I'm off on another rant
triggered by Syria. Sorry. Apparently, Russia now dictates (has
veto power over?) US strategy. Our “line in the sand” seems to
lead to Geneva, where Russia tells us what is acceptable and how to
sell it to our citizens. If we won't take action when a dictator
starts exterminating his people, what does that mean for Iran, North
Korea, and others? What does it say to our allies like Israel?
John
Kerry: U.S., Russia Reach Deal On Syrian Chemical Weapons
… Kerry and Lavrov
said they agreed on the size of the chemical weapons inventory, [Bad
reporting? They wouldn't need to ask for a list if they knew what
Syria had. Bob] and on a speedy timetable and measures
for Assad to do away with the toxic agents.
… The U.S. and
Russia are giving Syria just one week, until Sept. 21, to submit "a
comprehensive listing, including names, types and quantities of its
chemical weapons agents, types of munitions, and location and form of
storage, production, and research and development facilities."
… U.S. and Russia
agreed that Syria had roughly 1,000 metric tons of chemical
weapons agents and precursors, including blister agents, such as
sulfur and mustard gas and nerve agents like sarin.
These officials said
the two sides did not agree on the number of chemical weapons
sites in Syria.
… "There is an
agreement between Russia and the United States that non-compliance is
going to be held accountable within the Security Council under
Chapter 7," Kerry said. [In other words, we have
agreed not to act unilaterally? Bob]
… Obama retains the
right to launch military strikes without U.N. approval to protect
American national security interests. [But not to
respond to Assad gassing his citizens. Bob]
No one likes this guy.
Is that a good reason to identify everyone who used his anonymous
services? (The reporting gets a little biased too)
FBI
Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack
It wasn’t ever
seriously in doubt, but the FBI yesterday acknowledged that it
secretly took control of Freedom Hosting last July, days before the
servers of the largest provider of ultra-anonymous hosting were found
to be serving custom malware designed to identify visitors.
… The new details
emerged in local
press reports
from a Thursday bail hearing in Dublin, Ireland, where Marques, 28,
is fighting extradition to America on charges that Freedom Hosting
facilitated child pornography on a massive scale. He was denied bail
today for the second time since his arrest in July.
… Tor hidden
services are used by sites that need to evade surveillance or protect
users’ privacy to an extraordinary degree – including human
rights groups and journalists. But they also appeal to [are
appealing to Bob] serious criminal elements, child-pornography
traders among them.
… On August 4, all
the sites hosted by Freedom Hosting — some with no connection to
child porn — began serving an error message with hidden code
embedded in the page. Security
researchers dissected the code and found it exploited a security
hole in Firefox to identify users of the Tor Browser Bundle,
reporting back to a mysterious [unidentified
Bob] server in Northern Virginia.
… Donahue also said
Marque had been researching the possibility of moving his hosting,
and his residence, to Russia. “My suspicion is he was trying to
look for a place to reside to make it the most difficult to be
extradited to the U.S.,” said Donahue, according to the Irish
Independent. [Under the circumstances, not
a bad idea. Bob]
(Related) Meanwhile,
on the other side of the world...
Kim
Dotcom’s Mega-Lawsuit Could Make Him a Multi-Millionaire Again
… Court filings
released this week show Dotcom and associates have made good on a
threat last year to sue police and the country’s main spy agency,
the Government Communications Security Bureau, or GCSB, for the
SWAT-style raid in which Dotcom and the others were arrested a year
and a half ago.
The New Zealand
government appealed
a ruling last year that granted Dotcom the right to sue, but lost
last March. Court documents filed in the High Court earlier this
year, but not made public until this week, lay out Dotcom’s case
that the police were excessively invasive and aggressive in
conducting the raid, and used NSA-like spy systems to place him under
covert surveillance.
“The case will show
how the Five-Eyes spy cloud, X-Keyscore and PRISM were utilized in
our copyright case,” Dotcom tells WIRED. “Remember, I’m not a
terrorist.”
… The U.S.
government is accusing Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, of running
a criminal conspiracy that made hundreds of millions of dollars by
letting users share copyrighted files online. The Justice Department
seized the company’s many domain names, servers and assets at the
time of the raid, and is seeking extradition of Dotcom from New
Zealand to the United States for trial.
… Citing GCSB
documents, Dotcom’s lawyers allege the spy agency illegally
intercepted Dotcom, family members’ and associates’
communications since at least December 16, 2011.
GCSB was not, at the
time, permitted to spy on legal permanent residents like Dotcom, but
the New Zealand government has since legalized such surveillance.
For the Graphic Design
students. Watch the video!
Software
turns 2D objects 3D; lets you 'reach into' photos; bends your mind
Modeling products in
three dimensions can be a time-consuming process. It's easy enough
for humans to identify the presence of 3D objects in 2D scenes, but
extracting these with algorithms is tricky. A new system developed
by a team
of researchers from the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel and
Tel Aviv University aims to simplify the process by using a technique
to pull out 3D shapes and objects from regular photos.
For me
Sites
That Offer Free Educational Videos
ABC Documentaries
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Online
Science Network
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