Cyber cold-war
A lengthy confidential list of computer addresses linked to a hacking group that has stolen terabytes of data for corporations in America was circulated to the country’s internet providers last week by the Obama administration. But, it left out an important fact that almost every one of the digital addresses could be traced to he neighborhood in Shanghai that is headquarters to the Chinese military’s cybercommand.
Continue reading… “The cyber-cold war between China and U.S.”
Satellite shot of the building from the report.
New York Times correspondents David Sanger and David Barboza, and technology reporter Nicole Perlroth are out with a huge report on Chinese cyber-attacks on US companies. The New York Times has gotten their hands on an advanced copy of a report by Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm the newspaper had previously hired when it got hacked.
Continue reading… “Chinese army tied to cyber attacks against U.S.”
The right to keep and fly drones.
A Virginia House panel approved, last week, a two-year moratorium on drone use within the state. In December, the City Council in Berkeley debated a similar proposal from its Peace and Justice Commission. The Peace and Justice Commission wanted to prohibit the city from purchasing, borrowing, testing or using drones, or allowing “drones in transit.” However, hobbyists would have been allowed to use drones which didn’t carry cameras or audio surveillance equipment. The legislation was shot down because, as Berkeley Councilman Gordon Wozniak argued, “Berkeley doesn’t have jurisdiction over its airspace and can’t enforce it unless we buy Patriot missiles to shoot things down.” Both of these bills were prompted by law enforcement officials wanting to use drones for surveillance and intelligence gathering.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls this “spying.”
Continue reading… “The right of the American people to keep and fly drones”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQfluxpYVds[/youtube]
Florence Martin-Kessler, a documentary filmmaker and Anne Poiret, a filmmaker and investigative journalist embarked on the first of four trips to Juba in 2011. Juba is the soon-to-be capital of South Sudan. Their mission was to follow he “state builders.” The state builders are the people in the South Sudanese government and in the United Nations who would be on the front line of implementing, step by step, a road map for the world’s newest state.
Continue reading… “South Sudan: Building a country from scratch”
.
.
A 200- year old law forbidding women in Paris to wear pants has been revoked.
In January, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France’s minister of women’s rights, made it officially impossible to arrest a woman for wearing trousers in the French capital.
The cheapest plan for family will cost $20,000 per year.
American families will be forced to buy conventional health insurance that primarily benefits the pharmaceutical industry under Obamacare. By 2016 the cheapest health insurance plan available will cost a typical American family $20,000 a year, according to the IRS.
Continue reading… “Obamacare will cost the average American family $20,000 a year: IRS”
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao
The New York Times has been under constant attack from Chinese Hackers for four months and they have gone public with the story. The Chinese hackers got wind that the Times was was preparing to reveal that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s family acquired $2.7 billion in assets.
DARPA plans to pre-select the smartest recruits using newly available brain-scanning methods.
Long before Rin Tin Tin, dogs have been been an important part of military operations—from bomb-sniffing to supply-delivery. But training military working dogs is an expensive and time-consuming process. Anyone who’s spent any time trying to get a dog to even follow the “sit” command knows that some dogs are sharper than others.
Continue reading… “DARPA to use brain scans to recruit the smartest military dogs”
“These growing inquiries can have a serious chilling effect on free expression – and real privacy implications.”
The Government wants more of your data, but copyright holders are getting slightly less active in requesting tweettakedowns. The social/news/media network published its second Twitter Transparency Report today in conjunction with #DataPrivacyDay. Twitter’s goal is to be open about revealing how many government requests it gets for user information and DMCA copyright takedowns. Its first Transparency Report was published seven months ago, in July.
Continue reading… “U.S. is the most data hungry country according to Twitter’s Transparency Report”
A religious circumcision.
The Bundestag hurriedly passed some strange new legislation last month: the “Circumcision Law.” The law guarantees the right for parents to have their children circumcised. This was the government’s answer to a passionate and uncomfortable five-month debate over the practice, in which religious minorities and their supporters clashed with a cabal of doctors and politicians over tolerance versus children’s rights.
U.S. tax code complex
If anybody has the right to tell people “I told you so,” it’s Nina E. Olson, the national taxpayer advocate. She recently submitted her annual report to Congress and top on her list of things that need to be fixed is the complexity of the tax code, which she called the most serious problem facing taxpayers.
Continue reading… “Complexity of U.S. tax code runs amok”
There are as many as 12 million migrant laborers in Russia. Only 2 million work in the country legally.
Bek Takhirov, a 38-year-old ethnic Uzbek, knows all too well the problems that migrant workers face. In 2004, he came to Russia and worked illegally, stacking cargo in a warehouse for alcoholic beverages. Takhirov completed a lengthy application for Russian citizenship in order to step out of the shadows, two years ago. He now works legally in St. Petersburg as a translator by day and moonlights as a security guard by night.
Continue reading… “The migrant worker underclass in Russia”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.