Dawn of a Robot Revolution
June 6th, 2014Via: Financial Times:
At the Automatica robot and automation fair in Munich this week the organisers devoted a whole section to so-called “service robots” for the first time.
Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for manufacturing, engineering and automation demonstrated a Care-O-Bot that sweeps office floors and empties waste paper bins. Pal Robotics showed Stockbot, which walks the aisles in a shop or warehouse to check inventory at night.
Oppent’s autonomous vehicles ferry laundry or waste around hospitals, Yaskawa Motoman’s dual arm robot prepares laboratory samples and OC Robotics, a Bristol-based company, supplies snake-arm robots to inspect hazardous or confined spaces such as nuclear power plants and inside aircraft wings.
Civil Forfeiture Scam: Cops In Texas Seize Millions By ‘Policing for Profit’
June 6th, 2014Via: Forbes:
Texas law enforcement are continuing to enrich themselves using a little-known legal doctrine known as civil forfeiture, according to a new series of investigative reports. Under civil forfeiture, property can be forfeited even if its owner has never been charged with a crime. In these proceedings, accused criminals have more rights than innocent owners and the government sues the property, not its owner. These cases can be so baffling, one Texas Supreme Court Justice recently compared civil forfeiture to Alice in Wonderland and the works of Franz Kafka. But civil forfeiture isn’t just a quirky curiosity—it’s a powerful incentive for law enforcement to take millions.
Last month, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that the District Attorney’s Office in Tarrant County, Texas seized $3.5 million, plus almost 250 cars and 440 computers in fiscal year 2013, roughly equal to about 10 percent of its budget. Of the property seized, almost $845,000 was spent on salaries for 16 employees at the office. By comparison, only $53,000 went to “six nonprofits that benefit victims or prosecution efforts.” The county’s narcotics unit spent an even greater proportion of forfeiture funds on salaries. Last year, the unit seized $666,427 in cash and used $426,058 to pay salaries.
Even more property was forfeited by participating in a federal program known as “equitable sharing.” By partnering with a federal agency, local and state law enforcement can keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds from a forfeited property. Incredibly, police can collaborate even if doing so would circumvent their own states’ protections for property owners.
Why Was the FBI Investigating Michael Hastings’ Reporting on Bowe Bergdahl?
June 6th, 2014Via: Vice:
Three years into the disappearance of Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan, Michael Hastings — the journalist whose reporting cost General Stanley McChrystal his job — wrote a Rolling Stone story on the missing soldier, a piece which the magazine called “the definitive first account of Bowe Bergdahl.”
Hastings, who died in a car accident in Los Angeles in June 2013, had unparalleled access for that story.
Last POW in Afghanistan has been freed. Read more here.
He spoke to Bergdahl’s parents, who had by that time stopped talking to the press, following “subtle pressure” from the army, and he quoted from emails the young soldier had sent to them, documenting his growing disillusion with the war and the US military.
Hastings also spoke to several unnamed men in Bergdahl’s unit — soldiers who, we now know, had to sign a strict nondisclosure agreement forbidding them from discussing the soldier’s disappearance and search with anyone — let alone one of the top investigative journalists in the country.
‘Michael and Matt both worked really, really hard on that story, and I know for a fact that they did it in a way that completely angered the US military and the US government.’
But most controversially, Hastings’ piece revealed what has been the subject of much debate and vitriol over the last few days: That a disillusioned Bergdahl had actually abandoned his post and “walked away.”
At the time of the story’s publication, the media had all but forgotten about Bergdahl — who was released on Saturday after five years in the hands of the Taliban, in exchange for five Guantanamo prisoners. And, with the exception of some initial chatter, Hastings’ piece, which paints a deeply unflattering picture of Bergdahl’s unit and its leadership, hardly had the impact of some of his other investigations.
But someone did pay attention to it: the FBI.
Research Credit: ottilie
Empire of Prisons: How the United States Is Spreading Mass Incarceration Around the World
June 6th, 2014Via: Counterpunch:
The United States, which leads the world in imprisonment rates, is exporting its model of mass incarceration to developing countries around the world. This “prison imperialism” is one of the foundational components to the infrastructure of Empire. Along with the militarization of police forces and borders, mass incarceration enables neoliberal economies to manage by force and intimidation the inevitable consequences of global capitalism: widespread social disruption and rising political dissent. (Neoliberalism is a system including free trade agreements, austerity programs and other measures that assure profitability is treasured above any other social value, and in the developing countries of the US Empire, it is backed up by the US military and its allies.)
Since 2000, there has been an explosion in US efforts to augment and restructure international penitentiary systems, providing training for prison personnel and/or building new jails in at least 25 different countries. The first of these efforts was the Program for the Improvement of the Colombian Prison System, signed by the US Embassy and the Colombian Department of Justice on March 31, 2000. The program was funded as part of the $9 billion the US has invested since 1999 in Plan Colombia mostly to benefit the military and law enforcement.
By 2002 in Afghanistan, and 2003 and 2004 in Iraq, the US was building and managing prisons as part of the invasion and occupation of those countries.
Vodafone Reveals Direct Access by Governments to Customer Data
June 6th, 2014Via: New York Times:
A number of countries have direct access to the communication network run by the British telecom company Vodafone.
The revelation comes in a privacy report released on Friday by Vodafone, the world’s second-largest carrier behind China Mobile, that included information about how governments regularly requested data about the company’s users.
Vodafone said that it had received thousands of requests from 29 countries in the 12 months through March 31. But the report also said that governments in certain countries had direct access to its networks without having to use legal warrants.
In a “small number” of countries, Vodafone said in the report, the company “will not receive any form of demand for communications data access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link.”
Vodafone said that it would not name the individual countries that have direct access because doing so may put its employees and business at risk in those places.
Privacy advocates expressed concerns that countries had direct access to data without needing to justify their intentions through the courts, though they welcomed Vodafone’s efforts to provide some disclosure.
“What we are now discovering is that the picture is even more bleak than previously thought,” Gus Hosein, the executive director of Privacy International, said in a statement. “Governments around the world are unashamedly abusing privacy by demanding access to communications and data, and alarmingly, sometimes granting themselves direct access to the networks.”
Readers Keep Cryptogon Going in June
June 6th, 2014Wow, look at this. The situation for June is looking a lot less grim than it did a day ago.
Thanks very much!
JK $20
JB $20
DS $50
DR $25
KM £40
CB $20
BS $20
TB $50
KH $50
PW £10
RH $10
ML $10
After Texting Girlfriend Too Much In The Dark, Chinese Man Suffers Detached Retina
June 5th, 2014Via: MedicalDaily:
A 26-year-old man from China suffered a detached retina after hours of texting his girlfriend in the dark, using his cell phone messaging app, WeChat. He was required to undergo emergency surgery after his eyesight became plagued with sudden flashes and he discovered his left eye’s retina had become detached.
Retinal detachment — which is normally more prevalent among older people — has become increasingly more common in young people due to excessive cell phone use. The retina is a light-sensitive layer of tissue inside the eye, which sends messages through the optic nerve to the brain. A detached retina involves it being pulled from its normal position; if it’s not treated, this condition can cause permanent vision loss. A retinal detachment is considered a medical emergency.
Research Credit: winstonsmith
Earnings for March, April and May
June 5th, 2014Many thanks to the those of you who supported Cryptogon in March, April and May.
Missing the minimum monthly earnings goal ($1000) for three months in a row means that it’s probably time to start winding down my efforts on Cryptogon. I’m doing a disservice to my family by allocating time to this without seeing a suitable return. This is definitely not cutting it.
I’ve been running Cryptogon since 2002. June makes it twelve years. Maybe it’s time to move on.
If you contribute in June and I don’t make the $1000 goal, I’ll refund your money if you like.
If I need to shut down, I’ll try to keep providing updates for some period of time on a private site for people who have contributed in the past—a closure period for me and those of you who sent your hard earned money in to keep Cryptogon open all these years. The Cryptogon Contributors Lounge? Or something. haha Anyway, let’s see how June goes.
*** March ***
Amazon $351.97
Amazon GBP.63
Pookie $75
DM $15
DS $50
EO $25
BP $10
TG $5
AF $100
Total: $633.22
*** April ***
Amazon $288.81
Amazon GBP4.72
Pookie $75
AD EUR100
MW $42
Eileen $100
ID EUR25
DE $25
GS $100
Total: $808.69
*** May ***
Amazon $332.55
Amazon GBP12.89
Amazon CA.84
Pookie $75
DM $15
TM $10
DE $25
DT $50
TG $20
gm3d.com $90
Total: $635.83
Overseas Processing Centre 1 (OPC-1)
June 5th, 2014Via: Register:
Above-top-secret details of Britain’s covert surveillance programme – including the location of a clandestine British base tapping undersea cables in the Middle East – have so far remained secret, despite being leaked by fugitive NSA sysadmin Edward Snowden. Government pressure has meant that some media organisations, despite being in possession of these facts, have declined to reveal them. Today, however, the Register publishes them in full.
The secret British spy base is part of a programme codenamed “CIRCUIT” and also referred to as Overseas Processing Centre 1 (OPC-1). It is located at Seeb, on the northern coast of Oman, where it taps in to various undersea cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian/Arabian Gulf. Seeb is one of a three site GCHQ network in Oman, at locations codenamed “TIMPANI”, “GUITAR” and “CLARINET”. TIMPANI, near the Strait of Hormuz, can monitor Iraqi communications. CLARINET, in the south of Oman, is strategically close to Yemen.
British national telco BT, referred to within GCHQ and the American NSA under the ultra-classified codename “REMEDY”, and Vodafone Cable (which owns the former Cable & Wireless company, aka “GERONTIC”) are the two top earners of secret GCHQ payments running into tens of millions of pounds annually.
The actual locations of such codenamed “access points” into the worldwide cable backbone are classified 3 levels above Top Secret and labelled “Strap 3”. The true identities of the companies hidden behind codenames such as “REMEDY”, “GERONTIC”, “STREETCAR” or “PINNAGE” are classified one level below this, at “Strap 2”.
PSYOP Breaking Down? ‘The American Dream Is Out of Reach’
June 4th, 2014Via: CNN:
The American Dream is impossible to achieve in this country.
So say nearly 6 in 10 people who responded to CNNMoney’s American Dream Poll, conducted by ORC International. They feel the dream — however they define it — is out of reach.
Young adults, age 18 to 34, are most likely to feel the dream is unattainable, with 63% saying it’s impossible. This age group has suffered in the wake of the Great Recession, finding it hard to get good jobs.
Younger Americans are a cause of great concern. Many respondents said they are worried about the next generation’s ability to prosper.
Some 63% of all Americans said most children in the U.S. won’t be better off than their parents. This dour view comes despite most respondents, 54%, feeling they are better off than their own parents.
The downbeat mood is not surprising, say economic mobility experts.
“The pessimism is reflective of the financial realities a lot of families are facing,” said Erin Currier, the director of the Economic Mobility Project at Pew Charitable Trusts. “They are treading water, but their income is not translating into solid financial security.”
Related: Ex-Bankers Upgrade the Good Life to Get a Violin-Shaped Pool
