Shocker: GCSB Conducts Mass Surveillance on New Zealanders

September 12th, 2014

*yawn*

Via: New Zealand Herald:

This morning on TV3’s The Nation, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald said that New Zealand’s spying agencies had been conducting mass surveillance on New Zealanders as part of the Five Eyes arrangement between the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

He said New Zealand spent an “extraordinary amount of resources” for a country of its size on electronic surveillance.


Stanford Engineer Aims to Connect the World with Ant-Sized Radios

September 10th, 2014

Via: Stanford:

A Stanford engineering team has built a radio the size of an ant, a device so energy efficient that it gathers all the power it needs from the same electromagnetic waves that carry signals to its receiving antenna – no batteries required.

Designed to compute, execute and relay commands, this tiny wireless chip costs pennies to fabricate – making it cheap enough to become the missing link between the Internet as we know it and the linked-together smart gadgets envisioned in the “Internet of Things.”

“The next exponential growth in connectivity will be connecting objects together and giving us remote control through the web,” said Amin Arbabian, an assistant professor of electrical engineering who recently demonstrated this ant-sized radio chip at the VLSI Technology and Circuits Symposium in Hawaii.

Much of the infrastructure needed to enable us to control sensors and devices remotely already exists: We have the Internet to carry commands around the globe, and computers and smartphones to issue the commands. What’s missing is a wireless controller cheap enough to so that it can be installed on any gadget anywhere.

“How do you put a bi-directional wireless control system on every lightbulb?” Arbabian said. “By putting all the essential elements of a radio on a single chip that costs pennies to make.”

Cost is critical because, as Arbabian observed, “We’re ultimately talking about connecting trillions of devices.”


China’s Island Factory

September 10th, 2014

Must see.

Via: BBC:

New islands are being made in the disputed South China Sea by the might of the Chinese state. But a group of marooned Filipinos on a rusting wreck is trying to stand in the way.


Colonel Sabow Reports

September 10th, 2014

Via: Bryan Burnett / Meixatech:

Evaluation of the gunshot residue, back spatter residue, cranial injuries, blood spatter, the Colonel s bathrobe and the position of the body lead to the conclusion that Colonel James Sabow was murdered and an attempt was made to stage the body to appear that he committed suicide. The Colonel was rendered unconscious and mortally wounded by a devastating blow by a broad, flat club to the right occipital region of his skull prior to the intraoral shotgun blast. The reconstruction of the homicide crime scene indicates that three or more assailants were likely.


Israel Rejects New Zealand’s New Ambassador

September 8th, 2014

HA! A “protocol principle,” is it?

You know, like Mossad trying to obtain New Zealand passports to carry out international assassination operations.

Via: AP:

New Zealand officials said Monday that Israel has rejected their new ambassador because he is also an envoy to the Palestinian Authority.

Since 2008, New Zealand’s ambassadors in Turkey have been responsible for covering a large swath of territory. But the officials said Israel has refused to accept their latest appointment to the post, Jonathan Curr, who was due to travel to Jerusalem in the coming days to present his papers.

“A few days ago, Israel advised New Zealand that it would not accept as ambassador a person who was also a representative to the Palestinian Authority,” Foreign Minister Murray McCully said in a statement.

The Israeli Embassy in Wellington said the matter is a “protocol principle” applicable to all ambassadors to Israel.

Research Credit: Windhorse


Upgrade on Server Hosting Cryptogon Tonight

September 8th, 2014

Cryptogon will be unavailable for some amount of time aver about the next 12 hours. Server upgrade.


“The Awkward Truth” About Large Amount of Scientific Research: It’s Bullshit

September 8th, 2014

Via: BBC Radio:

Every day the newspapers carry stories of new scientific findings. There are 15 million scientists worldwide all trying to get their research published. But a disturbing fact appears if you look closely: as time goes by, many scientific findings seem to become less true than we thought. It’s called the “decline effect” – and some findings even dwindle away to zero.

A highly influential paper by Dr John Ioannidis at Stanford University called “Why most published research findings are false” argues that fewer than half of scientific papers can be believed, and that the hotter a scientific field (with more scientific teams involved), the less likely the research findings are to be true. He even showed that of the 49 most highly cited medical papers, only 34 had been retested and of them 41 per cent had been convincingly shown to be wrong. And yet they were still being cited.

Again and again, researchers are finding the same things, whether it’s with observational studies, or even the “gold standard” Randomised Controlled Studies, whether it’s medicine or economics. Nobody bothers to try to replicate most studies, and when they do try, the majority of findings don’t stack up. The awkward truth is that, taken as a whole, the scientific literature is full of falsehoods.

Research Credit: ottilie


U.S. Military to Provide Equipment, Resources to Battle Ebola Epidemic in Africa

September 7th, 2014

Your what hurts?

Via: Washington Post:

President Obama said Sunday that the U.S. military will begin aiding what has been a chaotic and ineffective response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, arguing that it represents a serious national security concern.

The move is a significant ramp up in the U.S. response and comes as the already-strained military is likely to be called upon further to address militant threats in the Middle East. The decision to involve the military in providing equipment and other assistance for international health workers in Africa comes after mounting calls from some unlikely groups — most prominently the international medical group Doctors Without Borders — demonstrating to the White House the urgency of the issue.

The epidemic, which has killed at least 2,100 people in five African countries, is unlikely to spread to the United States in the short term, Obama said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” But if the United States and other countries do not send needed equipment, public health workers and other supplies to the region, that situation could change and the virus could mutate to become more transmissible, he said.

“And then it could be a serious danger to the United States,” Obama said.

“We’re going to have to get U.S. military assets just to set up, for example, isolation units and equipment there,” he said, “to provide security for public health workers surging from around the world.”


Unidentified Respiratory Virus Likely to Hit Kids Across Country

September 7th, 2014

Via: ABC:

A respiratory illness that has already sickened more than a thousand children in 10 states is likely to become a nationwide problem, doctors say.

The disease hasn’t been officially identified but officials suspect a rare respiratory virus called human enterovirus 68. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus is related to the rhinovirus, which causes the common cold.

The disease hasn’t been officially identified in every state, but in some states a rare respiratory virus called human enterovirus 68 has been found. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus is related to the rhinovirus, which causes the common cold.

According to Mark Pallansch, director of the Division of Viral Diseases at the CDC, similar cases to the ones in Colorado have been cropping up across the U.S. At least 10 states — Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa, Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Georgia — have reported suspected outbreaks of human enterovirus 68 and requested CDC support.

“Viruses don’t tend to respect borders,” ABC News Chief Health and Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser said. “It is only 10 states now, but it’s going to be across the country. So if your state doesn’t have it now, watch for it, it’s coming.”

Doctors say they are not even sure yet how this particular virus spreads, though the back-to-school season is a normal time for illnesses to spread among children.

“This is a very common time for outbreaks. Kids come back to school, they like to share things, they bring them home to their little brothers and sisters, and enteroviruses tend to occur in the summer,” Besser said. “But this one, this particular Enterovirus 68, is very rare and they have no idea why it showed up this year.”

At Children’s Hospital Colorado in Denver, officials say that between Aug. 18 and Sept. 4, doctors saw more than 900 pediatric patients with symptoms of the respiratory virus in the emergency room. Of those who came in, 86 were admitted into the hospital and a handful ended up in the intensive care unit.

“It can start just like a cold — runny nose, sneezing, coughs — but it’s the wheezing you have to watch out for,” Besser said.


GM to Introduce Hands-Free Driving in Cadillac Model in Two Years

September 7th, 2014

Via: Bloomberg:

General Motors Co. (GM), the largest U.S. automaker, will introduce a Cadillac model in two years that can be driven on the highway without the driver holding the steering wheel or putting a foot on a pedal.

The 2017 Cadillac model will feature “Super Cruise” technology that takes control of steering, acceleration and braking at highway speeds of 70 miles per hour or in stop-and-go congested traffic, Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra said today in a speech at the Intelligent Transport System World Congress in Detroit. GM declined to release the name of the model that will carry the feature.

Barra also said GM in two years will become the first automaker to equip a model with so-called vehicle-to-vehicle technology that enables the car to communicate with other autos with similar abilities to warn of traffic hazards and improve road safety. GM will make the V2V feature standard on its 2017 Cadillac CTS sedan, debuting in the second half of 2016, she said. The Super Cruise feature will be on a different Cadillac model and goes beyond similar technology available on some Mercedes-Benz models that operates only at low speeds.


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