FTC Releases Redacted Google Privacy Report
October 5th, 2012Via: The Security Ledger:
Google could tell you about its privacy practices except, well….they’re private. That’s the conclusion privacy advocates are drawing after the Federal Trade Commission took a black marker to an independent audit of the company’s privacy practices before releasing it to the group EPIC in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
SOME CALIFORNIA GAS STATIONS SHUT AS OIL REFINERS RATION SUPPLIES
October 5th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
Gasoline station owners in the Los Angeles area including Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) are beginning to shut pumps as the state’s oil refiners started rationing supplies and spot prices surged to a record.
Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) stopped selling gasoline on the spot, or wholesale, market in Southern California and is allocating deliveries to customers. Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) is also rationing fuel to U.S. West Coast terminal customers. Costco’s outlet in Simi Valley, 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles, ran out of regular gasoline yesterday and was selling premium fuel at the price of regular.
Update: Up As Much As 20 Cents a Gallon in Some Areas
Valero: Suspending Gasoline Sales in California Spot Markets
October 5th, 2012Via: NASDAQ:
Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) said Thursday it temporarily stopped selling gasoline in California’s wholesale market as a string of refinery outages resulted in a regional gasoline shortage.
Analysts fear the scramble for the motor fuel will send prices in the state close to $5 a gallon and force some gas stations to close.
The lack of gasoline has pushed California’s wholesale, or spot, prices of $4.10 a gallon Thursday, a 39% increase from Aug. 6, the day an explosion shut down Chevron Corp.’s (CVX) 245,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Richmond. Those prices don’t include taxes, transportation and other fees, which typically add another 70 cents or more before the gas reaches the pump.
Valero said it will met its current contracts to supply gasoline, but won’t sell into the spot market. But spokesman Bill Day said resumption of spot sales “will depend on markets and inventories.”
Coast Guard Investigating Oil Sheen at BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Site
October 5th, 2012Via: Times Picayune:
The U.S. Coast Guard is investigating an oily sheen spotted in the Gulf of Mexico last month near the site of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill 40 miles south of the Mississippi River, a spokesman said Wednesday. Samples of the sheen taken near the site of the failed BP Macondo oil well have been sent to the service’s Marine Safety Lab in Groton, Conn., to determine whether the oil is from the BP spill, said Lt. Commander Michael Wolfe.
The CIA and Jeff Bezos Bet on Quantum Computing
October 5th, 2012Via: MIT Technology Review:
Inside a blocky building in a Vancouver suburb, across the street from a dowdy McDonald’s, is a place chilled colder than anywhere in the known universe. Inside that is a computer processor that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the CIA’s investment arm, In-Q-Tel, believe can tap the quirks of quantum mechanics to unleash more computing power than any conventional computer chip. Bezos and In-Q-Tel are in a group of investors who are betting $30 million on this prospect.
California Cities in Fiscal Trouble ‘Conga Line’
October 4th, 2012Via: CNBC:
Vallejo started it.
Then came Stockton. Mammoth Lakes. San Bernardino. Which California city will go bankrupt next?
“There’s a lot of them lined up in the conga line,” said Marilyn Cohen, CEO of Envision Capital Management.
Up next could be the city of Atwater, where civic leaders will vote Wednesday night on declaring a fiscal emergency. They may even lay off a quarter of the town’s 90-person workforce.
Britain: National ‘Virtual ID Card’ Scheme
October 4th, 2012Via: Independent:
The Government will announce details this month of a controversial national identity scheme which will allow people to use their mobile phones and social media profiles as official identification documents for accessing public services.
People wishing to apply for services ranging from tax credits to fishing licences and passports will be asked to choose from a list of familiar online log-ins, including those they already use on social media sites, banks, and large retailers such as supermarkets, to prove their identity.
Once they have logged in correctly by computer or mobile phone, the site will send a message to the government agency authenticating that user’s identity.
The Cabinet Office is understood to have held discussions with the Post Office, high street banks, mobile phone companies and technology giants ranging from Facebook and Microsoft to Google, PayPal and BT.
We’ve Already Passed the Tipping Point for Orbital Debris
October 4th, 2012Via: IEEE:
Since the dawn of the space age, more than 20 000 objects larger than a softball have accumulated in Earth’s orbit. About 1000 of those objects are spacecraft that carry active payloads, serving many valuable missions for mankind. But the rest could best be called junk, the by-product of thousands of launches and routine spacecraft deployments, nearly 200 explosions, and several collisions. And this junk poses a serious problem.
Many years ago, early orbital debris researchers predicted that parts of Earth’s orbit could eventually become so crowded that accidental collisions would fuel a self-reinforcing boom in the hazardous debris population—even if we put a stop to future launches.
That runaway debris generation scenario, often called the Kessler syndrome, may seem far off. But in fact, the sheer density of derelict objects in orbit has already exceeded what many consider to be the mathematical point of no return.
‘The Last Pictures’
October 3rd, 2012Via: Computerworld:
The problem: You want to send images into space and you want them to last 5 billion years. The solution: A gold-plated disc.
That’s the idea behind The Last Pictures project, which is scheduled to blast off in the next few months.
The project involves attaching a silicon disc encased in gold to the outside of a communications satellite. The disc will include just 100 etched photos, which are meant to be a cultural artifact for aliens to find if mankind is no longer here when they come knocking.
The disc, designed by researchers at MIT and Carleton College, is filled with images chosen by artist Trevor Paglen and a team he put together, who are working with the nonprofit arts organization Creative Time and the media and satellite company EchoStar.
More: The Last Pictures
Historical Cell Phone Location Data: No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy, According to U.S. Government
October 3rd, 2012Via: Computerworld:
Individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy in historical cell phone location data collected and maintained by phone companies, a federal prosecutor said in oral arguments Monday before a three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
The court is reviewing an appeal from the U.S government in a case pertaining to the government’s authority to collect historical cell phone location data from a phone company without obtaining a formal search warrant first.
Federal prosecutors in the case have maintained that the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 allows them to use a relatively easy-to-obtain court order, called 2703 (d), to force a cellphone company to turn over historical cell-site location information on specific subscribers.
