U.S. Government Clears Path for Iran to Back Orifice Itself
May 31st, 2013Via: Ars Technica:
On Thursday, the Obama Administration lifted digital sanctions that for more than two decades have prevented companies that do business in the US from also selling or distributing digital goods—including mobile phones, hosting services, VPNs, and software updates—to Iran.
Research Credit: almaverdad2
British Taxpayers to Get Bill for Bilderberg Meeting Security; Don’t Bother Asking How Much Because It’s a Secret
May 31st, 2013Via: Telegraph:
The clandestine meeting of royalty, prime ministers and business chiefs is taking place in Britain for the first time since 1998, sparking fears of “violence and disturbance” by protesters.
The Bilderberg organisers, who include Tory Cabinet minister Ken Clarke, do not release a guest list but a roll-call of luminaries are expected to descend on a luxury Watford hotel from June 6, forcing police to step up security.
Hertfordshire police have refused to release the cost of security for the event, which has previously drawn anti-capitalist demonstrators in other locations around the world.
However, they are in talks with the Home Office about a grant for “unexpected or exceptional costs” that is only given out if it threatens the stability of the force’s policing budget. The final bill would have to total more than one per cent of the police force’s overall spend – or about £1.8 million – for the grant to be successful.
The invitation-only Bilderberg meetings are attended by around 140 members of the international elite.
Schools Scanned Students’ Irises Without Permission
May 31st, 2013Via: Russia Today:
Parents in Polk County, Florida are outraged after learning that students in area schools had their irises scanned as part of a new security program without obtaining proper permission.
Students at three facilities — an elementary school, a grade school and a high school — had their eyeballs scanned earlier this month as part of a ‘student safety’ pilot program being carried out by Stanley Convergent Security Solutions.
“It simply takes a picture of the iris, which is unique to every individual,” Rob Davis, the school board’s senior director of support services, wrote home to parents in a letter dated May 23. “With this program, we will be able to identify when and where a student gets on the bus, when they arrive at their school location, when and what bus the student boards and disembarks in the afternoon. This is an effort to further enhance the safety of our students.The EyeSwipe-Nano is an ideal replacement for the card based system since your child will not have to be responsible for carrying an identification card,” he added.
Parents at Daniel Jenkins Academy, Bephune Academy and the Davenport School of the Arts received the letter from the school board on May 24 informing them of the EyeSwipe-Nano program and that their child’s principal should be notified if they don’t want their son or daughter to participate.
But elsewhere in the letter, the board explained that the program would begin last Monday, May 20. By the time the letter was received on Friday, iris scans had already been completed at the three area schools without a single student opting out, Angel Clark wrote for The Examiner this week.
Germany Fears Revolution if Europe Scraps Welfare Model
May 31st, 2013This is a battle against the machine and it’s already lost.
Via: Reuters:
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned on Tuesday that failure to win the battle against youth unemployment could tear Europe apart, and dropping the continent’s welfare model in favor of tougher U.S. standards would spark a revolution.
Germany, along with France, Spain and Italy, backed urgent action to rescue a generation of young Europeans who fear they will not find jobs, with youth unemployment in the EU standing at nearly one in four, more than twice the adult rate.
“We need to be more successful in our fight against youth unemployment, otherwise we will lose the battle for Europe’s unity,” Germany’s Schaeuble said.
Related:
Eurozone Unemployment at New Record High
Father of Chechen Killed in Florida Says FBI Murdered Him
May 30th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
Despite earlier accounts of the incident,two law enforcement officials told The Washington Post on Wednesday that Todashev was not armed. His father said that he was shot seven times. The FBI has said that he attacked an agent, just moments after confessing to his part in the Waltham slayings.
The elder Todashev displayed photographs of his son’s body — apparently the same pictures as those shown by the younger man’s widow at a Florida news conference Wednesday evening — that he said show six shots to the body and a “control” shot to the back of the head.
“This is proof of cold-blooded murder,” said Maxim Shevchenko, a journalist and member of the presidential human rights council who organized Thursday’s news conference.
It was an “extrajudicial execution,” said Zaurbek Sadakhanov, a Chechen lawyer who also was present. “Why was he interrogated three times without a lawyer? Why no recording? Why seven shots? And why should I believe their version? Why do American policemen believe they can do whatever they want?”
Todashev’s father said his son had been planning to return to Chechnya on May 24, though he had apparently canceled his tickets before he was killed on May 22. He suggested that the FBI didn’t want his son to return to Russia.
“Maybe my son knew some sort of information that the police didn’t want to get out,” he said. “They shut him up. That’s my opinion.”
And Now… Obama Ricin Letter
May 30th, 2013Via: CBS:
A letter addressed to President Obama that may have been contaminated with the deadly toxin ricin is similar to two ricin-laced letters recently sent to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Secret Service said Thursday.
A screening facility for mail sent to the White House intercepted the recent letter sent to Mr. Obama, Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said. The letter has been turned over to the FBI’s joint terrorism task force for testing and investigation.
CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports that the letter was postmarked from Shreveport, La.
Shreveport was also the postmark for the two contaminated letters sent to Bloomberg in New York and his gun-control group in Washington.
Nikkei 225 Takes Another Dump
May 30th, 2013Via: Forbes:
Overnight, it was all about Japan, with the Nikkei 225 tumbling another 5.15% after last Thursday’s drop of more than 7%. Although the Nikkei is still up more than 30% year-to-date, last night’s pullback made it a 14.75% correction from the highs.
Cost to Squid Minion to Avoid Prosecution for Influence Peddling: $100K
May 30th, 2013Via: Reuters:
A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banker has agreed to a five-year securities industry ban and a record fine to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that he broke rules against influence peddling to win bond underwriting business in Massachusetts.
Without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Neil Morrison, 38, accepted what the SEC said was the first industry ban for violating “pay-to-play” rules governing the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market.
He also agreed to a $100,000 civil fine, which the SEC called the largest individual penalty in such a case.
Thursday’s settlement was announced eight months after Goldman struck its own $12 million settlement with the SEC over the case, which involved contributions to the 2010 gubernatorial campaign of then-Massachusetts State Treasurer Timothy Cahill.
Pay-to-play refers to the providing of cash or other contributions to public officials in exchange for political favors or the awarding of contracts.
Physicists Unveil World’s Most Precise Clocks
May 30th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review:
Today, Andrew Ludlow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder and a few buddies unveil the two most accurate clocks ever built. They say their new clocks can keep time with an unprecedented precision of one part in 10-18.
Ludlow and co put this in perspective: “A measurement at the 1018 fractional level is equivalent to specifying the age of the known universe to a precision of less than one second or Earth’s diameter to less than the width of an atom.”
EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5
May 30th, 2013Via: EFF:
Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a formal objection to the inclusion of digital rights management (DRM) in HTML5, arguing that a draft proposal from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) could stymie Web innovation and block access to content for people across the globe.
The W3C’s HTML working group is creating a technical standard for HTML5, an upcoming revision to the computer language that creates webpages and otherwise displays content online. The working group has accepted a draft that includes discussion of Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), which will hard-wire the requirements of DRM vendors into the HTML standard.
…
DRM standards look like normal technical standards but turn out to have quite different qualities. They fail to implement their stated intention – protecting media – while dragging in legal mandates that chill the speech of technologists, lock down technology, and violate property rights by seizing control of personal computers from their owners. Accepting EME could lead to other rightsholders demanding the same privileges as Hollywood, leading to a Web where images and pages cannot be saved or searched, ads cannot be blocked, and innovative new browsers cannot compete without explicit permission from big content companies.
