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Russia Caught Inflating Popularity Of Pro-Russian Propaganda

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Russia’s increasingly belligerent actions are universally condemned, both at home and abroad. Its people suffer and starve while Putin and his elite cadre of oligarchs inflate their bank accounts. Turns out that’s not all they have been inflating.

A group of state backed cybercriminals has been infecting victims with viruses and using them to inflate views on pro-Russian videos in an attempt to make them go viral, according to new research by security firm Trustwave.

The videos found by the researchers are all pro-Russian, such as a one from the Iranian English-language broadcaster PressTV that quotes a Russian Parliament member justifying the invasion of Ukraine.

The goal of the operation, according to Trustwave researchers Rami Kogan and Arseny Levin, is to artificially increase the popularity of a video and make it more visible to users of the site Dailymotion.

Victims got infected by visiting a hacked website that silently installed on their computers a trojan virus, according to the researchers.

The virus then loaded some videos in a hidden desktop, so that victims weren’t even aware they were viewing the propaganda clips.

It’s unclear who’s behind this particular operation, Sigler said, but it’s possible that the criminals who spread the exploit kit and the malware only had the goal of making money, while someone else paid them to inflate views on the propaganda videos.

Russia is known to permit credit card fraudsters, pedophiles and hackers to operate with implicit and explicit state backing. The latest report seems to imply the communist country using hackers for hire to accomplish their propaganda.

Russia, through slick news sites like RT, has been ramping up its propaganda in the wake of its invasion of the Ukraine. Defense Department officials are closely monitoring the increase and have started to fight back in the battle for popular opinion.

The increase in propaganda suggests a lack of internal support for dictator Putin and his band of cronies. The country is in dire economic shape, cause by heavy international sanctions, a failing currency and lack of food.

Judge Calls Patent Troll “Ingenious Crooked Extortionate Operation”

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Judge Calls Patent Troll “Ingenious Crooked Extortionate Operation”

Convicted patent troll Prenda was in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Monday to appeal sanctions leveled against it two years ago for abusive legal practices that amounted to extortion. It was not a pretty day for the company.

The hearing was live-streamed by the court, enabling those who were unable to get to the courtroom, a chance to view the proceedings. The feed did not disappoint. After the first half hour Prenda’s lawyer left the courtroom battered by a series of barbs and jabs thrown by the judges.

Prenda’s argument was that because they threatened hard working Americans with jail time unless they paid large sums of money for supposed copyright infringement, the entirety of the hearing, and thus the sanctions awarded at the end of it, were improper. The logic of the argument, as can be seen, is bizarre.

The company also made the decision to “plead the 5th” which is allowed in civil cases, but not criminal ones, and adversely effected the perception of the court.

Meanwhile the company failed to contest any of the factual elements and conclusions from the case and initial verdict, relying wholly on procedural grounds.

As can be expected, when you threaten hard working Americans under fraudulent pretenses and then fail to defend your actions in court things do not go too well for you.

The three judges – 91yo Senior Judge Harry Pregerson, 62yo Judge Richard Tallman, and 49yo Jacqueline Nguyen – were both sharp and to the point with Prends, repeatedly asking probing questions, and even making fun of their lawyer on occasion.

“Explain to me in simple english how this er operation worked” asked Pregerson, adding “how they make their money” when asked to clarify shortly followed by “who ran this operation?“.

Prenda’s answer of “I don’t know” prompted Pregerson to retort “You don’t know anything, do you?“.

When Prenda’s lawyer tried to salvage that by referring to the 5th amendment pleading, Pregerson delivered one final blow saying “They should have asserted the 5th amendment because they were engaged in extortion, eh? They sent out thousands of extortionate letters“.

Perhaps the highlight of it all though, was the 7½ minutes spent by judge Pregerson describing how these cases work, including reading a letter that was sent (embedded below). His closing remark on it left no doubt what he was thinking, saying “That is just an ingenious, crooked, extortionate operation”.

The judge’s predictably ruled in favor of the previous verdict and sanctions against the unscrupulous patent troll. The move marked a rare point of sanity in America’s confusing and unfair intellectual property framework which favors the rights of big corporations over those of everyday Americans.

Bird Flu Outbreak Could Mean No Thanksgiving Turkeys

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The largest-ever U.S. outbreak of bird flu, which has devastated Midwestern poultry and egg producers in recent weeks, will be felt at Thanksgiving tables across the nation come November, say farmers.

The high contagious H5N2 strain has already spread to 14 states and led to the destruction of more than 21 million birds. Included in this figure are 3.3 million turkeys in Minnesota, the nation’s top turkey producer.

With Thanksgiving just seven months away, farmers say they may be running out of time to raise enough turkeys to meet demand.

Once a farm gets infected, flocks must be culled, composted in barns, then disposed of. Buildings are then be thoroughly disinfected. The lengthy process can take up to three months to complete.

After chicks are re-introduced to the barns it takes about four months to produce a full-sized hen of the type most Americans prefer for their holiday feasts.

The problem has been compounded because breeder farms that supply the young birds have also been infected making acquiring the chicks very challenging.

There’s still no sign of the outbreak letting up, despite tight biosecurity measures and widespread quarantines. At least one turkey processing plant has cut back on workers’ shifts because of a lack of birds to slaughter.

Of the nearly 240 million turkeys raised last year, nearly one in five came from Minnesota farms. About 30 per cent of the Minnesota birds are sold as whole turkeys at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The remaining 70 per cent are sold year-round for deli meat, frozen meals, ground turkey and other products, according to industry data.

Sally Beauty Supply Hit By Second Massive Data Breach

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Sally Beauty Supply Hit By Second Massive Data Breach

Customers of colossal cosmetics retailer Sally Beauty Supply are being advised to check their credit card statements after the company admitted it was breached for the second time in a little over a year.

The company’s admission follows its previous stonewalling of requests for comment after media learned that the FBI was on-site and investigating a likely data breach.

The company issued a statement overnight that said it has forensics teams on hand investigating the potential breach.

“Sally Beauty Holdings is currently investigating reports of unusual activity involving payment cards used at some of our US Sally Beauty stores,” the statement reads.

“Since learning of these reports, we have been working with law enforcement and our credit card processor and have launched a comprehensive investigation with the help of a leading third-party forensics expert to aggressively gather facts while working to ensure our customers are protected.

Until this investigation is completed, it is difficult to determine with certainty the scope or nature of any potential incident, but we will continue to work vigilantly to address any potential issues that may affect our customers.”

While the company says security “remain our priority” it seems it is unable to adequately protect customer data. Its systems were breached March 5th last with over 30,000 customers affected. The latest breach likely involves a similar number.

The incident raises questions about a national data breach disclosure law given the company has known of the breach for some time yet only alerted customers after word the incident was leaked.

This prevents customers from notifying banks and taking other measures to minimize the impact the data theft has on their finances and credit profile.

Facebook’s Internet.org Is A Privacy Nightmare

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Facebook announced yesterday that it was opening up its Internet.org service to all sites, in response to criticism that it was playing favorites and undermining net neutrality in developing countries – effectively conditioning the population to accept a filtered, watered down internet which the company just so happens to control.

The scheme, heavily promoted by the personal-data-for-ads company, looks to connect people in emerging markets with free internet access.

Its launch yesterday exposed the project as a privacy nightmare rife with issues that expose it for the personal data grab that it is.

The list of issues

No matter what Facebook says about Internet.org being a means of promoting Internet usage, it isn’t.

Instead, it’s a fundamental, permanent change in the way the Internet works by splitting it into free vs paid access. It isn’t the same as giving someone Rs 10 of data access or even 100 mb. It is a permanent shift.

While the kingmaker issue has been somewhat resolved by opening up the platform, there is still one king in all of this, and its Facebook.

Given the company’s central role, there are significant concerns with their terms and conditions, especially those around Facebook’s favorite topic – Privacy.

Facebook, telecom companies and the government see EVERYTHING
If you’re a user, Facebook, your telecom operator and the government will know everything you are doing:

“We collect information when you install, run or use any of our services, including the free websites and services provided through Internet.org,” says Facebook.

They also “may share information such as your phone number or data usage with your mobile operator so we can provide and improve our services, and to enable us and your operator to understand how you are using and interacting with Internet.org and the carrier’s products and services. For information regarding how your mobile operator uses the information they receive, we recommend you also review their privacy policy”

“In addition, secure content is not supported and may not load”…”your content or service should not rely on passing or collecting encrypted information — resources that do so will not be accessible within Internet.org or will be dropped altogether. While we would prefer to support fully encrypted connections between user and website in all cases, proxying for third-party sites does not allow for this in its current implementation without introducing man-in-the-middle capabilities.”

This part is huge. As the world, such as Firefox, moves to a secure (https only) web, Facebook is going the opposite way. Without https (secure sites), telecom operators will be able to snoop on users, and through them, so will the government.

Is Privacy a reasonable price to pay for free access to a directory of services?

Should the fact that India doesn’t have a privacy law be a factor in allowing Facebook to launch Internet.org? The Internet.org proxy (details) is without https.

To understand what kind of data Facebook is tracking, check out their privacy policy or our post yesterday outlining just how much they know.

Your privacy gets even smaller as if you’re a site on Internet.org, Facebook will know what users are doing on your site.

Telecom operators can still get to play kingmaker

“Operators may decline services that cause undue strain to networks, or breach legal or regulatory requirements.”

No matter how its framed, the plan will violate net neutrality principles and favor certain sites over others.

This is particularly evil because it grooms newly connected populations to expect a restricted and corporately controlled internet instead of a free one.

Facebook will get rights to all your content

Facebook’s Internet.org ‘participation guidelines‘ page points developers towards its “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities“, which clearly states that for content that is covered by Intellectual Property Rights, “you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.”

In short, Facebook owns all of your content if you participate.

If your competitors are on board, you will need to be too

The reason Times Internet publications remained on Internet.org was that their competitors were also there.

If one competitor chooses to come on board, you will have little choice but to also follow or else lose out on a potentially large user base.

This viral nature, a side effect of violating net neutrality, also forces more data into Facebooks dragnet.

Users will be banned from visiting the open, real, internet

If you try to visit the real internet from inside internet.org, you will be given a warning message. The idea of a warning message when users are moving from a free to a paid service is a good idea. It prevents “bill shock” for users, but this hurdle doesn’t exist on the web.

But in the online world if a user is accessing your service on the open web via a Facebook link, and they get this warning message, they will almost certainly go away.

This is another way Facebook will force you to go on board, in order to gain access to the internet.org userbase

Facebook becomes an even stronger source of access for your content

Don’t forget: Facebook throttles content on its own platform, the exact thing the FCC doesn’t want to happen on the open internet. This strengthens Facebook and Internet.org’s role in discovery.

Internet.org will require ID

You’ll need a Facebook account for Internet.org, which will require telephone based ID verification.

This is the holy grail for governments, who want to track and trace users for political motives.

“We may collect and use your phone number to determine your eligibility to receive free services, to provide you with relevant offers and services from your operator and others, and to provide you with access to your Facebook account.”

It won’t allow any video… except Facebook

If you’re a Video service or use high resolution images, you’re not allowed.

Telecom operators have long been complaining about how consumers who use video services take up significant bandwidth, despite the face consumers have already paid for said bandwidth.

As bandwidth will be more scarce on the free service, it seems logical to reduce high bandwidth applictions.

Yet the way Facebook is doing this is evil.

First, they protect cable company monopolies on video content. If you want video content, you’ll have to pay for video service from the telco. This effectively accomplishes the holy grail of cable providers: one service for internet, one service for video. 2 bills.

Second, this move also cuts out the competition, namely Google’s Youtube. By restricting video, Facebook, who is trying to be a major video hub itself, kneecaps the competition.

Facebook, of course, gets an exemption to these rules. Not only will it favor its own service but it will also force publishers to publish to Facebook, where the company will own the content and distribute it as it sees fit. Publishers will have zero control of to whom and where their content is displayed and also how it is monetized.

Don’t like it? Don’t reach out internet.org userbase.

So what’s the solution?

Facebook’s plan is insidious and carefully thought out to be both feasible and deeply advantageous to the company.

It’s designed to protect telco partners and their old, expensive, billing plans while conditioning people in developing countries to accept a two tiered internet that is controlled by Facebook.

It’s also precision engineered to kneecap the competition. By holding publishers hostage, by way of a large internet.org userbase, Facebook forces everyone to play by its rules. It also can efficiently knock down competitors like Google, effectively removing them from its ‘new internet’.

While internet.org is scary, the solution, should anyone care to implement it, is simple.

If it really wants to get people online, subsidize cheap data packs for potential Internet users. Let them access whatever they want, whether video, VoIP, images, and whichever site they want.

Simple.

But such a plan won’t pay for the hundreds of millions of dollars Facebook has spent on promoting internet.org and it won’t accomplish the real goal: fundamentally change the internet so it revolves around Facebook.

NASA Successfully Tests 10 Engine Electric Plane

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Researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center have developed a ten-engine, battery-powered plane that takes off and lands vertically, like a helicopter, yet once airborne, flies like an airplane.

Engineers successfully tested the remote-controlled plane at a military base a couple hours from the research center in Virginia. The test took place late last week. This week, the aircraft is being showcased at the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International 2015 conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

The prototype, named Greased Lightning or GL-10, is still in the design and testing phase, but after the test flights the consensus is: so far, so good.

“During the flight tests we successfully transitioned from hover to wing-borne flight like a conventional airplane then back to hover again. So far we have done this on five flights,” Bill Fredericks, an aerospace engineer at Langley, said in a press release. “We were ecstatic. Now we’re working on our second goal — to demonstrate that this concept is four times more aerodynamically efficient in cruise than a helicopter.”

The initial idea was to build a hybrid plane, with a combination of diesel and electric engines. But in the process of prototyping the aircraft resulted in the current all-electric plane.

The plane could serve a number of purposes, or it could serve as a model for a larger prototype.

“It could be used for small package delivery or vertical take off and landing, long endurance surveillance for agriculture, mapping and other applications,” Fredericks said. “A scaled up version — much larger than what we are testing now — would make also a great one to four person size personal air vehicle.”

More research is needed to determine how aerodynamically efficient the plane is. But the latest test flights prove that at the very least their model is sky-worthy.

ISIS Claims Responsibility For Texas Shooting

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In what would mark the first attack by the terror group on U.S. soil, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the shooting that took place outside a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas. The group also warned of more attacks to come.

In an address aired on its official radio channel Tuesday, the group said two of it soldiers opened fire outside the event in Garland, a suburb of Dallas.

The two gunmen, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, only wounded a security guard before police shot and killed them.

The ISIS radio announcer referred to Simpson and Soofi as “brothers.” The announcement concluded with the warning:

“We say to the defenders of the cross, the U.S., that future attacks are going to be harsher and worse. The Islamic State soldiers will inflict harm on you with the grace of God. The future is just around the corner.”

While ISIS has claimed responsibility, it comes a full two days after the attack and there is currently no immediate indication that the terror group, which occupies Iraq and Syria, actually had contact with Simpson or Soofi, who both lived in Phoenix.

ISIS is known to be struggling, as coalition airstrikes reduce its potency and its vast territory creates legitimate governance issues for the poorly run group. Many cities occupied by ISIS are chronically short of food, medicine and energy.

The group also has challenges with internal discipline, with its members repeatedly raping women and children in territory they control.

While U.S. authorities are investigating the links to international terrorism, there are clues that one of the gunmen was an ISIS sympathizer.

Moments before the attack, Simpson posted the tweet: “May Allah accept us as mujahideen.”

Another tweet said he and his fellow attacker had pledged allegiance to “Amirul Mu’mineen,” which means “the leader of the faithful.” This likely refers to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.

Simpson had previously asked his readers on Twitter to follow an ISIS propagandist, whom later tweeted: “Allahu Akbar!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire.”

Both Twitter accounts have been deactivated.

The posts show that modern terrorism is more loosely organized than ever. Groups like ISIS do not have the coordination and state sponsorship that Al Qaeda once did. Instead, like minded individuals find each other on the internet and attacks, while uncoordinated on a planning level, are claimed by the top level terror organization for propaganda wins.

Israeli Military Caught Massacring Civilians

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Israeli Military Caught Massacring Civilians

The Israeli military deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians and their homes during the Gaza war last year, according to a damning report released on Monday.

The report contains the graphic, first-hand accounts of more than 60 combatants describing how soldiers in certain areas were told to assume anyone left was a target.

Israel has repeatedly lied on the matter, denying that its forces purposely targeted civilians during the 50-day conflict which killed more than 2,100 Palestinians.

The stunning revelations show both the contempt the country, which experienced its own genocide, has for the life of another race and the hopelessness of peace in the region. Former president Jimmy Carter dismissed the possibility of peace in the regiona over the weekend.

The testimony of the soldiers focused heavily on ground forces but included air force personnel as well, indicating the order to murder civilians came from the very top and not unit-level commanders. The names of the soliders have been withheld in the 240-page report compiled by Breaking the Silence, an organisation of veteran Israeli soldiers which documents misconduct by the military.

The report catalogs a series of statements where soldiers were told that any Palestinians they saw were classified as “terrorists” and they could “shoot any person positively identified as not belonging to the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces]”.

One soldier based in central Gaza, said a commander told him: “Anything there is as good as dead. Anything you see moving in the neighborhoods you’re in is not supposed to be there. The civilians know they are not supposed to be there. Therefore whoever you see there, you kill.”

In another cold-blooded account, a lieutenant who was deployed in one of the worst-hit neighborhoods in Gaza, said soldiers were given a list of targets that could not be fired at unless authorization had been given from a commander. These included schools, nurseries, the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, hospitals, petrol and power stations and community centres.

“They were marked in green, very clearly” the soldier said.

And yet when asked if these were bombed the lieutenant replied: “Yes, take the neighborhood of Shujaieh – almost all locations on the forbidden list there were bombed. Each one had its own particular story, but ultimately they were bombed”.

The report also contains startling testimony of how Palestinian houses were entered, used and then destroyed by the military.

“When we entered this house everything inside was already a mess. Anything that could shatter had been shattered, because everything had been shot at. Anything made of glass – windows, a glass table, picture frames – it was all wrecked. All the beds turned over, the rugs, the mattresses.”

According to the report, once the military left Gaza the houses were then blown up.

Throughout the report soldiers outlined mass destruction of civilian infrastructure and homes, often without clear operational justification.

When asked about the targeting of civilians in Gaza, IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said he could not comment on anonymous information.

Breaking the Silence have called for an independent review of Israeli conduct during the operation as nearly all the 2,100 Palestinians killed were civilians.

The shocking allegations show just how impossible peace is and how little regard for Israel its neighbors in the region have for it. By slaughtering Arab civilians the country further ostracizes itself from those in its own backyard, who increasingly possess significant military might.

It also shows a stunning lack of regard for human life, the very reason the Israeli state was established in the first place.

The Truth About Apps That Secretly Connect To Tracking Sites

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There are two different ways to download apps. The first is the carefully curated Apple app store, which takes a notoriously tough review to have your app listed.

The second is via the Google Play store, which is more open because Google exercises a lighter touch in screening apps and only excludes those that are obviously malicious.

Google Play being more open also means that the apps it offers span a much wider quality range. Most connect to ad-related sites and tracking sites while a few even connect to sites that are associated with malware.

All these connections often take place without the owner being aware of what is going on.

It is something that most smartphone users would be appalled to discover, if only they knew.

Luigi Vigneri and colleagues from Eurecom in France revealed a clever solution that uses an automated way to check the apps in Google Play and monitor the sites they connect to.

The researchers downloaded over 2,000 free apps from all 25 categories on the Google Play store. They then launched each app on a Samsung Galaxy S3 that was set up to channel all traffic through the team’s server. They then recorded all the urls that each app attempted to contact.

Next they compared the urls against a list of known ad-related sites from a database and counted the number of matches on each list for every app

In total, the apps connect to a mind-boggling 250,000 different urls across almost 2,000 domains. While most attempt to connect to just a handful of ad and tracking sites, some connect to dozens or even hundreds.

“Music Volume Eq,” an app designed to control volume, a task that does not require a connection to any external urls connects to almost 2,000 distinct URLs. The privacy implications of this are not, as one can imagine, good.

The team say about 10 percent of the apps they tested connect to more than 500 different urls. Google’s conflict of interest in the system shows as nine out of 10 of the most frequently contacted ad-related domains are run by Google.

To help users navigate this privacy mess they created a new app called NoSuchApp or NSA for short “in honor of a similarly acronymed monitoring agency.”

“With this application, our goal is to provide a mechanism for end users to be aware of the network activity of their installed Android applications,” say Vigneri.

The team will make the app publicly available on Google Play in the near future.

In the meantime it’s important to carefully read the list of services each app is trying to access when installing it. Simple apps should require very few, if any permissions. If the app seems simple but requests access to nearly everything, your privacy is being compromised.

Mass Surveillance Ruled Unconstitutional In Slovak Republic

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Laws that allow for spying on European citizens continue to fall across the continent. First it was Bulgaria, which followed in the wake of the Netherlands. Yesterday the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic has similarly struck down the country’s data retention provisions, a move reported by the European Information Society Institute:

The act, which ordered large-scale mass surveillance of citizens (so-called data retention) is now history. The Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic clearly and unequivocally proclaimed that mass surveillance of citizens is unconstitutional. The decision was given after 30 members of the Parliament raised the issue on behalf of the European Information Society Institute (EISi), a Slovakia based think-tank.

The judgment is in line with the ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that the over-arching EU Data Retention Directive was “invalid.” Even the European Commission seems resigned to the fact that there will be no new spying laws at the EU level.

However, national laws can and still being enacted, so long as they do not fall foul of the CJEU ruling, which implicitly offered guidelines on how that might be achieved. Germany is still determined to try, while a lawsuit in the UK will determine whether the recent Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) has managed the trick.

Germany this weekend was revealed to be helping the NSA spy on both German citizens and also key EU industries. Airbus was shown to a victim of the German spying, with top secret plans being stolen and then given to American rival Boeing.

Mexico’s War On Drugs Means Cartel Whack-a-Mole

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Mexico’s War On Drugs Means Cartel Whack-a-Mole

A weekend of narco-war convulsed Mexico’s second-largest city and a famed beach resort town showing that a powerful and aggressive drug cartel has risen to take the place of the weakened Sinaloa, Knights Templar, Gulf and Cali cartels of old.

Law enforcement in Jalisco state searched on Sunday for three soldiers who have been captured by gunmen presumed belonging to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The gang also shot down a Mexican army helicopter on Friday, killing three soldiers and injuring 12 more.

The helicopter was shot down as soldiers, marines, and police began an operation that attempted to take down the Jalisco cartel, capture its leaders and improve security in the state.

“A new and military powerful cartel is appearing, and opening up a new front in the war against drugs in Guadalajara and Jalisco,” said Raul Benitez, an analyst at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

The flare-up of violence in the resort town of Puerto Vallarta is the latest setback for the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto. The government has been trying to show that Mexico is a modern, emerging economy, but its so far been unable to control many areas where criminal gangs continue to exert control.

“Guadalajara is not a little town in the middle of nowhere, and this shows the cartel has the logistics and power to paralyze a city,” said Jorge Chabat, an analyst at the CIDE think tank in Mexico City.

The downing of the helicopter came after cartel gunmen seized buses and cars and set them on fire to block major highways and roads in 39 places across the state, including the capital Guadalajara. The moves showed military style precision and tactics, which point to both a well funded and well organized group.

Cartel gunmen set fire to 11 bank branches and five gasoline stations across the state. The cartel also blocked roads in three neighboring states. Seven people died in the day’s violence.

The latest violence shows that while the Mexican government has had relative success in capturing drug bosses, rival organizations like the once small Jalisco cartel grow unchecked.

By confronting the government so directly the cartel will now be a priority for Mexican authorities but the story will continue to be repeated over and over again: Bust one cartel, two others step up into its place.

The war on drugs, both in Mexico and the United States creates massive financial gains for drug smugglers. The steeper the penalties, the greater the financial reward. This leads to a never-ending cycle of violence which will always and forever remain.

The way to combat this cycle of violence and stop the wasted resources is to change drug policy – for all drugs. By taxing, regulating and dealing with addiction as a public health issue the incentive to traffic disappears and the gangs are permanently weakened.

Failure to remove the prohibition on drugs costs lives. If we’re really concerned about saving lives we need to radically re-think the fools errand that is the war of drugs.

Observer Severely Beaten For Reporting Russian Election Fraud

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An observer who witnessed electoral violations in a Moscow-region local election was hospitalized with a ruptured spleen after being attacked by a group of men late last week, a news report said.

Stanislav Pozdnyakov was monitoring an election last weekend in the Moscow region city of Balashikha when he witnessed ballet-box stuffing, the Russian website OVD Info reported

A group of eight men later arrived in a BMW with no license plates and severely beat him and another man Dmitry Nesterov, OVD reported, citing Pozdnyakov’s friend Dmitry Georgiyevsky.

Pozdnyakov initially reported the incident to police, but noticed bleeding a few days later and was taken to Moscow’s Sklifosovsky hospital where he he had his spleen removed, the report said.

The violence shows just how tightly dictator Vladimir Putin controls the country. While he is supposed to be elected the violence shows that Russian election are anything by free or fair. Mr Putin is known for using armed gangs, biker and even child soldiers to influence political outcomes in his favor.

Apple Being Investigated By DOJ For Trying To Kill Spotify, Internet Radio

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The Department of Justice is investigating Apple’s business practices in relation to its upcoming music streaming service, according to multiple press reports.

The news comes after reports that Apple has been pushing major music labels to demand that streaming services like Spotify abandon their free tiers, a move which would dramatically reduce the competition for Apple’s upcoming offering.

DOJ officials have already interviewed high-ranking music industry executives about Apple’s negotiating tactics.

Apple has been putting huge, likely illegal, pressure on record labels to deny Spotify’s license to stream music through its free tier. Spotify currently has over 60 million listeners, but only about 15 million of them are paid users.

Getting the music labels to not license music for free tiers from Spotify and others would put Apple in prime position to grab a large swath of new users when it launches its own streaming service, which will feature a considerable amount of exclusive content. “All the way up to Tim Cook, these guys are cutthroat,” one music industry executive said.

In another clearly anti-competitive maneuver, sources say that Apple offered to pay YouTube’s music licensing fee to Universal Music Group if the record lavel stopped putting its songs on YouTube.

Apple looks to be clearing a path for its streaming service launch. The service is expected to debut in June. If Apple could convince the record labels to stop issuing licenses to freemium services from Spotify and YouTube, it would remove significant competition from the industry.

Apple already has an antitrust monitor on its premises, after it was found guilty in the ebook antitrust case last year, but it’s unclear if that monitor is involved in the latest actions.

But the DOJ isn’t the only agency examining Apple’s dealings with the music industry. The New York Post reports that Apple is also being investigated by the European Union’s Competition Commission about the move to rid the industry of freemium services.

If Apple has indeed made these demands, which seem very credible, it would clearly be a violation of antitrust laws given the intent is precisely to reduce competition and disadvantage consumers by way of collusion.

UN Rules Internet Censorship, Kill Switches Violate Human Rights

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In a landmark UN authored paper, a group of leading experts have said that forcing the shutdown of internet access is impermissible under international human rights law — even during times of war and conflict.

The coalition of rights experts, including the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye, said in a declaration released Monday that any effort to restrict access to the internet “can never be justified under human rights law.”

That includes forcing the shutdown of networks, filtering and censoring content, and the physical takeover of broadcast stations.

Although internet “kill switches” are rare, they have increasingly been used by both democratic and emerging states, particularly during uprisings, protests, and civil unrest.

The paper comes in the wake of revelations The United States has implemented such a kill switch on cell phone networks, while the United Kingdom runs an extensive censorship program against pornography and a questionable list of sites whose inclusion cannot be articulated.

Internet shutdowns have also come in Burundi, a small African country, amid protests over the president’s bid for a third term, which the opposition says is unconstitutional. Officials in the country ordered the shutdown of social media services, a move that provoked a highly critical response from privacy group Access.

U.S. officials are themselves in the midst of defending shutting down cell service in San Francisco’s rail system during a 2011 protest.

The released declaration also added, in the wake of disclosures detailing the U.S. government’s intelligence gathering efforts, that mass surveillance is “inherently disproportionate,” and a violation of privacy and freedom of expression.

It remains to be seen if any politicians in the United States will take note of these issues as we move towards more, not less, surveillance.

Sunday’s LA Earthquake Shows Nepal Isn’t An Isolated Event

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A magnitude 3.8 earthquake that shook the Los Angeles area early Sunday morning shows that what happened in Nepal two weeks ago could happen here at home.

Many LA residents were awoken to rattling right before dawn on Sunday, but officials reported no injuries or damage as a result. The earthquake struck at 4am local time and was centered in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood, about 7 miles southwest of downtown LA.

The small size and LA’s strict building code were the likely reasons for no loss of life and minimal damage.

The United States Geological Survey reported that LA residents could feel light or weak shaking as far as 100 miles to the northwest in the town of Maricopa. The quake’s preliminary magnitude measured 3.9, but it was slightly downgraded after.

The Los Angeles Fire Department announced the region was safe after its 106 fire stations conducted a 470 square mile damage assessment. People took to social media to describe their experience, described as feeling a sudden jolt followed by a gentle rocking sensation.

Sunday morning’s quake was the third to measure greater than 3.0 this year, and occured along a northern stretch of the Newport-Inglewood seismic fault zone. A quake measuring 3.3 and another measuring 3.4 hit the same area on April 13 and April 30, respectively, highlighting just how geologically active the well populated area is.

Such earthquakes are common in the seismically active region and are usually too weak to cause enough ground motion to damage property. Lucy Jones, a USGS seismologist, tweeted that “little earthquakes happen all the time, and we can’t find significant patterns.”

LA isn’t the only area of the U.S. to affected by quakes since the Nepal disaster. It follows a stronger 4.2 magnitude quake that occurred in the middle of the day on Saturday near Kalamazoo, Michgan. The Michigan quake produced weak shaking that residents could feel as far as Detroit, Toledo, Ohio, and South Bend Indiana.

Big Telcos Using Dirty Tricks To Avoid Net Neutrality Rules

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In yet another clear sign that the FCC’s net neutrality rules are in consumers’ best interests, the big telecom monopolies have been caught using technical loopholes to get around the effective policing mechanisms the FCC laid out in its landmark decision.

The teclos want to stop the FCC from both reclassifying the internet as a utility and implementing a standard that prevents providers from “unreasonably interfering” with your internet access

AT&T, CenturyLink and multiple industry groups have sent filings to the FCC asking it to block specific procedures and not the rules themselves. The fabulously wealthy companies say the regulations would require “crushing” costs and might chill investments in network upgrades, arguments they’ve used in the past when faced with any sort of regulation.

While the FCC is likely to discard these requests, they will likely lead to a call to freeze the net neutrality rules (which start June 12th) until legal battles are over.

The filings give a peek at the strategy the telcos will use when they’re at court. The carriers have launched broad legal attacks on net neutrality, claiming that it violates numerous laws and even the Constitution.

Now they’re trying to undermine the rules based on the supposed burdens involved with the implementation, not the core principles that earned so much public support. They’re basically trying every trick in the book to kill net neutrality, even if that includes some very specific tactics.

Whether or not the legal armada will work against the FCC may be a matter of which court they end up in. The FCC wants them to go to a federal appeals court in Washington, DC that maintained the agency’s power to regulate internet access even after rejecting earlier rules. The FCC no doubt wants a judiciary that enshrines its authority at the very moment that companies are trying to undermine it — a different court might not be so sympathetic.

The big telcos understand this and have launched at least 7 lawsuits around the country to try and get more favorable venues.

It wouldn’t be surprising if at least one case, after many years, ends up at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The telcos don’t want to stop price gouging you and will do anything and everything to keep the practice, and associated profits, going.

Citigroup’s CEO Takes ‘Pay Cut’ To $12 million Per Year

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“In part because he failed to stop traders from rigging the foreign-exchange markets” Citigroup Inc. Chairman Michael O’Neill announced CEO Michael Corbat’s 2014 compensation would be cut by an undisclosed amount.

The exact fine that will be paid for rigging the markets is not known as Citigroup is still in discussions with the Department of Justice. It’s unlikely any fine with be material, especially to executives who never do jail time over such matters and never pay from their own pockets any fines. Any fines are paid for by shareholders, mostly main street Americans who own shares via pension funds.

The executive previously had is pay docked 10 percent because of fraud that took place in Mexico and the Federal Reserve’s rejection of the New York-based company’s 2014 capital plan.

Previous illegal activity by the bank, namely the sale of mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis, which led to a $7 billion settlement in July, came before the 54-year-old CEO took over, the chairman said.

In a clear sign that pension funds and other large institutional holder of stock, on behalf of working Americans it should be noted, are in on the egregious CEO pay scam, shareholders voted against a proposal that would have deferred a portion of top executives’ pay for 10 years and used the money to cover fines if the bank is found to have broken laws.

Only about 4.9 percent of investors voted in favor of the logical plan.

With no executive pay now tied to fines, the company is free to carry on its criminal enterprise and concoct new schemes to defraud the financial markets.

Miller-Coors Sued For Calling Mass Produced Beer ‘Craft’

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Miller-Coors Sued For Calling Mass Produced Beer ‘Craft’

A California man has sued Miller-Coors for labeling Blue Moon as a craft beer, it was reported this weekend. Zach Rabun of Mockery Brewing points to the fact Blue Moon is made at the same brewery which makes the rest of the Miller-Coors lineup of beers. That fact is not represented on the label and it is “concerning”, according to the lawsuit.

The suit asks for refunds for customers and for Blue Moon to more clearly advertise how it is produced and remove the premium price tag normally reserved for craft beers.

Miller-Coors released a statement saying “There are countless definitions of craft, none of which are legal definitions.”

While an obvious publicity stunt for his own beer company, Rabun has a valid argument: At what point is it illegal or unethical for large corporations to take commonly used descriptions and use them to describe their products, which often bare little resemblance to the original definition.

A good example of this is the use of ‘Green’, ‘Organic’ or ‘Energy Efficient’. All three are used in deceptive, manipulative ways by big corporations.

Take Tostitos, the maker of nacho chips. Their package says it ‘contains 80% organic ingredients’. While this is factual it blatantly goes against the commonly held definition of Organic – that the entire product is Organic not just some of it. By Tostitos labeling standards all products could make such percentage based claims.

It’s important for Americans to take note of who makes a product before taking any health or sourcing claims at face value. As can be seen with the ‘Craft Beer’ designation, it is an outright lie although one which seems to be legal in our country.

Puerto Rico Latest To Legalize Medical Marijuana

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In an unexpected move late Sunday, Puerto Rico’s governor signed an executive order to authorize the use of medical marijuana in the U.S. territory. The order went into immediate effect.

Gov. Alejandro García Padilla gave the island’s health secretary has three months to issue a report detailing how the executive order will be instituted, the impact it will have and what future steps need to be taken.

“We’re taking a significant step in the area of health that is fundamental to our development and quality of life,” García said in a statement. “I am sure that many patients will receive appropriate treatment that will offer them new hope.”

The order mandates the health department to authorize the use of some or all controlled substances or derivatives of the hemp plant for medical use.

García said the government also will outline the specific authorized uses of marijuana and its derivatives for medical purposes. Medical marijuana is used in the U.S. mainland and elsewhere to treat pain associated with migraines and illnesses including multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and AIDS.

Medical marijuana is legal in 23 U.S. states, and a group of U.S. legislators is seeking to remove federal prohibitions against it. In the Caribbean, Jamaica recently passed a law that partially decriminalized small amounts of pot and paves the way for a lawful medical marijuana sector.

Jaime Perello, president of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, said he supported García’s order.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said. “One of the benefits that patients say they receive the most is pain relief.”

The move came after lengthy public debate on the issue which appeared to stall the legislative process. García’s move puts Puerto Rican drug policy on par with some of the most progressive states in the world and is considered to be a win for the island nation, which lacks the resources to police aggressive drug prohibitions.

Beware Insurance Companies Offering Discounts For Data

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Global insurance giant Manulife is looking to wearable fitness trackers, data collection and an enticing rewards program to boost sluggish sales and connect with customers in a radical new way.

Or that’s the pitch anyway.

What’s really going on is Big Insurance is looking to extend their information advantage over you, the Small Customer. Insurance companies make their money by taking bets they, on average, win. In order to maintain that average, or increase it, they collect oodles of data on the policies they write to figure out the odds of having to pay.

If the odds are in their favor, they give you a policy. If the odds favor you, they don’t.

Plus they’re always looking for a way not to pay. Pre-existing medical condition? They’ll take your money until it comes time to use the policy, then they’ll weasel out of the bet.

By giving insurance companies more data, you allow them to fine tune their betting and welshing strategies. It may look like you’re getting a good deal or fair coverage but thanks to supercomputers and loads of data they’ll win – every time. You’ll lose.

The insurance companies are looking to massively extend that advantage by offering rate reductions and incentives to customers who will share this data. For instance, customers who demonstrate they’re focused on health – from annual checkups and flu shots to frequent gym visits. Or installing GPS trackers in your car to make sure you drive the speed limit and don’t under-report how much driving you do in a year.

Manulife’s U.S. program, run by subsidiary John Hancock Financial Services, gives customers points not only for working out, but also for maintaining good levels of blood glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure, and for not using tobacco.

Other health efforts such as mammograms, colonoscopies and dental screenings also add up.

The customer is ranked bronze, silver, gold or platinum and can earn a 5 to 15 percent discount on his or her premium the following year.

This new effort to lure consumers comes at a time when insurance companies are not only digging for new policyholders in a mature market, but also building larger wealth- and asset-management divisions that compete with financial institutions such as banks. Lenders benefit from their more frequent contact with customers.

Sounds good right?

Wrong. What happens if you have unique circumstances not captured in the ‘average’?

For instance, you break a leg at work which prevents you from doing any physical activity for half a year. Or what if you have naturally high cholesterol, as some members of the population have.

What will happen is that you’ll pay more. Or, more worryingly, you’ll be denied coverage or have the policy cancelled.

This scenario already happens with cancer survivors. If you have had cancer once, odds are no insurance company will cover you in the future, for anything health related, regardless of if you have a clean bill of health.

Imagine this concept extended back throughout an entire person’s life, like our children’s. Diabetes? Too many lung infections? History of concussions from sports? Above average number of cavities? All could be grounds for insurance companies to price gouge, deny coverage or welsh on payments.

By giving them more data you’re giving them more opportunity to take advantage of you.

Insurance companies looking to ‘boost revenues’ and ‘increase margins’ are not your friends. That money comes from you, the policy holder, and is enabled by Big Insurance’s data crunching juggernaut.

The more data you give them the less coverage you get, plain and simple.

So next time an insurance company offers you a free Fitbit or a rewards scheme to put a GPS in your car, just say thanks but no thanks. You’re guaranteed to get none of the upside and all of the downside.

Wildlife Decline May Lead To Empty Landscapes

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Wildlife Decline May Lead To Empty Landscapes

Approximately 60% of giant plant eating animals, including rhinos, elephants and gorillas, are at risk of extinction, according to new research.

Analysis of 74 herbivore species, published in the journal Science Advances, saw poaching and habitat loss creating perfect conditions for extinction. A previous study of large carnivores, such as tigers, lions and leopards, showed similar declines.

Oregon State University professor William Ripple led the research looking at herbivores weighing over 100kg, from the reindeer up to the African elephant.

“This is the first time anyone has analysed all of these species as a whole,” he said.

“The process of declining animals is causing an empty landscape in the forest, savannah, grasslands and desert.”

Oxford University’s professor David Macdonald, of the school’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, was on the team of 15 international scientists.

“The big carnivores, like the charismatic big cats or wolves, face horrendous problems from direct persecution, over-hunting and habitat loss, but our new study adds another nail to their coffin – the empty larder,” he said.

“It’s no use having habitat if there’s nothing left to eat in it.”

The research shows that the decline in populations is being driven by a number of factors including habitat loss, hunting for meat or body parts, and competition for food and resources with human raised livestock.

With rhino horns worth more than gold, diamonds or cocaine on the illegal markets of China, rhinos could be extinct in the wild within 20 years in Africa, according to the research.

The consequences of large wild herbivore decline include:

– Loss of habitat: for example, elephants maintain forest clearings by trampling vegetation

– Effects on the food chain: large predators such as lions, leopards, and hyena rely on large herbivores for food

– Seed dispersal: large herbivores eat seeds which are carried over long distances

– Impact on humans: an estimated one billion people rely on wild meat for subsistence while the loss of iconic herbivores will have a negative impact on tourism

The biggest losses are occurring in South East Asia, India and Africa.

Europe and North America have already lost most of their large herbivores in a previous mass extinction.

ISIS Comitting Genocide, Slaughters Hundreds Of Yazidis Over Weekend

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ISIS Comitting Genocide, Slaughters Hundreds Of Yazidis Over Weekend

ISIS’ massacres of Yazidi populations are now a full on genocide as the terrorist militants killed at least 200 Yazidis near Mosul, Iraq, on Friday, an senior Iraqi lawmaker said Sunday.

The political party Yazidi Progress reported a higher figure, with more than 300 killed. The slaughter included men, women and children. There were no reported survivors of the attack.

The Yazidis are one of the world’s smallest and oldest monotheistic religious minorities. Their religion was founded before Islam and draws from Christianity, Judaism and the ancient monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism.

They have been a frequent target of ISIS in the parts of Iraq and Syria the group controls.

Kurdish troops have been battling ISIS on the ground, while U.S. and other coalition fighters attack them from the sky. Iraqi member of parliament Habib al-Tarfi, citing information from Kurdish intelligence sources, reported Sunday that at least 200 were killed Friday. “We condemn this heinous act against this Iraqi component of our society, our Yazidi brothers,” he said.

ISIS attacks on Yazidis drove an estimated 40,000 up into the Sinjar Mountains last summer.

The latest massacre raises questions of UN involvement in the matter. Thus far the United Nations, under the tepid leadership of Ban Ki Moon, has been silent on the issue and has not been involved. Critics have argued the silence is enabling the genocide.

Antibiotics Used To Preserve Ancient Frescoes Of Pompeii

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Antibiotics Used To Preserve Ancient Frescoes Of Pompeii

Some of the most celebrated frescoes at the ancient Roman ruin of Pompeii have been given a course of antibiotics. Specifically, conservators used amoxicillin, a type of penicillin, to treat strains of bacteria living in the ancient frescoes that decorate what scholars believe to be the dining room of the Villa of the Mysteries.

The streptococcus bacteria were thriving on the paintings’ natural pigments and turning them to dust. The ancient house reopened to the public in March after a two-year restoration project.

A team of 20 people from the private firm Atramentum gave the villa a thorough makeover. In addition to cleansing the works of damaging bacteria they also removed traces of soil in the paintings that had been left over from the excavation of the site in the early 1900s.

The team spent more than a year stabilizing the mosaic floors and cleaning thousands of square yards of interior decoration across the house. They also analyzed the works which revealed a wide range of painting techniques used on the walls, from paint mixed with melted wax to water-based pigments to the rare compound “Egyptian blue”.

They paid close attention to the deep red color used so extensively in the murals. Conservators actually used lasers to remove dark stains that had formed in the pigment over time as soil particles containing the black mineral manganese became soluble in rainwater, which seeped through cracks in the ancient brickwork.

The restoration completes the second phase of work on the Villa of the Mysteries, following work that began in 2008 to reinforce the structure and to renovate roofing.

Here’s A List Of Everything Facebook Knows About You

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And it isn’t just Facebook that knows all this – your data is freely shared with the NSA and CIA. It’s also available, without a warrant, to every law enforcement branch in the country. Just submit a written request on official letterhead and you get access to all this.

The information is also a goldmine for hackers, who routinely exploit vulnerabilities in apps, passwords and Facebook servers to steal the information.

The data is a goldmine for marketers as well, with the company’s business model premises on selling it to marketers, who in turn target you with very specific ads.

The massive amount of data isn’t unique to Facebook. Every other social network – Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat and more all collected very similar data sets. So too do app makers, cellphone companies and even smartphone makers like Apple.

It’s worthwhile looking at what the company collects and asking yourself ‘do they really need to know all of this about me?’.

So as you ponder that, here is a list of everything Facebook knows about you.

The Basics
Name
Age
Gender
Birthday
Hair color
Eye color
Race

Local History
Current city of residence
Hometown
Past places I’ve lived (1)
When I moved from one location to another
How long I lived at each location

Family
My sister
My brothers-in-law (2)
My uncle
My cousins (2)
My wife
My nephew
My extended family

Relationships
My past girlfriends
When each of my past relationships began
When each of my past relationships ended
Exactly how long each of my previous relationships lasted

Contact Info
Personal phone number
Work phone number
Past phone numbers (2)
Personal email address
Work email address
Old personal email addresses (3)
Old work email addresses (2)

Financial Info
My PayPal account
My credit card number

Friends
All of my friends’ names
Which friends I’m actually friends with and which ones are just on my friends list
Which friends I don’t actually like talking to
Which friends I blocked on Messenger to avoid awkward conversations
Which friends I like enough to get updates from
Which friends I like so much that I have subscribed to their every action

Education
High school I attended
College I attended
Years I attended each school
Year I graduated from high school
Year I graduated from college

Employment Info
Career
Current job
Past jobs (3)
Length of employment at past jobs

Personal Details
Languages I speak
Political leanings
Who I voted for (national elections)
Who I voted for (local elections)
Religious beliefs

Online Social Life
My AIM screenname
My MSN screenname
My LinkedIn profile
My Twitter profile
My Myspace profile
My Foursquare profile
My Yelp profile
My Tumblr blogs (2)
The sites I comment on

Gaming Life
My Xbox Live gamertag
My PlayStation network ID
My Wii friend code
My Wii U friend code
My 3DS friend code
My Steam ID

Your Faves
My favorite bands
My favorite TV shows
My favorite movies
My favorite books
My favorite console video games
My favorite PC video games
My favorite foods
My favorite color
My favorite websites
My favorite Twitch.tv streamers
My favorite iOS apps
My favorite Android apps
My favorite coffee shop
My favorite pizza place
My favorite football team
My favorite baseball team

Events
Weddings I’ve attended or avoided
Parties I’ve attended or avoided
Sporting events I’ve attended to avoided
Meetings I’ve attended or avoided
Everything else I’ve been invited to that I did or did not attend

Detailed Travel History
Every place I’ve visited in roughly the past decade
Every work trip I’ve been on since I began my career
How long each trip lasted, and my days of arrival and departure
What hotel I stayed at during my first visit to Los Angeles
What hotels I stayed at during each subsequent visit to Los Angeles
Where I stayed during my trips to CES in Las Vegas
Where I ate on my last in night in Las Vegas, and who I was with
Where I stayed during my trip to North Carolina
What kind of car I rented while I was in North Carolina

Athletics
Which sports I played in school
The fact that I don’t really like baseball and have never visited my team’s page
How well I do in fantasy football
What my punishment was for placing last overall in fantasy football in 2013

Connected Apps
My eBay account
My Amazon account
Many of my Amazon purchases
My Audible account
Which audiobooks I’ve purchased on Audible
Which audiobooks I’ve actually listened to after purchasing them
My various app habits
Which friends I’ve invited to play apps with me

Map My Ride Data
How often I work out
The length of my bike rides
The routes I like to take for my bike rides
The time of day I usually go for bike rides

Spotify Data Sharing
My morning playlists
My deep focus playlist
How often I listen to each song
My most-played songs of all time
Which songs I consider guilty pleasures
Which songs I (embarrassingly) listen to on repeat for hours

Facebook Usage
Where I use Facebook
What device I have connected to Facebook
Every device I’ve ever used to connect to Facebook
Every browser I’ve ever used to connect to Facebook
Every one of the 127 apps I’ve used my Facebook login on

Now imagine someone got this data and wanted to use it for evil. Or use it to make money from you.

It wouldn’t be at all hard to find ways to blackmail you or cause a great deal of destruction to your life.

Now imagine what the NSA knows about you and, more importantly, our elected officials.

Germany Launches Public Probe Of NSA Data Collection

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Germany Launches Public Probe Of NSA Data Collection

Germany was up in arms this weekend over fresh spying allegations that could harm the country’s thorny relationship with surveillance of its citizens. The revelations bring back Soviet era memories where secret police held dossiers on almost all citizens of note, including politicians and government officials.

Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine claimed on Saturday that German spy agency BND, the equivalent of the NSA, had intercepted data on German and EU citizens on behalf of the NSA.

According to the report, BND “affected communication of European corporations, [government] departments and agencies.”

As we covered earlier this weekend, the spying included theft of trade secrets from Airbus, which were then passed on to American rival Boeing.

It was further claimed that the data was only filtered to exclude German citizens only after it had been collected and that in each ‘wiretap’ the exclusion process had to be performed. The process itself was apparently lengthy, taking years to complete. In the meantime the spooks could use the German data as they wished and in fact passed it on their American counterparts.

Intercepted material included both metadata and “complete records of telephone calls and emails, audio and text files.”

The reports are confirmation that agencies like the NSA are tracking every single bit of information that American citizens put online.

Germany’s public prosecutor has responded to the accusations against the BND by promising a preliminary investigation into the matter.

The inquest will consider whether Germany’s foreign intelligence agency violated the country’s laws by allegedly aiding the U.S. government in spying on European officials and companies such as aerospace giant Airbus group, which has already threatened to sue the BND.

German politicians, unlike those in our country, were calling on Chancellor Angela Merkel to explain the alleged actions of her government’s spook agency.

She has publicly opposed “spying on friends” by labelling it “a no-go”, yet the latest revelations indicate she may be acting differently in secret.

Der Spiegel reports that the deal between the two agencies was first struck in 2002, meaning the data has been collected for almost 15 years.

The report highlights just how pervasive spying on citizens has become. In the United States our NSA now has a detailed file on every single American citizen, detailing their movements, spending patterns, relationships – essentially every detail of your life.

Its especially troubling because the spying is conducted on government, judicial and military officials who can easily be blackmailed into cooperating with the NSA. The spying poses a serious threat to democracy as it is conducted with no oversight and the information is so powerful it would not be hard to circumvent the democratic process if the it threatened the NSA’s agenda.

The ramifications of this are particularly salient to Germans who lived under such a spying system during the Cold War.

Hard Rock Hotel Hit By Massive Data Breach

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Hard Rock Hotel Hit By Massive Data Breach

Identity thieves have hit Las Vegas’ Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in a massive data breach that includes credit card numbers, names, and addresses, according to reports

The company says it found malware on its systems which was used to pinch the data from its retail and service locations. The gang did not make off with PINs, the company said in a statement.

Hard Rock said it uncovered the attack on April 3rd and the affected card transactions were between September 3rd 2014 and April 4th of this year. Skimmed transactions were at its restaurant, bar and retail shops. The casino and hotels were unaffected.

Point of Sales malware is becoming more sophisticated and successful at stealing vulnerable magnetic stripe data from US credit cards.

The fresh attack, similar to those at Target and Home Depot highlight two issues.

The first is that the U.S. still used insecure magnetic stripes to process transactions. The rest of the world has moved to highly secure chip and pin technology. The delayed move to the new technology is because fraud losses have tended to be small relative to the massive investment to migrate to the new technology. Yet individual cardholders are now feeling the pain of this decision as cyber-criminals perpetrate large scale card skimming that takes advantage of this known vulnerability.

The second issue this highlights is why it took a full month for Hard Rock to notify the public. The size of the data breach is massive and the earlier those affected know about it the better they can protect themselves. Some states have enacted mandatory data breach disclosure laws and it seems in this case they would have helped victims. Hard Rock has very little excuse for not promptly notifying customers affected, who now will have suffered greater loss as a result of the delay.

Australia Finds Way To Break Apple’s Tax Dodges

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Australia’s Economics References Committee, which has been conducting hearings into corporate tax avoidance, looks to have made a breakthrough in the fight on rich tech companies avoiding taxes by using elaborate networks of subsidiaries.

The committee has developed a new method for taxing multinationals from the nation’s Taxation Office.

The hearings have shown how the likes of Apple, Google and Microsoft manage to pay such low tax in Australia, just as they do here in America.

In Apple’s case the company uses a structure where it pays more than fair value for the products it resells, so that the company’s business can be done in nations with lower tax rates. This scheme sees Apple report tiny profit margins in Australia, well out of kilter with the 30 per cent plus margins it reports to investors.

Microsoft and Google book their sales through their Singapore entities to take advantage of the island-state’s kinder tax rates. They also use Ireland for the practice for other countries.

While the practices are not illegal they are certainly cynical.

To figure out how to crack down on these practices, in which different methods for hiding profits are used, the Committee asked the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to explain how it might be possible to compare the practices of businesses with conventional tax arrangements to those using the typical tech tax dodges.

The ATO has delivered a 13-page document which explains how to unravel tax tricks in order to assess how much multinationals actually earn.

The methodology counts many payments made to related entities as income so that, for example, the payments Apple Australia makes to other Apple companies to buy products would be assessed for the component of income in the transferred sums.

Apple Australia has argued that it pays above market price because doing so means it is contributing to R&D costs, among other expenses borne by Apple USA.

The ATO’s delivery of the document to the committee is unusual, as the bureau has previously argued it can’t discuss individual company tax matters.

The chair of the committee’s inquiry, opposition senator Sam Dastyari, has said he expects the methodology will let the committee report on just how much tax tech companies and other multinationals should be paying.

The next step will be to see if any countries decide to enact new laws to properly tax the tech titans.

Carly Fiorina Continues To Fail Upward, Launches Presidential Bid

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Carly Fiorina Continues To Fail Upward, Launches Presidential Bid

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina announced her candidacy for president on Monday, becoming the first female candidate to seek the Republican Party’s nomination.

“Yes, I am running,” Fiorina told ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and followed by posts to her social media accounts.

The long-shot White House contender has never held public office. In 2010, she unsuccessfully ran for Senate in California, losing to Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Fiorina has been preparing her bid over the past few months, traveling to early states like Iowa and New Hampshire and meeting with activists and donors.

She has cast herself as an outside-the-beltway candidate with years of private sector experience, she has been particularly critical of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her work in government.

Yet Fiorina is best known for her failure at HP, a company she led from 1999 to 2005. Her controversial tenure at the firm gave Boxer plenty of ammunition in the 2010 race, and the issue will once again emerge a vulnerability for Fiorina in her campaign for president.

As CEO, she spearheaded a ill-conceived and divisive merger with Compaq as she sought to rebrand the firm and boost its relevance in the tech world. It proved to be a strategic blunder and cost the company billions of dollars while taking years to undo.

HP employees were also unhappy with Fiorina’s leadership style – misinformed, highly decisive and showing a disregard for input from those in the know. They also said she lacked engagement with colleagues, and members of both the Hewlett and Packard families have been openly critical of her role at the company.

For her time destroying HP she was paid lavishly and is now looking to translate her wealth into political power.

Ms Fiorina is likely to divide republican voters rather than unite them and will do nothing but hamper their chances to take on Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Her well financed campaign, which will be her public swan song, will fight to the death to get her as far as possible.

She would certainly lose to the battle tested, well oiled and very savvy Clinton campaign and her impact on the Republican ticket will distract the party from unifying around the most viable candidate.

Yet Ms Fiorina does not care. This is an exercise in ego and legacy building. Given her legacy is nothing but tarnished her campaign will leverage her colossal ego in a bid to keep her upward momentum as she fails. For Republicans no good can come of her bid. It will now be up to the party elders to quickly back an actually viable candidate to take on the Clinton machine.

Putin’s Instability Grows As He Recruits Child Soldiers

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In the latest sign that megalomaniac Russian despot Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on reality, the country’s leader has re-instituted Soviet era children’s militias. Despite no enemy to fight the groups have been re-launched across the country with heavy government funding.

Inhabitants of Moscow’s Yaroslavsky district have largely grown accustomed to their activities, which include throwing knives and polishing Kalashnikov rifles, which take place in the area on weekday evenings. While they’re out walking their dogs or returning home from work, their neighborhood transforms into a training ground for the local military-patriotic club Avant-garde. It’s members are all children.

The clubs provide army preparation and training in military techniques to children of both sexes, preserving a centuries-old tactic of instilling patriotic values and awareness of Russia’s history among the country’s youth. It remains to be seen just what history the clubs teach, as much of the country’s recent history, such as the Stalin ear, would best be forgotten. Dredging up antiquated imperial dreams seems counterproductive for the increasingly isolated country as the world moves to more collaborative governance models.

The nationwide network of clubs has been decentralized since the Soviet Union’s collapse and now answers to no single authority, meaning that like Putin’s biker armies, there is likely radical overtones to many of the so-called clubs. Official statistics are unavailable, though most club leaders place membership at around 200,000. That would make the child soldiers in their ranks a considerable percentage of Russia’s standing army.

In 2010 Putin implemented a 10 year “federal system of military preparation for Russian citizens” that directed resources toward and expanded the network of military-patriotic clubs.

Several prominent public figures addressed an open letter to the president, denouncing the initiative as an attempt to create “an ideology based on a cult of government, nation, and army.” The letter was posted on an Internet forum after being published on Grani.ru, a news site that was blocked in 2014.

The rebirth of the clubs indicate Mr. Putin is mentally stuck in old times. He seeks both personal and national grandeur yet does not understand how this can be achieved in the modern world. He continues to practice politics the way his forefathers did yet they were never effective then and will certainly not be effective now.

Russia has been cut off from the world financial community and is struggling to feed its people even as it invests ever more in its military. It is obvious that Mr Putin is becoming increasingly erratic, looking back on history and his legacy as he grows older, trying desperately to solidify his place in the hall of great Russian leaders.

For the world, and citizens of Russia, this is scary. He behavior looks increasingly deluded and aggressive. Child soldiers are, after all, the hallmark of violent, deranged and desparate leaders. The world must take note of his mental state and be careful in dealing with his quest to achieve immortality and re-build the Soviet Union.

Two Dead After Attempting To Silence Free Speech

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Two Dead After Attempting To Silence Free Speech

Two men were killed Sunday after they opened fire in a parking lot outside a contest for cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad, authorities reported. The contest took place in Garland, Texas.

Garland’s government issued a statement saying that as a Muhammad Art Exhibit event was coming to a close, “two males drove up to the front of the building in a car” and started shooting at a security officer.

“Garland police officers engaged the gunmen, who were both shot and killed,” the city said in a statement released online.

The security officer, who is also a Garland Independent School District employee, was identified as Bruce Joiner. He was shot in the leg and suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was reported to be in stable condition at a local hospital.

The exhibit was placed on lockdown and attendees were later moved to a nearby high school.

Police suspected the attackers’ vehicle contained a bomb and called in bomb squad experts.

An officer dressed in military fatigues took the stage toward the end of the event at the Curtis Culwell Center, near Dallas, and told attendees that a shooting had occurred. .

The American Freedom Defense Initiative hosted the Muhammad Cartoon Exhibit and $10,000 cartoon contest.

The arena which hosted the event, owned by the Garland school district, hosted a “Stand With the Prophet” event in January.

The exhibit featured “images of Islam’s prophet, both historic and contemporary, and speeches by leading voices of freedom and internationally renowned free speech advocates,” according to a press release by the group.

Such drawings have sparked violence around the world. Islamic tradition stipulates that any physical depiction of the prophet Muhammad — even a respectful one — is considered blasphemous.

Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, planned the Sunday event to make a stand for free speech in response to the outcries and violence over drawings of Muhammad, NBC News reported. Geller’s group is known for mounting a campaign against the building of an Islamic center blocks from the World Trade Center site and for buying advertising space in cities across the U.S. criticizing Islam.

“This is a war,” she posted on her website PamellaGeller.com. “This is war on free speech. What are we going to do? Are we going to surrender to these monsters?”

Dutch politician Geert Wilders, known for advocating a ban on the Kuran, was a keynote speaker at the gathering.

The event raises fundamental questions about whether Islam is compatible with American values and law, namely freedom of speech. Our country was founded upon such freedoms and it does appear that Islam, be it in radical or mainstream form, is highly incompatible with these hard won rights.

While groups such as the AFDI may appear antagonistic it is important for our country to take a stand against foreign influences that attempt to stifle our hard-won rights.

Becoming violent over a drawing is not the American way. Banning a drawing is also not the American way.

In our rush to judge this tragic event we must consider this fully as we determine what role, if any, Islam should have on shaping our values. It appears that whatever influence that may be is a step backward and not forward for our country.

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