So it WAS more than a
family spat. Uncle Song Thaek must have pushed the “advising” a
bit too far.
'A
very worrisome sign': North Korea executes uncle of leader Kim Jong
Un
Young North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un's previously powerful uncle has been executed as a
traitor, the country's state-run news service said Thursday.
According to KCNA, the
uncle, Jang Song Thaek, was guilty of "attempting to overthrow
the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a
wild ambition to grab the supreme power of our party and state."
… The official said
it is tough to read the rationale behind the execution but called it
more likely a "power play" or "family dispute"
rather than an ideological move where one side or the other
represented reformist elements.
… Alexandre
Monsourav, a specialist in North Korea at the U.S.–Korea Institute
at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, said
Kim is sending a alarming message to the U.S.:
"Kim Jong Un is
willing to kill his own blood. He’s showing that really he has no
mercy or pity. To me it’s a very worrisome sign. You see these
extremist actions, you really have to take it very seriously."
Monsourav added,
"Whether it’s his young age or personal insecurity making him
do this, we need to be very careful around him."
This is backwards.
What are they thinking?
Change
to Twitter's blocking policy has users up in arms
If you thought that
blocking someone on Twitter meant that they could no longer see your
tweets, think again.
While that
was formerly the case, an update
to the Twitter service appears to have changed the way blocking
works. Now, blocking someone means that you will not
see any of their activity, but they can still see everything you do.
Essentially, you're just muting them.
"If your account
is public," Twitter wrote in its new
blocking policy, "blocking a user does not
prevent that user from following you, interacting with your Tweets,
or receiving your updates in their timeline."
Poor communications?
Much more expensive than no insurance.
"The Washington
Examiner reports, 'Oregon
... signed up just 44 people for insurance through November,
despite spending more than $300 million on its state-based exchange.
The state's exchange had the fewest sign-ups in the nation, according
to a
new report today by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The weak number of sign-ups undercuts two major defenses of Obamacare
from its supporters. One defense was that state-based exchanges were
performing a lot better than the federal healthcare.gov website
servicing 36 states. But Oregon's website problems have forced the
state to rely on paper applications to sign up participants. Another
defense of the Obama administration has attributed the troubled
rollout of Obamacare to the obstruction of Republican governors who
wanted to see the law fail as well as a lack of funding. But Oregon
is a Democratic state that embraced Obamacare early and
enthusiastically.'"
What pending law made
them suddenly willing to allow unlocks?
All
five major US carriers agree to let you unlock your phone anytime you
want
… CTIA, the trade
group that represents these companies, announced Thursday that all
five major carriers—that includes AT&T, Verizon Wireless,
T-Mobile, Sprint, and U.S. Cellular—have voluntarily agreed to make
unlocking phones a guaranteed and more transparent process. The
announcement
of six principles that outline how the carriers will handle unlocking
devices means consumers looking to unlock their phones and
tablets should have a simpler time doing so. The only time a carrier
won't unlock your phone is if it feels that the unlock request is
fraudulent or that the phone has been stolen.
… Last month, FCC
chairman Tom Wheeler told carriers to ease up on unlocking
restrictions or
face the possibility of increased regulations. Apparently, the
five carriers decided that volunteering to change was a better option
than being ordered to do so.
Man is mortal, Internet
is immortal?
Pew
– What happens to your digital life after death?
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on December 12, 2013
What
happens to your digital life after you die? By
Maeve Duggan - ”It’s a question not many consider given how
embedded the internet is in their lives. The typical web user has 25
online accounts, ranging from email to social media profiles and bank
accounts, according to a 2007
study from Microsoft. But families, companies
and legislators are just starting to sort out who owns and has access
to these accounts after someone has died. The issue came up recently
in Virginia, when a couple, seeking answers after their son’s
suicide, realized they couldn’t access his Facebook
account. Now Virginia is one of a growing
number of states that have passed laws governing the digital accounts
of the deceased. Meanwhile, technology companies are forming
their own policies regarding deceased users. While still in the
early stages, the laws and policies taking shape so far indicate that
designating one’s “digital assets” may soon become a critical
part of estate planning. The implications are widespread,
considering that today nearly
all American adults are online and 72% of them,
along with 81% of teenagers, use social media sites. In the digital
world, posting photos, drafting emails or making purchases are
activities that don’t solely belong to users. They belong, in
part, to companies like Facebook and Google that store information on
their servers. In order to access these convenient online tools,
users enter into agreements when they click on — but often don’t
read — terms-of-service agreements…”
Germany bought files
from a Swiss banker to prosecute tax evaders. Does cash change the
“whistle blower” equation?
A
DNA match has unraveled the mystery of the stolen steroid files that
Major League Baseball used to torpedo the career of New York Yankees
third baseman Alex Rodriguez.
Baseball
investigators purchased the stolen files from Gary Jones, a convicted
bank robber, for $25,000 last March, in a secret meeting
in South Florida that Jones had videotaped.
Jones,
in an interview with The Miami Herald in October, admitted he worked
at the Boca tanning salon where the files were stolen, but denied he
had anything to do with the crime.
On
Wednesday, Boca police arrested another tanning salon employee,
Reginald St. Fleur, 20, on charges of armed burglary. St. Fleur said
he didn’t know anything about the burglary, but couldn’t explain
why his DNA matched blood found at the scene, police said.
The
files were allegedly taken from a car that belonged to Porter
Fischer, former marketing director of Biogenesis, the Coral Gables
wellness clinic that allegedly supplied steroids to Rodriguez and a
dozen other major league players.
Read more in the Miami
Herald.
Perspective.
Victims
Of Identity Theft, 2012
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on December 12, 2013
“An estimated 16.6
million people, representing 7 percent of all persons
age 16 or older in the United States, experienced at least one
incident of identity theft in 2012, the Justice
Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today –
in Victims
of Identity Theft, 2012 (NCJ 243779), written
by BJS statisticians Erika Harrell and Lynn Langton. Financial
losses due to personal identity theft totaled $24.7 billion, over $10
billion more than the losses attributed to all other property crimes
measured in the National Crime Victimization Survey. About 14
percent of victims suffered an out-of-pocket financial loss due to
the most recent incident of identity theft. Of the victims who
experienced an out-of-pocket loss, about half lost $99 or less.
Identity theft is the attempted or successful misuse of an existing
account, such as a debit or credit card account, the misuse of
personal information to open a new account, or the misuse of personal
information for other fraudulent purposes, such as obtaining
government benefits or providing false information to police during a
crime or traffic stop. In 2012, the misuse or attempted misuse of an
existing account was the most common type of identity theft —
experienced by 15.3 million people. An estimated 7.7 million people
reported the fraudulent use of a credit card and 7.5 million reported
the fraudulent use of a bank account such as a debit, checking or
savings account. Another 1.1 million persons had their information
misused to open a new account, and about 833,600 persons had their
information misused for other fraudulent purposes. The
most common way victims discovered the identity theft in 2012 was
when a financial institution contacted them about suspicious activity
on an account. About 2 out of 3 victims did not know how
the offender obtained their information, and 9 out of 10 did not know
anything about the identity of the offender. In general, victims who
had personal information, such as a social security number misused,
were more likely to experience financial, legal or other problems as
a result of the incident than other types of identity theft victims.
In addition, about 6 percent of victims who experienced the
fraudulent use of personal information to create a new account
reported significant problems at work or school, compared to about 1
percent of victims of credit card fraud and bank account fraud. The
majority of identity theft victims spent one day or less clearing up
associated problems, while about 10 percent spent more than a month.
Victims who spent more time resolving associated problems were more
likely to experience problems with work or personal relationships and
severe emotional distress than victims who resolved the problems
relatively quickly. Among identity theft victims who spent 6 months
or more resolving financial and credit problems due to the theft, 47
percent experienced severe emotional distress, compared to 4 percent
who spent a day or less. In 2012, about 9 percent of identity theft
victims reported the incident to police. Nearly 90 percent of
identity theft victims contacted a credit card company or bank to
report misuse or attempted misuse of an account or personal
information, 9 percent contacted a credit bureau and 6 percent
contacted a credit monitoring service.”
Perspective. HAL uses
the Internet more than I do...
Welcome
to the Internet of Thingies: 61.5% of Web Traffic Is Not Human
It happened last year
for the first time: bot traffic eclipsed human traffic, according
to the bot-trackers at Incapsula.
This year, Incapsula
says 61.5 percent of traffic on the web is non-human.
Now, you might think
this portends the arrival of "The Internet of Things"—that
ever-promised network that will connect your fridge and car to your
smartphone. But it does not.
This non-human traffic
is search bots, scrapers, hacking tools, and other human
impersonators, little pieces of code skittering across the web. You
might describe this phenomenon as The Internet of Thingies.
Another tool for my
programmers.
MIT
App Inventor 2 - Design Android Apps in Your Browser
This morning I went to
use the MIT
App Inventor for the first time in a couple of
weeks and discovered that MIT App Inventor 2 is now available
to anyone who has a Google Account. MIT App Inventor 2
works just like the first version except version 2 runs entirely in
your browser (Chrome or Firefox, IE is not supported). I immediately
went to my Chromebook just to confirm that MIT App Inventor would run
correctly on it, and it does.
The only download that
is required for App
Inventor 2 is the optional emulator. The
emulator allows people who don't have Android devices to text their
apps on their desktops. If you have an Android device
then the emulator is not required and you don't need to worry about
installing it.
… If you would like
to introduce your students to programming real-world applications,
the MIT App Inventor is a fantastic tool. App Inventor does not
require you to have any prior coding or app development skill in
order to create a working Android app. MIT provides excellent
support
documentation and curriculum for classroom use
for new users of App Inventor.
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