RF Safe-Stop shuts down car engines with radio pulse

A British company has demonstrated a prototype device capable of stopping cars and other vehicles using a blast of electromagnetic waves.

The RF Safe-Stop uses radio frequency pulses to "confuse" a vehicle's electronic systems, cutting its engine.

E2V is one of several companies trying to bring such a product to market.

It said it believed the primary use would be as a non-lethal weapon for the military to defend sensitive locations from vehicles refusing to stop.

There has also been police interest.

The BBC was given a demonstration of the device at Throckmorton Airfield, in Worcestershire.

Deputy Chief Constable Andy Holt, of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), who has evaluated the tech, said the machine had "potential, but it's very early days yet".

Radio pulse

At one end of a disused runway, E2V assembled a varied collection of second-hand cars and motorbikes in order to test the prototype against a range of vehicles.

In demonstrations seen by the BBC a car drove towards the device at about 15mph (24km/h).

As the vehicle entered the range of the RF Safe-stop, its dashboard warning lights and dials behaved erratically, the engine stopped and the car rolled gently to a halt. Digital audio and video recording devices in the vehicle were also affected.

"It's a small radar transmitter," said Andy Wood, product manager for the machine.

"The RF [radio frequency] is pulsed from the unit just as it would be in radar, it couples into the wiring in the car and that disrupts and confuses the electronics in the car causing the engine to stall."

He did not provide other specifics. However, the Engineer magazine has reported the device uses L- and S-band radio frequencies, and works at a range of up to 50m (164ft).

Some experts the BBC has spoken with suggested that turning off the engine in this manner would not stop vehicles rapidly enough. Others worried about what effect it might have on a car's electronic brake and steering systems.

But E2V said the risks were lower than with alternative systems.

Acpo suggested the machine's ability to stop motorbikes "safely" could prove particularly useful.

Mr Holt noted that the tyre deflation devices used by some police forces posed the risk of causing "serious injury" if used against two-wheelers.

E2V added that its device could also be effective against other types of vehicles, including boats.

But because the device works on electronic systems, he acknowledged that it would not work on all older vehicles.

"Certainly if you took a 1960s Land Rover, there's a good chance you're not going to stop it," Mr Wood said.

The firm added that it did not believe the RF Safe-Stop posed any risk to people using a pacemaker.

Listeners in the UK can hear more about the device on BBC Radio 4's PM programme between 17:00 and 18:00 on Tuesday.

Source: BBC

NSA could have accessed Google, Yahoo data through private cable provider

Reuters/Kacper Pempel

A new analysis of the National Security Agency’s covert eavesdropping operations suggests the private American company that supplies the likes of Google and Yahoo with fiber optic cables might have allowed the NSA to infiltrate those networks.

Reporters at the New York Times wrote this week that Level 3 Communications — the Colorado-based internet company that manages online traffic for much of North America, Latin America and Europe — is likely responsible for letting the NSA and its British counterpart silently collect troves of sensitive data from the biggest firms on the web.

Last month, top-secret leaked documents released to the media by former intelligence contractor, Edward Snowden, revealed efforts by the NSA to intercept web traffic going between data centers owned by big companies in an unencrypted state. A Washington Post report from late October attributes those Snowden leaks as saying that the NSA was receiving millions of records every day from internal Yahoo and Google networks and transferring that information to a facility at the agency’s Fort Meade, Maryland headquarters – all in spite of previously leaked documents which detailed how those companies and others had been providing the NSA with front-door access as part of the agency’s PRISM operation.

Nevertheless, the Post reported last month that “From undisclosed interception points, the NSA and the GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information among the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.” Data stored within those facilities is highly secure and encrypted, but not while in transit on cables primarily owned by Level 3.

Nearly one month later, an article published this Monday by Nicole Perlroth and John Markoff at the Times says those interception points could have been approved by Level 3, who owns the cable infrastructure that the majority of America’s web traffic travels through.

“People knowledgeable about Google and Yahoo’s infrastructure say they believe that government spies bypassed the big Internet companies and hit them at a weak spot — the fiber-optic cables that connect data centers around the world that are owned by companies like Verizon Communications, the BT Group, the Vodafone Group and Level 3 Communications,” Perlroth and Markoff wrote. “In particular, fingers have been pointed at Level 3, the world’s largest so-called Internet backbone provider, whose cables are used by Google and Yahoo.”

“It is impossible to say for certain how the NSA managed to get Google and Yahoo’s data without the companies’ knowledge,” the Times article continued, “But both companies, in response to concerns over those vulnerabilities, recently said they were now encrypting data that runs on the cables between their data centers.”

Through the NSA’s PRISM operation first disclosed by Mr Snowden in June, the government is alleged to have “upstream” access to data that non-US persons send through the servers of major internet companies, even compensating those firms in order to ensure they’re fully compliant with the feds’ requests. When word of a backdoor operation targeting those same PRISM-partners was disclosed last month, Google said at the time, “We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform.”

If the latest analysis in the Times proves to be correct, the lengths that the NSA and its British counterpart have gone to wouldn’t necessarily be considered all that outrageous. In fact, those agencies could have been obtaining access from Level 3 perhaps with just a contract.

Reached by the Times for comment, Level 3 said, “It is our policy and our practice to comply with laws in every country where we operate, and to provide government agencies access to customer data only when we are compelled to do so by the laws in the country where the data is located.”

In a financial report made by the company and obtained by the paper, however, Level 3 is revealed to have much more of a relationship with the government then one that just involves the occasional compliance order. According to that report, the company announced, “We are party to an agreement with the US Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense addressing the US government’s national security and law enforcement concerns. This agreement imposes significant requirements on us related to information storage and management; traffic management; physical, logical and network security arrangements; personnel screening and training and other matters.”

When news of the eavesdropping operation surfaced last month, Christopher Soghoian, a technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, speculated on Twitter that if Level 3 indeed allowed the government to tap its cables, they’d likely not be covered by the same legal protections in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, that let feds conduct widespread surveillance over private companies’ data.

If Level 3 voluntarily let NSA/GCHQ tap Google's data, the immunity available via FISA 702 orders won't apply and they can be sued.

— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) October 31, 2013

Neither Google nor Yahoo have publicly commented on the suggestion that Level 3 compromised their networks’ data, nor have they indicated any willingness to file suit.

Source: RT

Amazing Footage of the Sun Igniting Comet ISON

Microsoft Denies Monitoring Skype Calls After Banning Users For Bad Language

Company suspends accounts of foul-mouthed Xbox gamers

After it was revealed that Microsoft was suspending the Skype accounts of Xbox gamers who used bad language, the company was forced to deny that it was monitoring Skype conversations.

Image: Microsoft (Wikimedia Commons).

Xbox users complained that Microsoft was banning them from using Skype or the Xbox Upload Studio because of “past behavior.” The censorship stemmed from the company targeting people who used bad language in their uploaded videos.

“Kinect likes to listen to you. It’s a big part of the console’s appeal. But it doesn’t like to hear your swears. At least not in Upload Studio, the Xbox One service that lets you share gameplay clips (with non-profane voiceover!) with friends, and save those clips to your SkyDrive. If you’ve got a dirty mouth, you can run into trouble,” reports Gizmodo.

Some Xbox users expressed concern at why Microsoft was applying the ban to Skype accounts when accessed via the Xbox console, leading to fears that the company was monitoring their private conversations, prompting a statement from Microsoft;

“To be clear, the Xbox Live Policy & Enforcement team does not monitor direct peer-to-peer communications like Skype chats and calls. Also, we take Code of Conduct moderation via Upload Studio very seriously. We want a clean, safe and fun environment for all users. Excessive profanity as well as other Code of Conduct violations will be enforced upon and result in suspension of some or all privileges on Xbox Live. We remain committed to preserving and promoting a safe, secure and enjoyable experience for all of our Xbox Live members.”

However, a respondent to the Gizmodo article points out that one of the bans was applied for someone solely using Skype, remarking, “So yes they are listening, or someone complained about the persons behavior.”

In suspending people for using bad language in video uploads, Microsoft is imposing censorship well beyond the likes of YouTube, which does not even age-restrict videos that contain swearing.

Although Microsoft is moving towards encrypting all its Internet traffic due to “suspicions that the NSA is intercepting traffic within its private networks,” the company was deeply embroiled in the NSA wiretapping scandal, allowing the snooping agency backdoor access to spy on users of its services.

In May it emerged that Microsoft “regularly scans (Skype) message contents for signs of fraud.” As the Edward Snowden leaks confirmed, Skype audio conversations “can be wiretapped by American intelligence agencies,” despite previously having been considered resistant to interception.

As we reported last week, Microsoft also denied claims that the new Xbox One’s Kinect camera could see gamers’ genitals after video footage emerged which suggested the device’s IR camera was so sophisticated that it could capture the outline of a user’s penis.

The Xbox One’s array of microphones and video cameras can distinguish between six different voices in a room while responding to voice commands and reading skeletal and muscular movements. The device can even tell if someone is looking at or away from the television.

InfoWars

Neurosurgeon Explains How You can Detox Chemtrail Poisons

Have you looked up into the chemtrail skies lately? These aerial sprayings are slowly making people sick with their puffy white chemical soup. Neurosurgeon, Dr. Russell Blaylock recently talked openly about chemtrails and what they are doing to our health, but also how to detox them on this video.

Whether the pilots on huge C130’s know what they are doing, or are practicing the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil tactics encouraged by our US military (commanded by a corrupt government) they are dumping all kinds of chemicals on us at an alarmingly increasing rate. (There are plenty of amazing service-people who have even been whistle-blowers on chemtrails) .

It doesn’t matter if you believe chemtrails are a ‘conspiracy theory,’ though even though the US government coined the term ‘chemtrails’ before any blogger ever did; people will still get sick from their existence. Dr. Blaylock warns we will see an increase in numerous diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia, cancer, and upper-respiratory diseases just to name a few. But here is the good news – according to this particular neurosurgeon, you can help your body detox from some of the numerous chemicals in chemtrails (thorium, barium, mercury, aluminum oxide, and strontium).

Here is the list of things you can do to reduce the inflammatory response that is caused by some of these chemicals:

• Tocopherols in Vitamin E will help reduce inflammation in your brain and body, thus reducing the toxic effect of chemtrails. Almond milk is a great source of naturally occurring Vitamin E, as is

• Vitamin C, when added to Vitamin E, is a powerful protector of the brain, according to Dr. Blaylock.

• Curcumin binds with aluminum and helps to reduce its toxic effects, and supports its elimination from the body.

• Saffron is another great way to support brain health and detox these chemicals. It is also full of cancer-fighting carotenoids. In some studies, saffron has also shown to promote learning, memory and recall due to a compound in the plant called ‘crocin’.

• Flax seed has been shown to help reduce radiation poisoning and boost brain power as well.

• Cinnamon is full of antioxidants and can also reduce the inflammatory response in the body.

For further suggestions, you can watch the video, and start detoxing from chemtrails and their noxious poisons today.

Natural Society

Monsanto, the TPP, and Global Food Dominance

“Control oil and you control nations,” said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s.  ”Control food and you control the people.”

Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed diversity with GMO (genetically modified) seeds that are distributed by only a few transnational corporations. But this agenda has been implemented at grave cost to our health; and if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our food but our health, our environment and our financial system will be in the hands of transnational corporations.

Profits Before Populations

According to an Acres USA interview of plant pathologist Don Huber, Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, two modified traits account for practically all of the genetically modified crops grown in the world today. One involves insect resistance. The other, more disturbing modification involves insensitivity to glyphosate-based herbicides (plant-killing chemicals). Often known as Roundup after the best-selling Monsanto product of that name, glyphosate poisons everything in its path except plants genetically modified to resist it.

Glyphosate-based herbicides are now the most commonly used herbicides in the world. Glyphosate is an essential partner to the GMOs that are the principal business of the burgeoning biotech industry. Glyphosate is a “broad-spectrum” herbicide that destroys indiscriminately, not by killing unwanted plants directly but by tying up access to critical nutrients.

Because of the insidious way in which it works, it has been sold as a relatively benign replacement for the devastating earlier dioxin-based herbicides. But a barrage of experimental data has now shown glyphosate and the GMO foods incorporating it to pose serious dangers to health. Compounding the risk is the toxicity of “inert” ingredients used to make glyphosate more potent. Researchers have found, for example, that the surfactant POEA can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells. But these risks have been conveniently ignored.

The widespread use of GMO foods and glyphosate herbicides helps explain the anomaly that the US spends over twice as much per capita on healthcare as the average developed country, yet it is rated far down the scale of the world’s healthiest populations. The World Health Organization has ranked the US LAST out of 17 developed nations for overall health.

Sixty to seventy percent of the foods in US supermarkets are now genetically modified. By contrast, in at least 26 other countries—including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Russia—GMOs are totally or partially banned; and significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.

A ban on GMO and glyphosate use might go far toward improving the health of Americans. But the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global trade agreement for which the Obama Administration has sought Fast Track status, would block that sort of cause-focused approach to the healthcare crisis.

Roundup’s Insidious Effects

Roundup-resistant crops escape being killed by glyphosate, but they do not avoid absorbing it into their tissues. Herbicide-tolerant crops have substantially higher levels of herbicide residues than other crops. In fact, many countries have had to increase their legally allowable levels—by up to 50 times—in order to accommodate the introduction of GM crops. In the European Union, residues in foods are set to rise 100-150 times if a new proposal by Monsanto is approved. Meanwhile, herbicide-tolerant “super-weeds” have adapted to the chemical, requiring even more toxic doses and new toxic chemicals to kill the plant.

Human enzymes are affected by glyphosate just as plant enzymes are: the chemical blocks the uptake of manganese and other essential minerals. Without those minerals, we cannot properly metabolize our food. That helps explain the rampant epidemic of obesity in the United States. People eat and eat in an attempt to acquire the nutrients that are simply not available in their food.

According to researchers Samsell and Seneff in Biosemiotic Entropy: Disorder, Disease, and Mortality (April 2013):

Glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology . . . . Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

More than 40 diseases have been linked to glyphosate use, and more keep appearing. In September 2013, the National University of Rio Cuarto, Argentina, published research finding that glyphosate enhances the growth of fungi that produce aflatoxin B1, one of the most carcinogenic of substances. A doctor from Chaco, Argentina, told Associated Press, “We’ve gone from a pretty healthy population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects and illnesses seldom seen before.” Fungi growths have increased significantly in US corn crops.

Glyphosate has also done serious damage to the environment. According to an October 2012 report by the Institute of Science in Society:

Agribusiness claims that glyphosate and glyphosate-tolerant crops will improve crop yields, increase farmers’ profits and benefit the environment by reducing pesticide use. Exactly the opposite is the case. . . . [T]he evidence indicates that glyphosate herbicides and glyphosate-tolerant crops have had wide-ranging detrimental effects, including glyphosate resistant super weeds, virulent plant (and new livestock) pathogens, reduced crop health and yield, harm to off-target species from insects to amphibians and livestock, as well as reduced soil fertility.

Politics Trumps Science

In light of these adverse findings, why have Washington and the European Commission continued to endorse glyphosate as safe? Critics point to lax regulations, heavy influence from corporate lobbyists, and a political agenda that has more to do with power and control than protecting the health of the people.

In the ground-breaking 2007 book Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, William Engdahl states that global food control and depopulation became US strategic policy under Rockefeller protégé Henry Kissinger. Along with oil geopolitics, they were to be the new “solution” to the threats to US global power and continued US access to cheap raw materials from the developing world. In line with that agenda, the government has shown extreme partisanship in favor of the biotech agribusiness industry, opting for a system in which the industry “voluntarily” polices itself. Bio-engineered foods are treated as “natural food additives,” not needing any special testing.

Jeffrey M. Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, confirms that US Food and Drug Administration policy allows biotech companies to determine if their own foods are safe. Submission of data is completely voluntary. He concludes:

In the critical arena of food safety research, the biotech industry is without accountability, standards, or peer-review. They’ve got bad science down to a science.

Whether or not depopulation is an intentional part of the agenda, widespread use of GMO and glyphosate is having that result. The endocrine-disrupting properties of glyphosate have been linked to infertility, miscarriage, birth defects and arrested sexual development. In Russian experiments, animals fed GM soy were sterile by the third generation. Vast amounts of farmland soil are also being systematically ruined by the killing of beneficial microorganisms that allow plant roots to uptake soil nutrients.

In Gary Null’s eye-opening documentary Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs, Dr. Bruce Lipton warns, “We are leading the world into the sixth mass extinction of life on this planet. . . . Human behavior is undermining the web of life.”

The TPP and International Corporate Control

As the devastating conclusions of these and other researchers awaken people globally to the dangers of Roundup and GMO foods, transnational corporations are working feverishly with the Obama administration to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that would strip governments of the power to regulate transnational corporate activities. Negotiations have been kept secret from Congress but not from corporate advisors, 600 of whom have been consulted and know the details. According to Barbara Chicherio in Nation of Change:

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has the potential to become the biggest regional Free Trade Agreement in history. . . .

The chief agricultural negotiator for the US is the former Monsanto lobbyist, Islam Siddique.  If ratified the TPP would impose punishing regulations that give multinational corporations unprecedented right to demand taxpayer compensation for policies that corporations deem a barrier to their profits.

. . . They are carefully crafting the TPP to insure that citizens of the involved countries have no control over food safety, what they will be eating, where it is grown, the conditions under which food is grown and the use of herbicides and pesticides.

Food safety is only one of many rights and protections liable to fall to this super-weapon of international corporate control. In an April 2013 interview on The Real News Network, Kevin Zeese called the TPP “NAFTA on steroids” and “a global corporate coup.” He warned:

No matter what issue you care about—whether its wages, jobs, protecting the environment . . . this issue is going to adversely affect it . . . .

If a country takes a step to try to regulate the financial industry or set up a public bank to represent the public interest, it can be sued . . . .

Return to Nature: Not Too Late

There is a safer, saner, more earth-friendly way to feed nations. While Monsanto and US regulators are forcing GM crops on American families, Russian families are showing what can be done with permaculture methods on simple garden plots. In 2011, 40% of Russia’s food was grown on dachas (cottage gardens or allotments). Dacha gardens produced over 80% of the country’s fruit and berries, over 66% of the vegetables, almost 80% of the potatoes and nearly 50% of the nation’s milk, much of it consumed raw. According to Vladimir Megre, author of the best-selling Ringing Cedars Series:

Essentially, what Russian gardeners do is demonstrate that gardeners can feed the world – and you do not need any GMOs, industrial farms, or any other technological gimmicks to guarantee everybody’s got enough food to eat. Bear in mind that Russia only has 110 days of growing season per year – so in the US, for example, gardeners’ output could be substantially greater. Today, however, the area taken up by lawns in the US is two times greater than that of Russia’s gardens – and it produces nothing but a multi-billion-dollar lawn care industry.

In the US, only about 0.6 percent of the total agricultural area is devoted to organic farming. This area needs to be vastly expanded if we are to avoid “the sixth mass extinction.” But first, we need to urge our representatives to stop Fast Track, vote no on the TPP, and pursue a global phase-out of glyphosate-based herbicides and GMO foods. Our health, our finances and our environment are at stake.

EllenBrown.com

Bitcoin Riches Spill Over to Alternative Digital Currencies

Bitcoin has been on an epic rush. Its recent spike in popularity caused respected exchanges like Coinbase to temporarily suspend trading because they literally ran out of Bitcoin to sell.

That was a week ago when the price of one Bitcoin was a mere $650. Today it flirts with $1000 and its market cap blew through the $10 billion mark yesterday. But the surge of government-issued money flowing into digital currencies doesn't stop with Bitcoin.

Almost all of the lesser known alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) experienced massive gains in the last few days, too. Look at the market caps the top cryptocurrencies below. Pay attention to the % Change and the graphs:

Source: CoinMarketCap.com

Most of these currencies like Litecoin, Anoncoin, Namecoin, Goldcoin, and 56 others on the multi-currency exchange Cryptsy.com, trade against Bitcoin.  Therefore, when they grow 3-4 fold against Bitcoin while itself gains in dollar value, the returns have become astronomical for altcoin daytraders.

Once you have some Bitcoin, Cryptsy makes it super easy to trade for other altcoins. I even managed to turn 2 bitcoins into 7 bitcoins there in a very short period.

One altcoin I got lucky with was Anoncoin (ANC). I bought some because it seemed unique compared to some of its peers. In the span of a few days it went from .0005BTC to .003BTC, a 500% gain against a currency (Bitcoin) that gained around another 25% at the same time. Look at its 1-month chart:

From Cryptsy

The video below by the Bitcoin Channel on YouTube explains the rise as overflow from people who don't want to sell their Bitcoin for fiat dollars. It seems they'd rather diversify them into the altcoins.



The Bitcoin gains of late feel different from April's bubble. It feels more like Bitcoin is starting to reach critical mass, globally.  And it seems its popularity spawned an entirely new asset class called cryptocurrencies to invest in.

It's tough to say what the future holds for Bitcoin or these other altcoins.  They may be purely speculative at the moment, However, strangely, I feel more secure holding them than I do with Federal Reserve Notes.

Source: Activist Post