Archive for the 'Dictatorship' Category
‘The Euro Is Irreversible’: ECB Will Buy Debt Nobody Else Wants
September 6th, 2012Via: New York Times: The European Central Bank on Thursday announced a sweeping program for buying the bonds of troubled euro zone countries, giving the bank potentially unprecedented power. While the bank’s president, Mario Draghi, insisted that the central bank was not violating a prohibition on its financing governments, it was effectively becoming lender of […]
Honduras Sets Stage for 3 Privately Run Cities
September 6th, 2012Update: It’s Over for Now: Honduran Supreme Court Rejects ‘Model Cities’ Idea This was sent in by almaverdad2. Via: AP: Honduras’ Supreme Court has struck down a plan to build a series of model cities with their own independent tax and justice systems, a proposal that was meant to spur economic growth in this Central […]
Feds Say Mobile-Phone Location Data Not ‘Constitutionally Protected’
September 6th, 2012Via: Wired: The Obama administration told a federal court Tuesday that the public has no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in cellphone location data, and hence the authorities may obtain documents detailing a person’s movements from wireless carriers without a probable-cause warrant. Related: ‘Cell phones are tracking devices that make phone calls.’
Not The Onion: Eurozone Demands Six-Day Work Week for Greece
September 5th, 2012Via: Guardian: Greece’s eurozone creditors are demanding that the government in Athens introduce a six-day working week as part of the stiff terms for the country’s second bailout. The demand is contained in a leaked letter from the “troika” of the country’s lenders, the European commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund. In the […]
Leave Your Cellphone at Home: Interview with Jacob Appelbaum
September 5th, 2012This is worth reading, but the usual caveats apply. Via: n+1: Appelbaum: Cell phones are tracking devices that make phone calls. It’s sad, but it’s true. Which means software solutions don’t always matter. You can have a secure set of tools on your phone, but it doesn’t change the fact that your phone tracks everywhere […]
Australia: The Plan to Store Internet Activity Records for Two Years
September 5th, 2012Via: Sydney Morning Herald: The Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, appears to have swung her support behind a controversial plan to capture the online data of all Australians, despite only six weeks ago saying ”the case had yet to be made” for the policy. The data retention plan – which would force all Australian telcos and internet […]
Depression, Suicides Rise as Euro Debt Crisis Intensifies
September 5th, 2012Just hand more billions of euros to criminal bankers and tax the victims to pay for it. Brilliant plan. Via: CNBC: Europe is approaching a crisis as the region’s debt crisis and austerity measures increase the rates of depression, suicide and psychological problems – just as governments cut healthcare spending by up to 50 percent, […]
Anonymous Claims FBI Hack Yielded 12 Million iPhone and iPad IDs
September 4th, 2012Update: Florida Firm Is Source of Apple Data in Breach Via: AP: A Florida company said Monday that the database of Apple device information that hackers stole and posted on the Internet last week came from a file the firm had in its computer system. The disclosure comes nearly a week after a hacker group, […]
EU Funding Orwellian Artificial Intelligence Plan to Monitor Public for ‘Abnormal Behavior’
September 4th, 2012Via: Telegraph: A five-year research programme, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programmes which act as “agents” to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers. Its main objectives include the “automatic detection of threats and abnormal behaviour or violence”. Project Indect, which received nearly […]
FinFisher Spyware for Smartphones
September 3rd, 2012Via: Bloomberg: FinFisher spyware made by U.K.-based Gamma Group can take control of a range of mobile devices, including Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM)’s BlackBerry, an analysis of presumed samples of the software shows. The program can secretly turn on a device’s microphone, track its location and monitor e-mails, text […]
