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NSA WhistleBlower Outs Himself 860

Posted by samzenpus from the man-behind-the-curtain dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell. The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. 'I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,' he said."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft sued over Windows Live Tiles (cnet.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is already facing lawsuits related to the just-launched Windows, with an operating
system technology designer accusing Microsoft of ripping of its patent for "tiles."

SurfCast, in a complaint filed yesterday in a U.S. District Court in Maine, said Microsoft infringes
one of its four patents — No. 6,724,403 — by "making, using, selling, and offering to sell devices
and software products" covered by SurfCast's patent. That includes mobile devices using the
Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 operating systems as well as PCs using Windows 8/RT.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft's Lost Decade (vanityfair.com)

Submitted by onetwentyone
onetwentyone writes: A very telling look into how Microsoft has stumbled along for the last ten years from Vanity Fair.

"Amid a dynamic and ever changing marketplace, Microsoft—which declined to comment for this article—became a high-tech equivalent of a Detroit car-maker, bringing flashier models of the same old thing off of the assembly line even as its competitors upended the world. Most of its innovations have been financial debacles or of little consequence to the bottom line. And the performance showed on Wall Street; despite booming sales and profits from its flagship products, in the last decade Microsoft’s stock barely budged from around $30, while Apple’s stock is worth more than 20 times what it was 10 years ago. In December 2000, Microsoft had a market capitalization of $510 billion, making it the world’s most valuable company. As of June it is No. 3, with a market cap of $249 billion. In December 2000, Apple had a market cap of $4.8 billion and didn’t even make the list. As of this June it is No. 1 in the world, with a market cap of $541 billion."

Comment Re:Tax planning and rich people (Score 1) 2115

by onetwentyone (#37444734) Attached to: White House Proposes "Wealthy Tax"
You're right. I did forget business taxes. As for "average Democratic [constituent]" you might want to leave it as "average [constituent]". I don't know of any information offhand which demonstrates republicans are more likely to be small business owners or vice versa. I could be wrong, I've only done a few quick searches on the subject this morning.

Comment Re:Tax planning and rich people (Score 1) 2115

by onetwentyone (#37444232) Attached to: White House Proposes "Wealthy Tax"
Listing everything out as you have done makes the situation look much worse than what actually occurs. I've taken the liberty of consolidating the above in to the various tax categories thus putting this into a much more realistic light.

All fall under sales tax:

I get taxed when I buy materials to build a shop.
I get taxed on the goods I purchase to sell in the shop.
I get taxed on the goods I sell to others.
I get taxed on the heat in the shop.
I get taxed on the water I use in the shop.
I get taxed on the power consumed by the shop.
I get taxed on the suppliments that I feed the horses.
I get taxed on the fee for delivery of the hay I bought.
I get taxed on the hay I buy to make up the difference in what I cant grow on my own.
I get taxed on the materials to build the hay barn.
I get taxed on the work vehicles I purchase.
I get taxed on the fuel for my business vehicles (tractors, trucks, trailors).
I get taxed on the old vehicles I sell to replace.
I get taxed on the vet bills for the horses. I get taxed on the services of the farrier.
I get taxed when I charge someone to board their horse.
I get taxed when I charge someone to train their horse.
I get taxed when I charge someone to transport their horse.
And taxed to buy food.
And taxed to buy fuel.
And taxed to buy clothes.
And taxed to go to a movie, or to dinner, or to a ball game, or to a play, or ... or... or... or...

Property taxes: (vary depending on where you live or your store is located)

And I get taxed to buy my house.
And I get taxed to STAY in my house.
And taxed to send my kids to school.
I get taxed on the property the shop sits on.
I get taxed by the school district in the county the shop is in.
I get taxed on the hay I grow.
I get taxed on the building I constructed to store the hay in.
I get taxed when I open the shop.

State / Federal Income Taxes: (state only if applicable)

I get taxed on the pay I give to my employees.
And THEN I get taxed on what I take for myself out of MY business.

Now a bunch of these can be combined even further which, you'll find, I also took the liberty of doing for you:

Sales Tax:
I get taxed when I purchase goods or services at a rate my state has decided.

Property Tax:
I get taxed for owning property at a rate my state and local county have decided.

State / Federal Income Taxes
I get taxed on my income and I'm responsible for making sure my employees have the appropriate taxes taken out of their income.

You're welcome.
The Courts

Submission + - Oregon AG Seeks to investigate RIAA tactics

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Turning the tables on the RIAA's attempt to subpoena information from the University of Oregon about the identities of the university students, the Attorney General has now filed additional papers requesting permission from the Court to conduct immediate discovery into the RIAA's 'data mining' techniques, such as the use of unlicensed investigators, the turning over of subpoenaed information to collection agencies, the obtaining of personal information from computers. The AG pointed out (pdf) that "Because Plaintiffs routinely obtain ex parte discovery in their John Doe infringement suits.....their factual assertions supporting their good cause argument are never challenged by an adverse party and their investigative methods remain free of scrutiny. They often settle their cases quickly before defendants obtain legal representation and begin to conduct discovery...... and have dropped cases, such as their case against Tanya Andersen, in which their methods and practices have been challenged through counterclaims...... While the University is not a party to the case, Plaintiffs' subpoena affects the university's rights and obligations. Plaintiffs may be spying on students who use the University's computer system and may be accessing much more than IP addresses." As one commentator succinctly put it, "They'll be going bananas in RIAA land" after reading this filing."
The Courts

Submission + - EFF Wins FOIA Battle Over Telecom Lobbying

Submitted by jbonik
jbonik writes: A California judge has ordered the disclosure of records of meetings between people in the Bush administration and lobbyists working on behalf of the telecom industry. The records, which must be made available by Decemeber 10th, will pertain to industry input on efforts to update FISA and provide legal immunity to the telecoms.
Republicans

Submission + - SPAM: Republican Debate on YouTube 1

Submitted by Amberkow
Amberkow writes: All I can say is I hope the general election features one of these YouTube debates. The nasty, anti-immigrant underbelly of the GOP was proudly on display tonight's early moments — a real boon to Democratic prospects among the Univision vote in Florida where the debate was held.
Link to Original Source
Wireless Networking

Submission + - New York: 1 in 4 businesses use no wireless encryp (blorge.com)

Submitted by
secretsather
secretsather writes: "New York war-surveyed: 1 in 4 businesses employ open wireless networks

It's unbelievable to imagine businesses who employ OWN (open wireless network) encryption on their wireless networks; even worse, its hard to imagine those that do utilize encryption to journey into the realm of WEP, as the term 'security' instantly becomes misleading. Take New York, for example, as businesses were recently 'surveyed' by an independent security specialist commissioned by RSA.

The survey was performed not by mail or in person, as one would expect, but rather, using a laptop with scanning software to detect both broadcasting and non-broadcasting access points (APs) across 802.11a, b, and g frequencies.

Of all APs war-surveyed, 21% were identified as using no encryption at all, while 15% of APs were identified as business HotSpots.

The remaining 64% of APs belonged to businesses with secured networks; however, only 49% of those using encryption, actually implemented a strong form such as WPA. The remaining are plagued with deceivingly-secure WEP encryption.

"As we evolve toward a 'wireless everywhere' world, we are witnessing enormous leaps in wireless connectivity," said Christopher Young, Vice President, Consumer and Access Solutions at RSA.

Young hits the mark, but drifts off by noting: "It is encouraging that almost half of all secured business access points are now using advanced forms of encryption."

51% of businesses, with encrypted wireless networks, who rely on WEP for network security, is simply not encouraging; it's disgusting.

In addition, 24% of business APs that use a form of security are still configured to their out-of-the-box settings, a mega no-no in the world of wireless security."
Media

Submission + - White Stripes go USB

Submitted by
Phone Dude
Phone Dude writes: "For fans of Jack and Meg, it's probably a long-standing dream of yours to purchase the Icky Thump album on limited edition thumb drives complete with cartoon renditions of the rockers, but even if it that understandably bizarre scenario never actually crossed your mind, you can still make it a reality. Apparently, the White Stripes are offering up their latest album on two fairly rare USB drives, each sporting 512MB of internal space, an artistic rendition of one of the band mates, and thirteen rockin' tracks in Apple Lossless format. Only 3,333 of each will be created, and while just one will run you a whopping $57.50, you may as well grab the duo for a discounted $99. Of course, we're still not entirely certain if these things are actually licensed by the band, but it's safe to assume that a seven nation army of fans will have these bought up before the legal teams can even get their case together. http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/white-stripes-a lbum-sold-on-limited-edition-usb-drives/"
Intel

Submission + - Intel V8 Octa-Core System, Full Performance Tests

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: In the April time frame, details of Intel's dual-socket 8-core system dubbed "V8" became available but only preliminary performance numbers were shown. The platform consists of quad-core Xeon processors in an Intel 5000X chipset-based motherboard, along with FBDIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM) serial memory. This follow-on article goes into significantly more detail on the platform and showcases many more performance metrics on a Windows Vista 64-bit installation. The POV-Ray and Cinebench 95 benchmark numbers alone are something to smile about.

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