Sunday, March 31, 2013

5 Crypto-Currencies You've Never Heard Of

Since the theft of depositors in Cyprus, Bitcoin has reached amazing new heights in both popularity and value. Over a $1 billion of Bitcoins are now in circulation. People all over the world are beginning to realize the value of financial anonymity and the utility of using crypto-currencies.

Peer-to-peer digital currencies don't require a central authority or a bank account, they have microscopic transaction fees, are quasi-anonymous and can be used to purchase a growing list of real-world goods and services.

However, there is a dilemma to the price of Bitcoin rising too fast. Some say it's a bubble, yet as capital controls and the desire for financial anonymity continue to rise around the world, so will Bitcoin's value. If it is a bubble, it's not likely to burst anytime soon.

The real dilemma is why would anyone spend a currency that doubles in value every few months?  Bitcoin, at this point, is a good investment but not a great medium of exchange.

The success of Bitcoin has spawned a few emerging competing digital currencies into the market that seek to correct some of Bitcoin's shortcomings.  Modeled after Bitcoin's open-source, peer-to-peer format, these new currencies may not be riding Bitcoin's coattails much longer as they gain steam in their own right.

CryptoJunky writes:
For the past several months Bitcoin has been making headlines as its massive growth has outpaced any and all traditional investments. However, the big winner this week in the fledgling crypto currency market was not Bitcoin but the myriad of young crypto currencies that now appear poised for growth.
What are these young crypto currencies? Here are 5 new crypto currencies you've probably never heard of:

Litecoin
Litecoin (LTC) is quickly becoming the most popular competing digital currency. Litecoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency like Bitcoin but with a scrypt hashing system making it is easier to mine. It trades on multiple exchanges, and a new Silk Road-like free marketplace called Atlantis is being developed exclusively for Litecoin in Tor. Litecoin differs from Bitcoin in that its Scrypt is easier to mine and four times as many Litecoins will be produced (84 million) giving it more room for expansion and a more stable long-term value. Litecoin has risen from about $.25 to nearly $.70 in the last few weeks and is expected to continue climbing as the marketplace for buying goods with Litecoins expands. Get started with Litecoins here.

Namecoin
Namecoin (NMC) is the only other major competitor to Bitcoin besides Litecoin. Namecoin can be merged mined with BTC, but uses an alternative peer-to-peer domain system. Namecoin differs from Bitcoin in that it allows users to attach information to any given transaction, but is similar in that only 21 million coins will be produced. Namecoins are currently trading at around $.20, or .00226 of a Bitcoin. Get started with Namecoins here.

PPcoin
PPcoin (PPC) is a P2P digital currency compatible with Bitcoin mining, but it uses an innovative proof-of-stake system to provide most of the network security instead of proof-of-work like Bitcoin. "Security level of the network is not dependent on energy consumption in the long term thus providing an energy efficient and more cost-competitive peer-to-peer crypto-currency," PPC's white paper says. Up to 2 billion PPcoins are currently allowed to be created. PPcoins trade on a few exchanges where its current value is just shy of $.02 and  Find out more about PPcoin here.

Terracoin
Launched in the fall of 2012, Terracoin (TRC) is one of the newest decentralized, person-to-person digital currencies, also modeled after Bitcoin's protocol. Twice as many Terracoins (42 million) will be produced as Bitcoins which makes them easier to mine. With Terracoin, only the "longest" blockchain gets used by the network, thus preventing any malicious nodes making it even more secure. Terracoin trades on multiple exchanges and its current value is around $.092, or .001 Bitcoins. For more info on Terracoin, go here.

Devcoin
Devcoin (DVC) is a digital crypto-currency that seeks to spur jobs and innovation. It can be merge-mined with Bitcoins, but the reward for coin generation goes heavily to open-source developers who get 90%, leaving 10% of the bounty for the miner. Besides developers and programmers, Devcoin rewards artists and writers who can earn DVCs for their work innovating the currency. The concept is to provide jobs to anyone who wants to work, payable in Devcoins. "Devcoins provide an income for everyone who wants to work, even if they live in an area with more job seekers than jobs," it says on their Wiki page. DVCs currently trade at a fraction of a penny. Find out more here.

Source: Activist Post

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Banks Reopen in Cyprus Under Tight Armed Security

Bank tellers urged customers not to take out their frustrations when the doors swung open at noon (local time) on Thursday for the first time in 12 days, while authorities trucked in shipping containers full of euros under heavy security.

World markets were jittery over the crisis, which has seen capital controls imposed for the first time by a eurozone economy in order to prevent financial meltdown after the 10-billion-euro EU-IMF rescue package.

Most banks in Nicosia had between one and three guards posted at their entrances early morning, some of them carrying weapons – an alien sight in the generally peaceful east Mediterranean tourist destination.

Banks opened unusually late to allow time to prepare for the new cash curbs and are set to stay open for six hours until 6pm (local time). Cypriot authorities appealed on television late Wednesday for people to give priority to the elderly as many did not have credit cards and had to withdraw their money over the counter.

FBI to monitor online chats in real-time by 2014

AFP PHhoto / Stan Honda
AFP Photo / Stan Honda

The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t have the ability to monitor everyone’s one-on-one Internet chats in real-time just yet, but the agency’s chief lawyer says all that should soon change.

FBI general counsel Andrew Weissman discussed the Justice Department’s power to put pressure on cyber-criminals during an address last week at the National Press Club in Washington, and during the engagement he opened up about what exactly the country’s top domestic police patrol wants in their bag of tricks: By the years’ end, the attorney says the FBI hopes to be able to snoop on conversations that occur over the Web by gaining access to up-to-the-second feeds of seemingly secretive chats.

Currently telecommunications within the United States can be bugged with a court’s approval thanks to 1994’s Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Weissman, however, warns that as technology advances, agencies like the FBI become increasingly out of luck in terms of tracking down criminals who’ve moved operations off the streets and onto the Web.

“The problem is where we are today. The way we communicate is really not limited to telephone nowadays and sort of the old fashioned picking up the phone and calling someone,” Weismann said.

Online services such as Gmail, Google Voice and DropBox dominate our online lives, Weissman said, but legislation does not yet exist that lets law enforcement tap into Internet accounts with the cyber-equivalent of snooping in on a phone call. While the FBI may obtain court orders to collect archived Internet conversations from the administrators of email services such as Gmail, Weissman said that won’t do. The ability to actually intercepting online chats is something the FBI wants to have, and Weissman said they are working on having it ready by the end of the year.

“You do have laws that say you need to keep things for a certain amount of time, but in the cyber realm you can have companies that keep things for five minutes,” he said. “You can imagine totally legitimate reasons for that, but you can also imagine how enticing that ability is for people who are up to no good because the evidence comes and it goes.”

Weissman said that legislation in other countries allow law enforcement there to intercept real time dialogs. With such an option overseas, tracking so-called cyberterrorists is as easy as eavesdropping on a phone cool.

“We don’t have the ability to go to court and say we need a court order that actually requires the recipient of that order to effectuate the intercept. Other countries have that and I think most people who are not lawyers sort of assume that’s what you’re getting when you go to court,” he said. “You think that you’re getting an order that says, ‘Recipient, you have to actually effectuate the communication.’ Well that’s not what you get. You get something that says that you have to provide technical assistance.”

“The problem with not having [that ability in America] is that we’re making the ability to intercept communications with a court order increasingly obsolete,” Weissman added. “Those communications are being used for criminal conversations, by definition…and so this huge legal apparatus that many of you know about to prevent crimes, to prevent terrorist attacks is becoming increasingly hampered and increasingly marginalized the more we have technology that is not covered by CALEA. Because we don’t have the ability to just go to the court and say ‘You know what, they just have to do it.’”

Weissman added that the ability to obtain a court order that can track Internet chats in real-time “is a huge priority for the FBI” that, although in the works, was halted by last year’s presidential election. Now with the 2012 race out of the picture — and the country’s most transparent president ever elected for another round — the FBI aims to iron out a deal that will let Internet companies like Google tap into their data to watch what’s happening on the Web in instances where waiting five minutes just won’t do. Weissman even hinted at being able to intercept messages sent over entirely different sites, such as a game of Scrabble conducted over Facebook.

Meanwhile, that archived information is still as sought after as ever before. Google’s admitted in the back in January that government requests for user data skyrocketed by 25 percent in the last year, with the US leading the field by far in calls for data disclosure. When Google released statistics only a few weeks earlier showing the first six months of requests, the trend was already something that was hard to ignore.

“This is the sixth time we’ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise,” Google acknowledges in a blog post published Tuesday, November 13.

Source: RT

Hippie Commune Thrives as Europe Tires of Chaos

As Europe's financial woes deepen and depositors increasingly question the safety of their savings, some European citizens are looking to escape their economic troubles by joining an Italian commune, replete with its own monetary, political and economic system.

Located in Piedmont in north-western Italy, the "Damanhur" commune calls itself an "eco-society," operating with the help of its own social and political structure and money, the Credito. Since the financial crisis, the community says that there has been a "significant increase" in ordinary people asking to visit or join its community, whose economic system is based on "a mix of free enterprise, solidarity, communal sharing and co-operative trade".

Damanur resident Macaco Tamerice (Macaco means "Monkey" in Italian - all residents of Damanhur take on an animal name) told CNBC that Damanhur is attracting many Europeans tired of economic crisis as an interest in "alternative social models" grows.

"In the last few years there has been an increase in interest in Damanhur and the hits on our website and participation in our Facebook page and blog have increased significantly," Tamerice said.

"This is why we have developed a program called the 'New Life Citizenship' which allows people to apply to come and live in Damanhur for three months, inside its communities as a citizen....After this period people can decide to become a citizen of Damanhur or use the new experience to be spread somewhere else," Tamerice told CNBC.

The commune has had over 3,000 requests for information regarding temporary residence since it started its citizenship course, during which visitors live in the commune and attend its "university" courses ranging from art and ecology to holistic wellbeing, "astral travel" and "past lives research". Those that either stay or leave often pass on the ethos of Damanhur, which has regional centers, called "embassies," in capital cities across Europe, America and Japan.

Though it could be dismissed as another New Age hippie refuge or throwback to the free-loving 1960s, Damanhur is a commune with a mission to create a new model society in Europe, a region it sees as desperately in need of a new type of economic and societal model.

(Read More: Depression, Suicides Rise as Euro Debt Crisis Intensifies )

Damanhur says its economy offers the "best of two opposing economic doctrines: liberalism and socialism" - an economic system it has developed since its founding in 1975. The community states that its economic system "blends free enterprise with solidarity and communal sharing, with the objective of creating the most advantages and wealth possible at an individual and collective level."

In light of the current banking deposit levy being imposed in Cyprus in return for a bailout from international lenders, the Damanhur community is keen to highlight the independence of its citizens' employment activities and stresses that all its citizens manage their own money.

Though not all of its 1,000 multinational residents work in the community's "co-operative" economic system, there are 60 businesses in the community across a number of sectors, from artistic workshops and computer and IT consultancies to publishing and eco-building, and these trade using the local currency- the "Credito" - which is minted in a normal Italian coin factory, Tamerice told CNBC.

"Inside Damanhur, you can buy and sell anything with the Credito. But we also have a convention with some shops and fuel stations in the area that people can buy products with Creditos. These businesses can then spend the Creditos in our shops and services, or exchange the Creditos into euro," Tamerice said. The commune's website states that the Credit "is legally and fiscally regulated, and its value is equal to that of the euro (Exchange:EUR=)."

Italy has been in political limbo since inconclusive elections in February which saw the rise of radical, alternative political parties such as comedian Beppe Grillo's "Five Star Movement." On Thursday, the leader of the center-left coalition, Pier-Luigi Bersani- is expected to visit President Giorgio Napolitano with the news that he has acquired enough broader political support to form a government.

(Read More: Only an 'Insane Person' Would Want to Run Italy Now: Bersani )

In Damanhur, however, a democratic system with representatives and elected bodies has evolved over the last thirty years, based on the active participation of the community in debates and decision-making. " In Italy there is a huge crisis and as we live in Italy, Damanhur is also affected by the crisis. But our system is based on solidarity, and in this way living together and helping each other when needed, we can live well," Tamerice remarked.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Spamhaus is battling a 300 billion bits-per-second DDoS described as the ‘biggest attack in history’

Sales Of Low Cost Canned Meat Spam On The Rise Amid Rising Food Cost

Anti-spam organization Spamhaus has been hit by a number of large-scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, bringing down its own website temporarily and causing widespread disruption across the Internet.

The BBC is reporting it as the ‘biggest cyber-attack in history,’ with The New York Times describing it as ‘one of the largest computer attacks on the Internet.’

The DDoS attacks are alleged to have originated from CyberBunker, a Dutch web hosting company that will store anything except child pornography and files related to terrorism. As a result, some of its clients are rumored to use the hosting service for spam, phishing sites and malware operations.

If true, this latest clash follows a long and unpleasant history between the two organizations.

A tangle with A2B

Spamhaus declared in October 2011 that CyberBunker was providing hosting to spammers. The non-profit contacted the Dutch Internet service provider A2B to request that it pull the parts of its service supporting CyberBunker.

When nothing happened, Spamhaus proceeded to add A2B to its blocklist. These lists are incredibly important, as many Internet service providers use them to reduce the amount of spam messages they receive.  At the time of writing, Spamhaus says its blocklists are protecting over 1.78 billion mailboxes across the Internet.

A2B eventually dropped CyberBunker to regain support for all of its services, but allegedly filed a report with local police accusing Spamhaus of “extortion” and carrying out a “DoS attack” on its network.

A2B later responded on its website: “This is not about whom we provide transit for, this is about a shady UK ltd with virtual offices in the UK and Switzerland, that is trying to force their views upon us.

“If A2B Internet would be providing transit for illegal internet activities (which we aren’t), there are local laws and regulations to deal with. And we are sure the local Dutch police don’t require a couple vigilantes to play judge and executioner on their behalf.”

CyberBunker described all of this as a “blackmail war” and is said to have moved onto a new ISP after being dropped by A2B.

Earlier this year, Spamhaus added CyberBunker to one of its blocklists. At the time of writing, the website is still on the Domain Block List (DBL) and likely the Spamhaus Block List (SBL) as well.

The state of play

CyberBunker is yet to issue a statement taking responsibility for the DDoS attacks, which The New York Times says has now reached “previously unknown magnitudes” of “300 billion bits per second”.

The BBC has also reported that according to Spamhaus, CyberBunker and “criminal gangs” from across Eastern Europe and Russia are behind the attacks. As of yet, this link has not been proven.

Five national cyber-police-forces are also said to be investigating the attacks.

Spamhaus’ various spam-blocking databases are used by used by the majority of email service providers, corporations, universities, governments and military networks.

At the time of writing, Spamhaus is operational and being supported by Internet security firm CloudFlare. The DDoS attacks, however, are still ongoing and affecting servers ‘all over the world’.

“These things are essentially like nuclear bombs,”  Matthew Prince, chief executive of CloudFlare reportedly said. “It’s so easy to cause so much damage.”

The BBC has suggested that it could be affecting widely used services such as Netflix, although the extent of this has not been verified. TNW has reached out to both CyberBunker and Spamhaus to find out more.

Source: The Next Web

About Chemtrails and Geoengineering

CIA and Amazon’s $600 Million “Cloud” Business

Fig4

According to a newly released report by The Business of Federal Technology website, the USA Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the company Amazon are about to sign a ‘cloud computing’ contract priced $600 million.

The FCW article states that the CIA Chief Information Officer Jeanne Tisinger told an audience at the Northern Virginia Technology Council Board of Directors meeting on March 12, that “CIA is leveraging the commercial sector’s innovation cycle, looking for cost efficiencies in commodity IT, and using software-as-a-service for common solutions, working with companies like Amazon.”

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the Amazon’s remote computing and cloud computing platform offered online. Cloud Computing is a type of internet service that relies on sharing computing resources such as virtual servers, rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications.

CC can be done in a “private cloud” by using cloud computing technologies in a company’s own data center, or publicly by using public clouds that are in hosted facilities, where the hardware is shared with many users. Sharing the hardware saves money and time.

AWS is currently the largest public cloud provider. Amazon has its own “Virtual Private Cloud” that uses hardware hosted by Amazon, but it behaves more like a private data-center. Deal with CIA means AWS might create a ‘private cloud’ for CIA, which means entering into private clouding business.

Technology experts say this could be a game changer for government IT, with far reaching implications, as well as savings.

CIA’s budget is classified, therefore there is no way of knowing how the agency will be affected by the current sequester cuts.CIA.svg

According to the Us Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action organization, the sequester cuts to the Head Start program which will eliminate pre-school for 70,000 children and 30,000 teaching jobs, equals to almost same amount of the deal, $600 million.

Amazon and CIA spokespeople have not given statements to confirm or deny the contract.

Source: Progressive Press

Stunning Corn Comparison: GMO versus NON GMO

The claims that "There is no difference between GMO corn and NON Gmo corn" are false. Yesterday while on a playdate at the lake, Vince from De Dell Seed Company, Canada's only NON GMO corn seed company called me to support the march and Americans finding out about GMOs. He emailed me this stunning report, clearly showing the nutritional value difference between GMO corn and NON GMO corn. I was floored. And at the same time, not totally surprised because Glyphosate draws out the vital nutrients of living things and GMO corn is covered with it.

The important thing to note in these deficiencies is that these are exactly the deficiencies in a human being that lead to susceptibility to sickness, disorders and cancer.  People who have osteoporosis are low in calcium and magnesium, people who have cancer are low in maganese. The list goes on and on.

GMO Corn has 14 ppm of Calcium and NON GMO corn has 6130 ppm. 437 X more.

GMO corn has 2 ppm of Magnesium and NON GMO corn has 113ppm. 56 X more.

GMO corn has 2 ppm of Manganese and NON GMO corn has 14ppm. 7X more.

Look at the levels of Formaldehyde and Glyphosate IN the corn! The EPA standards for Glyphosate in water in America is .7ppm. In Europe it is .2 ppm. Tests showed organ damage to animals at .1ppm of Glyphosate in water. This corn has 13 ppm! 

In another study taht Dr. Huber reported,  .97 ppm of formeldehyde showed to be toxic in ingestion to animals. This corn has 200X that! That is why the animals , given a choice will not eat it at all, they can smell the formeldehyde!

Please share this report with your legislature, farmers, news editors, school district food services and Moms.

We will no longer be feeding our children food with nutritional deficiencies,  foreign proteins, food sprayed with Glyphosate, or injected with pesticides. Nor will we be fed their lies of safety!

Corn_Comparison_1.jpg

Corn_Comparison_2.jpg

 

THANK YOU De Dell sharing this report and supporting the Americas in GMO labeling and in going GMO Free!

Source: Moms Across America

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Scientists Invent Self-Healing Computer Chips That Repair Themselves

Caltech engineers build self-healing electronic chips that repair themselves

Enlarge

Die photo of self-healing PA system showing RF blocks, sensors, actuators and self-healing digital core, and close up photos of output stage transistor before and after laser cutting. Credit: Steven M.Bowers et al.

Imagine that the chips in your smart phone or computer could repair and defend themselves on the fly, recovering in microseconds from problems ranging from less-than-ideal battery power to total transistor failure. It might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but a team of engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), for the first time ever, has developed just such self-healing integrated chips.

The team, made up of members of the High-Speed laboratory in Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science, has demonstrated this self-healing capability in tiny power amplifiers. The amplifiers are so small, in fact, that 76 of the chips-including everything they need to self-heal-could fit on a single penny. In perhaps the most dramatic of their experiments, the team destroyed various parts of their chips by zapping them multiple times with a high-power laser, and then observed as the chips automatically developed a work-around in less than a second.

"It was incredible the first time the system kicked in and healed itself. It felt like we were witnessing the next step in the evolution of integrated circuits," says Ali Hajimiri, the Thomas G. Myers Professor of at Caltech. "We had literally just blasted half the amplifier and vaporized many of its components, such as transistors, and it was able to recover to nearly its ideal performance."

The team's results appear in the March issue of IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

Until now, even a single fault has often rendered an integrated-circuit completely useless. The Caltech engineers wanted to give integrated-circuit chips a healing ability akin to that of our own immune system-something capable of detecting and quickly responding to any number of possible assaults in order to keep the larger system working optimally. The they devised employs a multitude of robust, on-chip sensors that monitor temperature, current, voltage, and power. The information from those sensors feeds into a custom-made application-specific integrated-circuit (ASIC) unit on the same chip, a central processor that acts as the "brain" of the system. The brain analyzes the amplifier's overall performance and determines if it needs to adjust any of the system's actuators-the changeable parts of the chip.

Creating indestructible self-healing circuits
Enlarge

Some of the damage Caltech engineers intentionally inflicted on their self-healing power amplifier using a high-power laser. The chip was able to recover from complete transistor destruction. This image was captured with a scanning electron microscope. Credit: Jeff Chang and Kaushik Dasgupta/Caltech

Interestingly, the chip's brain does not operate based on algorithms that know how to respond to every possible scenario. Instead, it draws conclusions based on the aggregate response of the sensors. "You tell the chip the results you want and let it figure out how to produce those results," says Steven Bowers, a graduate student in Hajimiri's lab and lead author of the new paper. "The challenge is that there are more than 100,000 on each chip. We don't know all of the different things that might go wrong, and we don't need to. We have designed the system in a general enough way that it finds the optimum state for all of the actuators in any situation without external intervention."

Looking at 20 different chips, the team found that the amplifiers with the self-healing capability consumed about half as much power as those without, and their overall performance was much more predictable and reproducible. "We have shown that self-healing addresses four very different classes of problems," says Kaushik Dasgupta, another graduate student also working on the project. The classes of problems include static variation that is a product of variation across components; long-term aging problems that arise gradually as repeated use changes the internal properties of the system; and short-term variations that are induced by environmental conditions such as changes in load, temperature, and differences in the supply voltage; and, finally, accidental or deliberate catastrophic destruction of parts of the circuits.

The Caltech team chose to demonstrate this self-healing capability first in a power amplifier for millimeter-wave frequencies. Such high-frequency integrated chips are at the cutting edge of research and are useful for next-generation communications, imaging, sensing, and radar applications. By showing that the self-healing capability works well in such an advanced system, the researchers hope to show that the self-healing approach can be extended to virtually any other electronic system.

"Bringing this type of electronic immune system to integrated-circuit chips opens up a world of possibilities," says Hajimiri. "It is truly a shift in the way we view circuits and their ability to operate independently. They can now both diagnose and fix their own problems without any human intervention, moving one step closer to indestructible circuits."

Along with Hajimiri, Bowers, and Dasgupta, former Caltech postdoctoral scholar Kaushik Sengupta (PhD '12), who is now an assistant professor at Princeton University, is also a coauthor on the paper, "Integrated Self-Healing for mm-Wave Power Amplifiers." A preliminary report of this work won the best paper award at the 2012 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

The work was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Source: Phys.org

Apple Blocks Sweatshop-Themed Satirical Games From App Store

According to UK developer Littleloud, Sweatshop HD is an iPad game that “challenged people to think about the origin of the clothes we buy”. But it has now been removed from Apple’s online marketplace because the App Store was “uncomfortable selling a game based around the theme of running a sweatshop”.

Sweatshop HD wasn’t the first game of its kind to be removed by Apple, either. In Phone Story, Molleindustria depicted the seedy side of smartphone manufacturing, including sweatshop suicides and the harvesting of rare minerals in the war-torn Congo. Apple pulled the game, saying it violated App Store clause 16.1 – “Apps that present excessively objectionable or crude content will be rejected.”

There’s also In a Permanent Save State, an artistic game centered on “the spiritual afterlife” of overworked electronics labourers who had committed suicide. It was removed by Apple for violating that all-important clause 16.1.

World's First Bitcoin ATM Is Announced - First Location: Cyprus




While European politicos negotiate in Brussels, deciding the fate of other people's money in Cyprus, the free market has already moved in to help Cypriots get access to their money via other means....

Banks have been closed for the last week in Cyprus and if they do re-open on Tuesday, it has now been announced that daily withdrawal limits at ATMs will be 100 euros per day.

As the Cypriot Drama unfolds before our very eyes, I began pondering what tangible solutions there are to bank holidays and bank runs. What could I do to help in Cyprus and all other countries (like Spain, Greece and Italy) for which, as we have predicted at TDV, bank closures are coming? 

The answer wasn’t hard to come up with. If these people had simply bought bitcoins with their savings, not only would they currently have 100% access to their funds, but also they would have enjoyed a parabolic move to the upside over past months.

ENTER THE WORLD'S FIRST OPERATIONAL BITCOIN ATM

Read more »

Uruguay to Begin Debate on Legal Marijuana Sales

Last fall, Uruguayan President Jose Mujica proposed legalizing marijuana commerce and cultivation (marijuana possession has never been a crime there), but shortly thereafter postponed action on the proposed legislation in the face of public opposition. Now he's ready for the country to have a discussion about it.

In December, Mujica postponed action on the bill, even though his party and its allies control the legislature. He cited polling that showed 64% of the public had reservations about allowing pot sales and cultivation.

Mujica continues to support the bill, but wanted to slow the process down to educate the public. Now, that process is beginning. Starting on April 4, a nationwide dialog on the bill is set to get underway. The three-month public debate will feature round tables, seminars, and conferences across the country and, Mujica hopes, bring public opinion around.

Mujica, a former leftist guerrilla in the 1970s, has argued that legalizing the commerce in marijuana would weaken drug smuggling gangs and fight petty crime. Uruguay is one of the safest Latin American nations, but has been scarred by criminal violence associated with the drug trade.

The bill would create a National Cannabis Institute to regulate commercial marijuana production and distribution. But unlike reports from last fall, it will not create state marijuana stores. The Institute would also come up with penalties for rule-breakers and help design programs to warn of the risks of pot smoking. For private households, the bill would allow the cultivation of up to six plants and the possession of up to 17 ounces.

If the bill becomes law, Uruguay would become the first country to formally legalize marijuana commerce. Such commerce had gone on in Holland for decades, with the laws against it still on the books, but ignored under the Dutch policy of "pragmatic tolerance." Other countries have decriminalized marijuana possession, but not the commerce.

Source: Stop the Drug War

Time to Unslave Humanity with Woody Harrelson (Full Documentary)

Monday, March 25, 2013

Cryptohippie's Guide to Online Privacy

The free Internet that many of us loved has become a surveillance web, serving governments and mega-corps, while abusing the rest of us. For those whose eyes are opening to this sad fact, we have assembled this guide.

This purpose of this document is to make Internet privacy as simple and concise as possible. Our intention is not just for you to understand, but for you to act upon the information we give you.

We will be giving you information that is as simple and clear as we know how to make it. We have included the minimum number of steps to take, but it will be up to you to do the things we explain to you.

Please do the things listed below. As we mentioned at the outset, the Internet has become a world-wide surveillance network. (And is becoming a manipulation network.) You need to protect yourself.

Let's get started:

Accept Software Updates: As much as there is reason to be leery of updates, it is necessary to take them. Every time a new security exploit comes along, operating systems (and some other programs) are upgraded to seal the hole. This is important.

Have a firewall: Your local machine needs to be guarded from local attacks. You don't have to pay big money for the "fix everything forever" firewalls, but you do need something. Zone Alarm makes a nice free firewall (including an outgoing firewall) and their upgrades provide anti-virus protection for a very reasonable cost.

Have an outgoing firewall: If your regular firewall doesn't stop all outgoing data, get one. Little Snitch is an excellent outgoing firewall for Macs.

Have an anti-virus program: This is usually built into your firewall program, as it is in Zone Alarm.

Browser: Use Firefox as your browser. Also:

  • Install and run the NoScript extension to manage your Java Script exposure. In a Firefox window, follow this menu path: Tools > Add-ons > Extensions > search for NoScript
  • Install and run the Better Privacy extension to avoid nasty cookies. In a Firefox window, follow this menu path: Tools > Add-ons > Extensions > search for Better Privacy
  • Install and run the Priv3 extension to prevent cross-site tracking. In a Firefox window, follow this menu path: Tools > Add-ons > Extensions > search for Priv3
  • Install and run the Certificate Patrol extension to manage SSL better. In a Firefox window, follow this menu path: Tools > Add-ons > Extensions > search for Certificate Patrol
  • Set Firefox to delete cookies on close. From Firefox Preferences, choose Privacy, then Accept Cookies, then Until I Close Firefox
  • Set Firefox to NOT accept third-party cookies. From Firefox Preferences, choose Privacy, then uncheck Accept Third Party Cookies
  • Set Firefox to Delete all browser data (except passwords) upon close. From Firefox Preferences, choose Privacy, then Clear History When Firefox Closes. Be sure NOT to check Saved Passwords, Site Preferences or Offline Content
  • Turn off Geolocation: Type about.config in the address bar, ignore the warning, scroll down to geo.enabled, double-click to change the default value to False.

Download the full PDF (four pages) here.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

George Carlin On Global Warming Scam

US plan calls for more scanning of private Web traffic, email

The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country's private, civilian-run infrastructure.

As a result, more private sector employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key transportation companies, will have their emails and Web surfing scanned as a precaution against cyber attacks.

Under last month's White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the top threat to the country.

The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cyber security providers that have employees holding security clearances, government and industry officials said. Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program.

DHS as the middleman
By using DHS as the middleman, the Obama administration hopes to bring the formidable overseas intelligence-gathering of the NSA closer to ordinary U.S. residents without triggering an outcry from privacy advocates who have long been leery of the spy agency's eavesdropping.

The telecom companies will not report back to the government on what they see, except in aggregate statistics, a senior DHS official said in an interview granted on condition he not be identified.

"That allows us to provide more sensitive information," the official said. "We will provide the information to the security service providers that they need to perform this function." Procedures are to be established within six months of the order.

The administration is separately seeking legislation that would give incentives to private companies, including communications carriers, to disclose more to the government. NSA Director General Keith Alexander said last week that NSA did not want personal data but Internet service providers could inform the government about malicious software they find and the Internet Protocol addresses they were sent to and from.

"There is a way to do this that ensures civil liberties and privacy and does ensure the protection of the country," Alexander told a congressional hearing.

Fears grow of destructive attack
In the past, Internet traffic-scanning efforts were mainly limited to government networks and Defense Department contractors, which have long been targets of foreign espionage.

But as fears grow of a destructive cyber attack on core, non-military assets, and more sweeping security legislation remained stalled, the Obama administration opted to widen the program.

Last month's presidential order calls for commercial providers of "enhanced cybersecurity services" to extend their offerings to critical infrastructure companies. What constitutes critical infrastructure is still being refined, but it would include utilities, banks and transportation such as trains and highways.

Under the program, critical infrastructure companies will pay the providers, which will use the classified information to block attacks before they reach the customers. The classified information involves suspect Web addresses, strings of characters, email sender names and the like.

Not all the cybersecurity providers will be telecom companies, though AT&T is one. Raytheon said this month it had agreed with DHS to become a provider, and a spokesman said that customers could route their traffic to Raytheon after receiving it from their communications company.

As the new set-up takes shape, DHS officials and industry executives said some security equipment makers were working on hardware that could take classified rules about blocking traffic and act on them without the operator being able to reverse-engineer the codes. That way, people wouldn't need a security clearance to use the equipment.

Civil liberties implications
The issue of scanning everything headed to a utility or a bank still has civil liberties implications, even if each company is a voluntary participant.

Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that the executive order did not weaken existing privacy laws, but any time a machine acting on classified information is processing private communications, it raises questions about the possibility of secret extra functions that are unlikely to be answered definitively.

"You have to wonder what else that box does," Tien said.

One technique for examining email and other electronic packets en route, called deep packet inspection, has stirred controversy for years, and some cybersecurity providers said they would not be using that. In deep packet inspection, communication companies or others with network access can examine all the elements of a transmission, including the content of emails.

"The signatures provided by DHS do not require deep packet inspection," said Steve Hawkins, vice president at Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems division, referring further questions to DHS.

The DHS official said the government is still in conversations with the telecom operators on the issue.

The official said the government had no plans to roll out any such form of government-guided close examination of Internet traffic into the communications companies serving the general public.

Apple Fixed The Security Hole That Let Anyone Change Your Password With Just Your Email And Birthday

Apple has restored its "iForgot" Apple ID password reset page after discovering a bug that let anyone change your passwords as long as they had your email address and birthday.

The Verge first wrote about the security hole, and Apple quickly took down the password reset page so it could fix the flaw. 

Your Apple ID is the login you use to access iTunes and purchase music, videos, and apps. Millions of people have their credit card information tied to their Apple ID.

The flaw came to light a day after Apple enabled two-step verification for Apple ID logins. That means users have the options to receive a text message with a second unique password every time they want to log in. The process makes it more difficult for hackers to access your account because they'd need your cell phone too.

Source: Business Insider

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Remembering Splitting the Sky

With the recent passing of "Splitting the Sky", a very great man, we are posting this is great presentation in which he tells his story. R.I.P. Splitting the Sky, you will be missed.

Little Sunshine Mistakes that Can Give You Cancer Instead of Vitamin D

New Xbox Reportedly Won’t Let You Play (Unless It Can Spy On You)

People throughout the world could soon be voluntarily outfitting their homes with indefinitely active cameras, infrared sensors and microphones if they purchase Microsoft’s new Xbox video game console, slated for release sometime next year.

According to leaked screen captures, the new console, codenamed “Durango,” will be “Always On, Always Connected,” meaning it will require a perpetual Internet connection, in addition to a new high-fidelity Kinect Sensor, “which will be required for the system to operate,” representing a huge win for Big Brother in infiltrating homes across the across the world under the guise of trendiness.

Being touted as a measure to ensure “software and games are always current,” the new Xbox will not allow users to play games unless a permanent Internet connection is established, according to leaked screenshots obtained by the website Vgleaks.

Screenshot via VGleaks.com

“Durango will implement different power states so that it can always be powered on, but will draw minimal electricity when not in use,” the grainy, leaked screenshot states, adding, “The console will be ready instantly when users want to play, and will always maintain a network connection so that software and games are always current. With this ‘Always On, Always Connected’ design, users will quickly and easily enjoy their connected entertainment experiences, with no waiting for the console to restart or install updates.”

“Durango would require a permanent internet connection,” writes Vgleaks. [emphasis theirs] “Yes, if you want to play a single adventure, you would have to be online. Whatever you will play, you must be online. Take the time machine and come back 3 years ago to erase the responsible person.” [emphasis ours]

Likewise, the new system reportedly will not “operate” unless “a new high-fidelity Kinect Sensor” is attached, which will reportedly be sold with the console, granting the new Xbox eerie Big Brother-like powers.

As the current Xbox 360 Kinect device is already equipped with motion sensors, infrared sensors (enabling it to map out environments – like your room – and detect different faces), a multi-array microphone (capable of distinguishing different voices) and a 640×480 pixel VGA camera (enabling it to see as we do), we can expect the next Kinect’s technology to be exponentially more intricate and dangerous.

These additional nuances might be argued as expected and even necessary in the Internet age we live in, where everything from dishwashers to refrigerators are connected, but Microsoft also recently applied for patents that could take information obtained to a frighteningly new Orwellian level.

The website Beta Beat reported last year that “Back in 2011, Microsoft applied for a patent that would allow cameras and sensors, much like the ones embedded in the Kinect, to track how many people are in a room. Developed by Microsoft’s ‘incubation team,’ which is where they test new approaches to hardware, the patent was recently made public. They’re calling the invention a ‘consumer detector’ and it’s just as frightening as it sounds.”

Beta Beat goes on, “Once it has identified how many people are there–and even who is there–the device will charge for content accordingly. If you pay for one content license but then more viewers join the room, it could halt playback and request that you pay for a different license. That means if you plan to have a movie marathon sleepover, Microsoft would like to charge you extra copyright money for the pleasure of snuggling and watching horror movies.”

In response to a Wall Street Journal article titled, “Is Your Videogame Machine Watching You?” Microsoft issued a statement regarding privacy and Xbox: “Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE do not use any information captured by Kinect for advertising targeting purposes. Microsoft has a strong track record of implementing some of the best privacy protection measures in the industry. We place great importance on the privacy of our customers’ information and the safety of their experiences.”

While Microsoft’s response attempts to quell our concerns about privacy, it does not address the fact that Microsoft can, and most likely will, be spying on its customers, regardless of whether or not they are selling consumer information to advertisers.

It was also revealed, in March 2012, that a company called Obscure Technologies was working alongside the U.S. Navy to develop “computer forensic tools capable of hacking such consoles.”

“Such tools are expected to be made for the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate — and there’s no particular mention of what Homeland Security might want with them,” reported Live Science last year.

We also saw Xbox cozy up to the U.S. government this past election cycle when Xbox allowed users to stream a presidential debate through their consoles, and then later polled users with questions regarding the debate.

“I think Bill Gates is about to kill his gaming platform,” states C.J.Oden, producer for the Alex Jones Show and a former-avid gamer. “It’s cyber espionage of everyone in America gullible enough to buy a system.”

Wikipedia claims, “The Kinect claimed the Guinness World Record of being the ‘fastest selling consumer electronics device’ after selling a total of 8 million units in its first 60 days.”

Indeed, if previous sales are any indicator, the new Xbox and its high-fidelity Kinect device, with powers disturbingly similar to “telescreens” out of George Orwell’s novel 1984, will soon be infiltrating millions of homes across the globe with little to no resistance.

Last year, Infowarrior Jason Bermas joined Aaron Dykes on the Infowars Nightly News to analyze the alarming Orwellian traits exhibited by the Xbox 360′s current Kinect device.

Source: Infowars

Depleted Uranium Destroys Generations

Cyprus MPs approve first EU bailout measures

Friday, March 22, 2013

Russian Leader Warns, “Get All Money Out Of Western Banks Now!”

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) “urgent bulletin” being sent to Embassies around the world today is advising both Russian citizens and companies to begin divesting their assets from Western banking and financial institutions “immediately” as Kremlin fears grow that both the European Union and United States are preparing for the largest theft of private wealth in modern history.

According to this “urgent bulletin,” this warning is being made at the behest of Prime Minister Medvedev who earlier today warned against the Western banking systems actions against EU Member Cyprus by stating:

“All possible mistakes that could be made have been made by them, the measure that was proposed is of a confiscation nature, and unprecedented in its character. I can’t compare it with anything but … decisions made by Soviet authorities … when they didn’t think much about the savings of their population. But we are living in the 21st century, under market economic conditions. Everybody has been insisting that ownership rights should be respected.”

Medvedev’s statements echo those of President Putin who, likewise, warned about the EU’s unprecedented private asset grab in Cyprus calling it “unjust, unprofessional, and dangerous.

In our 17 March report “Europe Recoils In Shock After Bankster Raid, US Warned Is Next” we noted how Russian entities have €23-31 billion ($30-$40) in cross-border loans to Cypriot companies tied to Moscow, and €9 billion ($12 billion) on deposit with Cypriot banks [as compared to the €127 billion ($166 billion) being kept in similar circumstances by 60 of the United States largest corporations in offshore accounts to avoid paying American taxes] which are in danger of being confiscated by EU banksters.

Unbowed by the misery they have inflicted upon the entire continent, however, and in spite of Russian warnings, European Union officials hardened their stance against Cyprus today by announcing that if the Cypriot government did not allow the raiding of private bank accounts by Monday they would be forced to destroy their banks, which remain closed for the seventh straight day and have no signs of opening soon.

In an editorial agreeing with Russian leaders anger against the EU over Cyprus, Canada’s Globe and Mail News Service further writes:

“The parliament of Cyprus was right this week to reject a proposal to confiscate money from modest-sized bank deposits. The idea was a reductio ad absurdum of the euro zone’s policy on the sovereign debt of some of its member-countries.

It would be better for the government of Cyprus to default outright on some of its obligations rather than to seize part of the savings of the proverbial widows and orphans, as well as retirees or those approaching retirement – while purporting to levy a tax. This is especially true in a country that has deposit insurance for up to €100,000, in order to protect small savers.

Until a few years ago, Cyprus – which is really the ethnically Greek section of Cyprus, the Turkish section being a de facto protectorate of Turkey – had a fiscal surplus, but its close relationship to Greece resulted in a downturn when Greece fell into a severe recession. The government’s debt in itself is still manageable, but Cypriot banks have become shaky because of their loans to Greece.”

In the face of massive popular outrage, however, Cypriot MPs spectacularly voted earlier this week against the EU plan to steal their bank depositors money, thus leaving the Euro Zone reeling, a situation that was, in fact, created by European banksters who had forced Cyprus banks to lend money to nearly bankrupt Greece in the first place.

Even worse may be what is in store for the Americans, who on 31 January lost an unlimited US government guarantee that was granted on over $1.5 trillion of their bank deposits during the 2008 financial crisis to assure skittish customers that their cash was safe.

According to Kremlin sources, though, President Obama’s sudden visit to Israel this week, the first he has made since being elected in 2008, was to personally warn top Israelis of his regimes “plan” to begin confiscating his citizen’s bank deposits too.

Interesting to note is that the Obama regimes “master plan” to steal their citizen’s wealth that is no longer protected was detailed by the global management consulting giant, and the world’s leading advisor on business strategy, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) who in their 2011 September report titled Collateral Damage: Back to Mesopotamia? The Threat of Debt Restructuring warned of the US governments plan confiscate up to 30% of not just the Americans people bank accounts, but also of their other wealth.

The highly respected Zero Hedge financial newsletter in commenting on this dire BCG report grimly stated:

“Denial. Denial is safe. Comforting. Religiously and relentlessly abused by politicians who don’t want nor can face reality. A word synonymous with “muddle through.” Ah yes, that “muddle through” which so many C-grade economists and pundits believe is the long-term status quo for the US and the world just because it worked for Japan for the past three decades, or, said otherwise, “just because.”

Well, too bad. As the following absolutely must read report, which comes not from some trader of dubious credibility interviewed by BBC, nor even from an impassioned executive from a doomed Italian bank, but from consultancy powerhouse Boston Consulting Group confirms, the “muddle through” is dead. And now it is time to face the facts.

What facts? The facts which state that between household, corporate and government debt, the developed world has $20 trillion in debt over and above the sustainable threshold by the definition of “stable” debt to GDP of 180%.

The facts according to which all attempts to eliminate the excess debt have failed, and for now even the Fed’s relentless pursuit of inflating our way out this insurmountable debt load have been for nothing.

The facts which state that the only way to resolve the massive debt load is through a global coordinated debt restructuring (which would, among other things, push all global banks into bankruptcy) which, when all is said and done, will have to be funded by the world’s financial asset holders: the middle-and upper-class, which, if BCS is right, have a ~30% one-time tax on all their assets to look forward to as the great mean reversion finally arrives and the world is set back on a viable path.

But not before the biggest episode of “transitory” pain, misery and suffering in the history of mankind. Good luck, politicians and holders of financial assets, you will need it because after Denial comes Anger, and only long after does Acceptance finally arrive.”

To the evidence that the masses of Americans or Europeans average citizens will begin protecting themselves against this apocalyptic outcome their remains little evidence as their so-called “mainstream” media continues to cover-up this coming catastrophe. But, and as Russia has now warned, the time for protecting oneself is fast running out, and the only survivors will be those who listened.

Source: EU Times

Facebook unfriends CISPA cybersecurity bill over 'privacy'

Authors of cybersecurity bill criticized for privacy invasions used Facebook's enthusiasm to attract political support in D.C. Now the company's execs have backed away from CISPA.

Facebook once lauded a controversial information-sharing bill named CISPA, resulting in a petition aimed at convincing CEO Mark Zuckerberg otherwise. The company has since changed its position.

Facebook once lauded a controversial information-sharing bill named CISPA, resulting in a petition aimed at convincing CEO Mark Zuckerberg otherwise. The company has since changed its position.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Facebook no longer supports a controversial federal cybersecurity bill that would let U.S. companies share personal information with government agencies in ways currently prohibited by privacy laws.

The social-networking company had previously applauded the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, which was reintroduced last month. Facebook Vice President Joel Kaplan wrote a letter (PDF) last February to Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, "to commend you on your legislation," and Rogers sent out his own press release noting Facebook's "strong support" for the bill.

CISPA Excerpts

Excerpts from the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a self-protected entity may, for cybersecurity purposes -- (i) use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyberthreat information to protect the rights and property of such self-protected entity; and (ii) share such cyberthreat information with any other entity, including the Federal Government...

The term 'self-protected entity' means an entity, other than an individual, that provides goods or services for cybersecurity purposes to itself."

But then groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Republican Liberty Caucus raised privacy alarms. CISPA would "waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity," Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and onetime Web entrepreneur, warned during a House of Representatives debate a few months later. (See CNET's CISPA FAQ.)

Because of its high-profile enthusiasm for CISPA, Facebook was singled out by Demand Progress in a campaign directed at CEO Mark Zuckerberg that said: "You're encouraging Congress to obliterate online privacy -- even as your users express increasing concern about the privacy of their accounts on your site. Please withdraw your support for CISPA right away."

Now Facebook has changed its tune. The social-networking company appeared in a previous list of corporate supporters that CISPA's authors published last year. It's nowhere to be seen in the current one on the House Intelligence Committee's Web site, which lists AT&T, IBM, Intel, and other companies as supporters.

CISPA is controversial because it overrules all existing federal and state laws by saying "notwithstanding any other provision of law," companies may share certain information "with any other entity, including the federal government." It would not, however, require them to do so. Supporters say (PDF) it's necessary to "improve the government's ability to protect against foreign cyberthreats" and give "intelligence agencies tips and leads to help them find advanced foreign cyberhackers overseas."

A Facebook spokeswoman told CNET today that her employer prefers a legislative "balance" that ensures "the privacy of our users":

Source: CNet

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Google Glass: Orwellian surveillance with fluffier branding

New technology will make us all agents for Google. Nick Pickles, Director of Big Brother Watch, says the implications for privacy are profoundly worrying.

Google founder Sergey Brin says using a smartphone is 'emasculating'

Sergey Brin showing off Google Glass augmented reality spectacles

In the online world – for now, at least – it’s the advertisers that make the world go round. If you’re Google, they represent more than 90% of your revenue and without them you would cease to exist.

So how do you reconcile the fact that there is a finite amount of data to be gathered online with the need to expand your data collection to keep ahead of your competitors?

There are two main routes. Firstly, try as hard as is legally possible to monopolise the data streams you already have, and hope regulators fine you less than the profit it generated. Secondly, you need to get up from behind the computer and hit the streets.

Google Glass is the first major salvo in an arms race that is going to see increasingly intrusive efforts made to join up our real lives with the digital businesses we have become accustomed to handing over huge amounts of personal data to.

The principles that underpin everyday consumer interactions – choice, informed consent, control – are at risk in a way that cannot be healthy. Our ability to walk away from a service depends on having a choice in the first place and knowing what data is collected and how it is used before we sign up.

Imagine if Google or Facebook decided to install their own CCTV cameras everywhere, gathering data about our movements, recording our lives and joining up every camera in the land in one giant control room. It’s Orwellian surveillance with fluffier branding. And this isn’t just video surveillance – Glass uses audio recording too. For added impact, if you’re not content with Google analysing the data, the person can share it to social media as they see fit too.

Yet that is the reality of Google Glass. Everything you see, Google sees. You don’t own the data, you don’t control the data and you definitely don’t know what happens to the data. Put another way – what would you say if instead of it being Google Glass, it was Government Glass? A revolutionary way of improving public services, some may say. Call me a cynic, but I don’t think it’d have much success.

More importantly, who gave you permission to collect data on the person sitting opposite you on the Tube? How about collecting information on your children’s friends? There is a gaping hole in the middle of the Google Glass world and it is one where privacy is not only seen as an annoying restriction on Google’s profit, but as something that simply does not even come into the equation. Google has empowered you to ignore the privacy of other people. Bravo.

It’s already led to reactions in the US. ‘Stop the Cyborgs’ might sound like the rallying cry of the next Terminator film, but this is the start of a campaign to ensure places of work, cafes, bars and public spaces are no-go areas for Google Glass. They’ve already produced stickers to put up informing people that they should take off their Glass.

They argue, rightly, that this is more than just a question of privacy. There’s a real issue about how much decision making is devolved to the display we see, in exactly the same way as the difference between appearing on page one or page two of Google’s search can spell the difference between commercial success and failure for small businesses. We trust what we see, it’s convenient and we don’t question the motives of a search engine in providing us with information.

The reality is very different. In abandoning critical thought and decision making, allowing ourselves to be guided by a melee of search results, social media and advertisements we do risk losing a part of what it is to be human. You can see the marketing already - Glass is all-knowing. The issue is that to be all-knowing, it needs you to help it be all-seeing.

Google's Sergey Brin wearing Gogle Glass on the New York Subway

If choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without, then Google Glass goes to the heart of what it is to live in a digital world and what it is to exercise choice about your privacy. The danger is that we lose our privacy and Google gains the power. The reality is that as profit-making strategies go, there’s nothing better.

Source: The Telegraph

Say NO to Google Glass: 'Stop the Cyborgs' website goes viral



A website designed to draw attention to a new technological development by Internet search giant Google is going viral, thanks in large part to a growing wave of concern over personal privacy.

The site, called StopTheCyborgs.org, was established "in response to the Google Glass project and other technology trends. The aim of the movement is to stop a future in which privacy is impossible and corporate control total," say developers in a post describing the site's intent.

The concept behind Google Glass is an eye wear device that uses Google's virtually limitless bank of data to allow the user to record everything he or she sees, in real time, and then be able to utilize smart phone, Internet and other communication technology to immediately transmit, post or otherwise publicize that content - all without the permission of the subjects who have been videotaped.

"We are already continually tracked though smart phones, online tracking, banking transactions, and CCTV. So why all the fuss about a smart phone on your face?" says StopTheCyborgs.

Millions of 'creepy' cameramen

Consider these reasons, among many others:

-- First of all, Google has the marketing resources and power to make recording of private activity or conversations socially acceptable. "Would you have even considered wearing a hidden spy camera or recording conversations a few years ago? Well soon everyone will be doing it and finding you odd for objecting," says the site.

For comparison's sake, the site's founders say, check out Seattle's "Creepy" Cameraman.

-- With Google Glass, how are you supposed to know if somebody's recording you? Keep in mind the very design of the Google device makes it difficult to know. "This is in contrast to a smart phone where the user must visibly hold the camera up to take a picture or record video. We must therefore assume that we are being recorded at all times (and possibly publicly broadcast) from a low angle where ones face is clearly visible," the site warned.

-- Even if a Google Glass user isn't recording video, audio for their own personal use may still be collected and processed to the cloud, so as to display contextual information using image, object, face, voice identification and speech recognition, which is "so-called augmented reality," says the site.

-- Information collected about you won't just sit in a database somewhere, to be read only by security services or bored IT workers. Rather, it will be delivered directly to the people you are interacting with - and all without your permission.

The last bits of your privacy are about to go away for good

"These concerns go beyond privacy," warns the site. "There are serious consequences for human society. There will no longer be any distinction between the 'digital world' and the 'real world.' People will make decisions and interact with other humans in the real world in a way which increasingly depends on information that Google Glass tells them."

Further, people will gradually "stop acting as autonomous individuals, when making decisions and interacting with others, and instead become mere sensor/effector nodes of a global network. There will be no room for multiple identities, hypocrisy or experimentation. There will be no space in which you can escape your online profile and the system will be controlled by a small group of corporations."

Other concerns regarding Google Glass:

-- Such devices could destroy the very last vestiges of privacy Americans - who are already videotaped on the street by cities, in stores and parking lots by businesses, by banks - have left.

-- They could hold people accountable for easily pardonable "offenses."

-- They may increase violations of doctor-patient confidentiality and attorney-client privilege.

-- The devices could spawn a whole new generation of stalkers.

Privacy in America has been vanishing for years. Google Glass and devices like it will put the final nail into the coffin, leaving your home just about the only place left on the planet where you might have some semblance of privacy (unless you invite someone in who's wearing a pair of Google Glasses).

Source: Natural News

What's really in vaccines? Proof of MSG, formaldehyde, aluminum and mercury



Have you ever wondered what's really in vaccines? According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's vaccine additives page, all the following ingredients are routinely used as vaccine additives:

Aluminum - A light metal that causes dementia and Alzheimer's disease. You should never inject yourself with aluminum.

Antibiotics - Chemicals that promote superbugs, which are deadly antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that are killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.

Formaldehyde - A "pickling" chemical used to preserve cadavers. It's highly toxic to the nervous system, causing blindness, brain damage and seizures. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services openly admits that formaldehyde causes cancer. You can see this yourself on the National Toxicology Program website, featuring its 12th Report on Carcinogens.

There, the formaldehyde Fact Sheet completely neglects to mention formaldehyde in vaccines. This is the "dirty little secret" of government and the vaccine industry. It does state, however, that "...formaldehyde causes myeloid leukemia, and rare cancers including sinonasal and nasopharyngeal cancer."

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) - A neurotoxic chemical called an "excitotoxin." It causes brain neurons to be overexcited to the point of death. MSG is toxic even when consumed in foods, where it causes migraine headaches and endocrine system damage. You should NEVER inject MSG into your body. But that's what health workers do when they inject you with vaccines.

Thimerosal - A methyl mercury compound that causes severe, permanent nervous system damage. Mercury is highly toxic to the brain. You should never touch, swallow or inject mercury at any dose. There is no safe dose of mercury! Doctors and vaccine pushers LIE to you and say there is no mercury in vaccines. Even the CDC readily admits vaccine still contain mercury (thimerosal).

In addition, National Toxicology Programs admits in its own documents that:

• Vaccinations "...may produce small but measurable increases in blood levels of mercury."

• "Thimerosal was found to cross the blood-brain and placenta barriers."

• The "...hazards of thimerosal include neurotoxicity and nephrotoxicity." (This means brain and kidney toxicity.)

• "...similar toxicological profiles between ethylmercury and methylmercury raise the possibility that neurotoxicity may also occur at low doses of thimerosal."

• "... there are no existing guidelines for safe exposure to ethylmercury, the metabolite of thimerosal."

• "...the assessment determined that the use of thimerosal as a preservative in vaccines might result in the intake of mercury during the first six months of life that exceeded recommended guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)..."

• ..."In the U.S., thimerosal is still present as preservative in some vaccines given to young children, as well as certain biological products recommended during pregnancy. Thimerosal remains a preservative in some vaccines administered to adolescents and adults. In addition, thimerosal continues to be used internationally as a vaccine preservative."

The report then goes on to say that the FDA studies thimerosal and somehow found it to be perfectly safe. It also states that vaccine manufactures are "working" to remove thimerosal from vaccines, but in reality it's still being manufactured right into the vaccines.

By the way, this report also reveals that the FDA requires preservatives like thimerosal only in so-called "multi-dose" vaccines -- vials that contain more than one dose of the vaccine. Drug companies could, if they wanted to, produce "clean" single-dose vaccines without any mercury / thimerosal. But they choose not to because it's more profitable to product mercury-containing multi-dose vaccines. As the report admits, "Preservatives are not required for products formulated in singledose vials. Multidose vials are preferred by some physicians and health clinics because they are often less expensive per vaccine dose and require less storage space."

So the reason why your child is being injected with vaccine boils down to health care offices making more money and saving shelf space!

"Mercury in vaccines is a conspiracy theory!

I've been told by numerous "skeptics" and doctors that there's no such thing as mercury in vaccines, and that any such suggestion is nothing more than a "wild conspiracy theory." That just goes to show you how ignorant all the skeptics, doctors and health professionals really are: They have NO CLUE what's in the vaccines they're dishing out to people!

All they have to do is visit this CDC vaccine additives web page, which openly admits to these chemicals being used in vaccines right now. It's not a conspiracy theory, it turns out. It's the status quo of modern-day vaccine manufacturing!

And just in case the CDC removes that page, here's a screen shot, taken October 22, 2012, showing exactly what was on the CDC vaccine additives page:

Source: Natural News

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Is Bitcoin the New Safe-Haven Currency? Bitcoins Surge After Cyprus Bank Raid



Is Bitcoin now a safe haven currency?  It wasn't long ago when it was considered merely an interesting crypto-currency to buy illegal drugs on Silk Road. Now, citizens all over Europe appear to be flocking to Bitcoin as the European finance vultures circle above.

Europeans woke up this week with a lot less confidence in their banking system after European finance chiefs and the International Monetary Fund announced their plan to steal from private bank accounts in Cyprus in the form of a one-time "wealth tax" to bailout insolvent banks.

These "taxes" will be frozen and confiscated directly out of citizens' private accounts."Most of the 10 billion euros will go to bail out Cypriot banks," according to the New York Times. Do taxes go directly to private banks now?

No wonder Europeans are furious and scrambling to pull their money out of the banking system and park it somewhere safe. And it appears that some are turning to Bitcoin to escape the clutches of the Troika.

Read more »