Big Picture Gallery: Cleaning Dalian Harbor
August 1st, 2010* shaking head *
Via: Boston Globe – Big Picture:
The oil spill resulting from a pipeline explosion in the port city of Dalian on July 16th is being cleaned up by a small army of fisherman, locals, and government workers manning over 250 oil-skimming vessels and 8,000 fishing boats – much of the work being done by hand. The spill, now contained according to authorities, grew to 430 square kilometers (165 sq mi), but was prevented from fouling international waters. The explosion was due to improper desulfurizer injections into the pipeline, according to a report by Xinhua, China’s state news agency. As workers continue their efforts and watchdog groups like Greenpeace level criticism for what they call an inadequate response to date, Dalian Port has already resumed operations at two of its oil berths, the company said on Sunday.
Terrorism Case Baffles Remote Alaska Town
August 1st, 2010My guess is that the following line is the most useful piece of information in the article:
…this has the air of a poorly written movie.
You visited some site and then you were found with a piece of paper that contained some words.
Ready to plea bargain?
When it’s time for a law enforcement spectacle, this is a simple matter of point and click. The “evidence” against you is archived, indexed and just waiting to be used. Charges? Fill in the blank, as necessary. Maybe you never visited the sites in question or wrote whatever it is that the government finds naughty (assuming, for a moment, that these should be considered crimes in the first place), but fascism is flexible that way.
Via: Los Angeles Times:
This week, Paul and Nadia Rockwood pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Anchorage to one count of willfully making false statements to the FBI; in Paul Rockwood’s case, it was a statement about domestic terrorism.
The plea agreements state that Rockwood, 35, had become an adherent of extremist Islam who had prepared a list of assassination targets, including U.S. service members. And, though no plot to carry out the killings was revealed, he had researched methods of execution, including guns and explosives, the agreements say.
Federal charging papers said his wife, 36, who is five months pregnant with the couple’s second child, lied to investigators when she denied knowing that an envelope she took to Anchorage in April at her husband’s request contained a list of 15 intended targets. (None were in Alaska.) She told FBI agents that she thought the envelope contained a letter or a book. She gave it to an unidentified individual who her husband believed shared his radical beliefs, the FBI said.
Nadia knew exactly what was on the list and what it was for, federal authorities said.
“Obviously we take it very seriously when somebody starts talking about building bombs and component parts and killing citizens because of a hatred that is fueled by violent Internet sites,” said Karen L. Loeffler, U.S. attorney for Alaska.
Loeffler, who would not elaborate on how the FBI became aware of the Rockwoods, said the investigation does not involve any other terrorism suspects, and no additional charges are expected.
Research Credit: ottilie
Essays on Conspiracies by Julian Assange
August 1st, 2010There’s very little here; a vague framework for reducing “conspiratorial power” based on connected graphs. This seems like an introduction to a longer essay.
Via: Cryptome:
CRYPTOME
31 July 2010
These essays on conspiracies by Julian Assange (me@iq.org) were retrieved today from his website iq.org. The first from the currently active site, dated Novermber 10, 2006, and the second at archive.org, dated December 3, 2006.
http://iq.org/conspiracies.pdf
and
http://web.archive.org/web/20070110200827/http://iq.org/conspiracies.pdf
Related: WikiLeaks Founder, Constantly Annoyed that People Are Distracted by False Conspiracies Such as 9/11″
The WikiLeaks “Insurance” File
July 31st, 2010From now on, I’m going to include a standard WikiLeaks disclaimer in the form of a link to a previous post.
—
Is WikiLeaks hanging a Sword of Damocles over elements of the U.S. Government?
Via: Cryptome:
The file, “insurance.aes256,” is ten times the size of the seven other files combined. Appears to be encrypted with AES Crypt. Wonder if it includes the 15,000 Afghan files withheld, or the original raw files, or perhaps much more, pre-positioned for public release (“insurance”) against an attack expected to come from DoD and Justice or parties unknown. A passphrase to be distributed or published widely in case of a takedown.
Torrent: WikiLeaks Insurance File
One of the Fastest-Growing Businesses on the Internet: Spying on Internet Users
July 31st, 2010The piece provides an interactive graphic to explain what you can do to counter this advertiser surveillance stuff, but nowhere does the word AdBlockPlus appear. Woops. *chuckle* This will block most ads from loading in the first place. (Yes, AdBlockPlus blocks ads on Cryptogon.)
I like Ghostery because it’s easy to use, but NoScript is much more powerful/cumbersome.
I mainly use this stuff to conserve bandwidth. Getting into a lather about this, in terms of privacy, is somewhat silly because none of this does anything to protect you from the surveillance that’s occurring on the wire by ISPs and governments. Go ahead and block this stuff if it makes you feel better, or helps you conserve bandwidth, but don’t kid yourself into thinking that you are hiding anything from your ISP or your government, where the genuinely terrifying surveillance occurs, by using these methods. You would have to take much more extreme measures to actually maintain your privacy online if the enemy is a government, or a corporation that is colluding with a government.
A quick note on Flash:
Flash is a bandwidth hog (my main concern) and it’s pretty insidious from a privacy perspective. I use Flashblock to block all Flash by default. If there’s a Flash element on a page that I want to see, I only allow that element to load. It’s very simple and fast to use.
Via: Wall Street Journal:
One of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found, is the business of spying on Internet users.
The Journal conducted a comprehensive study that assesses and analyzes the broad array of cookies and other surveillance technology that companies are deploying on Internet users. It reveals that the tracking of consumers has grown both far more pervasive and far more intrusive than is realized by all but a handful of people in the vanguard of the industry.
The study found that the nation’s 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. A dozen sites each installed more than a hundred. The nonprofit Wikipedia installed none.
Tracking technology is getting smarter and more intrusive. Monitoring used to be limited mainly to “cookie” files that record websites people visit. But the Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. Some tools surreptitiously re-spawn themselves even after users try to delete them.
These profiles of individuals, constantly refreshed, are bought and sold on stock-market-like exchanges that have sprung up in the past 18 months.
The new technologies are transforming the Internet economy. Advertisers once primarily bought ads on specific Web pages—a car ad on a car site. Now, advertisers are paying a premium to follow people around the Internet, wherever they go, with highly specific marketing messages.
It’s rarely a coincidence when you see Web ads for products that match your interests. WSJ’s Christina Tsuei explains how advertisers use cookies to track your online habits.
In between the Internet user and the advertiser, the Journal identified more than 100 middlemen—tracking companies, data brokers and advertising networks—competing to meet the growing demand for data on individual behavior and interests.
Brazil: Some Detergent Boxes Will Contain GPS Transmitters to Allow Company to Follow Consumers Home
July 31st, 2010Just wait until the detergent box costs more than the GPS transmitter.
Via: AdAge:
Unilever’s Omo detergent is adding an unusual ingredient to its two-pound detergent box in Brazil: a GPS device that allows its promotions agency Bullet to track shoppers and follow them to their front doors.
Starting next week, consumers who buy one of the GPS-implanted detergent boxes will be surprised at home, given a pocket video camera as a prize and invited to bring their families to enjoy a day of Unilever-sponsored outdoor fun. The promotion, called Try Something New With Omo, is in keeping with the brand’s international “Dirt is Good” positioning that encourages parents to let their kids have a good time even if they get dirty.
Omo accounts for half of Brazil’s detergent sales and is already found in 80% of homes there, so Unilever’s goal is more to draw attention to a new stain-fighting version of Omo and get it talked about rather than looking for a big increase in sales.
That made the idea of doing a promotion where the prize finds the consumer, rather than the consumer having to look for the prize — and maybe not bothering — appealing.
Fernando Figueiredo, Bullet’s president, said the GPS device is activated when a shopper removes the detergent carton from the supermarket shelf. Fifty Omo boxes implanted with GPS devices have been scattered around Brazil, and Mr. Figueiredo has teams in 35 Brazilian cities ready to leap into action when a box is activated. The nearest team can reach the shopper’s home “within hours or days,” and if they’re really close by, “they may get to your house as soon as you do,” he said.
Once there, the teams have portable equipment that lets them go floor by floor in apartment buildings until they find the correct unit, he said.
Of course, Brazil has a high crime rate, and not everyone is going to open the door to strangers who claim to have been sent by her detergent brand to offer a free video camera. Bullet has thought of that. If the team tracks a consumer to her home but she won’t let them in, they can remotely activate a buzzer in the detergent box so that it starts beeping. And if the team takes too long to arrive, and the consumer has already opened the box to see if she’s a winner or just do laundry, she’ll find, along with the GPS device and less detergent than expected, a note explaining the promotion and a phone number to call.
Related: The Future Where Soda Cans Have Screens
White House Proposal Would Ease FBI Access to Records of Internet Activity
July 30th, 2010FBI can’t just ask NSA for it, or pull the information out of MAIN CORE because the domestic intercept programs don’t officially exist. An appearance needs to be maintained that the intelligence community doesn’t already have this data.
What you’re about to read below is an example of how America does Kabuki theater.
Via: Washington Post:
The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual’s Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.
The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.
IMF Says U.S. Financial System May Need $76 Billion in Capital
July 30th, 2010Your what hurts?
Via: Bloomberg:
The U.S. financial system remains fragile and banks subjected to additional economic stress might need as much as $76 billion in capital, according to the results of International Monetary Fund stress tests.
The findings, released today as part of a broader IMF report on the U.S. financial system, suggested that while the nation’s banking system is stable, it remains vulnerable. Home prices, commercial real estate loans and economic growth have the potential to cause shocks that could expose banks to more losses.
Under one scenario, small and regional banks as well as subsidiaries of foreign banks would need $40.5 billion in additional capital to meet a benchmark capital ratio of 6 percent Tier 1 common equity from 2010 to 2014. Under the adverse scenario, those needs rise to $76.3 billion, according to the report.
“Pockets of vulnerabilities linger,” the fund said in the report. The U.S. is recovering from what the IMF called “one of the most devastating financial crises in a century.”
UK Government to be Sued Over Congolese ‘Conflict Minerals’
July 30th, 2010In other news: Afghan Mineral Deposits Actually Worth $3 Trillion, Not $1 Trillion.
Via: Guardian:
Britain must answer in court claims that it is turning a blind eye to UK firms that trade in lucrative Congolese “conflict minerals”, a campaign group announced today.
The group, Global Witness, said the firms continued to buy minerals from rebel militias, prolonging a 12-year conflict. It planned to sue the government for failing to refer the firms for UN sanctions.
The move comes amid global efforts to halt the trade in rebel-controlled minerals such as tin, gold, and coltan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where millions have died since civil war erupted in 1998.
“British companies have supported armed groups by purchasing minerals from areas under their control in the DRC,” Global Witness says in an application to the high court for a judicial review. “Despite this, the UK government has never put any of them forward for sanctions.”
It claimed that the British government was “acting unlawfully”, refusing to put forward individuals as well as firms. Some UK companies, known to have been trading in minerals sourced from the eastern DR Congo, should have been referred to the UN sanctions committee in 2008 and 2009, the campaigners said.
Gavin Hayman, campaigns director at Global Witness, said: “It is a sad day when we have to sue the UK government, but we hope this case will mark a turning point. The issues at stake have global significance for how wars are financed. These companies have profited from a brutal conflict, and should face UN sanctions – but sanctions are useless without a fair and clear government procedure for considering whether individuals or entities should be listed.”
“Extreme and Unlawful” Bush-Era Policies Becoming the “New Normal” Under Obama
July 30th, 2010Via: ACLU:
Indeed, on a range of issues including accountability for torture, detention of terrorism suspects, and use of lethal force against civilians, there is a very real danger that the Obama administration will enshrine permanently within the law policies and practices that were widely considered extreme and unlawful during the Bush administration. There is a real danger, in other words, that the Obama administration will preside over the creation of a “new normal.”
