As Oil Prices Plunge, Wide-Ranging Effects for Consumers and the Global Economy
December 2nd, 2014Via: Washington Post:
Tumbling oil prices are draining hundreds of billions of dollars from the coffers of oil-rich exporters and oil companies and injecting a much-needed boost for ailing economies in Europe and Japan — and for American consumers at the start of the peak shopping season.
The result could be one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history, potentially reshaping everything from talks over Iran’s nuclear program to the Federal Reserve’s policies to further rejuvenate the U.S. economy.
The price of oil has declined about 40 percent since its peak in mid-June and plunged last week after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries voted to continue to pump at the same rate. That continued a trend driven by a weak global economy and expanding U.S. domestic energy supplies.
The question facing investors, companies and policymakers is how low oil prices will go — and for how long. Every day, American motorists are saving $630 million on gasoline compared with what they paid at June prices, and they would get a $230 billion windfall if prices were to stay this low for a year. The vast majority of that will flow into the economy, with lower-income households living on tight budgets likely to use money not otherwise spent on gas to buy groceries, clothing and other staples.
On Monday, the average U.S. price for a gallon of regular-grade gasoline was $2.77, according to AAA, which projects that prices could drop by an additional 10 to 20 cents.
Total U.S. Debt Rises Over $18 Trillion; Up 70% Under Barack Obama
December 2nd, 2014Via: ZeroHedge:
Last week, total US debt was a meager $17,963,753,617,957.26. Two days later, as updated today, on Black Friday, total outstanding US public debt just hit a new historic level which probably would be better associated with a red color: as of the last work day of November, total US public debt just surpassed $18 trillion for the first time, or $18,005,549,328,561.45 to be precise, of which debt held by the public rose to $12,922,681,725,432.94, an increase of $32 billion in one day.
U.S. Navy Pushes Solar Energy Storage Solution
December 1st, 2014Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
Via: CleanTechnica:
We just got wind of a major new oil industry campaign to tear down California’s clean energy rules, but we’re thinking these guys are going to be outflanked by the shockingly rapid growth of the energy storage sector. Case in point: the Navy Mobile Utilities Support Equipment facility in Port Hueneme, California, is hosting a new cutting edge smart microgrid project that can go into “island mode” using only solar power, thanks to vanadium flow batteries for solar energy storage.
INCENSER
December 1st, 2014Via: Electrospaces:
Recently disclosed documents show that the NSA’s fourth-largest cable tapping program, codenamed INCENSER, pulls its data from just one single source: a submarine fiber optic cable linking Asia with Europe.
Until now, it was only known that INCENSER was a sub-program of WINDSTOP and that it collected some 14 billion pieces of internet data a month. The latest revelations now say that these data were collected with the help of the British company Cable & Wireless (codenamed GERONTIC, now part of Vodafone) at a location in Cornwall in the UK, codenamed NIGELLA.
For the first time, this gives us a view on the whole interception chain, from the parent program all the way down to the physical interception facility. Here we will piece together what is known about these different stages and programs from recent and earlier publications.
…
Interception equipment
How the actual interception takes place, can be learned from an article in The Guardian from June 2013, which provides some details about the highly sophisticated computer equipment at cable tapping points.
First, the data stream is filtered through what is known as MVR (Massive Volume Reduction), which immediately rejects high-volume, low-value traffic, such as peer-to-peer downloads. This reduces the volume by about 30%.
Selectors
The next step is to pull out packets of information that contain selectors like phone numbers and e-mail, IP and MAC addresses of interest. In 2011, some 40,000 of these were chosen by GCHQ and 31,000 by the NSA, according to The Guardian. This filtering is most likely done by devices from Boeing-subsidiary Narus, which can analyse high-volume internet traffic in real-time.
A single NarusInsight machine can monitor traffic up to 10 Gigabit/second, which means there have to be up to a dozen of them to filter the relevant traffic from the FA1 and FEA submarine cables. Most of the information extracted in this way is internet content, such as the substance of e-mail messages.
Full sessions
Besides the filtering by using specific selectors, the data are also sessionized, which means all types of IP traffic, like VoIP, e-mail, web mail and instant messages are reconstructed. This is something the Narus devices are also capable of.
These “full take” sessions are stored as a rolling buffer on XKEYSCORE servers: content data for only three to five days, and metadata for up to 30 days. But “at some sites, the amount of data we receive per day (20+ terabytes) can only be stored for as little as 24 hours” according to an NSA document from 2008.
The aim is to extract the best 7,5% of the traffic that flows past the access, which is then “backhauled” from the tapping point to GCHQ Bude through two 10 gigabit/s channels (the “egress” capacity).
Hackers With Wall Street Savvy Stealing M&A Data
December 1st, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
Hackers with Wall Street expertise have stolen merger-and-acquisition information from more than 80 companies for more than a year, according to security consultants who shared their findings with law enforcement.
A group dubbed FIN4 by researchers at FireEye Inc. (FEYE) has been tricking executives, lawyers and consultants into providing access to confidential data and communications, and probably using the information for insider trading, FireEye said in a report today. The hackers’ sophistication suggests they’ve worked in the financial sector, Jen Weedon, FireEye’s manager of threat intelligence, said in an interview.
The report is the most detailed to date suggesting that hacking may be the basis for a new wave of insider trading, following a crackdown by U.S. prosecutors over the last three years that focused on mining information through personal connections and payoffs. FireEye said it couldn’t discount that the hackers provided the data to traders or a hedge fund.
“We suspect they are Americans, given their Wall Street inside knowledge,” Weedon said. “They seem to have worked on Wall Street.”
Pizza Hut: Eye-Tracking Menu
November 30th, 2014Via: Engadget:
Pizza Hut wants to help you skip your super-ego middleman and just let your id order that triple-cheese bacon pepperoni pie directly. It’s “Subconscious Menu” uses Tobii’s eye-tracking tech to figure out which of 20 different ingredients you’re looking at on a screen (see the video below). It then takes all of three seconds to identify the pizza you really want based on which you looked at the longest. Pizza Hut says its Subconscious Menu is still in trials, but after testing to a 98 percent success rate, it may eventually appear in restaurants.
Bird Bomb? Afghan Police Kill Bird Bearing Antenna, Explosives
November 30th, 2014Via: NBC:
Afghan police said they are investigating how a wild bird came to bear an antenna, electronic devices and explosives. Police came across the strange sight around 8 a.m. in the northern Faryab province, a volatile region ravaged by Taliban violence. When police spotted the white bird — which isn’t native to the area and appeared larger than an eagle — walking along a highway, they noticed it had an antenna and decided to shoot it, provincial police chief Maj. Gen. Abdul Nabi Ilham told NBC News on Saturday. The bird then exploded, he said, and “suspicious metal stuff” scattered around.
“We are gathering all the stuff, but found parts of what looks to be GPS and a small camera,” Ilham said. He added that this was the first time police have made such an encounter. Police added that it is possible the bird had been “deployed” on a surveillance mission.
Jeb Bush’s Four Mysterious Companies Share The Same Address And Have Never Done Any Known Business
November 30th, 2014Via: Think Progress:
Jeb Bush and his capital investment company have set up several companies that, despite being registered to his office and being approved for “any and all lawful business,” have seemingly not yet done anything. A ThinkProgress review of corporate registration records with the Florida Department of State revealed several companies registered in Bush’s name but little additional information.
Wanderers
November 30th, 2014Make sure to go full screen.
Via: Erik Wernquist:
Egypt: Ex-ruler Hosni Mubarak, Accused in Deaths of Hundreds, Cleared of Charges
November 29th, 2014Via: CNN:
Egypt’s former longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak was effectively cleared of charges in a retrial Saturday and could soon be released — a stunning reversal for a man who faced life imprisonment or worse after a revolution toppled him in 2011.
A Cairo judge dismissed charges linking Mubarak to the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 revolt — reversing the former strongman’s convictions in 2012 — and found him not guilty of corruption.
Mubarak, who ruled Egypt as president for 29 years, was stoic as his supporters in the courtroom cheered the decision that capped a monthslong retrial. The 86-year-old, reclining on a hospital gurney behind a defendants’ cage, nodded while fellow defendants kissed him on the head.
