Intelligence Community Can Keep Data On Americans With No Ties To Terrorism For Up To 5 Years
March 23rd, 2012Via: AP:
The U.S. intelligence community will now be able to store information about Americans with no ties to terrorism for up to five years under new Obama administration guidelines.
Until now, the National Counterterrorism Center had to immediately destroy information about Americans that was already stored in other government databases when there were no clear ties to terrorism.
Giving the NCTC expanded record-retention authority had been called for by members of Congress who said the intelligence community did not connect strands of intelligence held by multiple agencies leading up to the failed bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas 2009.
“Following the failed terrorist attack in December 2009, representatives of the counterterrorism community concluded it is vital for NCTC to be provided with a variety of datasets from various agencies that contain terrorism information,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement late Thursday. “The ability to search against these datasets for up to five years on a continuing basis as these updated guidelines permit will enable NCTC to accomplish its mission more practically and effectively.”
The new rules replace guidelines issued in 2008 and have privacy advocates concerned about the potential for data-mining information on innocent Americans.
“It is a vast expansion of the government’s surveillance authority,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said of the five-year retention period.
Google Gets Patent for Using Background Noise, Other Environmental Conditions, to Target Ads
March 23rd, 2012Via: PC World:
Google, on Tuesday, was awarded a patent for “advertising based on environmental conditions.” In other words, Google has patented the technique of using environmental factors gathered through a device’s sensors to target ads at users.
“When determining what ads to serve to end users, the environmental factors can be used independently or in combination with matching of keywords associated with the advertisements and keywords in user search queries,” the patent reads.
“A web browser or search engine located at the user’s site may obtain information on the environment (e.g., temperature, humidity, light, sound, air composition) from sensors. Advertisers may specify that the ads are shown to users whose environmental conditions meet certain criteria.”
So Google can now deliver targeted ads to users based on their surrounding environment.
Related: Using Mobile Phone User Location Data for ‘Crowd (Soft) Control’
And Now… ‘Sarkozy: Jail Those Who Browse Terror Websites’
March 23rd, 2012Via: AP:
France’s president proposed a sweeping new law Thursday that would jail those who visit extremist web sites — one of several tough new measures floated in the wake of a murderous shooting spree.
The proposed rules, unveiled by Nicolas Sarkozy after the death of an Islamist fanatic wanted for a horrifying series of execution-style murders, have alarmed journalists and legal experts, who say they risk pulling the plug on free expression.
Sarkozy argued that it was time to treat those who browse extremist websites the same way as those who consume child pornography.
“Anyone who regularly consults Internet sites which promote terror or hatred or violence will be sentenced to prison,” he told a campaign rally in Strasbourg, in eastern France. “What is possible for pedophiles should be possible for trainee terrorists and their supporters, too.”
How the proposed rules would work isn’t clear. When asked, Sarkozy’s office directed the query for details to the Ministry of Justice, which didn’t immediately offer clarification.
Journalists and lawyers are concerned.
“Trying to criminalize a visit — a simple visit — to a website, that’s something that seems disproportionate,” said Lucie Morillon, who runs the new media bureau of journalists’ watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.
“What’s especially worrying for us is how you are going to know who’s looking at what site. Does this announcement mean the installation of a global Internet surveillance system in France?”
“‘Are you guys going to do a fill?’ And they just said, ‘No, we’re out.'”
March 22nd, 2012This is a fascinating article about a guy who cleaned out millions of dollars from multiple casinos by playing blackjack WITHOUT counting cards.
Even if you’re not interested in how Don Johnson did it, the look on his face in the picture at the top is worth the clickthrough.
Via: The Atlantic:
So how did all these casinos end up giving Johnson what he himself describes as a “huge edge”? “I just think somebody missed the math when they did the numbers on it,” he told an interviewer.
Johnson did not miss the math. For example, at the Trop, he was willing to play with a 20 percent discount after his losses hit $500,000, but only if the casino structured the rules of the game to shave away some of the house advantage. Johnson could calculate exactly how much of an advantage he would gain with each small adjustment in the rules of play. He won’t say what all the adjustments were in the final e-mailed agreement with the Trop, but they included playing with a hand-shuffled six-deck shoe; the right to split and double down on up to four hands at once; and a “soft 17” (the player can draw another card on a hand totaling six plus an ace, counting the ace as either a one or an 11, while the dealer must stand, counting the ace as an 11). When Johnson and the Trop finally agreed, he had whittled the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent, by his figuring. In effect, he was playing a 50-50 game against the house, and with the discount, he was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played. He had to pony up $1 million of his own money to start, but, as he would say later: “You’d never lose the million. If you got to [$500,000 in losses], you would stop and take your 20 percent discount. You’d owe them only $400,000.”
In a 50-50 game, you’re taking basically the same risk as the house, but if you get lucky and start out winning, you have little incentive to stop.
So when Johnson got far enough ahead in his winning sprees, he reasoned that he might as well keep playing. “I was already ahead of the property,” he says. “So my philosophy at that point was that I can afford to take an additional risk here, because I’m battling with their money, using their discount against them.”
According to Johnson, the Trop pulled the deal after he won a total of $5.8 million, the Borgata cut him off at $5 million, and the dealer at Caesars refused to fill the chip tray once his earnings topped $4 million.
“I was ready to play on,” Johnson said. “And I looked around, and I said, ‘Are you going to do a fill?’ I’ve got every chip in the tray. I think I even had the $100 chips. ‘Are you guys going to do a fill?’ And they just said, ‘No, we’re out.’”
He says he learned later that someone at the casino had called the manager, who was in London, and told him that Don Johnson was ahead of them “by four.”
“Four hundred thousand?” the manager asked.
“No, 4 million.”
So Caesars, too, pulled the plug. When Johnson insisted that he wanted to keep playing, he says, the pit boss pointed out of the high-roller pit to the general betting floor, where the game was governed by normal house rules.
“You can go out there and play,” he said.
Johnson went upstairs and fell asleep.
Employers Asking for Passwords to Employees’ Facebook Accounts
March 22nd, 2012Update: Facebook Might Sue Employers That Do This
Via: TPM:
In response to a deluge of news reports that employers, including public sector organizations, are increasingly forcing employees and prospective hires to turn over their Facebook login information (or have people login and allow supervisors to look at profiles), Facebook itself has decided to weigh-in on the matter.
On Friday, Facebook’s recently appointed chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, posted a note on the social network’s privacy page explaining that Facebook will “take action to protect the privacy and security of our users,” including suing employers who violate user privacy.
—End Update—
Via: Calgary Herald:
Job seeker Rob MacLeod says he was “taken aback” when an interviewer asked for his Facebook login and password so he could screen MacLeod’s photos as part of the job interview.
But privacy experts say asking for social media passwords is crossing the line of “reasonable” employment criteria, akin to asking out-of-bounds questions on age or ethnicity.
MacLeod said he questioned why this was necessary.
“He just pretty much became defensive himself saying ‘Oh, you know, if you have something to hide . . . we don’t have to go forward in this process,’ ” MacLeod told Postmedia News.
MacLeod, a 28-year-old Oakville, Ont., resident, said he offered to log the interviewer in, but he refused, asking to access MacLeod’s account directly.
“I have nothing to hide. (I said) ‘You can look at it. I just don’t like to disclose passwords,’ ” he recalled of the law enforcement position he applied for in 2009.
After the interviewer logged into MacLeod’s account, MacLeod said the interviewer came back and explained, “We just want to see some of the photos and see what people you are involved in.”
Meanwhile, privacy law experts worry about how the line between private and public life is being blurred in social media.
David Fraser, a Halifax-based privacy lawyer who runs the Canadian Privacy Law Blog, called this case “a completely unjustified invasion of privacy.”
After Massacre, Army Tried to Delete Accused Shooter from the Internet
March 22nd, 2012Via: Wired:
The military waited six days before releasing the name of a U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians earlier this month. One of the reasons for the somewhat unusual delay: to give the military enough time to erase the sergeant from the internet — or at least try to.
That’s according to several Pentagon officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to McClatchy newspapers about the subject. The scrubbed material included photographs of Bales from the military’s official photo and video distribution website, along with quotes by the 38-year-old sergeant in the Joint Base Lewis-McChord newspaper regarding a 2007 battle in Iraq “which depicts Bales and other soldiers in a glowing light.”
The sergeant’s wife, Karilyn Bales, and their two young children were also moved onto Lewis-McChord, reportedly for their protection. Her blog, titled “The Bales Family” about her life as a mother and military spouse, was removed although it’s not known how, precisely. The military’s reasoning for the blackout: protecting the privacy of the accused and his family.
“Protecting a military family has to be a priority,” a Pentagon official told McClatchy. “I think the feeding frenzy we saw after his name was released was evidence that we were right to try.”
Try as they might, the military couldn’t completely scrub Bales from the web. What you put online lasts pretty much forever, and that’s no different for the military. Reporters quickly discovered cached versions of Bales’s photograph, the quotes from his base newspaper and the family blog. “Of course the pages are cached; we know that,” the official added. “But we owe it to the wife and kids to do what we can.”
Australia: Greens Attempt to Access Government’s Secret Discussions On Internet Piracy
March 22nd, 2012Via: Delimiter:
The Australian Greens have filed a motion in the Senate requesting that the Government release documents regarding its closed door meetings on Internet piracy which the Attorney-General’s Department has blocked from being released under Freedom of Information laws.
On 8 February this year, major Australian ISPs sat down with the representatives of the film, television and music industries and the Federal Attorney-General’s Department, with the aim of discussing a potential industry resolution to the issue of online copyright infringement. The meeting was the fourth such meeting to be held, after a series of other meetings were held late last year under similar circumstances.
However, the Attorney-General’s Department has used a series of complex legal arguments to deny the release of documents associated with the meetings under Freedom of Information laws — redacting, for example, an entire 14 pages of notes taken by a departmental staffer at the event and other four pages of notes taken by a senior staffer from Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s department.
The Attorney-General’s Department stated in its response to a FoI request that it “does not hold” a list of the attendees who actually attended the February meeting. Furthermore, the department censored the names of the individuals invited to attend the meeting. It also completely redacted a document consisting of the agenda of the meeting, which had been distributed to those invited to attend. Delimiter is appealing portions of the blocked FoI request.
This morning, Greens Communications Spokesperson Scott Ludlam filed an order in the Senate that the Government disclose details of the most recent meeting.
‘Effective World Government Will Be Needed to Stave Off Climate Catastrophe’
March 22nd, 2012Mmm hmm.
Via: Scientific American:
To be effective, a new set of institutions would have to be imbued with heavy-handed, transnational enforcement powers. There would have to be consideration of some way of embracing head-in-the-cloud answers to social problems that are usually dismissed by policymakers as academic naivete. In principle, species-wide alteration in basic human behaviors would be a sine qua non, but that kind of pronouncement also profoundly strains credibility in the chaos of the political sphere. Some of the things that would need to be contemplated: How do we overcome our hard-wired tendency to “discount” the future: valuing what we have today more than what we might receive tomorrow? Would any institution be capable of instilling a permanent crisis mentality lasting decades, if not centuries? How do we create new institutions with enforcement powers way beyond the current mandate of the U.N.? Could we ensure against a malevolent dictator who might abuse the power of such organizations?
What’s Happening in Clintonville, Wisconsin?
March 22nd, 2012Update: Rumbles, Booms Rattle Clintonville Again
Via: Green Bay Press Gazette:
Geological officials said Wednesday they are considering putting a seismometer in Clintonville, where a small earthquake was recorded last week after strong booms and rumblings shook residents once again.
Clintonville police received 65 calls between 10:35 p.m. and 11:40 p.m. Tuesday and another 19 calls came in between 3:25 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Clintonville Police Chief Terry Lorge said. Several of the booms were heard by officials at City Hall, he said.
Residents reported the most recent booming as the worst yet, city administrator Lisa Kuss said. Most of the previous calls came in from March 18 to 20, when a 1.5-magnitude earthquake was detected by the U.S. Geological Survey. The calls had since decreased.
—End Update—
Update: Reader Email
Cryptogon reader NN sent this in:
This is unfolding nicely.
(definitely not an earthquake…)
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1960&category=Environment
“COULD YOU ELABORATE ABOUT ‘POPPING SOUND’ AT 1:45AM ON MONDAY MARCH
19TH? … People describe it as something that exploded – that something
happened in their basements – and compared the sound to a loud popping
and explosive type bang or a series of bang, bang, bang.”
“We have spoken to geologists both at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee about what is
happening. We have confirmed via the seismology monitors — the closest
is about 30 minutes from downtown Clintonville — there’s no earthquake
or earthquake consistent activity being monitored near us.”
“no earthquakes are being registered on any earthquake monitoring
devices”
(still not an earthquake, and not recordable, specialists brought in…)
“Officials have tried to record a series of mysterious booming sounds
that have roused residents from their beds in the past few days, but
their attempts have come up empty.”
“The firm will place four seismometers around the city to try to locate
the epicenter of the strange sounds.”
“The city set up audio and video recorders overnight Tuesday, but didn’t
capture anything.”
(but now it’s officially an earthquake…)
“The U.S. Geological Survey said the 1.5 magnitude earthquake struck
Tuesday just after midnight in Clintonville”
“‘To be honest, I’m skeptical that there’d be a sound report associated
with such a small earthquake, but it’s possible,’ [geophysicist] said.”
“Those reservations didn’t stop Clintonville City Administrator Lisa
Kuss from declaring ‘the mystery is solved’ at a news conference
Thursday evening.”
(what it sounded like in Montello, 80 miles south…)
http://www.nbc15.com/news/headlines/Mysterious_Sound_And_Rumble_In_Montello_143707776.html
“One person even described it like a really bad train wreck, all the
cars slamming into each other at once, right where you’re standing.”
(what it sounded like in Barrie, hundreds of miles east…)
http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3509707
“Residents in the Barrie neighbourhood described the sound as a dump
truck hitting a house, a propane tank exploding and a sonic boom
displacement of air.”
“‘No one could see anything. Some people said it sounded like a major
car crash…. Originally, I thought some huge thing was thrown at our
house. Not a car, but maybe a big barrel or something large,’ Higgins
added.”
(sounds similar to this, in Glenrock, Wyoming, in the 1990’s…)
“In the space of 15 minutes the Glenrock Police department got almost
fifty prowler and disturbance calls. All through the town, seemingly on
the sides of houses, roofs, gates, etc, came the mechanical rapping,
knocking sound: three sets of three knocks…. Others reported a sound
like a big truck downshifting combined with a nut with a sledgehammer
hitting the side of the house.”
—End Update—
Via: AP:
Bemused curiosity is turning into worry and aggravation for families in a small Wisconsin town longing for peace and quiet after three nights of mysterious booming noises that have sent some residents into the streets — sometimes still in their pajamas.
The strange disturbance sounds like distant thunder, fireworks or someone slamming a heavy door. At first, many people were amused. But after a third restless night Tuesday into Wednesday, exasperation is mounting. And some folks are considering leaving town until investigators determine the source of the racket.
“My husband thought it was cool, but I don’t think so. This is not a joke,” said Jolene Van Beek, who awoke early Sunday to a loud boom that shook her house. “I don’t know what it is, but I just want it to stop.”
The booming in Clintonville continued Monday and Tuesday nights and into Wednesday morning, eventually prompting Van Beek to take her three sons to her father’s home, 10 minutes away, so they could get some uninterrupted sleep.
There have been no reports of injury, despite some residents saying they could feel the ground roll beneath their feet.
City officials say they have investigated every possible human cause. They checked water, sewer and gas lines, contacted the military about any exercises in the area, reviewed permits for mining explosives and inspected a dam next to City Hall. They even tested methane levels at the landfill in case the gas was spontaneously exploding.
“People in the area are certainly frustrated,” City Administrator Lisa Kuss said.
The city is also investigating geological causes. Officials plan to bring in vibration-detection devices to try to determine the epicenter of any underground activity.
Authorities set up audio and video equipment overnight but didn’t capture any evidence of shaking or booming despite at least one loud noise about 5 a.m. Wednesday, Kuss said.
New Samsung TVs Have Built-In HD Camera, Microphones, Face and Speech Recognition
March 22nd, 2012Here’s a bit of context that most people won’t consider when purchasing these quasi telescreens:
Avi Rubin – All Your Devices Can Be Hacked:
—
CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher:
More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.
Via: HDGuru:
Samsung’s 2012 top-of-the-line plasmas and LED HDTVs offer new features never before available within a television including a built-in, internally wired HD camera, twin microphones, face tracking and speech recognition. While these features give you unprecedented control over an HDTV, the devices themselves, more similar than ever to a personal computer, may allow hackers or even Samsung to see and hear you and your family, and collect extremely personal data.
While Web cameras and Internet connectivity are not new to HDTVs, their complete integration is, and it’s the always connected camera and microphones, combined with the option of third-party apps (not to mention Samsung’s own software) gives us cause for concern regarding the privacy of TV buyers and their friends and families.
Samsung has not released a privacy policy clarifying what data it is collecting and sharing with regard to the new TV sets. And while there is no current evidence of any particular security hole or untoward behavior by Samsung’s app partners, Samsung has only stated that it “assumes no responsibility, and shall not be liable” in the event that a product or service is not “appropriate.”
Samsung demoed these features to the press earlier this month. The camera and microphones are built into the top if the screen bezel in the 2012 8000-series plasmas and are permanently attached to the top of the 7500- and 8000ES-series LED TVs.
A Samsung representative showed how, once set up and connected to the Internet, these models will automatically talk to the Samsung cloud and enable viewers to use new and exciting apps.
These Samsung TVs locate and make note of registered viewers via sophisticated face recognition software. This means if you tell the TV whose faces belong to which users in your family, it personalizes the experience to each recognized family member. If you have friends over, it could log these faces as well.
In addition, the TV listens and responds to specific voice commands. To use the feature, the microphone is active. What concerns us is the integration of both an active camera and microphone. A Samsung representative tells us you can deactivate the voice feature; however this is done via software, not a hard switch like the one you use to turn a room light on or off.
And unlike other TVs, which have cameras and microphones as add-on accessories connected by a single, easily removable USB cable, you can’t just unplug these sensors.
During our demo, unless the face recognition learning feature was activated, there was no indication as to whether the camera (such as a red light) and audio mics are on. And as far as the microphone is concerned the is no way to physically disconnect it or be assured it is not picking up your voice when you don’t intend it to do so.
