Department of Homeland Security: Special Response Team
April 13th, 2012The vehicles are right out of Team America: World Police.
Via: HongPong:
A relatively monstrous SWAT style truck leads us to a whole new blob of police state developments, busy hands with little to do and a lot of hardware to do it.
London Data Center Readies Staff ‘Sleeping Pods’ for Olympics
April 12th, 2012So now it’s sleeping capsules in data centers.
Wow.
You may or may not know what a data canter sounds like. If not, here’s a one minute introduction.
Hopefully, those cozy sleeping capsules come with hearing protection.
I wonder what IT people will be willing to tolerate in another six years?
Via: Data Center Knowledge:
For data centers, uptime is mandatory, even if the buses and trains aren’t running on time. That’s an issue on the minds of data center in operators in London, which may see its transit system tested by the huge crowds expected for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The data center team at Interxion has come up with a solution that will ensure that its London tech staff can be on site to keep things running smoothly throughout the Games.
Interxion today unveiled “sleeping pods” at its London data center campus, allowing staff to sleep amongst the racks to ensure that the facility will be fully staffed throughout the Games. allowing engineering staff to stay on site 24/7 should congestion on the travel and road networks become too severe, making it difficult for critical staff to travel to and from the site in a timely fashion.
Huddles: Goldman to Pay $22 Million to Settle SEC, FINRA Charges
April 12th, 2012Via: Reuters:
The case stems from a practice at Goldman that came to light several years ago known as “huddles,” where stock research analysts met with the firm’s traders to share their best trading ideas. Those ideas were then passed along to preferred clients.
End of Windows XP Support Era Signals Beginning of Security Nightmare
April 12th, 2012I’m one of the large but dwindling number of XP holdouts, but the clock is definitely ticking down. I’ve been using Windows 7 on other computers and find it to be pretty much ok, so I’ll probably go to that when I have to.
What are you other XP users going to do?
Via: Network World:
Microsoft’s recent announcement that it will end support for the Windows XP operating system in two years signals the end of an era for the company, and potentially the beginning of a nightmare for everyone else.
When Microsoft cuts the cord on XP in two years it will effectively leave millions of existing Windows-based computers vulnerable to continued and undeterred cyberattacks, many of which hold the potential to find their way into consumer, enterprise and even industrial systems running the latest software.
Jason Miller, manager of research and development at VMware, says the introduction of Windows XP “was the hey-dey of buying computers,” with markets having become familiar with Windows 95 or 98 and manufacturers like Dell releasing affordable options. With such an influx of new users, it comes as no surprise that Windows XP remains one of the most common operating systems despite the introduction of two entirely new versions in the decade since it hit shelves. In fact, March 2012 statistics from NetMarketShare.com show XP in the lead for operating system market share, at 43.09%.
It’s The Tat That Brings Kids Back!®
April 12th, 2012Via: SafetyTat:
It can happen anywhere—at an amusement park, zoo, school field trip, or even your local shopping mall. Your attention shifts for a moment, and suddenly your child or loved one has wandered out of sight.
So put the odds in your favor for a safe return, with SafetyTat. Invented by a Baltimore Mom of three kids, SafetyTat is a fun and colorful temporary safety child ID tattoo that’s uniquely offered either customized with your mobile phone number or blank so you can write in your cell phone number on them. When applied to the arm of your child or loved one, SafetyTat provides an immediate, highly visible form of child identification that stays in place even when wet!
SafetyTat—it’s the perfect way to show how much you care, just in case. It’s The Tat That Brings Kids Back!®
Research Credit: Slartibardfast
‘Proposed ‘Natural Health Products Bill’ in New Zealand Would Fine Individuals $50,000 for Making a Cup of Unapproved Herbal Tea’
April 12th, 2012I tried to determine if one could theoretically wind up on the wrong side of this thing for producing, for example, one’s own chamomile tea.
The following is from Natural Health Products Bill 324-1:
Manufacture of natural health products
28 Licence to manufacture natural health products
(1) A person must not manufacture a natural health product without
a licence to manufacture granted under section 29.
(2) The following persons are exempt from subsection (1): 25
(a) any exporter of a natural health product who is not also
seeking an export certificate for the product; and
(b) any health practitioner who makes a natural health product
to be administered to a particular person after being
requested by or on behalf of that person to use the prac- 30
titioner’s own judgement as to the treatment required.
29 Application for licence to manufacture
(1) An application for a licence to manufacture natural health
products must be made to the Authority in the prescribed
manner.
Boiled down, it looks like this: “A person must not manufacture a natural health product without a licence.” The exemptions to this are some exporters and health practitioners. That’s it. I see nothing about exemptions for personal use.
So, hmm.
I suppose it depends on what the government means by the word, “manufacture.” Maybe there’s a lawyer in New Zealand who could let us know what the word manufacture means in this context.
The grim reality that the government is seeking to regulate just about anything it wants as a natural health product, requiring licenses, databases, mandatory inspections, and imposing fines, jail sentences, etc., etc. on those who don’t comply, is a different matter.
First things first: Can someone, in theory, wind up facing a NZ$50,000 fine for making their own chamomile tea?
The fact that the question has to be asked at all is just another indication that New Zealand is doomed.
Via: Natural News:
If passed, NHPB will combine with the equally-threatening New Zealand Food Bill (http://www.naturalnews.com) to make it essentially illegal for individuals to even prepare for themselves, let alone try to sell, herbal products and teas, vitamins and supplements, or any other natural products that are not explicitly approved by the government as acceptable.
Overturning the common law principles of freedom that have triumphed in New Zealand for centuries, Bill 324-1 will require that all herbal remedies, traditional treatments, homeopathic remedies and dietary supplements first be approved — and very strictly regulated — by the government before being allowed to be sold or even prepared for one’s own personal use.
“The system will, for the first time in New Zealand, introduce risk-based regulation of natural health products,” says Bill 324-1. In simple terms, this means that natural herbs, vitamins, minerals, and all other nutrients used to promote health and prevent disease will be subject to the same corrupt regulatory approval process that pharmaceutical drugs are, which will in turn make it difficult or even impossible for New Zealanders to access many of these products in the future.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
Royal Canadian Mint to Create Digital Currency
April 12th, 2012It’ll be anonymous, will it?
So people will be using smartphones, which amount to the most awesome goddamned deployment of mass surveillance technologies in history, to anonymously buy and sell things?
Don’t look at me. I just work here.
Via: TheStar:
The Royal Canadian Mint wants to get rid of pocket change — and it’s enlisting hacker-types for help.
Less than a week after the government announced the penny’s impending death, the Mint quietly unveiled its digital currency called MintChip.
Still in the research and development phase, MintChip will ultimately let people pay each other directly using smartphones, USB sticks, computers, tablets and clouds. The digital currency will be anonymous and good for small transactions — just like cash, the Mint says.
To make sure its technology meets the gold standard in a world where digital transactions are gaining steam, the Mint is holding a contest for software developers to create applications using the MintChip.
The old-fashioned prize? Solid gold wafers and coins worth about $50,000.
It’s such an unusual move from the crown corporation, which has been in the coin-making business for more than 100 years, that Hacker News questioned whether it was an “elaborate hoax.”
It’s not, the Mint’s chief financial officer Marc Brûlé said Tuesday.
Commerce is changing and the Mint has always been innovative, Brûlé said. (For instance, it did an initial public offering of exchange traded receipts of its gold holdings last year.)
“There’s been a very huge growing digital economy that is really going to be fueled by smartphones and mobile being the next big thing,” he said.
Despite the variety of payment options, he said there are “still no cost effective electronic solutions” for low value transactions that can be used regardless of a person’s age or credit standing.
Oh Sure: ‘This Internet Provider Pledges to Put Your Privacy First. Always.’
April 12th, 2012Alternate headline: Supposedly Privacy Focused ISP Has Former NSA Technical Director on Advisory Board.
Via: Cnet:
Step aside, AT&T and Verizon. A new privacy-protecting Internet service and telephone provider still in the planning stages could become the ACLU’s dream and the FBI’s worst nightmare.
Nicholas Merrill is planning to revolutionize online privacy with a concept as simple as it is ingenious: a telecommunications provider designed from its inception to shield its customers from surveillance.
Merrill, 39, who previously ran a New York-based Internet provider, told CNET that he’s raising funds to launch a national “non-profit telecommunications provider dedicated to privacy, using ubiquitous encryption” that will sell mobile phone service and, for as little as $20 a month, Internet connectivity.
The ISP would not merely employ every technological means at its disposal, including encryption and limited logging, to protect its customers. It would also — and in practice this is likely more important — challenge government surveillance demands of dubious legality or constitutionality.
Tobacco Farmers Claim Monsanto, Philip Morris and Other U.S. Tobacco Giants Knowingly Poisoned Them, Causing “Devastating Birth Defects” in Their Children
April 11th, 2012Via: Courthouse News Service:
Monsanto, Philip Morris and other U.S. tobacco giants knowingly poisoned Argentinean tobacco farmers with pesticides, causing “devastating birth defects” in their children, dozens of workers claim in court.
The farmers, on their own behalf and for their injured children, sued Altria Group fka Philip Morris Cos., Philip Morris USA, Carolina Leaf Tobacco, Universal Corporation fka Universal Leaf Tobacco Company, Monsanto, and their affiliates and Argentine subsidiaries, in New Castle County Court.
The farmers grow tobacco on small family-owned farms in Misiones Province and sell it to U.S. tobacco distributors. Most of Argentina’s tobacco is grown in Misiones, a rural northeastern province.
The farmers claim the tobacco companies asked them to use herbicides, pesticides and other toxic products made and distributed by Monsanto, and assured them the products were safe.
They say the defendants “wrongfully caused the parental and infant plaintiffs to be exposed to those chemicals and substances which they both knew, or should have known, would cause the infant offspring of the parental plaintiffs to be born with devastating birth defects.”
Birth defects cited in the 55-page complaint include cerebral palsy, psychomotor retardation, epilepsy, spina bifida, intellectual disabilities, metabolic disorders, congenital heart defects, Down syndrome, missing fingers and blindness.
The farmers claim Philip Morris and Carolina Leaf used a tobacco brokerage company, Tabacos Norte, to buy tobacco from the farmers and sell them crop production supplies, including herbicides and pesticides.
Tabacos Norte, based in Misiones, was created by Carolina Leaf and Philip Morris’ Argentine subsidiary in 1984, to produce tobacco fit for the North and South American markets, according to the complaint.
The farmers say the tobacco companies that bought their crops asked them to replace the native tobacco with a new type, used in Philip Morris cigarettes, which required more pesticides.
They say the defendants pushed for excessive use of pesticides and failed to warn them of the dangers or provide them with information or protective gear.
U.S. Sues Apple, Large Publishers Over Ebook Price Fixing Scheme
April 11th, 2012Via: Reuters:
The Justice Department accused Apple Inc and five major publishers of conspiring to push up the prices of e-books and limit retail price competition.
The conspiracy has caused e-book consumers to pay “tens of millions of dollars more for e-books than they otherwise would have paid,” the Justice Department said in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
The department alleged that Apple and the publishers had a common interest in fighting Amazon.Com Inc’s practice of selling e-books for as little as $9.99, and decided to work together to raise prices.
Three of the publishers – News Corp’s HarperCollins Publishers Inc, CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster Inc and Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group – agreed to settle with the Justice Department. The settlement terms were not immediately disclosed.
“To effectuate their conspiracy, the publisher defendants teamed up with defendant Apple, which shared the same goal of restraining retail price competition in the sale of e-books,” the Justice Department complaint said.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.
