurt. "It's just a fire," Brad said. "It can all be replaced."

Little did they know that, thanks to regulations created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the wake of Hurricane Katrina — which hit land thousands of miles away from Sacramento — their rebuilding nightmare was just beginning.
Crime

Submission + - Getty Images is stealing Creative Commons pictures. (flickr.com)

Submitted by
epSos-de
epSos-de writes: "Getty Images caused controversy for its aggressive pursuit of copyright enforcement on behalf of its photographers.

In reality Getty Images is stealing rights from photographers and publishers. Almost all of the pictures of epSos.de on Flickr were published under the Creative Commons license. Getty Images is licensing pictures from epSos.de through the Flickr account. After licensing the images they change the copyright from free to use to all rights reserved. It is a digital type of theft of free pictures.

The stolen picture is here:
www.flickr.com/photos/epsos/5394616925/

The screen-shot of the digital theft is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/epsos/8138893914/

They will probably try to sue people for using the free picture that was published under the creative commons license first."
The Internet

Submission + - Internet traffic exchange: 2 billion users and it's done on a handshake (oecdinsights.org)

Submitted by
Raindeer
Raindeer writes: "Every day one Exabyte of data is said to travel over the Internet – enough data to fill 300,000 of the world’s biggest hard disks or 212 million DVDs. And astonishingly, according to Internet Traffic Exchange: Market Developments and Policy Challenges a new OECD report on Internet traffic exchange, most of the thousands of networks that exchange this traffic do so without a written contract or formal agreement.

The report provides evidence that the existing Internet model works extremely well, has boosted growth and competition and brought prices for data down to 100,000 times less than that of a voice minute. A survey of 4300 networks, representing 140,000 direct exchanges of traffic, so called peerings, on the Internet, found that 99.5% of “peering agreements” were on a handshake basis, with no written contract and the exchange of data happening with no money changing hands. Moreover, in many locations, multilateral agreements are in place, using a so-called route server, where hundreds of networks will accept to exchange traffic for free with any network that joins the agreement. The parties to these agreements include not only Internet backbone, access, and content distribution networks, but also universities, NGOs, branches of government, individuals, businesses and enterprises of all sorts – a universality of the constituents of the Internet that extends far beyond the reach of any regulatory body’s influence."

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