From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 1 07:12:22 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2012 08:12:22 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The 15 Rules of Web Disruption Message-ID: <40FC9FFC-E188-4B57-92A3-67C96C4A9A19@infowarrior.org> The 15 Rules of Web Disruption How to Spot ? and Defeat ? Disruption on the Internet David Martin?s Thirteen Rules for Truth Suppression, H. Michael Sweeney?s 25 Rules of Disinformation (and now Brandon Smith?s Disinformation: How It Works) are classic lessons on how to spot disruption and disinformation tactics. We?ve seen a number of tactics come and go over the years. Here are the ones we see a lot of currently. < - > http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/11/the-15-rules-of-web-disruption-2/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 1 14:01:58 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2012 15:01:58 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FTC Whacks "Rachel From Card Holder Services" Message-ID: <37CA5FE1-1596-4AE7-96FB-330C2C9ADD45@infowarrior.org> FTC escalates anti-robocall campaign ? takes out 5 mass callers FTC cases follow agency?s Robocall Challenge offering $50,000 for private high-tech fix for robocall problem By Layer 8 on Thu, 11/01/12 - 12:30pm. http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/ftc-escalates-anti-robocall-campaign-%E2%80%93-takes-out-5-mass-callers Just two weeks after it challenged the public to come up with a better technological way to stop incessant robocalling, the Federal Trade Commission pulled the plug on five mass calling companies it said were allegedly responsible for millions of illegal pre-recorded calls from "Rachel" and others from "Cardholder Services." The FTC said it gets more than 200,000 complaints each month about telemarketing robocalls, including calls from "Rachel" that pitch consumers with a supposedly easy way to save money by reducing their credit card interest rates. After collecting an up-front fee, however, the FTC believes that the companies do little if anything to fulfill their promises. "At the FTC, Rachel from Cardholder Services is public enemy number one," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz at the announcement of the cases. The five complaints announced today were filed in courts from Arizona to Florida against the following companies: 1) Treasure Your Success, 2) Ambrosia Web Design, 3) A+ Financial Center, LLC, 4) The Green Savers, and 5) Key One Solutions, LLC. Each complaint alleges, among other things, that the defendants violated the FTC Act by misrepresenting that consumers who buy their services will have their credit card interest rates reduced substantially and will save thousands of dollars as a result of lowered credit card interest rates. In the cases, the FTC alleges that the defendants place automated calls to consumers, saying they have an "important message" regarding an opportunity to reduce high credit card interest rates. Consumers are urged to "press 1" to connect with a live representative, or "press 2" to discontinue getting such calls. Consumers who press 1 are connected to live telemarketers. Most consumers have no way to screen the calls using Caller ID, as the incoming number allegedly is often "spoofed," or displayed as a false number. In many cases, the name displayed on the Caller ID is so generic, such as "Card Services," that it provides little information about who is calling, the FTC stated. According to the FTC, consumers who reach a live telemarketer are then pitched allegedly deceptive offers to have their credit card interest rates substantially reduced, sometimes to as low as 6.9 or even zero percent. The telemarketers allegedly guarantee that lowering card interest rates will save the consumers thousands of dollars in finance charges in a short period of time and will allow them to pay off the balances more quickly. Some telemarketers allegedly claim that consumers will save at least $2,500 in finance charges and will be able to pay off their balances two to three times faster, without increasing their monthly payments. After consumers have been "approved" for the program, according to the FTC, the telemarketer informs them that there is an up-front fee, typically ranging from several hundred dollars to nearly $3,000. To convince them to pay the fee, telemarketers often say that it will be more than offset by the money the consumer will save through the program. In some cases, the FTC alleges that consumers' credit cards were charged even if they did not agree to pay for the service. In other cases, the defendants allegedly do not disclose a fee at all, or claim there will be no fee, the FTC stated. The companies allegedly often claim to have a no-risk guarantee, saying that if they don't provide consumers with the promised rate reductions and finance charge savings, they will refund the fee. However, consumers who later complain to the companies find it difficult, if not impossible, to get their money back. After consumers pay the up-front fee, the FTC alleges, they typically find that the companies do little or nothing to lower their credit card interest rates. The only thing that some companies do, according to the FTC, is to initiate three-way calls with consumers' credit card issuers and orally request a rate reduction, a request that consumers could make on their own and that invariably is denied. While most robocalls have been banned since 2009, the FTC has seen the problems escalate over the past year. Just last month it announced the Robocall Challenge offering $50,000 to anyone who can create what the agency calls "an innovative way to block that will block illegal commercial robocalls on landlines and mobile phones." As part of the challenge, the FTC said it would provide participants with data on de-identified consumer complaints about robocalls made between June 2008 and September 2012. Challenge participants interested in this data will receive periodic updates with contemporary data through December 31, 2012. The complaint data will include: date of call; approximate time of call; reported caller name; first seven digits of reported caller phone number; and consumer area code. The FTC said it has been working with industry insiders and other experts to identify potential solutions. However, current technology still lets shady telemarketers to cheaply autodial thousands of phone calls every minute and display false or misleading caller ID information, the FTC said. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 1 17:44:05 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2012 18:44:05 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - NO! No 'Cyber Sandy' rhetoric! Message-ID: <28F7656A-B72F-45B6-B4FC-C1D21388C810@infowarrior.org> DHS Secretary Napolitano Uses Hurricane Sandy to Hype Cyber Threat http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/dhs-secretary-napolitano-uses-hurricane-sandy-to-hype-cyber --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 2 07:19:01 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 08:19:01 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Judge prods FBI over future Internet surveillance plans Message-ID: Judge prods FBI over future Internet surveillance plans Federal judge tells FBI to do more to comply with open government laws when disclosing what backdoors it wants Internet companies to create for government surveillance. by Declan McCullagh November 2, 2012 4:00 AM PDT A federal judge has rejected the FBI's attempts to withhold information about its efforts to require Internet companies to build in backdoors for government surveillance. CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg ruled on Tuesday that the government did not adequately respond to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Seeborg, in San Francisco, ordered (PDF) a "further review of the materials previously withheld" in the lawsuit, which seeks details about what the FBI has dubbed "Going Dark" -- the bureau's ongoing effort to force companies including Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google to alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly. One almost-entirely-redacted document that the FBI turned over. Click for larger image. (Credit: FBI) "We must ensure that our ability to obtain communications pursuant to court order is not eroded," FBI Director Robert Mueller told a U.S. Senate committee in September. Currently, Mueller said, many companies "are not required to build or maintain intercept capabilities." The FBI says lawful investigations are thwarted because Internet companies aren't required to build in back doors in advance, or because technology doesn't permit it. In May, CNET reported that the bureau has quietly asked Web companies not to oppose a law that would levy new wiretap requirements on social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail. During an appearance two weeks later at a Senate hearing, Mueller confirmed that the bureau is pushing for "some form of legislation." Judge Seeborg's ruling this week also ordered the FBI to make it more obvious which Going Dark-related documents were being withheld from public view, something the EFF said has been unreasonable and confusing. He gave both sides 15 days to "meet and confer to negotiate a timetable for the FBI to complete" its revisions. Seeborg did not, however, make a final ruling about what must be turned over. The Justice Department says it has identified 2,662 pages that might be relevant and has turned over 707 pages. For its part, the EFF argues that they've been heavily redacted -- or had pages completely removed -- in violation of open-government laws. David Hardy, section chief for the FBI's record management division, had told the court that internal documents about a congressional briefing should not be released in full because ... < - > http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57544139-38/judge-prods-fbi-over-future-internet-surveillance-plans/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 2 07:21:20 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 08:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - British judge: Say you're sorry Apple... this time like you MEAN it Message-ID: British judge: Say you're sorry Apple... this time like you MEAN it http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/01/samsung_case_apple_told_to_apologise_again/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 2 07:33:16 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 08:33:16 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Baltimore FD implements new social media policy Message-ID: <4B23D971-00D1-466D-B91A-C64A86C7FAD2@infowarrior.org> www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-fire-social-media-20121101,0,194165.story baltimoresun.com City fire department implements new social media policy Union leaders, experts say provisions infringe on First Amendment rights By Kevin Rector, The Baltimore Sun 7:10 PM EDT, November 1, 2012 The Baltimore Fire Department has implemented a strict new social media policy for what firefighters can post on Twitter, Facebook and personal blogs ? drawing criticism that the department is trampling on First Amendment rights. Under the policy, department personnel can be reprimanded for anything they write online about their jobs that doesn't adhere to conduct rules, which require "good judgment" and "courtesy and respect to the public and to fellow employees." The policy also restricts them from sharing information about fire scenes. Fire Chief James S. Clack said the department crafted the policy to protect firefighters from getting into trouble for sharing sensitive information. But union leaders called the policy too broad and said the department created it unilaterally after negotiations with union attorneys broke down last month. Social media and free-speech advocates balked at the scope of the policy and questioned its legality. Bradley Shear, a Bethesda attorney who has advised state legislators in Annapolis on social media policy, said the new provisions are "troubling" and potentially unconstitutional. "I think the policy is clearly suspect," Shear said. "It's over-broad, it's retroactive, and I think they need to go back to the drawing board." Clack initiated the drafting of the new policy this spring after fire personnel took to Twitter and other social media sites to grumble about department and city leaders and the decision to close fire companies to save money. Clack said he observed some firefighters and officers "crossing the line" by posting sensitive and often incorrect information about fire calls, including some where first responders were still on the scene. But firefighters said they believe their online criticisms of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Clack and other city officials following the company closures actually prompted the crackdown. The new policy applies to online chatter even if the firefighters post anonymously, and regardless of whether they are off duty. While on duty, firefighters are specifically barred from commenting online about "matters of public concern." Fire personnel are also prohibited from posting online "in such a way as to cause actual or reasonably foreseeable harm or disruption to the operations of the BCFD or the City." That would include sharing "the real-time public disclosure of locations of deployed units, assets or personnel or any other real-time information from an incident scene." In addition, individual fire units can no longer maintain independent websites outlining their work in the communities they serve, and firefighters can no longer photograph or record images of department property without express permission. David L. Hudson, a scholar at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University who has written about public employees' social media rights, said the department's new policy generally "strikes a good balance between protecting free-speech rights and protecting the department." But, he said, the policy's "breadth" raises concerns. Prohibiting online speech that doesn't show good judgment is too broad because it "could be interpreted to be anything they don't like," Hudson said. Clack said the purpose is not to keep personnel in lock step with department leaders but to "avoid some of the problems that have cropped up across the country and even here in Maryland with firefighters posting things that get them in trouble." This summer, several members of the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Company in Harford County were suspended or demoted after they complained on Facebook about not receiving a discount at a local restaurant and joked about not responding to emergency calls there. "It's all kind of evolving in fire service and in police departments as well," Clack said of social media policy. In Philadelphia, firefighters and union leaders publicly decried a new policy restricting firefighters' use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter. The department issued a four-page memo outlining the policy in August. The Philadelphia and Baltimore policies are similar. Both restrict the use of fire department imagery and sharing information about emergency calls, and ban members from making discriminatory remarks online about race, religion and other personal characteristics. The two departments also restrict the use of electronic devices on the job. The new Baltimore policy says firefighters cannot use personal mobile devices at fire scenes unless they have permission, and bans them from using cameras any time on the job. The Baltimore Police Department had been in the process of creating a new social media policy as well, but that effort has been tabled as the new Commissioner Anthony W. Batts transitions into his role. The new Fire Department policy applies not just to social media platforms like Facebook but also to chat rooms, online forums and all forms of "electronic communication" other than personal email services and private messaging functions. But the department will not routinely monitor social media accounts of firefighters, the policy states. Hudson, the First Amendment scholar, said he appreciated that department officials "recognize employers shouldn't be the social media police and go around snooping at employees' social media." State law bans employers from asking for employees' social media user names and passwords. Michael Campbell, president of the fire officers union, said the new policy infringes on First Amendment rights and doesn't reflect many of the changes recommended by the unions before negotiations ended. "The fire department said, 'We're going to do what we want to do. It's our way or the highway,'" Campbell said. "The fire department is definitely overreaching," he added. "They're just throwing the kitchen sink out there and seeing what they can get away with." Clack said department attorneys and the unions went "back and forth for months" on the policy, and the department did incorporate many suggestions from the unions. But eventually, both parties agreed they were not going to reach a consensus, and the department decided to move forward, he said. "I think in the end, the unions felt like they couldn't support a policy 100 percent, because a lot of their members use social media," Clack said. Clack acknowledged the policy's far-reaching scope but said he will take a more narrow approach to enforcing it. He noted: "It's certainly not my intent to fire anybody." "Attorneys, when they get a hold of this stuff, try to throw everything in and cover every base, but I'm going to be most interested in people when they're working," he said. Shear, the social media attorney, said one of the most troubling aspects of the policy is that it's retroactive. Union contracts prevent the department from punishing employees for actions after a certain amount of time has passed, but Shear said the language of the policy could be understood to allow the department's good judgment standard to be applied to social media posts made years ago. "It essentially holds you accountable for things in the past, including things you might not be proud of in college or high school," Shear said. "You've got to be careful regulating speech with public employees, and the way the policy is written, it appears to violate the principles of free speech," Shear said. krector at baltsun.com twitter.com/rectorsun Copyright ? 2012, The Baltimore Sun --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 2 07:40:37 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 08:40:37 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - NYSE Open for Business Shows Wall Street Still Vulnerable Message-ID: (While I think the closures were more than warranted, I also think the potential of HFT algos going nuts w/o anyone around to pick up after them was not far from anyone's minds, either. That said, I don't see a problem with the markets closing for a MAJOR EVENT like #Sandy.....after all, there's money enough to be made on all the other trading days of the year. ---rick) NYSE Open for Business Shows Wall Street Still Vulnerable By Nina Mehta - Nov 2, 2012 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-11-02/nyse-open-for-business-shows-wall-street-is-no-less-vulnerable.html The longest weather-related shutdown of U.S. stock trading since 1888 ended Oct. 31 without incident, while underscoring how vulnerable the world?s biggest financial market remains to disasters. Duncan Niederauer, the chief executive officer of NYSE Euronext (NYX), said trading went smoothly as American equity markets came back to life after a 48-hour hiatus forced by Hurricane Sandy. Trading was suspended three days earlier when concerns about human safety and how well the New York Stock Exchange?s backup plan would work convinced executives that moving ahead was too risky. The Securities and Exchange Commission may consider whether exchanges? emergency regimens need to be bolstered, according to a person familiar with the regulator?s thinking who asked not to be named because the matter is private. The industry?s decision to halt equities and bond trading shows the challenge of maintaining markets when a catastrophe threatens New York City, home to 168,700 securities industry workers. ?One of the purposes of having electronic exchanges and basing them away from New York City is for the market to be more robust and stay open,? Charles Jones, a finance professor at Columbia Business School in New York, said in a phone interview. ?This is what the back-up plans were designed for. But the markets didn?t open.? SEC Assessment The SEC will also assess whether lessons from this week?s events should lead to new requirements as the agency works to convert guidelines adopted 20 years ago to ensure the stability of exchange technology and systems into a rule, the person said. ?Deciding in advance to close the market when there?s a great likelihood things will be bad is a good decision,? former SEC Chairman David Ruder said in a phone interview. ?Later on, regulators will probably ask, ?Are the back-up facilities sufficiently strong to handle unexpected events?? It will be a laborious and time-consuming process.? The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center prompted the securities and banking industry to begin an examination of whether financial markets could withstand a terrorist attack or other catastrophe, Robert Greifeld, CEO of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ), said in an Oct. 31 interview on Bloomberg Television?s ?Street Smart? with Dominic Chu. The effort expanded after Sept. 11, 2001. While the decision to shut markets to protect employees this week was right, it showed that too much infrastructure may be concentrated in New York, he said. ?Hurricane, Tornado? ?We cannot be locked into this geography,? he said. ?The key point is to be ready no matter what happens, whether it?s a hurricane, tornado, terrorist attack. It?s our job to make sure the markets are ready to function.? Brokers began preparing for Sandy last week, instituting contingency plans and moving staff in case communications networks failed and the bridges and tunnels into New York City were closed. Discussions between primary dealers in the bond market, officials at the U.S. Treasury Department and New York Federal Reserve, and executives at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association took place over the weekend before an auction of Treasury bills scheduled for Oct. 29, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. While banks and dealers were prepared to handle the sale and expected broad participation, plans for another auction the next morning were moved up a day because of the weather. Just before 7 p.m. on Oct. 28, Sifma, a trade group for banks, brokers and asset managers, recommended that bond markets close at noon the next day. Sandy Looms Stock exchanges and brokers built or augmented back-up plans to operate during a disaster over the last decade. NYSE Euronext proposed an arrangement in 2009 that involves shutting down the trading floor in its headquarters at 11 Wall Street in New York and carrying out Big Board trading over NYSE Arca, the all-electronic market it acquired in 2006, the year the company had its initial public offering. Shortly after 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 28, as Sandy sped toward the American Northeast with winds of 75 miles per hour, prompting a mandatory evacuation of parts of New York, executives of NYSE Euronext said they would put that plan into action for the first time. The New York Mercantile Exchange, which trades natural gas and crude oil futures, had already said it was shutting its trading floor in lower Manhattan. Executives took the step out of an ?abundance of caution? for the lives of employees, market makers and traders at the Big Board, and clients, Larry Leibowitz, chief operating officer at NYSE Euronext, said in a phone interview at about 5 p.m. on Oct. 28. He cited reservations about opening during what might be a ?100-year storm,? saying that only time would tell if it was the best decision for securities firms and the capital markets. More Competition The role of the NYSE floor in American equity markets has diminished since September 2001 as the exchange ceded market share to competitors. While 83 percent of trading in NYSE companies occurred on the Big Board then, only about 21 does now following the growth of Nasdaq OMX and rise of new electronic rivals run by Direct Edge Holdings LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Lenexa, Kansas-based Bats Global Markets Inc. Still, the prices generated by the main exchanges that bring corporations public remains vital for calculations used by many mutual funds and vendors that sell market data. Fragmented Trading While trading has become more fragmented, New York and New Jersey remain the heart of the American securities industry. By invoking its contingency plan for trading, the NYSE would have effectively forced banks and brokers to send programmers into the city Sunday night to code and test systems, five people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Not all brokerage members of the exchange participated in the system?s last test in March. ?They could have left the electronic exchanges open,? Mark Turner, head of U.S. sales trading at New York-based Instinet Inc., said in a phone interview. ?But with people unable to access their offices, it could have been like the Friday after Thanksgiving where volume would be extremely light, which opens the door for volatility.? At 6:30 p.m. on the eve of Sandy?s arrival, the NYSE held a conference call in which its biggest customers opposed the backup plan, saying the prospect of malfunctions was too great, according to four people with direct knowledge of the discussions who asked to remain anonymous because the talks were private. Danger from the worsening weather fueled anxiety about having to send employees into the city, the people said. ?Tough Call? ?All of these disasters are a tough call,? Leibowitz said. ?If you overreact, people say after, ?They acted like a bunch of babies.? If you underreact and don?t take enough measures and something bad happens, you?ve got an even bigger problem. Finding that line is always really hard.? Ensuring the accuracy of technical changes and software updates is increasingly critical to the operation of markets transformed by electronic trading over the last five years, said Ruder, now a professor at Northwestern University?s School of Law in Chicago. Brokers and exchanges told the SEC in early October that systems must be properly tested before they?re implemented in the markets to avoid disruptive trading. Brokers preparing for NYSE?s contingency trading using Arca wouldn?t have faced many technical hurdles, Leibowitz said on Oct. 28. ?For the most part there?s not anything new required by the industry,? since most orders would be redirected to the electronic venue behind the scenes, he said. Judgment Questioned NYSE?s member brokers disagreed on the 6:30 p.m. conference call. Participants questioned the judgment of requiring them to switch to systems that hadn?t been recently or adequately tested, people familiar with the discussions said. Callers warned of technical glitches, confusion and the threat of disorderly trading because of the last-minute change to opt for the back-up plan when brokers were functioning with skeletal staff, the people said. The conference call was followed by three more arranged by Sifma. Regulators from the SEC and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority joined executives from the Investment Company Institute, exchanges and brokers as consensus grew that the markets should close, people familiar with the discussions said. On a 7:30 p.m. Sifma call, which one person said had at least 100 attendees, banks and brokers unanimously pressed for markets to shut, the people said. Joe Mecane, head of U.S. equities for NYSE Euronext, attended, along with executives from Nasdaq OMX, Bats and Direct Edge. SEC Informed Two smaller Sifma calls followed at 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Robert Cook, the director of the SEC?s division of trading and markets, and other officials from the unit, participated, along with executives from CME Group Inc. and IntercontinentalExchange Inc., which offer trading in equity-index futures, the people said. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro was informed of discussions throughout the evening, according to a person familiar with the matter. Officials at the SEC, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, New York Fed and Treasury Department that were consulted about shutting the markets didn?t object to the decision for equities by the stock exchanges and Finra and the recommendation by Sifma for fixed income, the people said. Opening the markets on Oct. 31 was critical to all the parties, they said. The suspension of equities trading was announced at about 11 p.m. on Oct. 28, after predictions for storm damage worsened and almost seven hours after NYSE said it would invoke its contingency plan. The markets closed Oct. 29 and 30, the first time they?ve been shut for consecutive days due to weather since a blizzard in March 1888. They were last closed for four days including a weekend and the national day of mourning for President Gerald Ford in 2007. Market Viability Equity and fixed-income markets began trading Oct. 31, with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, ringing the opening bell at the NYSE. The Standard & Poor?s 500 Index rose less than 0.1 percent from Friday?s close to 1,412.16 at 4 p.m. in New York. Volume was 6.33 billion shares, or 7 percent above the three-month average. Futures on the S&P 500 slipped less than 0.1 percent at 8:24 a.m. in London today. ?Given the weather and that the entire Northeast corridor was going to be closed, there wasn?t a big reason to risk the viability of the marketplace and add to the confusion,? Sang Lee, managing partner at Boston-based Aite Group LLC, said in a phone interview. ?It would have been much worse had they opened and something went wrong.? To contact the reporter on this story: Nina Mehta in New York at nmehta24 at bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson at bloomberg.net --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 2 08:45:51 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 09:45:51 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Yet another cybersecurity industry group.... Message-ID: <017670E4-9C1B-4E0F-B113-9BFEFA67EE67@infowarrior.org> .... is formed. Le Grande Sigh. Again. ----rick http://www.cybersecurityresearch.org/ Washington, DC - October 24, 2012 - Today, leading technology companies announced the creation of the Cyber Security Research Alliance (CSRA). The CSRA is a private, non-profit research consortium formed in response to the growing need for increased public-private collaboration to address complex problems in cyber security. The founding members of the CSRI are Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Honeywell, Intel Corporation, Lockheed Martin, and RSA/EMC. President Obama has prioritized cyber threats as one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation and a dependency to America's economic prosperity in the 21st century. CSRA seeks to achieve coordinated industry participation to address national cyber security research and development (R&D) imperatives and bridge the gap between government funded R&D and commercially available products and solutions in cyber security. CSRA will focus on challenges that are bigger than any one company, consortium, sector or nation and ensure that government, industry and academia collaborate on in-depth problem understanding and definition. ?The CSRA is organized to leverage expertise, from member companies and partners in government and academia,? said Lee Holcomb, president of the CSRA and vice president of strategic initiatives, Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions. ?Together we hope to create viable, game changing cyber security solutions.? The CSRA is discussing with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) the arrangement for a joint cyber security research symposium in early 2013 to connect researchers and early adopters from across the private, academic, and government sectors. ?Putting into practice the exciting cyber security innovations that emerge from research requires active partnerships between government and industry and also among private sector stakeholders,? said Chuck Romine, Director of NIST?s Information Technology Laboratory. ?The emergence of CSRA can strengthen both kinds of partnerships and we look forward to working with this new organization to promote a trustworthy cyberspace for our nation and its citizens.? Initially, CSRA will focus on building the organization and developing viable collaboration models. Activities and focus areas for the organization will include: ? Prioritizing the ?grand challenges? in cyber security through the collaboration of all stakeholders ? Tracking cyber security R&D activities ? Developing viable approaches to technology transfer --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 2 15:51:24 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 16:51:24 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - USS Enterprise sets out on its final mission Message-ID: <4EA8CA3B-49A1-417A-BA0B-67137327F009@infowarrior.org> USS Enterprise sets out on its final mission To boldly go ... to the scrapheap By Iain Thomson in San Francisco ? Get more from this author Posted in Bootnotes, 2nd November 2012 19:23 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/02/uss_enterprise_scapped/ The US Navy's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, has set sail on her last mission before being consigned to the scrap heap. After 51 years as a serving warship, including multiple circumnavigations of the globe, the Enterprise's final trip will be a short one from its home port of Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia to the nearby Huntington Ingalls Newport News Shipbuilding yard, where its nuclear fuel will be removed for disposal. All aircraft, ammunition, and salvageable equipment will also be stripped out. Once her fuel has been safely removed, the Enterprise will have one last time at sea as it is towed southwards down to the tip of South America, around Cape Horn and then back up the coastline to its final resting place at Puget Sound in Washington. There naval engineers will remove the aircraft carrier's eight nuclear reactors and break up the hull for 90,000 tons of scrap metal. There had been a petition to preserve the Big E (as it is known to the crew) as a floating museum, similar to the role now played by the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, which has become the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York that hosts the Enterprise's space shuttle namesake. Sadly, the costs of doing so would be too great the Navy said. "In order to remove the reactors, it takes a lot of cutting and hacking on the ship to do that. They do cut through the flight deck and they may very well be cutting through the hull of the ship itself," Mike Maus, a spokesperson for Naval Air Force Atlantic, told CNN. "Once the reactors are removed, to put the ship back in any shape to where it still resembles a ship, the cost would be over the moon." It's a sad end for the second oldest ship in the US Navy, and the oldest functioning warship. The Navy's oldest vessel is the USS Constitution (aka Old Ironsides), a three-masted sailing frigate commissioned in 1797 and currently harbored in Boston. Enterprise is also the US Navy's longest ship at 1,123ft (342 m) after its flight deck was extended in 1990. Task Force One celebrates Einstein (click to enlarge) The Enterprise was the backbone of Task Force One, the US Navy's first fully nuclear battle group, which steamed around the world without refueling in 1964 as part of a demonstration of America's perceived role as the world's policeman. It has been present in most of the US's military adventures over the last 50 years, including the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, and the various wars in the Middle East. After decommissioning, which officially occurs on December 1, the US Navy will be left with only 10 aircraft carriers to protect itself, only eight more than its nearest rivals Italy and Spain. Lest you worry about a defense gap, there's no need; the Navy has plans to build at least another two Gerald R. Ford?class aircraft carriers in the next few years, and there's already a petition to get the next new one renamed Enterprise. Bootnote Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry never explicitly said his famous spaceship was named in honor of the first nuclear carrier, but the Big E was much in the headlines when he formulated the series, and he was certainly influenced by US Navy traditions. The old NCC-1701 was a Constitution-class ship, after all. ? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 2 18:56:22 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 19:56:22 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Latest WH Cybersecurity EO Draft Message-ID: <60C3ED4F-6B48-48A6-80FB-9C148D13F99D@infowarrior.org> The Latest EO PDF: www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/White-House-Draft-Executive-Order-Publicly-Circulating-Copy-11-1-12.pdf More @ Cybersecurity Executive Order Touts More Regulation as the Solution http://blog.heritage.org/2012/11/02/cybersecurity-executive-order-touts-more-regulation-as-the-solution/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 3 09:28:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 10:28:45 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Nonpartisan CRS Tax Report Withdrawn After G.O.P. Protest Message-ID: <8B5CB3C5-521A-45FF-9178-16E9D8BF32A1@infowarrior.org> Report PDF @ http://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf November 1, 2012 Nonpartisan Tax Report Withdrawn After G.O.P. Protest By JONATHAN WEISMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/business/questions-raised-on-withdrawal-of-congressional-research-services-report-on-tax-rates.html WASHINGTON ? The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper?s findings and wording. The decision, made in late September against the advice of the agency?s economic team leadership, drew almost no notice at the time. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, cited the study a week and a half after it was withdrawn in a speech on tax policy at the National Press Club. But it could actually draw new attention to the report, which questions the premise that lowering the top marginal tax rate stimulates economic growth and job creation. ?This has hues of a banana republic,? Mr. Schumer said. ?They didn?t like a report, and instead of rebutting it, they had them take it down.? Republicans did not say whether they had asked the research service, a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress, to take the report out of circulation, but they were clear that they protested its tone and findings. Don Stewart, a spokesman for the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Mr. McConnell and other senators ?raised concerns about the methodology and other flaws.? Mr. Stewart added that people outside of Congress had also criticized the study and that officials at the research service ?decided, on their own, to pull the study pending further review.? Senate Republican aides said they had protested both the tone of the report and its findings. Aides to Mr. McConnell presented a bill of particulars to the research service that included objections to the use of the term ?Bush tax cuts? and the report?s reference to ?tax cuts for the rich,? which Republicans contended was politically freighted. They also protested on economic grounds, saying that the author, Thomas L. Hungerford, was looking for a macroeconomic response to tax cuts within the first year of the policy change without sufficiently taking into account the time lag of economic policies. Further, they complained that his analysis had not taken into account other policies affecting growth, such as the Federal Reserve?s decisions on interest rates. ?There were a lot of problems with the report from a real, legitimate economic analysis perspective,? said Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for the Senate Finance Committee?s Republicans. ?We relayed them to C.R.S. It was a good discussion. We have a good, constructive relationship with them. Then it was pulled.? The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical. The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday will release unemployment figures for October, a month after some conservatives denounced its last report as politically tinged to abet President Obama?s re-election. When the bureau suggested its October report might be delayed by Hurricane Sandy, some conservatives immediately suggested politics were at play. Republicans have also tried to discredit the private Tax Policy Center ever since the research organization declared that Mitt Romney?s proposal to cut tax rates by 20 percent while protecting the middle class and not increasing the deficit was mathematically impossible. For years, conservatives have pressed the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to factor in robust economic growth when it is asked to calculate the cost of tax cuts to the federal budget. Congressional aides and outside economists said they were not aware of previous efforts to discredit a study from the research service. ?When their math doesn?t add up, Republicans claim that their vague version of economic growth will somehow magically make up the difference. And when that is refuted, they?re left with nothing more to lean on than charges of bias against nonpartisan experts,? said Representative Sander Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. Jared Bernstein, a former economist for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., conceded that ?tax cuts for the rich? was ?not exactly academic prose,? but he said the analysis did examine policy time lags and controlled for several outside factors, including monetary policy. ?This sounds to me like a complete political hit job and another example of people who don?t like the results and try to use backdoor ways to suppress them,? he said. ?I?ve never seen anything like this, and frankly, it makes me worried.? Janine D?Addario, a spokeswoman for the Congressional Research Service, would not comment on internal deliberations over the decision. She confirmed that the report was no longer in official circulation. A person with knowledge of the deliberations, who requested anonymity, said the Sept. 28 decision to withdraw the report was made against the advice of the research service?s economics division, and that Mr. Hungerford stood by its findings. The report received wide notice from media outlets and liberal and conservative policy analysts when it was released on Sept. 14. It examined the historical fluctuations of the top income tax rates and the rates on capital gains since World War II, and concluded that those fluctuations did not appear to affect the nation?s economic growth. ?The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie,? the report said. ?However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.? The Congressional Research Service does such reports at the request of lawmakers, and the research is considered private. Although the reports are posted on the service?s Web site, they are available only to members and staff. Their public release is subject to lawmakers? discretion. But the Hungerford study was bound to be widely circulated. It emerged in the final months of a presidential campaign in which tax policy has been a central focus. Mr. Romney, the Republican nominee, maintains that any increase in the top tax rates on income and capital gains would slow economic growth and crush the job market?s recovery. President Obama has promised to allow cuts on the top two income tax rates to expire in January, lifting the rates from 33 and 35 percent, their level during most of George W. Bush?s presidency, to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, where they were during most of the Clinton administration. Mr. Obama maintains the increases would not hurt the economy and are the fairest way to reduce the deficit. Mr. Hungerford, a specialist in public finance who earned his economics doctorate from the University of Michigan, has contributed at least $5,000 this election cycle to a combination of Mr. Obama?s campaign, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 3 09:33:38 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 10:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Firefox gets strict about enforcement of HTTPS protection Message-ID: Firefox gets strict about enforcement of HTTPS protection Beta version mandates a secure channel before connecting to sensitive sites. by Dan Goodin - Nov 2 2012, 7:40pm EDT http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/11/firefox-gets-strict-about-enforcement-of-https-protection/ Developers of Mozilla's Firefox browser are experimenting with a new security feature that connects to a specified set of websites only when presented with a cryptographic certificate validating the connection is secure. A beta version of the open-source browser contains a list of sites known to deploy the HTTP Strict Transport Security mechanism that requires a browser to use the secure sockets layer or transport layer security protocols when communicating. HSTS is designed to provide an additional layer of security by mandating the channel is encrypted and the server has been authenticated using strong cryptography. But there's a chicken-and-egg problem with HSTS. "Man-in-the-middle" attackers, who are positioned in between a browser and website, have the ability to prevent browsers from receiving the server code that enforces the additional protection. That makes it possible for HSTS to be circumvented by the very types of people the measure is designed to thwart. That's where the new Firefox feature comes in. It provides a list of sites known to enforce HSTS, and it prevents the browser from connecting unless the specified server presents a valid certificate. "When a user connects to one of these hosts for the first time, the browser will know that it must use a secure connection," a post published on Thursday to the Mozilla security blog explained. "If a network attacker prevents secure connections to the server, the browser will not attempt to connect over an insecure protocol, thus maintaining the user's security." Google's Chrome browser already offers similar protection. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 3 09:34:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 10:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Megaupload and the Government's Attack on Cloud Computing Message-ID: Megaupload and the Government's Attack on Cloud Computing https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/governments-attack-cloud-computing Yesterday, EFF, on behalf of its client Kyle Goodwin, filed a brief proposing a process for the Court in the Megaupload case to hold the government accountable for the actions it took (and failed to take) when it shut down Megaupload's service and denied third parties like Mr. Goodwin access to their property. The government also filed a brief of its own, calling for a long, drawn-out process that would require third parties?often individuals or small companies?to travel to courts far away and engage in multiple hearings, just to get their own property back. Even worse, the government admitted that it has accessed Mr. Goodwin's Megaupload account and reviewed the content of his files. By doing so, the government has taken a significant and frightening step. It apparently searched through the data it seized for one purpose when its target was Megaupload in order to use it against Mr. Goodwin, someone who was hurt by its actions but who is plainly not the target of any criminal investigation, much less the one against Megaupload. This is, of course, a bald attempt to shift the focus to Mr. Goodwin, trying to distract both the press and the Court from the government's failure to take any steps, much less the reasonable steps required by law, to protect the property rights of third parties either before a warrant was executed or afterward. And of course, if the government is so well positioned that it can search through Mr. Goodwin's files and opine on their content?and it is not at all clear that this second search was authorized?presumably it can also find a way to return them. But in addition, the government's approach should terrify any user of cloud computer services?not to mention the providers. The government maintains that Mr. Goodwin lost his property rights in his data by storing it on a cloud computing service. Specifically, the government argues that both the contract between Megaupload and Mr. Goodwin (a standard cloud computing contract) and the contract between Megaupload and the server host, Carpathia (also a standard agreement), "likely limit any property interest he may have" in his data. (Page 4). If the government is right, no provider can both protect itself against sudden losses (like those due to a hurricane) and also promise its customers that their property rights will be maintained when they use the service. Nor can they promise that their property might not suddenly disappear, with no reasonable way to get it back if the government comes in with a warrant. Apparently your property rights "become severely limited" if you allow someone else to host your data under standard cloud computing arrangements. This argument isn't limited in any way to Megaupload -- it would apply if the third party host was Amazon's S3 or Google Apps or or Apple iCloud. The government's tactics here also demonstrate another chilling thing?if users do try to get their property back, the government won't hesitate to comb through their property to try to find an argument to use against them. The government also seeks to place a virtually insurmountable practical burden on users by asking the court to do a slow-walking, multi-step process that takes place in a far away court. Most third parties who use cloud computing services to store their business records or personal information are not in a position to attend even one court appearance in Virginia, much less the multiple ones the government envisions in its submission to the court. Ultimately, if the government doesn't feel any obligation to respect the rights of Megaupload's customers?and it clearly doesn't?it's not going to suddenly feel differently if the target of its next investigation is a more mainstream service. The scope of its seizure here was breathtaking and they took no steps to engage in what the law calls "minimization," either before its searches and seizures or afterwards, by taking steps to return property to cloud computing users who it knew would be hurt. And now the government is trying to use standard contractual language to argue that any user of a cloud computing service has, at best, "severely limited" ownership rights in their property. Those who have been watching on the sidelines thinking that the issues in this case are just about Megaupload should take heed. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 3 09:40:19 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 10:40:19 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Apple's mea culpa: U.K. site posts apology, new statement Message-ID: <5C5BFD17-A279-4999-876F-E79800F95506@infowarrior.org> Apple's mea culpa: U.K. site posts apology, new statement After testing a British court's patience with a not so apologetic public statement, the iPhone and iPad maker is finally eating humble pie. < - > http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57544751-37/apples-mea-culpa-u.k-site-posts-apology-new-statement/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 3 12:40:11 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 13:40:11 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - DEAR APPLE: I'm Leaving You Message-ID: <6A9EA761-A2E8-48BA-B001-AA9A503D3F58@infowarrior.org> (I tend to agree with many of Ed's points; I am on an Android phone and Google's cloud/Dropbox versus an iPhone and Apple's problematic cloud venture....one of my older iPods died this morning and I'm not sure I want to buy a new one that renders all my previous adapters/cables obsolete....plus many other concerns.....I don't like the direction Apple's taking with its closed egosystem....etc etc. Well worth the read. --rick) DEAR APPLE: I'm Leaving You Ed Conway, Contributor | Nov. 1, 2012, 9:28 PM | 130,651 | 265 Ed Conway (@edconwaysky) is the economics editor for Sky News and the author of The Real Economy. He recently wrote a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook explaining why he was done with the company. Ed gave us permission to reprint his letter via an email from his new Samsung. http://www.businessinsider.com/dear-apple-im-leaving-you-2012-11 Dear Tim, There?s no easy way to put this so I?ll just come right out with it. I?m leaving you. It?s been great (mostly) but it?s over. I figured the least I could do is to explain my decision in full ? I like to think it might help protect you from nasty break-ups like this in the future. I?ve been with you, with Apple I mean, for 13 years now ? ever since 1999. Perhaps you?ve forgotten: I was a spotty teenager; I bought one of your cute little translucent iBooks. Slowly but surely I painted most parts of my technological life a bright shade of Apple. Let?s see: I?ve owned two iMacs, a number of iBooks, countless Macbooks (I?ve currently got two on the go, for some unknown reason), an iPhone for almost five years, an iPad since the very beginning; iPods, iPod touches, iPod nanos ? I?ve had ?em all. I even invested in an Apple TV and, wait for it, a G4 Power Mac Cube (yes, that was me!). I?ll admit I became dependent on you ? clingy, even. When I went to the States a couple of years back I shelled out hundreds of dollars to ensure I wouldn?t be without an iPhone ? even though I was back at college and wasn?t exactly rolling in it. And like so many of those who fall in love with you, soon enough I found myself working part-time as your best PR spokesman: I spent hours persuading all my friends to buy your stuff. I even wrote a blog about what made Apple such a dynamic, innovative and successful company. Like millions of others, I really believed the hype. I never thought I would utter these words, but here goes: I?m leaving you. I have already traded in my iPhone for a Samsung. Now, this is the point where I know I?m expected to say: ?it?s not you, it?s me,? but I can?t, because the truth is: ?it?s not me, it?s you?. Now, I know you don?t like lists (at least I presume that?s why you avoided including a task application in Mac OS and iOS for so many years) but it?s only right that I run through the issues: 1. iOS 6 Yes, I know I?m hardly the first to mention this ? but that doesn?t make it any less valid as a complaint. It is truly, truly awful. I?m usually ready to forgive one or two niggles in a new iteration of operating system. After all, they?re usually outweighed by the improvements. In this case, I honestly can?t think of a single new feature that in any way enhances the phone. Every change you?ve made is negative. The maps application is utterly horrendous; you must have known this is among the most commonly-used of all functional parts of a smartphone and that to change it quite so substantially would be seriously disruptive. Yes, I know you?ve magnanimously urged users to use alternatives, but the problem is that even if I try to use Google maps on your safari browser (it hardly ever works on Safari but let?s leave that for the time being), I can?t avoid the fact that crappy iOS maps are integrated into every other geographically-reliant app I have.* I know you?re a pragmatic fellow: I suspect you might even give future users the option to change this. But the fact is that?s not the only disconcertingly disastrous issue with iOS. Take iTunes Match. In the previous iOS I could download any individual song in my iTunes Match library, so I could listen to it overseas without data or when in the Tube. Now your dreadful new operating system will only let me download whole albums and then won?t let me delete them afterwards, so my iPhone gets clogged up with stuff before arbitrarily deleting precious chunks of data when it reaches capacity. It?s as if you think I should never have had the right to have chosen what songs to have, and to delete, on my own iPhone in the first place. Which I find a little controlling, to tell you the truth. As do I find the fact that you now seem to have decided to allow the iOS to decide unilaterally to use the telephone network rather than wifi when it so chooses. Given how badly you screwed up with the whole secret GPS-tracking of iPhone users, I?d have thought you realised we don?t like it when you behave creepily like this. It?s seriously not cool, but then more on that later. All the new, exciting apps you?ve brought in are, I?m afraid to say, rubbish. Podcasts: dismal and buggy. Facebook integration: should have been there years ago. Passbook: erm ? seriously? Siri?s improvements are lost on me because, like most users, the only time I?ve engaged with Siri is to see how many swear words he/she/it understands (answer: a surprising number). Finally, for some reason iOS also seems to have broken the tilt-scrolling in Instapaper, which I resent because, well, I just use that app a lot. 2. You?ve lost it Yes, I realise that?s going to sound harsh. But there?s no point in sugaring the pill. I?ll be specific: for most of our relationship, there were two things I could rely on from Apple. The first was that your products would work far better than PCs. Windows PCs would get viruses, they would be difficult to fix, they would break down and leave you tearing your hair out. The second thing is that although you weren?t necessarily the most innovative company out there, you would just do it right. You weren?t the first company to make a smartphone (Nokia Communicator, anyone?) but you were the first to do it well. The same goes for mp3 players, for tablet computers, for family photo software, for media management (for the first half of iTunes?s life). You were never about innovation, but you were damn good at execution and flair. Not any more. This is going to sound awful, but I can?t think of any big product you?ve re-imagined well since the iPad, and that was almost three years ago. iCloud? Not as good as dropbox, and actually more confusing. FaceTime? Slick, but still pales in comparison with Skype. iMessages? Mostly annoying, particularly when it sends messages twice. Siri? See the previous point. Safari? Not as good as Chrome or Firefox. Safari?s Reader function? Not as good as Instapaper. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Plus, my Mac simply doesn?t work that well any more. The contacts on my iPhone don?t seem to sync very well with my laptop. Aperture is extraordinarily slow and buggy, Pages and Numbers are a bit of a nonsense. It just feels like you don?t make the best software anymore. And it doesn?t fit together as seamlessly as in the past. 3. You?re not cool anymore Again, this is probably a body blow, but it?s also true. It?s not merely that I now have to put up with your products being used by my mother. The fact is that Apple used to be edgy; it used to be associated with the counterculture; it used to be rebellious. I liked that. I liked the fact that you were uncompromising. When you introduced the iMac you ditched the serial ports and insisted everyone had to make do with USB ports, despite the fact there was approximately one printer in the world which worked with USB. You were the first to ditch disc drives and DVD drives. I?m not alone but I liked the way you refused to put Flash on your devices. Plus I liked the fact that unlike Google and pretty much every other big company you and your fellow execs would never go to navel-gazing networking conferences like the World Economic Forum in Davos. There was something cool about that attitude. These days, you?re all too ready to compromise. Do you want to know the beginning of the end of our relationship? It was when you decided to include an SD slot in your MacBooks. Why? I can?t imagine the Apple of old ever doing this; there is no inherent reason why you need one in your laptop, save to compromise. And in compromising, you?ve become too complex. I remember the first iMac: it was the first computer you didn?t really need an instruction manual for. When iOS came out I found myself having to download the manual and wade through its 156 pages (156, FFS Tim!) to find out what you?d done with the settings I used to use. That?s the first time I?ve ever had to use an Apple instruction manual. Apple used to be about purity, which in turn made its products simpler and more reliable; somewhere along the way, this got lost. Or rather, Apple under Steve Jobs used to be about purity: when he wasn?t at the helm in the 90s, it also made the kind of compromises I?m talking about here. And then there?s your advertising. You were the company which came up with the best advert in history. These days your ads are not merely awful and patronising ? they are palpably worse than the competition. Finally, there?s that legal letter you sent to Samsung when you failed, churlishly, to get their tablets banned. I challenge anyone to read that and not conclude you?re bitter, chippy and, frankly, a little unpleasant. In short, you are so not cool. 4. You?re screwing us You might be surprised to learn that the final straw for me wasn?t the maps debacle. It wasn?t iOS 6. It wasn?t even the fact that you?re not cool anymore. I?m not cool anymore so I probably shouldn?t really expect better from you. No: the final straw was when you decided to replace the dock on the bottom of all your iPhones and iPads with the new ?lightening dock?. I?ve heard your explanations: that it?ll allow your devices to be thinner, that it?s a faster connector and all that. I don?t buy it. The main reason you did this is the main reason you seem to be bringing your products out in ever shorter product cycles: planned obsolescence. You?re aware that the more frequently something is out-of-date, the more often we?ll have to buy more Apple stuff. Now, I was willing to put up with that when it felt as if there was genuinely progress between iterations, when there was a shred of aspiration about it, but by the time you unveiled the lightening connector I wasn?t so sure. All it means is that I have to throw out all the devices I?ve bought over the past years which plug into my iPhone: adaptors, radios, speakers and so on. It?s a really low-down thing to do ? particularly since the lightening connector is patently not that much faster than the existing dock. Anyway, I guess you could say it was a Eureka moment. Finally, I realised that you?ve been working your way here for years: the fact that you give up supporting old Macs far quicker than before; that you won?t let us download and delete our own music from your cloud. You realise there isn?t much money long-term in being a pure manufacturer. You want to turn yourself into a quasi-service, where we constantly need to buy or subscribe to one of your products. I see the point ? it?s economic genius. The problem is that it?s not inspiring in the slightest; and the products are no longer wowing us enough to detract from the venality of it. And I?m just tired and, worse, bored of it. 5. I don?t need you any more That?s right. I?ve realised ? and it?s been a revelation ? that I could get on perfectly fine without you. A couple of years ago when I moved to the States I couldn?t envisage a day without my iPhone. But today it strikes me I might be just as happy with one of your rivals. How do I know? Well? the truth is, I haven?t been entirely honest with you. I did spend a few months with someone else last year. Don?t be mad: I was between iPhones and I filled the lonely miserable gap with an HTC Android phone. And while I tried to ignore it at the time, the fact is, it was actually pretty good. Yes, there were niggles and a few annoyances, but we got along surprisingly well. And I?ll get on pretty well with it again, because the fact is, Tim: I?m leaving you for an Android. I can get everything I need from a phone from them as well. My email, my messages, maps that work, my contacts (they?re stored with Google anyway and that integrates far better into an Android phone); Evernote, Instapaper, Whatsapp, my tube timetables and bus times. I?ll probably ditch iTunes Match in favour of Amazon Cloud Player or Google Drive, and, frankly, good riddance after the way you?ve treated us mobile users of the service. I?ll miss some of the apps, I?m sure ? Reeder to name just one. I?ll miss the hundreds of text messages sitting on my iPhone. I?ll miss? Actually, I can?t think of anything else right now. I?ll hang onto my iPad for the time being. I?ll certainly keep the Macbook Air ? I?m not quite ready to return to Windows yet. But right now, for the first time since I started buying computers, I?m no longer absolutely certain that the next piece of technology I?ll buy will automatically have your logo on the back. Don?t take it personally. Well, do, if it helps inspire you to make better and bolder products. This need not be forever. You can still win me back: but you?ll need to do something special again, like you did in the good old days. Reinvent the TV, like you reinvented the phone. Revolutionise finance. Overhaul the home entirely. Think Different ? as your predecessor Steve Jobs used to say. Perhaps the problem is you?re not the same person any more. You?re not Steve. Perhaps. Either way, I?m tired of settling for mediocrity from you these days. Goodbye. Yours affectionately, Ed * Though I admit some ? some ? of the 3D maps of cities are seriously cool. But prettiness is not enough to compensate me for the times you?ve got me lost. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/dear-apple-im-leaving-you-2012-11#ixzz2BBM3zZ1d --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 3 21:44:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 22:44:25 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Apple_hides_Samsung_apology_on_i?= =?windows-1252?q?ts_UK_site_so_it_can=92t_be_seen_without_scrolling?= Message-ID: <297B210F-2D69-4616-8A3B-3AEBD1B1C775@infowarrior.org> Apple hides Samsung apology on its UK site so it can?t be seen without scrolling http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/11/03/apple-hides-samsung-apology-on-its-uk-site-so-it-cant-be-seen-without-scrolling/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 4 09:27:02 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2012 10:27:02 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?It=92s_about_the_info=2C_not_the?= =?windows-1252?q?_outlet?= Message-ID: <04F0A155-6B9C-4C99-B0A1-31E59585F8F5@infowarrior.org> Between the Spreadsheets ? November 2, 2012 11:47 AM It?s about the info, not the outlet http://www.cjr.org/between_the_spreadsheets/its_about_the_info_not_the_out.php?page=all&print=true Google?s mapped information on Sandy topped anything news organizations offered By Anna Codrea-Rado Data journalism and information visualization is a burgeoning field. Every week, Between the Spreadsheets will analyze, interrogate, and explore emerging work in this area. Between the Spreadsheets is brought to you by CJR and Columbia?s Tow Center for Digital Journalism. As Hurricane Sandy devastated the eastern seaboard, news outlets, networks, and Twitter flooded the airwaves with information. For those able to turn to the Internet for help, locating correct information in an instantly digestible format wasn?t an easy as it should have been. While many news outlets did a solid job providing coverage, it was a map produced by Google that stood out as the most comprehensive display of the data available about the storm and its recovery. Google?s Superstorm Sandy map and its NYC version aggregated information about weather conditions, shelters, evacuation zones, and transportation. The maps were built by Google?s Crisis Response Team which is a project of , Google?s philanthropic arm. The Crisis Response Team has been responding to natural disasters since 2005, when members worked on a similar project for Hurricane Katrina. Google?s map is effective because it pulls the right data in quickly and displays it clearly. The layout is clear and simply formatted; users can select various layers of information they want displayed. For example, they can filter out all the other layers except for shelters. They can then add on the traffic update layer to see the fastest and safest route to their closest shelter. Kate Parker, Google.org?s communication manager, said that the map?s information comes from a number of government agencies that Google established partnerships with over the years. When there isn?t a natural disaster happening, the crisis team works on forging those partnerships in order to have reliable access to their data. On its New York map, for example, Google pulled in subway alerts from the MTA. The MTA?s website is hardly straightforward, but on Google?s map it?s immediately obvious which trains are running and where there?s a shuttle bus service in place of the adversely affected routes: Links back to the original sources of the data are abundant. And there is enough information contained within the map itself to provide a clear picture, without there being so much that things get confusing. And it?s easy to find out more information by clicking on the well-curated links. Google freely links to competing information sites?in the top row of links, WNYC?s transit tracker is featured. Google isn?t a news organization. Creating something this visually compelling and powered by accurate data will undoubtedly make media outlets feel nervous. The map is embeddable?Google wants news organizations to use it. And they did?The New York Times put it in their Lede blog, and AOL.com put it on their homepage. In a situation like a hurricane, it?s surely more important to provide clear and correct information quickly than it is to spend time making an interactive from scratch. If Google is doing the best job of collecting and presenting the data citizens need during ? and after ? a natural disaster, then, unless news organizations can match it, they should be doing their best to share and promote Google?s map. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 4 16:57:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2012 17:57:45 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Silver Lining (Sandy) Message-ID: <6BE4BBA5-0ECE-493B-9904-0A3D75B65E1A@infowarrior.org> (NB: Josh is an independent investment advisor and victim of #Sandy up on Long Island. A straight shooter who calls financial things as they are, I find his blog a daily must-read and his real-world views/musings quite refreshing. His post today was particularly meaningful and deserves to be circulated widely. Bottom line: remember what matters in this world!! --rick) The Silver Lining The Reformed Broker11/4/12 5:12 PM Joshua M Brown http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2012/11/04/the-silver-lining/ Ask me to admit my biggest flaw as a human being and I'll freely admit that it's a lack of patience that gets worse with every passing year. Mostly, it manifests itself as a spoiled brattiness borne of my entitled upper-middle class upbringing and worsened by a career spent in the irritable bowels of Wall Street. I'm unendurable when I don't get my way and I don't get it exactly now. I blame my parents for indulging me, lol. But this afternoon I had a bit of a wake-up call. I spent the day occupying one of my town's sixteen bagel stores and usurping the joint's free (if spotty) Wifi today so I could get some emails returned and some reading done to prepare for the week. At the counter I got into a conversation with the place's owner, an Israeli named Sam who was quick to respond to my question of How are you guys? with an emphatic "We are not people who complain." He didn't need to finish the thought because I remember when he arrived in town twenty years ago with nothing but the will to start a business. And I'm certain he's got family members who've survived the Holocaust and emigration and more just a generation ago. And the abrupt nature of his statement was just enough to shake me from the woe-is-me routine I've been laying on anyone who would listen these past seven days since the assault of Hurricane Sandy. The truth is, yes I've been waiting in three hour gas lines and shivering myself to sleep each night, but virtually all of my friends and neighbors are in worse shape. Many of them have businesses that have not been able to open, most of them have homes that have been partially destroyed by wind and water - in some cases for the second time since last summer (remember Irene?). Unlike them, I'll not be dueling with disgusting insurance companies and I haven't had to pump out a basement or rip out a soaking wet carpet. One thing I'd like to note about the majority of New Yorkers and New Jerseyites I've spoken to in the aftermath: Every single one of them, even after complaining, has been quick to point out the fact that there is someone in worse shape than they are and so they're "lucky." The guy who lost a boat is quick to point out that others have lost their homes. Those who have no homes remind themselves out loud that there is a woman in Staten Island whose two small children are still missing after having been pulled away from her in the midst of the storm night's high tide (they have not been found as of this posting confirmed dead, my god). I have a guy named Joe who works in my office and lives in the Rockaways - he's no longer got a place to live, but his first email to the firm was about how he'd be working remotely this week and would be available to help us (help US!) if we needed him. It's one thing to talk about resilience but it's entirely another story to be surrounded by so much of it - so much of it in its most visceral post-crisis incarnation. I am awed by the ability of so many people to push down their own complaints to make room for the acknowledgment of the greater suffering or needs of others. This is the New York I hope they remember and write about long after the Chinese have conquered us in the second half of the 21st century. I'd also like to note the fact that I am writing this post at the dining room table of a friend of mine. He and his wife are cooking the second dinner for my family this week and are hosting my kids in their lit and heated home for the third time since they got power back on Wednesday. I'm not quite sure how I can repay him but I am sure that it is the last thing he is expecting. I've been hosted by other friends in Brooklyn and elsewhere, some of whom have allowed my wife to use their laundry machines and all of whom have offered us food, water and a warm place to sleep. Even some of you, blog readers and Twitter followers I barely know, have been heart-breakingly gracious enough to extend whatever comforts are within your power to me. I am blown away by the generosity, it is overwhelming. And so when I think about the events of this week, I arrive at last at the silver lining that was there all along. This storm and its damage have revealed some easily forgotten truths to me, truths that I am grateful to receive even if in accepting them I am forced to come to terms with my own bitch-ass solipsism. There is an admirable strength inherent in the people I know and live amongst. And more than that, there is a selflessness that others in this world possess that is so broad that I am arrested by it, struck by its unconditionality. The silver lining of Hurricane Sandy is now fully apparent to me. So whether or not we get our power back tonight or in a week, I am at last arrived at where I wish I was mature enough to have started - appreciative at all that I have and have not lost in my life. Thanks to all of you for your well wishes and your tolerance of me. I'm cool now. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 4 18:55:14 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2012 19:55:14 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win Message-ID: The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win By Guest Author - November 4th, 2012, 7:00PM http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/11/the-wrong-side-absolutely-must-not-win/ The past several weeks have made one thing crystal-clear: Our country faces unmitigated disaster if the Other Side wins. No reasonably intelligent person can deny this. All you have to do is look at the way the Other Side has been running its campaign. Instead of focusing on the big issues that are important to the American People, it has fired a relentlessly negative barrage of distortions, misrepresentations and flat-out lies. Just look at the Other Side?s latest commercial, which take a perfectly reasonable statement by the candidate for My Side completely out of context to make it seem as if he is saying something nefarious. This just shows you how desperate the Other Side is and how willing it is to mislead the American People. The Other Side also has been hammering away at My Side to release certain documents that have nothing to do with anything, and making all sorts of outrageous accusations about what might be in them. Meanwhile, the Other Side has stonewalled perfectly reasonable requests to release its own documents that would expose some very embarrassing details if anybody ever found out what was in them. This just shows you what a bunch of hypocrites they are. Naturally, the media won?t report any of this. Major newspapers and cable networks jump all over anything they think will make My Side Look bad. Yet they completely ignore critically important and incredibly relevant information that would be devastating to The Other Side if it could ever be verified. I will admit the candidates for My Side do make occasional blunders. These usually happen at the end of exhausting 19-hour days and are perfectly understandable. Our leaders are only human, after all. Nevertheless, the Other Side inevitably makes a big fat deal out of these trivial gaffes, while completely ignoring its own candidates? incredibly thoughtless and stupid remarks ? remarks that reveal the Other Side?s true nature, which is genuinely frightening. My Side has produced a visionary program that will get the economy moving, put the American People back to work, strengthen national security, return fiscal integrity to Washington, and restore our standing in the international community. What does the Other Side have to offer? Nothing but the same old disproven, discredited policies that got us into our current mess in the first place. Don?t take my word for it, though. I recently read about an analysis by an independent, nonpartisan organization that supports My Side. It proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that everything I have been saying about the Other Side was true all along. Of course, the Other Side refuses to acknowledge any of this. It is too busy cranking out so-called studies by so-called experts who are actually nothing but partisan hacks. This just shows you that the Other Side lives in its own little echo chamber and refuses to listen to anyone who has not already drunk its Kool-Aid. Let?s face it: The Other Side is held hostage by a radical, failed ideology. I have been doing some research on the Internet, and I have learned this ideology was developed by a very obscure but nonetheless profoundly influential writer with a strange-sounding name who enjoyed brief celebrity several decades ago. If you look carefully, you can trace nearly all the Other Side?s policies for the past half-century back to the writings of this one person. To be sure, the Other Side also has been influenced by its powerful supporters. These include a reclusive billionaire who has funded a number of organizations far outside the political mainstream; several politicians who have said outrageous things over the years; and an alarmingly large number of completely clueless ordinary Americans who are being used as tools and don?t even know it. These people are really pathetic, too. The other day I saw a YouTube video in which My Side sent an investigator and a cameraman to a rally being held by the Other Side, where the investigator proceeded to ask some real zingers. It was hilarious! First off, the people at the rally wore T-shirts with all kinds of lame messages that they actually thought were really clever. Plus, many of the people who were interviewed were overweight, sweaty, flushed and generally not very attractive. But what was really funny was how stupid they were. There is no way anyone could watch that video and not come away convinced the people on My Side are smarter, and that My Side is therefore right about everything. Besides, it?s clear that the people on the Other Side are driven by mindless anger ? unlike My Side, which is filled with passionate idealism and righteous indignation. That indignation, I hasten to add, is entirely justified. I have read several articles in publications that support My Side that expose what a truly dangerous group the Other Side is, and how thoroughly committed it is to imposing its radical, failed agenda on the rest of us. That is why I believe 2012 is, without a doubt, the defining election of our lifetime. The difference between My Side and the Other Side could not be greater. That is why it absolutely must win on November 6. Source: The wrong side absolutely must not win By: A. Barton Hinkle | Times-Dispatch August 19, 2012 http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/rtd-opinion/2012/aug/19/tdopin02-the-wrong-side-absolutely-must-not-win-ar-2138869/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 5 09:14:10 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2012 10:14:10 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Baltimore announces city-wide surveillance roll out that records passenger conversations on city buses Message-ID: Baltimore announces city-wide surveillance roll out that records passenger conversations on city buses J. D. Heyes Natural News Nov 5, 2012 http://www.infowars.com/baltimore-announces-city-wide-surveillance-roll-out-that-records-passenger-conversations-on-city-buses/ The surveillance society continues to grow unabated, as the city of Baltimore becomes the latest governmental entity to trample civil rights in the name of ?public safety.? According to the Baltimore Sun, city officials have now authorized the recording of private conversations on public buses ?to investigate crimes, accidents and poor customer service.? Marked with signs to alert passengers that open mics are picking up every word they say, the first 10 buses with the new surveillance equipment began operation towards the end of October. Eventually, officials say they will expand the program to 340 buses, or about half the fleet, by next summer. ?We want to make people feel safe?? The paper said the audio surveillance will be incorporated into the video surveillance systems already on board the buses (no plausible explanations on how an audio capability is supposed to enhance video surveillance, either). ?We want to make sure people feel safe, and this builds up our arsenal of tools to keep our patrons safe,? said Ralign Wells, the Maryland Transit Administration chief. ?The audio completes the information package for investigators and responders.? At this point, it?s appropriate to remind readers that ?public safety? is the excuse of choice for authoritarians who no longer feel constrained by the Constitution. But then, why would they, considering they are being enabled by a federal court system that, time and again, upholds such blatant violations as ?reasonable?? The MTA said it first checked with the state Attorney General?s office on the legality of adding audio surveillance; the AG?s office said it was, based on a 2000 appeals court decision, in which a panel ruled such surveillance did not violate state wiretapping laws (no word on how public eavesdropping applies to a law regulating wiretapping, but the use of tortured logic to implement unconstitutional measures is not a new tactic to authoritarians). The American Civil Liberties Union does not always come down on the right side of the Constitution either, but in this case, the organization has it right. David Rocah, a staff attorney with the Maryland chapter of the ACLU, said he was ?flabbergasted? by the plan, which he says is being implemented under the guise of a pilot program after a similar proposal was rejected by the state?s highest-ranking transportation official and the General Assembly three times in 2009. ?People don?t want or need to have their private conversations recorded by MTA as a condition of riding a bus,? Rocah told the paper. ?A significant number of people have no viable alternative to riding a bus, and they should not be forced to give up their privacy rights.? MTA police dispatchers say they receive anywhere from 45 to 100 calls daily from bus drivers reporting everything from unruly passengers to criminal activity. Capt. Burna McCollum, commander of the MTA police technical services division, said that while video is a very useful tool in helping to solve crimes, the audio is needed because, essentially, he wants to take away a witnesses? choice not to get involved. State senate willing to get involved? As reported by the Sun, ?Video is a critical tool for investigators sorting out the details of an incident, but when witnesses walk away, are reluctant to cooperate or give conflicting accounts, an audio recording can fill in missing information,? McCollum said. Translation: Police will now be able to force city residents to get involved in criminal investigations, even if they would otherwise choose not to for, say, personal safety reasons (no word on whether police are prepared to provide such unwilling witnesses 24/7 protection for as long as necessary). Other area transportation systems have chosen the correct constitutional route and have decided against audio surveillance, the paper said. ?It?s an end run and ripe for a court challenge,? Sen. James Brochin, a Baltimore County Democrat and member of the state Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. ?They have absolutely no grounds to do this. If we can?t get them to listen and change their minds, we?ll deal with this ? and make them defend what?s indefensible.? Here?s hoping that isn?t just bluster. Sources: http://www.usatoday.com http://www.baltimoresun.com http://www.naturalnews.com --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 5 09:52:08 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2012 10:52:08 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Permanent Militarization of America Message-ID: November 4, 2012 The Permanent Militarization of America By AARON B. O?CONNELL Annapolis, Md. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/opinion/the-permanent-militarization-of-america.html IN 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower left office warning of the growing power of the military-industrial complex in American life. Most people know the term the president popularized, but few remember his argument. In his farewell address, Eisenhower called for a better equilibrium between military and domestic affairs in our economy, politics and culture. He worried that the defense industry?s search for profits would warp foreign policy and, conversely, that too much state control of the private sector would cause economic stagnation. He warned that unending preparations for war were incongruous with the nation?s history. He cautioned that war and warmaking took up too large a proportion of national life, with grave ramifications for our spiritual health. The military-industrial complex has not emerged in quite the way Eisenhower envisioned. The United States spends an enormous sum on defense ? over $700 billion last year, about half of all military spending in the world ? but in terms of our total economy, it has steadily declined to less than 5 percent of gross domestic product from 14 percent in 1953. Defense-related research has not produced an ossified garrison state; in fact, it has yielded a host of beneficial technologies, from the Internet to civilian nuclear power to GPS navigation. The United States has an enormous armaments industry, but it has not hampered employment and economic growth. In fact, Congress?s favorite argument against reducing defense spending is the job loss such cuts would entail. Nor has the private sector infected foreign policy in the way that Eisenhower warned. Foreign policy has become increasingly reliant on military solutions since World War II, but we are a long way from the Marines? repeated occupations of Haiti, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic in the early 20th century, when commercial interests influenced military action. Of all the criticisms of the 2003 Iraq war, the idea that it was done to somehow magically decrease the cost of oil is the least credible. Though it?s true that mercenaries and contractors have exploited the wars of the past decade, hard decisions about the use of military force are made today much as they were in Eisenhower?s day: by the president, advised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council, and then more or less rubber-stamped by Congress. Corporations do not get a vote, at least not yet. But Eisenhower?s least heeded warning ? concerning the spiritual effects of permanent preparations for war ? is more important now than ever. Our culture has militarized considerably since Eisenhower?s era, and civilians, not the armed services, have been the principal cause. From lawmakers? constant use of ?support our troops? to justify defense spending, to TV programs and video games like ?NCIS,? ?Homeland? and ?Call of Duty,? to NBC?s shameful and unreal reality show ?Stars Earn Stripes,? Americans are subjected to a daily diet of stories that valorize the military while the storytellers pursue their own opportunistic political and commercial agendas. Of course, veterans should be thanked for serving their country, as should police officers, emergency workers and teachers. But no institution ? particularly one financed by the taxpayers ? should be immune from thoughtful criticism. Like all institutions, the military works to enhance its public image, but this is just one element of militarization. Most of the political discourse on military matters comes from civilians, who are more vocal about ?supporting our troops? than the troops themselves. It doesn?t help that there are fewer veterans in Congress today than at any previous point since World War II. Those who have served are less likely to offer unvarnished praise for the military, for it, like all institutions, has its own frustrations and failings. But for non-veterans ? including about four-fifths of all members of Congress ? there is only unequivocal, unhesitating adulation. The political costs of anything else are just too high. For proof of this phenomenon, one need look no further than the continuing furor over sequestration ? the automatic cuts, evenly divided between Pentagon and nonsecurity spending, that will go into effect in January if a deal on the debt and deficits isn?t reached. As Bob Woodward?s latest book reveals, the Obama administration devised the measure last year to include across-the-board defense cuts because it believed that slashing defense was so unthinkable that it would make compromise inevitable. But after a grand budget deal collapsed, in large part because of resistance from House Republicans, both parties reframed sequestration as an attack on the troops (even though it has provisions that would protect military pay). The fact that sequestration would also devastate education, health and programs for children has not had the same impact. Eisenhower understood the trade-offs between guns and butter. ?Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,? he warned in 1953, early in his presidency. ?The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.? He also knew that Congress was a big part of the problem. (In earlier drafts, he referred to the ?military-industrial-Congressional? complex, but decided against alienating the legislature in his last days in office.) Today, there are just a select few in public life who are willing to question the military or its spending, and those who do ? from the libertarian Ron Paul to the leftist Dennis J. Kucinich ? are dismissed as unrealistic. The fact that both President Obama and Mitt Romney are calling for increases to the defense budget (in the latter case, above what the military has asked for) is further proof that the military is the true ?third rail? of American politics. In this strange universe where those without military credentials can?t endorse defense cuts, it took a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, to make the obvious point that the nation?s ballooning debt was the biggest threat to national security. Uncritical support of all things martial is quickly becoming the new normal for our youth. Hardly any of my students at the Naval Academy remember a time when their nation wasn?t at war. Almost all think it ordinary to hear of drone strikes in Yemen or Taliban attacks in Afghanistan. The recent revelation of counterterrorism bases in Africa elicits no surprise in them, nor do the military ceremonies that are now regular features at sporting events. That which is left unexamined eventually becomes invisible, and as a result, few Americans today are giving sufficient consideration to the full range of violent activities the government undertakes in their names. Were Eisenhower alive, he?d be aghast at our debt, deficits and still expanding military-industrial complex. And he would certainly be critical of the ?insidious penetration of our minds? by video game companies and television networks, the news media and the partisan pundits. With so little knowledge of what Eisenhower called the ?lingering sadness of war? and the ?certain agony of the battlefield,? they have done as much as anyone to turn the hard work of national security into the crass business of politics and entertainment. Aaron B. O?Connell, an assistant professor of history at the United States Naval Academy and a Marine reserve officer, is the author of ?Underdogs: The Making of the Modern Marine Corps.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 5 12:02:56 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2012 13:02:56 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Biden Takes Part In MPAA Board Meeting; Suggests Studios Tell Paying Customers They're Thieves Message-ID: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121101/16570620911/biden-takes-part-mpaa-board-meeting-suggests-studios-tell-paying-customers-theyre-thieves.shtml Biden Takes Part In MPAA Board Meeting; Suggests Studios Tell Paying Customers They're Thieves For all their talk about piracy and yearly losses measured in billions, the big movie studios sure do seem to enjoy smacking their paying customers around with anti-piracy warnings and ads. Consider the poor sucker who actually went out and paid cash money for the latest shiny disc and now has to watch a multitude of eagle-laden logos and horrible analogies parade unskippably across his or her screen before finally being allowed to watch the unskippable trailers before finally being allowed to watch 15 seconds of unskippable animation before they can actually watch the movie they're now regretting having shelled out actual retail price for. Now, 20th Century Fox has found a new way to pack up paying viewers for another guilt trip, all expenses paid (by the viewer.) If the viewers failed to pick up on any of the front-loaded anti-piracy "education," they're now being graced with a reminder of the "true cost of piracy" right as they exit the theater. < - > Yes. An elected official in the second most powerful position in the world took time out of his busy schedule to help out some buddies of his who looked like they could use a hand: the always-right-on-death's-doorstep movie industry. And the fact that Joe Biden sits in on MPAA board meetings should concern no one in the slightest, especially when it comes time to discuss things that affect the movie industry -- like free trade agreements that value draconian IP protection over all else. There's not much real estate left for anti-piracy infotainment. The front end has had it for years. This takes care of the back. Maybe they'll start popping up factoids and warnings at the bottom of the screen during the actual running time, making the movie-going experience indistinguishable from a night in front of broadcast television. Or maybe they're just waiting for the President himself to suggest that one. Perhaps at the next MPAA board meeting. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 5 13:25:02 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2012 14:25:02 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - What Sandy Is Teaching New York City That 9/11 Didn't Message-ID: <6A8716F2-CAF2-4D1A-9F1A-9B0F4014FD8E@infowarrior.org> What Sandy Is Teaching New York City That 9/11 Didn't By Eric Roston - Nov 5, 2012 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-11-05/sandy-teaches-new-york-u-s-lessons-learned-on-9-11.html Eleven years, one month, three weeks and five days ago I stood on West Street in southern Manhattan and watched many hundreds of people murdered, as a gray avalanche of concrete, glass and steel poured forth from a disintegrating tower to the street below. The 9/11 attacks changed everything, for all time, and we all felt it instantaneously. Superstorm Sandy delivers a message first heard on Sept. 11, 2001: New York, as a proxy for the United States, is unprepared for anticipated 21st century threats. The storm is different. Sandy elicits no moral shock of war, no blinding national insult, "no unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury," as a columnist put it in Time magazine after 9/11. Instead we're up against something much more elusive, an enemy we're much more poorly equipped to deal with than sleeper terrorist cells: the Earth. "No one seems to care about the upcoming attack on the World Trade Center site," wrote Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert in a provocatively titled 2006 Los Angeles Times op-ed. "Why? Because it won't involve villains with box cutters. Instead, it will involve melting ice sheets that swell the oceans and turn that particular block of lower Manhattan into an aquarium." "Storms are more severe. Flooding is more severe. When you look at the design of the city, you really have to take these things into account," says GE's John McDonald We can describe the enemy's strategy. We know that the industrial emissions of heat-trapping gases are warming the Earth's atmosphere and changing climates. We know that heat melts ice, that heat makes water expand and evaporate, and that tropical cyclones like warm water and moist air. We know that we are facing the strange, strange possibility that the intersection of rivers, the mountain valleys, the islands off the coast of America, where humans have built sophisticated settlements over the past 10,000 years, might not be the best place for some of them toward the latter part of this century. We know, from Munich Re's new study, Severe Weather in North America, that the number of natural catastrophes per year has been rising everywhere since 1980, but nowhere as steeply as in North America. "This increase is entirely attributable to weather events," the report states. More people have been moving into storm-prone areas, and extreme weather is becoming more so. The world's largest reinsurer calls for "an alliance between homeowners, businesses, scientists and researchers, state/municipal and federal governments and the insurance industry to prevent and mitigate the results of extraordinary events." Such an alliance has its work cut out for it. It's one thing to erect a new 100-story steel and glass obelisk to show terrorists we're not afraid to live and work in the sky. It's quite another to build urban systems adaptable to any of a number of projected futures. Restoring New York and New Jersey is an exercise in climate change adaptation, a largely theoretical policy topic until recently. Sandy puts adaptation at the center of global attention, and demands an answer to the tough question, what should governments, businesses and citizens want to adapt to? Cities can adapt to the present, by updating infrastructure destroyed by the storm. But what about 2050, when the city projects its mean sea level [pdf] could be a foot higher? What about 2100, when New York's average sea level might be a meter higher than today? A paper published in Nature Climate Change in February models future storm surge flooding in New York City, projecting about a one-meter sea level rise and more frequent surges. The combination "may cause the present New York City 100-year surge flooding to occur every 3-20 years and 500-year flooding to occur 25-240 years by the end of the century." Using more gut than quantitative modeling, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last week, "We have 100-year floods every two years now." While New York and New Jersey rebuild, what might regional alliances decide in heat-scarred Texas, in baked Alaska, in vanishing Louisiana, in the northbound farm belt, and many other places facing deep uncertainty about the future? Post Sandy, planners are in a tough spot, trying to bring the city back to speed as soon as possible, and to avoid locking in decisions that might have costly implications later. "If you have to rebuild, instead of rebuilding what was there, how can you improve upon it?" asked John McDonald, director of technical strategy and policy development for General Electric's digital energy program. "The extremes we're experiencing are more extreme than what we've experienced before," he noted in the same phone interview, on Friday. "Storms are more severe. Flooding is more severe. When you look at the design of the city, you really have to take these things into account." Officials currently oversee infrastructure necessarily assembled as a patchwork over time. Standards have improved and will continue to; McDonald mentioned IEC 61850, for example, which calls for better automation of power grid substations. "Smart city" technology that works well in small pilot project might not perform as well when deployed at New York scale. The sooner we can learn lessons like that the better off New York and many other places will be. Political and business leaders have analytical tools, such as cost-benefit analysis, that help them make informed decisions. These methods -- cost-benefit analysis in particular -- are drawing increasing attention because they insufficiently account for the scale and variety of potential changes this century. So policy professionals are developing new approaches to help leaders make decisions. The World Bank in September published a paper, titled "Investment Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty: Application to Climate Change" (hat tip to David Roberts at Grist.org). It compares traditional cost-benefit analysis with other methods, including an "alliance"-like approach called Climate Informed Decision Analysis. This method encourages participants to build climate change projections into a three-stage process. First, depending on the kind of infrastructure they?re looking to build, participants map out their priorities and tolerance for different kinds of risks. Those priorities are then analyzed against relevant projections, to see how sensitive they might be to climate change. Finally, they generate a suite of ?plausible futures? with help of computer modeling or live experts. Such an approach was used successfully, according to the World Bank authors, in a 2007 U.S.-Canadian agreement on Great Lakes Basin stewardship, which was reached "on the premise that we are limited in our ability to anticipate the future and therefore any recommended plan must perform well on a very broad range of possible futures." The paper argues for supplementing our practice of optimizing decisions toward a single purpose within a single future, with one that assumes business and government decisions will need to be adaptable ? but just how we can't say with certainty yet. "A robust decision process implies the selection of a project or plan which meets its intended goals ? e.g., increase access to safe water, reduce floods, upgrade slums, or many others ? across a variety of plausible futures," the authors write. Successful 21st century cities need to build well-managed communities on top of adaptable infrastructure. Since 2009, GE's McDonald has also been chairman of the National Institute of Standards and Technology body that is responsible for U.S. advanced power grid, or "smart grid," standards. In March, the group signed a memorandum of understanding with the Japan Smart Community Alliance, an organization representing more than 740 companies that are working to rebuild cities destroyed by the March 2011 tsunami. "They're further along in the concept of the smart community," McDonald said. Flood protection, subways, tunnels, bridges, aqueducts, electricity grids, food distribution, law enforcement, health and communications and the other infrastructure and human systems now need to be built not only to serve the needs of the present, but to anticipate and avoid the least tolerable risks we can surmise about the future. When attacked by terrorists, you can determine who did it, and, with great effort and expense in lives and money, kill their leader in the night. Geophysical systems are different. The sea's attacks come much,much slower. And the forces at its disposal are much more powerful than any human actors. As Hunt Janin and Scott Mandia put it in their new primer, Rising Sea Levels: An Introduction to Cause and Impact: "The technical concepts and terms can be stated very briefly but the most important thing for us to recognize here is that, once set in motion, sea level rise cannot possibly be stopped." Visit www.bloomberg.com/sustainability for the latest from Bloomberg News about energy, natural resources and global business. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 5 16:26:13 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2012 17:26:13 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Apple Said to Be Exploring Switch From Intel Chips for the Mac Message-ID: <3CD88C12-5098-44BB-8213-A5686D651E26@infowarrior.org> (....and further reinforcing their walled garden environment in the process. Nice. ---rick) Apple Said to Be Exploring Switch From Intel Chips for the Mac By Adam Satariano, Peter Burrows and Ian King - Nov 5, 2012 3:52 PM ET http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-05/apple-said-to-be-exploring-switch-from-intel-chips-for-the-mac.html Apple Inc. (AAPL) is exploring ways to replace Intel Corp. (INTC) processors in its Mac personal computers with a version of the chip technology it uses in the iPhone and iPad, according to people familiar with the company?s research. Apple engineers have grown confident that the chip designs used for its mobile devices will one day be powerful enough to run its desktops and laptops, said three people with knowledge of the work, who asked to remain anonymous because the plans are confidential. Apple began using Intel chips for Macs in 2005. Enlarge image Intel CEO Paul Otellini, in a clean suit, shows an Intel chip to Apple CEO Steve Jobs in this 2006 file photo. Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Enlarge image The Apple and Intel logos appear on a screen during the keynote speech at the Apple Worldwide Developers in San Francisco in this June 6, 2005 file photo. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Getty Images While Apple is now committed to Intel in computers and is unlikely to switch in the next few years, some engineers say a shift to its own designs is inevitable as the features of mobile devices and PCs become more similar, two people said. Any change would be a blow to Intel, the world?s largest processor maker, which has already been hurt by a stagnating market for computers running Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)?s Windows software and its failure to gain a foothold in mobile gadgets. As handheld devices increasingly function like PCs, the engineers working on this project within Apple envision machines that use a common chip design. If Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook wants to offer the consumer of 2017 and beyond a seamless experience on laptops, phones, tablets and televisions, it will be easier to build if all the devices have a consistent underlying chip architecture, according to one of the people. Bill Evans, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, declined to comment. Intel referred questions on Apple?s plans to Apple. ARM Technology Apple announced the switch to Intel chips seven years ago because they ran faster and generated less heat than the products built by Motorola Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. that Apple had used. The Mac maker has in the past few years acquired chip companies, added engineers and created designs based on technology from ARM Holdings Plc (ARM) for its best-selling iPhone and iPad. ARM, based in Cambridge, England, licenses chip designs and the technology behind them to phone-chip companies such as Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) Semiconductor development was part of Apple?s management overhaul announced Oct. 29. Chip research is being led by Bob Mansfield, whom Cook put in charge of a new group called Technologies. In the statement announcing the leadership changes, Apple said that its semiconductor teams have ?ambitious plans for the future.? Chip Alternatives Mansfield has overseen Apple?s investigations into other chip alternatives, though he didn?t have authority over some of the computer scientists who specialize in writing the software that govern these chips, according to one person. These people formerly worked for software chief Scott Forstall, who left the company in the management shakeup. While Forstall was focused mostly on improving the mobile iOS operating system his group created, Mansfield has been more interested in melding iOS with the Mac to create a more uniform experience for all Apple devices, this person said. Craig Federighi, who now runs development of all of Apple?s software, is also considered likely to push for this more integrated experience, the person said. The shift is part of Apple?s push to make products thinner and smaller without sacrificing performance. It is aiming to move computing tasks that now require separate parts into the central chip, said one person, who said this has long been an interest of Mansfield?s. To make this switch, Apple could hire a contract manufacturer such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (2330) to build the Apple-designed component based on ARM?s technology, similar to how Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) now builds the semiconductor inside the iPhone and iPad. Apple?s $121.3 billion in cash and investments would give Cook the ability to tap new suppliers. Intel manufactures its own chips. Past Lessons To be sure, no final decision has been made and Apple may opt to continue working with Intel for years to come. For Apple, the risk of turning its back on Intel is a repeat of its situation in 2005, when it had to abandon the PowerPC chips -- made by Motorola and IBM -- it had used in its Mac line. At the time, its processors had fallen so far behind Intel?s in performance that it decided to team up with the chipmaker. The first Mac models running Intel chips were unveiled in January 2006. Now, as consumers and businesses increasingly turn to smartphones and tablets, mobile devices like Apple?s are playing a leading role in component development. Smartphone shipments rose 62 percent last year, while sales of the iPad and other tablets more than doubled, according to market researcher IDC. By contrast, the PC industry grew just 1.7 percent. The lackluster growth is hurting Intel. The Santa Clara, California-based company recently reported its first sequential decline in third-quarter sales in two decades. Intel?s Shift While Intel so far has failed to parlay its more than 80 percent market share in PCs into a slice of the mobile-phone and tablet market, it has forced all of its rivals out of the PC- chip business except Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) Intel spent $10.8 billion on new plants and equipment last year and a further $8.4 billion on research and development, and says its manufacturing-process technology is more than a year ahead of other chipmakers?. Only South Korea?s Samsung spends about as much on its facilities. As the PC market evolves, Intel is increasingly designing its processors to work better while consuming less power, an effort to compete in the world of limited battery power and mobile devices. Its latest Clover Trail product is designed to fit into the thinnest tablets and laptops without requiring a fan to cool them. Challenging PCs Meantime, Apple?s success in mobile computing has been central to the rise of ARM technology and its expansion into larger devices, such as tablets, that have challenged the role of larger computers running Intel chips. Apple engineers won a fight with Steve Jobs to have the iPad built on phone chips -- which use ARM technology -- rather than Intel?s PC processors, according to Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson. Apple?s technologists have grown more concerned in recent years about Intel?s ability to create lower-power chips. The computer maker has brought out thinner, lighter products such as the MacBook Air that have less room for the batteries needed to keep Intel?s powerful chips running all day, according to three people familiar with the relationship. The concerns came to a head in late 2011. Apple was working on thinner versions of its MacBook line, featuring its power- hungry high-resolution retina display, and Intel had failed to convince Apple executives it was serious about focusing on lower-power chips. Apple executives, including Mansfield, met repeatedly with their Intel counterparts to share their questions, and to tell the chipmaker it was examining ways to use its own chips in the Mac line, one of the people said. Allaying Concerns Intel helped allay some of Apple?s most pressing concerns when it announced that it would develop chips that don?t require as much power as existing chips, this person said. That pledge to prioritize power conservation led some within Apple to conclude the company has a few years before it would need to make any change, if it makes a switch at all, this person said. And if Apple can?t design ARM-based chips that are far more powerful than current models, the company would likely need to stay with Intel to satisfy Mac power users, who need lots of computing performance for tasks such as developing software or doing high-end graphics. Even so, Apple continues to explore moving in a new direction. The iPhone, iPad and Mac operating systems are increasingly sharing features. Yet the different chip technology makes it difficult to build features that work together seamlessly. For example, the thousands of applications for the iPhone and iPad and some of Apple?s newest features, such as the Siri voice-command tool, don?t work on Intel-based Macs. To contact the reporters on this story: Adam Satariano in San Francisco at asatariano1 at bloomberg.net; Peter Burrows in San Francisco at pburrows at bloomberg.net; Ian King in San Francisco at ianking at bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5 at bloomberg.net --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 6 07:57:05 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 08:57:05 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Dance of the Drones Message-ID: Weekend Edition November 2-4, 2012 Dance of the Drones Obama?s Secret Wars by PATRICK COCKBURN http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/02/obamas-secret-wars/ Drones or their equivalent have long attracted political and military leaders dreaming of the surgical removal of their enemies. In 1812, the governor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin, devised a plan to get a hot-air balloon to hover over the French lines at Borodino and drop an explosive device on Napoleon. The source for this is the memoirs of the French writer, traveller and politician Chateaubriand and I have not read it anywhere else, but the story illustrates how, from the first moment man took to the air, he has seen it as a means of assassination. President Barack Obama thinks much the same way as Rostopchin did 200 years ago. The enhanced and secret use of unmanned drones is one of the most striking features of his foreign policy. During his presidency they have been used against Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. In Pakistan alone some 337 CIA strikes have killed 1,908 to 3,225 people since 2004, according to the Washington-based New America Foundation. Of these, between 1,618 and 2,769 are said to have been militants. The precision of the numbers, combined with the great disparity between the highest and lowest figures, will send a chill through anybody who has examined US air attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Official mendacity about civilians killed has been a feature of every air war. Within days of the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the US military was trying to explain away why it had blown up Afghan wedding parties that it claimed were convoys of ?terrorists?. What makes Obama?s drone wars so important is that they are right at the centre of foreign policy in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Drones were used by George W Bush between 2004 and 2008 on a smaller scale, but their mass use since is not just the fruit of technical developments or tactical convenience. One of the most important changes in world politics over the past decade is that the US has failed to win two wars, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan, despite deploying large and vastly expensive land armies. Equally telling, these failures were against relatively puny forces of guerrillas. For American hardliners and neo-liberals these wars were designed to lay the ghosts of Vietnam and Somalia, enabling the open use of US military might, but they turned out to be Vietnam and Somalia revisited. American popular and establishment support for military intervention abroad using ground troops is at a low ebb. The use of unmanned drones seems to avoid these problems. First of all there are no direct and immediate American casualties. The attacks also sound as if they are carrying the fight to the enemy in the shape of al-Qa?ida, with its top 20 operatives in north-west Pakistan being regularly eliminated ? only to be mysteriously replaced by another top 20 operatives. Drone strikes have been difficult for the Republicans to criticise during the presidential campaign without opening themselves up to charges that they are soft on terrorism. In one of the few sensible remarks on foreign policy in the presidential debates, Mitt Romney said ?we can?t kill our way out of this?, but later added that this did not mean he was anti-drone. From the White House?s point of view, drones have the great advantage of being largely secret. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were once denounced as war criminals for waging a secret bombing campaign by B-52s on Cambodia. The official silence over today?s drones can be justified by claiming that this is a covert war against al-Qa?ida waged by the CIA and the US Joint Special Operations Command, and requires secrecy to be effective. Are the drones as effective as claimed? Air power has always over-sold itself as being cheap and deadly compared with ground forces. It was first used by the Italians in their colonial conquest of Libya in 1911. Britain?s ?Bomber? Harris, who led the RAF Bomber Command during its mass raids on Germany in the Second World War, cut his teeth devastating Kurdish villages in Iraq in the 1920s. Air power can deliver much, but it cannot deliver everything. This is as true of drones as it is of B-52s. The drones make more political sense at home than military sense abroad. Whatever the accuracy of the missiles, targets must still be identified before they are destroyed, requiring good local information. Where the local state is weak or nonexistent, as in Yemen, Somalia, Libya or Waziristan in north-west Pakistan, this is easy to do because the CIA can have its own network of agents or co-operate with local intelligence agencies. But there is something misleading and almost comical about a picture of al-Qa?ida as a tightly organised group along the lines of a miniature Pentagon. It is, on the contrary, much more a series of political and religious attitudes combined with willingness to wage holy war using certain tactics, notably suicide bombing. Drones have other serious disadvantages. They create rage in the countries where they are used, such as Pakistan. If, as is evident, they are carried out with the connivance of Islamabad, this discredits the government as American proxies. Exact figures about civilian casualties are often mythical since outsiders do not know who is living in family compounds in Afghanistan or north-west Pakistan (witness the time it took for US intelligence to find Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound). Many places where drones are used are inaccessible to foreign or even local journalists. Civilian casualties can be minimised or denied. I reported in 2009 a US bombing raid on three villages in Farah province, south of Herat, which killed 147 people, according to locals. There were craters 30ft deep which a US spokesman cheerfully suggested had been made by Taliban fighters throwing grenades into houses. This was an obvious lie, but it was impossible for journalists to prove the opposite. Of course, local people knew what had happened. They drove their tractors pulling trailers full of body parts to the provincial capital where government soldiers opened fire, killing three of them. I wondered at the time how many of the surviving young men of the three villages, and in the rest of Farah province, joined the Taliban because of that bombing raid. Drones do not change very much on the ground. They do provide political camouflage at home and abroad, concealing the US retreat in Afghanistan and Iraq. They store up trouble because they may create more enemies than they eliminate. They rely on a network of informants that can only be established in weak, failed or failing states. They also invite other states such as China and Russia to invest in drones to kill their dissidents beyond their borders. Secret assassination campaigns by drones, hot-air balloons, bombs or rare poisons all carry the risk that somebody, somewhere is plotting their retaliation. PATRICK COCKBURN is the author of ?Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 6 08:19:18 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 09:19:18 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cable Industry Launches New Research Lab to Fight Off Streaming Services Message-ID: Cable Industry Launches New Research Lab to Fight Off Streaming Services Jamie Condliffe http://gizmodo.com/5958035/cable-industry-launches-new-research-lab-to-fight-off-streaming-services The cable industry is pulling together and setting up a Silicon Valley research center, in an attempt to fight off the threat of online streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Reuters reports that cable TV executives?from the likes of Time Warner and Comcast?are pooling resources to set up the research lab in Silicon Valley next year. The report explains that the move hopes to halt the emerging trend of "cord-cutting", by developing a home-grown pool of new tech in collaboration with startups, established firms, and leading universities. The new labs will be spearheaded by the existing Colorado-based CableLabs, a nonprofit R&D consortium already established by the industry, but will work hard specifically to tackle the impact of online streaming services. The hope is to "re-energize" cable TV, though it's far from clear exactly how it will do that. Seemingly, though, mobile is important to them with Comcast CEO Neil Smite explaining: "Mobile is growing and we want to provide our services in mobile format. Wi-fi is a very important part of our business, both indoor and outdoor aspects of it." No shit! Doubtless, given cable's current position it's a smart idea to invest in innovation to try and differentiate itself from the seething mass of online competitors, that are swiftly rising from the position of underdogs to market-shapers. It might, however, be too little, too late. [Reuters] --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 6 09:11:36 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 10:11:36 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Bill Gross Preemptively Summarizes Today's Election Result In 22 Words Message-ID: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-06/bill-gross-preemptively-summarizes-todays-election-result-22-words Presented without comment - adding anything to this concise summation of the state of the union is superfluous... "Gross: Whew! It?s over. To the victor belongs the spoils of political power but to the US voter only continuing frustration will accrue." ? PIMCO (@PIMCO) November 6, 2012 --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 6 10:38:28 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 11:38:28 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Creepy Kinect Narc potential Message-ID: Microsoft Is Turning Kinect Into a Narc Leslie Horn http://gizmodo.com/5958094/microsoft-is-turning-kinect-into-a-narc Kinect is tons of fun. Have you ever played Dance Central 3? Great game. But according to a newly discovered patent, the Xbox add-on is also maybe spying on you, which is totally not cool, man. This very big brother-y piece of intellectual property?Content Distribution Regulation by Viewing User?uses Kinect's camera to count the number of people in the room and in some cases, identify who they are. This "consumer detector" will charge you licensing fees based on how many bodies are present, and could even stop playback to collect on you if it detects more humans than you've paid for. Sorry if you have a baby face, because the tech could also check on ages and cut off mature content if the system doesn't think you're old enough. God, Kinect. Such a tattletale! [USPTO via Geekwire via BetaBeat] --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 6 15:26:49 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 16:26:49 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - ICE Releases Documents Detailing Electronic Surveillance Problems . . . and then Demands Them Back a Year Later Message-ID: <1C713F92-4BCC-449A-A89E-120FDD2C7F14@infowarrior.org> November 5, 2012 | By Jennifer Lynch https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/ice-releases-documents-detailing-electronic-surveillance-problems-and-then-demands ICE Releases Documents Detailing Electronic Surveillance Problems . . . and then Demands Them Back a Year Later This is a first for us in all of EFF's history of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation?Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has demanded we return records it gave us more than a year ago. The release of these documents doesn't endanger national security or create a risk to an ongoing law enforcement investigation. Instead, it seems that ICE simply wants to stymie further FOIA requests from EFF as we try to get answers about the government's electronic surveillance procedures. < - > It took ICE almost a year to get back to us on the narrowed request, and when it did, its response was frustrating. Not only did the agency decide that it would still be too burdensome to conduct any kind of a search for similar records, but ICE also told us it never should have turned over the original records in the first place?and it wanted them back. The problem for ICE is, these records have already been in the public?s hands for over six months?we filed them as an exhibit (pdf) in our FOIA litigation (pdf) in March 2012, and they?re readily available on the PACER docket for the case (or from the Internet Archive). This is yet another example of the federal government failing to comply with the letter and spirit of the Freedom of Information Act?reverting to secrecy when it should be promoting transparency. It?s hard to imagine what harm could come from the release of these documents. ICE was careful to block out any information in the records that would identify the target of the investigation, and the information that isn't blocked out seems to reinforce the government's position on CALEA. And it?s another disappointment from an administration that lauded its commitment to transparency on the first day the President took office four years ago. We can only hope that if the President wins this tight election, he?ll use the next four years to fulfill this commitment. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 7 09:48:20 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2012 10:48:20 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - When A Mouse Requires An Internet Connection, You're Doing 'Cloud' Wrong Message-ID: When A Mouse Requires An Internet Connection, You're Doing 'Cloud' Wrong from the so-many-options-for-the-hardware,-so-few-for-the-users dept In a situation eerily similar to "always-on" DRM schemes, Razer mouse and keyboard purchasers are finding their high-end peripherals bricked by software that requires an internet connection to function. So, why would a mouse need an internet connection to be usable? Well, it's supposed to be a feature, but it's behaving more like a bug. A forum member at Overclock.net explains the problem with his new ~$80 mouse: < - > As for Razer's suggested workaround ("standard plug and play")? No one spends $80 for a "plug and play" mouse (or over $300 with the keyboard -- which also requires a connection and an account). The FAQ for Synapse (required going forward for Razer's products) suggests that once your setup is complete, moving between online and offline modes will be a "seamless experience." The definition of "seamless" seems to vary from person to person. "If your connection drops out for any reason, the Synapse software will make a habit of locking up on you while it transitions to offline mode. During that time your settings may revert or possibly not be saved." Google disagrees with Razer's definition of "seamless" as well. Searching for "Razer Synapse" autosuggests the following, which hardly inspires confidence..... < - > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121105/17594020942/when-mouse-requires-internet-connection-youre-doing-cloud-wrong.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 7 12:37:15 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2012 13:37:15 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Congressman from MPAA loses CA-30 Message-ID: <3996A75B-C00C-4E92-A0FC-27A1D10CE01E@infowarrior.org> (c/o DOD) Congressman Howard Berman has lost his bid to keep the San Fernando (i.e. Burbank, Universal City and the rest of the San Fernando Valley) seat that was reapportioned and combined with the other D congressman from the area. Berman has long been the main standard bearer for the MPAA. http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2012/11/election_results_1.php > CD 30: Howard Berman lost his longtime seat in Congress ? voters in the San Fernando Valley chose to keep fellow Democrat Brad Sherman instead. "I congratulate Brad...[and] I will do whatever I can to ensure a cooperative and orderly transition,? Berman said in a statement about 2 a.m --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 8 08:16:59 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2012 09:16:59 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - For Long Island utility in flux, warnings preceded Sandy Message-ID: Insight: For Long Island utility in flux, warnings preceded Sandy http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USBRE8A51CS20121106 Tue, Nov 6 2012 By Scott DiSavino and Cezary Podkul NEW YORK (Reuters) - The people in the coastal communities of Long Island and Queens in New York were among the hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy. Now they are suffering new blows because of the inability of their power utility to restore electricity quickly. A Reuters analysis of power outage data shows the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) has the biggest share of affected customers still without power among New York utilities. The 200,000 LIPA customers still without electricity accounted for more than half of the 370,000 New York utility customers still without power as of Tuesday morning, Reuters found. With a largely above-ground power network exposed to the full fury of Sandy's fierce winds and 14-foot storm surge, more than 90 percent of LIPA's 1.1 million customers lost their power, the biggest impact on any area power company. But the recovery has been so slow that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has criticized the performance of all of the power companies affected by Sandy, especially LIPA, whose management he has threatened to replace. But the performance of state-run LIPA was already under fire from local legislators long before Cuomo threatened to sweep aside management. In March of last year, an oversight committee in New York's Suffolk County raised warnings about the utility's preparedness and operating structure - a unique model under which LIPA is essentially just a shell, outsourcing its grid operations to commercial companies. In particular, the committee members feared that LIPA's emergency preparedness manuals were outdated and that the outsourced structure made accountability difficult. These concerns, voiced by the county's LIPA Legislative Oversight Committee, now lie at the heart of the utility's ability to carry on with business as usual. Sheldon Sackstein, co-chair of the Suffolk County committee and a former trustee of LIPA, asked at least twice last year to view the utility's emergency preparedness manuals to make sure they were up to date. Eighteen months later, he has yet to receive a response. He fears what he would find. "They weren't ready," he said in an interview on Monday. The bad news piled up. Moody's Investors Service warned on Monday that LIPA could come dangerously close to running out of cash in coming weeks if it does not shore up its balance sheet. It has yet to receive the full $100 million reimbursement it is expecting from FEMA for last year's Hurricane Irene, Moody's noted, with Sandy restoration costs now mounting. The turmoil comes at a delicate moment for LIPA, one of the country's largest government-owned utilities but with a staff of just around 100 employees. UK-based National Grid PLC, which has been running LIPA's transmission and distribution system since buying original operator Keystone in 2007, is set to hand operations over to a unit of New Jersey power company Public Service Enterprise Group Inc in 2014. National Grid spokesman Steve Brady said in a statement to Reuters that "the emergency (preparedness) plans are LIPA's; we implement them. We believe the plan is solid, and we are implementing it to the fullest." LIPA did not respond to repeated requests for comment. PSEG declined to comment on the effects of Sandy on the handover of operations but said it is "still on track" to take over LIPA's system in 2014. Transition planning is well under way, PSEG said. It is not clear what impact, if any, the storm and its aftermath will have on the switch. But it is likely that PSEG will have some work to do to win back the support and trust of local residents and state, county and village leaders. OUTSOURCED OPERATOR A week after Hurricane Sandy made landfall, about 20 percent of LIPA's affected customers are still without power, according to the Reuters review. By comparison, Consolidated Edison Inc, which serves most of New York City and Westchester County, has restored power to all but 12 percent of the roughly 1 million customers that were affected. Only FirstEnergy Corp's JCP&L utility in New Jersey had a higher share of customers without power as of Tuesday, at 26 percent. Of the 21 states affected by Sandy, New Jersey suffered the most damage. LIPA's operator, National Grid, also owns and operates electric utilities in upstate New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where it restored power to almost all customers within a week. Those areas were hit primarily by Hurricane Sandy's high wind and rain, not the storm surge that pummeled Long Island. But even prior to the hurricane, dissatisfaction with LIPA's outsourced structure was mounting. Last October National Grid lost the operating contract for LIPA to PSEG. "This deal (with PSEG) will ... improve services and communications with a company right across the river in New Jersey - not with a company headquartered (in Britain) 3,500 miles across the ocean," LIPA Chairman Howard Steinberg said when the utility announced last October that PSEG had won the contract. The PSEG deal came just a few months after Hurricane Irene left about 523,000 LIPA customers without service, some for as long as a week. LIPA's chief operating officer, Michael Hervey, said last October the pace of restoration during Hurricane Irene did not drive the utility to replace National Grid with PSEG. Over the past few years, LIPA managers have considered several alternatives to the outsourcing arrangement: operating its electric system itself; selling the operations to another power company, or continuing to contract with another firm. LIPA decided to stick with using an outside company because it was the most cost effective option for ratepayers. Sackstein disagreed with the decision. "It has always been my fondest desire to see (LIPA) staff up with utility people who would then be in a position to direct the labor force without an intermediary," he said. Cuomo has not said who might replace existing LIPA management. But as recently as September he said the New York Power Authority (NYPA) could play a role in operating the utility. NYPA is a state-owned generating company that sells power to upstate New York companies to encourage the creation and preservation of jobs. NYPA also sells power to government customers in New York City, including the city's hospitals, schools, subways, government offices and commuter trains serving the metro area. WHO PAYS? LIPA itself is a product of disaster. It was created in 1985 to take over the assets of the Long Island Lighting Co (LILCO), which was harshly criticized for not restoring power quickly after Hurricane Gloria that year and for the construction of the $6 billion Shoreham nuclear power plant - which failed to win state approval. Shoreham ultimately was sold to LIPA for a dollar in 1989 and later decommissioned, while LILCO's other power plants went to local power provider KeySpan. National Grid acquired the Long Island power plants -- and the contract to operate LIPA's system -- when it bought KeySpan. The big question now is how much Hurricane Sandy restoration will cost -- and who gets stuck with the bill. For comparison, Hurricane Irene cost LIPA $176 million in restoration costs. In most U.S. power markets, regulators allow companies to increase power prices to recoup costs stemming from natural disasters or unexpected emergencies. However, in some cases they may not. Connecticut regulators said in August they would cut Connecticut Light and Power's (CL&P) return on equity -- essentially preventing it from raising rates to recover losses -- after the company, owned by Northeast Utilities, was found "deficient and inadequate" in its recovery from last year's storms. CL&P's president resigned under pressure just weeks after a nor'easter in October 2011 left more than 800,000 customers without power, some for more than a week. LIPA has so far not said anything about recovery of restoration costs related to Sandy. CREWS FROM CALIFORNIA Although LIPA has brought more crews to help with Hurricane Sandy restoration than it did during Hurricane Irene, the overall pace of restoration still lags. After Irene made landfall last August, LIPA managed to restore 93 percent of affected customers within a week, according to a press release at the time. That compares with about 77 percent a week after Sandy's landfall. During Irene, LIPA said it had more than 3,500 off-island crews to help with the restoration process. LIPA said Tuesday that more than 12,000 workers, including 7,300 linemen from as far away as California, Washington state and Arizona, were working to restore power. Brady, the National Grid spokesman, pointed to the buildup as a sign of the utility's prompt response to the storm. "We were ready. We started preparing for this storm long before it arrived, including making all local arrangements and assessing support needs from outside the region. Calls for additional resources began very early," Brady said. But for local residents and politicians, the buildup doesn't mean much when they're still out of power more than a week after the storm. "Where are the crews? No one is cutting the trees. There are wires all over the ground and temperatures are dropping and another storm is on the way," said Michael Koblenz, mayor of the Village of East Hills on Long Island's North Shore. The worries of office holders and those on Long Island still without power are being compounded by a nor'easter heading for the area on Wednesday. (Reporting By Scott DiSavino, Cezary Podkul, Jillian Mincer and Adam Kerlin in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky) --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 8 08:17:04 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2012 09:17:04 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - BlackBerry 10 wins security certification from U.S. government ahead of debut Message-ID: <98317EB7-D857-4B6A-9124-814A4D0ED05A@infowarrior.org> (too bad few folks will likely use it anymore... --rick) BlackBerry 10 wins security certification from U.S. government ahead of debut By Hugo Miller http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/rims-blackberry-10-gets-government-security-nod-ahead-of-debut/2012/11/08/0dacb1d2-2969-11e2-aaa5-ac786110c486_print.html Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Research In Motion Ltd. said its new BlackBerry 10 operating system has won security certification from the U.S. government as the debut approaches of the smartphone platform it?s counting on to revive sales. BlackBerry 10 handsets and tablet computers have earned a stamp of approval for secure communications known as FIPS 140-2 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said Michael Brown, RIM?s vice president for security product management. It?s the first time that BlackBerrys have been certified for FIPS, or Federal Information Processing Standards, before their commercial debut. RIM, which plans to introduce the operating system in next year?s first quarter, is looking to shore up its support among U.S. government agencies that have been among its biggest and staunchest clients. The company is relying on those customers as it cedes market share among U.S. consumers to Apple Inc.?s iPhone and devices running Google Inc.?s Android software. The certification should help cement the device?s reputation with government customers as the gold standard for mobile-device security, Brown said. ??The FIPS announcement helps our customers understand that we?re going to continue on that path,? Brown said in a telephone interview yesterday. ?The benefit there for customers is they have that secure platform to build solutions that allows them to be successful.? The Defense Department last month said it plans to hire a contractor to build a system that will manage and secure at least 162,500 Android devices and Apple devices, a potential threat to Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM?s dominance in Washington. Government Fixture RIM says it has more than 1 million government customers in North America alone. Scott Totzke, senior vice president for BlackBerry security, said in April that sales to U.S. federal agencies are rising and the BlackBerry is still a White House fixture. RIM shares fell 9.1 percent to $8.24 yesterday in New York, the biggest decline since June 29 and the first loss in six trading days, after a Pacific Crest Securities report said BlackBerry 10 will struggle to attract buyers. RIM last week said over 50 carriers have begun lab-testing the new smartphones, spurring a rally in the shares from investors betting that the debut will come early next year. ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 8 09:56:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2012 10:56:45 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Apple now owns the rectangle Message-ID: Apple now owns the rectangle With rounded corners By Carly Page Thu Nov 08 2012, 14:23 http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2223463/apple-now-owns-the-rectangle SIGH. After years of speculation, the US Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday actually issued a design patent to Apple for rectangular devices with rounded corners. It seems that Samsung's worst nightmare has come true, as the patent, D670,286 covers a "portable display device" and literally appears to give Apple the rights to a rectangle with rounded corners. In basic terms, this means Apple pretty much now owns the rights to the rectangle in the US. The patent was approved after an examination of prior art, Ars Technica reports, which looked at devices such as digital photo frames and early tablets from HP. While Apple must be mighty pleased with itself, we don't think Samsung needs to worry just yet, as it's such a vague patent that it will be almost impossible for Apple to enforce. Apple has already used a similar patent, D504,889 in its legal battles against Samsung, with mixed success. However, this new patent is backed up by several technical drawings of Apple's Ipad tablet, so it might be easier for the firm to sue other companies that bring out similarly shaped devices. Legal experts don't think Apple will have much success with its new patent though, unless it goes after Ipad knock-off tablets. Apple has yet to respond to our request for comment. God help us all. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 8 10:08:18 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2012 11:08:18 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Security experts push back at 'Cyber Pearl Harbor' warning Message-ID: I agree COMPLETEY and said the same thing back in August: http://www.infowarrior.org/pubs/usenix-forno.pdf --rick Security experts push back at 'Cyber Pearl Harbor' warning The only effective defense is to 'build security in' from the ground up, critics say in response to DoD, DHS comments By Taylor Armerding http://www.csoonline.com/article/720930/security-experts-push-back-at-cyber-pearl-harbor-warning November 07, 2012 ? CSO ? The nation's top national security leaders have convinced President Obama and much of the leadership in Congress that the U.S. is at risk of a "Cyber Pearl Harbor" or "Digital 9/11" if it does not take drastic measures to improve both defensive and offensive cybersecurity capabilities against hostile nation states. But the leaders, Defense (DoD) Secretary Leon Panetta and Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano have not, however, convinced every expert in the cybersecurity community, and there is now some increasingly vocal push-back from some of them. Critics argue argue that not only is the threat of a catastrophic cyberattack greatly exaggerated, but that the best way to guard against the multiple risks they agree exist is not with better firewalls or offensive strikes against potential attacks, but to "build security in" to the control systems that run the nation's critical infrastructure. Bruce Schneier, author, Chief Technology Security Officer at BT and frequently described as a security "guru," has not backed off of his contention made at a debate two years ago that the cyber war threat "has been greatly exaggerated." He said that while a major attack would be disruptive, it would not even be close to an existential threat to the U.S. "This [damage] is at the margins," he said, adding that even using the term "war" is just a, "neat way of phrasing it to get people's attention. The threats and vulnerabilities are real, but they are not war threats." [See also: Following Sandy, DHS seeks security 'Cyber Reserve'] Gary McGraw, CTO of Cigital, recently argued that while existing control systems are "riddled with security vulnerabilities" since they are outdated and were not designed with security in mind, trying to protect them with a preemptive attack against a perceived threat would be both dangerous and fruitless. McGraw, who has been preaching the "build-security-in" mantra for years, is highly skeptical of claims that government is now much better at "attribution" -- knowing exactly who launched an attack. "If they have solved it, they need to tell us hard-core security people how they did it, because we don't really believe them," he said, noting that a major retaliation against a party that didn't launch an attack could be more catastrophic than the initial attack. "Proactive defense," by eliminating the vulnerabilities in the control systems, is a much better approach, McCgraw argues. Besides the attribution problem, McGraw wrote that cyber-offense capabilities of an adversary are unlikely to be knocked out by an attack. Quoting estimates from Ralph Langner, the security consultant credited with cracking the Stuxnet malware, he said that while it takes $90 billion to develop a nuclear submarine fleet, a cyberweapons program aimed at hardened military targets would cost more like $1 billion. And a single-use attack against critical infrastructure might cost as little as $5 million, he said. Creating such "cyber-rocks," he said, is cheap. "Buying a cyber-rock is even cheaper since zero-day attacks exist on the open market for sale to the highest bidder." So, it makes no sense to, "unleash the cyber-rocks from inside of our glass houses since everyone can or will have cyber-rocks," he wrote. Besides Schneier and McGraw, Jacob Olcott, principal at Good Harbor Consulting and past counsel and lead negotiator on comprehensive cybersecurity legislation to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WVa.), pointed to a paper he authored in May that "suggests that owners and operators of critical infrastructure can achieve long-term cost savings and significantly reduce cyber risk by adopting secure development." Why isn't that concept more persuasive to national security leaders in Washington? Schneier has said for years, and said again this week, that cyberattack threats are "being grossly exaggerated for a reason" and "about money and power." "There is an enormous amount of money in government contracts, and the real money is in scaring people," he said. McGraw said that military leaders "are interested in offensive stuff because they think like the war fighters they are." In his paper, he contends that offense is sexier than defense. "One of the problems to overcome is that exploits are sexy and engineering is, well, not so sexy," he wrote. "I've experienced this first hand with my own books. The black hat 'bad-guy' books, such as 'Exploiting Software' outsell the white hat 'good-guy' books like 'Software Security' by a ratio of 3:1." But Joel Harding, a retired military intelligence officer and information operations expert, said it may also be because not everybody in the security community agrees with the anti-offense view. "There is a giant chorus of cybersecurity experts clamoring for attention. It's a cacophony of opinions," he said. But he disagrees that defense alone is enough to defeat or even block an attacker. "By its very nature, a zero-day exploit uses a vulnerability otherwise not defended against," he said. "Until we have artificial intelligence that predicts the nature and type of future attacks and offers ways to block them, a defense is at risk." But he does agree that attribution remains imperfect. Olcott said the good news is that his and other voices are being heard in government. He points to a "Build Security In" page on the DHS website that advocates for building secure software, and even includes a citation of Schneier. But Schneier said as long as "war" is the operative description, the hyperbole will continue and the response will be less effective. "When you use a war metaphor, a certain type of solution presents itself," he said, "while a police metaphor brings a different type of solution." "Right now the dialogue dominated by the DoD and the spooks," McGraw said. "If you think about security as your hands, security engineering finger might be your right pinky -- it's big enough to be a finger, but not a huge part of cybersecurity." "What we really need to do is revisit security engineering," he said. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 8 17:20:58 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2012 18:20:58 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Priceline to buy Kayak for $1.8 billion Message-ID: <762D9C19-A331-472E-99F0-1B0AB0EE4B04@infowarrior.org> Priceline to buy Kayak for $1.8 billion By Olivia Smith @CNNMoneyTech November 8, 2012: 5:44 PM ET http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/08/technology/priceline-buys-kayak/?google_editors_picks=true NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Priceline has agreed to buy travel price comparison engine Kayak in a $1.8 billion cash-and-stock deal. The deal values Kayak (KYAK), which went public less than four months ago, at $40 per share. Priceline (PCLN) plans to pay for the acquisition with $500 million cash and $1.3 billion in equity and assumed stock options. Kayak shares closed Thursday at $31.04, but shot up 26% in after-hours trading after the Priceline deal was announced. Priceline shares dropped 2% after hours. Kayak and Priceline are both based in Norwalk, Conn., but Priceline said it will operate Kayak as an independent subsidiary, run by Kayak's current management team. Pending shareholder and regulatory approvals, the companies expect the transaction to close in early 2013. Kayak "has world class technology and a tradition of innovation in building great user interfaces," Priceline CEO Jeffery Boyd said in a prepared statement. Launched eight years ago, Kayak made its mark in the crowded travel space with a "metasearch" engine that lets shoppers easily compare prices for flights, hotels and rental cars across many different vendors. Priceline's past acquisitions include European hotel bookings website Booking.com, U.K. car rentals site TravelJigsaw and Asia-Pacific bookings site Agoda.com. Kayak is the first major U.S. acquisition in Priceline's 12-year history. "Priceline is probably among the best acquirers in Internet history," said Rafat Ali, founder of travel news and information site Skift. "Booking.com turned out to be among the best acquisitions ever." Kayak was an early pioneer in the travel field and drew attention for its innovative approach, such as requiring all of its employees, including its programmers, to field customer service calls. It has lately faced intensifying competition from giants like Microsoft's Bing Travel, and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), which snapped up airline search company ITA. It's also being challenged by upstarts like Hipmunk, which stole some of Kayak's thunder with a widely praised search interface. Kayak also on Thursday released its third-quarter results. The company reported net income of $8 million on sales of $78.6 million, up 29% from a year ago. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 8 20:05:05 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2012 21:05:05 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Mangano asks military to manage LIPA Message-ID: Mangano asks military to manage LIPA Originally published: November 8, 2012 4:29 PM Updated: November 8, 2012 8:40 PM By ROBERT BRODSKY robert.brodsky at newsday.com http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/mangano-asks-military-to-manage-lipa-1.4202500 Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano is calling on the U.S. military and the Department of Energy to take over the "managerial structure" of LIPA during the restoration of power from superstorm Sandy. Mangano told Newsday he wants the federal government, including the Defense Department, to be tasked with directing the flow of information to the public and directing crews to neighborhoods that need power restored. As of shortly before 7 p.m., 142,000 LIPA customers in Nassau County were without power, 11 days after Sandy battered Long Island. Neither Cuomo's office nor Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone's office returned calls for comment on Mangano's request. Mangano said he has no jurisdiction to call on LIPA leadership to resign, but that it is within his power to request that the military essentially take over LIPA operations. "We need a military-style flow of information," said Mangano. "This needs to be an orderly situation." Mangano said he is awaiting a response to his request from the Defense Department. Deputy County Executive Rob Walker said Nassau made its request for federal intervention through FEMA. "We need critical leadership and information flow," Walker said. A LIPA spokesman did not return multiple requests for comment. Pentagon spokesman Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Crosson said he was unaware of Mangano's request but that the Army Corps of Engineers would be the most likely entity to assist in domestic power restoration. Crosson said he is unaware of any other time when the military had been asked to take over a public utility. In March, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Resources Preparedness Order, which granted the White House control of domestic energy sources during times of national emergencies. It is unclear if that executive order would apply to the effort to restore to Long Island homes. Walker said a press conference is planned for Friday to elaborate on Nassau's request. Among those expected to attend are Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto, Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray and Lawrence Mayor Martin Oliner, Walker said. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 9 07:28:52 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 08:28:52 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Meet the network operators helping to fuel the spike in big DDoS attacks Message-ID: <2F4F4C47-79E1-4EBB-8BE0-2854BB2ADA95@infowarrior.org> Meet the network operators helping to fuel the spike in big DDoS attacks SoftLayer, GoDaddy, AT&T, and iWeb make a list of top 10 most abused networks. by Dan Goodin - Oct 31 2012, 3:43pm EDT http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/10/meet-the-network-operators-helping-fuel-the-spike-in-big-ddos-attacks/ A company that helps secure websites has compiled a list of some of the Internet's biggest network nuisances?operators that run open servers that can be abused to significantly aggravate the crippling effects of distributed denial-of-service attacks on innocent bystanders. As Ars recently reported, DDoS attacks have grown increasingly powerful in recent years, thanks in large part to relatively new tools and methods. But one technique that is playing a key role in many recent attacks isn't new at all. Known as DNS amplification, it relies on open domain name system servers to multiply the amount of junk data attackers can direct at a targeted website. By sending a modest-sized domain name query to an open DNS server and instructing it to send the result to an unfortunate target, attackers can direct a torrent of data at the victim site that is 50 times bigger than the original request. Engineers at San Francisco-based CloudFlare have been shielding one customer from the effects of a DDoS attack that has flooded it with 20 gigabits-per-second of data around the clock for three weeks. While attacks of 100Gbps aren't unheard of, that's still a massive attack even large botnets are generally unable to wage. CloudFlare engineers soon determined the attackers behind the assault were abusing the open DNS resolvers belonging to a variety of large network operators. Many of these are well-known brand names: US-based SoftLayer, GoDaddy, AT&T, iWeb, and Amazon. The sustained attack comes as several distinct botnets appear to have been updated to enumerate huge lists of open resolvers. That means amplification attacks could become more common. Given the damage they can have on innocent bystanders, such open servers have long been considered a nuisance. It's the Internet equivalent of a dilapidated crack house in the inner city or a rural front yard filled with old washing machines and rusted car parts. As a result, operators have been admonished repeatedly to make DNS resolvers available only to addresses located on their network, rather than to the Internet as a whole. The CloudFlare engineers compiled a list of the networks hosting the open DNS servers and ranked them by those responsible for the most damage. With 68,459 unique open resolvers participating in the ongoing attack, there was plenty of blame to go around. The list names networks located on every corner of the globe, including those owned by Amazon, Turk Telekomunikasyon Anonim Sirketi, and Nepal Telecommunications Corporation. Still, CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince found that the top 10 offenders provided 15,611 of those servers?or almost 23 percent of the firepower behind the attack. The top 10 network operators named by Prince are: PKTELECOM-AS-PK Pakistan Telecom Company Limited; HINET Data Communication Business Group; CRNET CHINA RAILWAY Internet(CRNET); THEPLANET-AS - ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc.; CHINANET-BACKBONE No.31, Jin-rong Street; SOFTLAYER - SoftLayer Technologies Inc.; OCN NTT Communications Corporation; AS-26496-GO-DADDY-COM-LLC - GoDaddy.com, LLC; ATT-INTERNET4 - AT&T Services, Inc.; and IWEB-AS - iWeb Technologies Inc. "Wonder why there's been an increase in big DDoS attacks?" Prince wrote in a blog post published on Tuesday. "It's in large part because the network operators listed above have continued to allow open resolvers to run on their networks and the attackers have begun abusing them." In a previous blog post documenting CloudFlare's work in blocking DDoS attacks that reached an astounding 65Gbps in size, Prince said the company regularly reaches out to the worst open DNS offenders. Frequently, the advisories fall on deaf ears. "One of the great ironies when we deal with these attacks is we'll often get an e-mail from the owner of the network where an open resolver is running asking us to shut down the attack our network is launching against them," he explained. "They're seeing a large number of UDP packets with one of our IPs as the source coming in to their network and assume we're the ones launching it. In fact, it is actually their network which is being used to launch an attack against us." Ars contacted representatives of all four US-based companies and received replies from all but AT&T. The three responding operators stressed they take the issue of open, "recursive" DNS servers seriously and recognize them as a security issue that can affect the overall health of the Internet. They went on to describe the difficulty of ensuring each DNS server running on their network is secured properly, in large part because improper configurations are often the result of decisions made by paying customers. "As an unmanaged hosting provider, SoftLayer does not make proactive direct changes to our customers' servers," said Ryan Carter, a manager in the abuse department at SoftLayer. "These customers are able to run their own authoritative name servers on their servers, and they're able to configure them for resolvers. DNS is the hardest simple protocol out there because so many people have no clue what it is or how it works. Instead of learning the best practices of DNS management, they'll take the path of least resistance to just get the functionality online." A statement attributed to GoDaddy Director of Information Security Operations Scott Gerlach said a "handful of Go Daddy customers are using the dedicated and virtual dedicated server environments to configure DNS on their systems" and disputed the number of open DNS servers cited by CloudFlare. "Anyone who detects malicious traffic emanating from our network can best serve the interest of the Internet community by contacting us quickly and directly," the statement continued. "This will trigger a specific and swift investigation so we can take appropriate action." In an e-mail, iWeb co-founder Martin Leclair wrote: "Open resolvers are vulnerable to multiple malicious activities and... the best practice is to prevent open resolvers. So when we detect open resolvers on our network we recommend to our users to follow the best practices. It is not that easy because the DNS products can sometimes default to open resolver when installed, and customers need to tweak the configurations to limit DNS resolution." Given that many private efforts by CloudFlare haven't worked, the latest name-and-shame approach can't hurt. If you're a manager at one of above-named operators?or at any of the almost 4,000 other operators named in the complete list, you might think about getting a hold of someone at CloudFlare. They'll be happy to help you make the Internet a more secure place by restricting access to your DNS servers. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 9 07:35:56 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 08:35:56 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - TPB Users Hide IP-Addresses to Counter Copyright Enforcement, Research Finds Message-ID: Pirate Bay Users Hide IP-Addresses to Counter Copyright Enforcement, Research Finds http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-users-hide-ip-addresses-to-counter-copyright-enforcement-research-finds-121109/ ? Ernesto ? November 9, 2012 The collaboration between The Pirate Bay and the Cybernorms research group at Sweden?s Lund University has resulted in their first academic publication. The researchers surveyed 75,000 people from all over the world and found that close to 70 percent of all Pirate Bay users are interested in hiding their IP-addresses, or hiding it already. According to the researchers the high interest in anonymizing services among file-sharers is a direct response to anti-piracy initiatives. April last year The Pirate Bay renamed itself to The Research Bay to conduct the largest ever survey among file-sharers. The BitTorrent site teamed up with the Cybernorms research group at Lund University, who are interested in how the Internet creates new social norms in society. In three days the survey was filled out by 75,000 people and the researchers have now published some of the ?Research Bay? results in the peer-reviewed Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing. In the paper titled ?Law, norms, piracy and online anonymity,? researcher Stefan Larsson and colleagues focus on the use of the use of anonymizing services such as VPNs among Pirate Bay users. The results reveal that nearly 70 percent of Pirate Bay users utilize a VPN or proxy, or are interested in doing so in the future. The researchers found that of all respondents 17.8 percent already make efforts to hide their IP-addresses from the rest of the Internet. Another 51.4 percent do not use anonymizing services, but show an interest in signing up for one. The paper alleges that the use of VPNs and proxies will increase as a direct result of the copyright enforcement and piracy monitoring initiatives that have been discussed or implemented in recent years. ?The broad interest for anonymisation is, in this study, understood as a function of social norms in the grass-root file-sharing community, as a response to the ongoing top-down copyright enforcement strategies,? the researchers write. ?Users involved in file-sharing communities seem to find anonymity services as a countermeasure for an increase in enforced traceability and identification of online activities,? they add. Anonymous Pirate Bay users Interestingly, the demand for anonymizing software differs per region. Hiding one?s IP-address is most common in Africa and North America with 19.7 and 19.5 percent respectively, and least common in Oceania where 14.4 percent of Pirate Bay users make efforts to be anonymous. The paper further reports that frequent uploaders are more likely to operate anonymously. Nearly a third (30.9%) of Pirate Bay users who upload files nearly every day use an anonymizing service, versus 14 percent of those who never upload files at all. Previous research has shown that the use of VPNs and proxies among BitTorrent users is increasing. This renders many of the proposed laws useless to a certain degree, and according to the researchers many file-sharers simply continue because they have social norms on their side. Researcher Stefan Larsson tells TorrentFreak that he expect that the upcoming six-strikes plan in the United States will also lead to more people hiding their IP-addresses. ?Some people may stop or share less when they receive warnings, but there will also be a group that will respond to the warnings by becoming more anonymous. A third group will try to find other means to share files than BitTorrent, since these are not monitored,? Larsson says. According to the researcher legislators should be more sensitive to the leading social norms. However, as things stand now, the divide between the law and social norms related to file-sharing will only grow bigger. The harsh conclusion means that copyright holders will have a really hard time dealing with file-sharers through legislation. Those who want to pirate will find a way around it. That is, until VPNs and proxies become outlawed too. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 9 07:57:43 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 08:57:43 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Apple and Samsung legal fees slashed by magistrate judge Message-ID: <422071B1-50DB-4DFA-A725-79BD85303ECA@infowarrior.org> (Good for him!! --rick) Apple and Samsung legal fees slashed by magistrate judge 3 160 0 updated 12:30 am EST, Fri November 9, 2012 http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/11/09/judge.fees.excessive.explanations.of.time.spent.insufficient/ Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal of the US District Court of the Northern District of California ordered Samsung to pay $21,554 in legal fees to Apple, and Apple to pay $160,069 to Samsung over discovery violations in the smartphone patent suit concluded in August. Both awards are significantly less than requested by either party. Grewal took issue with both overstaffing, and "block billing" that failed to detail how attorneys spent the time they billed. Samsung's award was based on Apple's attempt to force the manufacturer to turn over deposition testimony. One Quinn Emanuel associate billed 93.5 hours for "assistance with all aspects of the preparation" of Samsung's case. Grewal seemed quizzical in regards to the claim. "How were those hours divided among the various tasks? Is it reasonable that Walker spent nearly two work weeks on a motion for sanctions when two partners, three other associates and innumerable contract attorneys were also staffed on the motion? The court can only guess at the answers to those questions because Samsung offers only the barest description of Walker's activities," Grewal stated in the 21-page order. In examining 50 hours of work billed at $1,035 per hour by partner Marc Becker, Grewal wrote that "the court tends to find it unreasonable that a partner with almost 25 years of experience needed 50 hours to draft a 14-page motion and to review a 15-page reply, especially when five associates also billed 85.8 hours for the same motion." Grewal applied rates based on a survey, and reduced the highest rate from a Quinn Emanual associate from $620 down to $470. Grewal also ruled that Apple had requested excess fees, and shaved off 20 percent from its claim. Additionally, Grewal refused attorney fees for sealing motions, and "refuses to incentivize more sealing actions" by allowing the fees to be charged. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 9 08:06:00 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 09:06:00 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: 10 ways you know the US election is over Message-ID: <2CA94F5B-4CF1-4596-B2C4-544EE0BAFE46@infowarrior.org> (ref #10: the 2012 election barely ended and we're already hearing likely GOP presidential candidates for 2016 heading to Iowa later this month. Endless campaigns = teh suck. --rick ) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243577 8 November 2012 Last updated at 20:33 ET 10 ways you know the US election is over It's been a long slog of a campaign and many Americans - whether their favoured candidate won or lost - are just relieved it's over. Here are 10 signs election day has been and gone. 1. No-one cares about Ohio Once every four years, the state finds itself at the centre of the political universe, before dropping off the map. Ohio is often the butt of American jokes - seen as the embodiment of a Midwestern backwater. But as the election draws near, the world's media descends, and commentators talk breathlessly about how "it's all about Ohio". "People enjoy it," says Fred Andrle, a former talk show host in Ohio. Most of the time, "we are considered fly-over people". Ohio law student Andrew Gordon-Seifert, 24, appreciated the attention - not least from the candidates themselves. But he says: "There's a sentiment of cynicism - they realised how important we are to getting elected, but will they be there for us in the future?" 2. Mattress ads back on television There were more than one million campaign ad airings in this presidential campaign - almost double that in 2008 and 2004. It has been a bonanza in terms of ad revenues for TV stations, but now the adverts have returned to staple subjects like mattresses, a dog's arthritis or erectile dysfunction. Answering the phone has become a whole lot easier for those in swing states too - if there is a call, it is probably a real person. 3. The polling addicts are in detox There are lots of "poll junkies" out there, says self-confessed addict Daniel Hamermesh, who teaches economics at the University of Texas at Austin and Royal Holloway in London. With a habit of checking the latest polls at least four times a day, he set himself the target of going cold turkey up to election day. He lasted just three days. "I fell off the damn wagon," he says. But with the election over, he says he's coping fine: "The thing that caused the addiction is gone - it's as if there has been a tobacco blight, and the tobacco is gone," he says. "My wife is happy to have me back more full-time." 4. All the news is about this cliff thing Lots of things get put on ice during election season, but this one will have to come out of the freezer soon. The "fiscal cliff" refers to a deadline of 31 December for Congress to agree on spending levels and tax rates. The Fitch ratings agency recently called it the "single biggest near-term threat to a global economic recovery". The word "bipartisanship" is one that has come out of the deep-freeze in the last couple of days. It will be needed. 5. You only read Buzzfeed for pictures of cats Once upon a time, Buzzfeed was a site devoted to cats playing the piano, photos of kids with weird haircuts, and 90s nostalgia. But then Politico whiz-kid Ben Smith came on board just in time for the drama of the 2012 election. Suddenly the site known for articles like This Grandma And Her Cat Are The Cutest Best Friends Ever and 9 Most Controversial Salads was a must-read for political junkies, with trenchant articles from a stable of talented reporters, putting forward a mix of breaking scoops and in-depth features. They're probably still doing all that stuff, but now that the election is over, you're more interested in those salads. 6. Joe Biden stops emailing you You can open your inbox without it being full of emails from the candidates or their campaign teams, usually exhorting you to dig deep into your pockets or give up some time to get people out to vote. Mitt Romney's final email on election day began with the words: "Friend, Polls are open for a few more hours. Your vote, and your outreach efforts, will determine the outcome. America's future is up to you." 7. Celebrities go back to selling you their perfume, not their political views Celebrity endorsements have been a staple in American politics for sometime, and this year was no exception. Barack Obama managed to muster a longer line-up, with more A-listers, but the celebrity moment of the campaign definitely goes to Clint Eastwood for his soliloquy to an empty chair at the Republican National Convention. That may well be remembered, but the B-and-C-listers will vanish back into oblivion. 8. Election tat is piling up It will be decades before the bog-standard mugs, badges, bumper stickers and posters of this campaign gain any significant value as collectors' items, says Steve Ferber an expert on political memorabilia. Campaigns have begun to charge for things which used to be given away for free, he says. There has also been an "amazing increase" in buyers from abroad, he says - especially from the UK, Germany and Australia, who are keen on Obama items. 9. You can say what you like on Facebook Election time can create some awkward moments with friends and family on the other side of the political divide. Student Andrew Gordon-Seifert says most of the political chat among his friends was on Facebook, and things could get testy at times, with inflammatory political posts, and angry ripostes. He took care about what he would say politically - both online and in person - to keep the temperature down. Now it's over, "we can get back to not being so divided", he says. 10. The talk is all about 2016 In-between the fierce recriminations and soul-searching among the Republican Party, is speculation on who will run for the presidency in 2016 (Hillary Clinton versus Jeb Bush, is Politico's prediction). This future-gazing actually begins a few days before election day, says Karlyn Bowman with the conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute. "We're polled out. Everyone is so exhausted, that people just want to turn to something new," she says. Many who live and breathe politics are now - with their source of sustenance suddenly gone - feeling a little deflated now, she says. But the main sentiment is a kind of collective phew: "Everyone will say a prayer - not just for Thanksgiving, but that the campaign is over." Additional reporting by Kate Dailey --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 9 08:20:39 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 09:20:39 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Australia comes to its senses, abandons Internet filtering regime Message-ID: Australia comes to its senses, abandons Internet filtering regime Canberra says it will use Interpol's "worst of" list to block child abuse sites. by Cyrus Farivar - Nov 8 2012, 9:00pm EST http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/australia-comes-to-its-senses-abandons-national-internet-filtering-regime/ The Australian government has now, after years of testing and preparing, formally abandoned a plan to filter its domestic Internet. Officials now say that it will use Interpol?s "worst of" child abuse site list as a way to shield Ozzies from truly awful content. "Blocking the Interpol 'worst of' list will help keep children safe from abuse, it meets community expectations, and fulfills the Government's commitment to preventing Australian internet users from accessing child abuse material online," Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said on Friday, according to the Herald Sun. "Given this ... the Government has no need to proceed with mandatory filtering." For its part, Interpol uses five criteria to decide whether a site merits a spot on the "worst of" list. Those criteria include depicting children that are "real" (not CG, drawn, or 'pseudo-images'), depicting children in sexually exploitative situations that appear to be younger than 13 years, and having a domain that has existed for more than three months. The push for a filtering program had largely been promoted by Family First, a conservative party Down Under. In 2010, Google even chided Australia for its program, saying its program had gone too far. According to The Age, the major newspaper in Melbourne, the government will use its powers under existing telecom legislation, and so will not need to create a filter law. The paper added that many Australian ISPs have already been using the Interpol criteria "for more than a year," without creating slower Internet speeds, or false positives. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 9 14:29:06 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 15:29:06 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Why LIPA failed Message-ID: Why LIPA failed: Utility ignored warnings it wasn't ready for major storm Originally published: November 8, 2012 11:24 PM Updated: November 9, 2012 12:37 AM http://www.newsday.com/long-island/why-lipa-failed-utility-ignored-warnings-it-wasn-t-ready-for-major-storm-1.4203976?qr=1 By GUS GARCIA-ROBERTS and WILL VAN SANT gus.garcia-roberts at newsday.com The Long Island Power Authority?s agonizingly slow response to Sandy came after warnings as far back as 2006 that the utility was unprepared to handle a major storm, failed to upgrade antiquated technology, neglected vital maintenance and regularly underbudgeted for storm response. A state report and a review of records show that the regional utility lagged behind industry standards by not using smartphones and digital tablets ? and at times even printers or fax machines ? in favor of pen-and-paper memos and dial-up Internet access. The utility?s critically important power outage management system, which helps direct the recovery response, operates on a 25-year-old mainframe computer that was cited as one of the biggest shortcomings in the utility?s response to Tropical Storm Irene in August of last year. LIPA chief operating officer Michael Hervey said the new outage management system, which LIPA had contracted last year to replace, had not yet been implemented. However, he added, ?All of the significant items we had already implemented or started to implement,? even before the Public Service Commission report was released. LIPA neglected basic maintenance to prevent outages, such as replacing rotting poles and trimming trees around power lines, according to a state report released by the Public Service Commission?s Public Service Department in June. The $3.7 billion-a-year government-owned corporation spent $37.5 million less than committed over five years on hardening the grid to protect against major storm damage, according to the report. Thursday, a Newsday reporter at the Hicksville headquarters of National Grid ? the company contracted by LIPA to oversee operations ? saw engineers who were using highlighters and paper maps to track thousands of outages, as ratepayers banged in frustration on the building?s locked front doors. Ten days after the superstorm battered the region, more than 170,000 Long Islanders were still without power. The nor?easter on Wednesday piled on with another 90,000 outages. From village trustees to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, public officials have criticized LIPA for its response to Sandy. Hervey noted that LIPA, in a 109-page study conducted before the PSC report was released, identified many of the problems that were later noted in the report. LIPA this year increased its budget for storms to the largest amount it has to date this year ? in excess of $50 million. But Hervey noted major hurricanes open up entirely new cost centers of their own. ?We don?t budget for hurricanes of this size,? he said. Last year, LIPA and a company called Efacec Advanced Control Systems announced that the authority would implement a real-time distribution and outage management system. It is not expected to be in place until next year. The state report calls into question how seriously LIPA and National Grid took the lessons they learned from Irene. ?It was stated that no storm like Irene had been seen since Hurricane Gloria in 1985,? the inspectors wrote in the report. ?We frequently heard that Irene may be a once in a career or lifetime event.? It was not. Antiquated infrastructure The utility?s infrastructure has changed little since Gloria, said Matthew Cordaro, who served as vice president of engineering at LIPA?s predecessor, the Long Island Lighting Co., when that hurricane struck. ?I think somewhere along the way they lost sight of what the primary mission of a utility is,? Cordaro said Thursday, ?and that is to provide cheap electric power to customers.? Alexandra von Meier, the co-director of electric grid research at the California Institute for Energy and Environment, said other utilities face similar challenges. ?I don?t think it?s very unusual to have very old and clunky technology in their power distribution context,? she said. ?If they were more modern ... restoration could be faster, and we all want that.? More than a half-million residents lost power for a week after Irene. Cuomo ? who said that ?at a minimum, LIPA did a terrible job of communicating? following that tropical storm ? requested a review of the Uniondale-based utility. The resulting report concluded that LIPA and National Grid did not meet industry standards in dozens of aspects concerning planning and recovery in major storms. To survey storm damage, engineers used spotty equipment, including expired Internet aircards for their laptops, the state inspectors found. Their computers used COBOL, a basic decades-old computer programming language, and some lacked electronic mapping for outages and used a ?rudimentary damage prediction model.? Even fax machines and other basic office equipment were unavailable or broken at substations, the facilities that transfer power to thousands of homes, hindering communication. One substation coordinator reported having to run to a local office supply store to purchase a printer. Year after year, despite warnings, the utility failed to spend money on storm-readiness measures, said Walter Drabinski, president of Vantage Energy Consulting Llc, the company hired by the state to assist with the report. He said they ?did not budget what they should have.? Recognizing that the utility was vulnerable to a big storm, LIPA hired a consultant several years ago to look at ways to harden the system. The report by Navigant Consulting was finished in 2006 and included numerous recommendations such as upgrading the computer system, reconfiguring substations to minimize flood damage, and doing more to trim trees and inspect poles. Newsday requested a copy of the 2006 report early this week. By Thursday, LIPA officials had not provided it. In the state report released in June, assessors found LIPA had failed to heed many of the 2006 study?s recommendations. Drabinski said budget issues likely contributed to delays. LIPA?s customers already pay among the highest rates in the country. The utility is saddled with almost $7 billion in debt. ?All of these things were identified but they all cost money,? Drabinski said. At the time, LIPA committed to spending $20 million a year on so-called ?storm hardening? ? projects to bolster the system, according to the June report. But from 2006 through 2010, the utility budgeted only an average of $13.2 million a year for such projects, and of that, spent only $12.5 million a year, according to the report. Even cheap measures were neglected by LIPA, according to the June report. LIPA lacked basic procedures for clearing roads outside of hospitals and schools, locating and repairing downed wires, communicating with customers and keeping call centers working, maintaining poles, and trimming trees around power lines in order to prevent ?tree-caused outages associated with major storm events.? LIPA spends less thinning vegetation around transmission stations than other utilities, clears less ? 6 feet around distribution equipment as compared with the industry standard, which is 10 feet ? and doesn?t have a consistent cycle for trimming trees. Workers might not hit some trees for seven or eight years, according to the report, which recommended a four-year cycle. LIPA stopped funding a program to inspect distribution poles in 2006. The program was supposed to restart in 2013 and scheduled to be done by 2022. The utility?s spending on transmission pole replacement dropped from $2.7 million in 2006 to less than $800,000 in 2011, according to the report. ?I guess the good news is they don?t have to do the inspections because all the bad poles broke? in Sandy, Drabinski said. LIPA does have a good system that is reliable under normal conditions, Drabinski said. But the utility faces unique challenges because of the Island?s geography ? exposed to the elements and accessible by outside crews from only one direction. As a result, the utility needs to plan differently than others when it comes to lining up workers to restoration efforts. But LIPA?s biggest flaw identified by the report was the utility?s inability to communicate well with the public. Clogged call centers are especially problematic since LIPA relies on customers to report their own individual outages. Since 2006, according to the state report, LIPA has lacked a system to give customers accurate estimates on when their power would be restored. After Sandy, the utility used an online map that showed more outages than there were customers, and featured inaccurate recovery information. Shortly after a Newsday article pointed out the inaccuracies, LIPA removed the site for a day and posted a pared-down version. ?The whole system is just completely unorganized,? said state Sen. Charles J. Fuschillo (R-Merrick), ?and in this day and age with the technology available and the fact that they went through this already with Irene, they should have been better prepared.? One thing LIPA has continually managed to communicate is statements attesting to Sandy?s strength. Spokesman Mark Gross said that ?customers should be prepared to wait a bit longer? for the return of power than the utility estimated. ?We did say seven to 10 days originally, but this storm was worse than anyone could have predicted.? In fact, in the week preceding Sandy, fire chiefs, county executives and meteorologists warned that it would be one of the most powerful storms in Long Island history. Sustained wind gusts of 80 mph and flood surges reaching 20 feet were accurately predicted. As early as Oct. 26, three days before Sandy reached Long Island, the National Weather Service warned that the storm could be stronger than Irene. In the wake of the devastation, customers and public officials have complained of the breakdown in communication from LIPA. Asked why customers were learning more than a week after Sandy hit that surveyors needed to inspect their flooded homes before reinstating their electricity, Hervey said: ?This is where we are in the process. I really don?t want to argue about timing or whether something should have been done earlier in the process.? Little outside oversight LIPA is run by a 15-member board of nonutility professionals that includes lawyers, bankers and accountants. There is little outside oversight. That contrasts with other privately owned utilities subject to regulation by the state Public Service Department, which has hundreds of professional energy experts, rate reviewers and other specialists. As a result, LIPA operates largely free from independent scrutiny of its rates, its spending and its management effectiveness. The LIPA board tends to act in concert. Most of its decisions on spending, strategic directions and contracts are unanimous. There have been attempts to put LIPA under the Public Service Department?s jurisdiction, if only for rate hikes, but LIPA officials have always invoked the threat of a ratings downgrade. Wall Street likes LIPA to have the ability to raise rates as it needs to recoup costs. A LIPA oversight bill enacted in Albany in January once again left LIPA free from department oversight, although the bill did provide for PSC management audits for LIPA for the first time in its history. One is under way now. The Suffolk County Legislature has established a committee to exert some oversight over LIPA, but its actions are not legally binding, said Paul Sabatino, who served as counsel to the legislature for 20 years. Sabatino said that the original state statute that created the utility exempted it from the Public Service Commission?s legally binding orders and decisions. Evidence suggests that greater oversight can improve performance. Following Hurricane Irene and a powerful winter storm in October of 2011, Connecticut?s utilities regulator criticized Connecticut Light & Power for its ?deficient and inadequate? response. There were calls to get tougher with the utility, which already fell under the jurisdiction of the state?s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. Though it says the move is unconnected to last year's storms, CL&P increased its spending on tree trimming to $54 million this year, up from $27 million in 2011. The state passed legislation in May that, among other things, subjects utilities like CL&P to a mandatory review by regulators after storms that cause major outages. After Sandy, CL&P said outages affected 850,000 of their 1.24 million customers. The utility promised to restore power to 98 percent of their customers by Monday or Tuesday of last week. Monday, they reached that goal. Roy Occhiogrosso, senior adviser to Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Molloy, said CL&P was prepared for Sandy and had improved communication with the public. The utility, he said, seemed to be shaping up. ?There is going to be a formal review of their performance,? he said. ?Preliminarily, it seems that they have done better.? National Grid started locking the front door to its Hicksville headquarters on the second day of the outage. Thursday, a steady trickle of frustrated and angry customers stood at those doors banging on the glass ? pleading for help, demanding answers or just shouting in frustration. One woman asked through the glass to talk to whoever was running things. ?There?s no one in charge to see,? a security guard told her. With Mark Harrington, Robert Lewis, Sandra Peddie and Adam Playford WHAT LIPA DIDN'T DO At the request of New York State's Department of Public Service, a consulting firm reviewed the Long Island Power Authority and National Grid's 2011 response to Tropical Storm Irene. The review found significant problems with the two entities, including: -- They ignored a 2006 recommendation to replace an outdated outage management system, which runs on a 25-year-old mainframe computer running COBOL, a computer language considered obsolete. The system had been "patched together over many years" and "lacks the ability to manage large-scale outages" or "take advantage of current advances in technology." -- The outage management system was "one of the biggest shortcomings in the storm restoration effort." It was set to be replaced in late 2012, but will "likely take several years to be fully functional." -- Many employees underestimated the likelihood of another major storm hitting Long Island, calling Irene a "once in a career or lifetime event." -- Instead of smartphones or tablets to input data or receive maps, crews rely on paper maps and pencils. -- Some substations used dial-up modems to access the Internet, and printers and fax machines didn't work. -- National Grid used a "rudimentary" damage prediction model. -- Recommendations from 2006 to harden the system against storms had been "implemented slowly or incompletely," including "many improvements that could be made at a reasonable cost." -- LIPA stated that it reviewed its storm and emergency response policy annually, but the plan still referred to its relationship with KeySpan, the company it worked with until National Grid acquired it in 2008. THE LIPA BOARD In 1995, the State Legislature changed the law to make the Long Island Power Authority board of trustees an appointed body. Nine members are named by the governor; three are named by the leader of the State Senate; and three are chosen by the Assembly leader. Only 10 positions are currently filled. The board oversees all major authority decisions, including choosing a manager for the electric grid, purchasing power from generating plants, developing new power-generation projects and hiring a CEO and filling other top positions. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 9 14:30:51 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 15:30:51 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - CIA Director Petraeus resigns due to affair Message-ID: <1475367A-CDAF-491B-B840-0159C3C0A7FE@infowarrior.org> http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/NATL-CIA-Director-Petraeus-Resigns-Cites-Extra-Marital-Affair-178159541.html Fulltext: Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA. After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation. As I depart Langley, I want you to know that it has been the greatest of privileges to have served with you, the officers of our Nation's Silent Service, a work force that is truly exceptional in every regard. Indeed, you did extraordinary work on a host of critical missions during my time as director, and I am deeply grateful to you for that. Teddy Roosevelt once observed that life's greatest gift is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. I will always treasure my opportunity to have done that with you and I will always regret the circumstances that brought that work with you to an end. Thank you for your extraordinary service to our country, and best wishes for continued success in the important endeavors that lie ahead for our country and our Agency. With admiration and appreciation, David H. Petraeus --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 9 22:27:23 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 23:27:23 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Baer_on_life_in_the_CIA=3A_It=92?= =?windows-1252?q?s_like_Bond=2C_with_more_boredom?= Message-ID: A former spy on life in the CIA: It?s like Bond, with more boredom By Robert Baer http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-former-spy-on-life-in-the-cia-its-like-bond-with-more-boredom/2012/11/09/4878cdb6-2386-11e2-ba29-238a6ac36a08_print.html In the new James Bond thriller, ?Skyfall,? the villain is a cyberterrorist named Raoul Silva, a disgruntled former British agent who?s trying to crash the digital universe. It?s a nice touch, creating a very real, very terrifying scenario that ?could paralyze the nation,? as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned just last month. And that is about the only aspect of the movie that is likely to be accurate. Don?t get me wrong ? I?m a fan of the Bond movies. I go to see them for the same reasons everyone else does: the gorgeous women, the most beautiful places on Earth and, of course, the roller-coaster ride of a plot. I delight in Bond?s complete defiance of gravity. His suits never wrinkle, his Aston Martin is never in the garage for repairs, the girls never say no. But as a former spy, what I like most about the Bond movies is the way good always triumphs over evil. His cases end neatly, with the villain dispatched and the world safe for the good guys. Real-life espionage is a lot less sexy ? and a lot messier. Sometimes, age-old wisdom notwithstanding, the enemy of our enemy turns out not to be our friend. Once, in the mid-1980s, I was handed the portfolio for Libya?s opposition leaders, many of whom were operating out of Khartoum, Sudan. At first, I had only a hazy idea of who Moammar Gaddafi?s opponents were. All I knew for sure was that the Reagan administration wanted Gaddafi to go. Late one night, I woke up to the sound of the butts of assault rifles pounding my door. Two of my Libyan contacts were on the run from Gaddafi?s assassins and expected me to protect them. We talked most of the night ? about Libya, history and Allah. By the time they could safely leave, I had come to understand that the people we?d picked to replace Gaddafi were militant Salafists determined to turn Libya into an Islamic republic. They didn?t succeed then, but you could argue that the people who attacked our diplomatic outpost in Benghazi in September were their linear descendents. While occasionally I found myself in a Bond-like setting during my spying career, the story inevitably unfolded with a lot less panache. One time, in pursuit of an elusive informant, the agency sent me to Monaco to troll the Casino de Monte-Carlo. The problems started before I even got on the plane. The CIA scoffed at the idea of buying me a tuxedo, and the dragon lady who did our accounting refused to give me a cent to put on the roulette table. Not surprisingly, as soon as I walked into the casino in my penny loafers, the security goons spotted me as an impostor and pulled me over for a polite interrogation. I never found our would-be informant, but I did come away with the certainty that I wasn?t James Bond. Anyone who?s passed through Langley will tell you that a spy?s life is one of tedious endurance. It?s long hours of cubicle living, going through the same files everyone else in the office has gone through, hoping to catch a missed lead. Or it?s waiting by the phone hoping that the third secretary from the Ecuadorian Embassy will call you back. Or keeping your fingers crossed that your next three-year assignment isn?t in Chad. As CIA-operative-turned-novelist Charles McCarry said, spying is nothing more than an organized hunt for a windfall.That translates to waiting for that one ?walk-in? who comes knocking on the agency?s door ready to hand over the crown jewels. That?s not to say that, now and then, Bond moments don?t come along. The CIA operatives who located Osama bin Laden and self-proclaimed Sept. 11, 2001, mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed can tell you all about them. And tragedies such as the recent attack in Benghazi are few and far between. Still, usually the bad guys are humdrum, hiding in some impenetrable slum or village hanging on the side of a mountain. They?re the kind of places James Bond would only drop in on for a quick shootout. In fact, most spooks will never hear a shot fired in anger. The real MI6 ? Her Majesty?s Secret Service ? isn?t all that different. British agents, too, spend their time sitting in offices rather than jumping out of airplanes or off speeding trains. And like CIA operatives, they?d all make better anthropologists than marksmen. Much of a spy?s work these days is wading through data and breaking into computers. No doubt the geeks who threw the Stuxnet monkey wrench into the Iranian nuclear works didn?t move far from their computer screens for months. The most dangerous part of the day was probably going for Chinese takeout. Another recent Hollywood release evokes this ethos much better than any Bond movie. ?Argo,? the tale of the CIA?s rescue of six Americans during the Iran hostage crisis, is grittier and grimmer and captures the air of monotonous procedure punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Yes, parts of the movie are over-the-top dramatized or pared down to the unrecognizable. But could there be a better casting than Bryan Cranston as a rumpled CIA boss in a shabby suit and cheap haircut, a fiercely pragmatic and good guy? I managed to end up on the periphery of the hostage crisis and spent a couple of days at the American Embassy in Tehran only months before the takeover. As I watched the opening sequences of ?Argo,? I did a double-take; the embassy interiors were exactly as I remembered them. So were the two rescued Americans I knew, Kathy and Joe Stafford. The pictures that flash onscreen at the end of the movie show how hard the filmmakers worked to duplicate the conditions in Iran at the time. That body hanging from a crane? It was really there. The chanting mobs in the streets? Ditto. The yellow-and-white entry-and-exit forms used at the Tehran airport? Yup. And although those embassy employees in ?Argo? really did get out, the larger story did not have such a neat ending. The Iran hostage crisis included a failed rescue attempt and ended with the United States humbled rather than triumphant. As for ?Argo?s? protagonist, Tony Mendez, I?m sure he went back to his desk to file a monster expense account. It must have taken him days. outlook at washpost.com Robert Baer is a former CIA case officer and the author of several books on the Middle East. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 10 09:21:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 10:21:25 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Ducking Google in search engines Message-ID: <5B85C93A-475E-445E-A0D7-DD2F3C25861A@infowarrior.org> Ducking Google in search engines By Michael Rosenwald http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ducking-google-in-search-engines/2012/11/09/6cf3af10-2842-11e2-bab2-eda299503684_print.html PAOLI, Pa. ? Not far from Valley Forge, around the corner from Bravo Pizza, up the road from Paoli Auto Body, there is an odd-looking office building that resembles a stone castle. An eye doctor is on the first floor. On the second floor is a search engine. The proprietor of the search engine is Gabriel Weinberg, who is 33. A few years ago, when Weinberg told his wife about his new business idea ? pitting him against more established outfits such as Google and Bing ? he admits that she briefly thought he was nuts. ?She was like, ?What are you doing???? Weinberg said. ?She thought the idea was crazy.? Her theory was hard to dispute. A start-up taking on Google in search is much like a raft taking on a cruise ship as a vacation option. But Weinberg is not delusional. With money lining his pockets from selling a start-up for $10 million, Weinberg bet there was a place in the market for a product capitalizing on users? emerging annoyances with Google ? its search results gamed by marketers; its pages cluttered with ads; every query tracked, logged and personalized to the point of creepiness. He called his little search engine project DuckDuckGo, after the children?s game Duck, Duck, Goose. (Instead of ?Just Google it,? think ?Just Duck it.?) ?My thesis for the company was, what can we do that other search engines, because they?re big, can?t do easily?? Weinberg said. ?Because what?s good for Google business is bad for Google users.? So: DuckDuckGo does not track users. It doesn?t generate search results based on a user?s previous interests, potentially filtering out relevant information. It is not cluttered with ads. In many ways, DuckDuckGo is an homage the original Google ? a pure search engine ? and its use is soaring, with searches up from 10 million a month in October 2011 to 45 million this past October. The growth has attracted attention and cash from Union Square Ventures, the venture capital firm behind Twitter. Not long ago, a headline in the search industry bible SearchEngineLand. com asked, ?Could DuckDuckGo Be The Biggest Long-Term Threat To Google?? The attention to DuckDuckGo comes as U.S. and European Union officials are stepping up scrutiny into Google?s search practices, which have been criticized for unfairly elbowing out competitors? content and results in favor of its own. Earlier this year, in a response to criticism that it was acting monopolistically, Google publicly identified DuckDuckGo as a competitor ? a move that pleased and entertained Weinberg but that also reflected a bit of hyperbole about just how close DuckDuckGo is to truly competing. Google processes billions of searches a day. DuckDuckGo processes millions. ?The reality in the United States is that we still really only have two search engines ? Google and Bing,? said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com. ?I think it?s entirely unlikely that DuckDuckGo is gonna put Google on its back and crush it.? But what if that?s not really Weinberg?s goal? He?s no Zuckerberg Weinberg was born in the District but grew up near Atlanta in a tight-knit family. His father is a physician and infectious-disease specialist. His mother makes clothes and art, and Weinberg?s first job as a hacker ? a child hacker ? was building his mom a program to process orders online. He was not a complete dork. In middle and high school, he played soccer and tennis. He was, like most teens, a bit aloof. He spent a lot of time messing around with computers, and he excelled in his science classes, particularly physics. He studied physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but didn?t want to pursue it in graduate school. As happens with college kids, one thing led to another, and eventually he wound up programming. He started his first company at MIT: a portal for teachers to put lesson plans online. He was too early. He failed. While living in Boston, he started another company after graduating: a database where users could submit their e-mail addresses and other people could pay to get in touch with them. It was called NamesDatabase. (?I?ve never been that good with names,? Weinberg says.) NamesDatabase did not fail. In 2006, he sold it to Classmates.com for $10 million. Weinberg was a millionaire in his 20s. He had recently married. This gave him and his bride options. One was: Where did they want to live? They did not want to live in a big city. They wanted to have children and send them to a diverse school system. They wanted to be sort of near the country. They settled near Paoli, about 30 miles from Philadelphia and within walking distance of Valley Forge National Park. They have two kids, ages 31 / 2 and 18 months, and next to his desk, covered with monitors, there is an area with toys so they can play while he codes. He has been in Silicon Valley just one day in the past 12 years. He never appears at big tech conferences. ?The problem I have with that kind of lifestyle is that it?s not very family-oriented,? he said. ?It?s never been my goal to be Mark Zuckerberg. My goal has always been to do something interesting and unique.? Weinberg started DuckDuckGo while his wife worked and he captained the house. The company was based at home until last year, when he raised money from Union Square. He is joined at his new office ? in the office that looks like a castle ? by several coders, one of whom brings his dog, Hex. DuckDuckGo?s office differs from flashier start-up offices in that there is no fancy Fiji bottled water. Weinberg serves Costco water. ?I?ve always been pretty cheap,? he said. ?We?re pretty practical around here.? The model: ?Stay lean? Practicality. That?s what Weinberg was after when he started DuckDuckGo. He wanted to build a search engine that people could use quickly and purely. He wanted to focus especially on the first two or three results that users saw, but he didn?t have a lot of manpower to build a search engine from scratch. Weinberg decided to use publicly available search results from Yahoo ? which is now fueled by Bing ? for the bulk of his searches and use his programming talents to curate the top few links. He wanted those links to provide answers. Going to Google and typing ?calories in a banana? will produce a page of links about bananas. Going to DuckDuckGo and typing ?calories in a banana? will produce an answer: 105. The answer comes from WolframAlphra, a computational database that Weinberg linked to DuckDuckGo. He has linked hundreds of millions of popular searches to other outside data sources, such as Wikipedia and Yelp. Searching for ?irritable bowel syndrome? on Google produces three ads as the top three links. The same search on DuckDuckGo produces three links about the disease from Wikipedia. ?If you can control the top three links, you?re actually controlling 80 to 90 percent of searches,? he said. While Weinberg?s answer system was intentional, his focus on privacy was not. It simply didn?t occur to him that he would ever need to track users. Why? Because his business model would eventually call for serving up just one or two easy-to-miss ads based on the search query, which would generate enough revenue, he thought, to build a nice little business that one day might grab 1 percent of the search market ? about five times what he?s got now. ?It?s never been my interest to maximize revenue,? he said. ?I like the Craigslist model. Stay lean. Focus on doing what you do well.? Meanwhile, privacy has bubbled up as an issue online. A recent Pew Research survey found that 65 percent of Internet users see tracking as a ?bad thing,? and 73 percent thought it was an invasion of privacy. ?People are starting to get an increasing sense that there are things going on behind the scenes that are not obvious and that they don?t like,? said Aleecia M. McDonald, a privacy researcher and fellow at Stanford Law School?s Center for Internet and Society. Weinberg quickly incorporated his site?s trackless virtues into the minimal amount of marketing he does. He paid $7,000 to put up a billboard in San Francisco that features his company?s smiling duck logo and says, ?Google tracks you. We don?t.? Clicking on the ?about? link on the site?s home page brings users to a link that says, ?We don?t track you,? and that brings users to a page that features pictures from Google searches interspersed with this narration in a sort of digital-show-and-tell: ?When you search Google, and click on a link, your search term is usually sent to that site, along with your browser & computer info, which can often uniquely identify you. That?s creepy, but who cares about some random site? Those sites usually have third-party ads, and those third-parties build profiles about you, and that?s why those ads follow you everywhere. That?s creepy too, but who cares about some herpes ads? Your profile can also be sold, and potentially show up in unwanted places, like higher prices and getting insurance.? There?s more creepiness users can scroll through before getting to the punch lines: ?That?s why we don?t send your searches to other sites. Or store any personal information at all. That?s our privacy policy in a nutshell.? Asymmetrical warfare Weinberg?s non-ambitious goals make him a particularly odd and dangerous competitor online. He can do almost everything that Google or Bing can?t because it could damage their business models, and if users figure out that they like the DuckDuckGo way better, Weinberg could damage the big boys without even really trying. It?s asymmetrical digital warfare, and his backers at Union Square Ventures say Google is vulnerable. ?We think it?s the right time and the right platform to take a crack at this market,? said Brad Burnham, managing partner of Union Square. ?At what point does the breadth of Google?s ambitions begin to diminish its focus on its core asset and open up an opportunity for a competitor? There will be an evolution in the marketplace that opens an opportunity for others. I?m not ready to cede to Google the dominant position in search until the end of time.? But Sullivan, of SearchEngineLand.com, isn?t exactly buying that theory. He agrees that Google is vulnerable, particularly with intense government scrutiny, but so far its market share has not taken a hit. He also points out that if DuckDuckGo were to become too successful, the data sources Weinberg relies on could see him as a competitor and cut him off. Also, any smart innovations that Weinberg comes up could be easily copied by Google. The search giant has already come up with an answer system somewhat similar to what Weinberg is doing. Typing ?Mozart? into Google brings up a pretty box with Mozart?s picture and key facts about his life, including a lovely portrait. Weinberg says he isn?t too worried. As search engines turn more toward answers, he thinks outside data providers will see him as less of a threat than Google. And being smaller will allow him to adapt to market changes quickly. Still, Sullivan wonders. ?It?s a really difficult road for them, because the reality is that most of Google?s users are perfectly happy to use Google,? he said. ?They have no reason to change, so they don?t.? Weinberg is plugging away. He?s working on improvements to his site?s crafty !bang searches. Typing ?Michael Rosenwald !washingtonpost? into DuckDuckGo instantly searches The Post?s search engine for Michael Rosenwald. The same principle applies if you type ?comic books !amazon? or ?meningitis !NIH.? Weinberg has a hard time believing Google would ever allow users to easily search another Web site and then leave directly from its homepage. Meanwhile, he is spending one day a week with his kids. His wife is working part-time. He is not attending any parties. ?I?d really love to slow down even more,? he said. ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 10 09:38:27 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 10:38:27 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cyber Chief Issues Call For Action -- Not More Talk; Alexander Outlines Who Does What Message-ID: AOL Defense November 8, 2012 Cyber Chief Issues Call For Action -- Not More Talk; Alexander Outlines Who Does What By Henry Kenyon and Wyatt Kash http://defense.aol.com/2012/11/08/cyber-chief-issues-call-for-action-not-more-talk-alexander-o/ WASHINGTON: The nation's top military cyber commander offered his version of how government and military agencies are likely to work together when America suffers cyber attacks, and warned that industry needs to take a greater role. "We have laid out lanes of the road," Gen. Keith Alexander, commander of Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency said, sketching them out in broad terms for an audience of security professionals yesterday at a symposium sponsored by Symantec here. The issue, he said, is "when and what does the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, U.S. Cyber Command, and NSA do to defend the country from cyber attacks." According to Alexander: The NSA would be responsible for foreign intelligence and detecting enemies overseas while Cyber Command would be called in if there was a direct cyber attack on U.S. infrastructure, Alexander said. DHS would take the lead domestically, setting standards and regulations to follow, and serving as first responder, said Alexander. Most importantly, the process must be transparent and it must be headed by a civilian agency such as the DHS. "They are the public face," he said. "This is a job for all of us, and we need to help DHS get there," he said. The FBI, meanwhile, would be responsible investigations and in particular the issue of attribution, which remains one of the thorniest aspects of responding to cyber attacks. Those roles, and the tangle of authority issues behind them, appear to be falling into place after years of discussion about the best ways to tie together all of the different civilian and military agencies to handle a crisis in cyberspace. But Alexander also stressed the importance for industry, government and even the Defense Department to take more robust steps to develop "defensible architectures" in order to secure their networks. Virtually every major corporation in America, and around the world ? "Everybody is getting hit" ? by cyber exploitations, Alexander told the audience. And he warned that the attacks are becoming "not only disruptive, but destructive." Alexander noted the difficulties the Defense Department has in protecting its own networks. The Pentagon currently has some 15,000 network enclaves, each with its own equipment and administrators. Even with an ongoing consolidation efforts, the sheer size of the organization means that there are plenty of chinks in its armor. "The DoD network is not defensible, per se," he stated soberly. "We are defending it," but the number of separate systems makes it practically impossible to keep every system up to date. Too much time has been spent talking not only about how to make computer networks safer, and what roles the government, the military and industry should play in countering the rise of cyber crime, intellectual property theft and the growing threat of attacks on the nation's infrastructure, said Alexander. If proper security measures aren't in place, a major attack, such as the one that disabled thousands of computers inside Saudi Arabia's national oil company, would not only result in large scale damage, but could inadvertently result in governments to react -- and probably do the wrong thing, he said. Because most of the country's computer and communications infrastructure is privately owned, much of the responsibility for protection lies with the commercial sector. Although some sectors such, as finance, have very good security, most companies don't follow basic security measures, either out of ignorance or uncertainty, Alexander said. This opens vast parts of the economy to attack. Alexander pointed to the SANS 20 Critical Security Controls, developed by a consortium of security organizations, including NSA, US Cert, the Defense Department and the Center for Strategic and Internal Studies. Those standards, said Alexander, should be a minimum that corporations and critical infrastructure providers should have in place, he said. Then resources could be concentrated on the gaps determined hackers look to exploit. Recent attempts to craft comprehensive legislation to require corporations to follow basic, agreed-upon cyber security measures have met resistance, most notably from the Chamber of Commerce, which is afraid of costly and intrusive federal regulations and requirements. Stymied, the White House is readying an Executive Order establishing a voluntary program that firms, such as power companies, can join to share critical information with the government in case they are attached. Congressional staffers at the conference said that politics were a major reason for holding up cybersecurity legislation and with the election over, there should be few roadblocks next year. Others have urged the Office of Management and Budget to take greater action with agencies. Alexander recently reached out to the business community and in his speech today he stressed that the public and private sectors must work together to secure the national infrastructure. There has been some progress on the government side of things. Alexander noted that there is a focus on several critical areas: people, command and control, defensible architectures and authority. Intelligence organizations like the NSA work hard to attract the best and brightest to man its cyber operations branches. The government is also putting a lot of effort into retaining and training them. One potential solution is to adopt a virtual cloud model supporting many mobile users, Alexander said. But instead of just developing these technologies in-house, the government needs to reach out to the software development community. For example, he noted that the NSA developed Accumulo, a cloud-based system with a real-time security layer. The agency then put the software out to the open source community to improve it. Alexander calls this the "Tom Sawyer" method-getting lots of other developers to help work on a problem like Mark Twain's character getting help to paint a fence. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 10 18:52:35 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 19:52:35 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Director General of BBC Resigns in Growing Scandal Message-ID: <9F874872-6EFE-43CD-921D-6FE2E98A6F9E@infowarrior.org> November 10, 2012 Director General of BBC Resigns in Growing Scandal By JOHN F. BURNS and RAVI SOMAIYA http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/world/europe/george-entwistle-resigns-as-head-of-bbc.html LONDON ? The director general of the BBC resigned late Saturday in the wake of a growing scandal surrounding news reports about prominent public figures accused of pedophilia. George Entwistle, who was appointed to head the network less than eight weeks ago, said in a statement that he had decided that ?the honorable thing to do is to step down.? His announcement followed a report on the BBC?s flagship Newsnight program that the BBC said ?wrongly implicated? a former official of Britain?s ruling Conservative Party in sexually abusing a teenage boy. Earlier Saturday, Mr. Entwistle said the report, broadcast on Nov. 2, reflected ?unacceptable journalistic standards? and never should have been broadcast. The broadcast seems to have only compounded the scandals plaguing the network since the revelation last month that a longtime BBC television host, Jimmy Savile, was suspected of having sexually abused perhaps hundreds of people. Mr. Entwistle had recently appeared before Parliament to answer questions about a different Newsnight report, about the Savile case, that was never broadcast. Late last year, Mr. Entwistle confirmed, the show had declined to air a report concerning accusations of a long history of child sexual abuse, some of it on BBC premises, against Mr. Savile, the host of wildly popular BBC programs from the 1970s to the 1990s. Mr. Savile died at 84 in 2011, and the BBC aired two glowing tribute documentaries in the following weeks. Senior BBC executives including Mr. Entwistle were faced with questions about their roles in the decision not to broadcast the segment and forced, alongside the former director general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, the incoming president and chief executive of The New York Times Company, to deny allegations of a cover-up. Mr. Savile is now the subject of a wide-ranging police inquiry. More than 300 women, and 2 men, have alleged they were abused by him. The Nov. 2 Newsnight report contained an interview with a man, Steve Messham, who said he had been taken to a local hotel from a children?s home in the North Wales town of Wrexham in the 1980s and abused more than a dozen times by a man he identified as a senior Conservative politician from the years when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in power. It fueled widespread speculation on the Internet as to the identity of the politician involved, and a former government official, Alistair McAlpine, was named online. But it emerged that he had been the victim of mistaken identity. On Friday, Mr. Messham apologized, saying the actual Mr. McAlpine bore no resemblance to the man in the photos shown to him by the police in the 1990s. The Newsnight broadcast on Friday was a post-mortem of the story, featuring a broad apology to Mr. McAlpine by the management of the program and the BBC, coupled with an announcement that all investigative reporting by Newsnight was being suspended indefinitely. As director general, Mr. Entwistle said in his statement, he was ?responsible for all content,? adding that ?that the BBC should appoint a new leader.? Lawyers for Mr. McAlpine have suggested the BBC could be among the targets for a lawsuit. On Saturday as observers and pundits dissected the unusual show and warned of a media-fueled witch-hunt for high-profile pedophiles, speculation that Mr. Entwistle could not survive mounted. He stepped out of a BBC complex, New Broadcasting House, and announced his resignation at 9 pm. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 11 08:28:36 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 09:28:36 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - 'Internet in a Suitcase' ready for field testing Message-ID: 'Internet in a Suitcase' ready for field testing Posted By John Reed Monday, November 5, 2012 - 6:38 PM http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/05/internet_in_a_suitcase_ready_for_field_testing When will rebels, dissidents, and activists be able to safely voice dissent and coordinate their activities online in the face of a government equipped with Western technology designed to snoop on all types of electronic communications? Maybe in as little as a year, according to Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the man leading the effort to field the so-called Internet in a Suitcase. Internet in a Suitcase is basically a software program aimed at giving people in conflict or disaster zones the ability to establish a secure, independent wireless network over their computers and cell phones. While the system (which, despite its name, involves neither hardware nor a suitcase) is being tested and is usable right now, Meinrath and his team of developers around the globe are holding off on releasing it to groups like the Syrian rebels until they are confident that it can resist large-scale hacking by governments. What "we're now working on is the due diligence and doing an international deployment, not in the world's hot spots but rather in a post-conflict sort of area, maybe a Libya or an Egypt or another location where the benefits would be very great, but the risk to users in case, say, one of the authentication systems or part of the security mechanisms failed, would not be great," said Meinrath during a Nov. 2 interview with Killer Apps. This will allow the system to be used in the wild and expose any potential weaknesses without exposing users to the wrath of a state security agency. "Once we [feel] comfortable that the system [is] decently secure, then and only then would we be looking at deploying it to one of the world's hot spots; so a Syria or a North Korea or a China, or a Tehran kind of scenario, that kind of work, and that's probably still a year out from now, "said Meinrath. "Our focus first and foremost is, do no harm." This means that in the not-too-distant future, rebels, dissident groups, and even disaster workers will be able to use the secure wireless network designed to resist government eavesdropping. Internet in a Suitcase received a lot of attention earlier this year when it was listed as one of several U.S. government funded projects aimed at providing wireless communications networks for people in conflict zones or places rife with government monitoring of the Internet. "It's a series of software packages that can run on things like laptops or cell phones, whatever devices happen to be available on the ground -- wifi routers, whatever -- and allows them to communicate directly and securely," said Meinrath. "Instead of having to go through existing infrastructure" that could be downed by a disaster or monitored by a government "you can create alternate infrastructure." Downloading the project's software would let a rebel or activist use their cell phone or laptop to communicate directly to other users' machines via the devices' wifi chips. Since these ad hoc wifi networks feature no central control system or administrator, they are much more difficult to monitor, according to Meinrath. "This is a completely ad hoc network, there's no dependency of any device on any other device and that eliminates a central point for command and control surveillance and monitoring," said Meinrath. "We also have authentication between each hop on the network and encryption across each hop." Basically, data being transmitted is passed through a number of different machines on a network before it reaches its destination. Each of those machines asks the data for information saying that it is trustworthy. Each time the data moves, it is encrypted at multiple levels to protect against someone eavesdropping on the airwaves over which the data moves. This type of encryption is important since "we assume that a malfeasant power would be able to compromise [a device on the network] or put up their own node into a network of this sort, " said Meinrath. These mini Internets -- that, in some places where they already exist span entire metro regions -- can host a number of locally developed apps that can do everything from video and audio file sharing to tracking where vehicles and people are. "Inside that network, things are incredibly fast, often an order of magnitude faster than most people's Internet connections, and the latency is very low, so you can do all sorts of really interesting big broadband kind of services and applications if they're housed locally" on members' computers, smart phones or even a USB stick, said Meinrath. Even better, all of that connectivity is free since it is completely independent of any Internet or telecomm provider. "The killer app that I talk with a lot of folks about is, if you have a system like this, there's no reason you would ever need to pay for local phone calls again" once you've downloaded the software allowing your device to join the wifi network, "because you're just pinging machine to machine over a local network," said Meinrath. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 11 21:04:49 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 22:04:49 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - A Carbon Microthread That Makes Contact with the Mind Message-ID: <0CAA9902-9936-49C1-93E6-373BC60A0467@infowarrior.org> Biomedicine News A Carbon Microthread That Makes Contact with the Mind An ultrathin electrode spun from a single carbon fiber can record neurons in living animals. ? By Antonio Regalado on November 11, 2012 http://www.technologyreview.com/news/507121/a-carbon-microthread-that-makes-contact-with-the-mind/ Connecting a human brain to a computer is as much a materials science problem as a biology one. What kind of interface is delicate enough not to damage nerve tissue, but resilient enough to last decades? Researchers have come up with what they call a ?stealthy neural interface? made from a single carbon fiber and coated with chemicals to make it resistant to proteins in the brain. The new microthread electrode, designed to pick up signals from a single neuron as it fires, is only about 7 micrometers in diameter. That is the thinnest yet developed, and about 100 times as thin as the conventional metal electrodes widely used to study animal brains. ?We wanted to see if we could radically change implant technology,? says Takashi Kozai, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and the lead author on the paper, published today in the journal Nature Materials. ?We want to see an electrode that lasts 70 years.? Researchers need long-lasting electrodes in order to improve brain-machine interfaces. These systems, in preliminary studies, have allowed paralyzed people to control robotic limbs or a computer mouse. By using electrodes to record the firing of individual brain cells, scientists have learned to decode these signals as representing the movement of a rat?s whiskers or a quadriplegic?s effort to move his arms (see ?Monkey Thinks Robot into Action?). ?This was a nice demonstration that these fibers could be insulated [and] coated with an effective recording surface,? says Andrew Schwartz, another brain-machine interface researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved with the work. He cautions, however, that it could be difficult to insert such fine, flexible electrodes into brain tissue, and to secure them. Schwartz notes that recordings broke down in many of the animals studied. Schwartz says it?s widely believed small fibers are ?a good thing, because they seem to be ?ignored? by the brain.? Conventional electrodes stop recording after a couple of years as scar tissue builds around them. To improve the electrode?s performance, the researchers also coated its tip with a polymer that helps it pick up an electrical signal. In experiments being carried out with human volunteers, Schwartz has used a 15-year-old technology called the Utah array, a rigid array of around 100 metal electrodes that is about the size of the ?Q? on a computer keyboard (see ?New Brain Machine Interfaces?). The latest work, done in the University of Michigan?s Neural Engineering lab, was led by Daryl Kipke, a researcher who is also CEO of a company, NeuroNexus, that sells neural recording equipment. Kipke said a patent application had been filed on the work. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 12 06:50:40 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 07:50:40 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Demonoid Is Back, BitTorrent Tracker is Now Online Message-ID: <2590413A-D430-4FDD-8853-655BD357D973@infowarrior.org> Demonoid Is Back, BitTorrent Tracker is Now Online ? Ernesto ? November 12, 2012 http://torrentfreak.com/demonoid-is-back-bittorrent-tracker-is-now-online-121112/ After three and a half months of downtime Demonoid?s tracker is now back online. The unexpected revival of the tracker is the first sign of life in weeks and suggests that the Demonoid team is working to bring the full site back online. While the index and forum remain offline, the many thousands of torrents tracked by Demonoid have been brought back to life. When Demonoid went down at the end of July the site?s admin blamed a DDoS attack. This initial attack resulted in a series of problems that were not easy to fix. However, at the time the tech admin of the site was determined to get the site back online. ?You know how it goes with Demonoid. It might take a while but it will come back,? the admin told us. This was easier said than done though, and things went from bad to worse when Demonoid?s hosting provider Colocall pulled the plug following pressure from Interpol. But despite the site?s entanglement in a criminal investigation, Demonoid?s users never gave up hope that the site would return. Today, this hope appears to be justified as the first step towards a comeback was been made. A few hours ago Demonoid?s tracker was kicked back into action. It may not come as a surprise that Demonoid is no longer with its former hosting company in the Ukraine. It appears that they have moved to Hong Kong instead, judging from the IP-address linked to the tracker. While the news of the revived tracker will delight many Demonoid users, it may take some time before the site itself returns, if that?s the plan. In 2007 and 2009 Demonoid suffered similar downtime episodes and at the time the tracker reappeared several weeks before the site. When the DDoS hit Demonoid late July the site also suffered from an ?exploit of sorts? which caused some damage. It is unclear whether this has been resolved at this point. The admin told us at the time that if the site did indeed return, it might move over to the new code they had been testing for a while. Time will tell if that?s indeed the case. TorrentFreak has asked Demonoid?s tech admin for a comment on the tracker comeback and the possible return of the website, and we?ll update this article once we receive a response. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 12 07:16:20 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 08:16:20 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?BBC_news_chief=2C_deputy_have_?= =?windows-1252?q?=91stepped_aside=92__=28resigned=29?= Message-ID: <666DA812-DF18-4007-95D1-485A2E7413AD@infowarrior.org> BBC news chief, deputy have ?stepped aside? while sex abuse scandal is examined By Karla Adam http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/bbc-news-chief-deputy-have-stepped-aside-while-sex-abuse-scandal-is-examined/2012/11/12/cecd6e7e-2cbb-11e2-9ac2-1c61452669c3_print.html LONDON ? The BBC?s news chief and her deputy ?stepped aside? on Monday, just two days after the broadcaster?s chief resigned amid tough questions over the network?s handling of an escalating child sex abuse scandal. Helen Boaden, the BBC?s head of news, and her deputy Steve Mitchell, relinquished their responsibilities following a report by the BBC into how the broadcaster came to air a program on Nov. 2 that falsely implicated a former Conservative politician in a child abuse case. In a statement on Monday, the BBC said neither Boaden nor Mitchell ?had anything at all to do? with the problematic investigation that wrongly accused the politician. Still, the broadcaster said, the news executives are ?not in a position? to oversee news coverage until a probe of the errant report is complete. ?Consideration is now being given to the extent to which individuals should be asked to account further for their actions,? the statement said. ?And if appropriate, disciplinary action will be taken.? Trustees of the global broadcaster have begun a desperate search for a new director general after George Entwistle, 50, quit after he conceded he did not know about the serious allegations that implicated the politician before the episode was broadcast. With the BBC facing its deepest crisis in years, government officials have called on the organization to find a way to regain the public?s confidence. Speaking on BBC on Sunday, Theresa May, Britain?s home secretary, said that the corporation needed to restore ?trust and credibility? to rebuild itself as a ?renowned national institution? and a ?worldwide brand.? Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, the broadcaster?s governing body, said on the BBC Sunday that Entwistle resigned ?extremely honorably? after taking responsibility for ?awful journalism? in a program by BBC?s ?Newsnight,? a prestigious current affairs program. Patten said that the broadcaster hoped to have someone new at the helm of the BBC within weeks. In the meantime, Tim Davie, 45, formerly the head of audio and music, has stepped in as acting chief. Patten also suggested the BBC, an organization with 22,000 employees that is one of the world?s largest broadcasters, needed a ?thorough, structural, radical overhaul.? The BBC has had a difficult few months. Within days of taking over from Mark Thompson, who on Monday begins work as the new chief executive of the New York Times Co., Entwistle began dealing with a scandal over the late Jimmy Savile, a former star presenter on the BBC. Last year, after looking into allegations that Savile had sexually abused children, some of them at the BBC headquarters, ?Newsnight? shelved its investigation, reportedly due to lack of evidence. ITV, a rival broadcaster, ran a damning expos? last month. Police have now said that Savile may have abused more than 300 victims. ?Newsnight? became embroiled in a new controversy after it aired an interview on Nov. 2 with Steve Messham, who asserted that he was sexually abused at a care home in North Wales. Although ?Newsnight? did not name the alleged abuser, it described him as a prominent figure in Margaret Thatcher?s government. The name of Alistair McAlpine, a former treasurer for the Conservative Party, soon appeared online. On Friday, Messham retracted his claims, saying it was a case of mistaken identity. Entwistle?s position arguably became untenable following a ferocious grilling on Saturday morning by BBC presenter John Humphrys, sometimes called the ?Rottweiler? of radio news. Entwistle, who had already been dubbed ?Incurious George? by the British press, admitted that he wasn?t aware of the serious allegations in the ?Newsnight? program before it aired. David Mellor, a former cabinet minister, said after the interview that Entwistle came across as ?so out of touch, it made me think Winnie-the-Pooh would have been more effective.? On Saturday evening, after only 54 days on the job, Entwistle resigned. The mounting criticism leveled against the BBC comes at a time of deep uncertainty for the British press as it nervously awaits a report by Brian Leveson, a judge who led an inquiry into press standards following the phone-hacking scandal last year that rocked the British establishment. Leveson?s report, expected later this month, could have a profound impact on how the print press is regulated. ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 12 07:51:04 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 08:51:04 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Meet The Patent Troll Suing Hundreds Of Companies For Encrypting Web Traffic Message-ID: Meet The Patent Troll Suing Hundreds Of Companies For Encrypting Web Traffic http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121109/02321120982/meet-patent-troll-suing-hundreds-companies-encrypting-web-traffic.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 12 10:41:41 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 11:41:41 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - A month after download law, consumers spending less on music: survey Message-ID: <29C9B6D7-E8C6-4177-AAA2-74B79BBF7B1D@infowarrior.org> http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/a-month-after-download-law-consumers-spending-less-on-music-survey A month after download law, consumers spending less on music: survey By Philip Kendall National Nov. 07, 2012 - 06:43AM JST ( 59 ) TOKYO ? On Oct 1, knowingly downloading copyrighted music and video in Japan became punishable by up to two years in prison and a 2 million yen penalty. The law was passed in June after the Japanese music industry, the second largest in the world after the U.S., reported continued financial losses, with analysts suggesting that just one in 10 downloads were legal. Since the law came into effect, there have certainly been some changes, and many Internet users have become reluctant to click that download button for fear of receiving a hefty fine, meaning that the law has been a success in a way. According to a recent statistical survey, however, since the law was passed, sales of music in Japan have continued to fall and consumers are actually showing less interest in music than ever before. Livedoor News reported that the results of a consumer survey show that more than 68% of respondents spend ?0 yen? on music in an average month; the highest the figure has been in almost 10 years. The multiple choice survey asks consumers, ?How much do you spend on music in an average month?? with answers ranging from ?0-500 yen? to ?over 10,000 yen.? ?0 yen? has risen significantly since 2004, while numbers of every other response have decreased each time since 2007. Is this the effect of the new download restrictions? Has Japan?s new draconian law actually had a negative effect on music sales? Or has the Japanese government simply noticed that music sales continue to fall and mistakenly pinpointed illegal downloads as the cause? The Internet masses had plenty to say about the results of the survey and the Japanese music industry in general: ??Bring the average price of a CD down and I might buy one?? ??I rarely actively listen to music now anyway - it?s just on in the background. For the price stores charge I wouldn?t buy an actual CD.? ??In terms of cost performance, CD albums are pretty poor.? ??This is how the Japanese music industry will die?? ??Since they got so strict about downloads I actually don?t feel like buying new music.? ??Listening via YouTube?s enough for me.? ??I used to discover a lot of new bands by downloading their albums without worrying about whether I?d like them or not. Now I can?t do that, so I hardly buy CDs.? ??I usually buy about 100 songs a year, but more often than not I get them from foreign stores. Music here is too expensive.? ??What idiot would pay those prices for a new CD!? I buy my music used now?? ??I don?t want CDs, per-se; I want music. If more tracks were available to download I?d buy more.? ??Why pay? I can sing for free?? It?s interesting to see that, although one or two people suggest that the tough new law has put them off buying new music, the vast majority of responses suggest that ? just maybe ? the reason music sales have fallen so much recently is due to a general lack of interest and that new albums are simply not particularly good value for money. It would seem that the public?s perception of the music industry has changed, and that fewer and fewer people are willing to invest their hard-earned cash in music that they simply use to fill the silence rather than sit and listen to for pleasure. Perhaps the enormous rise in illegal downloads is a sign that people are interested enough in music to take it for free, but not so in love with what?s on offer that they?d willingly pay the asking price. There seems to be a general vibe on Japanese online message boards that, with the option to download removed, few people are interested in today?s music enough to pay, and so would rather not bother entirely. But, as one Japanese Internet user states: ?Well, they?ve implemented this law now, so they?d look pretty silly removing it. Well done, guys!? Source: ?????? RocketNews24 --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 12 12:57:10 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:57:10 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - John McAfee Wanted for Murder Message-ID: (c/o AJR) Exclusive: John McAfee Wanted for Murder (Updated) Jeff Wise Antivirus pioneer John McAfee is on the run from murder charges, Belize police say. According to Marco Vidal, head of the national police force's Gang Suppression Unit, McAfee is a prime suspect in the murder of American expatriate Gregory Faull, who was gunned down Saturday night at his home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye. Details remain sketchy so far, but residents say that Faull was a well-liked builder who hailed originally from California. The two men had been at odds for some time. Last Wednesday, Faull filed a formal complaint against McAfee with the mayor's office, asserting that McAfee had fired off guns and exhibited "roguish behavior." Their final disagreement apparently involved dogs. UPDATE: Here is the official police statement: < -- > http://gizmodo.com/5959812/john-mcafee-wanted-for-murder --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 13 06:59:54 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 07:59:54 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Lieberman's renewed push for cyber-legacy Message-ID: (Thankfully he's retired come January. Here's hoping one more success at this going nowhere. --rick) Senate readies for fight over cybersecurity surveillance Sen. Joe Lieberman says his cybersecurity bill is necessary to prevent terrorists from dumping "raw sewage into our lakes." But privacy groups call it a big step toward Big Brother. < - > http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57548789-38/senate-readies-for-fight-over-cybersecurity-surveillance/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 13 07:03:30 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 08:03:30 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Facebook=92s_False_Faces_Undermi?= =?windows-1252?q?ne_Its_Credibility?= Message-ID: November 12, 2012 Facebook?s False Faces Undermine Its Credibility By SOMINI SENGUPTA http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/technology/false-posts-on-facebook-undermine-its-credibility.html SAN FRANCISCO ? The Facebook page for Gaston Memorial Hospital, in Gastonia, N.C., offers a chicken salad recipe to encourage healthy eating, tips on avoiding injuries at Zumba class, and pictures of staff members dressed up at Halloween. Typical stuff for a hospital in a small town. But in October, another Facebook page for the hospital popped up. This one posted denunciations of President Obama and what it derided as ?Obamacare.? It swiftly gathered hundreds of followers, and the anti-Obama screeds picked up ?likes.? Officials at the hospital, scrambling to get it taken down, turned to their real Facebook page for damage control. ?We apologize for any confusion,? they posted on Oct. 8, ?and appreciate the support of our followers.? The fake page came down 11 days later, as mysteriously as it had come up. The hospital says it has no clue who was behind it. Fakery is all over the Internet. Twitter, which allows pseudonyms, is rife with fake followers, and has been used to spread false rumors, as it was during Hurricane Sandy. False reviews are a constant problem on consumer Web sites. Gaston Memorial?s experience is an object lesson in the problem of fakery on Facebook. For the world?s largest social network, it is an especially acute problem, because it calls into question its basic premise. Facebook has sought to distinguish itself as a place for real identity on the Web. As the company tells its users: ?Facebook is a community where people use their real identities.? It goes on to advise: ?The name you use should be your real name as it would be listed on your credit card, student ID, etc.? Fraudulent ?likes? damage the trust of advertisers, who want clicks from real people they can sell to and whom Facebook now relies on to make money. Fakery also can ruin the credibility of search results for the social search engine that Facebook says it is building. Facebook says it has always taken the problem seriously, and recently stepped up efforts to cull fakes from the site. ?It?s pretty much one of the top priorities for the company all the time,? said Joe Sullivan, who is in charge of security at Facebook. The fakery problem on Facebook comes in many shapes. False profiles are fairly easy to create; hundreds can pop up simultaneously, sometimes with the help of robots, and often they persuade real users into friending them in a bid to spread malware. Fake Facebook friends and likes are sold on the Web like trinkets at a bazaar, directed at those who want to enhance their image. Fake coupons for meals and gadgets can appear on Facebook newsfeeds, aimed at tricking the unwitting into revealing their personal information. Somewhat more benignly, some college students use fake names in an effort to protect their Facebook content from the eyes of future employers. Mr. Sullivan declined to say what portion of the company?s now one billion plus users were fake. The company quantified the problem last June, in responding to an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. At that time, the company said that of its 855 million active users, 8.7 percent, or 83 million, were duplicates, false or ?undesirable,? for instance, because they spread spam. Mr. Sullivan said that since August, the company had put in place a new automated system to purge fake ?likes.? The company said it has 150 to 300 staff members to weed out fraud. Flags are raised if a user sends out hundreds of friend requests at a time, Mr. Sullivan explained, or likes hundreds of pages simultaneously, or most obvious of all, posts a link to a site that is known to contain a virus. Those suspected of being fakes are warned. Depending on what they do on the site, accounts can be suspended. In October, Facebook announced new partnerships with antivirus companies. Facebook users can now download free or paid antivirus coverage to guard against malware. ?It?s something we have been pretty effective at all along,? Mr. Sullivan said. Facebook?s new aggressiveness toward fake ?likes? became noticeable in September, when brand pages started seeing their fan numbers dip noticeably. An average brand page, Facebook said at the time, would lose less than 1 percent of its fans. But the thriving market for fakery makes it hard to keep up with the problem. Gaston Memorial, for instance, first detected a fake page in its name in August; three days later, it vanished. The fake page popped up again on Oct. 4, and this time filled up quickly with the loud denunciations of the Obama administration. Dallas P. Wilborn, the hospital?s public relations manager, said her office tried to leave a voice-mail message for Facebook but was disconnected; an e-mail response from the social network ruled that the fake page did not violate its terms of service. The hospital submitted more evidence, saying that the impostor was using its company logo. Eleven days later, the hospital said, Facebook found in its favor. But by then, the local newspaper, The Gaston Gazette, had written about the matter, and the fake page had disappeared. Facebook declined to comment on the incident, and pointed only to its general Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The election season seems to have increased the fakery. In Washington State, two groups fighting over a gay marriage referendum locked horns over ?likes? on Facebook. A group supportive of gay marriage pointed to the Facebook page of its rival, Preserve Marriage Washington, which collected thousands of ?likes? in a few short spurts. During those peaks, the pro-gay marriage group said, the preponderance of the ?likes? came from far-flung cities like Bangkok and Vilnius, Lithuania, whose residents would seem to have little reason to care about a state referendum in Washington. The ?likes? then fell as suddenly as they had risen. The accusations were leveled on the Web site of the gay marriage support group, Washington United for Marriage. Preserve Marriage Washington in turn denied them on its Facebook page. Facebook declined to comment on the contretemps. The research firm Gartner estimates that while less than 4 percent of all social media interactions are false today, that figure could rise to over 10 percent by 2014. Fake users and their fake posts will have to be culled aggressively if Facebook wants to expand its search function, said Shuman Ghosemajumder, a former Google engineer whose start-up, Shape Security, focuses on automated fakery on the Internet. If you are searching for a laptop computer, for instance, Facebook has to ensure that you can trust the search results that come up. ?If the whole idea behind social search is to look behind what different Facebook users are doing, then you have to make sure you don?t have fake accounts to influence that,? he said. The ubiquity of Facebook, some users say, compels them to be a little bit fake. Colleen Callahan, who is 25, is among them. She was a senior in college when she started getting slightly nervous about the pictures that a prospective employer might find on Facebook. Like the pages of most of her college friends, she said, hers had a preponderance of party pictures. ?It would be O.K. if people saw it, but I didn?t want people to interpret it differently,? she said. So Ms. Callahan tweaked her profile. She became Colleen Skisalot. (?I am a big skier,? she explained.) The name stuck. She still hasn?t changed it, though she is no longer afraid of what prospective employers might think. She has a job ? with an advertising agency in Boston, some of whose clients, it turns out, advertise on Facebook. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 13 07:38:51 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 08:38:51 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Judge Stops BitTorrent Trolls From Harassing ISP Account Holders Message-ID: <373C1CD8-648F-4BF4-9C69-3F6EECEABE12@infowarrior.org> Judge Stops BitTorrent Trolls From Harassing ISP Account Holders ? enigmax ? November 13, 2012 A judge in the United States has denied attempts by plaintiffs in three BitTorrent mass lawsuits to obtain the identities of individuals behind IP addresses. Chief United States Magistrate Judge Leo T. Sorokin said the plaintiffs had shown no interest in presenting a plan that would identify actual infringers and were instead relying on an action that ?..smacks of a bad faith effort to harass the third-party subscriber.? The three lawsuits in question, all presented by the same attorney, follow a familiar pattern. Some time ago the copyright holders in the cases ? Discount Video Center and Patrick Collins ? gathered IP addresses in BitTorrent swarms that they claim are connected to copyright infringement of their adult content. Of course, none of the plaintiffs know the identity of the alleged infringers, only the IP addresses in the swarms. This is problematic. While the IP addresses can usually be traced back to a certain ISP account linked to a bill payer, that person is not necessarily the infringer and only infringers can be held liable. Nevertheless, the plaintiffs embarked on a discovery process in order to replace the original ?John Does? on the complaint with the names of the ISP account holders, not the actual infringers. < - > http://torrentfreak.com/judge-stops-bittorrent-trolls-from-harassing-isp-account-holders-121113/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 13 08:03:17 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 09:03:17 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Levy: The Patent Problem Message-ID: <6A885646-ACC4-499E-9957-564BAB17BAA5@infowarrior.org> The Patent Problem http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/ff-steven-levy-the-patent-problem/all/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 13 09:22:39 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 10:22:39 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - When you keep suing your major supplier... Message-ID: .... you really shouldn't be surprised when they respond. Apple Facing 20 Percent Price Hike on Samsung Processors http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412011,00.asp --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 13 12:12:53 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:12:53 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - GOOG Transparency Report: Government requests on the rise Message-ID: <1F4B60F2-674B-4C95-9099-13C09F00B745@infowarrior.org> Transparency Report: Government requests on the rise November 13, 2012 We think it?s important to shine a light on how government actions could affect our users. When we first launched the Transparency Report in early 2010, there wasn?t much data out there about how governments sometimes hamper the free flow of information on the web. So we took our first step toward greater transparency by disclosing the number of government requests we received. At the time, we weren?t sure how things would look beyond that first snapshot, so we pledged to release numbers twice a year. Today we?re updating the Transparency Report with data about government requests from January to June 2012. This is the sixth time we?ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise. As you can see from the graph below, government demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report. In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts. < - > http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2012/11/transparency-report-government-requests.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 14 06:59:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 07:59:45 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Billionaire Moves To Ban BitTorrent Client Downloads Message-ID: <9CA3E33D-5455-4CB8-B076-CA83B462979D@infowarrior.org> Is Carry-On-My-Wayward-Son, Esq. involved in this guy's legal team?? -- rick Billionaire Moves To Ban BitTorrent Client Downloads http://torrentfreak.com/billionairre-moves-to-ban-bittorrent-client-downloads-121114/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 14 07:22:04 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:22:04 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Skype IDs hijackable by ANY FOOL who knows your email address Message-ID: <8C680EF7-2015-4283-9378-72253A5CEDF6@infowarrior.org> Skype IDs hijackable by ANY FOOL who knows your email address By John Leyden ? Get more from this author Posted in Security, 14th November 2012 12:25 GMT A vulnerability in Skype allows anyone to hijack its users' accounts just by knowing or guessing a punter's registered email address. The embarrassing security hole, which is trivial to abuse, was first discussed on a Russian underground forum three months ago. Last night a Russian blog publicised the bug, and details of the flaw circulated the internet. The hijack is triggered by signing up for a new Skype account using the email address of another registered user. No access to the victim's inbox is required; one just simply needs to know the address. Creating an account this way generates a warning that the email address is already associated with another user, but crucially the voice-chat website does not prevent the opening of the new account. From there it's possible to request a new password for the victim's account; a security token is sent to the attacker's Skype client, allowing the login credential to be reset. Armed with this token, it is possible to download private chat logs for the compromised account while the actual owner is locked out. In a holding statement, the Microsoft-owned VoIP biz confirmed it has disabled the password reset mechanism as a temporary measure: < -- > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/14/skype_disables_password_reset_bug/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 14 13:26:52 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:26:52 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Obama signs secret(?) directive on cybersecurity Message-ID: Obama signs secret directive to help thwart cyberattacks By Ellen Nakashima http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-signs-secret-cybersecurity-directive-allowing-more-aggressive-military-role/2012/11/14/7bf51512-2cde-11e2-9ac2-1c61452669c3_print.html President Obama has signed a secret directive that effectively enables the military to act more aggressively to thwart cyberattacks on the nation?s web of government and private computer networks. Presidential Policy Directive 20 establishes a broad and strict set of standards to guide the operations of federal agencies in confronting threats in cyberspace, according to several U.S. officials who have seen the classified document and are not authorized to speak on the record. The president signed it in mid-October. The new directive is the most extensive White House effort to date to wrestle with what constitutes an ?offensive? and a ?defensive? action in the rapidly evolving world of cyberwar and cyberterrorism, where an attack can be launched in milliseconds by unknown assailants utilizing a circuitous route. For the first time, the directive explicitly makes a distinction between network defense and cyber operations to guide officials charged with making often rapid decisions when confronted with threats. The policy also lays out a process to vet any operations outside government and defense networks and ensure that U.S. citizens? and foreign allies? data and privacy are protected and international laws of war are followed. ?What it does, really for the first time, is it explicitly talks about how we will use cyber operations,? a senior administration official said. ?Network defense is what you?re doing inside your own networks. .?.?. Cyber operations is stuff outside that space, and recognizing that you could be doing that for what might be called defensive purposes.? The new policy, which updates a 2004 presidential directive, is part of a wider push by the Obama administration to confront the growing cyberthreat, which officials warn may overtake terrorism as the most significant threat to the country. ?It should enable people to arrive at more effective decisions,? said a second senior administration official. ?In that sense, it?s an enormous step forward.? Legislation to protect private networks from attack by setting security standards and promoting voluntary information sharing is pending on the Hill, and the White House is also is drafting an executive order along those lines. James A. Lewis, a cyber expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, welcomed the new directive as bolstering the government?s capability to defend against ?destructive scenarios,? such as those that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta recently outlined in a speech on cybersecurity. ?It?s clear we?re not going to be a bystander anymore to cyber attacks,? said Lewis. The Pentagon now is expected to finalize new rules of engagement that would guide commanders when and how the military can go outside government networks to prevent a cyberattack that could cause significant destruction or casualties. The presidential directive attempts to settle years of debate among government agencies about who is authorized to take what sorts of actions in cyberspace and with what level of permission. An example of a defensive cyber operation that once would have been considered an offensive act, for instance, might include stopping a computer attack by severing the link between an overseas server and a targeted domestic computer. ?That was seen as something that was aggressive,? said one defense official, ?particularly by some at the State Department? who often are wary of actions that might infringe on other countries? sovereignty and undermine U.S. advocacy of Internet freedom. Intelligence agencies are wary of operations that may inhibit intelligence collection. The Pentagon, meanwhile, has defined cyberspace as another military domain ? joining air, land, sea and space ? and wants flexibility to operate in that realm. But cyber operations, the officials stressed, are not an isolated tool. Rather, they are an integral part of the coordinated national security effort that includes diplomatic, economic and traditional military measures. Offensive cyber actions, outside of war zones, would still require a higher level of scrutiny from relevant agencies and generally White House permission. The effort to grapple with these questions dates back to the 1990s but has intensified as cyber tools and weapons become ever more sophisticated. One of those tools was Stuxnet, a computer virus jointly developed by the United States and Israel that damaged nearly 1,000 centrifuges at an Iranian nuclear plant in 2010. If an adversary should turn a similar virus against U.S. computer systems, whether public or private, the government needs to be ready to preempt or respond, officials have said. Since the creation of the military?s Cyber Command in 2010, its head, Gen. Keith Alexander, has forcefully argued that his hundreds of cyberwarriors at Fort Meade should be given greater latitude to stop or prevent attacks. One such cyber-ops tactic could be tricking malware by sending it ?sleep? commands. Alexander has put a particularly high priority on defending the nation?s private sector computer systems that control critical functions such as making trains run, electricity flow and water pure. But repeated efforts by officials to ensure Cyber Command has that flexibility have met with resistance ? sometimes from within the Pentagon itself ? over concerns that enabling the military to move too freely outside its own networks could pose unacceptable risks. A major concern has always been concern that an action may have a harmful unintended consequence, such as shutting down a hospital generator. Officials say they expect the directive will spur more nuanced debate over how to respond to cyber incidents. That might include a cyberattack that wipes data from tens of thousands of computers in a major industrial company, disrupting business operations, but doesn?t blow up a plant or kill people. The new policy makes clear that the government will turn first to law enforcement or traditional network defense techniques before asking military cyber units for help or pursuing other alternatives, senior administration officials said. ?We always want to be taking the least action necessary to mitigate the threat,? said one of the senior administration officials. ?We don?t want to have more consequences than we intend.? ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 14 13:32:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:32:45 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Azerbaijan is the wrong place to hold a forum on internet freedom Message-ID: Azerbaijan is the wrong place to hold a forum on internet freedom The government has been vicious in its attacks on journalists and bloggers. The UN must choose more carefully next time ? Ian Brown ? guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 November 2012 13.00 EST http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/13/azerbaijan-forum-internet-freedom-un Freedom of expression has been at the top of the agenda this week in Baku at the internet governance forum (IGF), an annual United Nations "multi-stakeholder" meeting. The IGF has previously been held in less democratic states, such as pre-Arab-spring Egypt, and was set up by the UN world summit on the information society, held in Tunisia (and Geneva). But the Azerbaijan government has been particularly vicious in its attacks on journalists and bloggers. Eynulla Fatullayev, the editor of the Azerbaijan Daily, was jailed in 2007 for criticising the government ? after suffering beatings and the kidnapping of his father. Fatullayev recently won Unesco's 2012 world press freedom prize. In 2011, the government threatened activist Elnur Majidli with 12 years in jail for "inciting hatred" (for calling for public protests via Facebook). Human rights activist and blogger Emin Milli, previously attacked and jailed for "hooliganism", has written a widely publicised letter this week to President Ilham Aliyev, warning that "the internet is not free in Azerbaijan and it is definitely not free from fear". The visiting European commissioner, Neelie Kroes, gave a powerful speech stating "these repressive restrictions on media freedom, of whatever kind, are unacceptable ? Members of the Council of Europe, including Azerbaijan, should follow the standards they have committed to. I want to pass this message to the president of Azerbaijan." Supporters of Azerbaijan's hosting of the Eurovision song contest this year claimed it would shine a spotlight on the regime's human rights abuses. Unfortunately, this did not seem to happen to any significant extent. Will the presence of government officials, senior internet industry figures, and civil society campaigners in Baku this week do a better job of improving human rights? The EU's aid and investment to the country might be a more concrete way for the European commission and member states to put further pressure on Aliyev's regime. Perhaps the UN should make sure 2012 is the last year that an event with such significance for freedom of expression is held in a country that has such a questionable commitment to this fundamental right. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 14 19:59:15 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 20:59:15 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Senate votes down Cybersecurity Act a second time Message-ID: <57380989-E997-430B-88FD-198AC58BB5C4@infowarrior.org> *stunned* Senate votes down Cybersecurity Act a second time By Jennifer Martinez and Ramsey Cox - 11/14/12 06:12 PM ET http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/268053-senate-rejects-cybersecurity-act-for-second-time Cybersecurity legislation failed in Senate for a second time on Wednesday despite calls from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other national security officials for Congress to pass a bill. A procedural motion to move forward on the Cybersecurity Act, introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), was rejected in a 51-47 vote. Wednesday's vote marks a bitter end for the cybersecurity bill and kicks any legislative action on the matter on to next year. This is the closest the Senate has gotten to passing major cybersecurity legislation in recent years, and members from both parties had negotiated for months to try to reach a compromise on the bill. Senate Republicans blocked the bill in August over concerns that it would saddle industry with burdensome new regulations. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce had lobbied fiercely against the measure over the past year. "The bill that was and is most important to the intelligence community was just killed, and that's cybersecurity," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said following the vote. "Whatever we do for this bill, it's not enough for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. So everyone should understand cybersecurity is dead for this Congress. What an unfortunate thing, but that's the way it is." The Cybersecurity Act would have encouraged companies that operate critical infrastructure ? such as water plants, electric companies and transportation networks ? to take steps to boost the security of their computer systems and networks. It also aimed to make it easier for industry to share information about cyber threats spotted on their networks with the government. President Obama urged the Senate to pass the bill in a Wall Street Journal op-ed prior to the August vote, arguing that it "would be the height of irresponsibility to leave a digital backdoor wide open to our cyber adversaries." Wednesday's vote opens the door for the White House to issue the executive order it started crafting after the Senate bill failed in August. Prior to the vote, Lieberman warned that the president would be compelled to issue the executive order if the Senate voted against moving the bill forward. But he noted that the cyber order would not accomplish everything that legislation could, including liability protection that would safeguard companies from legal action if they're hit by a cyberattack. "I'm confident that if we fail to act, the president will act," Lieberman said. "I think he has a responsibility to act because if we don?t we?re leaving the American people extremely vulnerable to a cybersecurity attack.? Earlier in the day, Reid issued a warning about the cyberthreat facing the United States. "National security experts say there is no issue facing this nation more pressing than the threat of a cyber attack on our critical infrastructure," Reid said. "Terrorists bent on harming the United States could all too easily devastate our power grid, our banking system or our nuclear plants." Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a co-sponsor of the cybersecurity bill, said she has received intelligence warning that cyberattacks are "increasing in number, sophistication and damage." "This is a wakeup call and we ignore it at our own peril," she cautioned. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he believed the cybersecurity bill could move forward if Reid allowed around five amendments. Following the vote, Reid argued that he would have allowed a finite list of germane amendments from Republicans, including the five that they were seeking. Republicans and Democrats failed to see eye to eye on how to beef up the nation's cybersecurity defenses, even after Lieberman and the co-sponsors of the Cybersecurity Act introduced a revised version of their bill to win more GOP votes. McCain, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and a group of Senate Republicans had introduced a rival cybersecurity bill this spring, the Secure It Act, that focused on improving information-sharing about cyberthreats, but it did not include measures aimed at creating security standards for critical infrastructure. The GOP senators contended that improving information-sharing was the best approach because it would not tack additional regulations onto industry. The co-sponsors of the competing bills had worked furiously this summer to try to find a compromise, to no avail. Before the vote, Republicans senators argued that Reid was playing politics by trying to jam the sweeping cybersecurity bill through the Senate without holding an open amendment process. They also argued that industry still held legitimate concerns with the measure and it would not adequately address the rising cyberthreat. "Frankly, the underlying bill is not supported by the business community for all the right reasons," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.). "They're the ones that are going to be called to comply with the mandates and the regulations, and frankly it's just not going to give them the protection they need against cyberattacks." Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) pushed back against Democrats' claims that Republicans were threatening national security by not voting in favor of moving the bill forward, saying "disagreements over how to address policy matters shouldn't evolve into accusations about a member's willingness to tackle the issue." --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 14 20:00:10 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:00:10 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Senate_Defeats_Dangerously_Vague?= =?windows-1252?q?_Cybersecurity_Act=97Again?= Message-ID: <0DDB5918-0CE6-4603-AB93-EB8CBCB7D51C@infowarrior.org> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/senate-defeats-dangerously-vague-cybersecurity-act-again November 14, 2012 | By Mark M. Jaycox and Rainey Reitman Senate Defeats Dangerously Vague Cybersecurity Act?Again With your help last summer we helped defeat Senator Lieberman's Cybersecurity Act. But for some reason, Senate Majority Leader Reid decided to call for another vote on the bill in the lame duck session today. After an hour's debate, the full Senate voted 51 to 47 against cloture for the Cybersecurity Act, meaning it can't move forward for a vote. We've spent months going over the various faults in the bill?and of the faults in the other proposed Cybersecurity bills. We were particularly concerned because the Cybersecurity Act included overly vague definitions for key terms like "cybersecurity threat," "cybersecurity threat indicator," and even "countermeasures." EFF believes in strong privacy and security for networked devices?that's why we champion technologies like Tor and HTTPS Everywhere. But we believe that legislation in the arena of cybersecurity should not provide broad, vague powers that allow companies to skirt existing privacy law. "We're looking forward to having a more informed debate about cybersecurity next session, and hope Congress will bear in mind the serious privacy interests of individual Internet users. We don't need to water down existing privacy law to address the challenges of cybersecurity," said Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. Today, the Senate voted correctly by not proceeding on the Cybersecurity Act. After pushing the same bill on two different occasions, Senator Reid finally declared: "All cybersecurity bills dead for this Congress." That's in large part thanks to the outcry of EFF supporters who spoke out against the bill. Thank you for your support. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 14 21:55:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:55:45 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Alzheimer=92s_Tied_to_Mutation_H?= =?windows-1252?q?arming_Immune_Response?= Message-ID: <912A441D-DD97-4FD9-A895-CE9F796B8F0C@infowarrior.org> November 14, 2012 Alzheimer?s Tied to Mutation Harming Immune Response http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/health/gene-mutation-that-hobbles-immune-response-is-linked-to-alzheimers.html By GINA KOLATA Alzheimer?s researchers and drug companies have for years concentrated on one hallmark of Alzheimer?s disease: the production of toxic shards of a protein that accumulate in plaques on the brain. But now, in a surprising coincidence, two groups of researchers working from entirely different starting points have converged on a mutated gene involved in another aspect of Alzheimer?s disease: the immune system?s role in protecting against the disease. The mutation is suspected of interfering with the brain?s ability to prevent the buildup of plaque. The discovery, researchers say, provides clues to how and why the disease progresses. The gene, known as TREM2, is only the second found to increase Alzheimer?s risk substantially in older people. ?It points very specifically to a potential metabolic pathway that you could intervene in to change the course of Alzheimer?s disease,? said William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer?s Association. Much work remains to be done before scientists understand precisely how the newly discovered gene mutation leads to Alzheimer?s, but already there are some indications from studies in mice. When the gene is not mutated, white blood cells in the brain spring into action, gobbling up and eliminating the plaque-forming toxic protein, beta amyloid. As a result, Alzheimer?s can be staved off or averted. But when the gene is mutated, the brain?s white blood cells are hobbled, making them less effective in their attack on beta amyloid. People with the mutated gene have a threefold to fivefold increase in the likelihood of developing Alzheimer?s disease in old age. The intact gene, says John Hardy of University College London, ?is a safety net.? And those with the mutation, he adds, ?are living life without a safety net.? Dr. Hardy is lead author of one of the papers. The discovery also suggests that a new type of drug could be developed to enhance the gene?s activity, perhaps allowing the brain?s white blood cells to do their work. ?The field is in desperate need of new therapeutic agents,? said Alison Goate, an Alzheimer?s researcher at Washington University in St. Louis who contributed data to Dr. Hardy?s study. ?This will give us an alternative approach.? The fact that two research groups converged on the same gene gives experts confidence in the findings. Both studies were published online Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. ?Together they make a good case that this really is an Alzheimer?s gene,? said Gerard Schellenberg, an Alzheimer?s researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the work. The other gene found to raise the odds that a person will get Alzheimer?s, ApoE4, is much more common and confers about the same risk as the mutated version of TREM2. But it is still not clear why ApoE4, discovered in 1993, makes Alzheimer?s more likely. Because the mutations in the newly discovered gene are rare, occurring in no more than 2 percent of Alzheimer?s patients, it makes no sense to start screening people for them, Dr. Thies said. Instead, the discovery provides new clues to the workings of Alzheimer?s disease. To find the gene, a research group led by Dr. Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics of Iceland started with a simple question. ?We asked, ?Can we find anything in the genome that separates those who are admitted to nursing homes before the age of 75 and those who are still living at home at 85?? ? he said. Scientists searched the genomes of 2,261 Icelanders and zeroed in on TREM2. Mutations in that gene were more common among people with Alzheimer?s, as well as those who did not have an Alzheimer?s diagnosis but who had memory problems and might be on their way to developing Alzheimer?s. The researchers confirmed their results by looking for the gene in people with and without Alzheimer?s in populations studied at Emory University, as well as in Norway, the Netherlands and Germany. The TREM2 connection surprised Dr. Stefansson. Although researchers have long noticed that the brain is inflamed in Alzheimer?s patients, he had dismissed inflammation as a major factor in the disease. ?I was of the opinion that the immune system would play a fairly small role, if any, in Alzheimer?s disease,? Dr. Stefansson said. ?This discovery cured me of that bias.? Meanwhile, Dr. Hardy and Rita Guerreiro at University College London, along with Andrew Singleton at the National Institute on Aging, were intrigued by a strange, rare disease. Only a few patients had been identified, but their symptoms were striking. They had crumbling bones and an unusual dementia, sclerosing leukoencephalopathy. ?It?s a weird disease,? Dr. Hardy said. He saw one patient in her 30s whose brain disease manifested in sexually inappropriate behavior. Also, her bones kept breaking. The disease was caused by mutations that disabled both the copy of TREM2 that she had inherited from her mother and the one from her father. Eventually the researchers searched for people who had a mutation in just one copy of TREM2. To their surprise, it turned out that these people were likely to have Alzheimer?s disease. They then asked researchers around the world who had genetic data from people with and without Alzheimer?s to look for TREM2 mutations. ?Sure enough, they had good evidence,? Dr. Hardy said. The mutations occurred in one-half of 1 percent of the general population but in 1 to 2 percent of patients with Alzheimer?s disease. ?That is a big effect,? Dr. Hardy said. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 15 07:09:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:09:45 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Wyden Puts Hold On Intelligence Authorization Act Over Free Speech Concerns Message-ID: Senator Wyden Puts Hold On Intelligence Authorization Act Over Free Speech Concerns from the good-for-him dept Once again, Senator Ron Wyden seems like one of a very small number of people in Congress actually willing to stand up against bad bills that are pushed forward with fear mongering. Earlier this year, we noted just how absolutely ridiculous it was that Senator Dianne Feinstein seemed a hell of a lot more concerned about punishing whoever blew the whistle on questionable US activities like Stuxnet, then about the questionable activities themselves. In response, she put forth some legislation that was designed to punish government whistleblowers, rather than understand why they were blowing the whistle. This bill got dumped into a key appropriations bill, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. In other words, Feinstein basically said that if we are to fund intelligence activities we have to crack down on whistleblowers. Shameful stuff. Thankfully, Senator Wyden has now put a hold on the bill, noting his concern about how it would impact free speech issues, especially as it pertained to the media reporting on national security: < -- > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121114/16415821049/senator-wyden-puts-hold-intelligence-authorization-act-over-free-speech-concerns.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 15 07:20:17 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:20:17 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Terrorist Risk of Food Trucks Message-ID: <56A3E742-F27C-42D5-8526-EDBB80DEE7D3@infowarrior.org> (The first line of Bruce's post should preface nearly anything released/reported/announced by DHS to *anyone*. --rick) The Terrorist Risk of Food Trucks bruce_schneier http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/11/the_terrorist_r.html This is idiotic: Public Intelligence recently posted a Powerpoint presentation from the NYC fire department (FDNY) discussing the unique safety issues mobile food trucks present. Along with some actual concerns (many food trucks use propane and/or gasoline-powered generators to cook; some *gasp* aren't properly licensed food vendors), the presenter decided to toss in some DHS speculation on yet another way terrorists might be killing us in the near future. The rest of the article explains why the DHS believes we should be terrified of food trucks. And then it says: "The DHS' unfocused "terrorvision" continues to see a threat in every situation and the department seems to be busying itself crafting a response to every conceivable "threat." The problem with this "method" is that it turns any slight variation of "everyday activity" into something suspicious. The number of "terrorist implications" grows exponentially while the number of solutions remains the same. This Powerpoint is another example of good, old-fashioned fear mongering, utilizing public servants to spread the message." Hear hear. Someone needs to do something; the DHS is out of control. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 15 07:33:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:33:25 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Debate Over License Plate Readers Grows In Maryland Message-ID: <26E09771-E178-46DC-929C-299FBF857388@infowarrior.org> Debate Over License Plate Readers Grows In Maryland November 14, 2012 8:04 PM http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/11/14/debate-over-license-plate-readers-grows-in-maryland/ BALTIMORE (WJZ) ? A wild chase down Interstate 95 ends with a crash. Police got on the trail of the stolen car using controversial technology increasing across Maryland. Adam May has an exclusive look at the police tool in action. These days cameras are everywhere, but some do more than watch?they automatically run criminal records. At the height of Tuesday?s rush hour, police chased a New Jersey car thief?alerted when he raced through the Fort McHenry Tunnel. ?Set off an automatic sensor that detected the plates were on a stolen vehicle,? said Captain Jeff Long, Sky Eye Chopper 13. Those sensors are called automatic license plate readers, or LPR?s. WJZ got an exclusive look at how they work. ?We?re looking for this Mercedes,? said Lt. Hartman. Specially assigned police officers have LPR?s mounted on their cars. ?Looks like one of our guys got a hit,? said Det. Ralph. Detective Brian Ralph can scan up to 3,000 tag numbers a shift, searching for stolen vehicles and violent criminals. ?So if someone is looking for a particular vehicle in reference to a robbery or murder or something like that, we can put that tag number into the system and it will hit if the vehicle happens to drive by,? said Lt. Craig Hartman, Regional Auto Theft Task Force. More than 320 LPR?s are in use across Maryland. Information about every scanned license plate?even non-criminal?is stored at the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center. That concerns the ACLU. ?As the data increases over time you get a more detailed picture of Marylanders? movements. And that is information the government has no business knowing absent some particular law enforcement need,? said David Rohak, ACLU. But police say storing information could help in future cases, and the LPR?s are way more effective than the naked eye. ?It?s really hard to see the tags for what we do every day and this LPR doesn?t miss a thing,? said Det. Ralph. Tracking the moves of tens of thousands of Marylanders every single day. Police are trying to get funding for more plate readers, but the debate over storing the information remains unresolved. Last month, a New York man?wanted for murder?was caught by a license plate reader on Interstate 95. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 15 12:52:06 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 13:52:06 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Kirk said to be leaving job as U.S. Trade Rep Message-ID: <64CD8C2B-B7C9-43E2-BC45-BE10A8AAF784@infowarrior.org> Kirk said to be leaving job as U.S. Trade Rep http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/post/kirk-said-to-be-leaving-job-as-us-trade-rep/2012/11/15/31fb1464-2f3d-11e2-a30e-5ca76eeec857_blog.html How much do you want to bet ousted Rep Howard Berman (R-CA) aka the "Congressman of Hollywood" will be given the gig? After all, he loved SOPA....and Kirk was Hollywood's man on ACTA and TPP. Replace one maximalist idiot with another. --rick --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 15 14:12:37 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:12:37 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - BSA mourns death of US cyber snooping bill Message-ID: Cry me a river. --rick BSA mourns death of US cyber snooping bill Business Software Alliance slams lame duck vote By Dave Neal Thu Nov 15 2012, 13:54 http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2225197/bsa-mourns-death-of-us-cyber-snooping-bill SOFTWARE LICENSING ENFORCER the Business Software Alliance (BSA) is reeling and clutching its pearls in the realisation that the US Congress has dropped the snooper friendly Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). CISPA was voted down in the US Senate on Wednesday and is now all but dead, at least for this year. It has many opponents, but the BSA was one of its corporate supporters and is rather upset. "It is disappointing that senators haven't yet been able to reach an agreement on cybersecurity legislation - but stalemate doesn't make the issue go away," said BSA president and CEO Robert Holleyman in a statement. "There is no getting around the fact that we need to bolster America's cybersecurity capabilities. We urge both parties to put this issue at the top of the agenda in the next Congress." Holleyman's press statement came out under the BSA headline, "After Failed Lame Duck Vote, BSA Urges Renewed Focus on Cybersecurity in 2013". These sentiments were echoed in the US Congress. Senate majority leader Harry Reid lamented the rejection of CISPA, saying that not approving the bill leaves the US wide open to cyber attack. "National security experts say there is no issue facing this nation more pressing than the threat of a cyber attack on our critical infrastructure. Terrorists bent on harming the United States could all too easily devastate our power grid, our banking system or our nuclear plants," he said, playing on largely imaginary internet security fears. "A bipartisan group of Senators has worked for three years to craft this legislation. Yet Republicans filibustered this worthy measure in July. It's imperative that Democrats and Republicans work together to address what national security experts have called 'the most serious challenge to our national security since the onset of the nuclear age sixty years ago'." While the senator said that CISPA was "crafted", that view is not shared by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It described CISPA as "dangerously vague" and working in favour of corporate interests to the detriment of individual rights. "We're looking forward to having a more informed debate about cybersecurity next session, and hope Congress will bear in mind the serious privacy interests of individual Internet users. We don't need to water down existing privacy law to address the challenges of cybersecurity," said EFF senior staff attorney Lee Tien. ? The Inquirer (http://s.tt/1tzQW) --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 15 16:30:56 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:30:56 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - MPAA / RIAA Ponder Suing Persistent BitTorrent Pirates Message-ID: <0A6304A5-2431-41DB-8160-104664D0B6F5@infowarrior.org> Good luck with that....--rick MPAA / RIAA Ponder Suing Persistent BitTorrent Pirates ? Ernesto ? June 18, 2012 In the coming months U.S. Internet providers will begin to warn and punish copyright infringers. Since the ?six strikes? plan was announced, a lot has been said about the temporary disconnections and throttled connections subscribers might be subjected to. But there is an even scarier outlook for persistent BitTorrent pirates, as the MPAA and RIAA have negotiated the right to demand the details of repeat infringers should they decide to take legal action.... < -- > https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-riaa-ponder-suing-persistent-bittorrent-pirates-120618/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 15 17:02:21 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:02:21 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: I'm trying to be good... Message-ID: <6CDF8873-2944-44C8-B166-AD852F9654F1@infowarrior.org> ... but some political idiocy just deserves pointing out. And yes, I realise that members of both dominant political parties have equally idiotic moments on any given issue. John McCain, Rand Paul Skip Benghazi Hearing to Complain About Benghazi on TV http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/john-mccain-rand-paul-skip-benghazi-hearing McCain?s claims about Susan Rice?s comments on the Libya attack[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/mccains-claims-about-susan-rices-comments-on-the-libya-attack/2012/11/15/e6590650-2eb1-11e2-beb2-4b4cf5087636_print.html [1] No, I don't want to see Susan Rice promoted, either. On that, I agree with Senator Everwar. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 15 17:03:41 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:03:41 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Great Campaign Polling Conspiracy Message-ID: <750D56E2-AF98-4CC4-A4F3-F50EACBD78EE@infowarrior.org> The Great Campaign Polling Conspiracy By Michael Kinsley - Nov 14, 2012 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-11-14/the-great-campaign-polling-conspiracy.html It?s a small matter, I know, compared with the historic issues now obsessing the commentariat, such as the fiscal cliff and how many mistresses and admirers former Army General David Petraeus could keep in the air simultaneously. But before we say goodbye to the Campaign 2012, I would just like to point out that the entire drama of a close election, as played out in the news media on Election Day and evening, is basically fake. Like broadcasters (including a young Ronald Reagan) presenting baseball games in the early days of radio, the television networks know who?s going to win the game and more or less how it?s going to play out, inning-by-inning. They know this primarily because of research conducted by the National Election Exit Poll on Election Day. And yet, in a perverse exercise of high-mindedness, the major news organizations have all agreed not to report the results of exit polls until after the polls have closed in a particular state. It has evolved into a semireligious ritual. At 11 a.m. on Election Day, representatives of ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC and the Associated Press entered a ?quarantine room? with no telephones or Internet access. There, they sat and analyzed the exit polls until 5 p.m., when they released what they had to their employers, who got the data directly for the rest of the evening. No Predictions Exit-poll data is supposed to be used for demographic insights only -- not to predict the result. You can say, ?Republicans are doing well tonight among upper-middle-class white men aged 35 to 45, wearing a red sweater vest and answering to the name of ?Champ.?? But you can?t say, ?Chances are better than even that Obama?s got it in the bag.? You can learn a lot from tiny samplings, comparing them with past results. By 6 on election night, CNN undoubtedly knew that President Barack Obama was going to win re-election. And they pretty much knew the Electoral College count. Or at least they knew it reliably enough to want to deny this information to their viewers. Thus there was this stilted dialogue, airing sometime between 6 and 7 p.m. on CNN, between John King and Wolf Blitzer about Vigo County, Indiana: ?One little ad-lib here, if I can,? said King. ?We?re starting to get results in Kentucky and in Indiana. Tiny results, 2 percent of the vote. I want to show you a little place in Indiana. Vigo County, 1.7 percent of the population. ... Only twice -- only twice since 1888 has Vigo County been wrong in picking a president. Why? Good question. But since the 1950s, this county has been right. It?s filling in blue at the moment. Look at that. That?s only 17 percent of the vote. We?ll see how it goes tonight, but you watch it blue now. If it?s blue at the end of the night, we?ll see if Vigo County?s streak continues.? King seemed to be saying that if Vigo County stayed blue (that is, voted Democratic), it would continue its streak of picking the winner. That would seem to imply that Democrats were going to carry the day. King arguably saved himself at the end with a ?we?ll see how it goes tonight,? but he sure sounded like someone assuming a Democratic victory at a time when he and everyone else were telling viewers that the race was too close to call. (For those of you scoring at home: Vigo County went for Obama by 339 votes.) Blitzer then said thoughtfully: ?Could be a bellwether, as they say; could be an indication of what?s going on. We?re going to watch all these states, all these counties, all these polling precincts very closely.? Then he tossed to Anderson Cooper, who added, ?Who knew?? The answer is that all three of them knew, or someone in the studio with them knew. But they were forbidden to say. When I worked at CNN, I was even forbidden to say that I was forbidden to say. No Reporting This is not merely an American insanity. In some European countries, reporting the results of exit polls (or sometimes of polls taken close to the election) is actually a criminal offense. The reason is that reporting the result while the polls are still open somehow devalues the votes of people who haven?t yet voted. This might discourage turnout, and even change the result. Is this a valid concern? No. Now children, listen closely: Your vote is just as valuable -- or, if you prefer, just as worthless -- no matter when you exercise your franchise. Get over it. No national election (not even the 2000 presidential election) is ever decided by one vote. If it ever were, every voter at all times of day would be equally implicated. Exit polls can?t predict the outcome of a contest that close anyway. If it bothers you that the result has been decided before you cast your vote, that unfortunately will still be true whether the exit polls -- and the conclusions experts draw from them -- are made public or not. Yes, the polls and experts can get it wrong. But the concern here is that they usually get it right. How can it devalue your vote to give you information you wouldn?t otherwise have? What unfair advantage does an early- morning voter (or someone who voted weeks ago, absentee) get from his or her lack of information? Yes, voting is a good thing and should be encouraged. But people shouldn?t be tricked into voting, which is what this artificial suppression of information amounts to. And yes, it?s possible that some people -- rationally or otherwise -- will decide not to vote if the winner has already been announced. But there is no reason to think that one candidate?s supporters are more likely than another?s to drop out, so that this could change the result. It?s easy to see why the TV networks don?t mind putting on a play if the suspense keeps people watching past 6:30 p.m. Especially when they get civic brownie points for doing so. And why is this so important? Maybe it?s not so very important -- a writer needs some hobbyhorses, and this is one of mine. It amazes me that, with the encouragement of the government, not to mention an endless string of foundations and commissions and pompous individuals, some of the biggest players in the media business conspire to present a view of the world that they know to be false. It?s as if the government staged the whole walk-on-the-Moon thing in a warehouse somewhere, or as if Obama was born in Kenya. Except this one is for real. (Michael Kinsley is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.) --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 06:25:04 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:25:04 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Maker of Airport Body Scanners Suspected of Falsifying Software Tests Message-ID: Maker of Airport Body Scanners Suspected of Falsifying Software Tests ? By Kim Zetter ? 11.15.12 ? 3:44 PM http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/11/rapiscan-fraudulent-tests/ A company that supplies controversial passenger-screening machines for U.S. airports is under suspicion for possibly manipulating tests on privacy software designed to prevent the machines from producing graphic body images. The Transportation Security Administration sent a letter Nov. 9 to the parent company of Rapiscan, the maker of backscatter machines, requesting information about the testing of the software to determine if there was malfeasance. The machines use backscatter radiation to detect objects concealed beneath clothes. But after complaints from privacy groups and others that the machines produce graphic images of passenger?s bodies, the government ordered the machines be outfitted with privacy software by June to replace the invasive images with more generic ones that simply show a chalk-like outline of a body. While L-3 Communications, the maker of another brand of scanners used in airports, successfully developed the privacy software for its machines, Rapiscan was having problems with its software, according to Bloomberg. The testing of the software, done earlier this year to determine if it met privacy requirements, was conducted by a third party, so it?s not immediately clear how Rapiscan might have manipulated the tests. At a hearing on Thursday before the House Transportation Security Subcommittee, Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Alabama) asked John Sanders, assistant administrator for TSA?s office of security capabilities, this very question. Sanders replied obliquely that ?before [a test] gets underway, we might believe the system is on one configuration when it?s not in that configuration.? Sanders said that TSA has no evidence yet that the vendor did manipulate the tests, but is looking into the matter. ?At this point we don?t know what has occurred,? Sanders said. ?We are in contact with the vendor. We are working with them to get to the bottom of it.? The vendor has denied any wrongdoing. ?At no time did Rapiscan falsify test data or any information related to this technology or the test,? Peter Kant, an executive vice president with the company, told Bloomberg. DHS has spent about $90 million replacing traditional magnetometers with the controversial body-scanning machines. Rapiscan has a contract to produce 500 machines for the TSA at a cost of about $180,000 each. The company could be fined and barred from participating in government contracts, or employees could face prison terms if it is found to have defrauded the government. It?s not the first time Rapiscan has been at the center of testing problems with the machines. The company previously had problems with a ?calculation error? in safety tests that showed the machines were emitting radiation levels that were 10 times higher than expected. It turned out the company?s technicians weren?t following protocol in conducting the tests. They were supposed to test radiation levels of machines in the field 10 times in a row, and then divide the results by 10 to produce an average radiation measurement. But the testers failed to divide the results by 10, producing false numbers. A recent Wired.com three-part series examined the constitutionality, effectiveness and health concerns of the scanners, which were never tested on mice or other biological equivalents to determine the scanners? health risks to humans. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 06:27:36 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:27:36 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - US Lawmakers Consider Tightening E-Mail Privacy Message-ID: <60979DD5-0382-49B5-8029-413D96C72C68@infowarrior.org> (Interesting how this kind of stuff gets 'renewed interest' very quickly when a popular government figure is involved. Funny, that. --rick) As CIA Chief Scandal Looms, Lawmakers Consider Tightening E-Mail Privacy ? By David Kravets ? 11.15.12 ? 6:50 PM http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/11/e-mail-privacy-proposal/ Recent intrusions by the FBI into e-mail correspondence between former CIA Director David Petraeus and his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell, have raised a lot of questions and concerns about the government?s ability to access private e-mails. The current law covering access to e-mail gives the government the right to snoop without a court order on email that?s older than 180 days, but requires a court order for missives that are newer than this, a fact that privacy activists have been trying to change for years. Now they might finally be getting closer to that wish. The Senate Judiciary Committee announced Thursday that it will be voting Nov. 29 on whether to advance legislation that would require authorities to obtain a probable-cause warrant to get access to all e-mail and other content stored in the cloud, just as a warrant is required to search a car or house. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, proposed the sweeping digital privacy protections in September after first failing to push them through last year. The proposal would amend the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act and ?bring our privacy laws into the digital age.? The announcement comes two days after Google released stats showing an alarming rise in the number of U.S. government demands for data about Gmail users and other Google account holders. Google didn?t say how many times authorities used a warrant to make the requests. It?s also not known precisely what legal authorities were used to obtain access to e-mail accounts used by Broadwell, Petraeus and others involved. The investigation into the extramarital affair between the two, which led to the CIA director?s resignation last week, is ongoing, and the FBI won?t say whether it obtained a probable-cause warrant signed by a judge to peek at e-mail exchanged between the two. Conflicting news reports say they did and did not use a warrant. The issue is important, because authorities apparently had no reason to believe a crime had been committed at the time they sought access to the accounts. The career of the former CIA director and former Afghanistan war commander came unhinged after a woman in Florida named Jill Kelley received harassing e-mails from an anonymous sender and reported them to an FBI friend. Authorities say the location data connected to the e-mails and the e-mail account from which they were sent helped them identify the sender as Petraeus? biographer ? Broadwell. Armed with this information, they were reportedly able to obtain a warrant to search other e-mail accounts Broadwell used, which led to discovery of the affair. It?s not the first time that Leahy has tried to strengthen privacy protection for e-mail. Last year, he never even got a hearing for the same proposal introduced in the committee that he heads. But this time he?s trying to attach it to a legislative package about video-rental privacy and Netflix that already has momentum. Leahy?s package (.pdf) would nullify the provision of ECPA that allows the government to acquire a suspect?s e-mail or other stored content from an internet service provider without showing probable cause that a crime was committed, as long as the content has been stored on a third-party server for 180 days or more. Currently, to acquire such data, the government only needs to show, often via an administrative subpoena, that it has ?reasonable grounds to believe? the information would be useful in an investigation. When enacted two decades ago, ECPA provided much more privacy than it does today. The act was adopted at a time when e-mail wasn?t stored on servers for a long time, but instead was held there briefly on its way to a recipient?s inbox. E-mail more than six months old was assumed abandoned. As technology advanced, more and more people began storing e-mail on cloud servers indefinitely. And Congress has so far been unwilling to change course, despite the Fourth Amendment implications as data storage in the cloud has grown. Leahy?s measure simply requires authorities to get a probable-cause warrant from a judge to access electronic information. His package has a greater chance of passing this time because the measure is being included in a proposal to amend the Video Privacy Protection Act ? which concerns the ability of Netflix customers to more easily display their video preferences and interests on Facebook and other sites and has broad support from legislators. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 06:51:40 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:51:40 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - RIP (for now) Twinkies, Wonder Bread, etc. Message-ID: (Well, one can make the case this will be bad for "business" but a positive for "public health." Of course, I'm sure someone will swoop in and keep this chemical-based crap flowing to the populations of the world. After all, there's profit to be made!!! -- rick) Hostess Brands closing for good By James O'Toole @CNNMoney November 16, 2012: 7:28 AM ET http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/16/news/companies/hostess-closing/ Hostess Brands has asked permission of the bankruptcy court to shut down its business. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hostess Brands -- the maker of such iconic baked goods as Twinkies, Devil Dogs and Wonder Bread -- announced Friday that it is asking a federal bankruptcy court for permission to close its operations, blaming a strike by bakers protesting a new contract imposed on them. The closing will result in Hostess' nearly 18,500 workers losing their jobs as the company shuts 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers nationwide. The bakers' union represents around 5,000. Hostess will move to sell its assets to the highest bidder. That could mean new life for some of its most popular products, which could be scooped up at auction and attached to products from other companies. "We deeply regret the necessity of today's decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," said CEO Gregory Rayburn in a statement. The company had given a 5 p.m. ET deadline for the bakers to return to work or face a shutdown of the company. The unions at Hostess could not be reached immediately for comment on the decision. Hostess filed for bankruptcy in January, its second trip to bankruptcy court since 2004. It previously emerged from restructuring in 2009 after a four-and-a-half year process. The company is now controlled by a group of investment firms including hedge funds Silver Point Capital and Monarch Alternative Capital. In September, one of its major unions, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, voted narrowly to accept a new contract with reduced wages and benefits. The bakers' union rejected the deal, however, prompting Hostess management to secure permission from a bankruptcy court to force a new concession contract on workers. The new contract cut salaries across the company by 8% in the first year of the five-year agreement. Salaries were then scheduled to bump up 3% in the next three years and 1% in the final year. Hostess also reduced its pension obligations and its contribution to the employees' health care plan. In exchange, the company offered concessions, including a 25% equity stake for workers and the inclusion of two union representatives on an eight-member board of directors. -- CNNMoney's Chris Isidore contributed to this story --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 06:56:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:56:45 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - More Apple, Samsung devices added to next smartphone suit Message-ID: <3028F185-D385-46ED-B59C-8E5EB83C8B82@infowarrior.org> This is getting crazy....... More Apple, Samsung devices added to next smartphone suit updated 12:49 am EST, Fri November 16, 2012 iPhone 5, Galaxy Note, Galaxy S III added to infringing devices http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/11/16/iphone.5.galaxy.note.galaxy.s.iii.added.to.infringing.devices/ US Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal in San Jose, California has ruled that Samsung may add the iPhone 5 to its existing complaint for a second landmark smartphone patent trial, scheduled to begin this summer. In a parallel ruling, Apple is allowed to assert its patents in the same trial against the Galaxy Note and Galaxy S III, but not Samsung's implementation of Google's Android OS 4.1 "Jelly Bean." Samsung's move to add the iPhone 5 to its list of devices it believes are infringing on its patents was filed shorty after the September 21 debut of the device. Apple has been filing to add devices as they have been released by the Korean manufacturer, starting with the Galaxy Note 10.1, and moving through to the Galaxy S III, along with Jelly Bean. In his Thursday ruling, Grewal claimed that Samsung had acted with "reasonable diligence" in asking the court to add the iPhone 5. While not filed for addition as of yet, Samsung is expected to add other recently-released Apple devices to the lawsuit -- the iPad 4 and iPad mini. Grewal warned Apple to "think twice before opposing similar amendments reflecting other newly-released products" even though the Cupertino company hadn't opposed adding the iPhone 5 to the suit. The case was brought by Apple after Samsung ignored warnings in 2010 from both the iPhone maker and its rival Google that Samsung's products were too derivative of Apple's designs in both trade dress and software. Apple has accused the company of "slavishly" copying from its innovations, down to the particular shade of green used in the identical "phone" icon. Samsung countersued Apple, claiming it had in fact infringed on two of Samsung's patents, for which it asked for $400 million in compensation. The claims from Samsung were wholly rejected by the first trial jury, and the company was awarded nothing. The jury trial that the devices were added to today spawned the sales injunctions on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Nexus smartphone. The second trial is likely to take place in late 2013 or 2014. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 07:05:53 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:05:53 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?You_Can=92t_Opt_Out_of_Facebook?= =?windows-1252?q?=92s_New_=93Couples=94_Pages?= Message-ID: <7D2445E0-C4A9-447A-96CE-8358A885B2C2@infowarrior.org> You Can?t Opt Out of Facebook?s New ?Couples? Pages http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/11/facebook_couples_pages_you_can_t_opt_out_but_you_shouldn_t_care.html --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 07:36:33 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:36:33 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: DC poised to kick the can on fiscal clfif Message-ID: <53AC13A3-64E9-429F-8B6F-2114AE74038E@infowarrior.org> These bipartisan clowns will destroy this country....they can't even abide by their own ideas and timelines to fix the problems they themselves created. #fail --rick White House in Talks to Replace Spending Cuts By DAMIAN PALETTA and CAROL E. LEE http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324556304578122690719872244.html#printMode White House officials are in advanced internal discussions about a plan to replace the sweeping spending cuts set to begin in January with a smaller, separate package of targeted spending cuts and tax increases, people familiar with the planning said. The spending cuts, known as the "sequester," will begin in January unless the White House and Congress intervene. They would cut spending by roughly $100 billion next year, and then for eight additional years, hitting a number of federal programs, including military programs, embassy security and state aid. Critics of the cuts, which were put in place by last year's Budget Control Act deal to raise the debt ceiling, have said they could derail what remains a weak economic recovery. Democrats and Republicans have separately tried to design plans to replace the sequester. The discussions are just one part of a complicated set of possibilities as Washington deals not only with the looming spending cuts but also the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and other traditional year-end priorities, such as finding a way to halt the scope of the Alternative Minimum Tax. While moving along separate tracks, it is also possible these three policy issues could be wrapped up into one universal deal. The White House is set to start negotiations with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders Friday. By postponing the sequester cuts, Washington would essentially push off a number of large deficit-reduction decisions into mid-2013. This would include a long-term plan to replace the remaining sequester cuts, a plan to overhaul the tax code, and separate decisions about how to restructure Medicare and Medicaid. The plan that has been discussed by White House officials is similar in many ways to what lawmakers have discussed. It would terminate the spending cuts for a period of six to 12 months, and replace the cuts with more targeted reductions and revenue increases. House Republicans have proposed a similar model, though they have called for terminating the cuts to defense programs only and haven't accepted a deal to include tax increases as part of any package. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment. The "sequester" is part of the so-called "fiscal cliff," roughly $500 billion in spending cuts and tax increases set to begin in 2013 unless policy makers act by the end of the year. A short-term plan to temporarily terminate the sequester cuts is part of a framework the White House is pursuing, which also includes allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for the top two income brackets to expire at the end of this year. Similarly, policy makers must reach agreement on a number of other tax measures by the end of this year, particularly what to do about the already expired alternative-minimum tax, which lapsed in 2011 and could lead to large tax increases on many Americans if not addressed. Write to Damian Paletta at damian.paletta at wsj.com and Carol E. Lee at carol.lee at wsj.com --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 07:48:53 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:48:53 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - More DHS 'security' advice Message-ID: Yes; let's recommend moving an animal pathogen research center from an ISLAND to the middle of Kansas cattle country (and Tornado Alley)-- clearly moving from relative pathogenic isolation to a "target rich environment" for a potential incident (intentional or natural) to cause havoc with our food supply is a prudent course of action! But then again, such an incident, were it to happen, is whty DHS needs to exist, right? -- rick Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19704801 "For over 50 years the United States has carried out research on dangerous animal diseases at Plum Island, just off the coast of New York. However after 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security raised concerns about the suitability of the location and its vulnerability to terrorist attack." < - > "Because of the location of the project a number of reviews have been carried out and these have raised serious question marks about the suitability of the [new] site. A report carried out by the National Research Council in 2010 determined that over the 50-year life of the new laboratory there was a 70% chance of the accidental release of a pathogen." From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 08:01:09 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:01:09 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Electronic Versions Of Textbooks Spy On Students As They Read Them Message-ID: <9F15D46B-0777-4349-840D-7AAD03945D36@infowarrior.org> Electronic Versions Of Textbooks Spy On Students As They Read Them from the that-will-teach-them dept The rapid uptake of ebooks by the public shows that there is a widespread recognition of their advantages. This would be good news for the publishing industry as it faces the transition from analog to digital formats, were it not for the fact that some publishers keep finding new ways of making ebooks less attractive than physical versions. Here's the latest idea: electronic versions of textbooks that spy on students as they read them.... < - > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121113/04415521031/electronic-versions-textbooks-spy-students-as-they-read-them.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 08:11:03 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:11:03 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Time to rethink the CIA? Message-ID: Time to rethink the CIA? By Walter Pincus http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/time-to-rethink-the-cia/2012/11/14/15762154-2d11-11e2-9ac2-1c61452669c3_print.html President Obama should pause before choosing a successor to CIA Director David H. Petraeus and rethink the role of the nation?s primary intelligence agency. Its main focus for the past decade has been fighting terrorists and insurgents. The first question to ask: Has the CIA become too much of a paramilitary organization? The second: Should this be the time to put the agency?s main emphasis on being the premier producer and analyst of intelligence for policymakers, using both open and clandestine sources? That doesn?t mean losing its counterterrorism role. Terrorists remain a threat, but the rest of the world is changing so fast that the president and policymakers down the line need the best information available. More than 20 years ago, Richard M. Helms, the legendary CIA director, told me that one of the biggest mistakes the agency made during his tenure was to run the ?secret war? in Laos in the late 1960s. ?You can?t keep a war secret, and therefore a clandestine intelligence service should not be running it,? he said. ?It also diverts you from doing our main job, analysis.? Helms would have shuddered reading last month?s Washington Post story that Petraeus was seeking to increase CIA drone activities at a time when policymakers needed to know more about the political turmoil in the Middle East and the new leaders there and in China, India, Africa and Latin America. Helms came out of the analytic side of the agency. Although he ran the clandestine service as deputy director for operations from 1962 to 1965, he was sent to that post after the Bay of Pigs episode with the aim of directing the CIA away from such semi-covert military operations and more toward espionage. As CIA director from 1966 to 1973, his credo was: ?Focus on the core missions: collecting and analyzing foreign intelligence,? according to an appreciation written by one of his top assistants, David S. Robarge. The piece was published 10 years ago, after Helms?s death. ?Helms believed that the CIA is best at acquiring secrets and telling policymakers what they mean, but that covert action in peacetime can cause the Agency no end of trouble,? he wrote. In recent years, new CIA case officers were quickly sent off to war zones. A former top CIA officer told me that the agency has looked more like the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II wartime intelligence agency, than the CIA, which replaced it in 1947. A significant part of recent training of case officers has been geared to Iraq, Afghanistan and situations related to the worldwide war on terror. That has caused, as one former operator put it, ?a loss of tradecraft,? meaning old-fashioned peacetime spying techniques. The same thing has happened on the intelligence-analysis side. An emphasis on finding the bad guys who are Taliban or al-Qaeda or planters of roadside bombs has created a generation of analysts who ?may see ordinary intelligence gathering and assessment work as just .?.?. ordinary,? said one senior official. Inevitably they will have a letdown returning to a cubicle in Langley, the site of CIA headquarters. ?They?ll miss the adrenaline rush, yanking on their Kevlar helmets, seeing an immediate kill or miss,? said a former official. There is a more subtle change, too. Sixty percent of CIA officers have arrived since Sept. 11, 2001, and 30 percent since just five years ago. This relatively young workforce has known strong, respected leadership under Michael Hayden, Leon E. Panetta and Petraeus; strong funding; and public respect from recent overseas successes. A limited number of current agency officials experienced the harsh criticism and structural changes after 9/11 and the controversies over Iraq and weapons of mass destruction and over enhanced interrogation and torture. ?An impression within the workforce that they can do no wrong .?.?. inevitably leads to problems down the road,? a former senior official said. ?Lessons from negative experiences in the past must be factored into the training and culture of the current generation.? Agency leadership has now been rocked after relative stability. George Tenet resigned in July 2004 after seven years as director. In the eight succeeding years there have been four directors, and Obama will now have to name a fourth. This is a difficult time to bring in an outsider, even one with learning capabilities equal to Petraeus?s. ?We don?t have time to teach someone what we?re now doing so he or she can get us back to what Helms and others said ought to be what we mainly do,? said one veteran agency official. Michael Morell, 54, the deputy CIA director, is serving as acting director. He?s the logical choice. His 32-year CIA career has primarily been on the analytic side. But over the past decade his senior positions have put him at the center of the action. He was executive assistant to Tenet, briefer to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and No. 2 to Panetta and Petraeus. He has dealt with failure and success. He was in the White House with Tenet for 9/11 and Iraq, and with Panetta explaining to Obama the risks of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The president said Friday, ?I have the utmost confidence in acting Director Michael Morell and the men and women of the CIA who work every day to keep our nation safe.? Appointing Morell to carry out a recalibration of CIA activities would deliver a steadying message to agency personnel and the entire intelligence community. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 08:30:08 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:30:08 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Department of Everything Message-ID: <906305C6-8B6A-46C0-BA15-904B27584E94@infowarrior.org> (I agree w/many of his comments. --rick) Beef jerky, a microbrewery and windmills are among the hundreds of items the Defense Department is not only spending money on, but producing each year. And Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) wants the Pentagon to cut it out. Coburn said Thursday DoD will spend almost $68 billion on non-military goods and services over the next 10 years. Some recent examples included a smartphone app to help military members manage their caffeine intake, and the sponsorship of a workshop by the Defense Advanced Research Agency called the 100 Year Starship project, which included a session called, "Did Jesus die for Klingons too?" Coburn released a new report, called The Department of Everything, in attempt to shine light on what he calls wasteful spending during a time of ever-tightening budgets. < - > http://www.federalnewsradio.com/394/3121936/Senator-has-a-beef-with-DoD-beef-jerky Report PDF @ http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=00783b5a-f0fe-4f80-90d6-019695e52d2d --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 17:16:49 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:16:49 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Taliban PR does an oopsie. Message-ID: (c/o AJR) http://abcnews.go.com/International/taliban-accidentally-reveal-identities-mailing-list-members/story?id=17737950 "In a Dilbert-esque faux pax, a Taliban spokesperson sent out a routine email last week with one notable difference. He publicly CC'd the names of everyone on his mailing list. " --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 16 17:28:11 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:28:11 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Acapella Only: Theme Songs Message-ID: <16B22EE4-3E41-4A84-BC9D-3F0B22C7B052@infowarrior.org> And now something fun to kickstart your weekend! --rick Acapella Only: Theme Songs http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/11/acapella-only-theme-songs/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 18 10:45:43 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2012 11:45:43 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Hollywood Already Browbeats Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform Message-ID: <2132051F-92E7-48E5-A6C6-A2E403763456@infowarrior.org> That Was Fast: Hollywood Already Browbeat The Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform from the so-that's-how-that-works dept http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121117/16492521084/that-was-fast-hollywood-already-browbeat-republicans-into-retracting-report-copyright-reform.shtml So, late Friday, we reported on how the Republican Study Committee (the conservative caucus of House Republicans) had put out a surprisingly awesome report about copyright reform. You can read that post to see the details. The report had been fully vetted and reviewed by the RSC before it was released. However, as soon as it was published, the MPAA and RIAA apparently went ballistic and hit the phones hard, demanding that the RSC take down the report. They succeeded. Even though the report had been fully vetted and approved by the RSC, executive director Paul S. Teller has now retracted it, sending out the following email to a wide list of folks this afternoon: From: Teller, Paul Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2012 04:11 PM Subject: RSC Copyright PB We at the RSC take pride in providing informative analysis of major policy issues and pending legislation that accounts for the range of perspectives held by RSC Members and within the conservative community. Yesterday you received a Policy Brief on copyright law that was published without adequate review within the RSC and failed to meet that standard. Copyright reform would have far-reaching impacts, so it is incredibly important that it be approached with all facts and viewpoints in hand. As the RSC?s Executive Director, I apologize and take full responsibility for this oversight. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and a meaningful Thanksgiving holiday.... Paul S. Teller Executive Director U.S. House Republican Study Committee Paul.Teller at mail.house.gov http://republicanstudycommittee.com The idea that this was published "without adequate review" is silly. Stuff doesn't just randomly appear on the RSC website. Anything being posted there has gone through the same full review process. What happened, instead, was that the entertainment industry's lobbyists went crazy, and some in the GOP folded. Frankly, if they wanted to win back the youth vote, this was exactly how not to do it. If you just look through the comments on our post on the original, or through the Twitter response to this report, there were tons of people -- many of whom were lifelong Democrats -- claiming that they would switch parties if the GOP stuck with this. Instead, they folded like a cheap card table in less than 24 hours. In the long run, that's going to hurt the GOP, because the people who were suddenly interested in supporting the GOP will assume that any such effort is subject to a similar bait-and-switch. Meanwhile, this leaves open an opportunity for the Democrats as well. The Republicans just came close to becoming the party that actually listened to what was important to young people today -- and they quickly changed their mind. The Democrats can sweep in and take the issue since apparently it's there for the taking. All they have to do is be willing to tell some Hollywood lobbyists to pipe down. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 18 10:46:28 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2012 11:46:28 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Your Online Attention, Bought in an Instant Message-ID: November 17, 2012 Your Online Attention, Bought in an Instant By NATASHA SINGER http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/technology/your-online-attention-bought-in-an-instant-by-advertisers.html YOU can be sold in seconds. No, wait: make that milliseconds. The odds are that access to you ? or at least the online you ? is being bought and sold in less than the blink of an eye. On the Web, powerful algorithms are sizing you up, based on myriad data points: what you Google, the sites you visit, the ads you click. Then, in real time, the chance to show you an ad is auctioned to the highest bidder. Not that you?d know it. These days in the hyperkinetic world of digital advertising, all of this happens automatically, and imperceptibly, to most consumers. Ever wonder why that same ad for a car or a couch keeps popping up on your screen? Nearly always, the answer is real-time bidding, an electronic trading system that sells ad space on the Web pages people visit at the very moment they are visiting them. Think of these systems as a sort of Nasdaq stock market, only trading in audiences for online ads. Millions of bids flood in every second. And those bids ? essentially what your eyeballs are worth to advertisers ? could determine whether you see an ad for, say, a new Lexus or a used Ford, for sneakers or a popcorn maker. One big player in this space is the Rubicon Project. Never heard of it? Consider this: Rubicon, based in Los Angeles, has actually eclipsed Google in one crucial area ? the percentage of Internet users in the United States reached by display ads sold through its platform, according to comScore, a digital analytics company. Rubicon is among a handful of technology companies that have quietly developed automated ad sales systems for Web site operators. The bidders are marketers seeking to identify their best prospects and pitch them before they move to the next Web page. It is a form of high-frequency trading ? that souped-up business of algorithm-loving Wall Streeters. But in this case, the prize is the attention of ordinary people. And it all depends on data-mining to instantly evaluate the audiences available to see those online display ads, the ones that appear on Web sites next to or around content. In industry parlance, each digital ad space is an impression. The value of an impression depends on several factors, like the size of the ad, the type of person who is available to see it and that person?s location. ?The first impression seen by a high-value person on the opening page of a major newspaper first thing in the morning has a different value than a user from China who is 12 and has been on the Web all day long playing games,? says Frank Addante, the founder and chief executive of Rubicon. Yet for most of us, real-time bidding is invisible. About 97 percent of American Internet users interact with Rubicon?s system every month, Mr. Addante says, and most of them aren?t aware of it. That worries some federal regulators and consumer advocates, who say that such electronic trading systems could unfairly stratify consumers, covertly offering better pricing to certain people while relegating others to inferior treatment. A computer-generated class system is one risk, they say, of an ad-driven Internet powered by surveillance. ?As you profile more and more people, you?ll start to segregate people into ?the people you can get money out of? and ?the people you can?t get money out of,? ? says Dan Auerbach, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil rights group in San Francisco, who formerly worked in digital ad data-mining. ?That is one of the dangers we should be worried about.? Of course, ad agencies and brands can tailor ads to Web users without real-time bidding. They can also buy ads without aiming them at narrow audience groups. But for marketers, the marriage of ad- and audience-buying is one of the benefits of real-time bidding. Not so long ago, they simply bought ad spaces based on a site?s general demographics and then showed every visitor the same ad, a practice called ?spray and pray.? Now marketers can aim just at their ideal customers ? like football fans who earn more than $100,000 a year, or mothers in Denver in the market for an S.U.V. ? showing them tailored ads at the exact moment they are available on a specific Web page. ?We are not buying content as a proxy for audience,? says Paul Alfieri, the vice president for marketing at Turn, a data management company and automated buy-side platform for marketers based in Redwood City, Calif. ?We are just buying who the audience is.? Still, for many consumer advocates, real-time bidding resembles nothing so much as a cattle auction. ?Online consumers are being bought and sold like chattel,? says Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer group in Washington that has filed a complaint about real-time bidding with the Federal Trade Commission. ?It?s dehumanizing.? FRANK ADDANTE is 36 years old and given to wearing black shirts with a white Rubicon logo on the front. Rubicon is the fifth company he has started or helped to found. In 1996, in his dorm room at the Illinois Institute of Technology, he developed and introduced a search engine. He later helped found L90, a digital ad technology company that went public and was later acquired by DoubleClick. His fourth enterprise, StrongMail Systems, provides e-mail delivery infrastructure to large companies. While working in ad technology, Mr. Addante says, he became puzzled by the manual ad sales processes that many Web sites were using. Just a few years ago, he recalled, many sites still executed their online ad deals through the cumbersome back-and-forth of meetings, phone calls, e-mails and even faxes. The fragmented market made it hard for ad agencies and brands. ?That market was very inefficient,? Mr. Addante said in an interview in Rubicon?s Manhattan office, ?much like the early days of manual stock trading.? Of course, other major industries already had automated sales systems. Concert arenas sold seats through Ticketmaster. Airlines sold tickets through a system called Sabre. Hotels offered rooms through Expedia. So, in 2007, Mr. Addante and three other executives with whom he worked at L90, started Rubicon with the aim of creating an automated marketplace for Web sites to sell their ad inventory. Years earlier, Google invented a similar automated system for search ads. ?Google was the first to automate the buying and selling of search ads,? Mr. Addante says. ?We thought, ?why couldn?t we do this with display ads, mobile and video?? ? Although real-time bidding accounts for a small portion of online ad sales, it is growing fast. This year in the United States, advertisers are expected to spend about $2 billion on display ads bought through electronic auction-based exchanges, versus about $733 million in 2010, according to a recent report from Forrester Research. By 2017, the report estimated, that market is likely to reach $8.3 billion. Rubicon?s customers now include ABC, eBay, CareerBuilder, Glam Media, Time Inc., the Drudge Report and Zynga. Its competitors include major players like PubMatic and Google?s DoubleClick ad exchange. But Rubicon is not just a sales platform for Web site operators. It?s an analytics system that uses consumer data to help sites figure out how much their visitors are worth to advertisers. Most sites, Mr. Addante explains, compile data about their own visitors through member registration or by placing bits of computer code called cookies on people?s browsers to collect information about their online activities. To those first-party profiles, Rubicon typically adds details from third-party data aggregators, like BlueKai or eXelate, such as users? sex and age, interests, estimated income range and past purchases. Finally, Rubicon applies its own analytics to estimate the fair market value of site visitors and the ad spaces they are available to see. The whole process typically takes less than 30 milliseconds. ?All these calculations have to happen before the Web page loads,? Mr. Addante says. ?In our system, inventory is perishable.? The competition for pricing accuracy has made companies involved in real-time bidding among the Internet?s most aggressive consumer trackers. Among the trackers setting the most cookies on the top 1,000 Web sites in the United States, for example, BlueKai was first, with 2,562 cookies, while Rubicon came in second, with 2,470, according to research conducted last month by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. Consumer advocates say real-time bidding companies are acquiring and commoditizing all of that consumer data with little benefit to consumers themselves ? and much digital snooping. Mr. Addante and other industry executives disagree, saying consumers benefit by receiving ads and offers specifically relevant to them. Their systems do not invade privacy, they say, because they use numerical customer codes ? not real names or other identifying details ? to collect ?anonymous? information about people?s online activities. For many consumers, however, that Web and search history may seem personal, especially if they visit financial or health sites. Some computer scientists argue that the customer codes assigned to online users are unique ID?s, allowing companies to compile portraits about millions of people ? without needing to know their names. Moreover, a few researchers have reported that many sites leak personal information, like names and addresses, to third-party trackers operating on their sites. That means that rather than being anonymous, those customer code numbers are pseudonymous at best, some computer researchers say. ?It?s like a Social Security number, a number that businesses can use to recognize you on your future visits,? says Rob van Eijk, a computer science researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he is studying real-time bidding. Yet, he adds, consumers generally remain in the dark as to how automated trading systems rank and shunt them. ?Envision a Kafkaesque future,? he said, ?where decisions are being made about you and you don?t know what the criteria are based on.? TICK. Tick. Tick. Tick. The horizontal ticker at the bottom of Turn?s buy-side trading dashboard registers the groups of users available now to see ads ? and lists the bids that Turn?s system recommends for access to them. The ad spaces, or impressions, sell in lots of 1,000. The price depends on variables like the size and type of ad space, the type of user, and whether the user is in an urban or rural location. One moment, Turn?s system recommends that an insurance customer bid up to $35.70 per lot being sold by Facebook Exchange, a Facebook service that auctions ad space on the social networking site, and $1.35 per lot being offered by AppNexus, another sell-side platform. That means Turn has identified Facebook?s lots as ?premium inventory,? says Mr. Alfieri, Turn?s vice president for marketing, while AppNexus is selling ads on sites where little is known about the users available to see them. Real-time dashboards like Turn?s, he says, have modernized the online ad trade in the same way that Bloomberg terminals revolutionized Wall Street trading. Ad agencies and brands can now check the intraday prices for various impressions. Many ad agencies have even created in-house ?trading desks? to monitor and adjust their bids. But Turn?s dashboard is more than a real-time ticker. It?s an analytics system that enables clients like insurers or car companies to identify common details among their best customer segments and then bid to show ads to people who resemble those best customers. The machine learning process gets better at pinpointing ideal audiences over the course of an ad campaign. For example, Turn recently ran an ad campaign for a sneaker company that initially chose to buy a wide variety of impressions nationwide. But as Turn?s system analyzed the early sets of results, it began to separate audiences into the kinds of people who clicked on those sneaker ads, or later searched for the shoes on their own, and those who did not. Identifying common details among those people required the system to comb through its databank of nearly a billion user profiles for each transaction. (Like Rubicon, Turn uses consumer data from third-party data aggregators for its analyses, Mr. Alfieri said, adding that the company has hired outside software services to strip names and other details from the profiles before Turn receives them). The results of the sneaker campaign were surprising, says Bill Demas, the chief executive of Turn. ?It turned out that Republicans in certain districts of Texas basically did not exercise. We were able to adjust the campaign to try to aim more at Democrats,? Mr. Demas says. Without analyzing those user profiles, he says, ?who would think that party affiliation would be an influence in advertising campaigns?? In some ways, the consumer segmentation process is not as newfangled as it may seem. For decades in the bricks-and-mortar world, direct marketers have hired third-party data resellers to help them decide which customers should get catalogs or special offers in the mail. Real-time bidding is just a faster, smarter, more automated process for brands to find prospects likely to be the best fit for their products, says Joe Zawadzki, C.E.O. of MediaMath, a buy-side trading platform and data management company in Manhattan. ?How much is a rich person worth? To Mercedes, a lot. To a used Pinto dealer, not a lot,? he says. ?It?s a different set of impressions for every marketer. That?s where the magic happens.? But privacy advocates argue that real-time bidding is more problematic than direct mail because it often involves dozens of business-to-business companies ? whose names most consumers have never heard of ? collecting information and making instant decisions about them. The concern, advocates say, is that the very same automated bidding system that can distinguish coffee drinkers from, say, tea drinkers, and set different prices to show them ads, is also capable of distinguishing shopaholics or people in debt and potentially auctioning them to high-interest payday lenders. ?The reality looks like ?we know a person is a sucker and they spend a lot of money on dumb things,? ? says Mr. Auerbach of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ?Advertisers will spend more money to target them, and they aren?t savvy enough to know what is happening to them.? AS real-time bidding gains traction, the consumer data-mining that fuels it is escalating. Yet that surge in surveillance may present a serious risk for online businesses. The volume of data collection on the Web has surged 400 percent, from an average of 10 collections a page in 2011 to 50 a page this year, according to a study published last June by Krux, a company that helps businesses protect and monetize their consumer data. The report attributed the explosive growth to the ad industry?s shift to real-time bidding. Krux also warned Web site operators about what it called ?rogue data collection.? When publishers allow third parties, like real-time bidding platforms or information resellers, to collect data on their site, the report said, those partners often bring in other data miners whose practices the sites themselves cannot control. Those middlemen may use a site?s proprietary data to help competitors, the report said. ?Publishers who leak data leak revenue,? the report warned. ?They face threats from middlemen who steal data and use it to create directly competitive audience-based offerings.? Those threats may increase as real-time bidding moves more aggressively into mobile sites and apps, entities that may collect valuable information about users? real-time locations and geographic patterns. In May, Rubicon acquired Mobsmith, a start-up specializing in mobile ad technology. A few months later, the company announced that it was integrating real-time bidding for mobile ads into its system. Mr. Addante says he expects the industry to adopt real-time bidding for mobile ads faster than it had for desktop display ads. He also predicts that consumers will find tailored mobile ads for, say, a cafe or taxi in their vicinity, more pertinent than many Web ads tailored to them. ?I think mobile ads become more of an information provider than what is happening in display advertising where it has become a nuisance,? he says. Yet the prospect of ubiquitous real-time bidding ? online, on mobile devices and eventually on Web-enabled televisions ? also hastens our transition to a totally traceable society. What we read and how we spend our spare time used to be private. Now those activities are becoming windows through which marketers scrutinize, appraise and vie to influence us for a price. Soon there may be no personal spaces left for our private thoughts. ?Real-time bidding creates the possibility for companies to tag you wherever you are going, without you knowing or having the ability to influence it,? says Mr. van Eijk, the computer scientist. ?It is becoming a huge imbalance for the ordinary user because, in the end, the ordinary user is the product.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 19 07:26:53 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 08:26:53 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Obama=92s_cybersecurity_directiv?= =?windows-1252?q?e_could_allow_military_deployment_within_the_US?= Message-ID: Boots on the ground: Obama?s cybersecurity directive could allow military deployment within the US Get short URL email story to a friend print version Published: 16 November, 2012, 22:54 http://rt.com/usa/news/directive-military-deployment-us-892/ The White House is being asked by attorneys to explain a top-secret presidential policy directive signed last month that may allow for the domestic deployment of the US military for the sake of so-called cybersecurity. Lawyers with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the office of US President Barack Obama in hopes if hearing more about an elusive order signed in secrecy in mid-October but only made public in an article published this week in the Washington Post. According to persons close to the White House who have seen the order and spoke with the Post, Presidential Policy Directive 20 (PP20) aims to ?finalize new rules of engagement that would guide commanders when and how the military can go outside government networks to prevent a cyberattack that could cause significant destruction or casualties.? Attorneys with EPIC are now demanding that they see this secret order to find out what exactly that could mean, citing the possibility of putting boots on the ground in the United States if the government argues it?s imperative for cybersecurity. In the FOIA request, EPIC attorneys Amie Stepanovich and Ginger McCall ask to see information about PP20 because they fear it may enable ?military deployment within the United States? by way of a ?secret law? that lets the National Security Agency and Pentagon put armed forces in charge of protecting America?s cyberinfrastructure and crucial routes of communications. ?We don?t know what?s in this policy directive and we feel the American public has the right to know,? McCall tells Raw Story this week. On her part, Stepanovich adds that getting to the truth of the matter could be a nightmare given the NSA?s tendency to keep these sorts of things secret. ?The NSA?s cyber security operations have been kept very, very secret, and because of that it has been impossible for the public to react to them,? Stepanovich adds. ?[That makes it] very difficult, we believe, for Congress to legislate in this area. It?s in the public?s best interest, from a knowledge perspective and from a legislative perspective, to be made aware of what authority the NSA is being given.? The potential of martial law became a topic actually discussed by Congress last year when lawmakers first considered provisions for this year?s National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. Before the House and Senate agreed on including a section to the law letting the White House arrest and detain any US citizen indefinitely without trial or charge, another provision was almost put on the books that would have essentially allowed for military rule during some situations. The NDAA?s S. 1867 would ?basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield? Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a supporter of the bill, said last year. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H) agreed with his colleague?s claim, telling Congress that ?America is part of the battlefield? suggesting that the laws of war are applicable anywhere, even in someone?s own backyard. EPIC writes that PPD 20 ?may violate federal law that prohibits military deployment within the United States without congressional approval? if their worse fear prove correct. According to the Post?s tale on the directive, the Pentagon now has blueprints to wage more offensive cyberassaults on entities that may be jeopardizing the cybersecurity of domestic computer systems. How they do that, however, remains an issue that the FOIA request will have to coerce from Washington. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 19 07:28:46 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 08:28:46 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - iOS 6 Streaming Bug Sends Data Usage Skyrocketing; Drives Up Data Fees Message-ID: iOS 6 Streaming Bug Sends Data Usage Skyrocketing; Drives Up Data Fees Thursday, November 15, 2012 - by Joel Hruska http://hothardware.com/News/iOS-6-Streaming-Bug-Sends-Data-Usage-Skyrocketing-Drives-Up-Data-Fees/ When Apple released iOS 6 earlier this fall it took a beating over the state of its mapping software compared to Google Maps. All the chatter over the mapping software's shortcomings may have obscured a much larger problem that could financially impact a number of people. iOS 6, by all appearances, has a streaming problem. This is separate from the network issues that led Verizon to state that it wouldn't bill people for overages that were caused by spotty Wi-Fi connectivity. The issue has been detailed in a blog post at PRX.org with information on how the team saw a huge spike in bandwidth usage after the release of iOS 6, then carefully tested the behavior of devices and its own app to narrow the possible cause. As the author notes, "In one case, the playback of a single 30MB episode caused the transfer of over 100MB of data." PRX believes that the issue was solved with the release of iOS 6.0.1, but anecdotal evidence from readers points to continued incidents of high data usage, even after updating. There are two iPhones on my AT&T account. One of them is an iPhone 4S running OS 5.1.1, the other is an iPhone 4 on iOS 6.0. The person who uses that device does a fair bit of streaming, so I pulled up her recent data usage. Here's the graph: I'm lucky -- both of my iPhones are still on grandfathered data plans. For someone on a metered plan, the impact of using 4.87x more data (September is the baseline) runs an easy $80-$110 per month in overage fees. If you own an iPhone 5 or upgraded to iOS 6, we strongly recommend checking your usage over the past two months, updating to iOS 6.0.1, and girding up for a lengthy discussion with your carrier if it turns out your data use went through the roof. How Long Before Apple's Reputation Starts To Slip? I consider this a much more serious issue than the company's decision to launch a mapping product that was clearly in beta. For 99% of users, Apple Maps was an inferior choice, but not a problem that hit people in the wallet. You could (accurately) argue that this streaming data error is only a problem because carriers like AT&T and Verizon can get away with charging $10-$30 per gigabyte. And you'd be right. The bigger, more systemic problem is the way these issues are chipping away at Apple's once-sterling reputation for excellent software, out of the box. When iOS 5 launched, it came with a flurry of battery life issues, muted calls, and Wi-Fi access problems. To some extent, these problems are inevitable and unavoidable -- but this is the first time that a prominent OS bug could directly translate into higher cellular bills for millions of users. Ask Microsoft how easy it is to shake a negative reputation for shoddy development once you've hung it around your neck. For a decade, the rule of thumb when adopting a new Microsoft OS was "Wait for SP1." It's only been in the last few years that Microsoft's investments into security and shipping better software have begun to translate into improved consumer and corporate perceptions. After poor experiences upgrading to OS 4.0 on an iPhone 3G, I swore off upgrading iOS until multiple bug fixes were finished. I've yet to regret it. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 19 11:33:56 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 12:33:56 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Why Cell Phones Went Dead After Hurricane Sandy Message-ID: Why Cell Phones Went Dead After Hurricane Sandy By Susan Crawford - Nov 15, 2012 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-11-15/why-cell-phones-went-dead-after-hurricane-sandy.html After Hurricane Sandy, survivors needed, in addition to safety and power, the ability to communicate. Yet in parts of New York City, mobile communications services were knocked out for days. The problem? The companies that provide them had successfully resisted Federal Communications Commission calls to make emergency preparations, leaving New Yorkers to rely on the carriers? voluntary efforts. We have so far heard few details about why the companies made the particular business choices they did on backup power and what the consequences of those choices were, because the FCC has been blocked from asking -- even though about a third of people rely on mobile service as their only voice-communications connection. Americans might assume that the U.S. government exercises enough authority over communications networks to ensure that they are responsibly run, reliable and available to all at reasonable rates. In reality, after a decade of steady deregulation, during which communications companies asserted that new wires required new rules, the companies are in charge of themselves. What?s more, those that sell network connections in the U.S. are trying to claim a constitutional right to operate without any federal oversight. Constitutional Coverage At the moment, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) is attempting to legally bar Congress and the FCC from exerting any authority over its networks, claiming that the First Amendment protects the company?s ?editorial discretion.? (I am among a large group of current and former government officials who this week filed a brief opposing that startling argument.) The sweeping economic and social implications of Verizon?s assertions are deeply troubling. High-speed Internet has become vital to communications in the U.S. Yet Verizon wants network operators to possess the same free-speech rights that newspaper publishers have to control the contents of their editorial pages. This could preclude Congress from making any law that inhibits a company?s business choices, whether to inflict harm on a competitor or to suppress or ignore points of view of which it disapproves. Verizon certainly has the constitutional right to make this argument. The country needs to understand, however, that what it?s asking for is to privilege its own speech over that of more than 300 million Americans. Because any communications company?s job is to transmit speech, not to determine its content, the court should decide that Verizon is not, in a legal sense, a ?speaker.? This particular lawsuit is just one push in a longer effort by Verizon and the other high-speed Internet-access providers to get immunity from oversight. AT&T Inc., just last week, filed a petition with the FCC seeking wholesale deregulation of its wires. According to Harold Feld of the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, this would make the company immune to all laws promoting consumer protection, competition and universal affordable communications. California became the most recent of more than 20 states to eliminate its authority over digital networks. And consider why the FCC now is unable even to ask communications companies about their contingency plans for responding to a loss of power caused by a hurricane or other natural disaster. Five years ago the FCC, responding to findings that communications companies had supplied too little backup power during and after Hurricane Katrina, moved to adopt rules requiring the companies to have emergency energy sources. In response, the companies sued, claiming that the commission had no authority over them. Before that case could be resolved, the George W. Bush administration?s Office of Management and Budget determined that such rules would require the companies to incur undue costs to gather the needed information, and the commission withdrew its effort altogether. Emergency Service The wireless companies crowed over this victory: ?We believe that having the flexibility to adapt to unique emergency situations will better serve American wireless consumers.? Verizon?s current First Amendment claim, read for all it is worth, is an attempt to push further against regulation than communications companies ever have before. The Constitution shouldn?t be used as a sledgehammer to protect the business interests of a small set of giant companies on whose services the entire country depends. (Susan Crawford is a contributor to Bloomberg View and a visiting professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School. She is a former special assistant to President Barack Obama for science, technology and innovation policy. The opinions expressed are her own.) Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View. Subscribe to receive a daily e-mail highlighting new View editorials, columns and op-ed articles. Today?s highlights: the editors on Israel?s right to respond to rocket attacks, on Grover Norquist?s gift to Republicans and on why simple banking regulations are better; Stephen L. Carter on what Obama can learn from FDR about business; William Pesek on Obama?s Southeast Asia trip; Jonathan Weil on the Justice Department?s white-collar prosecution numbers; Michael Petrilli on what education reformers need to do differently; Kori Schake on adultery and the U.S. military honor code. To contact the writer of this article: Susan P. Crawford at scrawford at scrawford.net or @scrawford on Twitter. To contact the editor responsible for this article: Mary Duenwald at mduenwald at bloomberg.net. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 19 12:11:09 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:11:09 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Mark Cuban: Why Facebook Is Like TV Message-ID: <79C92C90-4FFE-4127-B4E6-14EE0074EBAA@infowarrior.org> Why Facebook Is Like TV Mark Cuban - blogmaverick http://gizmodo.com/5961743/why-facebook-is-like-tv Let's talk Facebook. First, I'm not recommending to any of my companies that we leave Facebook. I am recommending that we de-emphasize pushing consumers or partners to like us on FB and focus on building up our followings across all existing social media platforms and to evaluate those that we feel can grow a material following. In the past we put FB first, Twitter second. FB has been moved to the bottom of a longer list. At the core of the issues I have with FB is how FB thinks about itself. This is from their page on Newsfeed, Engagement and Promoted Posts : "In this way, we can keep news feed an engaging service where people come to get the information that is most interesting to them." FB believes that their news feed is an engaging information source. They seem to really, really want to make sure that you get the information that is most engaging to you. I honestly didn't know this. This has to be a good thing, right ? What could possibly be wrong with wanting to improve engagement? What could possibly be wrong with optimizing their news and information feeds ? IMHO, everything. Defining engagement by clicks, likes, shares, unlikes and reporting works for Google's search engine, I don't believe it works for a social network. People go to Google Search with every intention of leaving it. They want to "engage, click and leave". On the exact opposite side of the spectrum, people go to FB with the expectation that it is very likely they will stay on FB for an extended period of time. In fact we spend more than 26 minutes per day on FB. As this study said, FB is an alternative to boredom. FB is far more like TV than it is Google Search. FB is what it is. It's a time waster. That's not to say we don't engage, we do. We click, share and comment because it's mindless and easy. But for some reason FB doesn't seem to want to accept that its best purpose in life is as a huge time suck platform that we use to keep up with friends, interests and stuff. I think that they are over-thinking what their network is all about. Being a time suck that people enjoy is a good thing. There is a comfort in turning on the TV and having it work without any thought required. It's easy. It is the best 5-hour-on-average per day alternative to boredom. There is a comfort in going on FB and seeing what pictures pop up from friends or from pages you have liked. FB is not something you have to rush through. All those pictures and posts are not going anywhere. FB is easy. In particular it's a great alternative to boredom when you are stuck somewhere and all you have is your phone. Actually it's a life saver. Head down on FB beats the hell out of that awkward feeling that you may have to at least acknowledge and possibly talk to the person next to you. Put another way, FB really risks screwing up something that is special in our lives as a time waster by thinking they have to make it more engaging and efficient. Who really appreciates that some posts rise to the top of their newsfeed because some folks they used to work with and are still friends with shared a baby picture? Not only do I not like it, I like even less the obligation I feel to like the picture so I don't seem like some grump. I dont want to know about where you are in Wizard of Oz (currently navigating Edgerank up my top stories feed). Our FB networks have grown so big and unfriending someone is so much more difficult than it should be, that we just don't do it. Hence, our news feed is not so pure. The math may be efficient but the result is not. So how does this relate to brands and sponsored post? In a perfect FB world every post enters the friends/like/subscriber's timeline. If they log in and want to spend the time searching their timeline they see it, if not, not. FB users go on FB looking to kill time. Why not let them? From a brands perspective not having to try to fall within the parameters of the algorithm (Edgerank) allows us to post fun things, tidbits, information, anything knowing that there is at least a chance those who have a connection with us can see it and knowing that we won't reduce our chances of the algorithm showing our post. We should know better than an algorithm what those who like us actually like. It may well be that it's a passive relationship. Maybe they just want to see the scores at the end of every quarter in a Mavs game? Maybe they want to know what show is playing right now on AXS TV? No one expects them to like, comment or share any of this. It's just an information source. And can I just say that its really weird when Mavs end of quarter scores show up out of order? That's how smart the algorithm is. It's not like pages have carte blanche to assault people with posts. People know their own tolerance for what they consider to be spam better than any algorithm does. It is incumbent upon the brand not to abuse the relationship and cause the person to unlike us. Doesn't FB realize that is far easier for a user to opt-out of a feed by unliking a brand/person/page that has done a poor job of communication than it is to mess with all the account settings or for them to try to tweak their algorithm all the time to try to guess what people want? Again, FB is over-complicating a simple issue. A user can govern his/her newsfeed far better by hitting unlike than an algorithm like EdgeRank ever can. But this over-complication via algorithm and not knowing why people use their site (feel free to say right here that of course FB knows how people use their site better than I do) creates a financial problem for brands. By trying to be an incredibly efficient information delivery source, they confine our ability to organically reach most of our followers to using Sponsored Posts. They also significantly increase our costs because if we create a post that doesn't engage our followers to the level the algorithm expects it to, it can impact our ability to be seen in the future. Talk about pressure. Put up a post, but be sure that Edgerank doesn't think it sucks. Then of course there is the money. As many have written before me, sponsored posts can get expensive. If you post many times a day, that can get incredibly expensive. So why would brands who cant afford the algorithmic presentation risk or the financial cost want to continue to drive their user interaction by investing in FB if there are alternatives? FB has a couple of other serious issues that impact its desire to be a source for "information that is most interesting to [users]". Because FB has become such a store of personal information, we have become very protective of our profiles. I don't know the percentage of individuals posts on FB that are available to the general public, but it can't be very high. We show our posts and see the posts only of our extended network. While that network may get you close to Kevin Bacon, it's not going to let you use FB as a primary information source. Why? Because you can't gain the value of all those posts outside of your network. They are closed off to you. Yes you can search on Bing which actually does a good job of integrating your own social network, but it still doesn't take you out to the rest of the social world and all the insights and information that it has to offer like Twitter, Tumblr and specialized sites do. Some of the best sources of current information are searches on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram (the irony), and of course relevant websites. If you want to see what every one is saying about the election, you have to go outside of FB. So by default you are not going to use your newsfeed as a primary source of information. It's more like the township newspaper. You get the basic local stuff and updates, but it can't be a comprehensive source. The same applies to the real time social universe. There could be 120 people talking about a topic that they have not yet liked or for which there has not been a topic yet created and you would have no way to know the conversation was going on or how to reach the people if you did. This is exactly why Twitter has trending topics that are becoming more and more granular by the day. So back to sponsored posts and algorithms. I'm not against sponsored posts per se. I'm against sponsored posts being the primary, if not the only way to reach most of the people my companies have built a connection with on FB. Take away EdgeRank so we all have a fair chance to reach those who like us with Sponsored Posts being a way to improve our odds, great. I'm all for it. That is like any other medium. I also think that FB is making a big mistake by trying to play games with their original mission of connecting the world. FB is a fascinating destination that is an amazing alternative to boredom which excels in its SIMPLICITY. One of the threats in any business is that you outsmart yourself. FB has to be careful of just that. Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and one of the most successful technology investors around. He regularly blogs about the tech industry at Blog Maverick, and he has an ebook?How to Win at the Sport of Business?available at Amazon and iTunes. Oh, and he's on Shark Tank. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 19 13:43:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:43:45 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Why are retailers ruining Thanksgiving? Message-ID: <5FCC9216-2F64-4D89-A681-54B805929689@infowarrior.org> Nov. 19, 2012, 10:24 a.m. EST Why are retailers ruining Thanksgiving? Commentary: Customers want Black Friday to start on Thursday By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=44B93284-3253-11E2-A56A-002128040CF6 CHICAGO (MarketWatch) ? Say goodbye to Thanksgiving ? and Black Friday while you?re at it. Retailers are wrecking holiday time for shoppers and shop workers alike. This year will see an unprecedented move by the big boys of retail to open their stores earlier than ever on Thanksgiving Day, putting pressure on the traditions ? from indulging in an oversize dinner to loafing around watching football ? that many families hold sacred. ?Retailers have basically ruined every holiday,? says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, a retail research consultant. ?They have commercialized every single holiday by creating a good reason to promote something and drive traffic.? They do it for the simple reason that, well, they can. It follows that adage from ?Field of Dreams? that if you build it, they will come. If you open the store earlier, they will shop. We?ve seen the creep into Thanksgiving Day grow more aggressive each year but never getting this close to family time. Bold steps have been taken over the last three to five years as retailers first encroached on the day with online teasers for midnight Black Friday sales at the bricks-and-mortar stores to online sales during Thanksgiving Day to just opening the stores while many are still just getting to the turkey. Bill Tancer, the general manager of global retail for Experian, sees it as a confluence of sophisticated retailing and consumer boredom, thanks to the swelling population of cyber-deal surfers on Thanksgiving. He?s been following for the past decade a growing group of restless consumers who turn to the Internet for entertainment and holiday shopping on the holiday. From 2003 to 2011, the No. 1 online shopping day has been Thanksgiving, according to his findings. Last year was the first that the so-called Cyber Monday, the Monday after the holiday, eclipsed Thanksgiving Day in online sales. It makes sense then for retailers to just open the doors. They wouldn?t if we didn?t walk through them. Though shoppers have been grousing for the past couple of years about Black Friday keeps creeping into Thanksgiving Day, it's shareholders who are giving Target grief over the decision to kick off its sales at 9 p.m. on the holiday. ?Retailers are getting savvy to the fact that Thanksgiving Day is such a busy online shopping day that they?re now keeping their bricks-and-mortar stores open on Thanksgiving,? Tancer says. Among those making early plays for customers this year are Sears, Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Toys ?R? Us and Gap. ?I don?t know if it?s stealing our time from us, since consumers have shown a strong interest in searching for those deals and making purchases on Thanksgiving,? he says. ?There?s a lot of dead time while that turkey is in the oven. It?s a good time to shop.? So we have no one but ourselves ? or our neighbors ? to blame. Cohen claims that retailers who bucked tradition for revenue potential last year were rewarded with a 22% hike in Black Friday weekend business over those who didn?t open shop. That means there were lots of folks willing to forgo food and football to shop.? Miro Copic, who sees this trend turning into the ?new normal? for Thanksgiving within five years, says it?s not about stealing time from our families but giving us alternatives. (Wait! Not everyone watches football?) ?There will be a lot of backlash on blogs and such, on family values and how we?re becoming too commercial,? says the San Diego State University marketing professor. ?But at the end of the day, it?s a choice. If I?m a retailer and I?m open, I?m telling you that you don?t have to come, but I?m giving you a convenience if you want to come.? Retailing is a lot like herding, experts say. ?If one store opens on Thanksgiving Day, competitors will follow ? since it is a battle over market share,? says Chris Christopher, an economist for IHS Global Insight. That?s been true practically ever since gift-giving became the thing to do on Christmas. But it?s even more true now, in the current environment of choppy consumer spending ? hot one month, slow the next. Retailers like to be what they call ?top of mind? to the consumer. If you shop at their stores early and have a good experience, you?re likely to return before Christmas. The trick is to get you in the door, even if they barely break even on what they call the loss leader, that dirt-cheap discount they use as bait. They?re counting on your impulse purchase to pay their bills. If they can start that mind game at the unofficial kickoff to the season, they?re convinced, they?ve got you for the entire period. ?They feel they have to start early, and motivate that customer, and get that sense of urgency going,? Howard Davidowitz, chairman of retail consultants Davidowitz & Associates told MarketWatch. ?They?re desperate, given the economy.? We?re finally seeing some backlash from this grab for your pocketbook, but it may be too little, too late. Casey St. Clair, who has worked at Target for six years, has collected more than 226,600 signatures through a petition on social-change advocacy site Change.org ( Change.org ) to pressure the retailer to leave Thanksgiving alone. This is the second straight year that those in the trenches have attempted to rally the masses and St. Clair?s efforts are gaining some traction. ?The quest for the almighty dollar has become ridiculous. Let employees have their holidays too,? Celeste Brodeur, of Clarksville, Tenn., wrote in the petition. Moreover, St. Clair is getting support from the people who Target?s executives might actually pay attention to: shareholders. See: Target faces ?Black Thursday? backlash from shareholders . ?I would gladly accept a slightly lower growth rate or slightly lower dividends in order to preserve the Thanksgiving holiday for all Americans,? shareholder Ben Rabizadeh wrote in an email to Change.org. The big dogs are coming out too. Harrington Investments is a socially responsible investment firm out of Napa, Calif., that holds 16,635 shares. It appealed directly to Target Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel in a letter to just say no. ?This will inevitably put our employees in a situation where they must choose between keeping their jobs or spending quality time with their families,? the firm wrote. Target, like most retailers who open on Thanksgiving, insists it turns to volunteers first to man the stores. Cohen argues that Thanksgiving is going down the same path that other once-sacred family-time holidays have traveled and consumers have since embraced. Remember when stores were closed on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day? ?This is an American holiday,? he says. ?It?s not like they?re taking the Christ out of Christmas.? Not yet at least, but it does raise the question of whether it?s just a matter of time before they do. ?No one is forcing you to shop,? Cohen says. ?If you don?t want to shop, stay home, sleep off your turkey dinner. Go ahead.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 19 17:12:30 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 18:12:30 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - RIAA Hammers Google With DMCA Takedowns In Six Strikes Prelude Message-ID: <5E378CF1-90BB-4F83-BE03-630A3D30D640@infowarrior.org> RIAA Hammers Google With DMCA Takedowns In Six Strikes Prelude ? enigmax ? November 20, 2012 http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-hammers-google-with-dmca-takedowns-in-six-strikes-prelude-121119/ Very soon the six strikes anti-piracy program will kick off in the United States but the RIAA isn?t just sitting back and presuming that it will be an anti-piracy cure-all. Since early November the recording industry group has massively upped the number of DMCA notices it issues to make content harder to find. From an average of between 200,000 and 240,000 URL requests sent every week to Google, the RIAA has just posted 463,000 and 666,000 in successive weeks. The well-publicized six-strikes anti-piracy scheme is just around the corner. The MPAA, RIAA and several large Internet service providers in the United States will work together to monitor file-sharers and send them warnings in the hope that they will start spending small fortunes on CDs, DVDs and digital downloads. While the monitoring and warning-sending while be fairly widespread, there are limitations as to who can be reached. There is a distinct possibility that once they receive a warning, file-sharers will either take steps to hide their online identities through the use of anonymity technologies like VPNs, or will shift to cyberlocker type services that cannot be monitored. So, to make things as difficult as possible for both sets of users, rightsholders have been sending ever-increasing volumes of DMCA takedown notices, not just to torrent, cyberlocker and other linking sites, but also to Google. They hope that when Internet users can?t find what they want through a Google search they will grow increasingly tired of looking and turn to official outlets instead. Google has been receiving huge numbers of these takedowns. To date, anti-piracy company Degban has sent the most ? a staggering 8.2 million in total. Microsoft has sent 5.5 million followed by Froytal who deal with the porn industry. Listed twice (once as copyright holders and once as reporting organizations) bed-fellows the BPI and RIAA have also been sending huge numbers of takedowns, but this month have broken all records. To give an idea of the scale, back in June this year the RIAA was sending takedown requests to Google at the rate of around 100,000 per week, with the BPI sending around 70,000. At the end of the July the BPI suddenly started sending around 150,000, with the RIAA reaching a steady 200,000 per week. As can be seen from the diagram above, early September the BPI boosted their volumes significantly, to around 244,000 takedowns a week, increasing to between 300,000 and 330,000 in the weeks that followed. The RIAA maintained 200,000 to 230,000 steadily until the first week of November and then, pretty much out of nowhere, they massively turned up the heat. In the week commencing November 5, the RIAA sent 463,000 URL takedown requests to Google, doubling their busiest week ever. Then the following week (last week), the recording industry group sent a mind-boggling 666,000 takedown requests to Google in just 7 days. So who are they targeting with all these takedowns? Of course, the usual suspects are all there including the major torrent sites, but perhaps what is most surprising is that the most-targeted sites aren?t the ones the RIAA chooses to report to the USTR in its ?notorious markets? review. In the ?non-P2P linking sites? section of the review, only the FileTube.com search engine is given a mention by the RIAA. However, although it is heavily targeted by rightsholders (and RIAA members individually), the site doesn?t appear in the RIAA?s top five most-targeted domains on Google. The most DMCA?d sites are Downloads.nl (396,094), MP3s.pl (275,035), MP3Searchy.com (253,942), WebLagu.com (225,471) and Audiko.net (189,224). Will the RIAA break one million URL takedowns a week by the end of the year? There?s only six weeks left to find out. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 19 17:31:39 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 18:31:39 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - DOD PR learning from Taliban? #PRoopsie Message-ID: <1EF929B5-774A-465D-A20A-815D4ACFD0B8@infowarrior.org> First the Taliban, now the DOD PR folks on the Manning trial forget to BCC their email lists. Two high-profile PR oopsies in one week....there's a lesson in there somewhere, I think. http://cryptome.org/2012/11/pentagon-bcc-nope.htm --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 20 19:50:10 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:50:10 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: Leahy backpedals - a little References: Message-ID: c/o DOD Begin forwarded message: > Leahy backpedals on the no-warrant email snooping. (Until he can figure out another way to write the bill?) > > http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552687-38/leahy-scuttles-his-warrantless-e-mail-surveillance-bill/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 20 19:51:54 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:51:54 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Russians back down from leaked U.N. Internet proposal Message-ID: <7B144157-47C7-4DA1-B3D9-8CD053E3C0B6@infowarrior.org> Russians back down from leaked U.N. Internet proposal Following the disclosure by CNET of a secret proposal to transfer Internet governance to the U.N., the Russian Federation has revised its plan, toning down the language but not the thrust of the document. by Larry Downes http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552769-38/russians-back-down-from-leaked-u.n-internet-proposal/ The Russian Federation has revised a controversial proposal to turn Internet governance over to the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union, CNET has learned. The revised proposal tones down some of the anti-Internet rhetoric of the original, but still calls on the UN to help member states seize control of key Internet engineering assets, including domain names, addresses and numbering. Both the original proposal (PDF) and Saturday's revised version (PDF) have now been posted on WCITLeaks, a Web site operated by researchers at George Mason University. On Friday, CNET was first to report on the original proposal, which leaked out of secret negotiations leading up to the World Conference on International Telecommunications taking place next month in Dubai. WCIT will update a 1988 treaty dealing with international telecommunications. Saturday's changes in the Russian proposal are subtle, and do not modify the overall thrust of the document. Russia continues to propose the addition of a new article to the treaty giving the ITU specific authority over the Internet, something the agency has never had. The original proposal titled that Article "IP-based networks (Internet)." The revised document calls it simply "Internet." Most notably, the revised plan continues to assert national control over all Internet activity that crosses national borders, albeit with slightly less inflammatory language. For example, a key amendment proposed by the Russians now says that "Member States shall have equal rights to manage the Internet, including in regard to the allotment, assignment, and reclamation of Internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources and to support for the operation and development of basic Internet infrastructure." The original version said simply, "Member states shall have equal rights in the international allocation of Internet addressing and identification resources." An addition to the treaty in the original proposal that "Member states shall have sovereign rights to manage the Internet within their national territory, as well as to manage national Internet domain names" was also revised, significantly removing the explicit reference to domain names. Domain names have long been the exclusive province of ICANN, a non-governmental organization. Both versions of the Russian proposal justify warnings by government officials and policy advocates that some ITU member states -- particularly Russia, China, and Iran -- would use the conference to advance longstanding efforts to gain better control over key Internet resources currently managed by non-governmental, multi-stakeholder engineering groups such as the Internet Society and ICANN. These concerns were first raised in February by FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. For some countries, diminishing engineering-based Internet governance helps advance political goals to limit the kind of information that enters and leaves their borders. But even less-repressive countries are increasingly sympathetic to these efforts because they see potential revenue in controlling domain names and IP addresses, as well as other Internet resources. For its part, the ITU has been struggling to dismiss claims that the conference would in any way deal with regulation of the Internet, or that the agency had a stake in proposals that expanded its own role. Since the summer, the agency has undertaken an often-clumsy PR campaign to reassure Internet users that it had not received any proposals dealing with Internet governance, nor would it. Leaked documents continue to contradict the ITU's claims, however, raising rather than easing anxiety worldwide about the outcome of the conference. WCIT proposals and the conference negotiations are still officially being kept secret. As recently as November 7, in an op-ed for Wired, ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure reiterated that "the conference will not examine management of critical Internet resources such as domain names and IP addresses. These functions are already performed by ICANN and regional Internet registries." But that statement contradicted an earlier acknowledgment from Toure hat some "preliminary" proposals had indeed suggested the ITU take over some or all management of domain names and addresses. The Russian proposal is the boldest and most direct plan so far leaked from the process that would turn the ITU into an Internet regulator. The ITU and the Russians have been working closely on cybersecurity matters, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made no effort to hide his broader agenda. Earlier this year, Putin bluntly told Toure that Russia was keen on the idea of "establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capability of the International Telecommunications Union." Sources told CNET today that the revision was likely a half-hearted effort by Russian officials to help the ITU rescue some credibility over what increasingly appears to be intentional misinformation about the nature of the negotiations and the contents of submitted proposals. The Web site Techdirt reported on Monday that the Russians were revising their proposal in response to criticism over the broad language of the leaked original. For its part, the U.S. government has maintained a strongly bi-partisan view that the ITU should not be given any authority over the Internet. Earlier this year, Congress unanimously passed a joint resolution condemning efforts to change the multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance that has operated with remarkable success and efficiency for decades. Ambassador Terry Kramer, who will lead the U.S. delegation to WCIT, has said repeatedly that confining the U.N. treaty to international telecommunications is a "non negotiable" item for the U.S. Though reassuring, that hardly means the Russian proposal is a dead letter. In the worst-case scenario, WCIT may generate a new version of the treaty which the U.S. and other nations refuse to ratify. That, however, could lead to a splintering of international regulations and the collapse of a single Internet with one set of names, addresses, protocols, and largely informal transit agreements. U.S. companies attempting to do business abroad or even to send traffic outside the U.S. could be forced to abide by different requirements in different countries, the start of a dangerous information trade war. Even if every Internet-related proposal for WCIT is rejected, the process will still demonstrate the increasingly explicit desire of some countries to undermine the current governance model for political and economic reasons, and of the ITU's willingness to cooperate with those countries in the interest of maintaining its own relevance in an age of converged IP-based communications for voice, video, and data. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 26 07:24:11 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 08:24:11 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Schneier=3A_When_It_Comes_to_Sec?= =?windows-1252?q?urity=2C_We=92re_Back_to_Feudalism?= Message-ID: When It Comes to Security, We?re Back to Feudalism ? By Bruce Schneier ? 11.26.12 ? 6:30 AM http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/feudal-security/ Some of us have pledged our allegiance to Google: We have Gmail accounts, we use Google Calendar and Google Docs, and we have Android phones. Others have pledged allegiance to Apple: We have Macintosh laptops, iPhones, and iPads; and we let iCloud automatically synchronize and back up everything. Still others of us let Microsoft do it all. Or we buy our music and e-books from Amazon, which keeps records of what we own and allows downloading to a Kindle, computer, or phone. Some of us have pretty much abandoned e-mail altogether ? for Facebook. These vendors are becoming our feudal lords, and we are becoming their vassals. We might refuse to pledge allegiance to all of them ? or to a particular one we don?t like. Or we can spread our allegiance around. But either way, it?s becoming increasingly difficult to not pledge allegiance to at least one of them. Feudalism provides security. Classical medieval feudalism depended on overlapping, complex, hierarchical relationships. There were oaths and obligations: a series of rights and privileges. A critical aspect of this system was protection: vassals would pledge their allegiance to a lord, and in return, that lord would protect them from harm. Of course, I?m romanticizing here; European history was never this simple, and the description is based on stories of that time, but that?s the general model. And it?s this model that?s starting to permeate computer security today. I Pledge Allegiance to the United States of Convenience Traditional computer security centered around users. Users had to purchase and install anti-virus software and firewalls, ensure their operating system and network were configured properly, update their software, and generally manage their own security. This model is breaking, largely due to two developments: ? New Internet-enabled devices where the vendor maintains more control over the hardware and software than we do ? like the iPhone and Kindle; and ? Services where the host maintains our data for us ? like Flickr and Hotmail. Now, we users must trust the security of these hardware manufacturers, software vendors, and cloud providers. We choose to do it because of the convenience, redundancy, automation, and shareability. We like it when we can access our e-mail anywhere, from any computer. We like it when we can restore our contact lists after we?ve lost our phones. We want our calendar entries to automatically appear on all of our devices. These cloud storage sites do a better job of backing up our photos and files than we would manage by ourselves; Apple does a great job keeping malware out of its iPhone apps store. In this new world of computing, we give up a certain amount of control, and in exchange we trust that our lords will both treat us well and protect us from harm. Not only will our software be continually updated with the newest and coolest functionality, but we trust it will happen without our being overtaxed by fees and required upgrades. We trust that our data and devices won?t be exposed to hackers, criminals, and malware. We trust that governments won?t be allowed to illegally spy on us. Trust is our only option. In this system, we have no control over the security provided by our feudal lords. We don?t know what sort of security methods they?re using, or how they?re configured. We mostly can?t install our own security products on iPhones or Android phones; we certainly can?t install them on Facebook, Gmail, or Twitter. Sometimes we have control over whether or not to accept the automatically flagged updates ? iPhone, for example ? but we rarely know what they?re about or whether they?ll break anything else. (On the Kindle, we don?t even have that freedom.) The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly I?m not saying that feudal security is all bad. For the average user, giving up control is largely a good thing. These software vendors and cloud providers do a lot better job of security than the average computer user would. Automatic cloud backup saves a lot of data; automatic updates prevent a lot of malware. The network security at any of these providers is better than that of most home users. Feudalism is good for the individual, for small startups, and for medium-sized businesses that can?t afford to hire their own in-house or specialized expertise. Being a vassal has its advantages, after all. For large organizations, however, it?s more of a mixed bag. These organizations are used to trusting other companies with critical corporate functions: They?ve been outsourcing their payroll, tax preparation, and legal services for decades. But IT regulations often require audits. Our lords don?t allow vassals to audit them, even if those vassals are themselves large and powerful. Yet feudal security isn?t without its risks. Our lords can make mistakes with security, as recently happened with Apple, Facebook, and Photobucket. They can act arbitrarily and capriciously, as Amazon did when it cut off a Kindle user for living in the wrong country. They tether us like serfs; just try to take data from one digital lord to another. Ultimately, they will always act in their own self-interest, as companies do when they mine our data in order to sell more advertising and make more money. These companies own us, so they can sell us off ? again, like serfs ? to rival lords ? or turn us in to the authorities. Historically, early feudal arrangements were ad hoc, and the more powerful party would often simply renege on his part of the bargain. Eventually, the arrangements were formalized and standardized: both parties had rights and privileges (things they could do) as well as protections (things they couldn?t do to each other). Today?s internet feudalism, however, is ad hoc and one-sided. We give companies our data and trust them with our security, but we receive very few assurances of protection in return, and those companies have very few restrictions on what they can do. This needs to change. There should be, limitations on what cloud vendors can do with our data; rights, like the requirement that they delete our data when we want them to; and liabilities when vendors mishandle our data. Like everything else in security, it?s a trade-off. We need to balance that trade-off. In Europe, it was the rise of the centralized state and the rule of law that undermined the ad hoc feudal system; it provided more security and stability for both lords and vassals. But these days, government has largely abdicated its role in cyberspace, and the result is a return to the feudal relationships of yore. Perhaps instead of hoping that our Internet-era lords will be sufficiently clever and benevolent ? or putting our faith in the Robin Hoods who block phone surveillance and circumvent DRM systems ? it?s time we step in in our role as governments (both national and international) to create the regulatory environments that protect us vassals (and the lords as well). Otherwise, we really are just serfs. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 26 14:41:54 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:41:54 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The U.N.'s Internet Sneak Attack Message-ID: <78CE2165-C791-4EBD-B83A-0A51EB612BA6@infowarrior.org> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324352004578136902821852508.html November 25, 2012, 4:24 p.m. ET The U.N.'s Internet Sneak Attack Letting the Internet be rewired by bureaucrats would be like handing a Stradivarius to a gorilla. ? By L. GORDON CROVITZ Who runs the Internet? For now, the answer remains no one, or at least no government, which explains the Web's success as a new technology. But as of next week, unless the U.S. gets serious, the answer could be the United Nations. Many of the U.N.'s 193 member states oppose the open, uncontrolled nature of the Internet. Its interconnected global networks ignore national boundaries, making it hard for governments to censor or tax. And so, to send the freewheeling digital world back to the state control of the analog era, China, Russia, Iran and Arab countries are trying to hijack a U.N. agency that has nothing to do with the Internet. For more than a year, these countries have lobbied an agency called the International Telecommunications Union to take over the rules and workings of the Internet. Created in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, the ITU last drafted a treaty on communications in 1988, before the commercial Internet, when telecommunications meant voice telephone calls via national telephone monopolies. Next week the ITU holds a negotiating conference in Dubai, and past months have brought many leaks of proposals for a new treaty. U.S. congressional resolutions and much of the commentary, including in this column, have focused on proposals by authoritarian governments to censor the Internet. Just as objectionable are proposals that ignore how the Internet works, threatening its smooth and open operations. Having the Internet rewired by bureaucrats would be like handing a Stradivarius to a gorilla. The Internet is made up of 40,000 networks that interconnect among 425,000 global routes, cheaply and efficiently delivering messages and other digital content among more than two billion people around the world, with some 500,000 new users a day. Many of the engineers and developers who built and operate these networks belong to virtual committees and task forces coordinated by an international nonprofit called the Internet Society. The society is home to the Internet Engineering Task Force (the main provider of global technical standards) and other volunteer groups such as the Internet Architecture Board and the Internet Research Task Force. Another key nongovernmental group is Icann, which assigns Internet addresses and domain names. The self-regulating Internet means no one has to ask for permission to launch a website, and no government can tell network operators how to do their jobs. The arrangement has made the Internet a rare place of permissionless innovation. As former Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard recently pointed out, 90% of cooperative "peering" agreements among networks are "made on a handshake," adjusting informally as needs change. Proposals for the new ITU treaty run to more than 200 pages. One idea is to apply the ITU's long-distance telephone rules to the Internet by creating a "sender-party-pays" rule. International phone calls include a fee from the originating country to the local phone company at the receiving end. Under a sender-pays approach, U.S.-based websites would pay a local network for each visitor from overseas, effectively taxing firms such as Google and Facebook . The idea is technically impractical because unlike phone networks, the Internet doesn't recognize national borders. But authoritarians are pushing the tax, hoping their citizens will be cut off from U.S. websites that decide foreign visitors are too expensive to serve. Regimes such as Russia and Iran also want an ITU rule letting them monitor Internet traffic routed through or to their countries, allowing them to eavesdrop or block access. "The Internet is highly complex and highly technical," Sally Wentworth of the Internet Society told me recently, "yet governments are the only ones making decisions at the ITU, putting the Internet at their mercy." She says the developers and engineers who actually run the Internet find it "mind boggling" that governments would claim control. As the Internet Society warns, "Technology moves faster than any treaty process ever can." Google has started an online petition for a "free and open Internet" saying: "Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future." The State Department's top delegate to the Dubai conference, Terry Kramer, has pledged that the U.S. won't let the ITU expand its authority to the Internet. But he hedged his warning in a recent presentation in Washington: "We don't want to come across like we're preaching to others." To the contrary, the top job for the U.S. delegation at the ITU conference is to preach the virtues of the open Internet as forcefully as possible. Billions of online users are counting on America to make sure that their Internet is never handed over to authoritarian governments or to the U.N. A version of this article appeared November 25, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The U.N.'s Internet Sneak Attack. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 26 14:42:12 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:42:12 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - UN Agency's Leaked Playbook: Panic, Chaos over Anti-Internet Treaty Message-ID: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2012/11/26/un-agencys-leaked-playbook-panic-chaos-over-internet-treaty/print/ UN Agency's Leaked Playbook: Panic, Chaos over Anti-Internet Treaty Larry Downes, Contributor 11/26/2012 @ 6:00AM The International Telecommunications Union, the UN agency at the center of a firestorm over new efforts to regulate the Internet, is preparing a social media campaign to target what it expects will be fierce opposition to a revised telephone treaty being decided next month at a secret conference in Dubai. That?s according to a key ITU internal planning document that appeared Saturday on the website WCITLeaks, which has been posting a steady stream of documents leading up to the conference. Even as ITU officials accelerate increasingly clumsy efforts to deflect the wrath of Internet users over next month?s World Conference on International Telecommunications, more documents leaking out ahead of the meeting continue to expose the agency?s misstatements. The WCIT conference will consider revisions to a 1988 treaty known as the International Telecommunications Regulations. At the meeting, 193 member nations consider dozens of proposed amendments, including several that would bring the Internet under ITU jurisdiction and substantially change the architecture and governance of the Internet. Other proposals would, if adopted, give countries including Russia, China, and Iran UN sanctioned-authority to monitor and censor incoming and outgoing Internet traffic under the guise of improving ?security.? The newly-leaked document is the agenda for an ?ITU Senior Management Retreat? held in Geneva in September. It includes a detailed report on resistance to WCIT and the agency?s plans to counter criticism of its secretive processes. It also includes links and passwords for presentations given by outside public relations and advertising executives from leading global agencies. (The passwords were still active as of Nov. 24th.) The document, marked ?confidential,? suggests senior ITU officials have become both paranoid and panicked over growing outrage over both the form and substance of the upcoming negotiations. Material included with the agenda paints a pathetic picture of the150 year-old UN agency struggling to defend itself from attacks by what the agency believes is a ?well-financed and well-organized campaign originating in the USA? whose goal is to ?discredit the ITU and WCIT.? The two-day meeting also featured leading media consultants invited to help the agency formulate a strategy to avoid the kind of global outrage that mortally wounded a secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement treaty earlier this year, and which did in copyright legislation known as SOPA and PIPA in the U.S. in January. Both ACTA and the US copyright bills were widely expected to pass with little opposition until Internet users organized physical and virtual protests that caught lawmakers by surprise. According to the internal ITU document, the agency had already launched what it calls a ?counter-campaign??a media blitz the agency plans to expand in light of what the ITU sees as the likely event of significant hostility to the revised treaty after the conference. Following the WCIT meeting, the ITU says, the counter-campaign will focus on ways to ?mitigate the risk? of an ?intensive anti-ratification campaign in [the US and Western Europe], based on the so-called lack of openness of the WCIT process, resulting in a significant number of countries refusing to ratify the new ITRs.? A Crisis of the ITU?s Own Making The ?so-called lack of openness? has little to do with growing outrage over WCIT. The real objections to the conference have more to do with substance than the secrecy of the negotiations. First and foremost, there is strong opposition within the US and EU delegations to expanding the UN?s jurisdiction over IP networks in any form. (The current ITRs do not extend to the Internet.) Globally, concern is also growing over increasingly direct efforts by some national governments to hijack the conference into mandating changes to the engineering-driven, multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance that relies on non-governmental international organizations such as the Internet Society, ICANN, and the W3C. These changes are seen as preludes to future restrictions on content and users implemented through the reengineering of key resources. In response to early proposals along these lines, Congress unanimously passed a joint resolution over the summer urging the US delegation, led by Ambassador Terry Kramer, to reject any extension of the ITU?s authority to Internet matters, or to allow ITU member states to use the conference to advance longstanding anti-Internet agendas. Last week, the EU debated a sternly-worded proposal urging its members likewise to resist Internet-related proposals. Also last week, Google launched its own campaign, urging users to take direct action against the WCIT. ?Some governments want to use a closed-door meeting in December to increase censorship and regulate the Internet,? the company said. ?Some proposals could permit governments to censor legitimate speech ? or even allow them to cut off Internet access.? Recent Cyber Attacks The ITU has refused to take such criticism seriously, and continues instead to stonewall. In a Nov. 23 blog post, the agency attacked the Google campaign by name, insisting absurdly that the agency?s secret proceedings are ?completely transparent? because all 193 voting nations have access to the proceedings. (Non-voting private entities, which also have access to conference documents, can join the ITU at a cost that starts at around $20,000 a year.) On Saturday, likewise, an ITU spokesperson once again rejected claims that any proposals so far submitted for consideration could have any effect on censorship or reducing free speech in some member nations. The spokesperson also flatly denied that any proposals do or could deal with regulation of the Internet or its underlying engineering. ?There?s nothing that?s coming up in this conference that touches on Internet governance or proposes changing the current mandate of the organizations that run the Internet,? the ITU spokesperson told The Hill. ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Tour?, likewise, has said repeatedly that the WCIT has nothing to do with Internet governance, and that it specifically will not address multi-stakeholder management of protocols, domain names, addresses, or other engineering resources. In a recent op-ed published by Wired, for example, Tour? wrote, ?To be clear, the conference will not examine management of critical Internet resources such as domain names and IP addresses. These functions are already performed by ICANN and regional Internet registries.? In a Nov. 15th blog post, the agency again assured critics that ?there have not been any proposals calling for a change from the bottom-up multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance to an ITU-controlled model.? (emphasis original) Yet as I reported last week, a leaked November 13th proposal from the Russian Federation to the ITU specifically adds a new section to the treaty dealing with Internet governance, and would if adopted transfer some it not all of ICANN?s authority over domain names, Internet addresses and other key resources to national governments under the auspices of the ITU. A direct contradiction of ITU assurances, the Russian proposal was only the most direct and aggressive of several leaked amendments from countries and non-voting private ITU members that would explicitly change the architecture and governance of the Internet. (Many though by no means all of these have been posted to the WCITLeaks site, maintained by Jerry Brito and Eli Dourado, researchers at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.) Preparing for the Worst?and Causing it at the Same Time The ITU is well aware of these proposals, yet continues to deny their existence. Now we know why. The agency?s clumsy efforts at misdirection and outright misstatements follow precisely the media playbook discussed at the September senior management retreat. At the meeting, the ITU considered responses to six possible outcomes for the upcoming WCIT conference, including ?Consensus on a treaty that is substantively different from the existing ITRs, perhaps with reservations from some OECD countries regarding specific articles.? (The OECD is an economic development organization that includes the US and much of Western Europe.) But the agency?s senior management acknowledges in the document that a consensus scenario ?seems unlikely given the positions taken by the USA.? Those ?positions,? according to the document, were expressed through a ?well-financed and well-organized campaign? that was determined to ?discredit the ITU and WCIT, so at to minimize the chances that new ITRs could affect the existing flow of funds for Internet traffic.? The ITU is referring specifically to proposals I first reported on in May from a trade group of European telephone companies known as ETNO. ETNO proposed radical changes to the ITRs that would mandate new Internet traffic transit arrangements in which content providers would pay tolls and taxes to local ISPs (many still run by national governments) to reach local users who requested their content. The ETNO plan was widely seen as a desperation move by over-regulated European ISPs to subsidize their networks on the backs of high-volume content providers including YouTube, Netflix, and other video sites, most of which are headquartered outside the EU. But by requiring content providers to pay locally-set tolls to satisfy information requests by their own users, the plan would have signaled the end of Internet growth in much of the developing world. In Europe earlier this month, sources told me that the ETNO proposal had yet to find a sponsor among the European member nations. But versions of similar Internet tax plans have since appeared in amendments offered by some African and Arab countries. These governments hope content taxes can somehow replace lost revenue from declining international long distance traffic, where rates were set artificially high, leading to rampant corruption. According to the leaked document, the ITU believes that the anti-ETNO campaign got out of hand, unintentionally leading public advocacy groups on the left and the right to begin ?attacking the ITU and WCIT for being insufficiently open and transparent.? Without identifying the U.S.-based ?lobbying group? behind what it acknowledges to be growing negative media coverage, the agency goes on to say that ?the sponsors? of the campaign ?did not realize that the attacks directed against WCIT would turn into general attacks on the ITU as a whole.? The internal document says that ?[t]he lobbying group that initiated the campaign has probably lost control of it and regrets the intensity of the attacks against the ITU.? In response to the anti-WCIT ?campaign,? according to the September retreat?s preparatory materials, the ITU reluctantly launched a ?counter-campaign,? which the agency believes ?has been fairly successful outside the US and somewhat successful even in the US,? where ?some of the statements made to denigrate ITU and WCIT are so extreme that they were easy to challenge and rebut.? Going forward, the ITU focused at its meeting on the possibility of an ?intensive anti-ratification campaign in OECD countries, based on the so-called lack of openness of the WCIT process, resulting in a significant number of countries refusing to ratify the new ITRs.? The ITU calls this possibility ?the so-called ACTA scenario,? referring to sometimes violent protests against the secret ACTA treaty that took place this year. To develop the next phase of its ?counter-campaign,? the ITU hosted speakers from leading PR and advertising agencies to advise them on the use of social media. For example, Matthias Lufkens, Head of Digital Strategy for global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, gave a presentation on how his agency helped the World Economic Forum leverage tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr to fend off ?occupy?-style protests that occurred both physically in Davos and on the Internet. ?There is a risk that [the ACTA scenario] will happen, but our communication campaign can mitigate this,? the internal document says. Fighting Fire with Tweets But the ITU is deluding itself if its senior management actually believes the current ?counter-campaign? has in any way been ?successful.? Opposition to WCIT has ramped up since the September retreat, and it is by no means limited to the US and other OECD countries. Indeed, many countries in the developing world now recognize the ETNO proposal as one that would leave them cut off from most Internet traffic, and resent the ITU?s implicit endorsement of the plan. (Even as late as September, the internal document characterized the sending party tax innocuously as ?who pays how much to whom to move traffic? and sniffed that any objection to ETNO?s proposals implied that ?developing countries are unable to understand what is in their interests.?) The hostile response by Internet users to leaked anti-Internet proposals at WCIT is no mystery. Nor is it the result of a vast conspiracy against the ITU. The launch of Google?s campaign, which comes nearly three months after the ITU retreat confidently predicted it had stemmed the tide of negative ?press,? is further evidence that the ITU and its media consultants have completely misread the response to WCIT from users not just in the U.S. but around the world. Instead, as its media playbook advises, the ITU continues to repeat that only the agency?s remarkable foresight in prior efforts at international telephone regulation ?paved the way for today?s information and communications technologies.? The document encourages ITU spokespeople to deflect media questions from secrecy, taxes and censorship and say instead that ?[t]he revised ITRs have the exciting potential to pave the way for a broadband revolution in the 21st century.? In a particularly ham-fisted example, the title of Dr. Tour??s recent op-ed in Wired was changed a few days after it appeared from ?UN Must Regulate the Internet? to ?UN: We Seek to Bring Internet to All,? presumably at the ITU?s request. (Contrary to journalistic convention, Wired?s editors made the change without noting or explaining it.) Of course no one but the ITU believes such inanities. Indeed, the leaked agenda and supporting materials for its recent senior management retreat suggests even the agency?s senior staff is having trouble keeping a straight face. In fact, the ITU has been caught utterly flat-footed by the response to its Internet power grab. The agency is now straining to paint itself as an innocent victim of negative press intended for other targets. But whether caused by its own greed or incompetence, the agency deserves the backlash that continues to grow against its efforts to expand its authority and reassert its relevance in the digital age?even if doing so comes at the cost of Internet freedom for some or all users. Indeed, the leaked internal document makes crystal clear that the agency fundamentally misunderstands the resistance of Internet users to an enhanced UN role in Internet governance, and to proposals that would give repressive governments increased political cover to slow or silence the free flow of information under the guise of implementing a UN treaty. It isn?t the lack of transparency, in other words, that has outraged users. It?s the terrible ideas the agency is at pains to keep secret within its sometimes-complicit national membership. Here?s the unvarnished truth, which no PR agency can help the agency talk, tweet, or prevaricate their way around: The commercial Internet emerged and matured entirely since the treaty was last reviewed. It developed in spite of the ITRs, not because of them. There is a familiar pattern here of ambitious regulators who have no expertise and little experience with the Internet proclaiming themselves its benevolent dictators, only to find the peasants revolting before the coup has even started. The ITU is no different than the sponsors of ACTA, SOPA, PIPA, and other attempts at regulating the Internet, its content, or its users by governments large and small. Like the media lobbyists who continue to see the successful fight to kill SOPA and PIPA as a proxy war waged solely by Google and other Internet companies, the ITU simply can?t accept the reality that Internet users have become their own best advocates. Without prodding, they readily work together to defend a common-sense faith in self-governance for engineering resources and an unshakable belief in a free marketplace of ideas, the cornerstones of the Internet?s success. The UN is just the latest would-be savior that believes itself the only solution to governance problems that are largely non-existent. And they are being aided and abetted in this delusion by national governments and others who are determined to turn off the free flow of information however they can, whether through legal or technological means, or both. The only things broken on the Web have been broken by governments. As the ITU?s continued fumbling makes ever-clearer, the UN is ill-suited to play any role in the continued development of the digital economy. And the ITRs are no place to deal with real or imagined Internet issues. No one but the ITU?s management and their client governments could ever think otherwise. Fortunately for Internet users, setting up a Twitter feed and loading a Facebook page with lectures on the agency?s patronizing sense of noblesse oblige isn?t going to change that reality one bit. Internet users already know that. The ITU and its media consultants will learn it soon enough. That is, assuming its senior bureaucrats stop telling themselves consoling fairy tales at retreats in the Swiss countryside long enough for reality to set in. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 26 14:43:08 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:43:08 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Hackers of Damascus Message-ID: (c/o DG) The Hackers of Damascus By Stephan Faris on November 15, 2012 Taymour Karim didn?t crack under interrogation. His Syrian captors beat him with their fists, with their boots, with sticks, with chains, with the butts of their Kalashnikovs. They hit him so hard they broke two of his teeth and three of his ribs. They threatened to keep torturing him until he died. ?I believed I would never see the sun again,? he recalls. But Karim, a 31-year-old doctor who had spent the previous months protesting against the government in Damascus, refused to give up the names of his friends. It didn?t matter. His computer had already told all. ?They knew everything about me,? he says. ?The people I talked to, the plans, the dates, the stories of other people, every movement, every word I said through Skype. They even knew the password of my Skype account.? At one point during the interrogation, Karim was presented with a stack of more than 1,000 pages of printouts, data from his Skype chats and files his torturers had downloaded remotely using a malicious computer program to penetrate his hard drive. ?My computer was arrested before me,? he says. < - > http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-15/the-hackers-of-damascus --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 26 20:05:54 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:05:54 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Senate Set to Introduce Bill for Broad Email Spying Message-ID: Senate Set to Introduce Bill for Broad Email Spying by Tom Burghardt / November 26th, 2012 http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/11/senate-set-to-introduce-bill-for-broad-email-spying/ A Senate proposal claiming to ?protect? Americans? email privacy from unwarranted secret state intrusions ?has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law,? CNET revealed. As provisions of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) are ?updated? to better reflect the insatiable needs of our police state minders, law enforcement groups and corporate lobbyists are clamoring for greater access to our electronic communications. While doe-eyed ?progressives? claim that the reelection of war criminal Barack Obama portends an imminent ?2.0 reset? by his administration, actions speak louder than words, particularly as they pertain to Americans? constitutional rights. Most recently the Hope and Change? fraudster signaled his intentions by giving Israel a green light to murder Palestinians in the open air prison of Gaza. The silence from ?progressive? quarters was worse than deafening as writers Chris Floyd and Arthur Silber pointed out. What about other ?liberal icons,? stalwart champions of civil liberties; what have they been up to since the election? CNET investigative reporter Declan McCullagh informed us that ?Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns,? and that a ?vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans? e-mail, is scheduled for next week.? Among the proposals found in the Leahy revisions are the following: ? Grants warrantless access to Americans? electronic correspondence to over 22 federal agencies. Only a subpoena is required, not a search warrant signed by a judge based on probable cause. ? Permits state and local law enforcement to warrantlessly access Americans? correspondence stored on systems not offered ?to the public,? including university networks. ? Authorizes any law enforcement agency to access accounts without a warrant?or subsequent court review?if they claim ?emergency? situations exist. ? Delays notification of customers whose accounts have been accessed from 3 days to ?10 business days.? This notification can be postponed by up to 360 days. Although a follow-up CNET article reported that Leahy, reacting to widespread opposition, has now ?abandoned his controversial proposal that would grant government agencies more surveillance power?including warrantless access to Americans? e-mail accounts,? given Congress?s near universal embrace of the ?Total Information Awareness? paradigm, it is a near certainty these measures will return in some form. ?It?s an abrupt departure from Leahy?s earlier approach,? McCullough noted, one ?which required police to obtain a search warrant backed by probable cause before they could read the contents of e-mail or other communications.? But in the best tradition of ?bipartisanship,? i.e., capitulation to the Security State, ?after law enforcement groups including the National District Attorneys? Association and the National Sheriffs? Association organizations objected to the legislation,? Leahy ?pushed back the vote and reworked the bill as a package of amendments to be offered next Thursday.? The strongest objections to providing the public with privacy safeguards came, you guessed it, from officials within Obama?s Department of Justice. Earlier this year, CNET reported that the DOJ ?offered what amounts to a frontal attack on proposals to amend federal law to better protect Americans? privacy.? ?James Baker, the associate deputy attorney general, warned that rewriting a 1986 privacy law to grant cloud computing users more privacy protections and to require court approval before tracking Americans? cell phones would hinder police investigations.? During Senate testimony back in April, Baker claimed that requiring a search warrant ?to obtain stored e-mail could have an ?adverse impact? on criminal investigations. And making location information only available with a search warrant, he said, would hinder ?the government?s ability to obtain important information in investigations of serious crimes?.? In other words, even when there is no evidence a crime has been committed the Obama administration is asserting that constitutional safeguards on email stored in the cloud would get in the government?s way and impose ?an unnecessary burden? on state fishing expeditions by a multitude of law enforcement agencies. Such fallacious claims come hot on the heels of administration efforts to convince Congress to rewrite wiretapping laws that would require internet firms such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to build backdoors into their infrastructure for government surveillance. Earlier this month, Russia Today disclosed that although the FBI ?has been adamant about withholding information about their plans to ensure the government can access any encrypted emails or messages sent over the Internet,? a federal judge ordered the Bureau to ?come clean.? ?Washington,? RT reported, ?hopes to eventually roll out a program that will see that the FBI and other federal agencies are allowed backdoor access to any and all online communications.? The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg, in response to charges by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that a government stonewall hindered their Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on the FBI?s ?Going Dark? program, ordered the Department of Justice to conduct ?further review of the materials previously withheld.? Although the DOJ?s Criminal Division had located 8,425 pages of ?potentially responsive information,? they only released ?one page in full and 6 pages in part, and withheld 51 pages in full.? How?s that for ?transparency?! And with new Justice Department guidelines allowing ?counterterrorism officials? to ?lengthen the period of time they retain information about U.S. residents, even if they have no known connection to terrorism? as The Washington Post reported earlier this year, any and every scrap of electronic detritus generated by the billions of cell phone calls, text messages, emails and web searches made by Americans every day is considered fair game by government snoops. The trend towards retaining more and more data by intelligence agencies and local police has accelerated with technological advances. As The New York Times reported in August, ?not so long ago even the most aggressive government surveillance had to be selective: the cost of data storage was too high and the capacity too low to keep everything.? ?Not anymore.? According to to John Villasenor, a ?senior fellow? at the elitist Brookings Institution, as data storage costs plummet ?it will soon be technically feasible and affordable to record and store everything that can be recorded about what everyone in a country says or does.? The Brookings analyst averred that ?estimates ? to store the audio from telephone calls made by an average person in the course of a year would require about 3.3 gigabytes and cost just 17 cents to store, a price that is expected to fall to 2 cents by 2015.? ?Tracking a person?s movements for a year, collected from their cellphone, would take so little space as to carry a trivial cost,? the Times averred. ?Storing video takes far more space, but the price is dropping so steadily that storing millions of hours of material will not be a problem soon.? But wouldn?t securocrats drown in these vast oceans of electronic data? Not really. A ?parallel revolution in search technology? will soon allow even the dimmest bulb at DHS or the FBI ?to efficiently find anything of interest in the data.? This ?parallel revolution? was hinted at by investigative journalist James Bamford. In his March piece in Wired Magazine, Bamford described efforts by the National Security Agency to build ?super-fast computers to conduct brute-force attacks on encrypted messages.? In 2009, ?they made a big breakthrough,? a former ?senior intelligence official? told Wired. ?The NSA believes it?s on the verge of breaking a key encryption algorithm?opening up hoards of data.? ?That,? the former official noted, ?is where the value of Bluffdale, and its mountains of long-stored data, will come in,? Bamford wrote. ?What can?t be broken today may be broken tomorrow. ?Then you can see what they were saying in the past,? he says. ?By extrapolating the way they did business, it gives us an indication of how they may do things now.? The danger, the former official says, is that it?s not only foreign government information that is locked in weaker algorithms, it?s also a great deal of personal domestic communications, such as Americans? email intercepted by the NSA in the past decade.? And if it can be intercepted, mined and stored, it can be searched, giving government snoops an unprecedented window into our lives. More troubling still, with ECPA ?reform? on the horizon, CNET disclosed that ?Leahy?s rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies?including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission?to access Americans? e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant.? In addition to the SEC, civil subpoena authority would be granted to diverse agencies such as the ?Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Maritime Commission, the Postal Regulatory Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Mine Enforcement Safety and Health Review Commission,? McCullough wrote. It doesn?t take a rocket scientist to infer that investigative digging by concerned citizens and journalists into the filthy shenanigans and ?shitty deals? foisted on the public by banks, shady brokerage houses, mortgage lenders, defense corporations, petrochemical and mining interests, or unions out to ?organize the unorganized,? would be viewed as a dire threat to the current corporatist set-up. According to draft proposals leaked to CNET we learn that if passed the new law ?would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.? The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) reported last month, the organization ?is seeking documents about DHS Internet monitoring that some Justice Department officials believe may ?run afoul of privacy laws forbidding government surveillance of private Internet traffic?.? ?In February 2011,? EPIC disclosed that ?the Department of Homeland Security announced that the agency planned to implement a program that would monitor media content, including social media data.? The DHS initiative ?would gather information from ?online forums, blogs, public websites, and messages boards? and disseminate information to ?federal, state, local, and foreign government and private sector partners?.? ?The program would be executed, in part,? EPIC also revealed, ?by individuals who established fictitious usernames and passwords to create covert social media profiles to spy on other users. The agency stated it would store personal information for up to five years.? Ironically enough, in October the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report, Federal Support for and Involvement in State and Local Fusion Centers, which found ?that DHS-assigned detailees to the fusion centers forwarded ?intelligence? of uneven quality?oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens? civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism.? ?Despite reviewing 13 months? worth of reporting originating from fusion centers from April 1, 2009 to April 30, 2010,? Senate staff averred, ?the Subcommittee investigation could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot.? In their Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against DHS, the privacy watchdogs obtained nearly three hundreds pages of documents which revealed that the sprawling bureaucracy ?is monitoring political dissent.? According to EPIC, the documents described widespread surveillance by the agency and included ?contracts and statements of work with General Dynamics for 24/7 media and social network monitoring and periodic reports to DHS. The documents reveal that the agency is tracking media stories that ?reflect adversely? on DHS or the U.S. government.? Meanwhile, Senate Subcommittee investigators also found that the agency?s disbursement practices were so shoddy that ?DHS revealed that it was unable to provide an accurate tally of how much it had granted to states and cities to support fusion centers efforts, instead producing broad estimates of the total amount of Federal dollars spent on fusion center activities from 2003 to 2011, estimates which ranged from $289 million to $1.4 billion.? But as I have pointed out many times, the machinery of state repression is lubricated with cold cash bestowed by taxpayers on privileged corporate insiders. Earlier this month, Washington Technology reported that ?the top 20 contractors at the Homeland Security Department represent more than a third of all business done by contract at the department during fiscal 2011.? According to the report, ?DHS spent $5.1 billion with the top 20 companies, and $14.2 billion on all contractors,? with ?IT and systems integration firms,? integral to constructing and running the secret state?s panopticon, topping the list. ? ? ? Since the 9/11 provocation, intrusive surveillance of the American people by a host of shadowy government agencies and private corporations clearly demonstrates there is broad ruling class consensus for expanding authoritarian and dictatorial forms of rule under an unconstitutional ?Unitary Executive.? Recent revelations by The Washington Post that the Obama regime ?has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the ?disposition matrix?,? starkly reveals that when the president can spy on or kill whomever he pleases, on his own initiative and without the checks and balances enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights is effectively a dead letter. While we do not know what form a ?new and improved? ECPA will take when it emerges from the bipartisan congressional snake pit, the prospects for ever emerging from America?s ?friendly fascist? nightmare are growing dimmer. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 26 20:06:01 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:06:01 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Intrade to cut off bets from US Message-ID: <53F17B92-3D2B-4338-B8E7-43495EB3679F@infowarrior.org> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/bbe326a6-37f0-11e2-a97e-00144feabdc0.html Last updated: November 26, 2012 10:35 pm Intrade to cut off bets from US By Gregory Meyer and Arash Massoudi in New York Intrade, the leading prediction market for bets on events from elections to box-office receipts, said it would cut off US customers next month in the face of a regulator?s lawsuit. The Dublin-based online marketplace was regularly cited as a barometer of the fluctuating odds of the candidates during the US presidential campaign. More than 22m shares have been traded this year by more than 55,000 different users and the US is its biggest source of business, according to its website. Intrade instructed US customers to unwind all open predictions before December 23 or ?Intrade will close out your predictions for you?. ?We are sorry to announce that due to legal and regulatory pressures, Intrade can no longer allow US residents to participate in our real-money prediction markets,? a message posted on the Intrade chat room said. The company did not respond to requests for comment. The announcement came hours after the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a civil complaint charging Intrade?s operators with letting US customers trade options contracts between 2007 and June 2012 in defiance of a ban on off-exchange options trading in the US. ?It is against the law to solicit US persons to buy and sell commodity options, even if they are called ?prediction? contracts, unless they are listed for trading and traded on a CFTC-registered exchange or unless legally exempt,? David Meister, CFTC enforcement director, said. Intrade is not registered as an exchange in the US. Intrade?s ?binary? options contracts pay out on a ?yes? or ?no? answer to broad public questions. On Monday, the most active question in its politics market was ?Tim Geithner to depart as Secretary of the Treasury before end of first term?. Bettors assigned it a 25.3 per cent probability of being true. The CFTC sought an injunction against illegal solicitations of US customers. However, the Intrade message disclosed ?plans for a new exchange model that will allow legal participation from all jurisdictions ? including the US.? No date was set. Regulators have taken a cautious stance towards event markets. The CFTC in April rejected a bid by the North American Derivatives Exchange to list contracts that would have paid out based on the 2012 elections. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Nov 26 20:12:07 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:12:07 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - More on ... Senate Set to Introduce Bill for Broad Email Spying References: Message-ID: <061E3041-2FE8-4D81-BF34-1D1C233B76AA@infowarrior.org> c/o fergie..... Begin forwarded message: > Follow-up, due to outrage: > > "Leahy scuttles his warrantless e-mail surveillance bill" > > http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552687-38/leahy-scuttles-his-warrantless-e-mail-surveillance-bill/ > > Yay, Internauts. :-) > > - ferg From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 27 07:43:33 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:43:33 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - NYPD Is Amassing Trove of Cellphone Logs Message-ID: <5EF18B9A-4611-40A1-BF44-63113BCA57D0@infowarrior.org> City Is Amassing Trove of Cellphone Logs By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN Published: November 26, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/nyregion/new-york-city-police-amassing-a-trove-of-cellphone-logs.html?hpw When a cellphone is reported stolen in New York, the Police Department routinely subpoenas the phone?s call records, from the day of the theft onward. The logic is simple: If a thief uses the phone, a list of incoming and outgoing calls could lead to the suspect. But in the process, the Police Department has quietly amassed a trove of telephone logs, all obtained without a court order, that could conceivably be used for any investigative purpose. The call records from the stolen cellphones are integrated into a database known as the Enterprise Case Management System, according to Police Department documents from the detective bureau. Each phone number is hyperlinked, enabling detectives to cross-reference it against phone numbers in other files. The subpoenas not only cover the records of the thief?s calls, but also encompass calls to and from the victim on the day of the theft. In some cases the records can include calls made to and from a victim?s new cellphone, if the stolen phone?s number has been transferred, three detectives said in interviews. Police officials declined to say how many phone records are contained in the database, or how often they might have led to arrests. But police documents suggest that thousands of subpoenas have been issued each year, with each encompassing anywhere from dozens to hundreds of phone calls. For example, T-Mobile, which has a smaller market share than some of its competitors, like Verizon, fulfilled 297 police subpoenas issued in January 2012, according to a police document. To date, phone companies have appeared willing to accede to the Police Department?s requests for large swaths of call records. Memos issued Sept. 28 by the chief of detectives, Phil T. Pulaski, instruct detectives to prepare subpoenas for stolen phones assigned to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or Metro-PCS. With these carriers, the police do not generally seek the victims? consent; in fact, the subpoenas are executed without the victims? knowledge. (It does not appear that subpoenas are issued when the stolen phone is served by Sprint Nextel. In those cases, detectives are instructed to ask the victim to fill out consent forms that authorize Sprint Nextel to release call records and location information to the police.) ?If large amounts of victim phone records are being collected and added to a searchable database, it?s very troubling,? said Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who represents wireless carriers, in a phone interview. ?We?re all used to the concept of growing databases of criminal information,? Mr. Sussmann, of the firm Perkins Coie, said, ?but now you?re crossing over that line and drawing in victim information.? Police officials would not say if detectives had used the call records of any cellphone theft victims in the course of investigating other crimes. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department?s chief spokesman, did not reply to more than half a dozen requests for comments. The practice of accumulating the phone numbers in a searchable database is ?eye-opening and alarming,? a civil rights lawyer, Norman Siegel, said when told of the protocol for subpoenaing phone records. ?There is absolutely no legitimate purpose for doing this. If I?m an innocent New Yorker, why should any of my information be in a police database?? Mr. Siegel also said the Police Department should not be permitted to hold on to phone records indefinitely if the records were not relevant to active criminal investigations. Nationwide, cellphone carriers reported receiving about 1.5 million requests from law enforcement for various types of subscriber information in 2011. Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is co-chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, began seeking information this year about how cellular carriers handle law enforcement?s requests for subscriber information. And on Thursday, a Senate committee will consider changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Mr. Sussmann suggested that the Police Department could limit its subpoenas to phone calls beginning on the hour, not the day, of the theft, and ending as soon as the victim has transferred the number to a new phone. According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, the police subpoenas seek call records associated with the telephone number of the stolen phone. As a result, three detectives said in interviews, the phone companies? response sometimes includes call records for not only the stolen phone, but also the victim?s new phone, depending on variables like how quickly the victim transfers the old phone number to a new handset and how many days of calls the subpoena seeks. One detective said the subpoenas from recent cases typically requested about four days of phone records, but documents reviewed by The Times indicate that the subpoenas can cover longer periods, sometimes as much as two weeks or more. In interviews, detectives said that if an arrest occurs, it is often a result of earlier investigative steps. Chief Pulaski?s memos from Sept. 28 instruct detectives to use any tracking or location application on the victim?s phone to track down a suspect. Victims are asked to immediately call the phone carrier and learn the details of any phone calls placed after the theft. In addition, detectives ask the victim not to transfer their phone number to a new phone for about four days. Finally, detectives are then required to prepare a subpoena, the results of which usually take a few weeks. By then, most of the unsolved phone cases have been put on the back burner, and the subpoenaed records seldom lead to an arrest, four current and retired detectives said in interviews. A version of this article appeared in print on November 27, 2012, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: City Is Amassing Trove of Cellphone Logs. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 27 07:57:04 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:57:04 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - "Fort Cyber" & "Cyber Valley" Message-ID: <548D1591-63D2-46FA-9141-E9BA40427626@infowarrior.org> Cybersecurity in Maryland? Great to be here and help grow this thriving professional community. Srsly. But must they coin new and oh-so-cheesy phrases about it to insert into daily soundbytes? Puh-lease. Maryland lawmakers build 'Fort Cyber' http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84242.html?hp=r7 --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 27 13:03:00 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:03:00 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - China paper punk'd by The Onion Message-ID: (...as was Iran a few weeks earlier! --rick) China's party paper falls for Onion joke about Kim (AP) ? 3 hours ago http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g94TAgX61U0KSmll8j0J432fAv0Q?docId=82dfc9b60cad45f89bc82e5983d0dd61 BEIJING (AP) ? The online version of China's Communist Party newspaper has hailed a report by The Onion naming North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as the "Sexiest Man Alive" ? not realizing it is satire. The People's Daily on Tuesday ran a 55-page photo spread on its website in a tribute to the round-faced leader, under the headline "North Korea's top leader named The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive for 2012." Quoting The Onion's spoof report, the Chinese newspaper wrote, "With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman's dream come true." "Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper's editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile," the People's Daily cited The Onion as saying. The photos the People's Daily selected include Kim on horseback squinting into the light and Kim waving toward a military parade. In other photos, he is wearing sunglasses and smiling, or touring a facility with his wife. People's Daily could not immediately be reached for comment. A man who answered the phone at the newspaper's duty office said he did not know anything about the report and requested queries be directed to their newsroom on Wednesday morning. It is not the first time a state-run Chinese newspaper has fallen for a fictional report by the just-for-laughs The Onion. In 2002, the Beijing Evening News, one of the capital city's biggest tabloids at the time, published as news the fictional account that the U.S. Congress wanted a new building and that it might leave Washington. The Onion article was a spoof of the way sports teams threaten to leave cities in order to get new stadiums. Two months ago, Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency reprinted a story from The Onion about a supposed survey showing that most rural white Americans would rather vote for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than President Barack Obama. It included a quote from a fictional West Virginia resident saying he'd rather go to a baseball game with Ahmadinejad because "he takes national defense seriously." Copyright ? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 27 13:02:58 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:02:58 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Apparently All That Stuff About Needing SOPA To Go After Foreign Sites Was Bogus Message-ID: Apparently All That Stuff About Needing SOPA To Go After Foreign Sites Was Bogus Tim covered the story of ICE doing its annual censorship binge in seizing domain names without adversarial hearings (as we still believe is required under the law). However, there were a couple of additional points worthy of a followup. First off, if you remember, one of the key reasons why we were told SOPA was needed was that for all of ICE's previous domain takedowns it was "impossible" for it to take down foreign domains. Except... as ICE's own announcement here shows that was completely untrue. It seems to have had no difficulty finding willing law enforcement partners around the globe to seize websites without any due process: < - > Yeah. Apparently it's possible for ICE to censor those sites if it actually does a little work and calls up its law enforcement pals. Another example of why SOPA was never necessary in the first place. The other issue? ICE's own release shows that ICE appears to have no understanding of the intellectual property laws it's seeking to enforce. From that release: < - > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121126/17190821152/apparently-all-that-stuff-about-needing-sopa-to-go-after-foreign-sites-was-bogus.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 27 13:14:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:14:45 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Sun coverage: Speed cameras Message-ID: Baltimore Sun does a great in-depth on speed cameras. Sun coverage: Speed cameras http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/sun-investigates/bal-speed-camera-coverage,0,4946692.special --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 27 22:17:08 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:17:08 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - 10-year-old girl's laptop confiscated after copyright offense Message-ID: Devin Coldewey , NBC News - 22 hrs. 10-year-old girl's laptop confiscated after copyright offense Devin Coldewey / NBC News http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/10-year-old-girls-laptop-confiscated-after-copyright-offense-1C7227561 Police in Helsinki seized the laptop of a young girl during a search of her family's home last week, according to her father. The alleged offense? Using the popular BitTorrent website The Pirate Bay to download a single album. Last year, 9-year-old Julietta came across a torrent on The Pirate Bay after searching on Google for Finnish pop star Chisu's latest album. The download failed to work, and she and her father went and bought the album together shortly afterwards. Unbeknownst to them, Finland's Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (known as CIAPC, as well as its Finnish acronym, TTVK) had already taken notice. The events are related by the girl's father, Aki Wequ Nylund, in a public Facebook post. (Though Google Translate's Finnish is not very good, an account of the translated story was posted at copyright and BitTorrent news blog TorrentFreak.) This spring, a letter arrived from the TTVK alleging that the Nylund's account had been linked to a copyright infringement. The letter gave the option to pay a settlement of ?600 and sign a non-disclosure agreement ? a common tactic used by copyright holders that removes the need for formal charges. Nylund contacted the TTVK lawyer to contest the matter, but the TTVK continued its pursuit of damages. Last Tuesday morning, he found a pair of Finnish police officers standing at his doorstep. The police presented a search warrant, entered, and identified the now 10-year-old girl's Winnie the Pooh-decorated laptop as the object of their search, and confiscated it. Unsurprisingly, the events have drawn criticism locally and abroad. Finnish Internet rights watchdog Electronic Frontier Finland denounced the actions of the TTVK in a statement and blog post, calling attention to the arbitrary nature of the settlements and their use as a scare tactic. They also point out that Nylund's acknowledgment in this case notwithstanding, an IP address used to track an infringement cannot be linked to a person's identity. The TTVK's executive director defended the actions in comments to Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, saying that TTVK and the police were only working to enforce the law. Chisu, the pop star whose album was at the center of the controversy, expressed in a Facebook post that she supported copyright law but apologized for the situation. Niko Nordstr?m, CEO of Warner Music Finland, acknowledged (also via Chisu's Facebook page) the limits of IP-based enforcement, but said "this procedure is currently the only way to tackle illegal downloading" (translation by Google). Had the TTVK known that the infringing party in this situation was a young girl, might they have taken a softer approach? In past cases, U.S. media associations have not made accommodations for minors, either. As for Julietta's lost laptop, an anonymous benefactor sent a brand-new MacBook Pro to replace it. Her father reports that she is already putting it to use, playing online with her friends. An administrator at The Pirate Bay promised VIP privileges to her as well if she wants them ? although after this experience, it would be understandable if she opted not to take advantage of the offer. Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 27 22:17:14 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:17:14 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - WH Briefly Considers 'Explicit Rules' For Killer Drones, Abandons Process After Romney Loses Election Message-ID: The Obama Administration Briefly Considers Developing 'Explicit Rules' For Killer Drones, Abandons Process After Romney Loses Election from the unfettered-power:-good-for-me,-not-so-much-for-thee dept The US government's "targeted strike" drone program has been around since George W. Bush's first presidential term. Despite being nearly a decade old, the program has largely operated in a gray area of legality, with no codified set of rules governing drone strikes. So, what does it take to get some guidelines applied to the executive branch-controlled remote-control merchants of death? The threat of having to turn control over to the "other side," apparently. < - > So, when the control is in your hands, it's ok to direct long distance killings without "clear standards and procedures." But, if the other guy is being handed the power, it's suddenly time to "develop explicit rules." This doesn't come across as genuine concern. It sounds more like a last-minute effort to hobble the program by throwing in a handful of cursory checks and balances. < - > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121126/17184921151/obama-administration-briefly-considers-developing-explicit-rules-killer-drones-abandons-process-after-romney-loses-election.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 27 22:17:18 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Barnes & Noble Decides That Purchased Ebooks Are Only Yours Until Your Credit Card Expires Message-ID: <2A2A8451-3FDE-4669-A3BB-EC1D3688AE15@infowarrior.org> Barnes & Noble Decides That Purchased Ebooks Are Only Yours Until Your Credit Card Expires "Yesterday, I tried to download an ebook I paid for, and previously put on my Nook, a few months ago. When I tried, I got an error message stating I could not download the book because the credit card on file had expired. But, I already paid for it. Who cares if the credit card is expired? It has long since been paid for, so the status of the card on file has nothing to do with my ability to download said book. I didn?t see anything in the terms of service about this either, but it?s possible I missed it." http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121126/18084721154/barnes-noble-decides-that-purchased-ebooks-are-only-yours-until-your-credit-card-expires.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 28 07:00:23 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:00:23 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?OT=3A_Black_Friday=92s_Media_Hal?= =?windows-1252?q?l_of_Shame?= Message-ID: Black Friday?s Media Hall of Shame http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/11/black-fridays-media-hall-of-shame/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 28 07:53:01 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:53:01 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Detecting deception Message-ID: (c/o PM) http://www.start.umd.edu/start/publications/cuestocatchingdeception.pdf Detecting deception START researchers publish primer for studying extremist interviews To address the challenge of collecting reliable empirical data from interviews with terrorists and other extremists, a START research team published a synthesis of recent research across various disciplines regarding the identification of deception during interviews. The primer offers terrorism researchers an overview of deception detection best practices citing literature from psychology, criminology and terrorism studies. The overview summarizes research on nonverbal cues, verbal cues and possible follow-up responses after detecting such cues. It also discusses recommended tools and techniques to detect deception in an interview setting. The authors - START Special Projects Interns Rachel Gamson, Jessica Gottesman, Nicholas Milan and Sitara Weerasuriya - note that while verbal cues are independently more reliable, the observation of both types of cues increases the ability of the interviewer to assess deception, particularly when the cues are compared with an established baseline unique to each individual. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 28 18:35:31 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:35:31 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Lamer "SOPA" Smith to chair House Science Committee Message-ID: (Given his other views and expertise in the area of Science & Tech, this is par for the course....as one Redditor posted, it's akin to making an arsonist the local fire chief. --rick) Lamar Smith, Global Warming Skeptic, Set To Chair House Science Committee The Huffington Post | By Amanda Terkel Posted: 11/27/2012 6:05 pm EST Updated: 11/27/2012 6:40 pm EST http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/lamar-smith-global-warming-house-science_n_2200408.html Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a skeptic of man-made global warming, is set to take over the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology in the 113th Congress. On Tuesday afternoon, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that the Republican Steering Committee had recommended Smith as the new chairman. The full House GOP caucus will vote on all chairmanships Wednesday and is expected to ratify the steering panel's choices. Smith, like many of his Republican colleagues, has expressed doubt that global warming is caused by human behavior. In 2009, he criticized the media for not airing enough "dissenting opinions" about climate change. "The [ABC, NBC and CBS television] networks have shown a steady pattern of bias on climate change," Smith said in a statement at the time. "During a six-month period, four out of five network news reports failed to acknowledge any dissenting opinions about global warming, according to a Business and Media Institute study. The networks should tell Americans the truth, rather than hide the facts." He also referred to environmentalists and others who warn about the seriousness of the issue as "global warming alarmists." Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones magazine notes that Smith's congressional website acknowledges that the climate is changing, but does not admit that human activity is a major factor. As chairman of the House science panel, Smith will be replacing Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas), who is also a skeptic. In 2011, Hall accused climate scientists of conspiring to concoct evidence of a warming planet. "I'm really more fearful of freezing," Hall said. "And I don't have any science to prove that. But we have a lot of science that tells us they're not basing it [global warming] on real scientific facts." There is, however, an overwhelming consensus within the scientific community that the planet is warming in large part because of human activity. Smith recently told Science Insider that as chairman of the committee that, among other tasks, oversees funding for NASA, he would like to see the space agency pursue a "unifying mission." "Even though it has been almost 40 years since man last set foot on the moon, we should continue to shoot for the stars," Smith said. "And we can help future generations get there by encouraging kids to study in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). If America is going to remain competitive in today's global economy, we need to remain innovative and focused on exploring science and expanding new technologies." --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 06:36:53 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 07:36:53 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Six Strikes Delayed Until 'Early Part' Of 2013 Message-ID: <0724EC16-6D04-4AA7-9340-413FE0F2D04B@infowarrior.org> Six Strikes Delayed Until 'Early Part' Of 2013 from the of-course-it-was dept We heard rumors of this a couple weeks ago from people involved in some of the six strikes program at various ISPs, but the six strikes effort, already delayed from its original planned starting date of July until around now, has been pushed back again until "the early part of 2013." The Center for Copyright Information, which is administering the program, claims that it's due to "unexpected factors largely stemming from Hurricane Sandy," but we've heard that's mainly an excuse for some other problems that meant the plan was simply not ready for prime time. Either way, the program will certainly begin at some point... at which point ISPs and the entertainment industry will proceed to piss off some of their best customers for no good reason. Can't see how that's going to increase sales, but I guess all of those MPAA lawyers who have "anti-piracy" in their titles have to feel like they're contributing something to justify their salaries. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121128/15582121169/six-strikes-delayed-until-early-part-2013.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 06:38:32 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 07:38:32 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Meet Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Hollywood's new copyright ally Message-ID: Meet Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Hollywood's new copyright ally by Declan McCullagh November 28, 2012 11:00 PM PST The incoming chairman of a key House of Representatives panel worked to ban Internet gambling and champion the Stop Online Piracy Act. And he hasn't given up. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57556105-38/meet-rep-bob-goodlatte-hollywoods-new-copyright-ally/ The outgoing chairman of a House of Representatives panel responsible for U.S. copyright law conceived the memorable Stop Online Piracy Act. Its next chairman happens to be even more enthusiastic about expanding digital copyright law. Rep. Bob Goodlatte was elected head of the House Judiciary committee today, much to the dismay of advocacy groups that had doggedly worked to defeat SOPA and Protect IP a year ago. The Virginia Republican has long been a steadfast ally of Hollywood and other large copyright holders, saying as recently as two months ago that "I remain committed to enacting strong copyright laws." In a press release last year, Goodlatte said he was supporting SOPA because the legislation -- which was withdrawn in the face of an unprecedented Internet protest -- would "protect American jobs" and prevent American babies from dying after drinking "counterfeit" baby formula. "It's unfortunate to see another copyright maximalist taking over the chairmanship of the Judiciary committee, especially because Rep. Goodlatte has failed to show even a slight change of heart after the resounding defeat of SOPA," says Julie Samuels, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a vocal SOPA critic. "If anything he's doubled down, despite the bill's profound unpopularity." In a local radio interview weeks after an explosion of criticism prompted outgoing Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith to abandon SOPA, Goodlatte defended the Hollywood-backed bill that he helped to shape. SOPA remains necessary to combat "the theft that's taking place on the Internet," he told WFIR Radio. Goodlatte is even more of a copyright hawk than Smith, who is losing his Judiciary chairmanship because of term limits. Goodlatte previously distributed a press release saying he "applauds" the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and said it's "unrealistic" to think that current copyright law's notice-and-takedown provisions will continue to exist (he thinks they're too burdensome for copyright holders). He's also co-chairman of the Anti-Piracy Caucus, which boasts that copyright industries "generate more revenues than any other single manufacturing sector." A Goodlatte spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment from CNET today. The conservative Republican's support for digital piracy crackdowns is hardly new. In 1997, he was responsible for a federal law that makes peer-to-peer pirates liable for up to $250,000 in fines and three-year prison terms. His No Electronic Theft Act made not-for-profit piracy a federal crime; until then, it had been merely a civil offense. SOPA and Protect IP temporarily vanished after millions of Americans joined an online protest in January against the bill, which included alerts on the home pages of Google.com and Craigslist.org, although Hollywood has indicated it has not given up. Both bills are designed to target so-called rogue Web sites by allowing the Justice Department to obtain an order to be served on search engines and Internet service providers that would force them to make the suspected piractical site effectively vanish, a procedure that has led to some First Amendment concerns. Hollywood's (new) favorite Republican During last winter's SOPA debate, outgoing Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith emerged as Hollywood's favorite Republican politician. Now Goodlatte is poised to claim that title. The TV, movie, and music industries already were Goodlatte's top industry contributor during the 2012 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. (Since early last year, Goodlatte has been chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property, which probably helped.) It might seem like an odd relationship. Goodlatte is a social conservative who once voted for a federal investigation of a salacious scene in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for a ban on Internet gambling, and for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. He reliably receives a zero percent rating on scorecards prepared by the ACLU and NARAL Pro-Choice America. Goodlatte represents one of the more conservative corners of Virginia: the 6th District includes Lynchburg and Harrisonburg, and in 2008 opted for John McCain over Barack Obama by a 58 to 42 percent margin. It was home to evangelical pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, and was where Falwell founded Liberty University, the largest evangelical Christian school in the world. The entertainment industry prefers Democratic politicians, of course. No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, and DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer were Obama's top "bundlers" during this year's campaign. But when Republicans are in power, the entertainment industry will woo the GOP. The SOPA-supporting National Music Publishers' Association, a copyright hawk that sued Google over allegedly infringing YouTube clips, honored Goodlatte with its President's Award last fall. The group lauded the Virginia congressman as someone who has "tirelessly championed the importance of intellectual property rights." A year earlier, Goodlatte was a guest of honor at a gala in Washington, D.C. organized by another pro-SOPA group, the American Society of Composers, Artists and Publishers. It was held in advance of the group's Capitol Hill lobbying day, and featured entertainers including singer-songwriters Tracy Chapman and Jessi Alexander. Goodlatte was chosen to introduce musician J.D. Souther, who performed "You're Only Lonely" and "Heartache Tonight." The Motion Picture Association of America, too, is effusive in praising Goodlatte's copyright expansion efforts. An MPAA blog post said "kudos to Chairman Goodlatte" for defending SOPA against criticism, and a press release said Hollywood "hails" Goodlatte for helping to craft the legislation in the first place. The Recording Industry Association of America, not to be left out, announced that it "salutes" his efforts. Goodlatte's relationship with Silicon Valley companies that near-uniformly opposed SOPA hasn't always been this tempestuous. In the late 1990s, he visited the San Francisco area to tout legislation to protect Americans' electronic privacy by relaxing encryption export controls. He also supported an opt-out approach to federal spam legislation that was more First Amendment-protective, and did not sponsor an unsuccessful 2002 bill that would have let copyright owners legally hack into computers connected to peer-to-peer networks suspected of harboring pirated files. More recently, he's sided with technology companies on some legislation. He supported a cybersecurity bill known as CISPA, which industry liked but privacy groups and local tea party groups loathed. And he sponsored a Netflix-backed bill to update 1980s-era federal privacy laws for the Internet. Ryan Radia, associate director of technology studies at the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, said he was disappointed to see Goodlatte champion SOPA -- but thought he might be more tech-friendly than his predecessor in updating federal privacy law to require that police obtain warrants before reading Americans' e-mail or tracking their cell phone locations. The law is the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or ECPA. "Rep. Goodlatte strongly supported SOPA, including its extremely controversial DNS filtering provisions," Radia said. "But he did introduce an amendment (PDF) aimed at limiting SOPA's impact on foreign Web sites when only a portion of such a Web site was infringing. Hopefully Rep. Goodlatte will focus his energies on issues that advance Internet freedom, such as ECPA reform, rather than push policies that undermine it." --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 07:18:02 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:18:02 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Traffic fines may be cut in DC Message-ID: <3735FF72-57FE-4882-83D0-595A299DF514@infowarrior.org> (While a good idea, if this is offset by the city throwing up many more cameras to 'catch' people in the name of public safety, that kind of defeats the purpose of downplaying their use as revenue generators. --rick) Traffic fines may be cut in District http://www.wtop.com/654/3137073/Traffic-fines-may-be-cut-in-District Thursday - 11/29/2012, 6:21am ET WASHINGTON - Fines for speeding and other traffic offenses in the District may soon be slashed, in part due to public anger at current penalties. The Judiciary Committee of the D.C Council is set to vote Thursday on a proposal that would, in some cases, cut the present fines in half. The fine for going 11 mph to 15 mph over the speed limit would drop to $75, while the fine for traveling 16 mph to 20 mph over the limit would be reduced to $150, according to The Washington Post. The Judiciary Committee report states public support is essential if the District's enforcement camera program will be expanded. "As long as the public continued to perceive the program as primarily a revenue- generating tool, them this support will be illusory," states the report. The District brought in $178 million in traffic fines in fiscal 2012, a 32-percent jump from 2011 and a 62 percent leap from 2010. The proposed lower fines would cost D.C. tens of millions of dollars. The new fines would apply to tickets written by police officers, in addition to camera fines. Mayor Vincent Gray recently signed an executive order to lower fines, but the council says Gray's cuts "are not substantial enough." If the proposed cuts pass the Judiciary Committee, they would have to be approved by the full council. WTOP's Neal Augenstein contributed to this story. Follow @AugensteinWTOP and @WTOP on Twitter. (Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.) --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 07:53:56 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:53:56 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Dreaded Yellow Light May Be Trap for Traffic Violations Message-ID: <985725D1-66FD-4639-B7CB-55082E1FA1A3@infowarrior.org> Dreaded Yellow Light May Be Trap for Traffic Violations Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on email More Sharing Services By Mike Magner Updated: November 21, 2012 | 9:19 a.m. November 21, 2012 | 6:00 a.m. http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/dreaded-yellow-light-may-be-trap-for-traffic-violations-20121121 The National Motorists Association has a warning for the millions of drivers hitting the road for the busy holiday travel season: Beware of the yellow lights. The timing of yellow lights on traffic signals at many intersections is purposely set to a minimum so more drivers can be ticketed for running red lights, says the 30-year-old activist group based in Waunakee, Wis. This past summer in New Jersey, the transportation department ordered 21 cities and towns to suspend the use of red-light cameras at 63 intersections because the timing of yellow lights at those locations was below the minimum established by state law. Other cities?including Dallas; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Union City, Calif.?have been caught shortening yellow lights in the past decade as red-light cameras have become sources of steady revenue. The cameras snap photos of license plates on any vehicles in an intersection while the light is red, and citations, often carrying fines of $100 or more, are mailed to the registration?s address. ?Cities and for-profit camera companies maximize revenue by setting yellow-light times that are too short,? said National Motorists Association President Gary Biller. ?It is a violation of the public trust, and it jeopardizes motorist, cyclist, and pedestrian safety.? Ironically, slightly longer yellow lights can significantly increase safety by allowing more time for intersections to clear, the group says. Biller cited one study that found just one additional second of yellow time can reduce the number of collisions in an intersection by 40 percent. Longer yellow lights also greatly reduce the number of red-light violations. A recent Texas study concluded, "Lengthening the yellow light interval by as little as 0.5 to 1.5 seconds decreases the incidence of red-light running violations by 50 percent or more,? Biller said in a Nov. 16 letter to the head of the Federal Highway Administration, Victor Mendez. The NMA wants the FHWA to mandate minimum national standards for yellow-light duration. Currently, the federal agency offers only ?guidance? suggesting that yellow lights should last between 3 and 6 seconds. ?There?s an ongoing debate in the traffic-engineering community about what the standard should be,? said NMA spokesman John Bowman. When New Jersey passed a law allowing red-light cameras in 2008, the Legislature established a formula for yellow-light duration. The minimum yellow time is 3 seconds at intersections where traffic is moving at 25 miles per hour, and the time goes up by a half-second for every 5 mph increase in traffic speed. So for intersections where traffic is approaching at 55 mph, the yellow light must be on for a minimum of 6 seconds. ?This requirement aims to ensure that the traffic signal is timed properly to provide motorists with sufficient time to avoid a violation and fine by entering an intersection when the light is red,? according to the New Jersey Transportation Department. Chicago has locked in all of its yellow lights to last 3 seconds, even at intersections where traffic is moving at more than 40 mph, Biller said in his letter to Mendez. ?It is not surprising that Chicago is able to generate annual red-light camera ticket revenue in excess of $70 million by setting its yellow lights at deficient 3.0 second intervals,? Biller wrote. Matthew J. Weiss, a New York City lawyer who has built a practice around defending motorists in traffic cases, warns drivers on his blog, ?If you see yellow and you are not already in the intersection, hit your brakes.? But that can be a dangerous practice in some situations, according to Hesham Rakha, a Virginia Tech engineering professor who has conducted studies of driver behavior when traffic signals turn yellow. At the moment the light turns yellow, every motorist approaching the intersection is suddenly ?trapped in a dilemma zone? where an instant decision must be made whether it?s safer to stop or proceed. ?If the driver decides to stop when he or she should have proceeded, rear-end crashes could occur,? Rakha wrote in a study last year for the Virginia Transportation Department. ?Alternatively, if the driver proceeds when he or she should have stopped, he or she would run the red light and a right-angle crash with side-street traffic could occur.? Rakha?s study also found that for the safest decision-making, ?in general, female drivers need longer yellow times compared to male drivers. In addition, the age slightly affects the required yellow time, where older drivers need slightly longer yellow times when compared to younger drivers.? The bottom line for the motorists? association is that drivers should be given as much time as reasonably possible to decide whether to brake or accelerate on yellow, regardless of what it might do to a city?s traffic-ticket revenues. ?Short yellow lights force many responsible motorists to make split-second decisions that can lead to unwarranted traffic tickets, or worse, intersection collisions,? Biller said. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 08:48:03 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:48:03 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Robocod: Homeland Security adds underwater drones Message-ID: Robocod: Homeland Security adds underwater drones to their arsenal with robots based on fish http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2239705/Robocod-Homeland-Security-adds-underwater-drones-arsenal-robots-based-fish.html --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 13:20:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:20:25 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Attempt to Modernize Digital Privacy Law Passes the Senate Judiciary Committee Message-ID: <7734B3AF-295F-46B9-8710-72F46BB0C09C@infowarrior.org> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/attempt-modernize-digital-privacy-law-passes-senate-judiciary-committee November 29, 2012 | By Mark M. Jaycox and Rainey Reitman Attempt to Modernize Digital Privacy Law Passes the Senate Judiciary Committee ECPA Reform Moves Forward to Require a Warrant for Your Email; Amendment to Weaken Video Privacy Protections Reined In Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill that would require the government to get a warrant before accessing our private electronic communications, like emails and Facebook messages. The bill could now proceed to the Senate Floor for a vote. The package that passed out of committee included an amendment championed by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) would mandate that the government receive a probable cause warrant before accessing private electronic communications. This would close a dangerous loophole in the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which the Department of Justice has argued allows them to access private emails that are more than 180 days old without a warrant. This runs contrary to the privacy users expect in their digital communications as well as the Fourth Amendment. As the Washington Post said in an editorial yesterday, "If you left a letter on your desk for 180 days, you wouldn?t imagine that the police could then swoop in and read it without your permission, or a judge?s." According to Lee Tien, EFF Senior Staff Attorney: "With this amendment, Congress is sending a strong message to the Department of Justice that our digital Fourth Amendment rights don?t expire after six months. While there?s still much work ahead of us to ensure that these common-sense legal protections are enshrined in statutory law, today we saw the Senate Judiciary Committee hauling our archaic laws into alignment with modern technology." The bill would also amend the strong Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) allowing companies like Netflix to get blanket consent from consumers before continuously sharing their video watching habits with social media accounts or even data brokers. While EFF thinks updating the VPPA is unnecessary and potentially harmful for consumers, we were pleased to see Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Al Franken (D-MN) successfully co-sponsored an amendment that limited the duration of this blanket consent, ensuring that video service providers have to get consent from consumers once every two years. We hope others in Congress will share their commitment to safeguarding the privacy rights of Internet users. Kurt Opsahl, EFF Senior Staff Attorney, said: "Undermining the protections of the Video Privacy Protection Act doesn?t help Internet users. It would be an embarrassment to Congress if the only digital privacy legislation they managed to pass in 2012 was undercutting the legal protections already afforded to Internet users. The Feinstein-Franken Amendment helps undo some of the damage." EFF has been advocating for digital communications privacy for years. We are a member of the Digital Due Process coalition, have a petition to Congress calling for ECPA reform, and recently joined other advocacy groups in launching VanishingRights.com. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 13:23:55 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:23:55 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Ninth Circuit Gives the A-OK For Warrantless Home Video Surveillance Message-ID: <6AFAC1EE-B3A3-470B-8E61-32D18D0DDE29@infowarrior.org> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/ninth-circuit-gives-ok-warrantless-home-video-surveillance November 29, 2012 | By Hanni Fakhoury Ninth Circuit Gives the A-OK For Warrantless Home Video Surveillance Can law enforcement enter your house and use a secret video camera to record the intimate details inside? On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unfortunately answered that question with "yes." U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents suspected Ricky Wahchumwah of selling bald and gold eagle feathers and pelts in violation of federal law. Equipped with a small hidden video camera on his clothes, a Wildlife agent went to Wahchumwah's house and feigned interest in buying feathers and pelts. Unsurprisingly, the agent did not have a search warrant. Wahchumwah moved to suppress the video as an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment, but the trial court denied his motion. On appeal before the Ninth Circuit, we filed an amicus brief in support of Wahchumwah. We highlighted the Supreme Court's January 2012 decision in United States v. Jones -- which held that law enforcement's installation of a GPS device onto a car was a "search" under the Fourth Amendment -- and specifically focused on the concurring opinions of Justices Alito and Sotomayor, who were worried about the power of technology to eradicate privacy. In our brief we argued that although a person may reveal small bits of information publicly or to a house guest, technology that allows the government to aggregate that data in ways that were impractical in the past means that greater judicial supervision and oversight is necessary. After all, a video camera can capture far more detail than the human eye and is specifically designed to allow the government to record, save and review details for another day, bypassing the human mind's tendency to forget. That means police need a search warrant to engage in the type of invasive surveillance they did in Wahchumwah's house. Unconvinced, the Ninth Circuit instead relied on a case from 1966, Hoffa v. United States, ruling that Wahchumwah forfeited his privacy interest when he "voluntarily" revealed the interior of his home to the undercover agent. But its conclusion contradicts not only the Supreme Court's decision in Jones, but also earlier Ninth Circuit caselaw as well. In Jones, the Supreme Court made clear that a law enforcement trespass onto private property for the purpose of obtaining information was a "search" under the Fourth Amendment. Under common law, a defendant was not liable for trespass if their entry was authorized. But the Ninth Circuit previously made clear in Theofel v. Farey-Jones that a person's consent to a trespass is ineffective if they're "mistaken as to the nature and quality of the invasion intended." In fact, Theofel cited another Ninth Circuit case where the court found a "police officer who, invited into a home, conceals a recording device for the media" to be a trespasser. What that means here is that when the undercover agent concealed his identity and purpose, making Wahchumwah "mistaken as to the nature and quality" of the home visit, the government trespassed onto Wahchumwah's property. Since that trespass was done for the purpose of obtaining information -- to get evidence of bald and gold eagle feather and pelt sales -- the government "searched" Wahchumwah's home. And it needed a warrant to do that; without one, the search was unconstitutional. Its troubling that the Ninth Circuit did not see it this way (nor are they the only one). Because the sad truth is that as technology continues to advance, surveillance becomes "voluntary" only by virtue of the fact we live in a modern society where technology is becoming cheaper, easier and more invasive. The Wahchumwah case exemplifies this: on suspicion of nothing more than the benign misdemeanor of selling eagle feathers, the government got to intrude inside the home and record every intimate detail it could: books on a shelf, letters on a coffee table, pictures on a wall. And we're entering an age where criminal suspicions is no longer even necessary. Whether you're calling a friend's stolen cell phone and landing on the NYPD massive database of call logs, driving into one of the increasing number of cities using license plate scanners to record who comes in or out, or walking somewhere close to hovering drones, innocent people are running the risk of having their personal details stored in criminal databases for years to come. The only way to avoid pervasive law enforcement monitoring shouldn't be to make the choice to live under a rock in the wilderness somewhere. Instead, the Fourth Amendment means today what it meant in 1787: that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" shouldn't be violated unless the government comes back with a warrant. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 13:45:29 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:45:29 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Techdirt responds to HSI's "infringement" claim Message-ID: <70C1249E-19C7-4A19-ACA3-0503077476DA@infowarrior.org> Open Letter To Human Synergistics International In Response To Your Accusation That Techdirt Is Infringing from the fair-use,-learn-it,-love-it dept To Silvie van Etten: Thank you for your letter on November 23rd, 2012, (which we have reposted below in its entirety, minus your contact info) in which you mistakenly suggest that Techdirt has infringed the copyrights of your company, Human Synergistics, via its post from October 5th, 2012, entitled Copyright As Censorship: Author Removes Blog Post After Being Threatened For Quoting 4 Sentences. First of all, it is astounding that you do not appear to recognize the irony of threatening us over a blog post that goes into detail as to why someone else's use of a tiny snippet of your company's work was quite clearly fair use under US copyright law. In fact, it leads one to wonder if you even read the post in question before sending your letter. Even if we ignore the question of whether or not that original blog post by Patti O'Shea constituted fair use, I can assure you that Techdirt's use is fair use. Furthermore, your claim that a lack of permission to quote your silly exercise (solely for the purpose of explaining your overaggressive use of copyright law to censor people against your own best interests) is somehow "a direct violation of our copyright" is absolutely false. It is not just false, but an exaggeration of the rights you hold under copyright law -- a situation called "Copyfraud" by legal scholar Jason Mazzone. < - READ - > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121128/02492821166/open-letter-to-human-synergistics-international-response-to-your-accusation-that-techdirt-is-infringing.shtml From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 14:27:58 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:27:58 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Syrian Internet Is Off The Air Message-ID: <2326441E-EB43-4665-8934-FA09D8805725@infowarrior.org> Syrian Internet Is Off The Air By James Cowie on November 29, 2012 8:31 AM http://www.renesys.com/blog/2012/11/syria-off-the-air.shtml Starting at 10:26 UTC (12:26pm in Damascus), Syria's international Internet connectivity shut down. In the global routing table, all 84 of Syria's IP address blocks have become unreachable, effectively removing the country from the Internet. We are investigating the dynamics of the outage and will post updates as they become available. Update (15:45 UTC) Looking closely at the continuing Internet blackout in Syria, we can see that traceroutes into Syria are failing, exactly as one would expect for a major outage. The primary autonomous system for Syria is the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment; all of their customer networks are currently unreachable. Now, there are a few Syrian networks that are still connected to the Internet, still reachable by traceroutes, and indeed still hosting Syrian content. These are five networks that use Syrian-registered IP space, but the originator of the routes is actually Tata Communications. These are potentially offshore, rather than domestic, and perhaps not subject to whatever killswitch was thrown today within Syria. These five offshore survivors include the webservers that were implicated in the delivery of malware targeting Syrian activists in May of this year. It has been a crazy year for Syrian Internet transit arrangements, most recently with the loss of Deutsche Telekom as a transit provider earlier this month. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 29 14:48:57 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:48:57 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - What Did We Do Before Photoshop? Message-ID: What Did We Do Before Photoshop? Posted by Tom LeGro , November 29, 2012 Just about every photograph we encounter, whether it's on a computer screen or in a magazine or on a billboard, has been retouched or manipulated digitally in some way, most likely using Photoshop. From simple retouching like removing red-eye, to complex manipulation like removing people, Photoshop has dramatically changed the way we use the medium of photography. Or has it? An exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York shows how photographers long before the digital era regularly employed techniques of manipulation in their work. Some merely compensated for the medium's limitations, while others used manipulation to create obviously fabricated scenes. For example, "Fake decapitation was the LOLcats of the 19th century," Mia Fineman, an assistant curator of photography at the Met and the author of the exhibition's accompanying catalog, told us. We corresponded over email with Fineman about the show, "Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop"... < - > http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2012/11/slide-show-what-did-we-do-before-photoshop.html --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 30 07:05:50 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 08:05:50 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - House members criticize TSA Message-ID: House members criticize TSA By Ashley Halsey III, http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/house-members-criticize-tsa/2012/11/29/6df3a458-3a5b-11e2-b01f-5f55b193f58f_story.html Congress was asked Wednesday to imagine airport security checkpoints manned by people in pastel polo shirts rather than the police-like uniforms of the Transportation Security Administration. Members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure aviation subcommittee said they would rather imagine the much-maligned security force disappearing altogether. ?We need to be closing down the TSA as we know it,? said Rep. John L. Mica (R.-Fla.), chairman of the transportation committee. The suggestion to dress security personnel like pool boys to make them ?less threatening? came from Charlie Leocha, director of the Consumer Travel Alliance, a Springfield-based organization he helped form. ?To much of the flying public, the TSA is a boogeyman,? Leocha testified. ?TSA has become the butt of countless jokes. TSA is set up like the Maginot Line, the poster child for generals fighting the last war.? The agency faced a backlash two years ago when its new X-ray scanners were judged by some to reveal passengers? intimate parts; the thorough frisking of people who declined to go through the scanners also infuriated some. Cellphone videos ? some genuine, some phony ? that portray apparent TSA transgressions went viral on the Internet and became fodder for TV talk shows. Wednesday?s hearing was the third this year on the TSA held by House transportation officials, and the federal aviation security agency has come under fire at each of them, particularly from Republican committee leaders, who see the TSA as an expensive and ineffective bureaucracy. The second common feature of the three hearings has been the absence of TSA Administrator John Pistole or anyone from his agency. ?It?s very sad that the administrator of TSA is stonewalling this committee,? Mica said, pointing to a placard bearing Pistole?s name that was placed before an empty seat at the witness table. ?They don?t want to respond to us. The sad thing about it is that the system doesn?t make us any safer.? In a public statement, Pistole responded that the committee ?has no jurisdiction over the Transportation Security Administration? and that ?no representative from TSA will be present.? He said the agency will continue to work with the congressional committees tasked with homeland security oversight. ?In the 112th Congress alone, TSA witnesses have testified at 38 hearings and provided 425 briefings for members of Congress,? Pistole said. Mica and other House Republicans have been outspoken in recommending that the TSA take on a dramatically different role. They want it to act as the supervisory agency in protecting transportation systems from terrorists but leave tasks such as airport security checks to private firms. The 45,000 screeners at airport security checkpoints are the face of the TSA for most Americans, and Pistole has sought to address the concerns and complaints about the agency, which was created 11 years ago after the Sept. 11 attacks with a mandate to protect the flying public from airborne terrorists. Since taking over the agency, Pistole, a former FBI official, has pushed the TSA to rely more on intelligence data to single out potential terrorists and relax the approach that Leocha likened to the Maginot Line. The TSA has introduced a program known as ?Pre Check? that allows passengers who have provided information to a federal clearinghouse to bypass much of the normal screening process. Stephen M. Lord, homeland security director at the Government Accountability Office, told the committee that it is impossible to tally the volume of complaints the TSA receives because local divisions of the agency report them differently. But he said that from October 2009 to June 2012, the TSA?s contact center received 39,000 complaints about the screening process. ?They need to make the process more effective [and] more selective,? he said. Lord said the agency had agreed to all of the GAO?s recommendations, contained in a report this month, for streamlining and coordinating passenger complaints. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 30 07:09:13 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 08:09:13 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Won=92t_Someone_Take_iTunes_Out_?= =?windows-1252?q?Back_and_Shoot_It=3F?= Message-ID: <094A02D4-DAE7-4B1E-AF0C-7C8BE3F45AF3@infowarrior.org> Won?t Someone Take iTunes Out Back and Shoot It? Apple?s horrible, bloated program needs to die. By Farhad Manjoo| Posted Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012, at 5:51 PM ET http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/11/itunes_11_it_s_time_for_apple_s_horrible_bloated_program_to_die.html iTunes 11 did not arrive on time. Apple originally promised to deliver the next version of its ubiquitous music-management program in October. Last month, though, the company announced that the release would slip to November, because the company needed ?a little extra time to get it right.? This week the Wall Street Journal, citing ?people who have seen it,? reported that the real cause was ?engineering issues that required parts to be rebuilt.? I suspect both those explanations are euphemisms for what?s really happening in Cupertino. I picture frazzled engineers growing increasingly alarmed as they discover that the iTunes codebase has been overrun by some kind of self-replicating virus that keeps adding random features and redesigns. The coders can?t figure out what?s going on?why iTunes, alone among Apple products, keeps growing more ungainly. At the head of the team is a grizzled old engineer who?s been at Apple forever. He?s surly and crude, always making vulgar jokes about iPads. But the company can?t afford to get rid of him?he?s the only one who understands how to operate the furnaces in the iTunes boiler room. Then one morning the crew hears a strange clanging from iTunes? starboard side. Scouts report that an ancient piston?something added for compatibility with the U2 iPod and then refashioned dozens of times?has been damaged while craftsmen removed the last remnants of a feature named Ping whose purpose has been lost to history. The old engineer dons his grease-covered overalls and heads down to check it out. Many anxious minutes pass. Then the crew is shaken by a huge blast. A minute later, they hear a lone, muffled wail. They send a medic, but it?s too late. The engineer has been battered by shrapnel from the iOS app management system, which is always on the fritz. His last words haunt the team forever: She can?t take much more of this. Too. Many. Features. Anyway, so iTunes 11 finally hit the Internet today. If you start downloading it immediately, you might be able to get it up and running by the time the ball drops over Times Square. People always wonder why this is?why a simple music player weighs in at around 90 megabytes and requires many long minutes to install and ?prepare? your library before it becomes functional. Don?t ask questions?this is just what you get with iTunes. Each new upgrade brings more suckage into your computer. It makes itself slower. It adds three or four more capabilities you?ll never need. It changes its screen layout in ways that are just subtle enough to make you throw your phone at the wall. And it adds more complexity to its ever-shifting syncing rules to ensure that the next time you connect your device, you?ll have to delete everything and resync. At this point, you shake your fists and curse this foul program to the heavens: iiiiiiiiiiiiiTuuuuuuuuuuunes!!! Apple?s marketing material describes iTunes 11 as ?Completely redesigned. For your viewing, listening, browsing, and shopping pleasure.? That sums up the software?s problem. Way back in 2001, Apple launched iTunes as a simple desktop music player for the Mac. It was a great one, too, because while it didn?t have all of the features that more-advanced software had, it was very simple to use. When iTunes was released for Windows, in 2003, it did seem like something truly novel?a great-looking, easy-to-use program for PC users. It was, as Steve Jobs put it, "like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in Hell." In the decade since, Apple has added arsenic to the water, drip by drip. What?s iTunes for now? As its unpithy tagline explains, it?s for everything. It?s for music and movies and TV shows and books and podcasts and university lectures and apps and, most of all, for shopping. There were legitimate reasons for Apple to have added all these features. As its devices morphed from music-playing iPods into do-everything gadgets like the iPhone and iPad, iTunes had to grow to accommodate their capabilities. Eventually iTunes became less a music player than a sync-master?the software you used to set up and manage your iGadgets. Indeed, up until just a couple years ago, the only way to get a new iPhone or iPad up and running was to plug it into iTunes first. Apple?s ?post-PC? machines still needed a PC to work?and, specifically, they needed a big, honking piece of bloated software. The problem wasn?t that Apple added so much to iTunes. It was that it seems to have done so indiscriminately, without much thought to design or performance. The bigger iTunes got, the slower it felt, each new feature seeming to add a new weight atop its aging foundation. Now, every time I open iTunes, whether on a Mac or a Windows machine, I expect delay. The only other program I remember inducing such consistent panic was Microsoft?s Outlook 2003, which I was forced to use by office IT people before Gmail came along. In building the world?s most-downloaded Windows program, Apple has fallen victim to Microsoft-esque feature creep. Is the new iTunes any better? Not markedly, to my eye. I?ve been using it for a few hours now. Naturally, the interface has been completely redesigned, though it?s too early for me to tell whether the new version is better or just different. Now, instead of a pane of options on the left side, you click between functions using buttons and menus on the top. Is this a genuine improvement, or just a face-lift masking the rot beneath? I suspect the latter: While some parts of iTunes move a little bit faster (the iOS app management screen, for example, used to be unusably slow; now it?s OK) most of it still feels lumbering. What?s more, the new version doesn?t solve the key problems plaguing iTunes. First, it still does too many different things?it?s a media player, a store, and a sync manager. Second, it remains a local file manager in a connected age. The new software does have deeper integration with Apple?s iCloud service, but at its core iTunes is meant to manage ?your? music files?that is, stuff you?ve purchased or burned?on a single computer. That?s an outmoded model, one that?s being replaced by subscription systems like Spotify, which feature no distinction between stuff you own and stuff you don?t. Instead you have rights to play everything, all the time, whenever you want. So even if the new iTunes is an improvement, it?s not a permanent solution. The only way for Apple to fix it would be to throw it out and start all over again. Perhaps?as Macworld?s Jason Snell has suggested?iTunes should be split into multiple programs: One to play your media, one to sync your devices, and one to buy or subscribe to stuff from Apple. Or maybe it could be replaced altogether with a quicker, lightweight Web-based system. Whatever Apple does, it shouldn?t aim merely to fix iTunes but instead come up with a brand new system better suited to our age. iTunes 11 is enough. Please don?t let there be an iTunes 12. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 30 07:12:31 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 08:12:31 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - NSA redacts public talking points Message-ID: <897DD052-359F-43B9-A4A4-C0D3873FD01E@infowarrior.org> NSA Releases Heavily Redacted Talking Points: Say It's Hard To Watch Public Debate On Its Efforts from the oh-really? dept After receiving a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Jason Smathers, via Muckrock, the NSA has released a series of "talking points." What's incredible is that the talking points themselves are heavily redacted. Considering they're all about what to tell the press, you have to wonder how they could possibly include anything that should be redacted. It seems that, by definition, the info included in the talking points should be public. The only reason to redact is embarrassment. The snippets you can read are sort of random boosterism about how awesome the NSA is... if only they could tell us. < -- > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121119/11130221094/nsa-releases-heavily-redacted-talking-points-say-its-hard-to-watch-public-debate-its-efforts.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 30 09:16:08 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:16:08 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Internet Governance Map: Countries with most Google take-down requests. References: <201211301410.qAUEA5ue020427@synergy.ecn.purdue.edu> Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: > From: Joe C > Nice graphic on Google take down requests by government. > > http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/11/internet_governance_map_countries_with_most_google_take_down_requests.html > From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 30 13:41:27 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 14:41:27 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Senate Votes to Curb Indefinite Detention Message-ID: <1BD1B9E7-BE51-409B-BD22-0DBDD1EC1E96@infowarrior.org> (No wonder Obama threatened to veto the defense bill with this amendment. --rick) Senate Votes to Curb Indefinite Detention By CHARLIE SAVAGE http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/us/politics/senate-votes-to-curb-indefinite-detentions.html WASHINGTON ? The Senate voted late on Thursday to prohibit the government from imprisoning American citizens and green card holders apprehended in the United States in indefinite detention without trial. While the move appeared to bolster protections for domestic civil liberties, it was opposed by an array of rights groups who claimed it implied that other types of people inside the United States could be placed in military detention, opening the door to using the military to perform police functions. The measure was an amendment to this year?s National Defense Authorization Act, which is now pending on the Senate floor, and was sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah. The Senate approved adding it to the bill by a vote of 67 to 29. ?What if something happens and you are of the wrong race in the wrong place at the wrong time and you are picked up and held without trial or charge in detention ad infinitum?? Ms. Feinstein said during the floor debate. ?We want to clarify that that isn?t the case ? that the law does not permit an American or a legal resident to be picked up and held without end, without charge or trial.? The power of the government to imprison, without trial, Americans accused of ties to terrorism has been in dispute for a decade. Under the Bush administration, the executive branch imprisoned as ?enemy combatants? an American picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan, Yasser Hamdi, and one arrested in Chicago and accused of being a Qaeda operative, Jose Padilla. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that it was lawful to hold Mr. Hamdi in military detention, but that he was entitled to a hearing before a neutral arbiter to make sure he was indeed a combatant. A federal appeals court panel also approved the detention of Mr. Padilla, but before the Supreme Court could review that decision, the Bush administration returned him to the civilian court system, where he was tried and convicted. Last year, in the previous annual version of the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress included a provision stating that the government had the authority to detain Qaeda members and their supporters as part of the war authorized shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But lawmakers could not decide, and left it deliberately ambiguous, whether that authority extended to people arrested on American soil. This year, a group of plaintiffs, including the American journalist Chris Hedges, challenged that law, arguing that its existence chilled their constitutional rights by creating a basis to fear that the government might seek to detain them under it by declaring that their activities made them supporters of an enemy group. In September, a federal judge issued an injunction barring the government from enforcing the statute. The Obama administration has appealed that ruling, and the injunction has been stayed pending the resolution of the case. Meanwhile, the lawfulness of holding even people accused of being terrorist operatives, as Mr. Padilla was, in military detention without trial remains in dispute. Ms. Feinstein, arguing that law enforcement officials have proved capable of handling cases that arise on domestic soil, said the amendment was intended to ?clarify? that the government may not put Americans arrested domestically in military detention. She said that it was appropriate to detain, interrogate and punish Americans who joined in terrorist plots, but that allowing indefinite detention could violate the rights of innocent people. She invoked the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, something she said remained a ?stain? on the nation?s history. Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, objected to the restriction on security grounds, saying that even American citizens arrested inside the United States on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack for Al Qaeda should be held under the laws of war and interrogated without receiving the protections of ordinary criminal suspects, like a Miranda warning of a right to remain silent. She stood in front of a poster of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American citizen and radical Muslim cleric who was killed by an American drone strike in Yemen last year, holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. She argued that it did not make sense to say the United States could ?use a drone attack? against him if he was overseas, but would give him the right to remain silent if he made it to the United States. From the other direction, an array of civil liberties and human rights groups ? including the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First ? strongly objected to the Feinstein amendment because it was limited to citizens and lawful permanent residents, as opposed to all people who are apprehended on United States soil. They argued that it implied that there were two classes of people, and that others ? like foreigners who were in the country as students or tourists ? could be placed in military detention. This would open the door to using the military in domestic operations, they argued, and would contradict the Constitution?s guarantee that no ?person? within the United States could be deprived of liberty without due process. ?Senator Dianne Feinstein has introduced an amendment that superficially looks like it could help, but in fact, would cause harm,? said Chris Anders of the A.C.L.U. ?It might look like a fix, but it breaks things further.? But on the floor, Ms. Feinstein said that she limited the amendment to citizens and green card holders because she believed that language would ?get the maximum number of votes in this body.? The National Defense Authorization Act contains several other provisions related to recurring controversies over detention, including extending restrictions on the government?s ability to transfer detainees away from the military prison at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba. Since Congress imposed those restrictions, the transfer of low-level prisoners has slowed almost to a halt, calling into question whether President Obama?s stated policy goal of closing the prison is dead. On Thursday, the White House issued a statement of administration policy threatening that Mr. Obama would veto the National Defense Authorization Act if Congress passed it in its current form. It included more than a dozen objections to various provisions. The first section the statement listed was the one extending the restrictions on detainees, which it said ?interferes with the executive?s ability to make important foreign policy and national security determinations, and would in certain circumstances violate constitutional separation of powers principles.? Also on Thursday, the Senate voted, 62 to 33, for a nonbinding amendment calling for an accelerated withdrawal of United States combat forces from Afghanistan. The measure was sponsored by Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and was backed by 13 Republicans. ?It is time to end this war, end the longest war in United States history,? Mr. Merkley said. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 30 13:54:20 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 14:54:20 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Iranian flagpoles for jamming? Message-ID: Maaaaaybe? Or just a conspiracy w/a modicum of truth? --rick New flagpoles in Iran spark rumors of clandestine satellite jamming technology By Lisa Daftari Published November 30, 2012 http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/30/new-flagpoles-in-iran-spark-rumors-clandestine-satellite-jamming-technology/ Flying the national flag usually signifies a display of pride or patriotism. But in Iran today, it may represent something much more sinister. Sources and blog postings from inside Iran say that what seem to be simple flagpoles popping up all over Tehran and other large Iranian cities are actually clandestine electronic antennas, which use high-frequency waves to jam communications and block ordinary citizens from Internet, TV and radio signals. Some Iranians think the electronic emissions also may be hazardous to humans? health. Tehran residents and communication experts report an increase in jamming has coincided with the strategic placement of the towering metal flagpoles, as the government continues its ongoing campaign to block some 500 TV channels and 200 radio stations from outside Iran deemed too Western-oriented. ?Ever since 2009, the telecommunications masts have increased 10- to 15-fold. It?s not clear where these masts are, but many in Tehran, including myself, believe that these tall flagpoles recently placed around the perimeter of the city are jammers,? said Shahin, a 32-year-old Tehran-based blogger. The flagpoles are present in other large Iranian cities but are most prevalent in the capital, Shahin said. ?The regime fears the Internet and satellites coming into the country more than they do the opposition forces living here,? he added. ?That?s how we know they would do anything in their power, including risking our health, to protect their existence.? During the 2009 post-election uprisings, Iranian protesters who took to the streets turned to blogs and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to voice and organize their opposition to the regime. Since then, the Iranian government has worked diligently to block access to such sites. The jammer flagpole scheme ?is very much in line with and fits the pattern they have been demonstrating since 2009,? said Austin Heap, executive director of the Censorship Research Center. ?The shape of the flagpole lends itself to house such a structure. If you notice the width of the pole decreasing as it gets taller, this is consistent with the design principles for good omni-directional broadcasting. ? It?s a kill switch,? Heap explained. ?It?s just the next step in controlling what comes in and out of the country,? Heap said. ?Iran is looking to become better at controlling the dialogue.? The Iranian government has relied on two jamming techniques, according to Heap. One is the more widely used ?satellite-to-satellite? method, in which waves are sent directly from one satellite to the other in an attempt to overwhelm the broadcast signal. But foreign broadcast companies learned to work around that by switching signals, turning the censorship campaign into a cat-and-mouse game that requires more time and effort by the Iranian government to block each channel. The flagpole jammers represent a second method, referred to as on-the-ground or local jamming. That process involves sending high-frequency microwaves over a larger area, saturating signals that jam incoming signals. ?This new type of jamming is a catch-all,? Heap said. ?It is a one-size-fits-all solution.? The increase in jamming has been noted by the United States and European Union, both of whom announced new communications sanctions and warnings against the Iranian regime in November. Since the 2009 uprisings, roughly $76 million of the total $11.5 billion allocated to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps has been spent on cyber warfare, the Iranian government once reported. Iran?s cyber police monitor the Internet, various websites, blogs and individuals suspected of using circumvention tools designed to evade the censors. In early 2011, Iran unveiled plans for a ?halal network,? or an ?Islamically permissible? intranet that would disconnect the nation from the rest of the world. Such a service would automatically block popular global sites and search engines like Google, Facebook and Wikipedia. Other experts are more concerned about the health side effects of these suspected flagpole jammers, and they cite a rise in cancer rates in Iran as a possible result of the increased jamming activity. ?A cancer tsunami is imminent,? Dr. Ali Mohagheghi, from Iran?s Ministry of Health, admitted earlier this year. Mohagheghi urged doctors to prepare for the coming ?inundation? of cancer cases. ?I?m not a doctor, but I?ll tell you it?s a one-to-one correlation,? said Heap, who explained that the second type of jamming - the ground jamming - emits a much higher degree of cancer-causing radiation. Those who have written about the flagpole jammers or hinted of their connection with cancer rates have been seriously criticized, even threatened with imprisonment. Masoomeh Ebtekar, head of Iran?s Environmental Organization, echoed the idea of a ?cancer tsunami? a few months later, to the semi-official Mehr News agency. But she went further and connected the increase in cancer cases to the jamming waves. The government quickly responded by accusing Ebtekar of circulating rumors, and threatened to imprison her if she continued to speak about the subject, according to the Boltan News site. Despite government pressure, the story has not disappeared, as doctors and others continue to research the possible jammer-cancer connection. ?New cases of pediatric cancer are growing at such an unbelievable rate that one can only connect this crisis to the increase in high-frequency waves,? said a pediatrician living and practicing in Tehran. ?One only has to pay a visit to MAHAK (a pediatric cancer hospital) in northern Tehran to see how real this tragedy is,? she said. ?Of course the government doesn?t want these cases and these statistics to be announced. It might cost them the regime.? Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/30/new-flagpoles-in-iran-spark-rumors-clandestine-satellite-jamming-technology/print#ixzz2Djmyr1yN --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Nov 30 13:56:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 14:56:25 -0500 Subject: [Infowarrior] - VeriSign Falls as Dot-Com Registry Contract Limits Prices Message-ID: 7% increases are insane, so I don't feel any sympathy for them. --rick VeriSign Falls as Dot-Com Registry Contract Limits Prices By Ryan Faughnder - Nov 30, 2012 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-11-30/verisign-falls-as-com-registry-contract-bars-price-hikes.html VeriSign Inc. (VRSN), the main manager of the Internet-address database, plunged the most in a month after a new contract letting the company continue to control Web sites ending in .com limited price increases. The shares dropped 13 percent to $34.35 at 11:20 a.m. in New York, and earlier touched $32.81 for the biggest decline since Oct. 26. Through yesterday, the stock had advanced 10 percent this year. The U.S. Department of Commerce approved a contract renewal through Nov. 30, 2018 that lets VeriSign maintain current pricing of $7.85 per domain name registration, the Reston, Virginia-based company said in a statement. VeriSign no longer has the right to four price increases of as much as 7 percent over the term of the contract, an option that was included in the previous accord. ?A major growth driver has been removed,? Shaul Eyal, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., said in a research note today. ?With $1.4 billion in cash, VeriSign could be considering its capital utilization plan which currently focuses on buybacks.? In October and November, VeriSign repurchased 1.4 million shares for $62 million, leaving $548 million remaining in its current buyback program, Chief Executive Officer Jim Bidzos said on a conference call with investors today. ?We?re extremely well positioned even without the pricing terms in the previous agreement,? Bidzos said on the call. ?We?re still a growth company.? Internet Addresses As overseer of the registry, VeriSign translates the words in an Internet address, such as www.bloomberg.com, into the numbers that a computer server understands. VeriSign also works with others that sell .com addresses. Those companies pay VeriSign for the service that connects words to each correct Internet address. Under the new contract, which was negotiated between VeriSign and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, price increases will be limited to instances when there are ?extraordinary expenses related to security or stability threats, and now require Commerce Department prior approval,? VeriSign said in the statement. Michele Jourdan, a spokeswoman for ICANN, didn?t respond to calls seeking comment. To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Faughnder in New York at rfaughnder at bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5 at bloomberg.net --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.