British Police Use Alternating Current Frequency Fluctuations to Authenticate Audio Recordings
December 12th, 2012Via: BBC:
For the last seven years, at the Metropolitan Police forensic lab in south London, audio specialists have been continuously recording the sound of mains electricity.
It is an all pervasive hum that we normally cannot hear. But boost it a little, and a metallic and not very pleasant buzz fills the air.
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“The power is sent out over the national grid to factories, shops and of course our homes. Normally this frequency, known as the mains frequency, is about 50Hz,” explains Dr Alan Cooper, a senior digital forensic practitioner at the Met Police.
Any digital recording made anywhere near an electrical power source, be it plug socket, light or pylon, will pick up this noise and it will be embedded throughout the audio.
This buzz is an annoyance for sound engineers trying to make the highest quality recordings. But for forensic experts, it has turned out to be an invaluable tool in the fight against crime.
While the frequency of the electricity supplied by the national grid is about 50Hz, if you look at it over time, you can see minute fluctuations.
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Comparing the unique pattern of the frequencies on an audio recording with a database that has been logging these changes for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year provides a digital watermark: a date and time stamp on the recording.
Philip Harrison, from JP French Associates, another forensic audio laboratory that has been logging the hum for several years, says: “Even if [the hum] is picked up at a very low level that you cannot hear, we can extract this information.”
It is a technique known as Electric Network Frequency (ENF) analysis, and it is helping forensic scientists to separate genuine, unedited recordings from those that have been tampered with.
U.S. Air Force X-37B Returns to Orbit
December 12th, 2012Via: NBC:
An Atlas 5 rocket sent the Air Force’s X-37B mini-shuttle on its first repeat flight on Tuesday, kicking off a months-long classified mission reportedly aimed at testing advanced spy satellite sensors.
More Fed Pumping
December 12th, 2012Who needs the Chinese to buy this stuff? Not the Fed.
Via: Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve will amplify record accommodation tomorrow by announcing $45 billion in monthly Treasury buying that will push its balance sheet almost to $4 trillion, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.
Forty-eight of 49 economists predict the Federal Open Market Committee will purchase Treasuries to bolster an existing program to buy $40 billion in mortgage bonds each month. The panel pledged in October to continue that plan until the labor market improves “substantially.”
“It’s going to be massive and open-ended in size,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York and a former New York Fed economist.
U.S. Providing Syrian Rebels with Training on ‘How to Secure Chemical Weapons’
December 12th, 2012Via: CNN:
The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday.
The training, which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.
The nationality of the trainers was not disclosed, though the officials cautioned against assuming all are American.
U.S. Recognizes Syrian Opposition Group
December 12th, 2012The blowback from this one is going to be interesting.
Via: ABC:
In a diplomatic shift, President Obama said today his administration now formally recognizes the newly-formed, leading coalition of Syrian rebels who are fighting to topple Syria’s embattled President Bashar Assad.
“We’ve made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime,” Obama said.
The announcement, made during an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Barbara Walters, grants new legitimacy to the rebel group and marks a new phase in U.S. efforts to isolate the Assad regime.
“It’s a big step,” Obama said of the decision. The United States follows Britain and the European Union, both of which last month recognized the Syrian opposition group.
HSBC Said to Near $1.9 Billion Settlement Over Money Laundering
December 10th, 2012Via: New York Times:
Federal and state authorities plan to announce a record $1.9 billion settlement with HSBC on Tuesday, a major victory in the government’s broad crackdown on money laundering at banks.
The settlement with HSBC stems from accusations that the British banking giant transferred billions of dollars on behalf of sanctioned nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to launder money through the American financial system, according to officials briefed on the matter. The deal, which will force the bank to forfeit more than $1.2 billion in ill-gotten gains and pay additional penalties, is the largest to emerge from an investigation that has spanned several years and involved multiple government agencies.
The settlement on Tuesday is expected to include a deal with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, according the officials. The Treasury Department is also expected to join the settlement.
Public Buses Across Country Quietly Adding Microphones to Record Passenger Conversations
December 10th, 2012Via: Wired:
Transit authorities in cities across the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations, according to documents obtained by a news outlet.
Eurozone Crisis Has Pushed Millions Into Poverty
December 10th, 2012Via: AFP:
Crushed by an austerity squeeze and towering unemployment, millions of Europeans joined the ranks of the newly poor in 2012 in a crisis that showed no mercy for the old, women or children.
An arc of misery spread pitilessly across southern Europe’s middle classes, engulfing bailed-out nations Greece and Portugal and tottering heavyweights such as the eurozone’s number four economy, Spain, and number three, Italy.
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Spain is displaying all the signs of a major social crisis, with one in four workers unemployed, an unprecedented austerity squeeze by the state, cuts to education and healthcare, and thousands of indebted families thrown out of their homes and into the streets.
Egypt’s Army Given Power to Arrest Civilians
December 10th, 2012Via: AFP:
President Mohamed Morsi has ordered Egypt’s army from Monday to take on police powers — including the right to arrest civilians — in the run-up to a divisive constitutional referendum that has triggered mass street protests.
The decree, published in the government gazette, takes effect on the eve of mass rival protests on the referendum and follows street clashes that have left seven people dead and hundreds injured.
It orders the military to fully cooperate with police “to preserve security and protect vital state institutions for a temporary period, up to the announce of the results from the referendum,” according to a copy obtained by AFP.
Over 1 Million Americans Enter Poverty In Last Two Months
December 10th, 2012Via: ZeroHedge:
And we thought last month’s delayed foodstamp data was bad. The just reported foodstamp number for September was a doozy, with 607,544 new Americans becoming eligible for foodstamps, as a record 47.7 million Americans are now living in poverty at least according to the USDA. The monthly increase was the highest since May 2011, and with August’s 421K new impoverished America, over 1 million Americans made the EBT card their new best friend.
