Apple Disabling End-to-End Encryption for iCloud Users in Britain
February 21st, 2025Via: Forbes:
One of Apple’s optional features is Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, which offers the company’s highest level of cloud data security. Apple has just announced that this is no longer available to new users in the United Kingdom. This is much more than a question of security, not just because it affects so many people but because of what may have caused it, and what it means for your data.
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In the U.K., if you haven’t opted to turn it on already, you will see an explainer of the service when you click, and a banner that reads, “Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users.”
Those who have already enabled it will be given a period of time to disable the feature themselves to keep using their iCloud account.
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There have been reports recently that the U.K. government had instructed Apple to create a back door to allow it to access data, for security reasons, something which, if true, Apple would not be permitted to acknowledge.
Donald Trump Introduced Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, at White House Reception, “One of the Great People, One of the Great Businessmen”: Crowd, “BOO!”
February 20th, 2025Donald Trump Introduced Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, at White House Reception, "One of the Great People, One of the Great Businessmen": Crowd, "BOO!" pic.twitter.com/oXG4wzy5rN
— cryptogon (@cryptogon) February 21, 2025
Microsoft Claims New Majorana 1 Quantum Computing Chip Can Scale To A Million Qubits — So Far, It Has Eight
February 20th, 2025Via: The Register:
Microsoft says it has developed a quantum-computing chip made with novel materials that is expected to enable the development of quantum computers for meaningful, real-world applications within – you guessed it – years rather than decades.
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Redmond’s boffins on Wednesday announced Majorana 1, a quantum computing chip based on a Topological Core architecture that can – eventually, it is claimed – scale to support millions of quantum bits (qubits) on a single chip.
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Commercially useful quantum computers are expected to require millions of physical qubits. We’re not there yet. Google’s Willow chip, introduced last December, boasts 105 physical qubits. While qubit counts across devices that rely on different techniques aren’t directly comparable – IBM’s Osprey from 2022 featured a 433-qubit processor – they’re still orders of magnitude shy of millions.
But that’s what Microsoft claims is now plausible, within a few years.
“Whatever you’re doing in the quantum space needs to have a path to a million qubits,” said Chetan Nayak, Microsoft technical fellow in a statement. “If it doesn’t, you’re going to hit a wall before you get to the scale at which you can solve the really important problems that motivate us. We have actually worked out a path to a million.”
Currently, Microsoft has eight – that’s how many topological qubits reside on its breakthrough chip. But there’s room for scaling to millions.
Globalist Media, Neocons Melt Down Over Trump’s ‘Jaw-Dropping Pivot In U.S. Foreign Policy’ on Ukraine and ‘Dictator’ Zelensky
February 19th, 2025Via: ZeroHedge:
As expected the reaction from mainstream pundits and Ukraine’s backers to Trump’s Wednesday post decrying Zelensky as a “dictator” who “better move fast” on striking a peace deal and holding elections or else “he won’t have a country left” has been swift and fierce.
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And the reaction from the neocons has been predictably loud: “Trump’s characterizations of Zelensky and Ukraine are some of the most shameful remarks ever made by a US President. Our support of Ukraine has never been about charity, our way of life at home depends on our strength abroad,” John Bolton wrote.
Related: Zelensky: About $100 Billion Missing, “Does Not Know Where All The Money Is”
AI Helping to Solve Fusion Energy
February 19th, 2025Via: MIT News:
In a recent open-access paper titled “Prediction of Performance and Turbulence in ITER Burning Plasmas via Nonlinear Gyrokinetic Profile Prediction,” published in the January issue of Nuclear Fusion, Howard explains how he used high-resolution simulations of the swirling structures present in plasma, called turbulence, to confirm that the world’s largest experimental fusion device, currently under construction in Southern France, will perform as expected when switched on. He also demonstrates how a different operating setup could produce nearly the same amount of energy output but with less energy input, a discovery that could positively affect the efficiency of fusion devices in general.
U.S. Treasury Sent $4.7 Trillion in Payments Without Budget Codes, “Making Traceability Almost Impossible”
February 17th, 2025Again, from my recent post:
They’re going to quickly stumble on to payments for black world projects and operations and potentially not realize what they’re looking at. It’s hard to imagine that the actual deep state would allow anyone to start pulling on those threads…
As for tracing the money: Are the recipients’ bank routing and account numbers present on the payments?
If so, the money should be traceable.
If not… Hmm. Turn it up to 11, I guess.
The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process).
In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost…
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) February 17, 2025
U.S. Conditionally Approves Avian Flu Vaccine for Poultry
February 17th, 2025Via: Focal Points:
Rather than authorizing leaky vaccines for U.S. poultry, the USDA should consider allowing the latest clade of H5N1 to run its course so that the birds can acquire natural immunity to it. The practice of mass culling has been a total failure and the new poultry vaccine is equally unlikely to end to the problem, though there is a good chance it will contribute to the emergence of an even more dangerous variant of H5N1.
Physical Audit of Fort Knox Gold?
February 17th, 2025Via: ZeroHedge:
One of the biggest questions over the past 50 years is whether the gold at Fort Knox, Kentucky is really there, or if it’s been plundered.
What we do know is that the last ‘audit’ of America’s gold stash was conducted on Sept. 23, 1974, when the US Treasury opened just one of its 15 vaults at Fort Knox so politicians and reporters could swarm the site for a two-hour photo-op with roughly 6% of the alleged amount held. Adding to the complete farce, none of the bars being passed around for the cameras were matched to a serial number, assayed or tested for purity, or even verified as US holdings – as foreign countries have previously stored their gold at Fort Knox as well.
Since then there has been no independent verification of the roughly 4,580 metric tons supposedly held by the Treasury outside of bullshit annual ‘vault seal checks’ that don’t actually analyze the gold…
Social Security Scams: “This Might Be The Biggest Fraud In History”
February 17th, 2025Biggest fraud in history? haha
G. Edward Griffin, hold my beer: The Creature from Jekyll Island
Back on February 1st, I wrote:
My guess is that we’ll hear more about things like Social Security fraud and less about whatever it is that LockheedMartin actually did with over $61 billion just in 2023.
But, by all means:
Maybe we pause payments to everyone 120+ until they can authenticate they’re among the living…
Via: ZeroHedge:
According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!
Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security ?? pic.twitter.com/ltb06VX98Z
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025
“Maybe we pause payments to everyone 120+ until they can authenticate they’re among the living, to start,” Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) wrote on X in response to Musk’s post.
Collins is far too conservative. Lawmakers should freeze payments over the age bucket of 100 until a clear determination can be made where taxpayer funds are disappearing in this possible money pit that smells like fraud.
“If DOGE’s numbers are right, $522B—1/3 of ALL spending on Social Security each year—is fraudulent,” X user Robert Sterling said.
Microsoft Study Finds Relying on AI Kills Your Critical Thinking Skills
February 15th, 2025Via: Gizmodo:
Artificial intelligence may one day make humans obsolete—just not in the way that you’re thinking. Instead of AI getting so good at completing tasks that it takes the place of a person, we may just become so reliant on imperfect tools that our own abilities atrophy. A new study published by researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University found that the more humans lean on AI tools to complete their tasks, the less critical thinking they do, making it more difficult to call upon the skills when they are needed.
