VIDEO — School uses flying DRONE surveillance to stop students from cheating in exams
Canadian Awareness Network
Oct 2, 2014
Thomas Moore College in Belgium is experimenting with using remote controlled UAV to catch students cheating on their tests
A Belgian school has found a surprising new use for flying drones – making sure students don’t cheat on their exams.
Teachers at Thomas Moore College, in Belgium, are testing out the remote controlled aircraft to keep an eye on students during tests.
DJI Phantom drones are equipped with GoPro cameras to fly around the exam room, looking down on students as they work.
The technology has a way to go before being used for real, though as the drones only have a flight time of around 15 minutes – less than even the shortest exam.
There’s also the problem of the wind pushed out by the drone’s propellers – which could make a mess of exam papers.
Read More Here
9 Epic Failures of Regulating Cryptography
Activist Post
Sept 27, 2014
Electronic Frontier Foundation
They can promise strong encryption. They just need to figure out how they can provide us plain text. – FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni, September 27, 2010
[W]e’re in favor of strong encryption, robust encryption. The country needs it, industry needs it. We just want to make sure we have a trap door and key under some judge’s authority where we can get there if somebody is planning a crime. – FBI Director Louis Freeh, May 11, 1995
VIDEO — Phony Cell Phone Towers Intercepting Calls in the U.S.
by Sheila Aliens
SheilaAlien.com
Sept 4, 2014
UPDATE: Rogue signal found in Denver, CO
Source article
Spiral Of Silence Also Exists On Social Media: Pew Poll
redOrbit
Aug 27, 2014
Image Credit: Thinkstock.com
April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
In our social circles – especially among family, friends and co-workers – we have a tendency to hold in our views on public policy issues. This is especially true when we think our own opinion isn’t widely shared in those groups, according to pre-internet human behavior studies. Scientists call this phenomenon the “spiral of silence.”
The hope for social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter was that they would provide such a wide variety of discussion forums that people holding minority views would feel free to express their opinions. Such freedom would broaden public discourse and add new perspectives to the discussions.
The Pew Internet Research Project studied the effect of social media on the spiral of science by conducting a survey of 1,801 adults in 2013. The survey was restricted to one public policy issue: Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations of widespread government surveillance of Americans’ phone and email records. Other Pew Research polls showed the division Americans were feeling over this issue, making it a timely question for the survey. These studies found that Americans were conflicted over both whether the information leaks were justified and whether the NSA policy itself was appropriate or not. One survey, for example, found that 44 percent say that the classified information leak harms the public interest, while 49 percent said it serves the public interest.
The current survey asked questions about people’s opinions about the Snowden leaks, how willing they were to discuss the revelations in various in-person and online situations, and their perceptions of their peers’ views both online and in-person.
The results showed the following key findings:
• More people were willing to discuss the Snowden-NSA story in person than on social media — 86 percent were willing to discuss it in person, while only 42 percent of Facebook or Twitter users were willing to post about the issue.
• For those not willing to discuss the issue in person, social media did not provide an alternative platform. Only 0.3 percent of the 14 percent who were unwilling to discuss the issue face to face would post about it on social media.
• In both forums, people are more willing to share their views if they believe their audience agrees. People who believe their co-workers share their opinion were three times more likely to join a workplace conversation.
• Previous findings on the spiral of silence apply to social media platforms. Facebook users were twice as likely to join a conversation about the Snowden-NSA issue if they believed their followers agreed with them.
• Social media users were less likely to share their views in face to face settings, especially if they thought their social media followers disagreed with them. The average Facebook user is half as likely to share their opinion as other people.
Matrix: who is Edward Snowden? Does His Story Add Up?
Canadian Awareness Network
Aug 13, 2014
Matrix: Who is Edward Snowden?
By Jon Rappoport
July 8, 2013
This article is a compilation of a number of pieces I’ve written about Ed Snowden and the NSA. It doesn’t replace them, but it hits the high points…
Let’s begin here: If you absolutely must have a hero, watch Superman movies.
If your need for a hero is so great, so cloying, so heavy, so juicy that it swamps your curiosity, don’t read this.
If you can’t separate Snowden’s minor revelations from the question of who he is, if you can’t entertain the notion that covert ops and intelligence-agency games are reeking with cover stories, false trails, and limited hangouts, you need more fun in your life.
NSA? CIA? These guys live for high-level bullshit. They get down on their knees and worship it. They fall into a suicidal funk if they aren’t lying on at least three or four levels at once.
Okay. Let’s look at Snowden’s brief history as reported by The Guardian. Are there any holes?
Is the Pope Catholic?
In 2003, at age 19, without a high school diploma, Snowden enlists in the Army. He begins a training program to join the Special Forces. At what point after enlistment can a new soldier start this elite training program?
Snowden breaks both legs in an exercise. He’s discharged from the Army. Is that automatic? How about healing and then resuming service?
If he was accepted in the Special Forces training program because he had special computer skills, then why discharge him simply because he broke both legs?
“Sorry, Ed, but with two broken legs we just don’t think you can hack into terrorist data anymore. You were good, but not now. Try Walmart. They always have openings.”
Circa 2003, Snowden gets a job as a security guard for an NSA facility at the University of Maryland. He specifically wanted to work for NSA? It was just a generic job opening he found out about?
Snowden shifts jobs. Boom. He’s now in the CIA, in IT. He has no high school diploma. He’s a young computer genius.
In 2007, Snowden is sent to Geneva. He’s only 23 years old. The CIA gives him diplomatic cover there. He’s put in charge of maintaining computer-network security. Major job. Obviously, he has access to a wide range of classified documents. Sound a little odd? He’s just a kid. Maybe he has his GED. Otherwise, he still doesn’t have a high school diploma.
Snowden says that during this period, in Geneva, one of the incidents that really sours him on the CIA is the “turning of a Swiss banker.” One night, CIA guys get a banker drunk, encourage him to drive home, the banker gets busted, the CIA guys help him out, then with that bond formed, they eventually get the banker to reveal deep secrets to the Agency.
This sours Snowden? He’s that naïve? He doesn’t know by now that the CIA does this sort of thing all the time? He’s shocked? He “didn’t sign up for this?” Come on.
In 2009, Snowden leaves the CIA. Why? Presumably because he’s disillusioned. It should noted here that Snowden claimed he could do very heavy damage to the entire US intelligence community in 2008, but decided to wait because he thought Obama, just coming into the presidency, might keep his “transparency” promise.
After two years with the CIA in Geneva, Snowden really had the capability to take down the whole US inter-agency intelligence network, or a major chunk of it?
If you buy that without further inquiry, I have condos for sale on the dark side of the moon.
In 2009, Snowden leaves the CIA and goes to work in the private sector. Dell, Booze Allen Hamilton. In this latter job, Snowden is assigned to work at the NSA.
He’s an outsider, but, again, he claims to have so much access to so much sensitive NSA data that he can take down the whole US intelligence network in a single day. The. Whole. US. Intelligence. Network.
This is Ed Snowden’s sketchy legend. It’s all red flags, alarm bells, sirens, flashing lights.
Then we have the crowning piece: they solved the riddle: Ed Snowden was able to steal thousands of highly protected NSA documents because…he had a thumb drive.
It’s the weapon that breached the inner sanctum of the most sophisticated information agency in the world.
It’s the weapon to which the NSA, with all its resources, remains utterly vulnerable. Can’t defeat it.
Not only did Snowden stroll into NSA with a thumb drive, he knew how to navigate all the security layers put in place to stop people from stealing classified documents.
“Let’s see. We have a new guy coming to work for us here at NSA today? Oh, whiz kid. Ed Snowden. Outside contractor. Booz Allen. He’s not really a full-time employee of the NSA. Twenty-nine years old. No high school diploma. Has a GED. He worked for the CIA and quit. Hmm. Why did he quit? Oh, never mind, who cares? No problem.
“Tell you what. Let’s give this kid access to our most sensitive data. Sure. Why not? Everything. That stuff we keep behind 986 walls? Where you have to pledge the life of your first-born against the possibility you’ll go rogue? Let Snowden see it all. Sure. What the hell. I’m feeling charitable. He seems like a nice kid.”
NSA is the most awesome spying agency ever devised in this world. If you cross the street in Podunk, Anywhere, USA, to buy an ice cream soda, on a Tuesday afternoon in July, they know.
They know whether you sit at the counter and drink that soda or take it and move to the only table in the store. They know whether you lick the foam from the top of the glass with your tongue or pick the foam with your straw and then lick it.
They know if you keep the receipt for the soda or leave it on the counter.
They know whether you’re wearing shoes or sneakers. They know the brand of your underwear. They know your shaving cream, and precisely which container it came out of.
But this agency, with all its vast power and its dollars…
Can’t track one of its own, a man who came to work every day, a man who made up a story about needing treatment in Hong Kong for epilepsy and then skipped the country.
Just can’t find him.
FBI uses facial recognition to arrest 14-year fugitive overseas
End the Lie – Independent News
[Aug 13, 2014]
After spending 14 years on the run from American law enforcement authorities, a man suspected of child sex abuse was detained in by the FBI using the State Department’s new facial recognition technology.
The case marks a notable milestone for the FBI, which has also recently been beefing up its ability to identify individuals through face-scanning software.
Announced on Tuesday by the FBI, the case in question actually began back in 1999, when New Mexico resident Neil Stammer was arrested on multiple charges, including child sex abuse and kidnapping. After posting bail, Stammer fled the United States and never appeared for this arraignment. When federal fugitive charges were filed a month afterwards, the FBI became involved.
Catching Stammer proved to be particularly tricky, the FBI said, especially since the fugitive spoke about a dozen languages and could have potentially been anywhere in the world. In January 2014, the FBI’s fugitive coordinator Russ Wilson created a new “wanted” poster for Stammer after the case caught his eye, inadvertently causing the hunt to heat up once again.
Around the same time as this poster was drafted, the US State Department began trying out its own newly designed facial recognition software, which was intended to catch passport fraud. Luckily for the FBI, a security service agent within the State Department decided to test the software out on the Bureau’s wanted posters – a course of action that ultimately matched Stammer’s face with someone named Kevin Hodges.
“When he came upon Stammer’s poster online, a curious thing happened. Stammer’s face matched a person whose passport photo carried a different name,” the FBI said in its statement.
Former New Mexico resident Neil Stammer was captured in Nepal earlier this year after 14 years on the run. (Image from http://www.fbi.gov)
Further investigation revealed that Hodges – teaching English classes in Nepal and routinely visiting the local US Embassy to prolong his stay – was actually Stammer. Soon enough, he was arrested and extradited to the US.
“He was very comfortable in Nepal,” Wilson said. “My impression was that he never thought he would be discovered.”
The arrest comes as the FBI continues to expand its facial recognition database. As RT reported in April, the agency projects that it will have 52 million images stored in its Next Generation Identification (NGI) program by 2015. The NGI database currently features more than 100 million records, including those that link an individual’s fingerprints, palm prints, iris scans, and personal information like addresses and legal status. The next step for the FBI is to flesh out its trove of facial images.
In some more local cases, meanwhile, facial recognition technology is already being used by law enforcement. According to Fox News, officials in Iowa said the software enabled them to track down and arrest an armed robber in June – about 41 years after he escaped from a North Carolina jail.
Source: RT
VIDEO — Kristov Atlas interview, pt. 2 – “Anonymous Bitcoin, Cryptography, and Online Safety” – #204 – Gnostic Media
Gnostic Media
Jul 2, 2014
This episode is part 2 about Bitcoin, cryptography and online security and safety and is called Anonymous Bitcoin, Cryptography and Online Safety: It’s being released on Wednesday, July 2, 2014, and was recorded yesterday on Tuesday, July 1, 2014.
Kristov Atlas is a network security and privacy researcher who studies crypto-currencies. He is the author of Anonymous Bitcoin: How to Keep Your Ƀ All to Yourself, a practical guide to maximizing financial privacy with Bitcoin. Kristov is also a correspondent for the World Crypto Network, appearing regularly on the the weekly roundtable show “The Bitcoin Group”, and host of “Dark News”, a show about un-censorship technologies.
References to this episode:
Anonymous Bitcoin book:
http://anonymousbitcoinbook.com
Dark News Show:
https://twitter.com/darknewsshow
Tor Project:
https://www.torproject.org
I2P Network:
https://geti2p.net/en/
Tails Linux
https://tails.boum.org
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