Tuesday, March 06, 2018

6 March - Cryptogon

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Is Google Going Underground With Hypersonic Tech?
Via: IEEE: Google is carrying out research on hypersonics, probably for new technologies to slash the cost of geothermal energy and tunneling. It could also be acquiring a Washington-based startup called HyperSciences that has already built prototype devices. … The technology being developed by HyperSciences should make it cheaper to reach much higher temperatures even […]
Los Angeles: How Can a Place with 58,000 Homeless People Continue to Function?
How Can a Place with 58,000 Homeless People Continue to Function? Answer: With favelas and airmobile paramilitary forces. Most Americans couldn’t identify Brazil on a map, but the sprawling U.S. ghettos will increasingly look like Rio. Via: Los Angeles Times: Homelessness affects the lives of all Angelenos, not just those forced to live on the […]
Youtube Deletes Entire Health Ranger Video Channel
The Health Ranger YouTube channel is currently returning: “This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” Well, I went through being added to Google’s shit list over a decade ago. So… I have no idea why people who deal with alternative information continue to rely on Google’s platforms, given the company’s long history […]

Yesterday

Uber and Lyft Drivers’ Median Hourly Wage Is Just $3.37
Via: Guardian: Uber and Lyft drivers in the US make a median profit of $3.37 per hour before taxes, according to a new report that suggests a majority of ride-share workers make below minimum wage and that many actually lose money. Researchers did an analysis of vehicle cost data and a survey of more than […]
‘Dorm Living for Professionals Comes to San Francisco’
The New York Times is promoting Khrushchyovka-style living in San Francisco for $1,400 to $2,400 a month. Via: New York Times: Shared bathrooms at the end of the hall and having no individual kitchen or living room is becoming less weird for some of the city’s workers thanks to Starcity, a new development company that […]

Mar 04

Men’s Sperm Counts Are Dropping, and Scientists Don’t Know Why
Via: Yahoo News: The topic of overpopulation has been much discussed over the past few decades, but what if the real issue is a severe decline in population? It sounds like something straight out of a dystopian nightmare, but new research shows sperm counts are drastically dropping across the Western world. Researchers from Hebrew University-Hadassah […]

Mar 03

MI5 Agents Can Commit Crime in UK, Government Reveals
Shocker. Via: Guardian: MI5 agents are allowed to carry out criminal activity in the UK, the government has acknowledged for the first time. The prime minister was on Thursday forced to publish the text of a direction to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, the spying watchdog, on governing “security service participation in criminality”. It instructs […]
40Hz Audio and Visual Stimuli and Alzheimer’s
Via: Nature: In March 2015, Li-Huei Tsai set up a tiny disco for some of the mice in her laboratory. For an hour each day, she placed them in a box lit only by a flickering strobe. The mice — which had been engineered to produce plaques of the peptide amyloid-? in the brain, a […]

Mar 02

Dumping U.S. Debt, a Possible Weapon in Global Trade War
Via: Reuters: U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to slap stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum has rattled financial markets and stirred fears that some trading partners might retaliate by dumping U.S. Treasuries. Should China, Japan and other nations, which have recycled their trade dollars through their Treasuries holdings, suddenly decide to whittle them down, […]
Tor Is a Foreign Policy Weapon of the U.S. Government
Via: Yasha Levine: For years, the Tor Project — along with other U.S. government crypto tools like Signal — has been seen in almost religious terms by the privacy community as the only way to protect people from government spying online. The Electronic Frontier Foundation held up Tor as the digital equivalent of the First […]

Mar 01

The Disturbing Acceptance of Google’s New ‘Smart’ Camera
Via: The Week: In the reviews that rolled out recently for Google’s new Clips smart camera, there were the rote things that you’d expect in all tech reviews: what was good, what was bad, and, inevitably, whether or not you should buy it. There was, however, a key idea conspicuously absent: whether or not the […]
South Africa to Seize Land from White Farmers Without Compensation
“But he stressed it must be conducted in a manner which preserved food production and security.” Oh sure. Russian Famine of 1921–22 Great Chinese Famine Cambodian Famine Keep those in mind when you see the kids in the streets waving hammer and sickle signs. Via: Independent: South Africa‘s parliament has passed a motion to seize […]
Former Google Exec: Don’t Worry About Terminator Robots for Another Decade or Two
Via: Defense News: Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and military robotics have some concerned that the development of Terminator-like killer robots will be humankind’s downfall. But that doesn’t seem to worry Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet, who addressed the impact of technology on democracy at the Feb. 16-18 Munich […]

Feb 28

Trump: “Take the Guns First, Go Through Due Process Second”
Via: USA Today: President Trump said Wednesday he favors taking guns away from people who might commit violence before going through legal due process in the courts, one of many startling comments he made in a rambling White House meeting designed to hash out school safety legislation with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. “I like […]
The Poignant Gulag Art by Stalin’s Doomed Meteorologist
Via: Atlas Obscura: AN ARCTIC FOX, A HEN, wild berries, a reindeer, a single candle glowing in the darkness, glaciers floating at sea, and an aurora borealis. These are some of the subjects of delicate, precise illustrations created by a man imprisoned in a Soviet gulag during the 1930s. The man’s drawings and letters, teeming […]
Palantir Has Secretly Been Using New Orleans to Test Its Predictive Policing Technology
Via: The Verge: The program began in 2012 as a partnership between New Orleans Police and Palantir Technologies, a data-mining firm founded with seed money from the CIA’s venture capital firm. According to interviews and documents obtained by The Verge, the initiative was essentially a predictive policing program, similar to the “heat list” in Chicago […]

Feb 27

Trump Announces Re-Election Campaign and Campaign Manager
It’s a bit like the Christmas shit appearing in stores in October. Hmm. I wonder if They’ll fit Hillary with a powered exoskeleton suit this time? Via: CBS: President Donald Trump announced that he’s running for re-election in 2020, and Brad Parscale, who served as the Trump campaign’s 2016 digital guru, has been named campaign […]
California to Allow Testing of Self-Driving Cars Without a Driver Present
Thinking about the security side of this sends a chill down my spine. We’ve all heard of botnets. We’re probably not more than a couple of years away from the first botnet consisting of thousands of autonomous vehicles. I have roughly zero confidence that the security around autonomous vehicles will be sufficient to prevent this […]

Feb 26

Norway Will Spend $13 Million to Upgrade Its Doomsday Seed Vault
Via: The Verge: Norway will spend 100 million Norwegian Crowns ($12.7 million) to upgrade the doomsday seed vault it built 10 years ago. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was constructed in an abandoned Arctic coal mine to store and safeguard the world’s crops and plants from global natural or man-made disaster. If nuclear war or […]
Kids Use Tech So Much They Can’t Hold A Pencil Anymore, Doctors Say
Swipetarded parents. Swipetarded children. This should be a boon for the public school to private prison gravy train. Via: Guardian: Children are increasingly finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because of an excessive use of technology, senior paediatric doctors have warned. An overuse of touchscreen phones and tablets is preventing children’s finger muscles […]
Apple Confirms It Uses Google’s Cloud for iCloud
Via: CNBC: A file that Apple updated on its website last month provides the first acknowledgment that it’s relying on Google’s public cloud for data storage for its iCloud services. The disclosure is fresh evidence that Google’s cloud has been picking up usage as it looks to catch up with Amazon and Microsoft in the […]

Feb 25

CDC Epidemic Intelligence Officer Left Work Feeling Ill, Hasn’t Been Seen Since
Via: NBC: A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employee was last seen 11 days ago, when he left work early after complaining that he felt unwell, Atlanta police said Friday. Timothy Cunningham, 35, works as a commander in the U.S. Public Health Service and has responded to the Ebola virus and the Zika virus […]
China Sets Stage for Xi to Stay in Office Indefinitely
Via: Reuters: China’s ruling Communist Party on Sunday set the stage for President Xi Jinping to stay in office indefinitely, with a proposal to remove a constitutional clause limiting presidential service to just two terms in office.

Feb 24

Apple Moves to Store iCloud Keys in China, Raising Human Rights Fears
Via: Reuters: When Apple Inc begins hosting Chinese users’ iCloud accounts in a new Chinese data center at the end of this month to comply with new laws there, Chinese authorities will have far easier access to text messages, email and other data stored in the cloud. That’s because of a change to how the […]
Daimler’s Truck Boss Thinks Tesla Semi Specs Defy Laws of Physics, Musk Thinks Production Tesla Semi Will Exceed Specs for Same Price
Via: Electrek: As we reported last week and discussed on the Electrek podcast yesterday, many people still have a difficult time wrapping their head around the Tesla Semi specs that the company announced last year. But now CEO Elon Musk says that he is ‘optimistic’ they can beat those specs with the production version of […]
Thanks to “Consent” Buried Deep in Sales Agreements, Car Manufacturers Are Tracking Tens of Millions of U.S. Cars
Via: BoingBoing: Millions of new cars sold in the US and Europe are “connected,” having some mechanism for exchanging data with their manufacturers after the cars are sold; these cars stream or batch-upload location data and other telemetry to their manufacturers, who argue that they are allowed to do virtually anything they want with this […]
SpaceX Begins Starlink Satellite Broadband Trial
Via: cnet: A pair of small satellites named for an adventurous Belgian cartoon character could serve as proof of concept for an ambitious global broadband service envisioned by Elon Musk. After days of delays, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the two small satellites, newly dubbed Tintin A and B by Musk (but known more […]
A Larger Role for Midwives Could Improve Deficient U.S. Care for Mothers and Babies
Via: ProPublica: In Great Britain, midwives deliver half of all babies, including Kate Middleton’s first two children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte. In Sweden, Norway and France, midwives oversee most expectant and new mothers, enabling obstetricians to concentrate on high-risk births. In Canada and New Zealand, midwives are so highly valued that they’re brought in […]
Construction Begins on Jeff Bezos’ $42 Million 10,000-Year Clock
Via: The Verge: Installation has finally begun on Jeff Bezos’ 10,000-year clock, a project that the Amazon CEO has invested $42 million in (along with a hollowed-out mountain in Texas that Bezos intends for a Blue Origin spaceport), with the goal of building a mechanical clock that will run for 10 millennia.

Feb 23

CNN Town Hall: Stick to the Script
Via: Real Clear Politics: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor Colton Haab appeared on FOX News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight to talk about his saga with CNN and how they “scripted” a question for him to use at Wednesday night’s town hall event hosted by the network and moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper. Haab, a […]
SpinLaunch
I just hope there’s plenty of 4K footage of the launch centrifuge facility when it experiences catastrophic failure. Via: TechCrunch: What if instead of blasting cargo into space on a rocket, we could fling it into space using a catapult? That’s the big, possibly crazy, possibly genius idea behind SpinLaunch. It was secretly founded in […]

Feb 22

Nissan to Begin Easy Ride Trial in Japan
Via: Reuters: Facing a future in which self-driving cars may curb vehicle ownership, Nissan Motor Co is taking its first steps to becoming an operator of autonomous transportation services, hoping to break into a segment set to be dominated by Uber Technologies and other technology firms. In partnership with Japanese mobile gaming platform operator DeNA […]
How General Electric Gambled on Fossil Fuel Power, and Lost
Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: Reuters: Rather than rising, GE Power’s profit fell 45 percent last year, forcing GE to slash its overall profit outlook and cut its dividend for only the second time since the Great Depression. Its shares have plunged more than 50 percent since the March […]

Feb 21

Ex-CIA Director: U.S. Meddles in Foreign Elections for a ‘Very Good Cause’
Via: The Hill: Following a federal indictment of Russians accused of meddling in the U.S election, a former CIA director on Friday said the U.S. “probably” meddles in other countries’ elections, as well. The Russian embassy flagged his comments. When asked whether the U.S. interferes in other countries’ elections, James Woolsey said, “Well, only for […]
The Car of the Future Will Sell Your Data
No. Via: Bloomberg: Picture this: You’re driving home from work, contemplating what to make for dinner, and as you idle at a red light near your neighborhood pizzeria, an ad offering $5 off a pepperoni pie pops up on your dashboard screen. Are you annoyed that your car’s trying to sell you something, or pleasantly […]

Feb 20

South Korean Cryptocurrency Regulator Found Dead at Home
Via: Wall Street Journal: A South Korean official who guided Seoul’s regulatory clampdown on cryptocurrencies was found dead on Sunday, according to a government spokesman. Jung Ki-joon, 52, was head of economic policy at the Office for Government Policy Coordination. He helped coordinate efforts to create new legislation aimed at suppressing cryptocurrency speculation and illicit […]
Academic Investigating Chinese Influence Peddling in New Zealand Had Break-Ins at Home and Work
Via: New Zealand Herald: A New Zealand academic who made international waves researching China’s international influence campaigns has linked a number of recent break-ins to her work. University of Canterbury professor Anne-Marie Brady, speaking today from Christchurch to the Australian Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee in Canberra, outlined three recent events which caused her conc

Feb 19

The Secret on the Ocean Floor
Via: BBC: In the summer of 1974, a large and highly unusual ship set sail from Long Beach in California. It was heading for the middle of the Pacific where its owners boasted it would herald a revolutionary new industry beneath the waves. Equipped with a towering rig and the latest in drilling gear, the […]
L.A. County’s Homeless Problem Is Worsening Despite Billions from Tax Measures
Build the sprawling San Angeles favelas with autonomous construction drones! No? Via: Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles County’s homeless population is increasing faster than the supply of new housing, even with the addition of thousands of beds in the last two years and millions of dollars beginning to flow in from two ballot measures targeting […]
San Francisco Streets More Filthy Than Third World Slums
Via: NBC: How dirty is San Francisco? An NBC Bay Area Investigation reveals a dangerous mix of drug needles, garbage, and feces throughout downtown San Francisco. The Investigative Unit surveyed 153 blocks of the city – the more than 20-mile stretch includes popular tourist spots like Union Square and major hotel chains. The area – […]

Feb 18

Oregon UFO Incident
Via: The War Zone: Last November, The War Zone posted an exclusive story detailing a bizarre incident involving an unidentified aircraft that transited the skies of the Pacific Northwest in the early evening of October 25th, 2017. What started as a radar target moving at very high speed over Northern California turned into a series […]

Feb 16

Brazil Military Takes Control of Rio de Janeiro’s Security
Via: Bloomberg: Brazil’s military will take control of public security in the state of Rio de Janeiro as a wave of violence rattles the population and dominates media coverage ahead of this year’s presidential election. President Michel Temer will issue a decree on Friday putting the military in charge of Rio’s security forces, his press […]

Feb 15

Florida High School Shooting
Update: On the Day of the Shooting, Teachers Were Told There Would Soon Be a “Code Red” or “Lockdown” Drill Via: Miami Herald: When the fire alarm rang near the end of the school day on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, teacher Ernest Rospierski assumed it was a “code red” drill. […]

Feb 14

NSA Shooting: 3 in Custody, Officer Injured After SUV Stopped at Fort Meade Security Gate
Via: Baltimore Sun: FBI officials said they are continuing to investigate an incident at Fort Meade early Wednesday that left three people injured when the driver of an SUV attempted to make an unauthorized entry into the National Security Agency’s compound. Dave Fitz, a spokesman at the FBI’s Baltimore field office, said late Wednesday investigators […]

Feb 13

Whistleblower: VIX Being Rigged
Via: MarketWatch: One of the most popular measures of volatility is being manipulated, charges one individual who submitted a letter anonymously to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The letter makes the claim to regulators that fake quotes for the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.26% are skewing levels of the […]
Total U.S. Household Debt Soars to Record Above $13 Trillion
Via: CNBC: The American consumer is loading up on debt. Total household debt rose by $193 billion to an all-time high of $13.15 trillion at year-end 2017 from the previous quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data report released Tuesday.
Israeli Police Recommend Bribery Charges Against Netanyahu
Wake me up when this monster is prosecuted for war crimes. Via: Reuters: Israeli police on Tuesday recommended indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bribery, opening the way for what could be the biggest challenge yet to the right-wing leader’s political survival. … In a detailed statement, police named Arnon Milchan, a Hollywood producer and […]

Feb 12

Hey Buddy, Can You Give Me a Hand?
Via: Boston Dynamics:
German Court Rules Facebook Use of Personal Data Illegal
Via: Reuters: A German consumer rights group said on Monday that a court had found Facebook’s use of personal data to be illegal because the U.S. social media platform did not adequately secure the informed consent of its users. The verdict, from a Berlin regional court, comes as Big Tech faces increasing scrutiny in Germany […]
The Economist: It Appears Market Conspiracy Theorists Were Right
I wasn’t going to post this. It might have been newsworthy 20 years ago, but since people are submitting it, here you go. Via: ZeroHedge: Three new recently published scientific papers seem to confirm what many have claimed for years: the “efficient markets” are not only inefficient – from an informational standpoint – they are […]

Feb 11

The 11 Cities Most Likely to Run Out of Drinking Water – Like Cape Town
Via: BBC: Cape Town faces the unenviable situation of being the first major city in the modern era to run out of drinking water. However, the plight of the drought-hit South African city is just one extreme example of a problem that experts have long been warning about – water scarcity.

Feb 10

Foxconn Unit to Cut Over 10,000 Jobs as Robotics Take Over
Via: Nikkei: Foxconn’s panel arm Innolux is planning to slash more than 10,000 jobs this year as part of the company’s aggressive efforts to increase the use of automation in manufacturing, said Honorary Chairman Tuan Hsing-Chien on Tuesday. “We will reduce our total workforce to less than 50,000 people by the end of this year, […]
Israeli Jet Shot Down After Bombing Iranian Site in Syria
Via: Reuters: Anti-aircraft fire downed an Israeli warplane returning from a bombing raid on Iran-backed positions in Syria on Saturday in the most serious confrontations yet between Israel and Iranian-backed forces based across the border. The F-16, one of at least eight Israeli planes despatched in response to what Israel said was an Iranian drone’s […]

Feb 09

Russian Nuclear Scientists Connect Airgapped Supercomputer to Internet to Mine Cryptocurrencies
*har* Via: BBC: Russian security officers have arrested several scientists working at a top-secret Russian nuclear warhead facility for allegedly mining crypto-currencies. The suspects had tried to use one of Russia’s most powerful supercomputers to mine Bitcoins, media reports say. The Federal Nuclear Centre in Sarov, western Russia, is a restricted area. The centre’s press […]
Stimulus Puts U.S. Debt On An Upward Trajectory
Via: AFP: As part of a pledge to “Make America Great Again,” President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers are pursuing aggressive economic stimulus while slashing taxes at the same time. The result, budget analysts say, is likely to be swelling debts and deficits for the world’s largest borrower. America’s budget deficit was already on an […]
U.S. Army Now Holding Drills With Ground Robots That Shoot
Via: DefenseOne: In a historic first, the Army conducted a live fire exercise with a remote-controlled ground combat vehicle armed with a .50-caliber machine gun. It plans to conduct more exercises with more heavily armed ground robots within the next couple of years. The demonstration was part of the annual Northern Strike exercise, which took […]
People Fleeing Bay Area
Via: CBS: The number of people packing up and moving out of the Bay Area just hit its highest level in more than a decade. Carole Dabak spent 40 years living in San Jose and now she’s part of the mass exodus that is showing no signs of slowing down. The retired engineer’s packing up […]
Mad Max Violence Stalks Venezuela’s Lawless Roads
Via: Reuters: It’s midnight on one of the most dangerous roads in Latin America and Venezuelan trucker Humberto Aguilar hurtles through the darkness with 20 tons of vegetables freshly harvested from the Andes for sale in the capital Caracas. When he set off at sunset from the town of La Grita in western Venezuela on […]

Feb 06

Trump Wants a ‘Grand Military Parade’ in Washington
Via: CNBC: At the urging of President Donald Trump, the Pentagon is moving forward on planning for “a grand military parade later this year showcasing the might of America’s armed forces,” the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The paper said the cost of the parade “could run in the millions” given the cost to ship tanks […]
SpaceX Launches Falcon Heavy Rocket on Historic Maiden Voyage
Update: Astronomers Spot Musk’s Roadster Via: Virtual Telescope: The car was about as bright as magnitude 15.5, requiring a large (more than 16? – 400 mm in diameter) to be seen visually. Below is a video, obtained with 54 images taken back to back, from 11:12 to 12:15 UT, 8 Feb. 2018. — Update: Was […]
Satire: FBI Warns Republican Memo Could Undermine Faith In Massive, Unaccountable Government Secret Agencies
Via: The Onion: “If we take away the people’s faith in this shadowy monolith exempt from any consequences, all that’s left is an extensive network of rogue, unelected intelligence officers carrying out extrajudicial missions for a variety of subjective, and occasionally personal, reasons.” At press time, Wray confirmed the massive, unaccountable government secret agencies were […]
EHANG 184 AAV Manned Flight Tests
Via: Ehang:

Feb 05

China Deploys Experimental Railgun Aboard Warship
Via: news.com.au: WANT to win a war? Build a better gun. Now China appears to have taken a huge stride ahead of the United States with the first experimental deployment of a new ‘supergun’ aboard a warship. The first images began circulating on the internet last week. They showed a Chinese amphibious assault ship — […]
U.S. Treasury Set to Borrow Nearly $1 Trillion This Year
Via: CNBC: Don’t look now, but the U.S. government needs to borrow more money at exactly the wrong moment — when interest rates are spiking. Last week, in a development first reported by The Washington Post, the Treasury Department quietly released data estimating its 2018 borrowing needs would check in at $955 billion, then top […]

Feb 03

The Breakneck Rise of China’s Colossus of Electric-Car Batteries
Via: Bloomberg: The next global powerhouse in the auto industry comes from a small city in a tea-growing province of southeast China, where an unheralded maker of electric-vehicle batteries is planning a $1.3 billion factory with enough capacity to surpass the output of Tesla and dwarf the suppliers for battery-powered cars by GM, Nissan and […]
Syrian Rebels Down Russian Plane, Kill Pilot
Via: Reuters: Syrian rebels shot down a Russian warplane on Saturday and killed its pilot on the ground after he ejected from the plane, Russia’s defense ministry and Syrian rebels said. The SU-25 came down in an area of northern Idlib province that has seen heavy air strikes and fighting on the ground between 

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