Update: Remember the Weird One About Brian Alexik?
September 25th, 2011Drugs, weapons, counterfeiting, fake identification documents…
He was just sentenced to… How many years in prison would you guess?
Wrong.
He got probation.
Fox News Deletes ‘Who Won the Debate?’ Poll Page After Ron Paul Wins
September 25th, 2011Update: You Can Actually Embed the Poll On Your Own Site—If You Want
HAHAHA. Fox News. What a bunch of idiots.
Someone will eventually sober up and take it down, but for now, it works.
—End Update—
Hilariously, the poll, originally located here, is still accessible via Google cache. It’s actually a polldaddy.com poll, so the code that calls it is still works in Google’s cache of the page.
Here’s a screenshot:
Who Won the Debate? Ron Paul and by a Wide Margin
U.S. Has Been Supplying Israel with Bunker-Busting Bombs Since 2009
September 25th, 2011Via: New York Times:
The Obama administration has quietly supplied Israel with bombs capable of destroying buried targets, like terrorists’ arms caches or perhaps sites in Iran suspected of being part of that nation’s nuclear weapons program, American officials said Friday.
The administration’s transfer of bunker-busting bombs, first reported in an online article by Newsweek, began in 2009. American officials who confirmed the shipments spoke on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. They declined to comment on the number of bombs that had been supplied to Israel or on their capabilities.
Los Angeles: Large AT&T Mobile Network Outage
September 25th, 2011Via: AP / Washington Post:
It’s been a day of missed, dropped and failed calls for AT&T wireless customers in Southern California, and the night may be the same.
A recorded message for AT&T cell phone customers and the company’s official Twitter account Saturday said Los Angeles-area customers are having difficulty making or receiving calls because of technical troubles.
It was not immediately clear how widespread the problem was or how many customers were affected, but users complaining about their lack of service made AT&T one of Twitter’s top trending topics.
Company officials told KCBS and KCAL-TV that about 1,000 cell phone towers were out of service and the problems were not expected to be fixed until 2:30 a.m. Sunday.
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions
September 25th, 2011Thank you.
DS $25
Eileen $100
DR NZ$100
JS $20
MW $20
ID €25
Cryptogon Readers Sign Up for Hosting with BlueHost
September 25th, 2011Thanks to the owners of the following domains for signing up for hosting with BlueHost:
aspirationalhomes.com
bitethebubble.com (Not up yet)
sharp-controls.com (Not up yet)
Cryptogon received $270.
Fear of Repression Spurs Scholars and Activists to Build Alternate Internets
September 25th, 2011This is great, but don’t forget the context:
U.S. Has Secret Tools to Force Internet on Dictators
U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors
The Sock Puppet Industrial Complex: U.S. Trains ‘Activists’ to Evade Security Forces
Think outside the box, by all means. Just don’t be surprised when you find another box.
Via: Chronicle of Higher Education:
Computer networks proved their organizing power during the recent uprisings in the Middle East, in which Facebook pages amplified street protests that toppled dictators. But those same networks showed their weaknesses as well, such as when the Egyptian government walled off most of its citizens from the Internet in an attempt to silence protesters.
That has led scholars and activists increasingly to consider the Internet’s wiring as a disputed political frontier.
For example, one weekend each month, a small group of computer programmers gathers at a residence here to build a homemade Internet—named Project Byzantium—that could go online if parts of the current global Internet becomes blocked by a repressive government.
Using an approach called a “mesh network,” the system would set up an informal wireless network connecting users with other nearby computers, which in turn would pass along the signals. The mesh network could tie back into the Internet if one of the users found a way to plug into an unblocked route. The developers recently tested an early version of their software at George Washington University (though without the official involvement of campus officials).
The leader of the effort, who goes by the alias TheDoctor but who would not give his name, out of concern that his employer would object to the project, says he fears that some day repressive measures could be put into place in the United States.
He is not the only one with such apprehensions. Next month TheDoctor will join hundreds of like-minded high-tech activists and entrepreneurs in New York at an unusual conference called the Contact Summit. One of the participants is Eben Moglen, a professor at Columbia Law School who has built an encryption device and worries about a recent attempt by Wisconsin politicians to search a professor’s e-mail. The summit’s goal is not just to talk about the projects, but also to connect with potential financial backers, recruit programmers, and brainstorm approaches to building parallel Internets and social networks.
The meeting is a sign of the growing momentum of what is called the “free-network movement,” whose leaders are pushing to rewire online networks to make it harder for a government or corporation to exert what some worry is undue control or surveillance. Another key concern is that the Internet has not lived up to its social potential to connect people, and instead has become overrun by marketing and promotion efforts by large corporations.
At the heart of the movement is the idea that seemingly mundane technical specifications of Internet routers and social-networking software platforms have powerful political implications. In virtual realms, programmers essentially set the laws of physics, or at least the rules of interaction, for their cyberspaces. If it sometimes seems that media pundits treat Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or Apple’s Steve Jobs as gods, that’s because in a sense they are—sitting on Mount Olympus with the power to hurl digital thunderbolts with a worldwide impact on people.
Instead of just complaining, many of those heading to New York next month believe they can build alternatives that reduce the power of those virtual deities and give more control to mere mortals.
Research Credit: noncompliant
Google Shuts Down ActivistPost.com
September 24th, 2011Via: Before It’s News:
At mid-day on Friday, September 23, 2011, the popular alternative news blog, ActivistPost.com, was taken offline. Activist Post receives over one million views per month and has been hosted by Google’s Blogger since its founding in June 2010.
“We remain puzzled as to why Activist Post was erased completely by Google,” said chief editor and co-founder Michael Edwards. “When we tried to load our back-up file into our secondary Blogger account, that was blocked as well,” he added.
It remains unclear whether Google has acted to censor ActivistPost.com for their controversial reporting. Google is becoming somewhat notorious for clamping down on truth and liberty activists, of which Activist Post is known for.
“Clearly, this is a huge set back for us and the work we do,” said co-founder Eric Blair. “Our entire crew is working on resolving the issue and restoring the website. We certainly look forward to an explanation from Google.”
Activist Post will file an appeal with Google to restore the site in full, and asks their loyal supporters to make their voices heard as well. However, they also are seeking other hosting services to avoid these types of censorship issues in the future.
Japan: 500 Becquerels Per Kg Found in Nihonmatsu City Rice Sample
September 24th, 2011Via: Reuters:
Japan found the first case of rice with radioactive materials far exceeding a government-set level for a preliminary test of pre-harvested crop, requiring thorough inspection of the rice to be harvested from the region, the farm ministry said late on Friday.
The ministry said radioactive caesium of 500 becquerels per kg was found in a sample of the pre-harvested rice in Nihonmatsu city, in Fukushima Prefecture, 56 km (35 miles) west of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant which was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, triggering the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.
The ministry said the Fukushima Prefecture will expand the inspection spots nearly ten-fold to around 300 areas.
It is the first case in Japan of rice containing radioactive caesium exceeding 200 becquerels per kg, a level which requires further thorough testing of the area for the harvested rice.
Researchers Develop fMRI-Based Model to Reconstruct Moving Images that People Are Seeing
September 23rd, 2011Many articles that I’ve read about this don’t mention the little detail that this is based on data obtained through the use of fMRI. This MIT Technology Review piece deals with that right up front. In case you don’t know, fMRI is not a technology that we’re going to be walking around with anytime soon.
…even so, Brainstorm is still one of my favorite sci-fi movies:
'Brainstorm' 1983 MGM
This AP story contains some other images from the research.
And here’s a video clip:
Via: MIT Technology Review:
Scientists are a step closer to constructing a digital version of the human visual system. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed an algorithm that can be applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) imagery to show a moving image a person is seeing.
Neuroscientists have been using fMRI to study the human visual system for years, which involves measuring changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain. This works fine for studying how we see static images, but it falls short when it comes to moving imagery. Individual neuronal activity occurs over a much faster time scale, so a few years ago the researchers behind the current study set out to devise a computer model to measure this instead. The study shows that this new approach is not only successful but remarkably accurate.
The study, which appears in Current Biology this week, marks the first time that anyone has used brain imaging to determine what moving images a person is seeing. It could help researchers model the human visual system on a computer, and it raises the tantalizing prospect of one day being able to use the model to reconstruct other types of dynamic imagery, such as dreams and memories.
