‘The Pentagon hopes to sniff out who has fallen prey to dangerous ideas’
October 18th, 2011Via: Wired:
Mark Twain once tried to distinguish between the storyteller’s art and tales that a machine could generate. He observed that stringing “incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities,” was the province of the American storyteller. A machine might imitate simple formulas behind yarns, but never quite master them.
The Pentagon’s freewheeling research arm is hoping to prove Twain wrong. Darpa is asking scientists to “take narratives and make them quantitatively analyzable in a rigorous, transparent and repeatable fashion.” The idea is to detect terrorists who have been indoctrinated by propaganda. Then, the Pentagon can respond with some messages of its own.
The program is called “Narrative Networks.” By understanding how stories have shaped your mind, the Pentagon hopes to sniff out who has fallen prey to dangerous ideas, a neuroscience researcher involved in the project tells Danger Room. With this knowledge, the military can also target groups vulnerable to terrorists’ recruiting tactics with its own counter-messaging.
“Stories are important in security contexts,” Darpa said in an Oct. 7 solicitation for research proposals. Stories “change the course of insurgencies, frame negotiations, play a role in political radicalization, influence the methods and goals of violent social movements.” The desire to study narratives has been simmering for a while in the Defense Department. A Darpa workshop in April to discuss the “neurobiology of narratives” added momentum to this project.
In the first 18-month phase of the program, the Pentagon wants researchers to study how stories infiltrate social networks and alter our brain circuits. One of the stipulated research goals: to “explore the function narratives serve in the process of political radicalization and how they can influence a person or group’s choice of means (such as indiscriminant violence) to achieve political ends.”
U.S. Troops Will Soon Get Tiny Kamikaze Drone
October 18th, 2011Via: Wired:
AeroVironment calls its teeny-tiny killer drone the Switchblade. Essentially a guided missile small enough to fit in a backback and fire at a single foe…
Quantum Locking
October 18th, 2011Via: YouTube:
Spain: Catholic Church Child Trafficking Network
October 18th, 2011Via: BBC:
Spain is reeling from an avalanche of allegations of baby theft and baby trafficking. The trade began at the end of the Spanish civil war and continued for 50 years – hundreds of thousands of babies are thought to have been traded by nuns, priests and doctors up to the 1990s. This World reveals the impact of Spain’s stolen baby scandal through the eyes of the children and parents who were separated at birth, and who are now desperate to find their relatives.
Exhumations of the supposed graves of babies and positive DNA tests are proof that baby theft has happened. Across Spain, people are queuing up to take a DNA test and thousands of Spaniards are asking ‘Who am I?’
Katya Adler has been meeting the heartbroken mothers who are searching for the children whom they were told died at birth, as well as the stolen and trafficked babies who are now grown up and searching for their biological relatives and their true identities.
Organic Farming vs. Conventional Farming: Results of a 30 Year Study
October 17th, 2011Via: Rodale Institute:
Organic yields match conventional yields.
Organic outperforms conventional in years of drought.
Organic farming systems build rather than deplete soil organic matter, making it a more sustainable system.
Organic farming uses 45% less energy and is more efficient.
Conventional systems produce 40% more greenhouse gases.
Organic farming systems are more profitable than conventional.
—
The hallmark of a truly sustainable system is its ability to regenerate itself. When it comes to farming, the key to sustainable agriculture is healthy soil, since this is the foundation for present and future growth.
Organic farming is far superior to conventional systems when it comes to building, maintaining and replenishing the health of the soil. For soil health alone, organic agriculture is more sustainable than conventional. When one also considers yields, economic viability, energy usage, and human health, it’s clear that organic farming is sustainable, while current conventional practices are not.
As we face uncertain and extreme weather patterns, growing scarcity and expense of oil, lack of water, and a growing population, we will require farming systems that can adapt, withstand or even mitigate these problems while producing healthy, nourishing food. After 30 years of side-by-side research in our Farming Systems Trial (FST), Rodale Institute has demonstrated that organic farming is better equipped to feed us now and well into the ever changing future.
Research Credit: alvinroast
Facebook Accused of Violating U.S. Wiretap Law
October 17th, 2011I know. You get it re: Facebook already. Ok, one more: Why Facebook Is After Your Kids.
Via: Register:
A Mississippi woman has accused Facebook of violating federal wiretap statutes by tracking her internet browsing history even when she wasn’t logged onto the social networking site.
In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in federal court in the northern district of Mississippi, Brooke Rutledge of Lafayette County, Mississippi, also asserted claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, trespassing, and invasion of privacy.
The complaint, which seeks class-action status so other users can join, comes three weeks after Australian blogger Nik Cubrilovic published evidence that Facebook “Like” buttons scattered across the web allowed Facebook to track users’ browsing habits even when they were signed out of their accounts.
“Leading up to September 23, 2011, Facebook tracked, collected, and stored its users’ wire or electronic communications, including but not limited to portions of their internet browsing history even when the users were not logged-in to Facebook,” the 17-page complaint stated. “Plaintiff did not give consent or otherwise authorize Facebook to intercept, track, collect, and store her wire or electronic communications, including but not limited to her internet browsing history when not logged-in to Facebook.”
Related: Facebook Reportedly Can Track Web Browsing Without Cookies
U.S. Government Refuses FOIA Request to Turn Over ‘Secret’ Interpretation of Patriot Act
October 17th, 2011Via: TechDirt:
We’ve been covering for a while now how Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been very concerned over the secret interpretation the feds have of one piece of the PATRIOT Act. They’ve been trying to pressure the government into publicly explaining how they interpret the law, because they believe that it directly contrasts how most of the public (and many elected officials) believe the feds are interpreting the law. While the two Senators continue to put pressure on the feds and to hint at the feds’ interpretation, just the fact that the government won’t even explain its own interpretation of the law seems ridiculous.
Given all of this, reporter Charlie Savage of the NY Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out the federal government’s interpretation of its own law… and had it refused. According to the federal government, its own interpretation of the law is classified. What sort of democracy are we living in when the government can refuse to even say how it’s interpreting its own law? That’s not democracy at all.
Julian Sanchez points us to the news that Savage and the NY Times have now sued the federal government for not revealing its interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, pointing out that if parts of the interpretation contain classified material, the Justice Department should black that out and reveal the rest, but simply refusing to reveal the interpretation entirely is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. You can bet that the feds will do everything they can to get out of this lawsuit, just as they did with the various lawsuits concerning warrantless wiretapping.
Related:
U.S. Runs Surveillance Operations Based on Secret Interpretations of Patriot Act
The Secret Patriot Act Is Staying Secret
Research Credit: alvinroast
Verizon Wireless Now Handing Over Your Web, Location and App Data to Advertisers by Default
October 17th, 2011Via: PC Magazine:
For the last month, Verizon Wireless has been notifying customers through email of a major change to its default privacy setting: it will begin collecting your Web browsing history, cell phone location and app usage, for third-party marketing purposes.
You can opt out of such surveillance, although Verizon has promised not to share any identifiable information with these third-party companies.
Related: Similar Change for Home Users
Cryptogon Readers Sign Up for Hosting with BlueHost
October 17th, 2011Wow, readers are really going for hosting packages with BlueHost this month. Thanks to the owners of babajj.com, algadelta.com, and sunenergyapps.com for signing up for hosting with BlueHost. Cryptogon received $270 in commissions as a result!
I see that BlueHost is having one of their $3.95/month hosting blowout sales right now. These usually don’t last long, so if you’ve been thinking about setting up a site (or a bunch of them), and earning Cryptogon $90, head over to BlueHost and check out everything you get for $3.95 per month.
I’ve hosted all of my sites (and other people’s sites that I control) on BlueHost since 2005. A few months ago, I noticed that BlueHost started offering a 99.9% uptime guarantee. I quietly wondered to myself if that was actually possible at this price point, with the sort of traffic Cryptogon experiences. I decided to test it using Pingdom with a probe set to a five minute interval. This isn’t a normal ping. The probe actually loads the page and verifies that a specific text string appears.
It’s hard to believe, but there it is: 99.966% as I’m writing this. (The widget above is live, so the current uptime may be higher or lower.)
If you’re wondering if shared hosting is suitable for your small business or your clients’ small businesses, check out Cryptogon’s traffic and keep in mind that this site is dynamic (making continuous use of mysql and loading off site content). In other words, BlueHost likely offers plenty of hosting power for your small business at a fraction of what you’re paying now.
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions in October
October 17th, 2011Thank you.
Pookie $75
Eileen $75
BS $25
Anonymous $56.23
JA $11.11
