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Submission + - Major Internet Censorship Bill Passes in Turkey (rawstory.com) 1

Submitted by maratumba
maratumba writes: The Bill extends what are already hefty Internet curbs in place under a controversial 2007 law that Earned Turkey equal ranking with China as the world’s biggest web censor according to a Google Transparency report published in December.
The text notably permits a government agency, the Telecommunications Communications Presidency (TIB), to block Access to websites without court authorization if they are deemed to violate privacy or with content Seen as “insulting”.
Erdogan, Turkey’s all-powerful leader since 2003, is openly suspicious of the Internet, branding Twitter a “menace” for being Utilized in organisation of mass nationwide protests in June in which siX people died and thousands injured.
United Kingdom

Now On Video: GCHQ Destroying Laptop Full of Snowden Disclosures 237

Posted by timothy from the ask-not-what-your-country-can-destroy-for-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "On Saturday 20 July 2013, in the basement of the Guardian's office in Kings Cross, London, watched by two GCHQ technicians, Guardian editors destroyed hard drives and memory cards on which encrypted files leaked by Edward Snowden had been stored. This is the first time footage of the event has been released."
Transportation

EU Secretly Plans To Put a Back Door In Every Car By 2020 364

Posted by timothy from the don't-worry-we'll-only-track-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A secretive EU body has agreed to develop a device to be fitted to all cars allowing police to cut off any engine at will, it emerged today. The device, which could be imposed within a decade, would also allow police to track a vehicle's movements as well as immobilise it. According to The Daily Telegraph a group of senior EU officials, including several Home Office mandarins, have signed off the proposal at a secret meeting in Brussels."

Submission + - Oracle Debating Dropping CORBA Support from Java EE (infoq.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Oracle is seeking feedback from the Java community about what it should work on for the next version of Java EE, the popular and widely used enterprise framework. As well as standardising APIs for PaaS and SaaS the vendor is looking at removing some legacy baggage including EJB 2.x remote and local client view (EJBObject, EJBLocalObject, EJBHome, and EJBLocalHome interfaces) and CORBA.

Submission + - Phil Zimmerman To Launch Secure "Blackphone" (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: Famed cryptography activist Phil Zimmerman is set to launch Blackphone, a privacy-oriented phone which allows secure calls and messages. The phone is a joint venture between Zimmerman's Silent Circle communications provider and Geeksphone, the creator of the first Firefox phone, and will run PrivatOS, a secure version of Android. Zimmerman says the venture will be taking orders for the devices from February 24, after it is unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Submission + - NYT: NSA Put 100,000 Radio Pathway "Backdoors" in PCs (nytimes.com)

Submitted by retroworks
retroworks writes: NY Times has an interesting story on how NSA put transistors into the USB input devices of PC, allowing computers unplugged from the internet to still be monitored, via radiowaves, from up to 8 miles away. The article mainly reports NSA's use of the technology to monitor Chinese military, and minor headline reads "No Domestic Use Seen". A link inside the story leads to a Dutch news article which maps placement of the monitoring system in 50,000 PCs. The source of the data was evidently the leak from Edward J. Snowden.
United States

How Chris Christie Could Use the NSA Playbook 266

Posted by timothy from the wasn't-there-didn't-do-it-and-I-shot-the-only-witness dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Conor Friedersdorf has written a tongue-in-cheek article in The Atlantic advising New Jersey Governor Chris Christie how he can use the NSA playbook to successfully defend himself of the charges that a senior member of his staff was involved in shutting down George Washington Bridge traffic, a stunt meant to punish the mayor of an affected town for opposing his reelection. Christie's NSA-inspired explanation would include the following points: There are almost 9 million people in New Jersey, and only one was targeted for retribution, an impressively tiny error rate lower than .001 percent; The bridge closure was vital to national security because [redacted]; Since the George Washington Bridge is a potential terrorist target, everything that may or may not have happened near it is a state secret; Going after a political rival is wrong but it's important to put this event in context; Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was the only target of non-compliant behavior. No other Fort Lee resident was ever targeted for retribution, and any delays that any Fort Lee resident experienced were totally inadvertent and incidental; Finally a panel will be formed to figure out how to restore the public's faith in Chris Christie. "To some readers, these talking points may seem absurd or deliberately misleading," concludes Friedersdorf, "but there isn't any denying that so far they're working okay for the NSA.""

Submission + - The UK's Internet Porn Filter and Fighting Censorship Creep (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Guardian takes the UK government's internet porn filter to task by pointing out how absurd the opt-out process is: 'Picture the scene. You're pottering about on the internet, perhaps idly looking up cake recipes, or videos of puppies learning to howl. Then the phone rings. It's your internet service provider. Actually, it's a nice lady in a telesales warehouse somewhere, employed on behalf of your service provider; let's call her Linda. Linda is calling because, thanks to David Cameron's "porn filter", you now have an "unavoidable choice", as one of 20 million British households with a broadband connection, over whether to opt in to view certain content. Linda wants to know – do you want to be able to see hardcore pornography? How about information on illegal drugs? Or gay sex, or abortion? Your call may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes. How about obscene and tasteless material? Would you like to see that? Speak up, Linda can't hear you.' The article also points out how the filter is being used as a tool for private industry to protect their profits. 'The category of "obscene content", for instance, which is blocked even on the lowest setting of BT's opt-in filtering system, covers "sites with information about illegal manipulation of electronic devices [and] distribution of software" – in other words, filesharing and music downloads, debate over which has been going on in parliament for years.'
Bitcoin

JPMorgan Files Patent Application On 'Bitcoin Killer' 292

Posted by Soulskill from the all-about-the-digital-benjamins dept.
Velcroman1 writes "Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has filed a patent application for an electronic commerce system that sounds remarkably like Bitcoin — but never mentions the controversial, Internet-only currency. The patent application was filed in early August but made publicly available only at the end of November; it describes a 'method and system for processing Internet payments using the electronic funds transfer network.' The system would allow people to pay bills anonymously over the Internet through an electronic transfer of funds — just like Bitcoin. It would allow for micropayments without processing fees — just like bitcoin. And it could kill off wire transfers through companies like Western Union — just like Bitcoin. There are 18,126 words in the patent application. 'Bitcoin' is not one of them."

Submission + - Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo form alliance against NSA

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: BBC reports: Leading global technology firms have called for "wide-scale changes" to US government surveillance. Eight firms, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Yahoo, have formed an alliance called Reform Government Surveillance group. The group has written a letter to the US President and Congress arguing that current surveillance practice "undermines the freedom" of people. It comes after recent leaks detailed the extent of surveillance programmes. "We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer's revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide," the group said in an open letter published on its website.

Submission + - DARPA makes finding software flaws fun (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: The U.S. Department of Defense may have found a new way to scan millions of lines of software code for vulnerabilities, by turning the practice into a set of video games and puzzles and having volunteers do the work. Having gamers identify potentially problematic chunks of code could help lower the work load of trained vulnerability analysts by "an order of magnitude or more," said John Murray, a program director in SRI International's computer science laboratory who helped create one of the games, called Xylem. DARPA has set up a site, called Verigames, http://www.verigames.com/ that offers five free games that can be played online or, in Xylem's case, on an Apple iPad.

Submission + - Facebook Patents Inferring Income of Users 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Among the patents granted to Facebook this week by the USPTO is one for Inferring Household Income for Users of a Social Networking System. "For example," Facebook explains, "an assumption might be made about a user that reads CNN.com and nytimes.com every day that the user is in a higher income bracket than another user that only reads TMZ.com and PerezHilton.com on the theory that a user who reads newspapers might be assumed to make more money than a user who only reads celebrity gossip blogs." Advertisements such as those for travel packages, cars, and home mortgages, Facebook adds, "are targeted to users based on income bracket," which might also be inferred by "gathering and analyzing different types of information about a user's geographic location." Hey, what could go wrong?

Submission + - US Issues 30-Year Eagle-Killing Permits To Wind Industry

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Lindsay Abrams reports at Salon that in an attempt to encourage the growth of wind power, the Obama administration has announced that it is offering wind farms 30 years of leeway to kill and harm bald and golden eagles. The new regulations, which were requested by the wind industry, will provide companies that seek a permit with legal protection, preventing them from having to pay penalties for eagle deaths. An investigation by the Associated Press earlier this year documented the illegal killing of eagles around wind farms, the Obama administration's reluctance to prosecute such cases and its willingness to help keep the scope of the eagle deaths secret. President Obama has championed the pollution-free energy, nearly doubling America's wind power in his first term as a way to tackle global warming. Scientists say wind farms in 10 states have killed at least 85 eagles since 1997, with most deaths occurring between 2008 and 2012, as the industry was greatly expanding. Most deaths — 79 — were golden eagles that struck wind turbines. However the scientists said their figure is likely to be "substantially" underestimated, since companies report eagle deaths voluntarily and only a fraction of those included in their total were discovered during searches for dead birds by wind-energy companies. The National Audubon Society said it would challenge the decision. ”Instead of balancing the need for conservation and renewable energy, Interior wrote the wind industry a blank check,” says Audubon President and CEO David Yarnold. "It’s outrageous that the government is sanctioning the killing of America’s symbol, the Bald Eagle."

Submission + - Transit Riders Don't Know Where Shit Is (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: According to new research, drivers, walkers, and bicyclists will generally provide us with more useful directions than transit riders. Published in Urban Planning , "Going Mental" shows that cognitively active travelers, regardless of commute by foot or car, tend to trump cognitively passive travelers, (those who frequent public buses and trains) in perceiving distance. Questioning cognitively active, passive, and mixed travelers about distances from a survey site to LA's city hall, the research demonstrated that the passive bus and subway riders have less of a grip on distance. Actively cognitive travelers, according to the results, were more likely to integrate street names in their directions, and also exhibited a sharper understanding of distances.

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