I think in the end, We the people will get what we deserve...the consequences of ignorance and indifference. Most Americans (or Irish people) don't even know the laws passed to take away their rights, nor do they care to learn about them...too much anxiety.
Here is just another example in the long line of draconian laws passed to 'protect' people from them thar 'terrorists'.
Who cares? We can't do anything about it anyway.
OR.....What in the hell is Posse Comitatus....and....who cares?
People who can't be bothered to defend their freedoms may not deserve them.
Wonder why I am disgusted?
Marines at DUI roadblocks
The evaporation of privacy and freedom
Man arrested/convicted for complaining to government
Showing posts with label big brother. Show all posts
Showing posts with label big brother. Show all posts
Friday, March 12, 2010
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Sunday reading - Quotes from George Orwell
Source
A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.
A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.
A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.
Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.
At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.
Big Brother is watching you.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.
Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.
Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.
Liberal: a power worshipper without power.
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.
Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.
Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.
Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.
Myths which are believed in tend to become true.
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.
Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.
Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.
Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more of less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.
To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.
To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.
To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.
War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.
War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.
We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.
A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.
A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.
A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.
Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.
At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.
Big Brother is watching you.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.
Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.
Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.
Liberal: a power worshipper without power.
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.
Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.
Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.
Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.
Myths which are believed in tend to become true.
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.
Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.
Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.
Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more of less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.
To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.
To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.
To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.
War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.
War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.
We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 - Blackout
Internet BLACKOUT
I keep chatting with people on the net about what we can do to affect some resistance to the Orwellian new society being ushered in under our noses. So many say, 'Use the net to spread the word'. Well that is what this blog is about.
Query: what can we do without the net? That may be the question we ultimately face because 'these ARE the good ole days' on the net. Internet surveillance and control by government is advancing at an alarming rate; indeed, the net is too powerful a tool to be left in the hands of people. For example, a law concerned with copyright infringement is being considered in the Senate which allows access to all electronic devices, S92A Copyright Blackout - Video.
Now there is another bill in Congress to shut down the internet in times when the president deems a 'national' emergency is present. Never heard of these laws? Well they will surely become law before the end of the year, as so many other curtailing civil liberties which have been passed right under the noses of masses of panicking herds of citizens worldwide. This is not just an American problem: there is clearly a global synchronicity to this plan to shut down the internet for the use of people.
So....Query: what can we do without the net? Well at least have a laugh.
April 10th, 2009
Source
There's a new bill working its way through Congress that is cause for some alarm: the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF summary here), introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill as it exists now risks giving the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet without necessarily improving security in the ways that matter most. It should be opposed or radically amended.
Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many of our critical infrastructure systems (banks, telecommunications, energy) are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government. This is a potentially dangerous approach that favors the dramatic over the sober response.
One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds goes too far. Certainly there are times when a network owner must block harmful traffic, but the bill gives no guidance on when or how the President could responsibly pull the kill switch on privately-owned and operated networks.
Furthermore, the bill contains a particularly dangerous provision that could cripple privacy and security in one fell swoop:
The Secretary of Commerce— shall have access to all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access…
In other words, the bill would give the Commerce Department absolute, non-emergency access to “all relevant data” without any privacy safeguards like standards or judicial review. The broad scope of this provision could eviscerate statutory protections for private information, such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Privacy Protection Act, or financial privacy regulations. Even worse, it isn’t clear whether this provision would require systems to be designed to enable access, essentially a back door for the Secretary of Commerce that would also establish a primrose path for any bad guy to merrily skip down as well. If the drafters meant to create a clearinghouse for system vulnerability information along the lines of a US/CERT mailing list, that could be useful, but that’s not what the bill’s current language does.
A privacy threat still in the cocoon is the provision mandating a study of the feasibility of an identity management and authentication program with just a nod to “appropriate civil liberties and privacy protections.” There’s reason to fear that this type of study is just a precursor to proposals to limit online anonymity. But anonymity isn’t inherently a security problem. What’s “secure” depends on the goals of the system. Do you need authentication, accountability, confidentiality, data integrity? Each goal suggests a different security architecture, some totally compatible with anonymity, privacy and civil liberties. In other words, no one “identity management and authentication program” is appropriate for all internet uses.
Whether the bill is amended or rejected, the question remains what kind of actions would help cybersecurity, and what role the federal government has to play. As security expert Bruce Schneier has pointed out, the true causes of government cyber-insecurity are rather mundane:
GAO reports indicate that government problems include insufficient access controls, a lack of encryption where necessary, poor network management, failure to install patches, inadequate audit procedures, and incomplete or ineffective information security programs.
The Cybersecurity Act is an example of the kind of dramatic proposal that doesn't address the real problems of security, and can actually make matters worse by weakening existing privacy safeguards – as opposed to simpler, practical measures that create real security by encouraging better computer hygiene. We’ll be watching this bill carefully to ensure that it doesn’t pass in its present form.
MORE?
Related
Bloggers: 1 step from censorship?
I keep chatting with people on the net about what we can do to affect some resistance to the Orwellian new society being ushered in under our noses. So many say, 'Use the net to spread the word'. Well that is what this blog is about.
Query: what can we do without the net? That may be the question we ultimately face because 'these ARE the good ole days' on the net. Internet surveillance and control by government is advancing at an alarming rate; indeed, the net is too powerful a tool to be left in the hands of people. For example, a law concerned with copyright infringement is being considered in the Senate which allows access to all electronic devices, S92A Copyright Blackout - Video.
Now there is another bill in Congress to shut down the internet in times when the president deems a 'national' emergency is present. Never heard of these laws? Well they will surely become law before the end of the year, as so many other curtailing civil liberties which have been passed right under the noses of masses of panicking herds of citizens worldwide. This is not just an American problem: there is clearly a global synchronicity to this plan to shut down the internet for the use of people.
So....Query: what can we do without the net? Well at least have a laugh.
Federal Authority Over the Internet?
The Cybersecurity Act of 2009
by Jennifer GranickApril 10th, 2009
Source
There's a new bill working its way through Congress that is cause for some alarm: the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF summary here), introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill as it exists now risks giving the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet without necessarily improving security in the ways that matter most. It should be opposed or radically amended.
Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many of our critical infrastructure systems (banks, telecommunications, energy) are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government. This is a potentially dangerous approach that favors the dramatic over the sober response.
One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds goes too far. Certainly there are times when a network owner must block harmful traffic, but the bill gives no guidance on when or how the President could responsibly pull the kill switch on privately-owned and operated networks.
Furthermore, the bill contains a particularly dangerous provision that could cripple privacy and security in one fell swoop:
The Secretary of Commerce— shall have access to all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access…
In other words, the bill would give the Commerce Department absolute, non-emergency access to “all relevant data” without any privacy safeguards like standards or judicial review. The broad scope of this provision could eviscerate statutory protections for private information, such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Privacy Protection Act, or financial privacy regulations. Even worse, it isn’t clear whether this provision would require systems to be designed to enable access, essentially a back door for the Secretary of Commerce that would also establish a primrose path for any bad guy to merrily skip down as well. If the drafters meant to create a clearinghouse for system vulnerability information along the lines of a US/CERT mailing list, that could be useful, but that’s not what the bill’s current language does.
A privacy threat still in the cocoon is the provision mandating a study of the feasibility of an identity management and authentication program with just a nod to “appropriate civil liberties and privacy protections.” There’s reason to fear that this type of study is just a precursor to proposals to limit online anonymity. But anonymity isn’t inherently a security problem. What’s “secure” depends on the goals of the system. Do you need authentication, accountability, confidentiality, data integrity? Each goal suggests a different security architecture, some totally compatible with anonymity, privacy and civil liberties. In other words, no one “identity management and authentication program” is appropriate for all internet uses.
Whether the bill is amended or rejected, the question remains what kind of actions would help cybersecurity, and what role the federal government has to play. As security expert Bruce Schneier has pointed out, the true causes of government cyber-insecurity are rather mundane:
GAO reports indicate that government problems include insufficient access controls, a lack of encryption where necessary, poor network management, failure to install patches, inadequate audit procedures, and incomplete or ineffective information security programs.
The Cybersecurity Act is an example of the kind of dramatic proposal that doesn't address the real problems of security, and can actually make matters worse by weakening existing privacy safeguards – as opposed to simpler, practical measures that create real security by encouraging better computer hygiene. We’ll be watching this bill carefully to ensure that it doesn’t pass in its present form.
MORE?
Related
Bloggers: 1 step from censorship?
Friday, March 27, 2009
There goes net freedom! We C U - legally and internationally.
Worried about the economy? No time to pay attention to civil rights concerning privacy? Well, don't be surprised when you have no privacy on your PC or with any of your data held electronically, data shared globally. Want to know who let this happen? Find your nearest mirror.
Big Brother: what's on your PC?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
All your info - now available to Gov't thru your ISP
I was quite relieved when Australia citizens managed to quash their government's proposal to make all Internet Service Providers spies for the government, ISPs Give Rudd Government Two Finger Salute. It appears that Europeans and Americans have not managed to live up to the Aussies in political fervor to protect citizen privacy rights on the internet.
So I guess we shall get what we deserve. Yes it now is legal for your ISP to keep every stroke of yourkeyboard for a year or longer. And, thanks to Mr. Sarkozy, the new team cheerleader for team USA, all data electronically held on EU citizens can be shared with the National Security Agency of the US, even if you are not a criminal, even if you are not a suspected terrorist, even if you are the re-incarnation of Mother Theresa. EU Privacy Rights to be Taken Away
OK? Well it even gets better. This effectively means that private commercial companies hold all sorts of personal data about every email, SMS or electronic communication make by every EU citizen. And in this day of grand outsourcing, who knows even in which country our data could be held.
- NSA’s Wiretapping of Americans being outsourced to Israeli Companies?!?!
- Australia: Private Intelligence Company Monitors Activists Online for Police
We must use word of mouth and tell each other about directives such as the one below if we are to be a democratically responsible citizenry. This goes for all countries...the Aussies did it. So can we. But we must start talking about it and keep on until this issue is addressed to our satisfaction. The writing is on the wall.
EU Data Retention Directive provokes
widespread condemnation
widespread condemnation
Critics speak out against law forcing ISPs
to record every email and SMS from 15 March
Ian Williams
computing.co.uk to record every email and SMS from 15 March
Ian WilliamsFri, 13 Mar 2009
Source
UK internet service providers will have to all store communication information from customers for a full year starting on 15 March, as part of the controversial EU Data Retention Directive (PDF).
Under the directive, details of every email, phone call and text message sent or received, including information such as IP address and time of use, will have to be recorded. Police and security experts will be able to request access to the information to help combat terrorism and cyber crime, but only with a court order.
Nonetheless, the move has sparked serious concerns from privacy groups, IT security firms and legal experts. Susan Hall, an ICT and media partner at law firm Cobbetts LLP, maintained that such a database is "the antithesis of what the whole internet is about". "There have been regular and well known cases when the police criminals' record database has illegally been accessed by 'insiders', using it to vet employees and do favours for friends," she said.
The directive has provoked criticism from EU member states over the cost of the operation, which is estimated at £46m over an eight-year period, as well as fears of privacy violation. "Given the numerous data breaches of late, it is hardly surprising that concern has been raised over these proposals," said Jamie Cowper, director of EMEA marketing at security firm PGP Corporation. "With public confidence about data security at an all time low, it is absolutely essential that ISPs take their obligations seriously.
If privacy violation is to be avoided, and the huge cost of this operation is to be justified, the security of the public's data must be watertight. "If the EU plans to roll out similar legislation to other sectors, they are going to have to demonstrate to the public that every step is being taken to defend their data.
If not, it is fair to say that we are just one data breach away from a major public backlash." Hall went on to ask: "The government is trying to impose liabilities on service providers, and for what? The theoretical possibility that it will stop terrorists?
"People applying for access to the database will, on the basis of what we've already seen happen with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, use a slippery slope argument: first arguing for using the information for sex offenders and other serious criminals, but ultimately using it to worry about parking tickets or whether children are entitled to be enrolled in the school they've applied to, as in the recent Poole Council case."
Hall also believes that these measures will have little discernable impact on the fight against terrorism, as the criminals involved will just find ways of bypassing the checks by using other people's unsecured Wi-Fi connections, hotspots or pay-as-you-go 3G modems. "It is also very interesting to note that the European Court of Human Rights ruled in January that a similarly sweeping DNA database, which contained genetic samples from thousands of citizens who had not been convicted of any crime, violated privacy rights," she said.
"Looking at the comments made in this recent case, the ISP database will run the UK government foul of the European Convention on Human Rights, and on this basis alone should be reconsidered. " Thus far, ISPs that have attempted to stop these laws being implemented, such as in Ireland and Slovakia, have been unsuccessful. With the deadline looming, a spokesman for the Internet Service Providers' Association claimed that most firms are prepared for the directive's implementation.
"We have made our members aware of what is required and, as far as we know, they will all be compliant," he said.
Related articles:
Are YOU a terrorist? Better check.
Bloggers: 1 step from censorship?
Cyber Eyes, Net Cops and Pleasure Chips
Internet freedom: Heads up bloggers
Barack Obama's 'Black Widow' : The Super Spy Computer
More Evidence of Pentagon War Against the Internet
Shhhhh - Cyber censorship sleeping
Friday, February 6, 2009
Hackers clone passports in drive-by RFID heist
I have been following the progress of the RFID chip for some time. Wouldn't you know it? As Big Brother becomes more clever to control us for our safety we become less secure. All that money spent to implement systems outsmarted by a kid in a car with a cheap RFID reader. Go figure how government spends your money. Other articles on RFID and surveillance on this blog are here and here.
By Iain Thomson
4 February 2009
Source
A British hacker has shown how easy it is to clone US passport cards that use RFID by conducting a drive-by test on the streets of San Francisco.
Chris Paget, director of research and development at Seattle-based IOActive, used a US$250 Motorola RFID reader and an antenna mounted in a car’s side window and drove for 20 minutes around San Francisco, with a colleague videoing the demonstration.
During the demonstration he picked up the details of two US passport cards, which are fitted
with RFID chips and can be used instead of traditional passports for travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
“I personally believe that RFID is very unsuitable for tagging people,” he said.
“I don’t believe we should have any kind of identity document with RFID tags in them. My ultimate goal here would be, my dream for this research, would be to see the entire Hemisphere Travel Initiative be scrapped.”
Using the data gleaned it would be relatively simple to make cloned passport cards he said. Real passport cards also support a ‘kill code’ (which can wipe the card’s data) and a ‘lock code’ that prevents the tag’s data being changed.
However he believes these are not currently being used and even if they were the radio interrogation is done in plain text so is relatively easy for a hacker to collect and analyse.
The ease with which the passport cards were picked up is even more worrying considering that less than a million have been issued to date.
Paget is a renowned ‘white hat’ ethical hacker and has made the study of the security failings of RFID something of a speciality.
In 2007 he was due to present a paper on the security failings of RFID at the Black Hat security conference in Washington but was forced to abandon the plans after an RFID company threatened him with legal action.
He points out that RFID tags are increasingly being used in physical security systems such as building access cards and the technology needs significant security adding before it could be considered safe for commercial use.
Copyright © 2009 vnunet.com
By Iain Thomson4 February 2009
Source
A British hacker has shown how easy it is to clone US passport cards that use RFID by conducting a drive-by test on the streets of San Francisco.
Chris Paget, director of research and development at Seattle-based IOActive, used a US$250 Motorola RFID reader and an antenna mounted in a car’s side window and drove for 20 minutes around San Francisco, with a colleague videoing the demonstration.
During the demonstration he picked up the details of two US passport cards, which are fitted
with RFID chips and can be used instead of traditional passports for travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.“I personally believe that RFID is very unsuitable for tagging people,” he said.
“I don’t believe we should have any kind of identity document with RFID tags in them. My ultimate goal here would be, my dream for this research, would be to see the entire Hemisphere Travel Initiative be scrapped.”
Using the data gleaned it would be relatively simple to make cloned passport cards he said. Real passport cards also support a ‘kill code’ (which can wipe the card’s data) and a ‘lock code’ that prevents the tag’s data being changed.
However he believes these are not currently being used and even if they were the radio interrogation is done in plain text so is relatively easy for a hacker to collect and analyse.
The ease with which the passport cards were picked up is even more worrying considering that less than a million have been issued to date.
Paget is a renowned ‘white hat’ ethical hacker and has made the study of the security failings of RFID something of a speciality.
In 2007 he was due to present a paper on the security failings of RFID at the Black Hat security conference in Washington but was forced to abandon the plans after an RFID company threatened him with legal action.
He points out that RFID tags are increasingly being used in physical security systems such as building access cards and the technology needs significant security adding before it could be considered safe for commercial use.
Copyright © 2009 vnunet.com
Friday, January 30, 2009
Things I read Jan 30, 09 - Boiling frogs and dollars
Unemployment rate soars
"There are literally millions of workers unemployed with no hope of finding a new job," she said. "The queue is just too long."...A new survey by the Society for Human Resource Management also found that nearly 75 percent of human resource professionals from U.S. companies were expecting deeper job cuts in the U.S. labor force in the next few months.
Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Operations
Yes the past and future from the horses mouth...I have blogged on this before here. Search 'irregular warfare'.
Russian, Chinese PMs seek to seize control of the dollar
Whether or not Americans realise it, this is the worst possible news for them. By far the story they should be most afraid of. This is the beginning of the end for the dollar, Act IV of the tragedy.
"...the Putin and Wen call to regulate the dollar is a clear power play that would threaten the basic sovereignty of the U.S. government. It also reflects a new upsurge in Sino-Russian cooperation against the United States..."
Global Consciousness Project -Trans-Humanity Awakening To Reality
Do you think it's possible to think our way out of this mess??
Military And New Orleans Police Conducting Nite Time Helicopter Drills In City
Yeah no worries folks. If you put a frog in a pot of cold water and bring it slowly to a boil, the frog won't even realize that you are in the process of boiling it.
Congress Seeks To Authorize & Legalize FEMA Camp Facilities
Froggies...CODE RED CODE RED!
Pew: Almost half of Americans want to live somewhere else
Officials: Army suicides at 3-decade high
WARNING - Taking the blossom of youth and training them to bomb, mutilate and torture other humans could be damaging to their health.
Iraq soldier crying
So many tears from so many people in so many countries. When will we learn that when we kill someone else, we kill ourselves too?
More Orwellian horror for English people.
Why Americans get a distorted View of the Conflict between Israel and Palestinians
The construction of delusion is in the details From Rainbow Warriors blog.
Up Yours
English froggies jumping out of the pot..... GO FROGGIES GO!
Obama's First Acts Of War
Names and Photos of Israeli War Criminals in Gaza
Many of these people may be charged by the Hague. Put nicely in context in Smoking Mirrors blog here. Don't wait long to look...these pictures have a way of disappearing.
I don't like to leave the bad news of the day without a little something...a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...so they say. Here is a picture of the 'glass frog'.
"There are literally millions of workers unemployed with no hope of finding a new job," she said. "The queue is just too long."...A new survey by the Society for Human Resource Management also found that nearly 75 percent of human resource professionals from U.S. companies were expecting deeper job cuts in the U.S. labor force in the next few months.
Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Operations
Yes the past and future from the horses mouth...I have blogged on this before here. Search 'irregular warfare'.
Russian, Chinese PMs seek to seize control of the dollar
Whether or not Americans realise it, this is the worst possible news for them. By far the story they should be most afraid of. This is the beginning of the end for the dollar, Act IV of the tragedy.
"...the Putin and Wen call to regulate the dollar is a clear power play that would threaten the basic sovereignty of the U.S. government. It also reflects a new upsurge in Sino-Russian cooperation against the United States..."
Global Consciousness Project -Trans-Humanity Awakening To Reality
Do you think it's possible to think our way out of this mess??
Military And New Orleans Police Conducting Nite Time Helicopter Drills In City
Yeah no worries folks. If you put a frog in a pot of cold water and bring it slowly to a boil, the frog won't even realize that you are in the process of boiling it.
Congress Seeks To Authorize & Legalize FEMA Camp Facilities
Froggies...CODE RED CODE RED!
Pew: Almost half of Americans want to live somewhere else
Officials: Army suicides at 3-decade high
WARNING - Taking the blossom of youth and training them to bomb, mutilate and torture other humans could be damaging to their health.
Iraq soldier crying
So many tears from so many people in so many countries. When will we learn that when we kill someone else, we kill ourselves too?
More Orwellian horror for English people.
Why Americans get a distorted View of the Conflict between Israel and Palestinians
The construction of delusion is in the details From Rainbow Warriors blog.
Up Yours
English froggies jumping out of the pot..... GO FROGGIES GO!
Obama's First Acts Of War
Names and Photos of Israeli War Criminals in Gaza
Many of these people may be charged by the Hague. Put nicely in context in Smoking Mirrors blog here. Don't wait long to look...these pictures have a way of disappearing.
I don't like to leave the bad news of the day without a little something...a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...so they say. Here is a picture of the 'glass frog'.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Matrix that is not a movie.
Yes there is a real Matrix government project.
The information is more impressive from the source ACLU page here.
The information is more impressive from the source ACLU page here.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The world in 2035
I wish I could say the following article is the Sci-fi plot of a new novel: it is not. The future as envisioned by the Ministry of Defence below is highly probable. Much supporting evidence is listed under 'Related' at the end of the article for those who like research.
The question which begs to be asked is this: What sort of earth could we have created if we hadn't spent most of our money on War technology and Wealth accumulation?
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Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday 9 April 2007
Source
Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.
This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".
The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed.
New weapons
An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a "world city" such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organisms but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world". The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the "application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues". The "explicit use" of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.
Technology
By 2035, an implantable "information chip" could be wired directly to the brain. A growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilise "flashmobs", challenging security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to concentrate forces quickly in a small area.
Marxism
"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".
Pressures leading to social unrest
By 2010 more than 50% of the world's population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and "new instability risks", and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence.
Population and Resources
The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world. Demographic trends, which will exacerbate economic and social tensions, have serious implications for the environment - including the provision of clean water and other resources - and for international relations. The population of sub-Saharan Africa will increase over the period by 81%, and that of Middle Eastern countries by 132%.
The Middle East
The massive population growth will mean the Middle East, and to a lesser extent north Africa, will remain highly unstable, says the report. It singles out Saudi Arabia, the most lucrative market for British arms, with unemployment levels of 20% and a "youth bulge" in a state whose population has risen from 7 million to 27 million since 1980. "The expectations of growing numbers of young people [in the whole region] many of whom will be confronted by the prospect of endemic unemployment ... are unlikely to be met," says the report.
Islamic militancy
Resentment among young people in the face of unrepresentative regimes "will find outlets in political militancy, including radical political Islam whose concept of Umma, the global Islamic community, and resistance to capitalism may lie uneasily in an international system based on nation-states and global market forces", the report warns. The effects of such resentment will be expressed through the migration of youth populations and global communications, encouraging contacts between diaspora communities and their countries of origin.
Tension between the Islamic world and the west will remain, and may increasingly be targeted at China "whose new-found materialism, economic vibrancy, and institutionalised atheism, will be an anathema to orthodox Islam".
Iran
Iran will steadily grow in economic and demographic strength and its energy reserves and geographic location will give it substantial strategic leverage. However, its government could be transformed. "From the middle of the period," says the report, "the country, especially its high proportion of younger people, will want to benefit from increased access to globalisation and diversity, and it may be that Iran progressively, but unevenly, transforms...into a vibrant democracy."
Terrorism
Casualties and the amount of damage inflicted by terrorism will stay low compared to other forms of coercion and conflict. But acts of extreme violence, supported by elements within Islamist states, with media exploitation to maximise the impact of the "theatre of violence" will persist. A "terrorist coalition", the report says, including a wide range of reactionary and revolutionary rejectionists such as ultra-nationalists, religious groupings and even extreme environmentalists, might conduct a global campaign of greater intensity".
Climate change
There is "compelling evidence" to indicate that climate change is occurring and that the atmosphere will continue to warm at an unprecedented rate throughout the 21st century. It could lead to a reduction in north Atlantic salinity by increasing the freshwater runoff from the Arctic. This could affect the natural circulation of the north Atlantic by diminishing the warming effect of ocean currents on western Europe. "The drop in temperature might exceed that of the miniature ice age of the 17th and 18th centuries."
Related
Revolution in Military Affairs: From Computer Generated Insurgents to Bioelectric Implants
Big brother
Robotics
Civil liberties
Biometrics
The Rockefeller roots of the United Nations
Video
8 years in 8 minutes
Video. How we got here (ahem).
The question which begs to be asked is this: What sort of earth could we have created if we hadn't spent most of our money on War technology and Wealth accumulation?
Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips.
A grim vision of the future
A grim vision of the future
.jpg)
Richard Norton-TaylorMonday 9 April 2007
Source
Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.
This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".
The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed.
New weapons
An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a "world city" such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organisms but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world". The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the "application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues". The "explicit use" of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.
Technology
By 2035, an implantable "information chip" could be wired directly to the brain. A growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilise "flashmobs", challenging security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to concentrate forces quickly in a small area.
Marxism
"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".
Pressures leading to social unrest
By 2010 more than 50% of the world's population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and "new instability risks", and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence.
Population and Resources
The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world. Demographic trends, which will exacerbate economic and social tensions, have serious implications for the environment - including the provision of clean water and other resources - and for international relations. The population of sub-Saharan Africa will increase over the period by 81%, and that of Middle Eastern countries by 132%.
The Middle East
The massive population growth will mean the Middle East, and to a lesser extent north Africa, will remain highly unstable, says the report. It singles out Saudi Arabia, the most lucrative market for British arms, with unemployment levels of 20% and a "youth bulge" in a state whose population has risen from 7 million to 27 million since 1980. "The expectations of growing numbers of young people [in the whole region] many of whom will be confronted by the prospect of endemic unemployment ... are unlikely to be met," says the report.
Islamic militancy
Resentment among young people in the face of unrepresentative regimes "will find outlets in political militancy, including radical political Islam whose concept of Umma, the global Islamic community, and resistance to capitalism may lie uneasily in an international system based on nation-states and global market forces", the report warns. The effects of such resentment will be expressed through the migration of youth populations and global communications, encouraging contacts between diaspora communities and their countries of origin.
Tension between the Islamic world and the west will remain, and may increasingly be targeted at China "whose new-found materialism, economic vibrancy, and institutionalised atheism, will be an anathema to orthodox Islam".
Iran
Iran will steadily grow in economic and demographic strength and its energy reserves and geographic location will give it substantial strategic leverage. However, its government could be transformed. "From the middle of the period," says the report, "the country, especially its high proportion of younger people, will want to benefit from increased access to globalisation and diversity, and it may be that Iran progressively, but unevenly, transforms...into a vibrant democracy."
Terrorism
Casualties and the amount of damage inflicted by terrorism will stay low compared to other forms of coercion and conflict. But acts of extreme violence, supported by elements within Islamist states, with media exploitation to maximise the impact of the "theatre of violence" will persist. A "terrorist coalition", the report says, including a wide range of reactionary and revolutionary rejectionists such as ultra-nationalists, religious groupings and even extreme environmentalists, might conduct a global campaign of greater intensity".
Climate change
There is "compelling evidence" to indicate that climate change is occurring and that the atmosphere will continue to warm at an unprecedented rate throughout the 21st century. It could lead to a reduction in north Atlantic salinity by increasing the freshwater runoff from the Arctic. This could affect the natural circulation of the north Atlantic by diminishing the warming effect of ocean currents on western Europe. "The drop in temperature might exceed that of the miniature ice age of the 17th and 18th centuries."
Related
Revolution in Military Affairs: From Computer Generated Insurgents to Bioelectric Implants
Big brother
Robotics
Civil liberties
Biometrics
The Rockefeller roots of the United Nations
Video
8 years in 8 minutes
Video. How we got here (ahem).
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Things I read - Jan 18, 09 - Forgive, Forget, and Shhhh.
The Flight of Reason
An exceptionally well written examination of the 'big picture'. Long but very worthwhile...nice flowing style.
Amy Goodman: Nothing to fear except no health care
Forgive Bush, Forget Gaza?
The Moral Dead Zone
Forgive and Forget?
Establishment Washington unifies against prosecutions
2010 is 1984?
NSA’s Wiretapping of Americans being outsourced to Israeli Companies?!?!
Don't sleepwalk into Big Brother surveillance, schools warned
Let's get the children used to a surveillance society early.
Maryland police and their weird war on 'terror'
There are more and more of these stories cropping up.
Taken with the article above, we are going back to the future: 1984
No smoking in most of Belmont California, not even at home
Not a joke. In Great Britain and Ireland, they were entertaining a law to prohibit smoking in a car, alone or not.
Deal to lease African farmland to rich countries collapses after backlash against 'colonialism'
An exceptionally well written examination of the 'big picture'. Long but very worthwhile...nice flowing style.
Amy Goodman: Nothing to fear except no health care
Forgive Bush, Forget Gaza?
The Moral Dead Zone
Forgive and Forget?
Establishment Washington unifies against prosecutions2010 is 1984?
NSA’s Wiretapping of Americans being outsourced to Israeli Companies?!?!
Don't sleepwalk into Big Brother surveillance, schools warned
Let's get the children used to a surveillance society early.
Maryland police and their weird war on 'terror'
There are more and more of these stories cropping up.Taken with the article above, we are going back to the future: 1984
The troopers zeroed in on Roman Catholic nuns,For a real life forum case of surveillance click here
human rights activists and church groups.
They monitored animal rights advocates and cyclists
pushing for more bicycle lanes. They opened a dossier on Amnesty International. (That group's crime was listed as "human rights.")
The troopers created files with titles like:
"Terrorism: Anti-War Protesters," and
"Terrorism: Anti-Govern," and
"Terrorism: Environmental Extremists," and
"Terrorism: Pro-Life."
To Maryland's finest, even Quakers, the ultimate pacifists,
constituted a "security
threat group."
No smoking in most of Belmont California, not even at homeNot a joke. In Great Britain and Ireland, they were entertaining a law to prohibit smoking in a car, alone or not.
Deal to lease African farmland to rich countries collapses after backlash against 'colonialism'
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Things I read - Jan 17, 2009
Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants
Investors dump $89B in U.S. securities in historic fire sale
Cost of the Bush era: $11.5 trillion
“A Radical Revolution of Values”: Dr. King’s Most Important (And Dangerous) Speech
A nice companion speech to this is that of Smedley, To Hell with War,
Butler exposing the war machine.
Agent Orange Devastates Generations Of Vietnamese (VIDEO)
The damage from war does not end with a treaty: but continues for decades, maybe centuries after in the genetic mutation of the people. I wonder what the studies of Depleted Uranium birth defects will turn up in Iraq 30 years from now.
Investors dump $89B in U.S. securities in historic fire sale
Cost of the Bush era: $11.5 trillion
“A Radical Revolution of Values”: Dr. King’s Most Important (And Dangerous) Speech
A nice companion speech to this is that of Smedley, To Hell with War,
Butler exposing the war machine.
Agent Orange Devastates Generations Of Vietnamese (VIDEO)
The damage from war does not end with a treaty: but continues for decades, maybe centuries after in the genetic mutation of the people. I wonder what the studies of Depleted Uranium birth defects will turn up in Iraq 30 years from now.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
News you WANT to read - Data Sharing on Hold
I have often felt like David against Goliath in trying to stay the tide of civil rights violations through governmental digital sharing. All efforts have seemed like a handful of sand thrown into a typhoon.
For the first time, an EU agency has stood up for the civil right of privacy for EU citizens: someone has said NO to the bureaucrats. The USA National Security Agency has no right whatsoever to the private electronically held details of EU citizens (e.g. medical records, credit card purchases, political affiliation, your electric bill, tax status etc.) UNLESS A CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED. And there is proper oversight and applications for such information on those residing in the EU.
Pre-emptive data sharing violates the right to privacy and endangers individuals by making personal information available to the USA government and other authorities WITHOUT accountability. Pre-emptive has become the watch word of our century...wars, surveillance, arrests...it's not a pretty start to the new millenium.
This means, if they make a mistake, tough titty. There is no supervision of this unprecedented access to EU citizen details by a foreign power, the USA. And no recourse. Why more Europeans are not concerned with this is a mystery to me. For those who just don't give a dam, we will all lose our freedoms for the benefit of blissful ignorance. I am delighted by this decision to stay the data-sharing of EU citizens with the USA National Security Agency.
I am not a criminal or a 'terrorist'; and I do not have to prove it! Do you?
Data chief attacks
transatlantic police plan
transatlantic police plan
"Unprecedented" data sharing
not so caring
By Mark Ballardnot so caring
Friday, 14 November 2008
Source
EUROPE'S DATA chief has told Washington and Brussels to put the brakes on a plan to share police and other government data across the Atlantic. The "unprecedented" US/EU plans are being thrown together so hastily that they risk giving police and government agencies carte blanche to share whatever and as much data as they liked, in disregard of human rights, and even drawing on private sector databases, said Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), in an official report yesterday. "The EDPS calls for more transparency", he said in the report, and "any haste in the elaboration of the principles should be avoided as it would only lead to unsatisfactory solutions".
The proposals, laid out in June by the High Level Contact Group on information sharing and privacy, fall short of the minimum standard of data protection already established in European human rights law. Hustinx called for "more clarity and concrete provisions" because the scope of the plan was vague, it left no room for oversight, did not ensure that data given to US authorities would be treated with adequate care, and gave insufficient recourse for European's to challenge US abuses of their data in a court of law.
This was particularly problematic because police and government data sharing plans were developing too fast: "The request of enforcement authorities of third countries for personal information is constantly widening, and... also extends from traditional government databases to other types of files, in particular files of data collected by the private sector," he said. At least the authorities were discussing data protection, said Hustinx, but they should give it greater credence: "[It] could legitimise massive data transfers in a field - law enforcement - where the impact on individuals is particularly serious, and where strict and reliable safeguards and guarantees are all the more needed".
He called on the High Level Contact Group (HLCG) to carefully define the scope - the limits - of its data sharing plans so that police and government agencies do not use it for data transfers in breach of people's human rights. He wanted any agreement to specify precisely who would be able to share data, what data they would share and for what purposes. The authorities must also come clean about the wider context of the proposals, known as the "global transatlantic security area", which is a US initiative to create a common electronic border system with allies such as the EU, Australia and Canada that could be used for security, immigration control, public health and other unspecified functions.
The fact that the plans were so loosely defined made it possible for them to grow through function creep: "Is it also meant to allow for the exchange of data for other public interests such as possibly public health risks?" asked Hustinx. Hustinx, the official responsible for ensuring that public authorities' data systems do not abuse human rights, said transatlantic data sharing should only be allowed between countries when it is "absolutely necessary for a specific purpose" decided "on a case by case basis". "The EDPS recommends to restrict the purpose to precisely identified data processing, and to justify the policy choices leading to such definition of purpose," he said, adding a plea for a loophole that would allow the "transfer of personal data between private and public parties" to be closed.
The plans would give US police and government authorities such wide remit to access EU data that Hustinx even had to ask whether they would have access to " other databases such as tax databases".
Would spooks get access too, he asked. Were they seeking free access? And, he warned, US demands under the agreement would lead to copy cat demands between EU member states, as it had for airline passenger data. US access to details of the world's financial transactions, held by the EU-based Swift, would be legitimised by the agreement and that might prompt EU authorities to seek such routine access themselves.
To make matters worse, EU law wasn't even prepared for such proposals. " Halt," he said, "and prepare the ground first". He proposed the HLCG wait until the EU Lisbon Treaty came into force, though that is not even certain. But he feared that the plan would be slipped in under a coming law that provided weak protections for data transfers to third countries (data protection in the third pillar legal framework, to be introduced imminently).
Preparing the ground first would give people basic protections from abuse by the state - protections that had not been provided in the proposals. The agreement should be binding on authorities, rather than casual as similar such agreements have been. In particular, the US should be held to account by EU standards of civil rights. Basically, the HLCG had proposed an all-encompassing data protection regime that would provide inadequate protection but would be applied to all transatlantic data transfers, said Hustinx.
The group should rather implement some protections as a minimum standard, and then, taking each instance of official data sharing on a case by case basis, design specific protections for each. The authorities should be held to account for their data sharing, he said. The current proposals would not enforce that as they stood.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Double good doublespeak on Iran
Obama to face Iran nuclear crisis in first year, ex US official warns Staff Writers Washington (AFP)
Jan 8, 2009
Source
Incoming US President Barack Obama will likely face a "serious crisis" over Iran's nuclear ambitions in his first year in office, former US defense secretary William Perry predicted here Thursday. Perry told a foreign policy forum here that Obama must find a new diplomatic approach to stop Iran's suspected nuclear arms quest because Israel -- which has held out the threat of military action -- will not "sit idly by."
The star-studded event sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) was dominated by calls for Obama to check the spread of nuclear know-how and to promote peace in security in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. "If Iran and North Korea cannot be contained, we are facing a real danger of a cascade of nuclear proliferation," Perry warned said. "Indeed I believe that today we are truly on the tipping point of nuclear proliferation."
Perry said North Korea's production of plutonium and nuclear test in 2006 amounted to the "most dangerous development" since the Cold War ended nearly two decades ago, but he believed it could be contained through diplomacy. In multilateral talks pursued by President George W. Bush's administration, North Korea agreed in 2007 to dismantle its weapons-grade plutonium program in exchange for aid, although the talks are stalled amid a row over verification.
But Perry was "less confident" about diplomatic efforts involving the United States -- under the outgoing administration of President George W. Bush -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. The multilateral talks "are going nowhere," said Perry, who was defense secretary under President Bill Clinton. "And it seems clear that Israel will not sit by idly while Iran takes defiant steps toward becoming a nuclear power," Perry said. "As a result President Obama will almost certainly face a serious crisis with Iran.
Indeed, I believe that crisis point will be reached in his first year in office," he added. He said the Iran problem needs international cooperation, which remains especially elusive as US relations with Russia are "at an all-time low" with Russian concerns over NATO expansion and US missile defense plans. However, he voiced hope that Obama could get off to a fresh start with Russia.
Perry said efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons that began after the Cold War have "stalled and even reversed," because of developments in Iran and North Korea, as well as in China, Russia, India and Pakistan. He supports Obama's stated push to abolish nuclear weapons, but said the United States needs to bolster its deterrent force over the short term. "I'm motivated ... by a strong belief that the gravest danger facing our nation today is a terror group detonating a nuclear bomb in one of our cities," Perry said.
James Schlesinger, another former US defense secretary, told a separate audience that Iran may regard the threat of a US nuclear attack as "much more likely" in light of Hillary Clinton's warning during the US presidential campaign that Washington can obliterate Tehran. Schlesinger made the remark at a Pentagon news conference after presenting a blue-ribbon panel report finding that US nuclear deterrence has slipped due to neglect in past years at high levels of the Pentagon.
Schlesinger, who served under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said North Korea probably has come to believe it is "reasonably safe from a nuclear response" because of the US response to its development of nuclear weapons.
But asked whether Iran feared a US nuclear attack, Schlesinger said: "I think they would regard that as a much more likely development." "As you may recall in the recent democratic primaries, Mrs Clinton observed, 'We can obliterate you','" he said, Noting that Obama has chosen Clinton to be his secretary of state, he added "I don't think that remark will be forgotten in Tehran, even if it is forgotten in this country."
At the USIP forum, Zbigniew Brzezinksi, the national security adviser under president Jimmy Carter, warned against any US war with Iran because it would inflame an already troubled region from Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan. "It is an issue which I would prefer not to confront, for such a war would involve the United States in a conflict that would then spanning in different degrees of intensity these four countries with a total population of approximately 300 million people," he said.
Cyber Eyes, Net Cops and Pleasure Chips.
Here are two more articles the" I C U" progression on limiting internet freedom, increasing surveillance of people in general and 'protecting us from those nasty terrorists'. In the second article, the arrest of a cyber user seems a bit dodgy but one might justify it.
My contention is that there will be little difference in the future between arrests for explicit threats on the net and those which merely express opinions contrary to the established government propaganda. And arrests could well be international with extradiction legislation now in place between the USA, the EU and other countries. I think there is real danger here for freedom of speech on the net. See HR 1955 bill passed by Congress for the amorphous definition of 'domestic terrorist'. Are YOU a terrorist?
I have added a sexy bonus tidbit at the end....sort of a treat after all this bad news. Hope you like it.
Eagle Eye Adviser Watches
Over Tech Privacy
John Scott Lewinski
January 10, 2009
Source
Eagleeye01lgWhile the paranoia-driven thrills in Eagle Eye were exaggerated for the benefit of popcorn-selling fiction, the adviser brought on to comment on the movie's use of surveillance technology warns the world that the premise is hardly far-fetched.Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, appears prominently in the featurettes packaged onto the Eagle Eye special edition DVD, which was released last month. A professor of privacy law at Georgetown University, Rotenberg insists that efforts by any government to consolidate surveillance also consolidate power.
"Camera networks are growing in most major cities," said Rotenberg, a graduate of Harvard and Stanford Law School. "Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. While those networks are supposedly built to provide security, most of what the cameras see are people living, working, visiting. Those people aren't criminals or terrorists."
Eagle Eye examines the "what ifs" of such surveillance networks run amok as a mysterious villain omnisciently pushes Shia LaBeouf into criminal acts in and around our nation's capital. The DVD's producers invited Rotenberg to speak on the real world's ability to monitor you via cameras, cellphone monitoring and internet taps.
"In Washington, one camera operator can have access to 5,000 cameras at any given time," Rotenberg said. "That approaches omniscience. We need to ask, 'Should those cameras be used? Should they be put in residential neighborhoods?' It's not too difficult to peer into someone's private home in that case."
While such antiterrorism tactics became a hot political issue in the post 9/11 era, Rotenberg made it clear that surveillance issues go beyond how you might feel about Vice President Dick Cheney. The cameras are tools, and how they're used is key.
For example, Rotenberg explained that law enforcement agencies could well have the public's best interest at heart when installing such cameras, but "many of the networks can be accessed in different ways. So, are they really secure? Someone inside the agency or inside the company providing the cameras might not be so ethical."
Eagle Eye's shadow baddie is a hell's toss from ethical, and Rotenberg applauded the writers and filmmakers' efforts to consider just how far the proliferation of surveillance could go.
Monitoring and debating the ethics of the growing surveillance world is the primary motivation of Rotenberg and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
"We're probably the leading privacy organization in the country right now," he said. "We testified before the 9/11 Commission -- the relationship between privacy and security. While defending against terrorism, surveillance could be used to limit freedom."
To document the growing surveillance web around D.C., EPIC started Observing Surveillance, a collection of photos and other resources.
"I don't think the public is as aware as it should be or needs to be," Rotenberg said. "I'm afraid people think all of this is going to happen no matter what.
"I would compare the construction of surveillance networks to the creation of Frankenstein's monster. While the original technological quest seemed justified in the beginning, the 21st century may have created our biggest threat to privacy."
Online Threat to Kill
Obama Leads to Arrest
Kevin Poulsen
January 09, 2009
Wired Online
Obama_mail_500px A Southern California man was charged Thursday with threatening a
presidential candidate, for posting a racist note to a Yahoo message board in October expressing displeasure over Barack Obama's candidacy, and predicting "he will have a 50 cal in the head soon."Walter Edward Bagdasarian, 47, was found with an arsenal of six weapons when Secret Service agents raided his La Mesa home in November, according to court records (.pdf). He had three handguns and three rifles, including a 30.06 with a telescopic sight and a Remington .50 caliber muzzle-loading rifle.
Bagdasarian is not accused of actually plotting against Obama, and he was released last month on a $100,000 real estate bond. Bagdasarian's attorney did not return a phone call Friday.
The post in question showed up on a Yahoo Finance board on Oct. 22, about two weeks before the election, under the handle "californiaradial." The message was titled "Shoot the nig."
"County fkd for another 4+ years, what nig has done ANYTHING right???? Long term???? Never in history, except sambos."
"Fk the niggar, he will have a 50 cal in the head soon," the message concludes.
The message thread has been deleted by Yahoo, but traces in Google's cache show that several other users announced that they were reporting californiaradial's comments. In subsequent posts, the author calls one critic a "crybaby," but does offer an explanation for the apparent threat. "I was drunk."
U.S. Secret Service agents in Los Angeles traced the post to Bagdasarian through the IP address. When they interviewed him, Bagdasarian reportedly admitted authoring the message.
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