Archive for March, 2014
Sinkhole of Bureaucracy
March 24th, 2014Via: Washington Post: The trucks full of paperwork come every day, turning off a country road north of Pittsburgh and descending through a gateway into the earth. Underground, they stop at a metal door decorated with an American flag. Behind the door, a room opens up as big as a supermarket, full of five-drawer file […]
Russian Forces in Ukraine
March 24th, 2014Via: Globe and Mail: The NATO alliance’s top commander in Europe pushed already sky-high tensions in Europe even higher on Sunday when he told a conference in Brussels that Russia had massed a large and battle-ready military force along its border with Ukraine. “The force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east […]
Apple and Google’s Wage-Fixing Cartel Involved Dozens More Companies, Over One Million Employees
March 23rd, 2014Via: Pando Daily: Back in January, I wrote about “The Techtopus” — an illegal agreement between seven tech giants, including Apple, Google, and Intel, to suppress wages for tens of thousands of tech employees. The agreement prompted a Department of Justice investigation, resulting in a settlement in which the companies agreed to curb their restricting […]
Turkey Tries to Block Twitter
March 22nd, 2014Via: BBC: Some users trying to open the twitter.com website are apparently being redirected to a statement by Turkey’s telecommunications regulator. It cites a court order to apply “protection measures” on the website. This comes after PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to “wipe out Twitter” following damaging allegations of corruption in his inner circle. The […]
Police and Stingray
March 22nd, 2014Via: AP: Police across the country might be intercepting phone calls or text messages to find suspects using a technology tool known as Stingray. But they’re refusing to turn over details about its use or heavily censoring files when they do. Police say Stingray, a suitcase-size device that pretends it’s a cell tower, is useful […]
Drone Advertises Fake WiFi Access Points, Steals Information
March 20th, 2014This type of exploit has been around forever. Now it’s just taking to the sky on a remote controlled toy. Via: CNN: The next threat to your privacy could be hovering over head while you walk down the street. Hackers have developed a drone that can steal the contents of your smartphone — from your […]
Los Angeles Cops Argue That All Cars Are Under Investigation
March 20th, 2014Via: EFF: Do you drive a car in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area? According to the L.A. Police Department and L.A. Sheriff’s Department, your car is part of a vast criminal investigation. The agencies took a novel approach in the briefs they filed in EFF and the ACLU of Southern California’s California Public Records […]
When the Rivers Run Black
March 20th, 2014Via: Medium: The most toxic byproduct of coal-fired power isn’t carbon dioxide. It’s the residue that’s left over. When coal is burned in a plant, just like in a home, it produces two kinds of ash: fly ash, which rises, and bottom ash, which sinks to the floor of the furnace. Together, they comprise coal […]
How Virtual Gaming Worlds Are Revealing the Nature of Human Hierarchies
March 20th, 2014Via: MIT Technology Review: The way players form into groups in online games reveals that hierarchies are an inevitable product of the human condition, say complexity scientists.
U.S. Tech Giants Knew of NSA Data Collection, Agency’s Top Lawyer Insists
March 19th, 2014Via: Guardian: The senior lawyer for the National Security Agency stated unequivocally on Wednesday that US technology companies were fully aware of the surveillance agency’s widespread collection of data, contradicting months of angry denials from the firms. Rajesh De, the NSA general counsel, said all communications content and associated metadata harvested by the NSA under […]
