tagged w/ Privacy
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Comfort and Safety- the main ingredients for unlimited liberty! (If, by "unlimited liberty," you mean living in a police state.)Comfort and Safety- the main ingredients for unlimited liberty! (If, by... more
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“SNL” appearance marks the latest suggestion that the Facebook founder reluctantly realizes that “The Social Network” may be the second-best thing to ever happen to hi“SNL” appearance marks the latest suggestion that the Facebook founder... more
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Facebook is temporarily disabling a feature that gave app developers access to some of the most sensitive personal data it possesses: Members' addresses and phone numbers.
The company had slipped the feature in quietly, announcing it at the end of last week in a post on its developer blog. But late Monday, Facebook said it is suspending the feature until it can fine-tune how it works.
"Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data," Facebook wrote on its developer blog. "We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so."
Those changes will roll out "in the next few weeks," Facebook said. In the meantime, it has suspended the phone number and address gathering option.
In its blog post last week describing the new feature, Facebook said members would need to explicitly grant permission for apps to tap into their contact information. And they would only be able to grant that permission for their own data -- users can't choose to allow access to their friends' contact information.
But worries immediately arose that this would not be enough of a shield. Facebook frequently comes under fire for its constantly changing privacy policies, and many users find the tools it makes available for adjusting privacy settings very confusing.
Privacy researcher Christopher Soghoian thinks Facebook botched the message by publicizing the change on its developer's blog.
"They should have had an announcement: 'This is why were doing this, and is why it's not a privacy problem,'" he says.
The blog Inside Facebook, which obsessively tracks news about the social network, also said the new addition didn't provide users with enough context.
"The biggest problem with access to contact information is that the permission requests for these highly sensitive data fields are not distinguished from requests for more benign data like a user's Event RSVPs or privileges like publishing to their stream," Inside Facebook writer Josh Constine said.NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Facebook is temporarily disabling a feature that gave app... more
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Facebook has announced that it will be allowing third party developers to access the addresses and phone numbers of the users if they download applications from these developers. The move has alarmed security experts and privacy advocates.Facebook has announced that it will be allowing third party developers to access the... more
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Alstom
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added this
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1 year ago
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If you thought the TSA's new "naked scanners" and enhanced pat-downs were invasive and obnoxious, you haven't seen anything yet. Cue The Ride of the Valkyries and pan to the horizon: here comes the attack of the personal drones.
The age of personal robots has long been predicted, and it appears that with respect to personal drones, that age is already upon us. The biggest and most publicized entry into the market has been the Parrot AR.Drone, a "quadricopter" with an onboard video camera sending a real-time feed to your iPhone (which also acts as the controller). Marketed as a video game and with a price tag of just $300, the applications are really endless. Let the flying and spying begin.
Another option is the Pteryx UAV, fully autonomous and more like a traditional plane than the AR.Drone. Billed as a photomapping tool, there are certainly many other possible uses. Amateur paparazzi rejoice!
What happens when historically unobtainable high technology like this becomes inexpensive and easily accessible by the average person? Is there any hope at all for the already terminally ill notion of "privacy"? At some point in the future, these personal drones could be outfitted with cameras that can see around corners. They may have onboard computers that can recognize faces and expressions, and act autonomously based on that information.
And that, to many, is the most ominous aspect: that some of these drones act of their own accord and make their own decisions. As Hewy pointed out in a recent column, the militaries of the world are moving at lightspeed to equip their autonomous drones and robots with the latest weaponry. Closer to home, when your neighborhood nutjob mounts a weapon onto his personal drone — it's only a matter of time, really — and sends it out to do whatever it wants, what kind of a body count will you read about in the headlines? Sadly, it seems inevitable that something terrible will have to happen before preventative measures are taken.
*** Full links to sources and more information can be found at the original article below ***
http://talkingskull.com/article/attack-of-dronesIf you thought the TSA's new "naked scanners" and enhanced pat-downs... more
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Mobile phone kits to diagnose STDs...
• Plan aims to cut UK's rate of infection among young
• Many with symptoms 'too embarrassed to go to GP'
A new test will soon enable STDs to be diagnosed
via mobile phone or computer, a move that health experts hope will slow
the rising rate of infection among young people.
Mobile phones and computers will soon be able to diagnose sexually transmitted diseases under innovative plans to cut the UK's rising rate of herpes,
chlamydia and gonorrhea among young people.
Doctors and technology experts are developing small devices, similar to pregnancy testing kits, that will tell someone quickly and privately if they have
caught an infection through sexual contact.
People who suspect they have been infected will be able to put urine or saliva on to a computer chip about the size of a USB chip, plug it into their phone or
computer and receive a diagnosis within minutes, telling them which, if
any, sexually transmitted infection (STI) they have. Seven funders,
including the Medical Research Council, have put £4m into developing the
technology via a forum called the UK Clinical Research Collaboration.
Sexual health experts hope it will help reduce the growing number of STIs, which have increased for the last decade and reached a record 482,696 last year.
Two-thirds of women reporting a new STI were under 25, as were more than
half of men.
The self-testing devices are aimed at technology-savvy young people. Public health experts are concerned that, although most STIs occur among that age group, many are too embarrassed
to visit a GP or a genito-urinary medicine clinic to get tested and
therefore continue to suffer and potentially pass the disease on.
Doctors hope that the ability to obtain a private, confidential
diagnosis will overcome their widespread reluctance to take a test.
The developers of the rapid testing devices expect them to be sold for as little as 50p or £1 each in vending machines in nightclubs, pharmacies
and in supermarkets, as condoms are. They are drawing on nanotechnology
and microfluids, the creation of miniaturized laboratories.
"Your mobile phone can be your mobile doctor. It diagnoses whether you've got one of a range of STIs, such as chlamydia or gonorrhea and tells you
where to go next to get treatment," said Dr Tariq Sadiq, a senior
lecturer and consultant physician in sexual health and HIV at St
George's, University of London, who is leading the project. "We need to
tackle the rising epidemic of STIs, which have been going up and up and
up. Britain is one of the worst [countries] in western Europe for
teenage pregnancy and STIs. That there's a major embarrassment factor
here, especially among young people, makes the situation worse." Some
people do not get tested because they choose to do nothing about their
symptoms, such as an itch or discharge, or dislike clinics' waiting
lists or opening times. With some STIs people can remain infectious,
even when the initial symptoms have disappeared.
Self-testing could lead to quicker diagnosis, fewer STIs and patients gaining greater control of their sexual health, as well as the ability to alert recent
sexual partners, he added.
Sadiq is head of the Electronic Self-testing Instruments for Sexually Transmitted Infections consortium, which includes experts in microbiology, public health,
telecommunications and micro-engineering from medical research
institutions, the NHS
and industry. The NHS's technology adoption centre, the National
Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence and mobile phone operators,
including 02, are also involved.
Doctors said the devices could help by removing the need to meet a health professional. "Some people may find going into a doctor's surgery to be tested an intimidating
experience, so it's crucial that we find new ways to engage with
people," said Dr Marion Henderson, from the MRC's social and public
health sciences unit. Some STIs do not always display symptoms, she
added. "This is important, particularly for women, as it can lead to
future painful pelvic inflammatory disease and even infertility, both of
which could be avoided with testing and appropriate treatment."
Prof Noel Gill, head of HIV and STIs at the Health Protection Agency, the government agency that monitors infections and advises on containment
strategies, said: "HPA surveillance has shown that the impact of STIs is
greatest among young people and we hope that the application of new
technology will help to reduce transmission of infection in this age
group.
"This is an exciting research and development consortium which will develop new technologies that both improve and expand testing for STIs. As innovations become available, the HPA will co-ordinate
large-scale evaluations within a network of collaborating STI clinics," Gill added.
source: www.wonderhowto.com
Would you use this? Good? Bad? Otherwise?...Tell me your thoughts @
http://www.johnstallwisdom.com/forum/topics/think-you-have-an-std-pee-onMobile phone kits to diagnose STDs...
• Plan aims to cut UK's rate of... more
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JSW
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added this
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1 year ago
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As your insurance company, we care so much about you. We really do. We care. About you.As your insurance company, we care so much about you. We really do. We care. About... more
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A man reportedly faces five years in jail for reading his wife's email to see if she was having an affair. The man, Leon Walker, 33, had access to his wife's laptop at home and logged on to her Gmail account which led to the revelation that his wife, Clara Walker was having an affair...
http://bit.ly/iiTGu4A man reportedly faces five years in jail for reading his wife's email to see if... more
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Some online service providers are in the cross hairs this week for allegedly abandoning WikiLeaks after it published secret U.S. diplomatic cables and drew retaliatory technical, political and legal attacks. But the secret-spilling site’s woes may be attributable in part to its own technical and administrative missteps as well as outside attempts at censorship.
Struggling with denial-of-service attacks on its servers earlier this week, WikiLeaks moved to Amazon’s EC2 cloud-based data-storage service only to be summarily booted off on Wednesday, ostensibly for violations of Amazon’s terms of service. Then on Thursday its domain-name service provider, EveryDNS, stopped resolving WikiLeaks.org, amid a new DoS attack apparently aimed at the DNS provider.
While WikiLeaks was clearly targeted, its weak countermeasures drew criticism from network engineers. They questioned its use of a free DNS service such as EveryDNS, as well as other avoidable errors that seem to clash with WikiLeaks’ reputation as a tech-savvy and cautious enterprise hardened to withstand any concerted technical attack on its systems.
“If they wanted to help users get past their DNS problems, they could tweet for assistance, tweet their IP addy and ask to be re-tweeted, ask owners of authorities to set up wikileaks.$FOO.com to ‘crowd source’ their name, etc.,” observed one poster to the mailing list for the North American Network Operating Group. “So at the very least, they are guilty of not being imaginative.”
“IMHO it is a gambit to ask for money,” wrote another.
WikiLeaks’ downtime was short-lived, with the site announcing Friday on Twitter that it was operational on WikiLeaks.de, WikiLeaks.fi, WikiLeaks.nl and WikiLeaks.ch — the country codes respectively for Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The scattering followed a Thursday outage of WikiLeaks.org and the “Cablegate” subsite, that occurred when EveryDNS cut off the secret-spilling site.
Unlike the incident this week in which Amazon unceremoniously booted WikiLeaks from its servers, the latest outage appears to have had less to do with censorship than with WikiLeaks’ inattention to the more-mundane side of running an organization.
It’s unclear why WikiLeaks went with a free provider, instead of paying for bulletproof DNS that could withstand attack. But according to EveryDNS, the distributed denial-of-service attacks that have been dogging WikiLeaks were threatening to overrun EveryDNS’s servers, which serve some 500,000 sites.
The company responded by notifying WikiLeaks on Wednesday that it was going to drop the organization in 24 hours, according to a statement on EveryDNS’ website. It reached out to WikiLeaks on the e-mail address associated with the account, on Twitter, and even visited the group’s encrypted chat room to try and pass word to the staff.
That should have been more than enough time for WikiLeaks to move its DNS. Instead, Thursday night, visitors could no longer reach WikiLeaks.org.
“Any downtime of the wikileaks.org website has resulted from its failure to, with plentiful advance notice, use another DNS solution,” reads EveryDNS’s statement.
Rather than tweeting the IP addresses of WikiLeaks hosts, which would allow visitors to continue to reach the site uninterrupted, WikiLeaks initially used the outage to encourage donations, tweeting instead: “WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks KEEP US STRONG https://donations.datacell.com/”.
And a follow-up tweet noted: “You can also easily support WikiLeaks via http://collateralmurder.com/en/support.html”.
WikiLeaks fans on Twitter discovered and circulated WikiLeaks’ working addresses on their own, until about three hours after the outage began, when the organization tweeted: “WIKILEAKS: Free speech has a number: http://88.80.13.160″.
WikiLeaks followed that up by promoting WikiLeaks.ch as an alternative address, but that domain, too, turned out to be resolved by EveryDNS, which shut it down.
WikiLeaks had the four regional domains working on Friday, resolving to hosts in Sweden and France. Domain-registration records show that WikiLeaks still has control of the WikiLeaks.org, but for whatever reason, the organization still has EveryDNS set as its name server for that domain.
The incident isn’t the first time WikiLeaks has suffered from a bureaucratic snafu. On June 12, WikiLeaks’ secure submission page stopped working when the site failed to renew its SSL certificate, a basic web protection that costs less than $30 a year and takes only hours to set up.
And for years WikiLeaks promised would-be leakers that they’d enjoy the protection of strong journalist shield laws in Sweden, where WikiLeaks maintains some of its servers. It wasn’t until August of this year that it emerged that WikiLeaks hadn’t registered as a media outlet in Sweden, and thus wasn’t protected.
That latter disclosure sent founder Julian Assange to Stockholm in August in an effort to correct the oversight. His romantic entanglements on that trip led to an ongoing sex-crime investigation and the issuance this week of an Interpol “red notice” putting Assange on the international police agency’s wanted list.Some online service providers are in the cross hairs this week for allegedly... more
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Bathrooms, whether public or private, encounter plenty of abuse. The constant inflow and outflow of water paired with limited space and high demands on hygiene and efficiency make it one of the most difficult rooms to design. But there are plenty of architects who have stepped up to the challenge. Here are some of the most innovative bathroom engineering in the world. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/bizzareweird/13867-the-worlds-strangest-bathroomsBathrooms, whether public or private, encounter plenty of abuse. The constant inflow... more
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worrg
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added this
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1 year ago
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The US Air Force launched a massive spy satellite yesterday for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). For obvious reasons, the NRO is cagey about what exactly it's shot into space.
But the satellite is believed to be the largest in the world, and to be aimed at intercepting communications via a vast array of radio receivers and an enormous antenna.
"I believe the payload is the fifth in the series of what we call Mentor spacecraft, a.k.a. Advanced Orion," satellite tracker Ted Molczan told Spaceflight Now.
"The satellite likely consists of sensitive radio receivers and an antenna generally believed to span up to 328 feet to gather electronic intelligence for the National Security Agency," TG Daily reports.
It is believed it will help the U.S.'s eavesdropping abilities. The rocket is 235ft tall and can launch payloads of up to 24 tons into low Earth orbit.
The Delta 4-Heavy is America's most powerful liquid-fuelled rocket and generated 2,000,000lb of thrust at take-off. It has been in use since 2004, Daily Mail reports.The US Air Force launched a massive spy satellite yesterday for the National... more
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At the heart of the controversy over "body scanners" is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images.
A Gizmodo investigation has revealed 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that U.S. Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida courthouse had improperly-perhaps illegally-saved images of the scans of public servants and private citizens.
http://gizmodo.com/5690749/these-are-the-first-100-leaked-body-scansAt the heart of the controversy over "body scanners" is a promise: The... more
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Do you know what your rights are if you're stopped by police? Most people don't, and the consequences can be severe. From simple misunderstandings to illegal searches and excessive force, a bad police encounter can happen to anyone. But after watching 10 Rules for Dealing with Police, you'll be more confident and better prepared to handle every kind of police situation.
The 40-minute docudrama is the most sophisticated and entertaining film of its kind. Narrated by the legendary trial lawyer William "Billy" Murphy, Jr. (from HBO’s The Wire), 10 Rules depicts innocent people dealing with heavy-handed policing tactics used every day in the United States.
Through extensive collaboration with victims of police abuse, legal experts and law enforcement professionals, we’ve developed a powerful multi-language (English, Spanish & Arabic) resource that provides proven survival strategies for dealing with racial profiling and police abuse.
SEE Full Movie Here: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/10-rules-for-dealing-with-police.htmlDo you know what your rights are if you're stopped by police? Most people... more
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We Live In Public is a riveting documentary well worth your time to watch. If you like the first 10 minutes of this you will probably enjoy the entire documentary.
http://nothingtotweetabout.com/We_Live_In_Public.phpWe Live In Public is a riveting documentary well worth your time to watch. If you like... more
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(CNN) -- A growing pilot and passenger revolt over full-body scans and what many consider intrusive pat-downs couldn't have come at a worse time for the nation's air travel system.
Thanksgiving, the busiest travel time of the year, is less than two weeks away.
Grassroots groups are urging travelers to either not fly or to protest by opting out of the full-body scanners and undergo time-consuming pat-downs instead.
Such concerns prompted a meeting Friday of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano with leaders of travel industry groups.
Napolitano met with the U.S.Travel Association and 20 travel companies "to underscore the Department's continued commitment to partnering with the nation's travel and tourism industry to facilitate the flow of trade and travel while maintaining high security standards to protect the American people," the department said in a statement.
Federal officials have increased security in the wake of plots attributed to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Industry leaders are worried about the grassroots backlash to Transportation Security Administration security procedures. Some pilots, passengers and flight attendants have chosen to opt out of the revealing scans.
More of the units are arriving at airports, with 1,000 expected to be in place by the end of 2011.
"While the meeting with Secretary Napolitano was informative, it was not entirely reassuring," the U.S. Travel Association said in a statement.
"We certainly understand the challenges that DHS confronts, but the question remains, 'where do we draw the line'? Our country desperately needs a long-term vision for aviation security screening, rather than an endless reaction to yesterday's threat," the statement said. "At the same time, fundamental American values must be protected."
The travel industry is concerned that consumers may decide not to take a plane to Aunt Gertrude's for the holiday.
"We have received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from travelers vowing to stop flying," Geoff Freeman, an executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association, told Reuters.
A 2008 survey found that air travelers "avoided" 41 million trips because they believed the air travel system was either "broken" or in need of "moderate correction," the U.S. Travel Association said. The decisions cost airlines $9.4 billion, the survey said.
One online group, "National Opt Out Day" calls for a day of protest against the scanners on Wednesday, November 24, the busiest travel day of the year.
Another group argues the TSA should remove the scanners from all airports. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a non-profit privacy advocacy group, is taking legal action, saying the TSA should be required to conduct a public rule-making to evaluate the privacy, security and health risks caused by the body scanners.
Pilots' unions for US Airways and American Airlines are urging their members to avoid full-body scanning at airport security checkpoints, citing health risks and concerns about intrusiveness and security officer behavior.
"Pilots should NOT submit to AIT (Advanced Imaging Technology) screening," wrote Capt. Mike Cleary, president of the U.S. Airline Pilots Association, in a letter to members this week. USAPA represents more than 5,000 US Airways pilots.
*More at link
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Personally, I believe there is no reason that we should accept such invasive measures in the name of "security". The TSA has crossed the line, and we need to stand up and say "No more!". Protecting the American people from possible terrorist threats is one thing, but forcefully intruding on ones privacy and possibly their health in order to do that is just too much, in my opinion.
I certainly believe that there are much better ways of combating terrorism. For instance, the greatest thing they could do for our safety would be to end our unjust wars on foreign soil. Terrorism is symptom of a larger disease, a disease which we are responsible for starting and are continuing to this day. It is our interventionism. We suffer from the backlash of an interventionist foreign policy.
Like murderers and thieves, if a terrorist really wants to attack the U.S., then they will. All the body scanners and TSA intrusions in the world are not going to stop that. Of course, I'm not saying we should just bend over and accept what might happen, but what I am saying is that there are far better, far less intrusive ways to combat the problem that terrorism poses.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." --- 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution, Bill of Rights.(CNN) -- A growing pilot and passenger revolt over full-body scans and what many... more
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The United States of America: home of freedom-loving individuals who revere liberty and all it entails. My cage is so comfortable; is yours?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2QSE6ZFDS0The United States of America: home of freedom-loving individuals who revere liberty... more
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