Amazon, GM in Talks to Invest in Electric Pickup Truck Maker Rivian
February 12th, 2019Via: Reuters:
Amazon.com Inc and General Motors Co are in talks to invest in Rivian Automotive LLC in a deal that would value the U.S. electric pickup truck manufacturer at between $1 billion and $2 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
Florida School Arms Up; Hires Two Former Combat Veterans To Prevent Mass Shootings
February 12th, 2019Via: ZeroHedge:
Just south of Tampa, Fla., students at the Manatee School for the Arts (MSA) roam the hallways past an armed combat veteran who is constantly looking out for threats. By the end of February, another one will be manning a guard shack at at the school’s entrance.
39-year-old Harold Verdecia, a former infantryman in the US army who completed tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, patrols the hallways of Manatee strapped with a 9mm Glock 19X and a Kel-Tec “Bullpup” rifle, according to the Herald Tribune.
Smartphones Will Monitor How Workers Walk, Type And “Spend Their Free Time”
February 12th, 2019
Via: ZeroHedge:
Forget Face ID: a collaboration between the Defense Department and a NY-based company called TWOSENSE.AI, has birthed an artificial intelligence algorithm that could be embedded in smartphones and will be able to identify the device owner by the way they talk, type, walk and even by how “they spend their free time”.
TWOSENSE.AI is working with the Department of Defense to build a SaaS product that could eventually replace access cards currently used to verify the identities of DOD employees when logging onto the department’s networks.
The AI constantly monitors the user’s behavior, including how they carry the device, type on it and even walk. The system then automatically verifies the user’s identity using these parameters, enabling them to work seamlessly on their secure network without having to login each time.
Similar to privacy-stripping developments in China, the system updates a “trust score” as it tracks these metrics, based on the algorithm’s level of confidence that the correct person is using the device. Jeremy Corey, chief of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Cyber Innovation Division said in May: “The score is checked to ensure it meets the desired threshold. This threshold is predetermined by the organization we are piloting our prototype with. This could be configured by the application owner, so long as it is within the authorizing official’s accepted level of risk.”
Jeff Bezos Protests the Invasion of His Privacy, as Amazon Builds a Sprawling Surveillance State for Everyone Else
February 12th, 2019Via: The Intercept:
If Bezos were the political victim of surveillance state abuses, it would be scandalous and dangerous. It would also be deeply ironic.
That’s because Amazon, the company that has made Bezos the planet’s richest human being, is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive, militarized and sprawling surveillance state. Indeed, one of the largest components of Amazon’s business, and thus one of the most important sources of Bezos’ vast wealth and power, is working with the Pentagon and the NSA to empower the U.S. Government with more potent and more sophisticated weapons, including surveillance weapons.
In December, 2017, Amazon boasted that it had perfected new face-recognition software for crowds, which it called Rekognition. It explained that the product is intended, in large part, for use by governments and police forces around the world. The ACLU quickly warned that the product is “dangerous” and that Amazon “is actively helping governments deploy it.”
“Powered by artificial intelligence,” wrote the ACLU, “Rekognition can identify, track, and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image. It can quickly scan information it collects against databases featuring tens of millions of faces.” The group warned: “Amazon’s Rekognition raises profound civil liberties and civil rights concerns.” In a separate advisory, the ACLU said of this face-recognition software that Amazon’s “marketing materials read like a user manual for the type of authoritarian surveillance you can currently see in China.”
Russia to Disconnect from Internet to Test Cyber Defenses
February 11th, 2019Via: BBC:
Russia is considering whether to disconnect from the global internet briefly, as part of a test of its cyber-defences.
The test will mean data passing between Russian citizens and organisations stays inside the nation rather than being routed internationally.
A draft law mandating technical changes needed to operate independently was introduced to its parliament last year.
The test is expected to happen before 1 April but no exact date has been set.
Major disruption
The draft law, called the Digital Economy National Program, requires Russia’s ISPs to ensure that it can operate in the event of foreign powers acting to isolate the country online.
Nato and its allies have threatened to sanction Russia over the cyber-attacks and other online interference which it is regularly accused of instigating.
The measures outlined in the law include Russia building its own version of the net’s address system, known as DNS, so it can operate if links to these internationally-located servers are cut.
Currently, 12 organisations oversee the root servers for DNS and none of them are in Russia. However many copies of the net’s core address book do already exist inside Russia suggesting its net systems could keep working even if punitive action was taken to cut it off.
The test is also expected to involve ISPs demonstrating that they can direct data to government-controlled routing points. These will filter traffic so that data sent between Russians reaches its destination, but any destined for foreign computers is discarded.
Eventually the Russian government wants all domestic traffic to pass through these routing points. This is believed to be part of an effort to set up a mass censorship system akin to that seen in China, which tries to scrub out prohibited traffic.
The Real Reason 4 Cops Got Shot in Houston Last Week
February 7th, 2019Via: The Daily Bell:
All the headlines would have you believe these cops were ambushed, attacked just for being cops while minding their own business.
But when you look deeper at the case, you realize these cops didn’t get shot because of anti-police rhetoric.
They got shot because they invaded an innocent couple’s home without announcing themselves.
That means that instead of knocking on the door and announcing themselves, police barge into a home with a battering ram.
These SWAT-style raids have increased exponentially over the years. And they are used for less and less serious accusations.
In this case, a couple in their late 50s, with no criminal history, was accused of selling heroin out of the home they lived in for 20 years.
The cops got a warrant to search the home after they claim someone sold a confidential informant heroin at the couple’s home.
Apparently, the word of one druggie informant is all the justification cops need.
Police busted down the door and shot the couple’s dog. The man responded by firing his handgun at the officers.
According to the police chief, narcotics officers “don’t show up in uniform,” when executing search warrants.
So did this guy even know it was police who just invaded his home and shot his dog?
We’ll never know, because dead men tell no tales. The couple was murdered by the police officers.
More: ‘They Did Not Deal Drugs’: Neighbors of Slain Couple Who Shot 4 Cops Refute Official Story
Research Credit: Pookie
U.S. Special Operations Manual: IMF, World Bank Part of “Unconventional” Weapons Arsenal
February 7th, 2019Via: Mint Press:
WASHINGTON – In a leaked military manual on “unconventional warfare” recently highlighted by WikiLeaks, the U.S. Army states that major global financial institutions — such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — are used as unconventional, financial “weapons in times of conflict up to and including large-scale general war,” as well as in leveraging “the policies and cooperation of state governments.”
The document, officially titled “Field Manual (FM) 3-05.130, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare” and originally written in September 2008, was recently highlighted by WikiLeaks on Twitter in light of recent events in Venezuela as well as the years-long, U.S.-led economic siege of that country through sanctions and other means of economic warfare. Though the document has generated new interest in recent days, it had originally been released by WikiLeaks in December 2008 and has been described as the military’s “regime change handbook.”
Big Telecom Sold Highly Sensitive Customer GPS Data Typically Used for 911 Calls
February 7th, 2019Via: Vice:
Around 250 bounty hunters and related businesses had access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint customer location data, according to documents obtained by Motherboard. The documents also show that telecom companies sold data intended to be used by 911 operators and first responders to data aggregators, who sold it to bounty hunters. The data was in some cases so accurate that a user could be tracked to specific spots inside a building.
The news shows not only how widely Americans’ sensitive location data has been sold through the overlooked and questionable data broker market, but also how the ease-of-access dramatically increased the risk of abuse. Motherboard found that an individual company made more than 18,000 data location requests through a data broker; other companies made thousands of requests.
VW: Bet Everything On Electric
February 6th, 2019Via: Reuters:
If Volkswagen realizes its ambition of becoming the global leader in electric cars, it will be thanks to a radical and risky bet born out of the biggest calamity in its history.
The German giant has staked its future, to the tune of 80 billion euros ($91 billion), on being able to profitably mass-produce electric vehicles – a feat no carmaker has come close to achieving.
So far mainstream automakers’ electric plans have had one main goal: to protect profits gleaned from high-margin conventional cars by adding enough zero-emission vehicles to their fleet to meet clean-air rules.
Customers have meanwhile largely shunned electric vehicles because they are too expensive, can be inconvenient to charge and lack range.
U.S. Special Forces Exercise in Downtown Los Angeles
February 6th, 2019Alex Strezev captured video of several helicopters landing:
Via: ABC:
Military helicopters were seen flying in formation around downtown Los Angeles and explosions were reported in the area that were all part of an exercise.
The choppers and explosions caused many people to head to social media, scared about what they were seeing outside.
Many people also tweeted that they saw the exercise in Silver Lake.
One helicopter even landed in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard and soldiers were seen rappelling out of the aircrafts onto rooftops.
Authorities urge there was no cause for alarm and that the Special Forces exercises will continue for the next several nights.
