Tuesday, 22 November 2011
WikileaksTruck Art Superheroes
Just for the record: The truck was loaded to the brim with billions of dollars of gold and diamonds. Maybe trillions.
Monday, 21 November 2011
US can access Aussie DNA, personal data
If the DNA or fingerprint query returns a reference match, US agencies can access a target's personal information to verify the hit. Personal data would include information on a target's full name, aliases, sex, date and place of birth, nationality, passport number, other identity document numbers and fingerprint data beyond the reference information supplied in the initial hit.
US agencies won't have access to the data on a random whim, however. To access the information, agencies must be presented with the clear and present threat of criminal activity or terrorism.
According to the MOU, circumstances may include the possibility that the target or targets:
- (a) Will commit or has committed terrorist or terrorism related offences, or offences related to a terrorist group or association as those offences are defined under the supplying participant's laws; or
- (b) is undergoing or has undergone training to commit the offences referred to in in sub-paragraph 12.1(a) [above]; or
- (c) will commit or has committed a serious criminal offence or participates in an organised criminal group or association.
The MOU highlights the importance of data security in the transmission, storage and analysis of such information and has outlined in several sections how this data should be kept secret from prying eyes while respecting the legal rights of the host nation and the target when dealing with said data.
"The participants are to ensure that the necessary technical measures and organisational arrangements are utilised to protect personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, accidental loss or unauthorised disclosure, alteration access or any unauthorised form of processing," the MOU reads in the section on data security.
Each party will also be required to keep a record of the transmission of data, which will include what was sent about whom and when. Data will be retained for a period of two years and the nation supplying the data can always query the status of how the information is being used.
The two signatories to the MOU, Brendan O'Connor, Federal Minister for Home Affairs, and Jeffrey Bleich, US Ambassador to Australia, said that the document is designed to ensure that law enforcement agencies can correctly identify and move on criminals and persons of interest hiding amongst legitimate tourists and businesspeople.
"Transnational criminals and terrorists are always trying to hide among legitimate tourists and business travellers. It is critical for us to find them and stop them without interfering with those travellers who build bonds between our people and strengthen commerce for both countries," Bleich said in a statement.
O'Connor added that "this important measure reinforces our shared values regarding the protection and privacy of the citizens of both countries while also denying safe haven to criminals".
Luke Hopewell @'ZDNet'
Guess we are officially the 51st State now...
About Pepper Spray
I checked the Scoville Scale for something else yesterday. I was looking for a way to measure the intensity of pepper spray, the kind that police have been using on Occupy protestors including this week’s shocking incident involving peacefully protesting students at the University of California-Davis.
As the chart makes clear, commercial grade pepper spray leaves even the most painful of natural peppers (the Himalayan ghost pepper) far behind. It’s listed at between 2 million and 5.3 million Scoville units. The lower number refers to the kind of pepper spray that you and I might be able to purchase for self-protective uses. And the higher number? It’s the kind of spray that police use, the super-high dose given in the orange-colored spray used at UC-Davis.
The reason pepper-spray ends up on the Scoville chart is that – you probably guessed this - it’s literally derived from pepper chemistry, the compounds that make habaneros so much more formidable than the comparatively wimpy bells. Those compounds are called capsaicins and – in fact – pepper spray is more formally called Oleoresin Capsicum or OC Spray.
But we’ve taken to calling it pepper spray, I think, because that makes it sound so much more benign than it really is, like something just a grade or so above what we might mix up in a home kitchen. The description hints maybe at that eye-stinging effect that the cook occasionally experiences when making something like a jalapeno-based salsa, a little burn, nothing too serious.
Until you look it up on the Scoville scale and remember, as toxicologists love to point out, that the dose makes the poison. That we’re not talking about cookery but a potent blast of chemistry. So that if OC spray is the U.S. police response of choice – and certainly, it’s been used with dismaying enthusiasm during the Occupy protests nationwide, as documented in this excellent Atlantic roundup - it may be time to demand a more serious look at the risks involved.
My own purpose here is to focus on the dangers of a high level of capsaicin exposure. But as pointed out in the 2004 paper, Health Hazards of Pepper Spray, written by health researchers at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, the sprays contain other risky materials:
Depending on brand, an OC spray may contain water, alcohols, or organic solvents as liquid carriers; and nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or halogenated hydrocarbons (such as Freon, tetrachloroethylene, and methylene chloride) as propellants to discharge the canister contents.(3) Inhalation of high doses of some of these chemicals can produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death...
Continue reading
Deborah Blum @'Speakeasy Science'
How I Got My Song - Leonard Cohen's Prince Of Asturias Speech 21/10/11
"Poetry comes from a place that no one commands, that no one conquers. So I feel somewhat like a charlatan to accept an award for an activity which I do not command. In other words, if I knew where the good songs came from I would go there more often."
Via
Via
MetPoliceCO11 Metropolitan Police
In response to the ongoing CCTV outage in the Holborn area we have now deployed a small team of barn owls with notepads.
In response to the ongoing CCTV outage in the Holborn area we have now deployed a small team of barn owls with notepads.
#OWS Livestream
Now, finally, a drum circle you don't have to be high to enjoy: this Sunday at 2pm, for 24 hours, bring the love to Mayor Bloomberg's personal townhouse: 17 East 79th Street.
Tie-dye, didgeridoo, hackeysack welcome! No shirt, no shoes, no problem! And if you don't have talent, don't worry: FREE DRUM LESSONS offered! Also on offer: collaborative drumming with the police!
Even though this is a 24-hour drum circle, don't be late! The mayor loves evictions. Who knows what'll happen? But no matter how long it lasts, there'll be an afterparty and love-in in world-famous Central Park just next door.
Via
Tie-dye, didgeridoo, hackeysack welcome! No shirt, no shoes, no problem! And if you don't have talent, don't worry: FREE DRUM LESSONS offered! Also on offer: collaborative drumming with the police!
Even though this is a 24-hour drum circle, don't be late! The mayor loves evictions. Who knows what'll happen? But no matter how long it lasts, there'll be an afterparty and love-in in world-famous Central Park just next door.
Via
Newyorkist Newyorkist
Cop instructed someone to remove mask. Said against law. Ppl told him chk law. He said: "I don't need to chk the law, I can do what I want."
Cop instructed someone to remove mask. Said against law. Ppl told him chk law. He said: "I don't need to chk the law, I can do what I want."
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Duqu from ‘Well-Funded Coders’
Duqu, the malware that targeted industrial manufacturers around the world, contains so many advanced features that it could only have been developed by a team of highly skilled programmers who worked full time, security researchers said.
That finding falls in place with the ISSSource report last week that learned American and Israeli officials are heading a team effort to perfect the new Stuxnet worm, called Duqu, that may be able to bring down Iran’s entire software networks if the Iranian regime gets too close to breakout, U.S. intelligence sources said.
The new report finds features include steganographic processes that encrypt stolen data and embed it into image files before sending it to attacker-controlled servers, an analysis by NSS researchers found.
Using a custom protocol to hide the proprietary information inside the innocuous-looking file, before it’s sent to command and control servers, is a centuries-old technique used to conceal the exchange of sensitive communications.
Duqu is also the world’s first known modular plugin rootkit, the researchers said. That allows the attackers to add or remove functionality and change command and control servers quickly with little effort. The conclusion the researchers draw from their analysis is Duqu is the product of well organized team of highly motivated developers.
“Given the complexity of the system (solid driver code plus impressive system architecture) it is not possible for this to have been written by a single person, nor by a team of part-time amateurs,” NSS researchers Mohamed Saher and Matthew Molinyawe wrote. “The implication is that, given the requirement for multiple man-years of effort, that this has been produced by a disciplined, well-funded team of competent coders.”
The modular design means there’s a potentially large number of components that have yet to be discovered. NSS released a scanning tool that can detect all Duqu drivers installed on an infected system. The tool doesn’t generate false positives and has already been used to spot two previously undetected Duqu drivers, the researchers said.
“We hope the research community can use this tool to discover new drivers and would ask that any samples be provided to NSS researchers (anonymously if preferred) in order to aid us in understanding more about the threat posed by Duqu,” they wrote.
The researchers echoed previous reports that Duqu contains many similarities to the Stuxnet worm used to sabotage uranium enrichment plants in Iran. The NSS analysis said Duqu uses similar code and techniques to those of Stuxnet, but they said they are not aware if Duqu comes from Stuxnet.
Duqu’s state-of-the-art design and its resemblance to Stuxnet makes the malware worth watching, but with key questions still unanswered, it’s too early to know exactly what to think.
“There is no possible explanation for the production of such a sophisticated and elegant system merely to steal the information that has been targeted so far,” they wrote. “Why go to all this trouble to deploy a simple key-logger? Given that there are additional drivers waiting to be discovered, we can liken Duqu to a sophisticated rocket launcher – we have yet to see the real ammunition appear.”
@'ISS Source'
That finding falls in place with the ISSSource report last week that learned American and Israeli officials are heading a team effort to perfect the new Stuxnet worm, called Duqu, that may be able to bring down Iran’s entire software networks if the Iranian regime gets too close to breakout, U.S. intelligence sources said.
The new report finds features include steganographic processes that encrypt stolen data and embed it into image files before sending it to attacker-controlled servers, an analysis by NSS researchers found.
Using a custom protocol to hide the proprietary information inside the innocuous-looking file, before it’s sent to command and control servers, is a centuries-old technique used to conceal the exchange of sensitive communications.
Duqu is also the world’s first known modular plugin rootkit, the researchers said. That allows the attackers to add or remove functionality and change command and control servers quickly with little effort. The conclusion the researchers draw from their analysis is Duqu is the product of well organized team of highly motivated developers.
“Given the complexity of the system (solid driver code plus impressive system architecture) it is not possible for this to have been written by a single person, nor by a team of part-time amateurs,” NSS researchers Mohamed Saher and Matthew Molinyawe wrote. “The implication is that, given the requirement for multiple man-years of effort, that this has been produced by a disciplined, well-funded team of competent coders.”
The modular design means there’s a potentially large number of components that have yet to be discovered. NSS released a scanning tool that can detect all Duqu drivers installed on an infected system. The tool doesn’t generate false positives and has already been used to spot two previously undetected Duqu drivers, the researchers said.
“We hope the research community can use this tool to discover new drivers and would ask that any samples be provided to NSS researchers (anonymously if preferred) in order to aid us in understanding more about the threat posed by Duqu,” they wrote.
The researchers echoed previous reports that Duqu contains many similarities to the Stuxnet worm used to sabotage uranium enrichment plants in Iran. The NSS analysis said Duqu uses similar code and techniques to those of Stuxnet, but they said they are not aware if Duqu comes from Stuxnet.
Duqu’s state-of-the-art design and its resemblance to Stuxnet makes the malware worth watching, but with key questions still unanswered, it’s too early to know exactly what to think.
“There is no possible explanation for the production of such a sophisticated and elegant system merely to steal the information that has been targeted so far,” they wrote. “Why go to all this trouble to deploy a simple key-logger? Given that there are additional drivers waiting to be discovered, we can liken Duqu to a sophisticated rocket launcher – we have yet to see the real ammunition appear.”
@'ISS Source'
When Kerouac Met Kesey
Before I ever met Kesey, Tom Guinzburg, president of Viking Press, called me one day in 1961 to ask whether Kerouac would write a blurb for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey’s first novel. Tom had bought the book, but Viking had not yet published it. Publishers are always looking for well-known writers to offer positive comments for the book jacket or a press release. A blurb can be particularly helpful if readers feel there is a creative relationship between the two writers. I had no idea whether Kerouac would help, because I couldn’t remember his having blurbed before, but I didn’t think he would be offended if I asked. I thought he might even be flattered. So I told Tom to send me the manuscript. I read it before passing it on to Jack, and I knew right then that I wanted to work with Kesey. His novel was a bold, creative story of what happens in a mental institution—a very daring subject for his time. In the end, Jack did not write a blurb; he felt uncomfortable doing it, perhaps not wanting to get into that arena and all that went with it, and I respected that.
I called Guinzburg to tell him I’d like to represent Kesey, who didn’t have an agent, and then got in touch with Ken. He was delighted, and we started working together. In 1963, Ken sent me his second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, and soon came to New York for the Broadway opening of the play based on Cuckoo’s Nest, starring Kirk Douglas as McMurphy and Joan Tetzel as Nurse Ratched.
When I met him then, Ken shook my hand with a firm grip. He was 28 and had the piercing blue eyes and warm smile of Paul Newman—but with not as much hair. (Newman would play the lead in the film adaptation of Sometimes a Great Notion.) He was five feet 10 and trim, and he had bushy sideburns that were his signature and wore a woolen bill cap. He seemed to be enjoying everything he did.
Kesey had brought his family and friends with him to Manhattan, and I soon realized that despite his many interests and his peripatetic life, family was a major part of who he was. The night before the play opened, we were sitting around in my apartment on Central Park West, which had a great view of the skyline looking south toward the Empire State Building. But the Kesey contingent, after a day visiting the Museum of Natural History and the site of the upcoming World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows in Queens, ignored the view. They were totally absorbed with one another.
I had just finished reading the manuscript of Sometimes a Great Notion and was impressed and moved. I had never been to Oregon, but Kesey’s writing gave me a vivid picture of that part of the country.
“Ken,” I said, “I think you’ve written a novel that will become an American classic!”
“Thanks very much,” he said immediately, “but I don’t think you’re right. The story is too complicated.”
He turned out to be more right than I was. When I read it again, I realized that although the story bears all the markings of an epic American tragedy, the rotating first-person narrative (often blurring one character’s perspective with that of the next) detracted from the premise of the Great American Novel: no single character or situation serves as emblematic of the novel’s period, and there is no clear hero or villain. But the distinctions it explores between the East Coast and the West Coast, nature and civilization, rugged individualism and communitarianism, all seem very much in keeping with the spirit of the times...
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Sterling Lord @'The American Scholar'
Occupy Wall St - The Revolution Is Love
Directed by Ian MacKenzie
http://ianmack.com
Co-produced with Velcrow Ripper
http://occupylove.org
"Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says 'more for you is less for me.' But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%."
Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution.
Visit http://sacred-economics.com to learn more about his ideas for a new economy.
charlesfrith Charles Edward Frith
Wow. Hard to tell which continent the tear gas is being tweeted from in my timeline.
Wow. Hard to tell which continent the tear gas is being tweeted from in my timeline.
Bob Ostertag: Militarization of Campus Police
Yesterday, police at UC Davis attacked seated students with a chemical gas.
I teach at UC Davis and I personally know many of the students who were the victims of this brutal and unprovoked assault. They are top students. In fact, I can report that among the students I know, the higher a student's grade point average, the more likely it is that they are centrally involved in the protests.
This is not surprising, since what is at issue is the dismantling of public education in California. Just six years ago, tuition at the University of California was $5357. Tuition is currently $12,192. According to current proposals, it will be $22,068 by 2015-2016. We have discussed this in my classes, and about one third of my students report that their families would likely have to pull them out of school at the new tuition. It is not a happy moment when the students look around the room and see who it is that will disappear from campus. These are young people who, like college students everywhere and at all times, form some of the deepest friendships they will have in their lives.
This is what motivates students who have never taken part in any sort of social protest to "occupy" the campus quad. And indeed, there were students who were attacked with chemical agents by robocops who were engaging in their first civic protest.
Since the video of the assault has gone viral, I will assume that most of you have seen the shocking footage. Let's take a look at the equally outrageous explanations and justifications that have come from UC Davis authorities.
UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi sent a letter to the university last night. Chancellor Katehi tells us that:
Chancellor Katehi asserts that "the encampment raised serious health and safety concerns." Really? Twenty tents on the quad "raised serious health and safety concerns?" Has the chancellor been to a frat party lately? Or a football game? Talk about "serious health and safety concerns."
How about this for another option: three years ago there was a very similar occupation of the quad at Columbia University in New York City by students protesting the way the expansion of the university was displacing residents in the neighborhood. There was a core group of twenty or thirty students there around the clock. At the high points there were 200-300. The administration met with the students and held serious discussions about their concerns. And after a couple of weeks the protest had run its course and the students took the tents down. The most severe action that was even contemplated on the part of the university was to expel students who were hunger striking, under a rule that allows the school to expel students who are considered a threat to themselves. But no one was actually expelled.
Remember when universities used to expel students instead of spray them with chemical agents...?
I teach at UC Davis and I personally know many of the students who were the victims of this brutal and unprovoked assault. They are top students. In fact, I can report that among the students I know, the higher a student's grade point average, the more likely it is that they are centrally involved in the protests.
This is not surprising, since what is at issue is the dismantling of public education in California. Just six years ago, tuition at the University of California was $5357. Tuition is currently $12,192. According to current proposals, it will be $22,068 by 2015-2016. We have discussed this in my classes, and about one third of my students report that their families would likely have to pull them out of school at the new tuition. It is not a happy moment when the students look around the room and see who it is that will disappear from campus. These are young people who, like college students everywhere and at all times, form some of the deepest friendships they will have in their lives.
This is what motivates students who have never taken part in any sort of social protest to "occupy" the campus quad. And indeed, there were students who were attacked with chemical agents by robocops who were engaging in their first civic protest.
Since the video of the assault has gone viral, I will assume that most of you have seen the shocking footage. Let's take a look at the equally outrageous explanations and justifications that have come from UC Davis authorities.
UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi sent a letter to the university last night. Chancellor Katehi tells us that:
The group was informed in writing... that if they did not dismantle the encampment, it would have to be removed... However a number of protestors refused our warning, offering us no option but to ask the police to assist in their removal.No other options? The list of options is endless. To begin with, the chancellor could have thanked them for their sense of civic duty. The occupation could have been turned into a teach-in on the role of public education in this country. There could have been a call for professors to hold classes on the quad. The list of "other options" is endless.
Chancellor Katehi asserts that "the encampment raised serious health and safety concerns." Really? Twenty tents on the quad "raised serious health and safety concerns?" Has the chancellor been to a frat party lately? Or a football game? Talk about "serious health and safety concerns."
How about this for another option: three years ago there was a very similar occupation of the quad at Columbia University in New York City by students protesting the way the expansion of the university was displacing residents in the neighborhood. There was a core group of twenty or thirty students there around the clock. At the high points there were 200-300. The administration met with the students and held serious discussions about their concerns. And after a couple of weeks the protest had run its course and the students took the tents down. The most severe action that was even contemplated on the part of the university was to expel students who were hunger striking, under a rule that allows the school to expel students who are considered a threat to themselves. But no one was actually expelled.
Remember when universities used to expel students instead of spray them with chemical agents...?
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