Archive for June, 2013
Washington Post Brushes a Few More Prism Crumbs Onto the Floor
June 30th, 2013Thank you, Master, thank you. My now familiar and broken-record-response to this thing is to go back to Room 641A last decade if you want a real thrill. They have beam splitters installed at the peering points. NSA is getting everything. The end. The media’s repeated ramblings/mantras about the FISA court and protections for Americans […]
Student Loan Rates Set To Double On July 1
June 29th, 2013Via: NPR: The interest rate on government-backed student loans is going to jump from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent Monday. Republicans, Democrats and the Obama administration could not agree on a plan to keep it from happening. Lawmakers say a deal is still possible after the July 4 recess. But if they don’t agree on […]
Booz Allen Hamilton to Hire Quantum Information Physicist
June 29th, 2013See: Well, it has been the $64,000 question for a couple of decades: Can NSA break something like PGP? Via: Clearance Jobs: Minimum Security Clearance Clearance Location Arlington, Virginia 22201 (map) Workplace: Not Specified Travel: Not Specified Quantum Information Physicist-01127026 Description Key Role: Serve as a consultant to government science and technology clients. Contribute to […]
Senators Accuse Government of Using ‘Secret Law’ to Collect Americans’ Data
June 29th, 2013Ya think? I was surprised to see them mention the mobile phone location data. I mean, come on, that’s the stuff of lunatic conspiracy theorists! *chortle* Via: Guardian: The senators said they were seeking public answers to the following questions in order to give the American people the information they need to conduct an informed […]
Foreign Central Banks Selling U.S. Treasuries
June 29th, 2013Bernanke better get ready to use that magic Bid button. Via: Reuters: Foreign central banks’ overall holdings of U.S. marketable securities at the Federal Reserve fell in the latest week, data from the U.S. central bank showed on Thursday. The Fed said its holdings of U.S. securities kept for overseas central banks fell $29 billion […]
Monsignor Scarano Says He Can ‘Explain Everything’
June 28th, 2013Via: BBC: A senior Italian cleric has been arrested in connection with an inquiry into the Vatican bank scandal over allegations of corruption and fraud. Monsignor Nunzio Scarano works in the Vatican’s financial administration. A secret service agent and a financial broker have also been arrested. They are suspected of trying to move 20m euros […]
Britain Could Create First ‘Three-Parent Baby’ Through IVF
June 28th, 2013Via: Telegraph: Britain will become the first country in the world to create babies with the DNA of three people under government plans which could see the procedure offered on the NHS by next year. Parents at high risk of having children with severe disabilities such as muscular dystrophy will be offered the controversial new […]
Voyager 1 At Edge Of Solar System: ‘We Essentially Have Absolutely No Reliable Roadmap Of What To Expect At This Point’
June 28th, 2013Via: Wired: “The models that have been thought to predict what should happen are all incorrect,” said physicist Stamatios Krimigis of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who is lead author of one of three new papers on Voyager appearing in Science on June 27. “We essentially have absolutely no reliable roadmap of what […]
Former Stasi Lieutenant Colonel On NSA’s Mass Surveillance: ‘It Is The Height Of Naivete To Think That Once Collected This Information Won’t Be Used’
June 28th, 2013Via: McClatchy: Wolfgang Schmidt was seated in Berlin’s 1,200-foot-high TV tower, one of the few remaining landmarks left from the former East Germany. Peering out over the city that lived in fear when the communist party ruled it, he pondered the magnitude of domestic spying in the United States under the Obama administration. A smile […]
Foxconn to Speed Up ‘Robot Army’ Deployment
June 27th, 2013Via: IT World: Manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group is on track with its goal to a create a “million robot army”, and already has 20,000 robotic machines in its factories, said the company’s CEO Terry Gou on Wednesday. Workers’ wages in China are rising, and so the company’s research in robots and automation has to […]
