From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 3 09:28:46 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2016 14:28:46 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Nielsen Forced To Pull Report Offline After It Shows ESPN Losing More Subscribers Than Ever Message-ID: <4C4D5EA9-AD89-4754-A916-C6BBC8DA3D87@infowarrior.org> Nielsen Forced To Pull Report Offline After It Shows ESPN Losing More Subscribers Than Ever from the head-firmly-in-the-sand dept ESPN has been losing hand over fist as consumers shift to streaming alternatives and new "skinny" TV bundles of smaller channels. The company is estimated to have lost roughly 7 million subscribers in just a few years, and a recent survey found that 56% of consumers would drop ESPN in a heartbeat if it meant saving $8 a month on their cable bill (the estimate of how much ESPN costs each subscriber). The losses are largely thanks to ESPN executives failing to see the cord-cutting threat coming. Apparently it's difficult to identify shifting viewership trends with your head buried squarely in the sand. Fast forward to this week, when viewer-monitoring firm Nielsen released a report stating that ESPN lost more subscribers than ever last quarter. According to the original Nielsen report, ESPN lost 621,000 homes in a single month, as well as losing 607,000 ESPN2 households, and 674,000 ESPNU homes. Interestingly, ESPN was quick to complain that these numbers were in error: "The Nielsen numbers represent a dramatic, unexplainable variation over prior months? reporting, affecting all cable networks. We have raised this issue with Nielsen in light of their demonstrated failures over the years to accurately provide subscriber data. The data does not track our internal analysis nor does it take into account new DMVPD entrants into the market." As a result, Nielsen was forced to issue a statement saying it was pulling the findings for review ... < - > https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161102/07332435942/nielsen-forced-to-pull-report-offline-after-it-shows-espn-losing-more-subscribers-than-ever.shtml -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 5 10:44:50 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2016 15:44:50 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Opinion: We should blame the rise of Trump on the failure of TV journalists Message-ID: n Opinion: We should blame the rise of Trump on the failure of TV journalists By Allan Chernoff On 11/5/16 at 10:00 AM http://www.newsweek.com/blame-rise-trump-failure-tv-news-516162 The most outrageous feature of this year?s historic race for the presidency is not that Donald Trump refuses to pledge to accept the election results, not that he bragged on videotape of groping women, nor that he has insulted minorities, the disabled, American prisoners of war and the gold star parents of fallen American soldiers. It?s the fact that a man so utterly unqualified in character, temperament, judgment and knowledge to lead the nation was able to become the presidential nominee of the Republican Party. As a journalist who was a network television correspondent for three decades and reported extensively on Trump, I believe the TV news industry deserves a substantial amount of the blame. Print, online and radio news organizations all gave Trump disproportionate attention during the primaries. But what we saw on television, particularly cable TV news, was a hijacking of political coverage?Donald Trump manipulating and dominating the airwaves?in which television executives were willing accomplices. Our democracy deserves better. Did the 13 million Americans who cast their primary ballots for Trump do so because of any of the above mentioned Trump behaviors? Surely not. Racists and bigots who slithered into the dregs of the Trump coalition comprise only a small percentage of his supporters. Millions of patriotic Americans disappointed with Washington and searching for a change agent put their faith in Trump because they believe in the personal brand he has built, his carefully cultivated reputation as a hugely successful, glamorous businessman with a Midas touch, a strong leader who tells it like it is and always gets what he wants. Trump was able to project this image to the entire nation with a huge lift from extensive television coverage, particularly the live, unfiltered airing of Trump speeches on the campaign trail. Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame after it was vandalized in Los Angeles on October 26. Allan Chernoff writes that news organizations were aware Trump?s image was based on lies. Why didn?t they report it? Mario Anzuoni/reuters The fact is, news organizations were well aware Trump?s image was based on a long series of lies. Numerous journalists, particularly business reporters like myself, had investigated Trump for decades, reporting how he overloaded companies with debt; shafted investors who had bought his bonds; drove companies into the ground; destroyed the career of a Wall Street analyst who had accurately pointed out the huge risks and likely failure of Trump?s multiple Atlantic City casino ventures; was frequently sued for his business practices; cheated working class people who paid as much as $35,000 for his Trump University get-rich-quick scam and greatly exaggerated the extent of his wealth, never mind his years of antics with the gossip media to promote himself as New York?s leading ladies? man. Journalists know that Trump obsessively tries to control his coverage through intimidation, phoning to complain when they report unflattering facts, as he called me, warning, ?I?m watching you,? and even threatening to sue. Reporters understand that Trump relies upon the media to build his brand, while having little regard for the First Amendment. But rather than feature the facts about Donald Trump during primary season, TV news executives largely ignored the deep archive of Trump reporting, instead focusing on the horse race, as they always do. In this case, they highlighted the horse that was a proven ratings magnet because of his larger-than-life personality, willingness to make outrageous comments that draw attention and successful history on the entertainment side of television. ?I?ve known who he is and what he is for a long time,? CNN President Jeff Zucker told the Harvard Institute of Politics earlier this month. Zucker knows, because as head of entertainment at NBC he signed Trump to star in The Apprentice, the platform that enabled Trump to greatly expand his image as a master business mogul to the entire country. During the primaries, the cable TV networks virtually handed a free microphone to Donald Trump, while giving other candidates a small fraction of his attention. By February, Trump had ?earned? nearly $2 billion of free media, more than six times that of his closest Republican competitor, Ted Cruz, and almost nine times the next closest candidate, Jeb Bush. The tens of millions of Americans who most often get their news from television, 57 percent of U.S. adults according to the Pew Research Center, had been fed a steady diet of Trump PR. TV gave scant attention to the long history belying Trump?s claims that his personal successes would surely ?Make America Great Again.? Instead, the all-Trump-all-the-time media attention permitted the presidential candidate to perpetuate the myth he had built as the savvy billionaire who would be America?s savior. Millions of Republican voters fell for it. Even during Republican primary debates, many of the questions were Trump-centric, focusing on his statements and positions. While Trump sucked up air time, little was left for other candidates, a huge disadvantage in their efforts to connect with the American public. As ratings soared, CBS CEO Les Moonves said of Trump?s dominance in the election coverage, ?It may not be good for America, but it?s damn good for CBS.? The money?s rolling in and this is fun.? Indeed, the Trump ratings boost has been manna for an industry that had been under assault from the internet, suffering years of shrinking audience, a rapid aging of viewer demographics and declines in profitability. So, why shouldn?t TV executives be celebrating? Because the news business is about more than making money, more important things like ensuring the public is well informed. An informed electorate is crucial in a democracy where citizens are responsible for electing their leaders. Unfortunately, millions of Americans who rely upon television as their primary source of news were misinformed; TV news coverage of the primary season, particularly cable TV news, failed the American public. It?s true that earning a profit is important to sustaining any business. The days of news as a prestige loss-leader for the TV networks are long gone. But, the news business must measure itself by factors other than ratings and revenues because of its responsibility to the public. So, it?s high time for TV news organizations to take a look in the mirror, commit to a serious review of their coverage of the presidential race and determine how they can better serve the viewers who depend upon them for accurate information. Here are a few suggestions for starters: ? Less Media Manipulation From the White House down to the city council, all politicians try to influence and direct media coverage. But Trump plays the media like a puppet. The fact that he is a ratings draw is good reason for him to host a ?reality? TV show, but no justification to grant him unfettered access to TV news viewers, and even to permit him to hawk his steaks, wine and hotels during political coverage. News directors and assignment editors need to be highly cognizant of efforts to blatantly manipulate them and have the integrity to resist. ? More Facts, Less Fiction The public deserves hard facts, which means more reporting. Reporters and producers do the bulk of the journalistic digging at TV news operations, so they deserve more airtime to share their reportage. Commentators with their own agendas that often deviate from the truth should receive substantially less airtime. ? More Perspective There?s far too much parroting of the candidates? spin doctors in TV news political reporting. Reporters must be well-informed enough to put candidates? comments in perspective, calling them when they twist the truth. Rushing to a candidate?s spinmeisters and parroting their words adds no true value to a journalist?s reporting. ? More Fact Checking It?s not just the major political debates that should be fact checked. Every speech that is covered should be fact checked. The Pulitzer Prize?winning website PolitiFact serves as an excellent model. Had TV news more thoroughly fact checked Trump?s speeches, the viewing public would have known there was little substance to many of Trump?s assertions. It was only after Trump won the Republican nomination that he received a serious vetting in the news media. ? More Focus on the Issues The public deserves to know where every candidate stands on the issues that will affect their lives and impact America?s place in the world. A dedication to exploring the issues should guide editorial decisions that determine which stories get on the air. Given their 24-hour coverage, cable TV news networks should have plenty of air time to devote to the issues, but it?s the horse race that always gets the bulk of the attention. TV news can do a much better job of reporting on the substantive issues while still covering every angle of the all-important horse race. The First Amendment is a wonderful privilege journalists enjoy in the United States, a foundation upon which our free society is built. News organizations should not abuse that privilege by placing the pursuit of profits above their obligation to accurately inform the public. As this election season has demonstrated, the health and strength of our democracy depend upon a responsible news media. Allan Chernoff, CEO of Chernoff Communications, has reported for CNN, CNBC, MSNBC and NBC News. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 9 06:07:28 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:07:28 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - What The Election Means For Stuff Techdirt Cares About? Message-ID: <0A959E13-F0C6-47C5-BCAA-413B4CEA23C8@infowarrior.org> What The Election Means For Stuff Techdirt Cares About? from the probably-not-good... dept https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161108/22473036002/what-election-means-stuff-techdirt-cares-about.shtml So, with basically all the big predictors predicting a fairly easy Hillary Clinton victory last night, I was planning to write a post explaining the many serious problems with her vague, confusing and mostly empty tech policy proposals -- and how there were going to be lots of things to pay attention to and fight for in the next four years. But with the surprise Donald Trump victory, it's basically even worse, in part, because he has no tech policy at all and on the issues that we care about he's bad to horrifically terrible. Here's a quick look at some of the issues that we care about and where Trump comes down: ? Free speech: Clinton was bad on this, but Trump is the one with the long history of bogus defamation threats and lawsuits -- and a promise to open up our libel laws and make it easier to sue for defamation. Say goodbye to any chance of a federal anti-SLAPP law, and watch out for much worse. ? Mass Surveillance: Again, an issue where both candidates were terrible, and both seemed eager to expand mass surveillance and ignore the 4th Amendment. But again, Trump seems to care even less about the possible ramifications of this -- and has even suggested that he'd like to use the power to go after his personal enemies, rather than the enemies of the country. And, outside of the Presidential election, the 4th Amendment took a huge blow in two key Senate races as well. Senate Intelligence Committee head Richard Burr, who doesn't seem to care in the slightest about the 4th Amendment, beat his opponent, who used to run the North Carolina ACLU (an organization that cares deeply about the 4th Amendment). Burr's victory was likely, but the polls (ha!) were at least close. Up in Wisconsin, however, basically everyone was predicting a return to the Senate for Russ Feingold, the only Senator who voted against the PATRIOT Act and a strong supporter of civil liberties. But in an upset, he lost to incumbent Ron Johnson. ? Encryption: I don't believe Trump weighed in specifically on the whole "going dark" debate, but given his comments on mass surveillance and supporting law enforcement over all else, I'm guessing that the chances of a bill banning encryption just got a hell of a lot stronger. Download some strong encryption software now and learn how to use it, folks. ? Internet Governance/Net Neutrality: It's just bad. Trump supported a ridiculously dangerous plan based on near total confusion about how the internet works. And I'm guessing this will present a big opportunity for Congress to gut net neutrality as well. Enjoy more power for AT&T and Comcast, folks. ? Copyright: Uh, who the hell knows? I don't think it's an issue that Trump has ever remotely weighed in on, but it seems unlikely that he'd surround himself with folks who understand the nuances of copyright policy and its free speech implications. ? Patents: Ditto the copyright statement. Again, I fear that given his previous statements, he'll focus on using patents for much greater protectionishm, rather than greater innovation. ? High tech immigration: Hahahahahahah. ? Automation, Drones, Future of work, etc: Well, considering how focused Trump was on bringing back obsolete jobs, rather than ever mentioning innovation or how new technologies can change stuff... not expecting good things here either. ? Police brutality: Yeah, another one where Trump has made himself clear that he's going to side with the police no matter what. That's not good for basic civil liberties and the rule of law. "Law and order" and due process don't always go well together. In short, no matter who won last night, there would be lots of things to be worried about on the kinds of things that we talk about -- but with Trump it's pretty bad. On the issues he's weighed in on, he's taken really dangerous positions. On issues he hasn't, there's little suggestion that he has the understanding or even the basic intellectual curiousity to understand what's important about them. I recognize that many of these issues aren't the key ones that people are worked up about -- and they certainly have very little to do with why Trump was elected. But they do matter. Trump has talked about protecting the constitution and making America great again. To do that, it has to mean more than just protecting the 2nd Amendment -- and it has to come with supporting actual innovation. That seems a lot less likely right now and that should be a major concern. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 9 06:07:29 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:07:29 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - What the Trump win means for tech, science and beyond Message-ID: What the Trump win means for tech, science and beyond David Kravets - 11/9/2016, 2:48 AM http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/what-the-trump-win-means-for-tech-science-and-beyond/ Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump will now become the 45th president, succeeding President Barack Obama. "I say it is time for us to come together as one people," Trump, the president-elect, told supporters in New York, shortly after Clinton called him to concede the election. Here is where Trump stands on the issues near and dear to Ars: Broadband, net neutrality Trump?s presidency could bring big changes to regulation of Internet service providers?but most of them are difficult to predict because Trump rarely discussed telecom policy during his campaign. The Federal Communications Commission?s net neutrality rules could be overturned or weakened, however, if Trump still feels the same way he did in 2014. At the time, he tweeted, ?Obama?s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.? Trump has promised "a temporary moratorium on new agency regulations," and he would like the FCC to fine journalists who are critical of him. Trump seems likely to take a deregulatory approach to telecom, benefiting Internet service providers who protested various new rules implemented under Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Aside from net neutrality, Trump hasn't discussed any specific telecom regulations that he?d like to change. Trump also hasn?t laid out any plans for expanding broadband access, so Americans hoping for improvements will likely have to rely on state and local governments or the private sector. Encryption, cybersecurity With Trump's win, it's still not clear what a Trump administration would do on the issues of cybersecurity and encryption. As Ars reported last month, Trump and his campaign team have been vague on many such details. During the presidential debates, he brushed off the intelligence community's consensus that the attacks against the Democratic National Committee were perpetrated or silently condoned by the Russian government. But Trump did call for a boycott of Apple?a boycott of which he didn't even abide by?during Cupertino's fight with federal prosecutors about whether Apple should be forced to help the authorities unlock a killer's encrypted iPhone. Like most of his other policies, Trump's cybersecurity plan remains thin. It calls for an "immediate review of all US cyber defenses and vulnerabilities, including critical infrastructure, by a Cyber Review Team of individuals from the military, law enforcement, and the private sector." Science Aurich Lawson Trump's presidency, by some accounts, is likely to be a disaster for science. Most analyses of his proposed budgets indicate they will cause deficits to explode, and a relatively compliant Congress could mean at least some of these cuts will get enacted. That will force the government to figure out how to cut, or at least limit, spending. Will science funding be preserved during that process? Trump's given no indication that it would. Instead, many of his answers about specific areas of science focus on the hard choices that need to be made in light of budget constraints. With the exception of NASA, Trump hasn't identified any areas of science that he feels are worth supporting. More generally, Trump has indicated little respect for the findings of science. He has openly repeated the long and frequently debunked suggestion that vaccines can induce autism. And he's said that the climate consensus generated by the international scientific community is little more than plot by the Chinese to hamper other economies. And his science policy plans, where they exist, completely reflect this disdain. For energy, he plans to do the exact opposite of what would be required to address climate change, and he plans to seek a wholesale culling of federal regulation regardless of whether there's a scientific basis for the rules. In short, a Trump administration would mean a crippled US research effort and politics that are based on short-term economic interests rather than science. Space exploration A Trump presidency also carries many unknowns when it comes to space policy specifically. However, in his official campaign statements and in a pair of op-eds written by surrogates, Trump has struck a pro-commercialism viewpoint toward civil spaceflight. "Public-private partnerships should be the foundation of our space efforts," Bob Walker and Peter Navarro, senior policy advisers to the Republican nominee, wrote in a Space News op-ed in October. "Such partnerships offer not only the benefit of reduced costs, but the benefit of partners capable of thinking outside of bureaucratic structures and regulations." Privately, space policy sources close to the Trump campaign have told Ars there is little organized activity surrounding spaceflight matters. But they agree that it seems likely that the Trump administration will take a hard look at costly NASA programs such as the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, which could be replaced by cheaper, private alternatives. Intellectual property Aurich Lawson Trump has no published policies on copyrights or patents and has said little about them. That said, a few things make tech advocates nervous. Trump has close ties to the entertainment world, and he is surrounded by people who have a more maximalist view of copyright. He's also taken positions that suggest his overall view on Internet freedoms wouldn't mesh with copyright reformers. Trump has even talked about "closing" the Internet as a way to fight ISIS, and he said he would "open up" libel laws. Trump has additionally been silent on patents. His vice-presidential pick, Mike Pence, was close to a group of House Republicans who mostly opposed patent reform. Marijuana The Republican candidate said in 1990 that he favored legalization of all drugs. Speaking of the war on drugs at the time, he said, "You have to legalize drugs to win that war." Over time, Trump's thinking has apparently changed and has waffled. In October 2015, he was quoted in the Washington Post as saying: "In terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state." But he told the O'Reilly Factor last February that "dealers" were going to "load up" on marijuana and sell it around the country if marijuana was legalized in Colorado. He told O'Reilly that he favored medical marijuana but not the recreational use of it. It remains to be seen if Trump would turn a blind eye to the states' experiments with medical and recreational marijuana, as did President Obama. A non-marijuana-friendly president could demand that federal agents raid marijuana farms and dispensaries. That's because marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Ars staffers Eric Berger, Jon Brodkin, Cyrus Farivar, Joe Mullin, and John Timmer contributed to this report. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 9 06:08:01 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:08:01 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?This_election_was_not_hacked_=E2=80=93_?= =?utf-8?q?but_it_was_attacked?= Message-ID: <79C487E8-A6E2-4DBA-869C-DD33CEC1CFA8@infowarrior.org> This election was not hacked ? but it was attacked Richard Forno November 9, 2016 6.06am EST https://theconversation.com/this-election-was-not-hacked-but-it-was-attacked-67511 The presidential campaign of 2016 thankfully ? and we can only hope officially ? ended this evening. As of when this article was posted, there are no reports of widespread cyberattacks or other digital interference against state voting systems. Of course, since votes are still being tallied, we?re not in the clear yet. But current indications are that this was a fairly uneventful election, from a cybersecurity perspective at least. So far, we?ve seen no public evidence of Russian hackers, 400-pound or otherwise, attacking individual voting machines from their bedrooms (to use a very tired old trope). There have been reports of brief computer problems, but they were easily remedied. And there?s no indication that state voter registration databases were compromised by hostile third parties. Nevertheless, cybersecurity units of several states? National Guard forces were mobilized ahead of the election, in a manner reminiscent of the reassuring and public show of force when airports reopened following 9/11. The military?s hackers at U.S. Cyber Command reportedly stood ready to retaliate against cyberattacks on the election ? in particular, from Russia as well. These possibilities and preparations reinforce the need for America to place a greater emphasis on election-related cybersecurity, if not also cybersecurity more generally. Even though nothing suspicious appears to suggest the election was ?hacked,? we must still make improvements. At stake is the trustworthiness of the electoral systems and processes of the world?s leading democracy. < - > But even if tonight?s vote count isn?t hacked, the damage is done. We must acknowledge that the integrity of America?s election system has been attacked successfully. Accordingly, once people have recovered from election 2016, we must implement a series of bipartisan, nationwide, rational and objective discussions about our election processes and technologies so that citizen trust in this most cherished national infrastructure ? and feature of American democracy ? can be restored. https://theconversation.com/this-election-was-not-hacked-but-it-was-attacked-67511 -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 10 13:49:01 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2016 19:49:01 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Google Made Android 7 Encryption Passwords Easier To Brute-Force Message-ID: Google Made Android 7 Encryption Passwords Easier To Brute-Force by Lucian Armasu November 10, 2016 at 1:15 PM http://www.tomshardware.com/news/android-7-encryption-passwords-bruteforce,33008.html#xtor=RSS-181 TWRP custom recovery project lead developer Ethan "Dees Troy" Yonker discovered that Android 7 stores a file that shows information about how encryption passwords are composed. This file could make it easier for someone to brute-force their way into phones running the mobile operating system, code named Nougat. Yonker found a ?device_policies.xml? file in the /data/system/ folder that reveals encryption password information such as: This means someone who has your phone and is trying to unlock it by brute-forcing its encryption password could do it significantly faster now. The attackers would not only be able to configure their password cracking tool to avoid searching for uppercase letters and symbols, for example, but they?d also know not to bother searching for shorter or longer passwords than necessary. Thus, the process could be less time-consuming and more precise. Android 7?s More Vulnerable File-Based Encryption Google introduced file-based encryption in Android 7, arguably for little benefit. The company said file-based encryption is necessary to help alarms survive a random phone reset or to let some apps display information even when a device is locked. However, when Google introduced this change, I expressed skepticism about it because it could allow for new ways to unlock a device and bypass its encryption thanks to new security vulnerabilities. It seems that we may now be seeing the first kind of these vulnerabilities, and more may appear in the future. According to Yonker, the password information can be accessed on devices that use the password-less file-based encryption. However, if the old-style full disk encryption was used, this information would only be available after the password has already been entered. According to pseudonymous security expert The Grugq, both of Android?s encryption methods are weaker than what you can find on iOS, because all of the phone's data is unlocked even if you use full disk encryption. On iOS, the accessible data is more limited even after the phone is unlocked. Latest iOS Version Also Vulnerable To Fast Password Cracking However, the latest version of iOS also made it much easier to brute-force its passwords for encrypted backup data when it switched to a new password verification mechanism. Apple promised a fix once the revelation was made public by Elcomsoft, a mobile forensics tool company. It?s unclear whether the problem in Android 7 was a simple blunder on Google?s part or if there's another reason for it. However, there are probably few good reasons for storing information about the encryption password's composition in the OS. We?ve contacted Google for an explanation and we?ll update this post when we get a reply. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 13 14:15:38 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2016 20:15:38 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - TPP is dead. Yay! Message-ID: <5BA76583-4F2C-45DE-B051-521CB7D5FBD3@infowarrior.org> Congress will abandon Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, White House concedes Alan Yuhas https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/12/tpp-trade-deal-congress-obama White House officials conceded on Friday that the president?s hard-fought-for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal would not pass Congress, as lawmakers there prepared for the anti-global trade policies of President-elect Donald Trump. Hispanic business leader regrets decision not to name Latino running mate but Clinton campaign disputes exit polls that say 29% of Latinos voted for Trump Earlier this week, congressional leaders in both parties said they would not bring the trade deal forward during a lame-duck session of Congress, before the formal transition of power on 20 January. The Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, who will be minority leader in the next Congress, told union leaders the trade deal would not pass. Senator Mitch McConnell, the chamber?s Republican majority leader, told reporters ?no? when asked if Congress would consider the TPP. The deal has supporters in both parties but became a campaign symbol for lost manufacturing jobs, especially in the rust belt states. The TPP would have included the US and 11 countries in Asia, South America and the south Pacific, and was designed in large part to curb the growing economic influence of China. But it was attacked almost daily by Trump, who called it ?a continuing rape of our country? and argued that as a symbol of globalized manufacturing in general, it had sent jobs from the US to other countries and damaged the American economy. Trump has similarly argued that the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) ? negotiated by George HW Bush, signed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and passed through a Republican Congress ? destroyed jobs in the US. Trump?s opponent, Hillary Clinton, argued against the TPP in its current form, although she supported it while secretary of state for the Obama White House. During the Democratic primary she was pushed by Bernie Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist senator from Vermont, to give up her support. On Monday, Barack Obama is scheduled to travel to Greece, Germany and Peru, his final major trip abroad in office. At an economic summit in Peru, Obama will meet its president, Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and Chinese president Xi Jinping. Australia and Peru were both slated to join the TPP deal. On Friday, one of Obama?s top advisers could not imagine a way to ensure its passage in the next two months. ?We?re clear-eyed about the current situation,? Ben Rhodes told the Associated Press. ?But we believe what we believe about the value of trade and the importance of the Asia-Pacific region to the United States. ?And I think, given its size and importance, it?s going to have to continue to be a focus for the next president and Congress going forward no matter what.? Ukip leader who played key role in Brexit vote meets president-elect and says of Trump Tower meeting: ?He was relaxed and full of good ideas? Also on Friday, Wally Adeyemo, a deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, told the Wall Street Journal: ?In terms of the TPP agreement itself, Leader McConnell has spoken to that, and it?s something that he?s going to work with the president-elect to figure out where they go in terms of trade agreements in the future.? Despite popular opposition from voters, few details of the TPP were discussed on the campaign trail. It would have phased out thousands of tariffs other countries place on US imports, making products easier to sell abroad, for instance for ranchers selling beef to customers in Japan and Australia. It also would have set up open internet and copyright protections across the 12 nations, benefitting the entertainment industry and undercutting online piracy in China. The deal also included provisions against wildlife trafficking and child labor, holding countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia to higher standards. Opponents of the deal, including many unions, argued it did not protect against countries that manipulate their currency and foreign companies suing, in special tribunals, for exemptions to various US rules. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 16 14:21:49 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2016 20:21:49 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?The_NSA=E2=80=99s_Spy_Hub_in_New_York?= =?utf-8?q?=2C_Hidden_in_Plain_Sight?= Message-ID: <70262502-7436-4F0F-ABDA-E60024DFF1C7@infowarrior.org> Titanpointe The NSA?s Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain Sight https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-hidden-in-plain-sight/ -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 17 14:11:37 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2016 20:11:37 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Britain just passed the "most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy" Message-ID: <271209E1-629C-40FD-8838-E4F51EFE246B@infowarrior.org> Britain just passed the "most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy" Zack Whittaker http://www.zdnet.com/article/snoopers-charter-expansive-new-spying-powers-becomes-law/ It's 2016 going on 1984. The UK has just passed a massive expansion in surveillance powers, which critics have called "terrifying" and "dangerous". The new law, dubbed the "snoopers' charter", was introduced by then-home secretary Theresa May in 2012, and took two attempts to get passed into law following breakdowns in the previous coalition government. Four years and a general election later -- May is now prime minister -- the bill was finalized and passed on Wednesday by both parliamentary houses. But civil liberties groups have long criticized the bill, with some arguing that the law will let the UK government "document everything we do online". It's no wonder, because it basically does. The law will force internet providers to record every internet customer's top-level web history in real-time for up to a year, which can be accessed by numerous government departments; force companies to decrypt data on demand -- though the government has never been that clear on exactly how it forces foreign firms to do that that; and even disclose any new security features in products before they launch. Not only that, the law also gives the intelligence agencies the power to hack into computers and devices of citizens (known as equipment interference), although some protected professions -- such as journalists and medical staff -- are layered with marginally better protections. In other words, it's the "most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy," according to Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group. The bill was opposed by representatives of the United Nations, all major UK and many leading global privacy and rights groups, and a host of Silicon Valley tech companies alike. Even the parliamentary committee tasked with scrutinizing the bill called some of its provisions "vague". And that doesn't even account for the three-quarters of people who think privacy, which this law almost entirely erodes, is a human right. There are some safeguards, however, such as a "double lock" system so that the secretary of state and an independent judicial commissioner must agree on a decision to carry out search warrants (though one member of the House of Lords disputed that claim). A new investigatory powers commissioner will also oversee the use of the powers. Despite the uproar, the government's opposition failed to scrutinize any significant amendments and abstained from the final vote. Killock said recently that the opposition Labour party spent its time "simply failing to hold the government to account". But the government has downplayed much of the controversy surrounding the bill. The government has consistently argued that the bill isn't drastically new, but instead reworks the old and outdated Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). This was brought into law in 2000, to "legitimize" new powers that were conducted or ruled on in secret, like collecting data in bulk and hacking into networks, which was revealed during the Edward Snowden affair. Much of those activities were only possible thanks to litigation by one advocacy group, Privacy International, which helped push these secret practices into the public domain while forcing the government to scramble to explain why these practices were legal. The law will be ratified by royal assent in the coming weeks. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 17 14:16:37 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2016 20:16:37 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - National intelligence chief Clapper resigns Message-ID: <0165B721-8FA3-4294-909E-07E3E109045E@infowarrior.org> National intelligence chief Clapper resigns By Rich Lowry http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/national-intelligence-chief-clapper-resigns-231547 Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday that he has submitted his resignation to President Barack Obama and will not stay on past the transition to Donald Trump. Clapper offered the news during his opening statement in a rare open hearing of the House Intelligence Committee after the panel's ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff of California, said he had heard rumors that the spy chief might stay on into the Trump administration. But that's not going to happen, Clapper said. "I submitted my letter of resignation last night, which felt pretty good," he said. "I got 64 days left and I think I'd have a hard time with my wife anything past that." Clapper, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who took on the intelligence director role in 2010, had long said he would be done after this year. He will finish out his term at noon on Jan. 20, his office said afterward. Senate Intelligence Committee members Angus King (I-Maine) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) urged Trump on Thursday to act soon to "nominate an experienced DNI" who can "build an intelligence community leadership team that will put a high value on collaboration." "Most importantly, if selected early, your DNI could advise on candidates for directors of the intelligence agencies he or she will work with most often,? they wrote. The most controversial aspect of Clapper's tenure may have been his statement to a Senate panel in 2013 that U.S. spy agencies were not collecting data on American citizens ? a claim later contradicted by information leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. "No, sir. Not wittingly," Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee in response to a question by Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. "There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly." Several months later, the Snowden leaks appeared to suggest that Clapper had not been truthful. But Clapper later said it was a very difficult question to answer in a public session and did not easily lend itself to a yes or no answer. "What I said was the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens' emails. I stand by that," Clapper later told the National Journal. "I thought though in retrospect I was asked [a] ?when are you going to stop beating your wife? kind of question, meaning not answerable necessarily, by a simple yes or no," he added. "So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least most untruthful manner, by saying, ?No.?" Wyden, however, sees the episode as unforgivable and part of a pattern of deception about mass surveillance programs. ?During Director Clapper?s tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in an deception spree regarding mass surveillance," Wyden said today in a statement after Clapper?s announcement. "Top officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly misled the American people and even lied to them." ?Director Clapper famously gave an untrue answer to that question," Wyden added. "So I had my intelligence staffer call his office afterward and ask them to correct the record. The Director?s office refused to correct the record. Regardless of what was going through the director?s head when he testified, failing to correct the record was a deliberate decision to lie to the American people about what their government was doing. And within a few months, of course, the truth came out.? ?I urge the next administration to take a different approach and reject the use of secret law that has been all too common in recent years,? Wyden continued. "In America the truth always comes out eventually, and when it does, Americans have proven time and again they will be outraged at the government agencies, officials and politicians who allow secret and expansive interpretations of the law.? The DNI post was created in 2004 and designed to better manage the vast array of U.S. spy agencies and improve their coordination after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Members of both parties were quick Thursday to credit Clapper with making significant progress. ?Jim?s depth of experience gave him the unique ability to fully understand the range of challenges to our national security,? Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the Republican chairman of the intelligence panel, said in a statement. ?Amidst evolving challenges from our adversaries, Jim has continued to reinforce our intelligence relationships with our allies and successfully managed the intelligence community enterprise.? One former senior intelligence official who worked closely with him said Clapper did better than his predecessors in making progress without offending the independence of key agencies. ?I think history will be kind to Jim Clapper,? said Daniel Benjamin, who served as the State Department?s counterterrorism coordinator from 2009 to 2012. ?He wisely accepted that on lots of different issues the CIA director has a lot more heft than he did and in some areas NSA was almost sovereign in the field.? ?He worked constructively to move that process forward instead of fighting small battle or big battles on small issues,? he added. Mike Morell, who was acting CIA director in 2012 and 2013, called Clapper "the best DNI the country has had.? ?He cares deeply about the women and men of the [intelligence community] and that is felt by all," Morell said. "He put in place new capabilities that will serve the nation well for years, and he has not micromanaged the agencies.? Schiff offered praise Clapper too, telling POLITICO: ?I?ll be sorry to see him go. I think he?s done a phenomenal job in taking a very difficult position at a fairly new agency and molding it into something that?s been very constructive and added a lot of value to the [intelligence community]." -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Nov 19 20:54:03 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 02:54:03 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Manhattan D.A. reopens encryption battle with Apple Message-ID: Manhattan D.A. reopens encryption battle with Apple Colin Daileda http://mashable.com/2016/11/18/apple-encryption-new-york-attorney-iphone/#qeDsaoHBiqqj A top law enforcement official wants to turn back the clock on iPhone security. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said Thursday that he wants Apple's encryption to go back to how it was in early 2014. Back then, police could basically extract any information they wanted after getting a warrant. "Doing nothing about this problem will perpetuate an untenable arms race between private industry and law enforcement," Vance said on Thursday. "Federal legislation is our only chance to lay these arms aside." Vance said he's got 423 "lawfully-seized Apple devices" that his employees can't do anything with. Forty-two of those devices "pertain to homicide or attempted murder cases" according to the district attorney's office, and a similar number "relate to sex crimes." Apple believes being forced to hack into phones at the government's will is an unreasonable burden. The argument, of course, is that the district attorney's office would have an easier time solving crimes if they had access to these phones. Apple has been at an impasse with law enforcement over encryption before. After a series of shootings by extremists in San Bernardino, California, on Dec. 2, 2015, the FBI recovered a locked iPhone connected to a suspect. The FBI asked Apple to hack into the phone, but Apple publicly refused, and their battle went back and forth until the FBI paid hackers to do it for them. Apple's argument against helping the FBI centers around the All Writs Act of 1789, which says courts can compel third parties to help out the government so long as that help doesn't put an burden on the company that is deemed unreasonable. Apple believes being forced to hack into phones at the government's will is an unreasonable burden. Their fear is that this will set a precedent by which government controls development and access to their products. The legal disagreement disappeared from headlines after the FBI found a way around Apple, but it could very well come up again in a Donald Trump administration. Trump has indicated that he's in favor of expanding surveillance, and reversing the gains of encryption would be a way to do just that. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 27 10:34:49 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2016 16:34:49 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Privacy experts fear Donald Trump running global surveillance network Message-ID: <37E58BF3-2DD2-408E-A995-76F690B8C1B2@infowarrior.org> theguardian.com Privacy experts fear Donald Trump running global surveillance network Ewen MacAskill https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/11/trump-surveillance-network-nsa-privacy Privacy activists, human rights campaigners and former US security officials have expressed fears over the prospect of Donald Trump controlling the vast global US and UK surveillance network. They criticised Barack Obama?s administration for being too complacent after the 2013 revelations by the NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, and making only modest concessions to privacy concerns rather than carrying out major legislative changes. The concern comes after Snowden dismissed fears for his safety if Trump, who called him ?a spy who has caused great damage in the US?, was to strike a deal with Vladimir Putin to have him extradited. Snowden, in a video link-up from Moscow with a Netherlands-based tech company on Thursday, said it would be ?crazy to dismiss? the prospect of Trump doing a deal but if personal safety was a major concern for him, he would not have leaked the top-secret documents in the first place. Snowden, wanted by the US on charges under the Espionage Act, found asylum in Russia in 2013 but his visa is due to expire in July. Privacy and human rights campaigners in the US and UK say a Trump presidency will tip the balance between surveillance and privacy decisively towards the former. The UK surveillance agency GCHQ is so tied up with America?s NSA, often doing work on its behalf, it could find itself facing a series of ethical dilemmas. On the campaign trail, Trump made an ambiguous remark about wishing he had access to surveillance powers. ?I wish I had that power,? he said while talking about the hack of Democratic National Committee emails. ?Man, that would be power.? Although Obama?s administration introduced a few modest concessions to the privacy lobby following Snowden?s revelations, he left the rest of the surveillance apparatus untouched. His approach has been to offer a modicum of transparency, much of it forced on him by the courts, in place of reform. Officials in the US military and intelligence services contemplate internal resistance or a career change ahead of Donald Trump taking office The White House, which would not comment for this story, has no evident regrets about that approach. The administration believes it has set an appropriate balance between intelligence authorities and civil liberties, and expressed confidence in intelligence professionals who will continue to serve in the NSA and FBI under Trump to act responsibly. But others are less convinced. ?There have been some people who were complacent about things like drone killing of US civilians and mass surveillance under Obama, because they trusted him. That wilful neglect on their part is about to come back and possibly bite all of us in the ass,? said Nick Merrill, the executive director of the Calyx Institute, a technology focused research group that promotes encryption tools. Ben Wizner, Snowden?s lawyer who works for the American Civil Liberties Union, said: ?The danger of the aggregation of executive power we have seen over the last decade is that we might have an executive who is not worthy of that trust. This has been a trend in the US but there has been a weakening of constitutional oversight during the growth of the national security state. ?I think many Americans are waking up to the fact we have created a presidency that is too powerful.? John Napier Tye, a former state department official who became a reluctant whistleblower in 2014, warning of NSA dragnets, said: ?Obama and Bush could have set the best possible privacy protections in place, but the trouble is, it?s all set by executive order, not statute. ?So Trump could revise the executive order as he pleases. And since it?s all done in secret, unless you have someone willing to break the law to tell you that it happened, it?s not clear the public will ever learn it did. Consider that even now, the American people still do not know how much data on US persons the NSA actually collects.? Sign up to The Guardian Today and get the must-read stories delivered straight to your inbox each morning Thomas Drake, an NSA whistleblower who predated Snowden, offered an equally bleak assessment. He said: ?The electronic infrastructure is fully in place ? and ex post facto legalised by Congress and executive orders ? and ripe for further abuse under an autocratic, power-obsessed president. History is just not kind here. Trump leans quite autocratic. The temptations to use secret NSA surveillance powers, some still not fully revealed, will present themselves to him as sirens.? One specific surveillance measure Trump proposed on the campaign trail was surveilling mosques and keeping a database of Muslims. ?A grave concern we have is that his rhetoric is going to be perceived in some corners as a green light for unfettered surveillance activities. Our concern is not just about the NSA but also the FBI. The FBI doesn?t exactly have a great record over the last 15 years,? said Farhana Khera, the president and executive director of the US-based civil rights group Muslim Advocates. The next flashpoint over the NSA?s powers will come late in 2017, when a major surveillance law permitting collection of Americans? international communications is set for expiration, the legal basis for the NSA?s Prism programme which siphons information from the technology giants. The UK government has made even fewer concessions to privacy campaigners than the US. The UK parliament has passed the investigatory powers bill, due to receive royal assent shortly, that basically legalises the illegal activities exposed by Snowden. Even in Germany, where public support for Snowden is at its highest, parliament last month approved legislation that ostensibly increases oversight of intelligence agencies but which privacy campaigners claim expands their powers. Jim Killock, executive director of the UK-based Open Rights Group, said the NSA and GCHQ worked closely together. ?Given that the agencies? operations are nearly indistinguishable, it makes it incredibly hard for the UK to resist using our resources for risky endeavours or even human rights abuses ? Trump?s election ought to remove the complacency MPs have been suffering from.? Carly Nyst, a UK-based human rights lawyer, said: ?The British people should be especially worried: the NSA and GCHQ act so closely, and intelligence is shared so fulsomely, that any increase in surveillance under Trump will undeniably touch upon the privacy of Britons? communications.? According to documents released by Snowden, now years out of date as technological advancements have developed, the NSA vacuums 5bn daily records just of cellphone locations. In April 2011, it was collecting an average of 194m text messages every day. Through its partnership with Britain?s GCHQ, it has access to, among other things, webcam imagery, including pornographic material. GCHQ collected such imagery from 1.8 million Yahoo users in a six-month period in 2008. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 27 10:34:55 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2016 16:34:55 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Green: The limitations of Android N Encryption Message-ID: The limitations of Android N Encryption Matthew Green https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/11/24/android-n-encryption/ -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 27 10:34:59 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2016 16:34:59 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Why the US government wants to bring cryptocurrency out of the shadows Message-ID: Why the US government wants to bring cryptocurrency out of the shadows Nicky Woolf https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/27/coinbase-bitcoin-irs-government-summons-data-cryptocurrency A US government request to trawl through the personal data of millions of users of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase signals the start of an effort to pull digital currencies like bitcoin into the mainstream, experts have said. The ?John Doe? summons, a broad order for data on all Coinbase users in 2013, 2014 and 2015, was filed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in a federal court in California on 17 November. In the summons, the IRS said that all of Coinbase?s users in that period ?have not been or may not be complying with US internal revenue laws?. Coinbase has said it will fight the request in court. Experts say blue chip companies have decided it?s cheaper to deal with extortionists than risk damaging attacks Cryptocurrencies ? digital assets which exist entirely online but are exchangeable for goods or services ? have grown in popularity in recent years, in part because they grant a degree of user anonymity. Coinbase is the largest bitcoin exchange and its best-known brand. But user confidentiality has also caused headaches for governments, who worry the currencies are being used for drug dealing, money laundering or tax evasion. Digital currencies are currently taxed as an asset like gold, with capital gains tax due when there is an appreciation in value. However, the extent to which bitcoin users with US tax liabilities have been declaring such assets is unclear. In documentation supporting its petition, the IRS referred to three anonymous cases of taxpayers who had used virtual currencies to evade tax, two of which were ?corporate entities with annual revenues of several million dollars? which used Coinbase wallets and concealed bitcoin transactions as ?technology expenses? on their tax returns. Several experts in cryptocurrency said that the IRS was on a ?fishing expedition?, and pointed out that it followed an excoriating report by the US treasury?s inspector-general for taxation which said the IRS was not doing enough to regulate and investigate cryptocurrencies. ?The government has no idea that anybody has committed a crime,? said Jerry Brito, the executive director of Coin Center, a lobbying and research group focused on cryptocurrencies. In a statement, Coinbase said: ?Although Coinbase?s general practice is to cooperate with properly targeted law enforcement inquiries, we are extremely concerned with the indiscriminate breadth of the government?s request.? It added: ?In its current form, we will oppose the government?s petition in court.? Some experts, though dismayed by what they saw as the overly broad and invasive nature of the request, said that more government scrutiny on cryptocurrencies was inevitable as they became more mainstream. ?It?s an indication of bitcoin?s growing adoption,? said Chris Burniske, an analyst at ARK Investment Management who focuses on bitcoin. A Bitcoin sign at a pub in Sydney, Australia. Cryptocurrencies have grown in popularity in recent years. Photograph: David Gray / Reuters/Reuters ?As more people use it, it is going to grow in a way which affects national and global economies, so the IRS needs more clarity on how citizens are using it,? he said. ?Globally, we?re seeing regulators grapple with how to regulate and tax [cryptocurrencies].? His ?fan art? exhibition tells the story of blockchain visionaries, bitcoin and the future of cryptocurrency through the mediums of cartoons and board games Others said that while they felt Coinbase was right to seek to narrow the scope of the request, some change was needed to bring bitcoin and its ilk out of the dark and into the world of mainstream finance. ?If bitcoin and other digital currencies are going to be viewed as legitimate financial instruments, there has to be some regulatory apparatus here,? said Kevin McIntyre, associate professor of economics at McDaniel College in Maryland. ?Certainly,? he added, ?the tinfoil hat-wearing libertarian types who embrace the privacy of [bitcoin] are going to be very disappointed.? Not all of them, however. Juan Llanos, an advisor in financial technology regulation and compliance, said he was seeing a lot of anger within the cryptocurrency industry at the IRS?s move, but also some schadenfreude from the more anarchistic parts of bitcoin?s user base. ?Coinbase has been attacked by ultra-anarchists from the beginning, because they are the closest to a digital bank there is,? he said. ?Many anarchists ? usually the early adopters of bitcoin ? who are against the customs of Coinbase are celebrating,? he said. This is not the first time the IRS has used blanket John Doe summonses as part of an investigation, though it is possible that the Coinbase request will be the largest of its kind. In 2014, a federal judge approved similar summonses for FedEx, DHL and UPS to produce information about taxpayers who use an offshore asset-management service called Sovereign Management & Legal, and in 2015 a judge approved another summons for US taxpayers with offshore accounts at Belize Bank International Limited. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Nov 27 13:55:46 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2016 19:55:46 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Stanford: Students Have 'Dismaying' Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds Message-ID: <71331218-C54B-499C-AEE1-3FA56CC454A1@infowarrior.org> (NB: First, before reading, we must stipulate that "fake news" is not just "stuff you disagree with or runs contrary to one's 'beliefs'"--- and also isn't a new phenomenon brought about by the internet in 2016 or only impacts students. The lack of news literacy and critical thinking/analysis in society is a problem that's been gestating for a long time prior, I think. After all, why *think* about things in the media when its passive consumption, acceptance, & redistribution among one's own social network is easier and more enjoyable? And thus the echo chamber of fake reality is constantly fed by its own inhabitants. -- rick) Students Have 'Dismaying' Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds November 23, 201612:44 PM ET Camila Domonoske If the children are the future, the future might be very ill-informed. That's one implication of a new study from Stanford researchers that evaluated students' ability to assess information sources and described the results as "dismaying," "bleak" and "[a] threat to democracy." As content creators and social media platforms grapple with the fake news crisis, the study highlights the other side of the equation: What it looks like when readers are duped. The researchers at Stanford's Graduate School of Education have spent more than a year evaluating how well students across the country can evaluate online sources of information. Middle school, high school and college students in 12 states were asked to evaluate the information presented in tweets, comments and articles. More than 7,800 student responses were collected. In exercise after exercise, the researchers were "shocked" ? their word, not ours ? by how many students failed to effectively evaluate the credibility of that information. The students displayed a "stunning and dismaying consistency" in their responses, the researchers wrote, getting duped again and again. They weren't looking for high-level analysis of data but just a "reasonable bar" of, for instance, telling fake accounts from real ones, activist groups from neutral sources and ads from articles. < - > http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503129818/study-finds-students-have-dismaying-inability-to-tell-fake-news-from-real -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 29 10:20:48 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2016 16:20:48 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI and NSA Poised to Gain New Surveillance Powers Under Trump Message-ID: <6588CD5B-B3EA-4693-8E3C-3CAF760866E7@infowarrior.org> FBI and NSA Poised to Gain New Surveillance Powers Under Trump Chris Strohm @cstrohm More stories by Chris Strohm https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-29/fbi-and-nsa-poised-to-gain-new-surveillance-powers-under-trump The FBI, National Security Agency and CIA are likely to gain expanded surveillance powers under President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress, a prospect that has privacy advocates and some lawmakers trying to mobilize opposition. Trump?s first two choices to head law enforcement and intelligence agencies -- Republican Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general and Republican Representative Mike Pompeo for director of the Central Intelligence Agency -- are leading advocates for domestic government spying at levels not seen since the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The fights expected to play out in the coming months -- in Senate confirmation hearings and through executive action, legislation and litigation -- also will set up an early test of Trump?s relationship with Silicon Valley giants including Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.?s Google. Trump signaled as much during his presidential campaign, when he urged a consumer boycott of Apple for refusing to help the FBI hack into a terrorist?s encrypted iPhone. An ?already over-powerful surveillance state? is about to ?be let loose on the American people,? said Daniel Schuman, policy director for Demand Progress, an internet and privacy advocacy organization. New Hacking Rule In a reversal of curbs imposed after Edward Snowden?s revelations in 2013 about mass data-gathering by the NSA, Trump and Congress may move to reinstate the collection of bulk telephone records, renew powers to collect the content of e-mails and other internet activity, ease restrictions on hacking into computers and let the FBI keep preliminary investigations open longer. A first challenge for privacy advocates comes this week: A new rule is set to go into effect on Dec. 1 letting the FBI get permission from a judge in a single jurisdiction to hack into multiple computers whose locations aren?t known. ?Under the proposed rules, the government would now be able to obtain a single warrant to access and search thousands or millions of computers at once; and the vast majority of the affected computers would belong to the victims, not the perpetrators, of a cybercrime,? Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who serves on the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. Wyden is one of seven senators, including libertarian Republican Rand Paul, who have introduced a bill, S. 3475, to delay the new policy until July to give Congress time to debate its merits and consider amendments. Orlando, San Bernardino Sessions, Pompeo and officials with national security and law enforcement agencies have argued that expanded surveillance powers are needed, especially because of the threat of small, deadly terrorist plots that are hard to detect, like the killing of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June and 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last year. The FBI had at one point opened a preliminary investigation into the Orlando killer, Omar Mateen, but didn?t have the authority to keep it going for lack of evidence of wrongdoing. ?What?s needed is a fundamental upgrade to America?s surveillance capabilities,? Pompeo and a co-author wrote in a Wall Street Journal commentary in January. ?Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed.? Pompeo and Sessions want to repeal a 2015 law that prohibits the FBI and NSA from collecting bulk phone records -- ?metadata? such as numbers called and dates and times -- on Americans who aren?t suspected of wrongdoing. "Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database," Pompeo wrote. Press aides for Sessions and Pompeo declined to comment. Warrantless Interceptions Sessions has opposed restraints on NSA surveillance and said in June that he supported legislation to expand the types of internet data the FBI can intercept without warrants. Congress is also expected to consider legislation early next year that would renew the government?s ability to collect the content of e-mail and other internet activity from companies such as Google and Facebook Inc. Under the Prism program, investigators pursuing suspected terrorists can intercept the content of electronic communications believed to come from outside the U.S. without specific warrants even if one end of the communications is inside the country or involves an American. Patriot Act Prism came under criticism when it was exposed by Snowden, the former NSA contractor who stole hundreds of thousands of documents on agency surveillance programs. Section 702 of the USA Patriot Act, under which Prism and other spy programs are conducted, is set to expire at the end of 2017 if it isn?t reauthorized by Congress. James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has said he also wants to renew a debate early next year about whether Apple and other companies can resist court warrants seeking to unlock encrypted communications. The agency went to court trying to force Apple to create new software to crack password protection on a phone used by the shooter in San Bernardino. ?Boycott Apple until they give up the information,? Trump said at a rally in South Carolina in February. He said Tim Cook, Apple?s chief executive officer, ?is looking to do a big number, probably to show how liberal he is. Apple should give up.? While the FBI dropped that case against Apple after buying a tool to hack into the phone, the increasing use of encryption on mobile devices and messaging services remains a challenge to national security and law enforcement agencies. Browsing History Republicans led by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina are expected to re-introduce legislation requiring companies to give investigators access to encrypted communications. The FBI is also seeking legislation that would allow it to obtain ?non-content electronic communication transactional records,? such as browsing histories and computer Internet Protocol addresses, without court oversight or a warrant. Sessions and Burr supported the legislation earlier this year, while it was opposed by major technology groups as well as Google and Facebook. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 29 15:16:42 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2016 21:16:42 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Internet Archive putting database in Canada to keep it from Trump Message-ID: <7993AA84-611A-422B-BE64-CD3203E970AF@infowarrior.org> Internet Archive putting database in Canada to keep it from Trump Ali Breland http://thehill.com/policy/technology/307942-internet-archive-putting-database-in-canada-to-keep-it-from-trump The Internet Archive, a nonprofit that saves copies of old web pages, is creating a backup of its database in Canada, in response to the election of Donald TrumpDonald TrumpCorker praises Trump?s foreign policy 'instincts' Internet Archive putting database in Canada to keep it from ?On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change,? the organization wrote in a blogpost explaining the move. ?It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change.? The Internet Archive is responsible for services like the Wayback Machine, a tool that allows users to access cached versions of websites long after they are pulled from the internet, and Open Library, which offers free access to millions of e-books. The move will cost millions, according to the Internet Archive, which is soliciting donations. In their post, the Internet Archive justified its decision to backup its data in Canada, claiming that Trump could threaten an open internet. ?For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions.? During his campaign, Trump sparked fear among free speech advocates with threats to close up ?certain areas? of the internet in an effort to prevent terrorists from communicating or recruiting online. ?Somebody will [say] 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people," Trump said last December. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 29 16:12:29 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2016 22:12:29 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Inside the RCMP's plan for a 'new public narrative' on cyber surveillance Message-ID: <319C1A01-ACD4-4F7E-B1CB-D2D5FB1FE7A1@infowarrior.org> Inside the RCMP's plan for a 'new public narrative' on cyber surveillance https://news.vice.com/story/the-rcmp-wants-to-build-a-new-public-narrative-on-online-surveillance-documents-show -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 30 06:49:21 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 12:49:21 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - A Quandary for the News Media Message-ID: <7BD5A1DF-284B-4F53-AC12-69B19DA9F175@infowarrior.org> (IMHO, no, it is not. Just mute the hell out of him and stop chasing readers, he's shown that is' mainly noise and distraction from much more 'real' items that need discussing in the media. But oh, wait -- advertisers! Ratings! Readers! -- rick) If Trump Tweets It, Is It News? A Quandary for the News Media Since Election Day, President-elect Donald J. Trump has proposed a U-turn in American diplomatic relations with Cuba, boasted about negotiations with a major manufacturer, trumpeted false claims about millions of illegal votes and hinted that he might upend current free speech laws by banning flag burning. All in 140 characters or less. < - > http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/business/media/if-trump-tweets-it-is-it-news-a-quandary-for-the-news-media.html -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 30 18:12:19 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 00:12:19 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI to gain expanded hacking powers as Senate effort to block fails Message-ID: <37856F17-27C0-496F-8AA8-799B962B20F1@infowarrior.org> FBI to gain expanded hacking powers as Senate effort to block fails By Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-congress-idUSKBN13P2ER WASHINGTON A last-ditch effort in the Senate to block or delay rule changes that would expand the U.S. government's hacking powers failed Wednesday, despite concerns the changes would jeopardize the privacy rights of innocent Americans and risk possible abuse by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden attempted three times to delay the changes, which will take effect on Thursday and allow U.S. judges will be able to issue search warrants that give the FBI the authority to remotely access computers in any jurisdiction, potentially even overseas. His efforts were blocked by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate's second-ranking Republican. The changes will allow judges to issue warrants in cases when a suspect uses anonymizing technology to conceal the location of his or her computer or for an investigation into a network of hacked or infected computers, such as a botnet. Magistrate judges can currently only order searches within the jurisdiction of their court, which is typically limited to a few counties. In a speech from the Senate floor, Wyden said that the changes to Rule 41 of the federal rules of criminal procedure amounted to "one of the biggest mistakes in surveillance policy in years." The government will have "unprecedented authority to hack into Americans' personal phones, computers and other devices," Wyden said. He added that such authority, which was approved by the Supreme Court in a private vote earlier this year, but was not subject to congressional approval, was especially troubling in the hands of an administration of President-elect Trump, a Republican who has "openly said he wants the power to hack his political opponents the same way Russia does." Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana also delivered speeches voicing opposition to the rule changes. The U.S. Justice Department has pushed for the changes to the federal rules of criminal procedure for years, arguing they are procedural in nature and the criminal code needed to be modernized for the digital age. In an effort to address concerns, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell wrote a blog post this week arguing that the benefits given to authorities from the rule changes outweighed any potential for "unintended harm." "The possibility of such harm must be balanced against the very real and ongoing harms perpetrated by criminals - such as hackers, who continue to harm the security and invade the privacy of Americans through an ongoing botnet, or pedophiles who openly and brazenly discuss their plans to sexually assault children," Caldwell wrote. A handful of judges in recent months had dismissed evidence brought as part of a sweeping FBI child pornography sting, saying the search warrants used to hack suspects' computers exceeded their jurisdiction. The new rules are expected to make such searches generally valid. Blocking the changes would have required legislation to pass both houses of Congress, then be signed into law by the president. (Reporting by Dustin Volz, editing by G Crosse) -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 30 19:05:08 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 01:05:08 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Government To Allow IoT Hacking For Research Message-ID: <46DFD14A-16A3-4771-BA7B-A3A28B64BC66@infowarrior.org> Government To Allow IoT Hacking For Research Chase Martin http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/289853/government-to-allow-iot-hacking-for-research.html Security professionals can now hack IoT devices without breaking the law, thanks to an updated ruling in the U.S. Copyright Office. The new rule under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act permits security researchers to legally circumvent device manufacturers? software to control connected devices. Such devices include all wearable devices, smartphones, tablets, removable wireless broadband modems and similar devices. The rule requires the hacking to be conducted in a controlled environment, for research purposes and not to be exploited maliciously. The Internet of Things has been an area of focus for many security professionals working to uncover potential vulnerabilities for device manufacturers. For example, teams of security experts broke through 12 of 16 smart lock systems, as well as a smart thermostat at a recent hacking conference. After successfully hacking the devices, the researchers notified the manufacturers to implement future security measures. On the consumer side, fear of malicious hacking might have an impact on overall adoption of IoT devices. Half (50%) of consumers said they have not purchased an IoT device because they were concerned about its security, according to a recent study by ESET and the National Cyber Security Alliance. That study, which comprised a survey of 1,500 U.S. adults, also found that the majority (77%) of consumers said they are aware of the idea that some cars could potentially be hacked. Researchers have hacked connected cars on more than one occasion already, including vehicles from Jeep and Tesla. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 1 07:24:59 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2016 12:24:59 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?It=E2=80=99s_Finally_Legal_To_Hack_Your?= =?utf-8?q?_Own_Devices_=28Even_Your_Car=29?= Message-ID: It?s Finally Legal To Hack Your Own Devices (Even Your Car) Author: Andy Greenberg https://www.wired.com/2016/10/hacking-car-pacemaker-toaster-just-became-legal/ You may have thought that if you owned your digital devices, you were allowed to do whatever you like with them. In truth, even for possessions as personal as your car, PC, or insulin pump, you risked a lawsuit every time you reverse-engineered their software guts to dig up their security vulnerabilities?until now. Last Friday, a new exemption to the decades-old law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act quietly kicked in, carving out protections for Americans to hack their own devices without fear that the DMCA?s ban on circumventing protections on copyrighted systems would allow manufacturers to sue them. One exemption, crucially, will allow new forms of security research on those consumer devices. Another allows for the digital repair of vehicles. Together, the security community and DIYers are hoping those protections, which were enacted by the Library of Congress?s Copyright Office in October of 2015 but delayed a full year, will spark a new era of benevolent hacking for both research and repair. ?This is a tremendously important improvement for consumer protection,? says Andrea Matwyshyn, a professor of law and computer science at Northeastern University. ?The Copyright Office has demonstrated that it understands our changed technological reality, that in every aspect of consumers? lives, we rely on code,? says Matwyshyn, who argued for the exemptions last year. For now, the exemptions are limited to a two-year trial period. And the security research exemption in particular only applies to what the Copyright Office calls ?good-faith? testing, ?in a controlled environment designed to avoid any harm to individuals or to the public.? As Matwyshyn puts it, ?We?re not talking about testing your neighbor?s pacemaker while it?s implanted. We?re talking about a controlled lab and a device owned by the researcher.? But within those restrictions, the exemptions remove a looming fear of DMCA lawsuits that has long hung over the security research community. ?There?s a universe of security vulnerabilities that the law keeps researchers from figuring out and telling you about, but are nonetheless present in devices you use every day,? says Kit Walsh, an attorney with the Electronic Freedom Foundation. ?For the next two years, that threat will be lifted for many forms of security research that are really important.? Section 1201 of the DMCA has for years forbidden hackers from reverse-engineering many computer systems?even ones that they owned?in an attempt to prevent Americans from circumventing protections on the intellectual property of manufacturers. Sony used the law, for instance, to sue reverse-engineer George Hotz for hacking the Sony Playstation to allow it to run unauthorized software. (Sony and Hotz eventually settled that lawsuit in 2011, after Hotz agreed to stop reverse0engineering Sony?s products.) Tractor manufacturer John Deere last year cited the law to argue that tractor owners couldn?t repair certain software components of their vehicles. Even important security research aimed at public safety has long fallen under the DMCA?s ban, says Josh Corman, one of the co-founders of the consumer security group I Am The Cavalry. He points to recent research that has shown that Johnson and Johnson insulin pumps could be hacked to induce an overdose, that Jeeps could be hacked over the internet to control their brakes and transmission, and that Volkswagen had rigged its software to systematically cheat emissions testing. All of the researchers behind those discoveries risked DMCA lawsuits, he says. The new exemptions, Corman argues, provide legal cover to reverse-engineers who otherwise may not explore critical subjects. ?Some researchers have good lawyers, or they hope nobody takes the case,? says Corman. ?But for people who are more risk averse or don?t want to be made an example of, this removes some risk.? It?s tough to measure just how much the DMCA hacking restrictions have stymied research over the nearly two decades since its inception. But Corman points to the case of one security researcher, Brian Knopf, who held off on reporting security vulnerabilities in his wife?s Medtronic neurotransmitter for fear of a DMCA lawsuit. And he notes that since GM launched a vulnerability disclosure program in January that offered some assurance it wouldn?t sue helpful hackers, it?s received hundreds of reports of security vulnerabilities in its cars. ?Simply the act of removing the fear of reprisal allowed people to report things that could have affected GM?s customers or their livelihood,? says Corman. The new DMCA exemptions don?t mean open season for hackers?even the friendly, research-focused kind. Aside from the Copyright Office?s ?good-faith? restrictions, researchers can still be sued or prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act if, for instance, they?re determined to be gaining ?unauthorized access? to a computer they don?t own. The measure allows research on personal devices, but not the internet services to which they connect. And again, the exemptions are set to expire after two years. But Corman, of I Am the Cavalry, is hopeful that the security research community can demonstrate enough research results during that time to convince the Copyright Office to lift the ban for good, a move he says would make us all safer. ?It?s our belief and hope that if we can create a body of evidence for the positive effects this research brings, we can bring about a permanent exemption,? Corman says. ?When you remove a barrier to disclosure, you avail yourself of the opportunity to fix these things.? -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Nov 1 11:22:28 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2016 16:22:28 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Publishers_Are_Rethinking_Those_?= =?utf-8?b?4oCYQXJvdW5kIHRoZSBXZWLigJkgQWRz?= Message-ID: <29F18259-AF11-467E-B3A3-ABFB1257EE10@infowarrior.org> (this is looooong overdue. --rick) Publishers Are Rethinking Those ?Around the Web? Ads Sapna Maheshwari and John Herrman http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/business/media/publishers-rethink-outbrain-taboola-ads.html Such is the disconnect between the content ad industry?s expressed hopes for what it wants to provide and what internet users end up seeing. ?The vision is to index the entire web and bring the best, most personalized stuff to people,? Adam Singolda, Taboola?s founder and chief executive, said in an interview. ?For the most part, a lot of the value Taboola brings is to introduce you to things people may not even know about but like.? He listed examples like new TV shows, blogs and even music from Brooklyn D.J.s. Outbrain, which also creates tools for publishers to direct readers to other parts of their own websites, says its mission is to ?help people discover content that they can trust to be interesting, relevant and timely for them.? Matt Crenshaw, vice president of product marketing at Outbrain, said, ?As this space has grown up, this is becoming a very significant percentage-wise revenue source for publishers.? ?We have been told from major, major publishers that we have become their No. 1 revenue provider,? he said, declining to name specific companies. Outbrain and Taboola both say they offer tools for publishers to remove potentially problematic content. Additionally, the companies employ teams of people who vet content before it is introduced onto their networks, though they admitted it was a challenge to police those who alter campaigns and redirect URLs after approval. And then there?s the problem of sheer scale. Outbrain, which says it serves 200 billion recommendations a month, employs a ?fairly large content editorial team that?s about 17 to 20 people,? said Eric Hadley, Outbrain?s head of marketing. (The company also said that its partnership with Slate, which began in 2010, did not end because of a poor reader experience, though it declined to elaborate.) Taboola, which claims it provides 360 billion recommendations a month, has about 100 account managers who approve new ads, as well as 10 employees dedicated to ?keeping content clean,? Mr. Singolda said. Financial details for the companies are not public, though notable deals shed some light on the industry?s size. Taboola signed a three-year deal with Gannett last year that Mr. Singolda estimated could bring inasmuch as $55 million for the publisher. Time Inc., which owns People, Fortune and other magazines, said in 2014 that its three-year partnership with Outbrain would generate more than $100 million in revenue. Outbrain says it accounts for up to 30 percent of revenue for some publishers. ?We have been consistently pleased with Outbrain as a third-party provider of content recommendations for our site visitors,? Jill Davison, a spokeswoman for Time, said in an email. Sometimes, the links from these ads can lead to questionable websites, run by unknown entities. Sometimes the information they present is false. A sample of six Outbrain recommendations on The New Yorker?s website on Oct. 5 showed the confusion readers may face when looking at content ads; several were legitimate, but one led to a spamlike ?clickbait? site and another led to a fake health news site created by a marketing company. Two led to editorial stories from AARP, which promotes its website through Outbrain and embeds the widgets on its own site. ?We no longer need to go out and create relationships with each individual publisher,? said Nataki Edwards, AARP?s senior vice president for digital marketing. But she acknowledged that quality control was an issue. ?Outbrain and Taboola and others ? they?ve relaxed their standards over the last few years,? Ms. Edwards said. ?Our users, they think we?ve vetted all these things. We want to make sure we uphold their trust.? Asked about the widget and about specific ads, Nicholas Thompson, the editor of NewYorker.com, said, ?Outbrain only appears on our humor pages. That?s a deliberate choice.? He added that the arrangement was part of a deal between The New Yorker?s parent company, Cond? Nast, and Outbrain. Within a week of the interview, The New Yorker had removed the ads from its site, though it declined to comment on its decision. For Slate, it was worth it to stop supporting the ads, Mr. Hernandez said. The publisher?s top priority is figuring out how to turn the casual visitor into a regular reader who stops by the site eight to 24 times a week, he said. ?When you?re looking at things from that prism and you?re not maniacally obsessed with monetizing every single pixel, Outbrain is very obviously not fitting into your equation anymore,? he said. ?If your readers? trust and loyalty is No. 1 as the thing you care about most, you can?t have that on your page.? -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Nov 2 18:00:48 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2016 23:00:48 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Alzheimer's treatment within reach after successful drug trial Message-ID: <39B04D3F-BC0B-4933-995F-E509122ECC37@infowarrior.org> Alzheimer's treatment within reach after successful drug trial Hannah Devlin https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/02/alzheimers-treatment-within-reach-after-successful-drug-trial-amyloid-plaques-bace1 An Alzheimer?s drug has been shown to successfully target the most visible sign of the disease in the brain, raising hopes that an effective treatment could be finally within reach. A small trial of the drug was primarily aimed at assessing safety, but the findings suggest it effectively ?switched off? the production of toxic amyloid proteins that lead to the sticky plaques seen in the brains of Alzheimer?s patients. If the tablet, produced by pharmaceutical giant Merck, is also shown to slow the pace of mental decline ? a crucial question that a major clinical trial should answer when it reports next year ? it could be the first treatment for Alzheimer?s to be licensed in more than a decade. Prof John Hardy, a neuroscientist at UCL who first proposed that amyloid proteins play a central role in Alzheimer?s disease, welcomed the results. ?People are excited,? he said. ?This is a very nice drug and I?m sure Merck are feeling very pleased with themselves.? Matt Kennedy, who led the trial at Merck, said: ?Today there are very limited therapeutic options available for people with Alzheimer?s disease, and those that exist provide only short-term improvement to the cognitive and functional symptoms. They do not directly target the underlying disease processes. There is an urgent need for [these].? How BACE1 blocking drug could reduce toxic proteins in Alzheimer's patients The new therapy is designed to do this by halting the steady production of amyloid-beta proteins, which are known to clump together in sticky plaques in the brains of Alzheimer?s patients. A leading theory of Alzheimer?s is that the accumulating proteins kill off healthy neurons, eventually leading to memory loss, cognitive decline and changes to personality. Kennedy said it was too early to predict when a drug might reach the market if the next step is successful. ?We are eagerly awaiting the results of the phase three clinical trials,? he said. ?It is premature to speculate on availability.? In the trial, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday, 32 patients with early stage Alzheimer?s disease were given the drug, called verubecestat, daily for seven days. Healthy volunteers were also given the drug for up to two weeks. This was not long enough to show visible changes to the accumulation of plaques in the brain, by MRI scans for instance. However, samples taken from the fluid surrounding the brain showed the drug had reduced the levels of two compounds that are known to be the building blocks for abnormal amyloid proteins. Hardy said that the changes to the biomarkers convince him that the drug is successfully targeting the buildup of plaques in the brain. The real remaining uncertainty, he said, was whether this would convert into cognitive benefits for patients. ?What we have to be worried about is that the plaques have set off other pathologies - that it is too late,? he said. The drug works by blocking a brain enzyme called BACE1, which fuels the production of two small molecules that link together to form amyloids. Mutations in genes related to BACE1 have been found in people who appear to be protected against Alzheimer?s disease. There have been previous attempts to develop drugs that inhibit BACE1, but these have mostly failed due to unacceptable side-effects, such as liver toxicity and eye problems. The Merck drug appears to have very few side-effects and it will be the first of its kind to make it into a large efficacy trial. The company is running two phase three trials, in 1,500 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer?s and in another 2,000 patients in the earliest stage of the disease. The results of the first of these are due to be reported in July 2017. There are 850,000 people with dementia in Britain, and this figure is expected to reach one million by 2025. Alzheimer?s is the most common form of the condition. Rosa Sancho, head of research at Alzheimer?s Research UK, welcomed the findings, adding that the Merck drug is one of several that are heading into the final stages of clinical testing. ?There is a wave of potential new treatments currently being tested for dementia, with the results of these studies hotly anticipated over the course of the coming months and years,? she said. Competing drugs include one developed by the biotech firm Biogen, which reported promising results in August and which also targets the plaques. The Biogen drug aims to sweep the proteins away once they appear rather than halting the production of proteins in the first place, however. ?With us, it?s a question of switching off the tap. With them it?s mopping up the water,? said Ian McConnell, a spokesman for Merck. Hardy suggested that Merck?s drug is likely to be far cheaper and easier to produce than the Biogen therapy, which involves injecting patients with antibodies. -- It's better to burn out than fade away. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Nov 3 07:11:10 2016 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2016 12:11:10 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Trump Is an Existential Threat Message-ID: <2D00E9DD-8B9B-4F63-8625-8F25F1CDF6C2@infowarrior.org> (one of the few election related posts I've put out. trust me, i've been tempted otherwise, but want to minimise my contribution to this gross and disgusting national nightmare called 'campaign 2016' -- rick) Trump Is an Existential Threat Charles M. Blow http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/opinion/campaign-stops/trump-is-an-existential-threat.html There are only a handful of days until Election Day and an end to this phase of a nation?s ? and the world?s ? ebb and flow of anxiety. The day after the votes are cast and counted that anxiety will either dissipate or become a fixed feature. Which of these it will be is very much in flux. While Hillary Clinton still maintains a lead in the polls and a built-in advantage on the electoral map, recent polls suggest that Donald Trump is closing the gap. There are now plausible ? however improbable ? electoral map routes to victory for him. I leave it to others to make predictions about how all this will play out, but I feel that I must say again, and until the last minute and with my last breath: America, are you (expletive) kidding?! I simply cannot wrap my head around how others with level heads and sound minds can even consider Trump for president of this country and leader of the free world. The logic simply escapes me. I try to view it through the lens of economic anxiety, diminished economic mobility and global pressure. It all seems understandable, but then I?m reminded of Donald Trump, a billionaire whose businesses have on more than one occasion gone bankrupt, who stiffed contractors, who outsources the making of many of his products and who brags about not paying federal income taxes. All of which brings me back to: Are you kidding me? I try to view it through a purely ideological lens in which people simply tend to vote for the party nominee. It makes sense, but then I?m reminded of Donald Trump, a man who isn?t really an ideologue but a demagogue interested only in self-aggrandizement. And again I return to: You?re kidding, right? I think of the family values voters on the right with whom I?ve become acquainted over the years. Although I might have vigorously disagreed with their positions and their inherent myopic anachronism, at least I could say that they were as principled in their adherence to their positions as I was in opposition to them. But then, again, I hit Donald Trump, who is dragging traditional conservative paternalism into the muck of perversion, who brags about sexually assaulting women, who makes fun of the disabled, who savors a lust for vengeance, who says he has never needed to seek forgiveness, even from God. Again, are you kidding? I try to think of it from a strict constitutionalist?s perspective, to understand how strongly they want the vacancy on the Supreme Court to be filled by a constitutional purist. But then I think of Trump, whose Muslim ban would fly in the face of the Constitution, whose threats to the press strike me as constitutionally hostile, whose advancement of torture would seem to me constitutionally questionable (to say nothing of its legality in the face of international norms and treaties). Are you kidding, America? I try to think of it in terms of weariness with Washington and with D.C. insiders, the Clintons in particular, and dynastic democracy in general. I try to think of the intense Clinton distrust and even hatred that exists in some quarters, sentiments only exacerbated by things like this never-ending email saga. But then I hit Donald Trump, a real estate scion who has been sued nearly 1,500 times and is currently being sued for Trump University deceptions and the rape of a 13-year-old girl. You have got to be kidding. There is no way to make this make sense. Believe me, I?ve tried. Donald Trump is a bigot. Donald Trump is a demagogue. Donald Trump is a sexist, misogynist, chauvinist pig. Donald Trump is a bully. Donald Trump is a cheat. Donald Trump is a pathological liar. Donald Trump is a nativist. Donald Trump?s campaign has proved too attractive to anti-Semites, Nazis and white nationalists, and on some level the campaign seems to be tacitly courting that constituency. Donald Trump ? judging by his own words on that disgusting tape and if you believe the dozen-plus women who have come forward to accuse him of some form of sexual assault or unwanted sexual advance ? is an unrepentant predator. To put it more succinctly, Donald Trump is a lowlife degenerate with the temperament of a 10-year-old and the moral compass of a severely wayward teen. There is no way to make a vote for him feel like an act of principle or responsibility. You can?t make it right. You can?t say yes to Trump and yes to common decency. Those two things do not together abide. If you are voting for Trump, you are voting for coarseness, corruption and moral corrosion. Period. And if you are not actively voting against him, you are abetting his attempt to hijack American greatness and sink it with his egotism. On Election Day, America faces a choice, and it?s not a tough one, but a stark one. It is the difference between tolerance and intolerance. It is the difference between respect and disrespect. It is the difference between a politician with some flaws and a flaw threatening our politics. Donald Trump is America?s existential threat. On Tuesday, America has an opportunity to defend itself. -- It's better to burn out than fade away.