This is a short documentary about HFCS or High Fructose Corn Syrup. Very informative and interesting, definitely try to avoid this stuff.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Google reports 'alarming' rise in censorship by governments
Search engine company has said there has been a troubling increase in requests to remove political content from the internet
There has been an alarming rise in the number of times governments attempted to censor the internet in last six months, according to a report from Google.
Since the search engine last published its bi-annual transparency report, it said it had seen a troubling increase in requests to remove political content. Many of these requests came from western democracies not typically associated with censorship.
It said Spanish regulators asked Google to remove 270 links to blogs and newspaper articles critical of public figures. It did not comply. In Poland, it was asked to remove an article critical of the Polish agency for enterprise development and eight other results that linked to the article. Again, the company did not comply.
Google was asked by Canadian officials to remove a YouTube video of a citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. It refused.
Thai authorities asked Google to remove 149 YouTube videos for allegedly insulting the monarchy, a violation of Thailand's lèse-majesté law. The company complied with 70% of the requests.
Pakistan asked Google to remove six YouTube videos that satirised its army and senior politicians. Google refused.
UK police asked the company to remove five YouTube accounts for allegedly promoting terrorism. Google agreed. In the US most requests related to alleged harassment of people on YouTube. The authorities asked for 187 pieces to be removed. Google complied with 42% of them.
In a blog post, Dorothy Chou, Google's senior policy analyst, wrote: "Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different. When we started releasing this data, in 2010, we noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not.
"This is the fifth data set that we've released. Just like every other time, we've been asked to take down political speech. It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect – western democracies not typically associated with censorship."
Over the six months covered by the latest report, Google complied with an average of 65% of court orders, as opposed to 47% of more informal requests.
Last month Google announced it was receiving more than one million requests a month from copyright owners seeking to pull their content from the company's search results.
Fred von Lohmann, Google's senior copyright counsel, said copyright infringement was the main reason Google had removed links from search terms.
He said the company had received a total of 3.3m requests for removals on copyright grounds last year, and was on course to quadruple that number this year. The company complied with 97% of requests.
Monday, June 18, 2012
150 mph Super Typhoon Sets Aim at Japan: Fukushima near center of forecast track — “Expected to intensify” and already the highest category storm
Guchol, a tropical cyclone in the western Pacific, rapidly strengthened Saturday afternoon, local time. Winds are now in excess of 150 mph, making Guchol a super typhoon, the highest classification for tropical cyclones in the western Pacific.
If Guchol were an Atlantic Hurricane, it would be considered a Category 5 storm.
the storm is also expected to intensify further over the next day or two.
Guchol will still likely be a very powerful tropical cyclone upon reaching the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. Powerful winds, torrential rain and intense surf will be among some of the problems expected for the islands.
In fact, the main threat the storm poses to the main island of Japan will be its torrential rains. Heavy rain could lead to mudslides and flash flooding, especially in the mountains just west of Tokyo.
Islamist claims victory in Egypt president vote
CAIRO (AP) -- The Muslim Brotherhood declared early Monday that its candidate, Mohammed Morsi, won Egypt's presidential election, which would be the first victory of an Islamist as head of state in the stunning wave of protests demanding democracy that swept the Middle East the past year. But the military handed itself the lion's share of power over the new president, sharpening the possibility of confrontation.
With parliament dissolved and martial law effectively in force, the generals issued an interim constitution granting themselves sweeping authorities that ensure their hold on the state and subordinate the president. They will be Egypt's lawmakers, they will control the budget and they will determine who writes the permanent constitution that will define the country's future.
But as it claimed a narrow victory over Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq in a deeply polarizing election, the Brotherhood challenged the military's power grab. The group said Sunday it did not recognize the dissolution of parliament, where it was the largest party. It also rejected the military's right to issue an interim constitution and oversee the drafting of a new one.
That pointed to a potential struggle over spheres of authority between Egypt's two strongest forces. The Brotherhood has campaigned on a platform of bringing Egypt closer to a form of Islamic rule, but the military's grip puts it in a position to block that. Instead, any conflict would likely center on more basic questions of control - if the Brotherhood pushes a fight. It has reached accommodations with the military in the past.
Official final results are not due until Thursday, and Shafiq's campaign challenged the Brotherhood claim, which was based on the group's compilation of election officials' returns from nearly all polling centers nationwide.
But at their campaign headquarters, the Brotherhood officials and supporters were ebullient over the turn of fate. The fundamentalist group that was banned for most of its 80-year history and repeatedly subjected to crackdowns under Mubarak's rule now held the chair from which its nemesis was ousted by last year's 18 days of mass protests. The uprising was launched by secular, leftist young activists, joined only later by the Brotherhood's leadership as millions took to the street, seeking an end to an authoritarian regime considered hopelessly corrupt.
In a victory speech at his headquarters, Morsi clearly sought to assuage the fears of a large sector of Egyptians that the Brotherhood will try to impose stricter provisions of Islamic law. He said he seeks "stability, love and brotherhood for the Egyptian civil, national, democratic, constitutional and modern state" and made no mention of Islamic law.
"Thank God, who successfully led us to this blessed revolution. Thank God, who guided the people of Egypt to this correct path, the road of freedom, democracy," the bearded, 60-year-old U.S.-educated engineer declared.
He vowed to all Egyptians, "men, women, mothers, sisters ... all political factions, the Muslims, the Christians" to be "a servant for all of them."
"We are not about taking revenge or settling scores. We are all brothers of this nation, we own it together, and we are equal in rights and duties."
Weed pass sparks new problems
The introduction of the 'weed pass' earlier this month in the south of the Netherlands is leading to growing problems. Since 1 May, only Dutch residents are able to purchase soft drugs in coffeeshops. Foreigners are barred.
In protest against the move, many coffeeshops in Maastricht and other southern Dutch cities have closed their doors. So foreign drug tourists and Dutch residents who don’t have a weed pass are heading further north, and this is causing problems for coffeeshops in the weed pass border zone.
In cities in the weed pass area, like the eastern border town of Venlo, growing numbers of illegal drugs dealers are hanging out near coffeeshops. They’re harrassing not only drugs tourists but also local residents. The police say they’re monitoring the situation, but many people say they’re afraid.
The mayor of Maastricht says the weed pass, which will be introduced throughout the country on 1 January 2013, is also having positive effects. According to Mayor Onno Hoes, the residents of his city “can now park their cars in front of their houses. Children can play outside again, and old ladies feel safe when they put their garbage out.”
Sunday, June 17, 2012
How Apple is using military-grade aerial spy drones to build 3D Maps
Apple has recruited a private fleet of jets equipped with military-grade imaging technology to produce HD 3D imagery for its newly announced Maps service
If you thought Google’s Street View was invasive, get ready to be shocked by Apple’s latest plans for its newly announced Maps services, which uses privately recruited jets packing military-grade imaging technology to capture HD 3D images of earth.
This type of technology and vantage point was previously the sole reserve of Intelligence Agencies, such as the CIA and MI5, and the military. It’s also the first time a commercial company has attempted something as ambitious – just imagine the amount of data that’s involved when shooting in this detail and quality.
Apple’s imaging technologies are said to to be so powerful they could potentially see into homes through skylights and windows, which is the very same technology the US military uses to identify terrorists in Afghanistan.
Each plane is equipped with multiple cameras taking high-resolution photographs of buildings and landmarks from every possible angle, which are then compiled to make three-dimensional images.
‘The technology is understood to have already been tested in 20 cities across the world including London, following Apple's acquisition of C3 Technologies, a Swedish 3D mapping business, last year,’ claims The Telegraph.
Google also confirmed last week that it would be doing exactly the same thing in a bid to bring 3D maps of metropolitan areas to its Android platform. The search giant made the following statement regarding its new data collection methods:
‘Since 2006, we’ve had textured 3D buildings in Google Earth, and we are excited to announce that we will begin adding 3D models to entire metropolitan areas to Google Earth on mobile devices.
‘This is possible thanks to a combination of our new imagery rendering techniques and computer vision that let us automatically create 3D cityscapes, complete with buildings, terrain and even landscaping, from 45-degree aerial imagery. By the end of the year we aim to have 3D coverage for metropolitan areas with a combined population of 300 million people.’
That means two of the world’s biggest corporations are now flying around in private jets equipped with military-grade surveillance gear taking pictures of cities, road, mountains and, most importantly, your home. And, predictably, not everybody is happy about this.
‘The next generation of maps is taking us over the garden fence,’ said Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, in a statement.
He added: You won’t be able to sunbathe in your garden without worrying about an Apple or Google plane buzzing overhead taking pictures.’
However, some industry experts disagree, claiming Google and Apple will be forced to blur out people’s homes and gardens like Google’s Street View does with faces.
That still doesn’t change the fact that Apple and Google are now in the business of using military-grade surveillance equipment on the general public, though, and while many pundits have already attempted to discredit the concerns raised by Big Brother Watch, it's still very easy to see why people are getting worried about the powers that corporations like Apple and Google now have at their disposal.
Gmail accounts targeted by 'state-sponsored attackers' using Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability
According to ZDNet, those attacks are apparently being launched by the "state-sponsored attackers" that Google warned Gmail users about last week.
Neither Google nor Microsoft referred to those state attackers in their respective security warnings. ZDNet attributed that particular detail to a source it said was "close to these investigations".
This source confirmed to ZDNet that the attacks motivated Google to warn Gmail users last week about the attackers.
As ZDNet pointed out, Gmail users have been reporting on Twitter that they've been hit by the Gmail warning.
Google security engineer Andrew Lyons wrote in the company's security blog that Google reported the vulnerability to Microsoft on May 30 and that the two companies have been working on the problem since.
He wrote on Tuesday:
Today Microsoft issued a Security Advisory describing a vulnerability in the Microsoft XML component. We discovered this vulnerability - which is leveraged via an uninitialized variable - being actively exploited in the wild for targeted attacks.
Lyons said that the attacks are spreading both from malicious web pages set up to snare Internet Explorer users and through Office documents.
Users running any flavor of supported Windows are vulnerable, from XP onwards up to and including Windows 7. All supported editions of Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Office 2007 are also vulnerable.
The hole hasn't been stitched up yet, but Microsoft is suggesting a workaround that will help prevent it from being exploited.
The vulnerability crops up when Microsoft XML Core Services 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0 try to access an object in memory that hasn't been initialized, which can corrupt memory such that an attacker could execute arbitrary code on a hijacked machine.
A victim would have to visit a maliciously crafted site using IE to suffer an attack. An attacker might lure users into visiting a boobytrapped site by enticing them to click on a link in an email or via messaging.
A successful attack grants the intruder the same user rights as the logged-on user. Therefore, a mitigating factor is to configure accounts with fewer rights, as opposed to operating with administrative user rights.
Microsoft noted that by default, IE on Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 runs in a restricted mode known as Enhanced Security Configuration. That also mitigates the vulnerability.
As far as bolting down Gmail goes, Sophos's Graham Cluley has a collection of tips on how to stop your Gmail account from getting hacked.
- Set up two step verification
- Check if your Gmail messages are being forwarded without your permission
- Look where your Gmail account is being accessed from
- Choose a unique, hard-to-crack password
- Secure your computer
- Why are you using Gmail anyway?
OK, that last one's not a tip, per se, but it's food for thought if you are, in fact, important enough that a state would want to attack your Gmail account.
If you are, think twice about using a free web email provider for sensitive information. If you're working for the government or the military, like Graham said, put all that sensitive information on secure systems instead.
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