Kerry Announces More Support for Syrian Rebels
February 28th, 2013Here’s an excerpt from a previous post on this claim of not supplying weapons:
If you want to read detailed, voluminous accounts of how the U.S. covertly and illegally provides weapons to any state or group it pleases, see, Spider’s Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq by Alan Friedman and, Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed.
Too long; didn’t read: CIA cutouts and contractors, international arms dealers, transshipping.
Via: BBC:
The US is to step up its support for the Syrian opposition as it fights to topple President Bashar al-Assad, Secretary of State John Kerry says.
Mr Kerry said the US would provide direct support to rebel forces in the form of medical and food supplies.
He also promised an additional $60m (£40m) in aid to the opposition to help it deliver basic governance and other services in rebel-controlled areas.
Mr Kerry was speaking at a gathering of the Friends of Syria group in Rome.
‘Out of time’
The promise of direct, non-lethal aid to the rebels represents a shift in US policy on Syria, correspondents say.
However it falls short of providing the weapons and munitions that the rebels say they need to defeat government forces.
ViaMat to Stop Vaulting Gold Outside of the U.S. for Americans
February 28th, 2013Via: Wall Street Journal:
The Swiss-based company said it will no longer offer to store gold outside of the U.S. to private clients with potential U.S. tax liability, starting from the middle of 2013. The company attributed the decision to regulatory changes without specifying exactly what regulations led to the decision.
More: Privacy at Risk: Global Gold Storage Firms Get Rid of US Citizens
Research Credit: JJ
MIT: Eulerian Video Magnification
February 28th, 2013Update: Upload Your Own Videos
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September 11 Television Archive
= ???
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I’d like to feed some of the 9/11 footage through this.
Via: MIT News:
At this summer’s Siggraph — the premier computer-graphics conference — researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) will present new software that amplifies variations in successive frames of video that are imperceptible to the naked eye. So, for instance, the software makes it possible to actually “see” someone’s pulse, as the skin reddens and pales with the flow of blood, and it can exaggerate tiny motions, making visible the vibrations of individual guitar strings or the breathing of a swaddled infant in a neonatal intensive care unit.
Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry
February 28th, 2013It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that this amounts to a “nothing-to-see-here” assessment of what is happening.
Consider what William Binney and Mark Klein have said and written, and what NSA is building, and then tell me if you believe that only three dozen people have access to the domestic intercepts. Come on. Get real.
This RAGTIME compartment, that Ambinder and Grady are describing in Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry, probably exists specifically as a limited hangout for oversight purposes, and as chum for journalists.
Yes friends, the whole thing has been, “Brought under law.” Well, that’s comforting.
Using Amazon’s Search Inside This Book feature, I typed in Binney. Zero results. Then I searched for Klein. Zero results. So, the two men mainly responsible for exposing what NSA is doing, with regard to massive, indiscriminate domestic intercepts, aren’t mentioned at all.
Via: Washingtonian:
Ragtime, which appears in official reports by the abbreviation RT, consists of four parts.
Ragtime-A involves US-based interception of all foreign-to-foreign counterterrorism-related data;
Ragtime-B deals with data from foreign governments that transits through the US;
Ragtime-C deals with counterproliferation actvities;
and then there’s Ragtime-P, which will probably be of greatest interest to those who continue to demand more information from the NSA about what it does in the United States.
P stands for Patriot Act. Ragtime-P is the remnant of the original President’s Surveillance Program, the name given to so-called “warrantless wiretapping” activities after 9/11, in which one end of a phone call or an e-mail terminated inside the United States. That collection has since been brought under law, but civil liberties groups, journalists, and legal scholars continue to seek more information about what it entailed, who was targeted, and what authorities exist today for domestic intelligence-gathering.
3-D Printed Car
February 27th, 2013Via: Wired:
Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.
If Jim Kor’s dream is realized, that’s exactly how the next generation of urban runabouts will be produced. His creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo.
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions in February
February 27th, 2013Thank you very much.
Pookie $75
EO $30
MW $35
SH AU$10
Eileen $75
January Earnings
February 27th, 2013Total earnings in January came to $1621.01. Thanks very much to everyone who sent funds and/or conducted business via Cryptogon’s affiliate links. We appreciate it very much.
We’ve had to buy a new-for-us (used) car, so that’s a really fast way to wipe out a large chunk of savings. I wanted to get a Toyota Hiace with a cargo floor and benches (if you have or have had young boys, you would understand the desirability of this), but the prices for those vehicles are hair-on-fire insane. The used ones in our price range had done 300000km, 400000km, 500000km. haha. No thanks.
The Nissan Lafesta (nope, it’s not La Fiesta) has to be the best kept secret in used Japanese market imports in New Zealand. I bought one from some flipflop wearing Russians and a really rough looking Kiwi guy. Despite appearances and paranoia, it’s all legit and the vehicle goes really well, although the air conditioning only works intermittently… Anyway… There’s a bit more as to why we needed to do this, which I’ll leave for another time. Long story short, thanks for making it possible for us to get this car.
Advanced Persistent Threats Subverting Encryption Systems
February 27th, 2013The fact that the underlying systems represent weaker links than the encryption schemes has been there since the beginning. However, with states and other organizations allocating increasing resources to offensive information warfare, these weak links are increasingly being exploited to do end runs around otherwise strong encryption.
Via: ThreatPost:
In the current climate of continuous attacks and intrusions by APT crews, government-sponsored groups and others organizations, cryptography is becoming less and less important and defenders need to start thinking about new ways to protect data on systems that they assume are compromised, one of the fathers of public-key cryptography said Tuesday. Adi Shamir, who helped design the original RSA algorithm, said that security experts should be preparing for a “post-cryptography” world.
“I definitely believe that cryptography is becoming less important. In effect, even the most secure computer systems in the most isolated locations have been penetrated over the last couple of years by a series of APTs and other advanced attacks,” Shamir, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said during the Cryptographers’ Panel session at the RSA Conference here today.
“We should rethink how we protect ourselves. Traditionally we have thought about two lines of defense. The first was to prevent the insertion of the APT with antivirus and other defenses. The second was to detect the activity of the APT once it’s there. But recent history has shown us that the APT can survive both of these defenses and operate for several years.”
Britain: Man Refuses to Pay for TV License Because BBC Covered Up Facts About 9/11
February 26th, 2013Via: Daily Mail:
A 49-year-old man refused to pay his TV licence because he believed the BBC covered up facts about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Tony Rooke, who represented himself today at Horsham Magistrates’ Court in West Sussex, said he did not want to give money to an organisation ‘funding the practice of terrorism’.
Rooke, who admitted owning a TV and watching it without a licence, was found guilty of using an unlicensed set, given a six-month conditional discharge and told to pay £200 costs.
He was visited in May 2012 by an inspector after withdrawing his licence in March, but said he was withholding the funds under the Terrorism Act.
Section 15 of the 2000 Act states that it is an offence for someone to invite another to provide money, intending that it should be used, or having reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used, for terrorism purposes.
‘I am withholding all funds from the BBC, the Government and subsidiaries under Section 15 of the Terrorism Act,’ he told the inspector.
He added that he had already lodged a complaint with the BBC.
Rooke told the court: ‘I believe the BBC, who are directly funded by the licence fee, are furthering the purposes of terrorism and I have incontrovertible evidence to this effect. I do not use this word lightly given where I am.’
He was not allowed to show his pre-prepared video evidence in court because the District Judge said it was not relevant to the trial.
Palestinian Prisoner Was Tortured Before Dying in Israeli Jail
February 26th, 2013Via: Guardian:
A Palestinian prisoner whose death in Israeli custody fanned violent clashes across the West Bank over the weekend was tortured before he died, the Palestinian Authority has said.
The results of an autopsy conducted in Tel Aviv were revealed at a press conference in Ramallah on Sunday evening after a day of angry protests across the West Bank and Gaza in which dozens were injured.
The findings contradict the Israeli prison service’s claim that Arafat Jaradat died on Saturday from a cardiac arrest.
A Palestinian doctor’s investigations found that while Jaradat’s arteries were clear, the state of his body suggested he had been beaten in the days before his death.
That contrasts with an Israeli health ministry statement that said that the autopsy found “no signs of external trauma … apart from those pertaining to resuscitation [attempts] and a small graze on the right side of his chest”.
It said: “No evidence of disease was found during the autopsy. Two internal hemorrhages were detected, one on the shoulder and one on the right side of the chest. Two ribs were broken, which may indicate resuscitation attempts. The initial findings cannot determine the cause of death. At this stage, until microscopic and toxicology reports are in, the cause of death cannot be tied to the autopsy findings.”
The 30-year-old, a petrol station worker and father of two, was arrested on 18 February in relation to a stone-throwing incident in November during which an Israeli was slightly injured.
