Archive for August, 2015
NSA Spying Relies on AT&T’s ‘Extreme Willingness to Help’
August 15th, 2015NSAT&T: Since 1985. Via: ProPublica: The National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T. While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly […]
NSA Preparing Quantum Resistant Encryption Algorithms
August 15th, 2015Via: National Security Agency: IAD recognizes that there will be a move, in the not distant future, to a quantum resistant algorithm suite. Based on experience in deploying Suite B, we have determined to start planning and communicating early about the upcoming transition to quantum resistant algorithms. Our ultimate goal is to provide cost effective […]
Apple Is Building a Self-Driving Car in Silicon Valley
August 14th, 2015Via: Guardian: Apple is building a self-driving car in Silicon Valley, and is scouting for secure locations in the San Francisco Bay area to test it, the Guardian has learned. Documents show the oft-rumoured Apple car project appears to be further along than many suspected. In May, engineers from Apple’s secretive Special Project group met […]
Tianjin Explosions
August 13th, 2015Gallery Via: Guardian: Armed troops and elite military units trained to handle nuclear, biological and chemical disasters are being dispatched to the scene of a deadly explosion in northern China as Beijing vowed to deploy “every resource available” to help survivors. At least 50 deaths have been confirmed and 701 people admitted to hospital with […]
New Competition for Tesla: Fisker to Open Factory in Riverside County
August 13th, 2015Update: Audi to Build a Tesla Competitor — Via: Los Angeles Times: Southern California is in the car business again. Fisker Automotive has signed a deal to lease a large factory in Moreno Valley, where it will begin building plug-in electric hybrid vehicles that could be offered for sale as early as the middle of […]
Facial Recognition Software Moves From Overseas Wars to Local Police
August 12th, 2015The countries that run ECHELON, the largest civilian communications surveillance program in the world, have developed unified standards for biometric identification. See how this might look in the future by looking at Iraq. That’s the beta testing phase for what’s in store for the rest of us. —Cryptogon, 2007 Via: New York Times: Facial recognition […]
Chinese Military Trains Students to Control Machines with Their Minds
August 12th, 2015The source article is in Chinese. So, Daily Mail warning. Via: Daily Mail: Forget joysticks and exoskeletons, the future of warfare could see robot armies controlled using just a commander’s mind. China has been training students at a military academy to use headsets that detect and interpret the brain activity of the wearer, allowing them […]
The Coddling of the American Mind
August 12th, 2015Via: The Atlantic: In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education—and mental health. … The current movement is largely about emotional well-being. More than the last, it presumes an extraordinary fragility of the collegiate psyche, and therefore elevates […]
Trans-Fats: “Consumption of industrial trans-fats was associated with a 34 percent increase in all causes of mortality”
August 12th, 2015Via: Independent: The latest findings, published in the British Medical Journal, appear to confirm the growing realisation that the prevailing health advice for the past half century to cut down on foods that are rich in saturated fats such as butter and cheese may have been misguided. The study, carried out in Canada by Russell […]
The Teflon Toxin
August 12th, 2015Via: First Look: Concerns about the safety of Teflon, C8, and other long-chain perfluorinated chemicals first came to wide public attention more than a decade ago, but the story of DuPont’s long involvement with C8 has never been fully told. Over the past 15 years, as lawyers have been waging an epic legal battle — […]
