Baltimore Police Used Stingray Systems to Track Cellphones in Thousands of Cases
April 9th, 2015Via: Baltimore Sun:
The Baltimore Police Department has used an invasive and controversial cellphone tracking device thousands of times in recent years while following instructions from the FBI to withhold information about it from prosecutors and judges, a detective revealed in court testimony Wednesday.
The testimony shows for the first time how frequently city police are using a cell site simulator, more commonly known as a “stingray,” a technology that authorities have gone to great lengths to avoid disclosing.
The device mimics a cellphone tower to force phones within its range to connect. Police use it to track down stolen phones or find people.
Indian Police to Use Pepper-Spraying Drones on Unruly Protesters
April 9th, 2015Via: AFP:
Police in a northern Indian city said Tuesday they have a new weapon for controlling unruly protesters in the world’s largest democracy: pepper-spraying drones.
Yashasvi Yadav, police chief of Lucknow, said his officers have successfully test-flown the newly purchased drones with a view to better crowd control.
“The results were brilliant. We have managed to work out how to use it to precisely target the mob in winds and congested areas,” Yadav told AFP.
“Pepper is non-lethal but very effective in mob control. We can spray from different heights to have maximum results,” he said.
The city’s police force has bought five drones, costing about 600,000 rupees ($9,600) each, with their introduction planned for later this month, he said.
The unmanned drones are equipped with high-resolution cameras. They can carry two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of pepper and fly within a one-kilometre radius of their operator.
Lucknow police have previously used drones for aerial surveillance including during religious festivals in the city, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
Battery Prices Dropping Faster Than Predicted
April 9th, 2015Via: Bloomberg:
The most important piece of news on the energy front isn’t the plunge in oil prices, but the progress that is being made in battery technology. A new study in Nature Climate Change, by Bjorn Nykvist and Mans Nilsson of the Stockholm Environment Institute, shows that electric vehicle batteries have been getting cheaper much faster than expected. From 2007 to 2011, average battery costs for battery-powered electric vehicles fell by about 14 percent a year. For the leading electric vehicle makers, Tesla and Nissan, costs fell by 8 percent a year. This astounding decline puts battery costs right around the level that the International Energy Agency predicted they would reach in 2020. We are six years ahead of the curve.
NYC Pension Earns $40 Million Over 10 Years, Pays Fund Managers $2 Billion
April 9th, 2015Via: The Reformed Broker:
over the past 10 years, the five pension funds have paid more than $2 billion in fees to money managers and have received virtually nothing in return…
Until now, Mr. Stringer said, the pension funds have reported the performance of many of their investments before taking the fees paid to money managers into account. After factoring in those fees, his staff found that they had dragged the overall returns $2.5 billion below expectations over the last 10 years.
Over the last 10 years, the return on those “public asset classes” has surpassed expectations by more than $2 billion, according to the comptroller’s analysis. But nearly all of that extra gain — about 97 percent — has been eaten up by management fees, leaving just $40 million for the retirees, it found.
Michigan Micro Mote: The World’s Smallest Computer
April 9th, 2015Via: University of Michigan:
The Michigan Micro Mote constitutes the first complete, operational computer system measuring as small as two millimeters across. “To be “complete,” a computer system must have an input of data, the ability to process that data – meaning process and store it, make decisions about what to do next – and ultimately, the ability to output the data.” Prof. Blaauw explained. “The sensors are the input and the radios are the output. The other key to being a complete computer is the ability to supply its own power.”
The Michigan Micro Mote contains solar cells that power the battery with ambient light, including indoor rooms with no natural sunlight, allowing the computers to run perpetually.
U.S. Police Killed More People in March Than UK Police Did in 20th Century
April 9th, 2015Via: Russia Today:
Cryptogon Earnings in February and March
April 9th, 2015Thanks to everyone who helped keep Cryptogon open in February and March.
Total earnings in February came to $623.09.
AD $5
AM $10
Amazon $379.82
Amazon.co.uk £7.27
Blacklisted News $25
DE $10
DS $25
Eileen $45
JH $5
JR $7.50
KH $15
KL $5
Pookie $75
TG $5
The total for March was $687.48.
Amazon $261.49
Amazon.co.uk £9.78
Blacklisted News $25
Amazon.ca CA$159
JR $7.50
MW $25
AM $10
TB $25
KH $15
DE $10
TG $5
KL $5
Eileen $45
AD $5
Pookie $75
U.S. Aerospace Command Moving Comms Gear Back to Cold War Bunker
April 8th, 2015Via: AFP:
The US military command that scans North America’s skies for enemy missiles and aircraft plans to move its communications gear to a Cold War-era mountain bunker, officers said.
The shift to the Cheyenne Mountain base in Colorado is designed to safeguard the command’s sensitive sensors and servers from a potential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, military officers said.
The Pentagon last week announced a $700 million contract with Raytheon Corporation to oversee the work for North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command.
Admiral William Gortney, head of NORAD and Northern Command, said that “because of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain’s built, it’s EMP-hardened.”
“And so, there’s a lot of movement to put capability into Cheyenne Mountain and to be able to communicate in there,” Gortney told reporters.
“My primary concern was… are we going to have the space inside the mountain for everybody who wants to move in there, and I’m not at liberty to discuss who’s moving in there,” he said.
Human Rights Watch Sues DEA Over Bulk Collection of Americans’ Telephone Records
April 8th, 2015Via: EFF:
Human Rights Watch, a nonpartisan organization that fights human rights abuses across the globe, filed suit against the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration late Tuesday for illegally collecting records of its telephone calls to certain foreign countries as part of yet another government bulk surveillance program. The group is represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which has launched a series of legal challenges against unconstitutional government surveillance.
“The DEA’s program of untargeted and suspicionless surveillance of Americans’ international telephone call records—information about the numbers people call, and the time, date, and duration of those calls—affects millions of innocent people, yet the DEA operated the program in secret for years,’’ said EFF Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo. “Both the First and Fourth Amendment protect Americans from this kind of overreaching surveillance. This lawsuit aims to vindicate HRW’s rights, and the rights of all Americans, to make calls overseas without being subject to government surveillance.”
The DEA disclosed the existence of its surveillance for the first time in January, after a federal judge ordered the government to reveal more information about the program.
Robotic Co-Pilots
April 7th, 2015Via: New York Times:
This summer, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon research organization, will take the next step in plane automation with the Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System, or Alias. Sometime this year, the agency will begin flight testing a robot that can be quickly installed in the right seat of military aircraft to act as the co-pilot. The portable onboard robot will be able to speak, listen, manipulate flight controls and read instruments.
The machine, a bit like R2D2, will have many of the skills of a human pilot, including the ability to land the plane and to take off. It will assist the human pilot on routine flights and be able to take over the flight in emergency situations.
A number of aerospace companies and universities, in three competing teams, are working with Darpa to develop the robot. The agency plans for the robot co-pilot to be “visually aware” in the cockpit and to be able to control the aircraft by manipulating equipment built for human hands, such as the pilot’s yoke and pedals, as well as the various knobs, toggles and buttons.
Ideally, the robots will rely on voice recognition technologies and speech synthesis to communicate with human pilots and flight controllers.
“This is really about how we can foster a new kind of automation structured around augmenting the human,” said Daniel Patt, a program manager in Darpa’s Tactical Technology Office.
