Yearly Archives: 2013

Treating Surveillance as Damage and Routing Around It

"Even as the U.S. security state becomes more closed, centralized and brittle in the face of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks, civil society and the public are responding to the post-Snowden repression by becoming more dispersed and resilient. That’s how networks always respond to censorship and surveillance. Each new attempt at a file-sharing service, after Napster was shut down — Kazaa, Kazaa lite, eDonkey, eMule, The Pirate Bay — was less dependent on central servers and other vulnerable nodes than the one before it. Wikileaks responded the same way to U.S. government attempts to shut it down." Continue reading →

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Ron Paul: Why Are We At War In Yemen?

"The US government is clearly at war in Yemen. It is claimed they are fighting al-Qaeda, but the drone strikes are creating as many or more al-Qaeda members as they are eliminating. Resentment over civilian casualties is building up the danger of blowback, which is a legitimate threat to us that is unfortunately largely ignored. Also, the US is sending mixed signals by attacking al-Qaeda in Yemen while supporting al-Qaeda linked rebels fighting in Syria. This cycle of intervention producing problems that require more intervention to 'solve' impoverishes us and makes us more, not less, vulnerable. Can anyone claim this old approach is successful?" Continue reading →

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Ted Koppel: ‘Can You Imagine A Day When We’ll Be Without The TSA?’

"'The terrorists have achieved more with one phone call than we have achieved with all our response,' Koppel said. 'Terrorism is imply the weapon by which the weak engage the strong,' Koppel said. 'They cause the strong—in this case us—to overreact. We are the ones who went into Iraq and spent about a trillion and a half dollars doing it, losing 4,500 men and women, god knows how many tens of thousands injured. We are the ones who created a bureaucracy. The TSA has what—57,000 people operating within the TSA? Can you imagine a day when we will ever be without that bureaucracy? All imposed upon ourselves.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTed Koppel: ‘Can You Imagine A Day When We’ll Be Without The TSA?’

Homeland Security tracks down 400-page diary of Nazi leader and Hitler aide

"The FBI opened a criminal investigation into the missing documents. No charges were filed in the case. But the Holocaust museum has gone on to recover more than 150,000 documents, including a trove held by Kempner’s former secretary, who by then had moved into the New York state home of an academic named Herbert Richardson. The Rosenberg diary, however, remained missing. Early this year, the Holocaust museum and an agent from Homeland Security Investigation tried to locate the missing diary pages. They tracked the diary to Richardson, who was living near Buffalo." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHomeland Security tracks down 400-page diary of Nazi leader and Hitler aide

Scholarly book presents ‘hidden history’ of Nazi ‘gun control’

"'A skeptic could surmise that a better-armed populace might have made no difference,' the overview for 'Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and ‘Enemies of the State’' observes, 'but the National Socialist regime certainly did not think so -- it ruthlessly suppressed firearm ownership by disfavored groups.' The book, 'based on newly-discovered, secret documents from German archives, diaries and newspapers of the time … presents the definitive, yet hidden history of how the Nazi regime made use of gun control to disarm and repress its enemies and consolidate power.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingScholarly book presents ‘hidden history’ of Nazi ‘gun control’

New Nanotech Set to Track, Self-Destruct, and GPS Tag Guns Wirelessly

"The technological system utilizes tiny devices that are implanted in guns and other weapons. These devices are more than chips; they are actual mechanical processes created by precision engineering that can affect the weapon’s operations. The devices include miniature GPS systems designed to make guns easier to track and self-destruct systems that could cause them to explode if they receive a wireless signal. The technology coincides with the ‘smart gun’ technology Anthony Gucciardi has broken down in the past, which can be used to ‘turn off’ weapons when in gun free zones or whenever designated by government." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNew Nanotech Set to Track, Self-Destruct, and GPS Tag Guns Wirelessly

Point-and-shoot scanner copies and creates almost any item using a 3D printer

"A British has inventor has unveiled the ultimate Star Trek gadget - a £650 handheld scanner that could be used to copy almost any item. The Fuel3D scanner, originally developed at Oxford University, can capture everything from a flower’s petals to the contours of human skin. It is able to capture images in seconds, and they can then be sent to a computer for processing. When combined with a 3D printer, it could be used to create 3D copies of everything from broken parts to 3D portraits." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPoint-and-shoot scanner copies and creates almost any item using a 3D printer

Dotcom: Surveillance and Copyright Extremism Will Cost United States Dearly

"'The US government and the other Five Eyes partners (UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have an agreement to push for new spy legislation that will provide them with backdoors into all Internet infrastructure and services. The NZ government is currently aggressively looking to extend its powers with the GCSB and the TICS act, which will force service providers with encryption capabilities to give them secret decryption access,' Dotcom explains. 'The US is on a path of destroying its massive lead in the Internet economy. Mass surveillance and copyright extremism will cost the US economy more than any terrorist attack or piracy,' Dotcom says." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDotcom: Surveillance and Copyright Extremism Will Cost United States Dearly

Mega to run ‘cutting-edge’ encrypted email after Lavabit’s ‘privacy seppuku’

"Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz is working on a highly-secure email service to run on a non-US-based server. It comes as the US squeezes email providers that offer encryption and Mega’s CEO calls Lavabit’s shutdown an 'honorable act of Privacy Seppuku.' The concept he was referring to was developed by secure service providers such as Cryptocloud, which made a ‘corporate seppuku’ pledge to oppose the mass surveillance and shield the privacy of their users’ data. The name for the move apparently derives from a Japanese ritual suicide, which was originally practiced by samurai to preserve honor." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMega to run ‘cutting-edge’ encrypted email after Lavabit’s ‘privacy seppuku’

Does “Homeland Security” really protect you?

"Secretary Janet Napolitano’s resignation is the perfect time get rid of the Department. Its alleged purpose is to prevent terrorism. But it’s trying to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist. You’re far more likely to die from bathtub drowning, home appliances, or deer accidents than from terrorism. This tells me the DHS is a waste of time. Spending shot up from $20 billion in 2002 to $60 billion this year. Also, the DHS isn’t really about security or terrorism prevention at all: The primary counter-terrorism agencies - FBI, CIA, and NSA - aren’t even part of the DHS. Less than 25% of DHS grants actually go to terrorism prevention." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDoes “Homeland Security” really protect you?