‘Implanted Electrodes Reboot Brain Out of Intractable Depression’
October 5th, 2013Via: Scientific American:
Psychological depression is more than an emotional state. Good evidence for that comes from emerging new uses for a technology already widely prescribed for Parkinson’s patients. The more neurologists and surgeons learn about the aptly named deep brain stimulation, the more they are convinced that the currents from the technology’s implanted electrodes can literally reboot brain circuits involved with the mood disorder. Thomas Schlaepfer, a psychiatrist from the University of Bonn Hospital and a leading expert in researching deep brain stimulation, describes in the interview that follows the workings of the technique and why it may help the severely depressed.
Swiss to Vote on Basic Income for All Adults and Maximum Wage Limits for Executives
October 5th, 2013Via: Reuters:
Switzerland will hold a vote on whether to introduce a basic income for all adults, in a further sign of growing public activism over pay inequality since the financial crisis.
A grassroots committee is calling for all adults in Switzerland to receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,800) per month from the state, with the aim of providing a financial safety net for the population.
…
In March, Swiss voters backed some of the world’s strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation.
A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than what the company’s lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called 1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote on November 24.
Attacking Tor: How the NSA Targets Users’ Online Anonymity
October 5th, 2013Via: Guardian:
After identifying an individual Tor user on the internet, the NSA uses its network of secret internet servers to redirect those users to another set of secret internet servers, with the codename FoxAcid, to infect the user’s computer. FoxAcid is an NSA system designed to act as a matchmaker between potential targets and attacks developed by the NSA, giving the agency opportunity to launch prepared attacks against their systems.
Once the computer is successfully attacked, it secretly calls back to a FoxAcid server, which then performs additional attacks on the target computer to ensure that it remains compromised long-term, and continues to provide eavesdropping information back to the NSA.
…
To trick targets into visiting a FoxAcid server, the NSA relies on its secret partnerships with US telecoms companies. As part of the Turmoil system, the NSA places secret servers, codenamed Quantum, at key places on the internet backbone. This placement ensures that they can react faster than other websites can. By exploiting that speed difference, these servers can impersonate a visited website to the target before the legitimate website can respond, thereby tricking the target’s browser to visit a Foxacid server.
In the academic literature, these are called “man-in-the-middle” attacks, and have been known to the commercial and academic security communities. More specifically, they are examples of “man-on-the-side” attacks.
They are hard for any organization other than the NSA to reliably execute, because they require the attacker to have a privileged position on the internet backbone, and exploit a “race condition” between the NSA server and the legitimate website. This top-secret NSA diagram, made public last month, shows a Quantum server impersonating Google in this type of attack.
The NSA uses these fast Quantum servers to execute a packet injection attack, which surreptitiously redirects the target to the FoxAcid server. An article in the German magazine Spiegel, based on additional top secret Snowden documents, mentions an NSA developed attack technology with the name of QuantumInsert that performs redirection attacks. Another top-secret Tor presentation provided by Snowden mentions QuantumCookie to force cookies onto target browsers, and another Quantum program to “degrade/deny/disrupt Tor access”.
This same technique is used by the Chinese government to block its citizens from reading censored internet content, and has been hypothesized as a probable NSA attack technique.
Related: GCHQ Report on ‘MULLENIZE’ Program to ‘Stain’ Anonymous Electronic Traffic
Introducing WildCat
October 4th, 2013Via: Boston Dynamics:
WildCat is a four-legged robot being developed to run fast on all types of terrain. So far WildCat has run at about 16 mph on flat terrain using bounding and galloping gaits. The video shows WildCat’s best performance so far. WildCat is being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA’s M3 program.
U.S. Capitol Shooting
October 3rd, 2013Update: Miriam Carey Family’s Lawyer Arrested Over Debts
Via: Newsday:
A lawyer for the family of the woman who was killed after attempting to crash into the White House two weeks ago was arrested Tuesday by federal marshals because he continually failed to pay money owed to various debtors, officials said.
The lawyer, Eric Sanders, who lives in Melville, but practices mainly in New York City, was taken into custody at his home on the orders of a federal bankruptcy judge in Central Islip, according to Charles Dunne, the chief marshal for the Eastern District.
The arrest was unrelated to his representation of the family of Miriam Carey, who died in a hail of police gunfire two weeks ago in Washington D.C., officials said.
—
Update: Capital Shield 2014 and Miriam Carey Incident
Sent in by HongPong.
Via: HongPong:
The US government runs a lot of exercises, which usually happens for ordinary training reasons. On the other hand, many researchers of geopolitics and covert politics note that exercises serve other geopolitical purposes — for example demonstrating a military alliance with an ally state in front of its rivals. Some argue that exercises can be used as cover for covert operations. Hence wherever there is some dramatic event in the US, it’s always interesting to see if there are any coincidental exercises.
In today’s case the exercise called Capital Shield 2014 or CS 14 involves 34 agencies. Even if there isn’t some cloak-n-dagger twist to this event, doesn’t an active exercise sort of encourage more aggressive behavior by officials?
—
Update: Capitol Suspect Miriam Carey Believed Obama Electronically Monitored Her
See: “My ELF Weapon”
Via: ABC:
The woman who led police on a high-speed chase near the U.S. Capitol before being shot dead had a history of mental illness and believed President Obama was electronically monitoring her Connecticut home in order to broadcast her life on television, sources said.
Sources told ABC News that Connecticut police had twice in 2012 been called by Miriam Carey’s boyfriend, who reported the woman was delusional, acting irrationally and putting her infant daughter in danger.
…
According to sources Carey believed she was the “prophet of Stamford” and was capable of communicating with Obama.
Her mother, Idella Carrey, told ABC News that her daughter had been hospitalized after suffering post-partum depression.
On Dec. 10, 2012, police were called to Carey’s home by her boyfriend Eric Francis, 54, father of her baby. Francis told police Carey was emotionally disturbed and he believed his daughter was in danger, according to sources.
Carey told police President Obama had placed Stamford on lockdown and had arranged to have her home electronically monitored and her life broadcast on television, sources said.
Police handcuffed Carey and remanded her for a mental health evaluation. According to sources, Carey had a family history of schizophrenia and was taking medication for a mental illness.
On Dec. 21, Francis again called police to report his girlfriend was “off her medication” and acting erratically.
In January, the source said, a state social worker met with Carey and Francis and Francis told the social worker that Carey was “100 percent back to normal.” Carey told the social worker she had been diagnosed with post-partum depression, was on prescription medication, and was receiving treatment, the source said.
—
Update: “Woman in DC Chase May Have Thought Obama Was Stalking Her”
Via: NBC:
Investigators have found indications that the woman who led authorities on a chase from the White House to the Capitol before she was shot to death by police thought that President Barack Obama was stalking her, law enforcement sources told NBC News.
The sources said that the woman, Miriam Carey, had a history of mental health problems.
The chase, on Thursday afternoon, stirred panic in the capital and briefly stopped the mechanisms of government. It happened two weeks after a man shot 12 people to death at the Washington Navy Yard.
Members of the House and Senate, in a standoff over the government shutdown, were ordered to stay in place. One lawmaker was cut off mid-sentence during a speech. A swarm of police startled tourists who were taking in Washington on a summery day.
Carey, 34, was a dental hygienist living in Stamford, Conn. Details of her background began to emerge in the hours after the episode.
Dr. Barry Weiss, a dentist, told NBC Connecticut that Carey was working for him in January 2012 when she suffered a fall and missed two to three weeks. He said that she appeared increasingly stressed after an unplanned pregnancy. Relatives have said that she may have suffered postpartum depression.
Weiss said that he fired her in August 2012 after patients complained that she was too rough.
Carey was driving a black Infiniti sedan when, just after 2 p.m. ET, she struck a security fence outside the White House. She took off after hitting a Secret Service officer with her car.
From there, police said, she sped up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, reaching 80 mph at one point. Police and the Secret Service stopped her at the foot of the Capitol, but she jammed the car into reverse and took off again as police opened fire.
Carey led police on a chase around the perimeter of the Capitol and crashed her car outside a Senate office building a few minutes later, police said. The police shot at her, and she died a short time later.
—
Update: Miriam Carey
[???]
Via: Washington Post:
She had a toddler with her, confounding everyone who watched her black sedan crash through barriers and lead police through the heart of high-security Washington.
Law enforcement officials said the Infiniti was registered to a young mother named Miriam Carey, a 34-year-old dental hygienist from Stamford, Conn. They believe it was Carey, with her 1-year-old daughter sitting behind her, who flattened barricades outside the White House, striking officers and then leading others on a high-speed pursuit up Constitution Avenue. D.C.
Police confirmed that the driver was shot and killed after careening around the Capitol grounds and crashing at Second Street NE. There was no sign that she was armed, police said.
Video images showed a young child, her hair in braids, being carried by an officer to the back of a patrol car.
The immediate portrait of Carey that emerged in the hours after the shooting suggested a person unlikely to be found in the center of such violence. Carey, according to public documents, friends and family, had finished college and established a long work history as a dental hygienist.
Her sister, Amy Carey, a Brooklyn nurse, was incredulous when she was reached Thursday afternoon and told what had happened outside the Capitol.
“That’s impossible. She works, she holds a job,” said Amy Carey, who confirmed that her Stamford-based sister drove a black car. She said she knew of nothing that would bring her sister to Washington. “She wouldn’t be in D.C. She was just in Connecticut two days ago, I spoke to her. .?.?. I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t answer any more.”
Denis Jones, a friend of the Carey family who said he is acting as a spokesman, said the family would release a statement. He would not discuss any more details of the case and would not say whether the police had approached the family.
People who knew Carey described her as friendly and dedicated.
—
Update: Female Suspect Shot and Killed by Police After She Tried to Ram Vehicle Through White House Barricade
Via: ABC:
Police tell ABC7’s Jennifer Donelan that the incident reportedly started when an unidentified woman tried to drive through a barricade at the White House. She had a baby in the back seat of her vehicle. The woman fled the area and ended up at the Capitol, where she tried to drive through another barricade.
Authorities opened fire on the vehicle, killing the woman, authorities say.
—
Update: U.S. Capitol no Longer on Lockdown
Via: Bloomberg:
Capitol police say Capitol no longer on lockdown
—
Update: Several Injured
Via: Reuters:
The U.S. Capitol was in lockdown on Thursday after gunshots were fired outside the building, injuring several people including a law enforcement officer, a Senate aide and a Capitol police officer said.
—
Update: U.S. Capital — Shelter in Place
Via: TPM:
The U.S. Capitol was placed under lockdown on Thursday following reports of a possible shooting outside the west front of the building, the Associated Press reported.
Capitol Police sent out the following notice to all Hill staff:
SHELTER IN PLACE. Gunshots have been reported on Capitol Hill requiring all occupants in all House Office Buildings to shelter in place. Close, lock and stay away from external doors and windows. Take annunciators, Go Kits and escape hoods; and move to the innermost part of the office away from external doors or windows. If you are not in your office, take shelter in the nearest office, check in with your OEC and wait for USCP to clear the incident. No one will be permitted to enter or exit the building until directed by USCP. All staff should monitor the situation. Further information will be provided as it becomes available.
—
Via: AP:
US Capitol Police: Capitol in lockdown; reports of gunshots and injured Capitol police officer.
Another Staged UFO Crash for British Schoolchildren
October 3rd, 2013[???]
Via: York Press:
PUPILS arriving at a York primary school today had a close encounter – when they found an alien craft crash-landed in their playground.
Youngsters starting their day at Clifton with Rawcliffe school this morning were met by police tape, a NASA investigation unit and a small silver craft billowing smoke and resting on the grass opposite the main entrance to the school.
The scenes were part of an elaborate stunt arranged as part of a day-long exercise to test the youngsters’ investigative skills and to fuel their imaginations as part of a school-wide topic looking at space, said head teacher Chris Wigley.
The craft itself was made by three teaching assistants and the production also involved local police, The Press coming along to investigate and report on the ‘crash’ and a BBC cameraman in the shape of BBC Look North presenter Phil Bodmer, whose son attends the school.
And Another: UFO Crashes Into North Harringay Primary School Playground
TellSpec
October 3rd, 2013Via: TellSpec:
We are raising funds for the development and manufacture of TellSpec, the world’s first reliable and accurate handheld device that scans and analyzes the composition of food so consumers know the real ingredients before they buy or eat the food. TellSpec brings together laser spectroscopy and a unique mathematical algorithm in a revolutionary system that can analyze the chemical composition of any food. This system consists of a convenient handheld wireless scanner communicating with a fast cloud analysis engine. These work together to gather the spectrum of your food, analyze that spectrum, and display information about the food in an easy-to-understand interface on your smart phone.
Ibragim Todashev’s Girlfriend Held in Solitary
October 3rd, 2013Via: Salon:
Ibragim Todashev, the Chechnyan immigrant who was believed to have connections to the Boston Marathon bombings, was shot dead under questionable circumstances during an interview with an FBI agent earlier this year. Now, his girlfriend is being held in solitary confinement in a Florida prison and according to reports has been told she may be deported for talking to the press.
Boston Magazine reported:
In a collect call from Glades County Jail, where she said she is being held in solitary confinement, Tatiana Gruzdeva said that immigration officers told her she was being deported because of her interviews with Boston magazine.
The Glades County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Gruzdeva is being held in the county jail.
Millions of Poor Are Left Uncovered by Health Law
October 3rd, 2013Via: New York Times:
A sweeping national effort to extend health coverage to millions of Americans will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help, according to an analysis of census data by The New York Times.
Because they live in states largely controlled by Republicans that have declined to participate in a vast expansion of Medicaid, the medical insurance program for the poor, they are among the eight million Americans who are impoverished, uninsured and ineligible for help. The federal government will pay for the expansion through 2016 and no less than 90 percent of costs in later years.
Those excluded will be stranded without insurance, stuck between people with slightly higher incomes who will qualify for federal subsidies on the new health exchanges that went live this week, and those who are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid in its current form, which has income ceilings as low as $11 a day in some states.
People shopping for insurance on the health exchanges are already discovering this bitter twist.
Research Credit: ottilie
New Baby Smell
October 3rd, 2013haha. Becky and I thought that we were just imaging this.
Via: New York Times:
Nature provides plenty of reasons for parents to adore their newborns. The giant eyes, the adorable coos, the flawless skin.
But in the days following the birth of my son in May, it was his fresh, slightly sweet and immensely satisfying scent that did me in. At all hours of the morning, I would take long, greedy sniffs as I cradled him in the dark. I’ve already forgotten the sleep I lost, but I don’t think I will ever forget that smell.
But what, exactly, was I smelling?
It’s a question that proved surprisingly hard to answer. And there is a sizable group out there, a Web search revealed, who insist that new baby smell is merely a myth, the lingering effect of scented wipes or an olfactory hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation. I couldn’t buy that.
Now a study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology confirms my beliefs, suggesting that baby smell is not only real, but acts as a kind of sensory compensation for mothers.
Researchers asked 30 women — 15 who had recently given birth, and 15 who had never given birth — to identify mystery scents while their brain activity was monitored. When given the smell of newborns taken from pajamas, the women all showed activity in the same dopamine pathways that light up after ingesting cocaine, enjoying food, or other reward-inducing behavior.
The reactions were observed in all the women, though they were stronger in the new mothers.
