Archive for the 'Technology' Category
NSA and Army Seeking Quantum Computing Algorithms to Solve “Hard Computational Problems”
October 29th, 2008The word encryption doesn’t appear anywhere below, but that could just be hind titty. How about teleportation? They tell researchers to, “Presuppose the existence of a fully functional quantum computer and consider what algorithmic tasks are particularly well suited to such a machine.” Obviously, people have been thinking about quantum computing issues for years. Wouldn’t […]
UK: Parents to be Fingerprinted by Nursery Schools
October 29th, 2008Why would anyone who thinks that it’s ok to send a three-month-old baby to a day care center have any problem with this? In general, people’s baseline values are so f*cked up now that the core dystopian elements can flow through society, filling in any gaps of sensibility that a person might have managed to […]
UK: Police Will Use New Device to Take Fingerprints in Street
October 27th, 2008Via: Guardian: Every police force in the UK is to be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners – handheld devices that allow police to carry out identity checks on people in the street. The new technology, which ultimately may be able to receive pictures of suspects, is likely to be in widespread use within 18 months. […]
Have You Checked the Prices of Technocrack Lately?
October 23rd, 2008My six-year-old Dell Inspiron 4150 laptop is experiencing some sort of heat management issue. The fan is running fast most of the time now. I’ve fooled around with all the settings, trying to underclock the CPU, etc. No luck. There are no rogue processes to blame either. Additionally, the graphics card is sometimes failing to […]
DARPA Contract Description Hints at Advanced Video Spying
October 20th, 2008More inputs for Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation. Via: Washington Post: Real-time streaming video of Iraqi and Afghan battle areas taken from thousands of feet in the air can follow actions of people on the ground as they dig, shake hands, exchange objects and kiss each other goodbye. The video is sent from unmanned […]
Australia: No Opt-Out of Filtered Internet
October 17th, 2008Would you like filtered, or filtered? Via: Computerworld: Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government’s pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say. Under the government’s $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a […]
UK: Defendants Can’t Deny Police an Encryption Key Because of Fears the Data it Unlocks Will Incriminate Them
October 16th, 2008Via: Linux World: Defendants can’t deny police an encryption key because of fears the data it unlocks will incriminate them, a British appeals court has ruled. The case marked an interesting challenge to the UK’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which in part compels someone served under the act to divulge an encryption key […]
Army Orders Pain Ray Trucks; New Report Shows ‘Potential for Death’
October 13th, 2008Via: Wired: “As a consequence, the ADS provides the technical possibility to produce burns of second and third degree. Because the beam of diameter 2 m and above is wider than human size, such burns would occur over considerable parts of the body, up to 50% of its surface. Second- and third-degree burns covering more […]
U.S. Allegedly Listened In on Calls of Americans Abroad—I Know, You’re Shocked
October 10th, 2008This is probably the biggest not-news-to-you-or-me post ever to appear on Cryptogon. What is described below has been standard operating procedure for NSA for decades. What seems strange, though, is the amount of mundane traffic that is winding up in the queues of the human analysts. This could mean a few things: 1. The ECHELON […]
XM-25: You’d Better be Hiding Around Two Corners These Days
October 8th, 2008Via: Register: What you put in your big fat .98-calibre** slugs is a small HE-frag warhead – but that’s not the clever bit. The clever bit is the electronic precision time fuse, which is set wirelessly by the gun’s systems at the moment of firing. This means that the slug will explode at exactly the […]
