Alternative News

Bitmessage: Choice Of A Rightly Paranoid Generation

"Bitmessage is an open-source communications protocol for keeping your email private. Unlike PGP and similar programs that hide just the content of messages, Bitmessage also hides metadata like the sender and receiver of messages. And unlike PGP, Bitmessage doesn't require that users manage public or private keys to use the system; Bitmessage uses strong authentication so that the sender of a message cannot be spoofed. Bitmessage is also decentralized and trustless, which means that you don't need to trust root certificate authorities or any third parties who, under legal duress from a government, might give up your data." Continue reading →

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Android Security Vulnerability Threatens Existing Bitcoin Wallets

"We recently learned that a component of Android responsible for generating secure random numbers contains critical weaknesses, that render all Android wallets generated to date vulnerable to theft. Because the problem lies with Android itself, this problem will affect you if you have a wallet generated by any Android app. An incomplete list would be Bitcoin Wallet, blockchain.info wallet, BitcoinSpinner and Mycelium Wallet. Apps where you don't control the private keys at all are not affected. For example, exchange frontends like the Coinbase or Mt Gox apps are not impacted by this issue because the private keys are not generated on your Android phone." Continue reading →

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Northern Michigan Secession

"For those who have never been to northern Michigan, and the Upper Peninsula in particular, there is a culture here all its own, with no special love for the politics of Lansing and Detroit. As with Vermont, the effort to secede in northern Michigan still has passion and traction. And with American secession efforts receiving more visibility and thus being taken more seriously, we will hear much more about it in the coming years." Continue reading →

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Glenn Greenwald plans to release more Snowden files in 10 days

"Glenn Greenwald is planning to release more documents from the cache handed over to him by whistleblower Edward Snowden, claiming that what has been seen so far is just a very small slice compared to the bigger picture. Greenwald plans to make new revelations public 'within the next 10 days or so', expected to be related to secret US backed surveillance of the internet, worldwide. One of the conditions that Snowden had for receiving temporary asylum in Russia was that he stop leaking. But Greenwald already has access to these files - so technically speaking - these will not be fresh leaks but the disclosure of already leaked material." Continue reading →

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Montana Attorney General blames reporters for online threats against them

"Montana Attorney General Tim Fox (R) suggested that Associated Press reporters who were threatened after their personal information was leaked online brought it upon themselves. 'Whether or not there is a chilling effect I guess the media, the journalistic profession needs to contemplate when they ask for information whether or not they are creating a chilling effect in their own profession,' Fox told Montana Public Radio (MPR) when asked about the threats, which followed his office’s denial of an AP request for a copy of the state database concerning concealed firearm permit holders. A 2013 state law made such information classified." Continue reading →

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Obama’s Response To NSA Surveillance Still Lacking Justification

"It's a lot of rhetoric about transparency, with a few random claims about how important these programs are. Separately, he continued to insist that we're better than some other countries (setting the bar low) and that we don't spy on Americans -- despite the evidence from this morning that this isn't true. In answering questions, he insisted the two key programs being discussed, Section 215 of the Patriot Act and 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, were critical to finding important intelligence -- despite the fact that multiple Senators have insisted that there remains no evidence that Section 215 was necessary in any terrorist case." Continue reading →

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NSA ditching 90 percent of its system administrators to avoid leaks

"NSA director Keith Alexander told a conference in New York City that headcount among its system administrators would be severely curtailed in the future. Roughly 1,000 such employees maintain the agency’s networks and equipment. The NSA is dismissing all those people in the name of secrecy. 'What we’ve done,' Alexander added, 'is we’ve put people in the loop of transferring data, securing networks and doing things that machines are probably better at doing.' An automated system operated by a minimum of human beings, on the other hand, will make the NSA’s digital assets more defensible." Continue reading →

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Maine Governor LePage: I’d like to blow up newspaper building

"Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) wasted no time in making a disturbing joke after boarding a flight simulator during a Friday appearance, the Bangor Daily News reported on Friday. 'I want to find the Press Herald building and blow it up,' LePage said in video posted online from his appearance at an event hosted by defense contractor Pratt & Whitney, referring to the Portland Press Herald. LePage later told a WMTW-TV reporter he was targeting both newspapers in the simulation. Later that day, LePage sent a tweet to the Press-Herald, saying, 'Threatened? It was a joke, folks.' Local FBI officials told the Press-Herald they did not expect him to carry out such a threat." Continue reading →

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“Punishment Has Been Achieved”

"'Punishment for this offense has been achieved.' With those words, which are found near the end of an August 8 motion to dismiss a spurious battery charge against Sandpoint, Idaho resident Rita Hutchens, the author – Bonner County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Shane Greenbank – incriminates himself. Rita Hutchens is a tiny 57-year-old internationally respected quilt artist who has never committed a violent act against anybody. She was accused of 'criminal battery' because she threw a ballpoint pen at a desk in the Sandpoint City Hall while doing research for a potential lawsuit against the city." Continue reading →

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