Monthly Archives: July 2013
Jay-Z and OTO get into the datamining biz
Samsung is denying claims that it has invaded the privacy of customers who downloaded the free Jay-Z Magna Carta Holy Grail app. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/23331416 US civil liberties group the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (Epic) claims the app collects “massive amounts of personal information from users, including location data”. Jay-Z and Samsung teamed up to offer one […]
Turkish police state arrests students as terrorists
Antiterrorism police units in Istanbul on Tuesday raided dozens of residences, including several college dormitories, in a crackdown on those who participated in widespread antigovernment demonstrations in June, detaining at least 30 people. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/world/europe/turkish-crackdown-on-demonstrators.html The police, citing terrorism laws, issued a temporary order withholding legal assistance to the detainees and denying them access to their […]
UK funds advanced autonomous robotics research in Scotland
Two Scottish universities have been given more than £6m of UK government funding for research into robotics and autonomous systems. Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh will use the cash to develop a joint research centre in the capital. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23332184 The centre will explore the potential of robots and autonomous systems across a broad […]
UN: In Syria crimes against humanity are the rule
The conflict in Syria has caused the world’s worst refugee crisis for 20 years, with an average of 6,000 people fleeing every day in 2013. 5,000 people are being killed each month. 6.8 million Syrians needed urgent help. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23332527 Nearly 1.8 million refugees registered with the UN had fled Syria since the beginning of the […]
Department stores tracking customer behavior with wi-fi
When Nordstrom posted a sign telling customers it was tracking them, shoppers were unnerved. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?pagewanted=all Nordstrom wanted to learn more about its customers — how many came through the doors, how many were repeat visitors — the kind of information that e-commerce sites like Amazon have in spades. So last fall the company started testing […]
House bill grows subisdies for agribiz, nixes food stamps
Farm bills have had two major pieces. One piece offers subsidies to farmers; the other offers nutritional aid to Americans in distress, mainly in the form of food stamps (these days officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/opinion/krugman-hunger-games-usa.html?_r=0 When subsidies helped many poor farmers, you could defend the whole package as […]
Snowden’s protects himself with “dead-man’s pact”
Edward Snowden has highly sensitive documents on how the National Security Agency is structured and operates that could harm the U.S. government, but has insisted that they not be made public. Disclosure of the information in the documents “would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which […]
US plays constitutional shell game with surveillance
Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the Obama administration’s top appellate lawyer, argued that a challenge to a 2008 surveillance law should be dismissed. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/us/double-secret-surveillance.html?pagewanted=all He said, a little comically in retrospect, that the human rights groups, lawyers and reporters who sought to challenge the law had no particular reason to think that their communications […]
Russia, UN to copy NSA surveillance techniques
Two members of Russia’s Parliament have cited Mr. Snowden’s leaks about N.S.A. spying as arguments to compel global Internet companies like Google and Microsoft to comply more closely with Russian rules on personal data storage. These rules, rights groups say, would open a back door for Russian law enforcement into services like Gmail. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/global/nsa-leaks-stir-plans-in-russia-to-control-net.html?pagewanted=all “We […]
DARPA accelerates combat robot research with cash prize
A Pentagon-financed humanoid robot named Atlas made its first public appearance on Thursday. Some see Atlas’s unveiling as a giant step toward the long-anticipated age of humanoid robots. “A new species, Robo sapiens, are emerging,” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/science/modest-debut-of-atlas-may-foreshadow-age-of-robo-sapiens.html?pagewanted=1&hp The robot is equipped with both laser and stereo vision systems, as well as dexterous hands. The debut of […]
US thwarting all attempts at whistle-blower asylum
The United States is conducting a diplomatic full-court press to try to block Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American intelligence contractor, from finding refuge in Latin America, where three left-leaning governments that make defying Washington a hallmark of their foreign policies have publicly vowed to take him in. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/world/americas/us-is-pressing-latin-americans-to-reject-snowden.html?hp&_r=0 Washington is finding that its leverage […]
Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline uses kickbacks, bribes in China
Executives from GlaxoSmithKline, the British drug giant, has admitted to using bribes, kickbacks and other fraudulent means to bolster drug sales in China. The Ministry of Public Security said people working for the drug maker had bribed doctors, hospitals and government officials and funneled illicit payoffs through travel agencies, pharmaceutical industry associations and project financing. […]
Microsoft the leader in NSA collaboration
Microsoft has collaborated with the National Security Agency more extensively than it previously acknowledged, providing the spy agency with up-to-date access to its customer data whenever the company changes its encryption and related software technology, according to a new report based on disclosures by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/us/report-indicates-more-extensive-cooperation-by-microsoft-on-surveillance.html?ref=us Microsoft had helped […]
Army Corps of Engineers manager convicted of kickback scheme
A former manager with the Army Corps of Engineers was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison on Thursday for orchestrating a $30 million bribery and kickback scheme that was historic in scope. The federal district court judge called the conduct of the former manager, Kerry F. Khan, “shocking, vicious and cruel,” and the […]
Judge orders Guantanamo to stop molesting detainees
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the military to stop touching the groins of detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, when they are moved from their cells to speak with lawyers. The procedure had led some prisoners to stop meeting with or calling their lawyers. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/us/judge-halts-groin-searches-at-guantanamo-calling-them-abhorrent-to-muslims.html?ref=us In a 35-page opinion, Judge Royce C. […]
UK refuses to pursue radiation assassination case
The UK government has refused a request to hold a public inquiry into the death of ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. Mr Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium in London in 2006. Mr Litvinenko, 43, died after he was poisoned while drinking tea with two Russian men, one a former KGB officer, at a London hotel […]
Feds, media pin drug murders on dead Chechens
Three men murdered with knife slashes to their throats in a second-floor apartment in a Boston Suburb; each corpse precisely positioned, stomach down, head turned a quarter to the right, marijuana sprinkled on top. Investigators theorized that the killings had been the work of professionals, based on the savageness of the attacks on the three […]
Drones lead western imperialism in Africa
Nearly every day, and sometimes twice daily, an unarmed American drone soars skyward from a secluded military airfield in Niger, starting a surveillance mission of 10 hours or more to track militants in neighboring Mali. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/africa/drones-in-niger-reflect-new-us-approach-in-terror-fight.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world The two MQ-9 Reapers that are based here stream live video and data from other sensors to American analysts […]
Hacker conference to bar FBI, intelligence services
The main Def Con event that takes place in Las Vegas from 1 August and will see 15,000 hackers debate security topics and demonstrate their coding prowess. The convention had been an “open nexus” where government security staffers and law enforcement agents could freely mix and share ideas with the other hackers, researchers and security […]
Dirty Babylon 