Archive for the 'Dictatorship' Category
Using Mobile Phone User Location Data for ‘Crowd (Soft) Control’
March 18th, 2012shewhomeasures.com: Via: PhysOrg: Eighty-eight percent of Americans now own a cell phone, forming a massive network that offers scientists a wealth of information and an infinite number of new applications. With the help of these phone users — and their devices’ cameras, audio recorders, and other features — researchers envision endless possibilities for gathering huge […]
Former Senior U.S. Intelligence Official and Current Booz Allen Hamilton Senior Vice President Joan A. Dempsey: ‘We’re a Few Years Away from Realizing Real Quantum Processing and Quantum Computing’
March 18th, 2012Bamford lays out a narrative below about the “enormous breakthrough,” but, at the end of the day, it’s conventional computers. There’s no mention quantum computers, or even the far less “out there” photonic systems. Is Bamford’s piece a limited hangout? —Bamford Claims NSA Has Made “An Enormous Breakthrough” in Cryptanalysis And now… Via: CNN: One […]
Bamford Claims NSA Has Made “An Enormous Breakthrough” in Cryptanalysis
March 16th, 2012Well, it has been the $64,000 question for a couple of decades: Can NSA break something like PGP? While there might be other black world technologies that could be up to the task (there’s no way to know), what we do know is that a practical quantum computing capability would be, for all intents and […]
CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher
March 16th, 2012Via: Wired: More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them. Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an “Internet of Things” — that is, wired […]
The Libyan Job: Insiders Used War to Steal Priceless Artifacts
March 16th, 2012Via: Wired: The treasure was kept mostly in two wooden chests, and locked away in a bank vault: thousands of coins, jewelry and figurines, some around 2,600 years old. For decades it sat in the bank, unattended despite the historical and monetary value. Then, as a popular uprising erupted around the downtown bank last winter, […]
IRAN’S BANKS TO BE BLOCKED FROM GLOBAL BANKING SYSTEM ON SATURDAY
March 15th, 2012Flashback to a couple of weeks ago on Cryptogon: If SWIFT actually pulls the plug, I’d consider the fuse to be lit. Also, if SWIFT does it before 20 March, this is probably the real reason: Last week, the Tehran Times noted that the Iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in currencies other than […]
Secret Organic Gardens for China’s Elite
March 15th, 2012Via: Los Angeles Times: At a glance, it is clear this is no run-of-the-mill farm: A 6-foot spiked fence hems the meticulously planted vegetables and security guards control a cantilevered gate that glides open only to select cars. “It is for officials only. They produce organic vegetables, peppers, onions, beans, cauliflowers, but they don’t sell […]
FBI Issued Almost 300,000 National Security Letters Over the Last Decade
March 14th, 2012Via: Wired: National security letters are written demands from the FBI that compel internet service providers, credit companies, financial institutions and others to hand over confidential records about their customers, such as subscriber information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, websites visited and more. NSLs have been used since the 1980s, but the Patriot Act expanded […]
U.S. E-Voting System Cracked in Less Than 48 Hours
March 14th, 2012Via: H-Security: Researchers at the University of Michigan have reported that it took them only a short time to break through the security functions of a pilot project for online voting in Washington, D.C. “Within 48 hours of the system going live, we had gained near complete control of the election server”, the researchers wrote […]
Marines Asked to Disarm Before Leon Panetta Speech; ‘Somebody Got Itchy’
March 14th, 2012Via: MSNBC: In a highly unusual move, around 200 U.S. Marines were asked to leave their weapons outside the tent where U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was set to speak during his trip to Afghanistan on Wednesday. Although the military said the order was not given in response to Sunday’s shooting of 16 Afghan civilians […]
