Something is rotten at GitHub. We discuss the big problem they’re facing & why for most of us, we already have a backup plan.

Plus why Project Rider might get you excited & how the Parse shutdown is hitting Mike.

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Show Notes:

Episode Links

Something’s Rotten in the State of Github

• Github Is Undergoing An Overhaul
  Enterprise VS Consumer

Project Rider

• JetBrains Project Rider

Risk and Benefits of Running On 3rd Party Services

• Parse Shutdown

The post Parsing Your Options | CR 191 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The TrueCrypt project has shut down, and we’ll run down what we think is the most likely answer to this sudden mystery is.

Plus the good news for openSSL, the top 10 Windows configuration mistakes, and big batch of your questions, our answers, and much much more!

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— Show Notes: —

TrueCrypt shuts down unexpectedly

• TrueCrypt is a cross-platform image or whole disk encryption system
• The website for TrueCrypt changed yesterday, stating that “it may contain unfixed security issues”
• The page states now that Windows XP is EOL and all supported versions of Windows support ‘BitLocker’ disk encryption, TrueCrypt is no longer necessary
• The website provides information about transitioning data from TrueCrypt to the OS disk encryption system for various different OSs
• The website has been updated with version 7.2 of TrueCrypt, which only allows the user to decrypt their files, not encrypt any new files
• This was originally thought to be a hack of the site, or a hoax
• The new binary is signed with the correct key, the same as previous versions of TrueCrypt, suggesting that this post is legitimate
• While the code is available, the license is restrictive
• The developers of TrueCrypt are anonymous
• GIST tracking various bits of information and speculating about possible causes
• ThreatPost coverage
• One of the suspicious things about the announcement is the recommendation to use BitLocker, the authors of TrueCrypt had previously expressed concerns about how BitLocker stores the secret keys in the TPM (Trusted Platform Module), which may also allow the NSA to access the secret key
• There is some speculation that this could be a ‘warrant canary’, the authors’ way to telling the public that they were forced to do something to TrueCrypt, or divulge something about TrueCrypt
• However, it is more likely that the developers just no longer have an interest in maintaining TrueCrypt
• The last major version release was 3 years ago, and the most recent release before the announcement was over a year ago. An actively developed project would likely have had at least some maintenance releases in that time
• The code for TrueCrypt was being audited after a crowdfunding effort. The first phase of the audit found no obvious backdoors, but the actual cryptography had not been analyzed yet.
• Additional Coverage – Krebs On Security

Core Infrastructure Initiative provides OpenSSL with 2 full time developers and funds a security audit

• The CII has announced its Advisory board and the list of projects it is going to support
• Advisory Board members include:
• longtime Linux kernel developer and open source advocate Alan Cox
• Matt Green of Open Crypto Audit Project
• Dan Meredith of the Radio Free Asia’s Open Technology Fund
• Eben Moglen of Software Freedom Law Center
• Bruce Schneier of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
• Eric Sears of the MacArthur Foundation
• Ted T’so of Google and the Linux kernel community
• Projects identified as core infrastructure:
• Network Time Protocol
• OpenSSH
• OpenSSL
• Open Crypto Audit Project to conduct security audit of OpenSSL
• The security audit will be difficult due to the lack of a consistent style in the code and the maze of ifdef and ifndef segments
• the OCAP (Open Crypto Audit Project) team, which includes Johns Hopkins professor and cryptographer Matthew Green and Kenn White, will now have the money to fund an audit of OpenSSL
• OCAP was originally created by a crowdfunded project to audit TrueCrypt

The top 10 windows server security misconfigurations

• NCCGroup does what it calls ‘Build Surveys’, where they check production environments to ensure they are configured properly
• The following is the result of an analysis of their last 50 such surveys:
  • Missing Microsoft Patches: 82%
  • Insufficient Auditing: 50%
  • Third-Party Software Updates: 48%
  • Weak Password Policy: 38%
  • UAC Disabled for Administrator Account: 34%
  • Disabled Host-Based Firewall: 34%
  • Clear Text Passwords and Other Sensitive Information: 24%
  • Account Lockout Disabled: 20%
  • Out-of-Date Virus Definitions: 18%
  • No Antivirus Installed: 12%
• Conclusions: Everyone makes the same mistakes, over and over
• Most of these problems are trivial to fix
• Part of the problem is this culture of ‘patch averseness’, partly this is the fault of software vendors often issuing patches that break more things than they fix, but in general Microsoft has actually done a good job of ensuring their patches apply smoothly and do not break things
• Part of this is the fact that they only issue updates once a month, and only once they have been tested
• In the study, most of the machines that were missing patches, were missing patches that were more than a year old, so it isn’t just conservatism, but just a complete lack of proper patch management

Feedback:

• FreeBSD Developers Summit

• BSDCan 2014 videos

• Replacing failed disk in Freenas

• Am I too old?

• Bacula Retention and Storage Guidance

• VLAN Tag You\’re It

• Virtualisation as a Work LAN Solution

• devops is specialization

• DevOps – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Can you please talk about load balancing?

• Update on me not getting a job.

Round-Up:

• DISH Teams Up with Coinbase to Become Largest Company to Accept Bitcoin
• Post Mortem at Joyent — Opps, I accidently rebooted every server in the data center at once
• Official Google Blog: Getting to work on diversity at Google
• PeakScale’s list of PostMortems from all around the web
• YouTube starts rating U.S. ISPs, puts its weight behind settlement-free peering
• Why you don’t want to use AES-XTS encryption for anything except FDE
• Apple Forgets to Renew SSL Certificate, Breaking OS X Software Update [Fixed]
• Security concerns about HTTP/2.0 — rushing to finish and cutting corners
• Separate from the recent eBay hack, an XSS vulnerability that has not been fixed
• Last night on IRC to topic changes to VGA, and Peter Wemm dug out his old dual cpu Pentium 90mhz running FreeBSD
• Windows XP hack to get updates — Not a great idea

The post Tales from the TrueCrypt | TechSNAP 164 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The United States of America is licking her wounds from another self-inflicted crisis. While lawmakers pretend to save the day with a last minute deal, we’ll discuss the big picture and ask if real long term damage has been done.

Then: 7 High Ranking Military Officers have been Fired By Obama, a first in US History. One thing they all have in common is their combat roles. We’ll dig into the conspiracy bacon exploding all over the net.

Plus our follow up, your feedback, and much much more.

On this week’s Unfilter.

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— Show Notes —

NSA is CRAZY

• WikiLeaks releases video of Snowden in Moscow – YouTube

Video of NSA leaker Edward Snowden surfaced late Friday. Snowden was last seen on video back in June, when he appears on camera for The Guardian discussing the reasons for releasing the details of the NSA’s surveillance programs. Since then, Snowden received asylum in Russia and just recently was awarded the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award.

• NSA Collects Email Contact Lists, Instant Messaging Chat Buddy Lists From Overseas With No Oversight At All | Techdirt

The Washington Post is out with the latest revelations from the Snowden leaks and it shows that the NSA relies on foreign telcos and “allied” intelligence agencies to scoop up data on email contact lists and instant messaging buddy lists to help build its giant database of connections.

And here’s the big problem: because all of this information is collected overseas, rather than at home, it’s not subject to “oversight” (and I use that term loosely) by the FISA court or Congress. Those two only cover oversight for domestic intelligence. The fact that the NSA can scoop up all this data overseas is just a bonus.

• Even Senate Intelligence Committee Admits That NSA Oversight Is Often A Game Of 20 Questions | Techdirt

The latest revelations about the NSA’s collection of buddy lists and email address books pointed out that those issues weren’t covered by Congressional oversight, since they happened overseas. When the Washington Post questions Feinstein’s office about this, a senior staffer seemed unconcerned, mentioning that perhaps they should be asking questions about it

• Snowden leaks: David Cameron urges committee to investigate Guardian | World news | theguardian.com

David Cameron has encouraged a Commons select committee to investigate whether the Guardian has broken the law or damaged national security by publishing secrets leaked by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

• Glenn Greenwald Leaves the Guardian To Start His Own Site

“Glenn Greenwald, the thorn in the proverbial back of NSA and its colonial cousin GCHQ is leaving the Guardian to start his own news organization. Greenwald said ‘My partnership with the Guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling: I have high regard for the editors and journalists with whom I worked and am incredibly proud of what we achieved. The decision to leave was not an easy one, but I was presented with a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline. Because this news leaked before we were prepared to announce it, I’m not yet able to provide any details of this momentous new venture, but it will be unveiled very shortly.’”

• Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras Teaming Up With Glenn Greenwald On New Media Venture

Journalists Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras will be working with Glenn Greenwald on a new media venture funded by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, according to sources familiar with the matter.

• Pierre Omidyar – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic, social, and political change. To date, Omidyar Network has committed more than $270 million to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple investment areas, including property rights, government transparency, and social media.

• U.S. eavesdropping agency chief, top deputy expected to depart soon | Reuters

Army General Keith Alexander’s eight-year tenure was rocked this year by revelations contained in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the agency’s widespread scooping up of telephone, email and social-media data.

Alexander has formalized plans to leave by next March or April, while his civilian deputy, John “Chris” Inglis, is due to retire by year’s end, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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• Report: Pundits Who Urged Strikes on Syria Failed to Disclose Ties to Military Industry | Democracy Now!

The report identifies 22 commentators with industry ties that suggest a financial interest in war. While they appeared on television or were quoted as experts 111 times, their links to military firms were disclosed only 13 of those times.

• Conflicts of interest in the Syria debate | Public Accountability Initiative

The following report documents the industry ties of Hadley, 21 other media commentators, and seven think tanks that participated in the media debate around Syria. Like Hadley, these individuals and organizations have strong ties to defense contractors and other defense- and foreign policy-focused firms with a vested interest in the Syria debate, but they were presented to their audiences with a veneer of expertise and independence, as former military officials, retired diplomats, and independent think tanks.

Shutdown Showdown

• Senate Leaders’ Agreement Extends Debt Limit to Feb. 7 but House Fate Murky – ABC News

Senate leaders have reached an agreement on a compromise that would fund the government until Jan. 15 and extend the debt limit until Feb. 7.

• Sen. Cruz: Senate budget deal provides ‘no relief’ | Fox News Video

• Pete King calls for a Republican war on Ted Cruz

“I think it’s important for people in the Republican Party around the country not to just come in at the end and say, ‘Congress was dysfunctional,’ or ‘Congress screwed up.’ That’s too easy to do,” King said. “Say who it was. Because it wasn’t Congress. It was one person who was able to steamroll Congress and unless we target him for what he is, he’s going to do it again. So I’m hoping other Republicans will join me and start going after this guy, and say we’re not going to let it happen again.”

• John McCain: This Has Been ‘One of the More Shameful Chapters’ in the Senate’s History | Mediaite

John McCain is clearly glad to have this government shutdown mess behind him, going on the Senate floor today shortly after the bipartisan deal was announced to say the past few weeks have been “one of the more shameful chapters” of the Senate’s history.

• Ted Cruz’s Hometown Newspaper Regrets Endorsement – ABC News

Sen. Ted Cruz’ hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, wishes it could take back its endorsement.

The Chronicle’s editorial board, which endorsed Cruz, R-Texas, in his 2012 race, now says it misses his predecessor, former Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

“When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November’s general election, we did so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation – that he follow Hutchison’s example in his conduct as a senator,” The Chronicle said. "Obviously, he has not done so.

“Cruz has been part of the problem in specific situations where Hutchison would have been part of the solution,” the board added.

• ABC’s Jon Karl to Carney on Senate Deal: ‘Is There a Little Bit of Ransom Paid?’ | Mediaite

“Is there a little bit of ransom paid? I mean, there is a provision in here that requires verification for recipients of subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.”

Obama’s Curious Purge Of The Military

• Top nuclear missile commanders fired – The Lead with Jake Tapper – CNN.com Blogs

But Major General Michael Carey and Vice Admiral Tim Giardina (fired amidst rumors of misbehavior involving alcohol and gambling) are just the latest in a recent rash of firings in the military’s top ranks.

• 7 High Ranking Military Officers Fired By Obama, 1st Time In US History; Are These the Ones That Wont Cooperate With The Impending Martial Law In The US?

Are these the men standing between us and martial law? They have been fired over various things ranging from sexual harassment to lack of trust. One thing they all have in common is their combat roles. They were all commanders of combat units.

• Obama’s Military Purge Continues With Sacking Of Two Nuclear Commanders

The firing of two nuclear commanders in a week adds to a body count that suggests we have either the most corrupt and incompetent general staff in history or our military is being reshaped for other purposes.

Oh no… GMO?

• State attorney general files suit against GMA for violation of disclosure law

SEATTLE — Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Wednesday that his office is filing a suit against the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) for violation of the state’s campaign disclosure law.

Ferguson alleges the GMA skirted the rules in its $7.2 million contribution to the "No on 522″ campaign and that the association illegally collected and spent the monies while shielding the identify of its contributors.

“When Washington state voters overwhelming approved Initiative 276 in 1972, they voiced their desire for transparency and openness in elections,” Ferguson said. “Truly fair elections demand all sides follow the rules by disclosing who their donors are and how much they are spending to advocate their views.”

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The post Kicking the Can | Unfilter 71 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The shutdown showdown marches on, as both sides double up on the hothead nonsensical rhetoric. But behind the scenes the debate is taking a new direction. A cool analysis of the situation reveals several options are available to settle the standoff. We’ll look at those options, and why big money is preparing for default.

Plus a critical look at the unlimited amounts of money about flow into American politics, the recent military raids in africa, your feedback, our follow up and much much more.

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— Show Notes —

NSA is CRAZY

• Ex-NSA/CIA chief Hayden jokes of putting Snowden on kill list

“I must admit in my darker moments over the past several
months, I’d also thought of nominating Mr. Snowden, but it was
for a different list,” Hayden said during a cybersecurity
panel hosted by the Washington Post.

As the audience laughed, US lawmaker Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman
of the House Intelligence Committee, offered Hayden his support:
“I can help you with that,” he said.

• NSA’s $1.5 Billion Data Center Waylaid by Electrical Nightmare | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

“The failures that occurred during testing have been mitigated. A project of this magnitude requires stringent management, oversight and testing before the government accepts any building,” an NSA spokeswoman told WIRED by email.

But the Wall Street Journal reports that there is disagreement about whether the proposed solutions will work. The Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing construction of the data center, and the electrical system itself was built by architecture firm KlingStubbins, which is a joint venture of three companies: Balfour Beatty Construction, DPR Construction and Big-D Construction Corp. Although the contractors have a fix in place, the cause of the surges — known as “arc fault failures” — is unknown.

• Obama administration decides NSA spying is ‘essential,’ but oversight of NSA is not

While the National Security Agency (NSA) has largely escaped the government shutdown, the panel investigating NSA spying practices haseffectively been frozen. Politico reports that as of Friday, the five-member Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies lost its staff to the furlough associated with the government shutdown.

The group, which is largely comprised of intelligence community and White House insiders, was initially scheduled to remain running during the furlough. However, former acting CIA director Michael Morell declined to attend a scheduled meeting Tuesday, citing the shutdown: “While the work we’re doing is important, it is no more important than — and quite frankly a lot less important — than a lot of the work being left undone by the government shutdown, both in the intelligence community and outside the intelligence community.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to strike down a law prohibiting unlimited campaign contributions.

• Supreme Court Again Weighs Spending Limits in Campaigns – NYTimes.com

“The latest case would go even further than Citizens United,” he said. “It would say anything goes: there are no rules in terms of how to finance campaigns.”

The challengers take issue with separate overall limits of $48,600 every two years for individuals’ contributions to all federal candidates and $74,600 to political party committees. (Federal law continues to ban direct contributions to candidates or political parties from corporations and unions.)

“These limits,” said Erin E. Murphy, a lawyer for Mr. McCutcheon, “simply seek to prevent individuals from engaging in too much First Amendment activity.”

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Shutdown Showdown

• Back in force: Debt limit deniers

“Tough luck,” these people say. The nation spends too much as it is. Blocking a debt ceiling increase will provide the radical shock therapy the nation desperately needs to start living within its means.

“We have 10 times as much tax revenue as we’ve got annual interest on the debt obligations,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said in an interview, offering the key talking point of the debt limit denial caucus. “So if the president does not want us to default on our credit or obligations, we won’t.”

Other members say they based entire campaigns on not boosting the borrowing limit.

“I ran on not raising the debt ceiling,” said Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.). “We will not default. And I think it’s a lot of hype that gets spun in the media.”

• China’s Watching: Stop talking about default

If the dollar were suddenly to lose reserve status, the United States of America would face catastrophic inflation. All the dollars that the Federal Reserve has been creating, at about $85 billion each month, would begin to be dumped right on our heads, and the dollar would become virtually worthless.

More importantly, China has moved aggressively to replace the dollar with its Yuan in all its many, many international trades, including those in Saudi Arabia, Russia, South Korea, Australia, and many other traditional U.S. trading partners. China, with vigorous support from Russia and reluctant support from the other mega-economies in Asia, especially India and Japan, is using treaties which require acceptance of payments in their currency, the Yuan.

• John McCain Calls Out Tea Party Lies, Says GOP “Did the American People a Great Disservice”

“To think that we are going to repeal Obamacare, which would have required 67 Republican votes, of course, was a false premise, and I think did the American people a great disservice by convincing them that somehow we could.”

• US House Revives ‘Supercommittee’ as Debt Default Looms | Defense News | defensenews.com

The chamber voted mostly along party lines, 224–197, to create the “Bicameral Working Group on Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth.” The proposed 20-lawmaker panel would comprise 10 members from each chamber and would be tasked with recommending discretionary spending cuts, “changes in the statutory limit on public debt” and identifying other spending cuts.

Republicans want spending cuts and domestic entitlement program changes in return for a debt-ceiling increase. They say most modern presidents, including Obama twice, have negotiated over the borrowing limit.

• The 5 creepiest things about how the Koch brothers engineered the shutdown

This weekend, The New York Times revealed how the Koch Brothers and Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese engineered this here shutdown we’re dealing with right now, and how they’d been planning it ever since Obama was reelected.

• Banks prepare ‘war rooms’ in case US defaults on debt

The Dow slid nearly 160 points Tuesday, wiping out any gains it made in the past month.

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• Look at who is funding the fight against labeling GMO foods

• Whos Funding the YES labling

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The post The Default Solution | Unfilter 70 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The rampant disfunction of US Government has triggered a partial shutdown for the first time in 17 years after congress failed to break a partisan deadlock. But is the Shutdown a scam? Can tea party members force Obama to neuter his signature legislation while holding the the Federal government hostage? We’ll cut through the crap.

Meanwhile the shutdown shenanigans have provided an excellent distraction from recent major NSA leaks, we’ll dig through the latest outrageous revelations.

Then it’s a little GMO talk, your feedback, and much much more.

On this week’s Unfilter.

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— Show Notes —

NSA is CRAZY

• N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens

Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.

The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said.

• How The NSA Plays a central role in the U.S. assassination program

Over the weekend, investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill told an audience in Brazil that he and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald are working on a project involving “how the National Security Agency plays a significant, central role in the U.S. assassination program.”

We know a bit about the NSA’s connection to America’s global capture/kill machine already.

In the 2010 report “Top secret America,” Dana Priest and Will Arkin of The Washington Post reported that the NSA provided the capture/kill squads of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) with a huge advantage after the signals intelligence agency “learned to locate all electronic signals in Iraq.”

• Qwest CEO who resisted NSA spying is out of prison. And he feels ‘vindicated’ by Snowden leaks.

After his release from custody Sept. 20, Nacchio told the Wall Street Journal that he feels “vindicated” by the content of the leaks that show that the agency was collecting American’s phone records.

Nacchio was convicted of selling of Qwest stock in early 2001, not long before the company hit financial troubles. However, he claimed in court documents that he was optimistic about the firm’s ability to win classified government contracts — something they’d succeeded at in the past. And according to his timeline, in February 2001 — some six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — he was approached by the NSA and asked to spy on customers during a meeting he thought was about a different contract. He reportedly refused because his lawyers believed such an action would be illegal and the NSA wouldn’t go through the FISA Court. And then, he says, unrelated government contracts started to disappear.

• Government shutdown won’t shut down NSA spying

  On Friday, the Defense Department released its plans for dealing with a potential shutdown. In a memo, intelligence and surveillance programs were listed as essential duties of the department not be affected by a shutdown.

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Shutdown Showdown

• Why Boehner doesn’t just ditch the hard right

What we’re seeing is the collapse of institutional Republican power. It’s not so much about Boehner. It’s things like the end of earmarks. They move away from Tom DeLay and they think they’re improving the House, but now they have nothing to offer their members. The outside groups don’t always move votes directly but they create an atmosphere of fear among the members. And so many of these members now live in the conservative world of talk radio and tea party conventions and Fox News invitations.

• Shutdown can’t stop lobbyists from their appointed rounds

“Shutdown can’t stop lobbyists from their appointed rounds,” by Byron Tau: "Beltway lobbyists are making their normal load of Hill meetings and client work happen — in spite of a federal government operating without hundreds of thousands of staffers and …

One of the biggest problems for lobbyists on Capitol Hill on day one of the shutdown was simply getting into the congressional office buildings for the access they need with lobbyists and staff. Massive lines formed Tuesday outside the House and Senate office buildings because the shutdown forced the Capitol complex to reduce the number of open entrances. Even after the morning rush of staffers arriving for work was over, it was common to see lines of nearly 100 people waiting to get into the congressional office buildings. … [David Urban, a lobbyist with the American Continental Group] – ‘being a good lobbyist,’ he joked – [said:] ‘I had one of the staffers come pick us up and he drive us into the garage’ … bypassing the security lines. … ‘I went to a 7:45 a.m. breakfast on the Hill this morning with two congressmen — it was packed and they were on time,’ said Brian Johnson, a tax and trade lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute. ‘With long lines at all the congressional buildings, I’m thankful I’ve built relationships where folks on the Hill will just take a call — most of them, that is.’

• Postal Service defaults on $5.6 billion payment – Oct. 1, 2013

“We have not made the required $5.6 billion Retiree Health Benefits prefunding payment due Sept. 30, 2013,” wrote USPS spokeswomen Patricia Licata in an email to CNNMoney. She added that the default has absolutely nothing to do withthe federal government shutdown. “We have been saying for several months that we will be defaulting on this payment. This is the third time we have [done so],” Licata wrote.

Postal officials have long complained about a Congressional mandate that requires them to set aside billions of dollars for a retiree health care fund each year. The Postal Service also defaulted on these prefund payments last year. In fiscal year 2012, the Postal Service lost a total of $15.9 billion, including $11.1 billion in defaulted payments that it owes to prefund health benefits for retirees.

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The post Shutdown Shenanigans | Unfilter 69 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

This week marked the five-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank, which triggered the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression. And it also marked second anniversary of the start of Occupy Wall Street.

And while the establishment uses false metrics to assure us everything is going in the right direction, the cold numbers paint a much different picture. On the eve of another political showdown that threatens yet another government shutdown, we’ll dig into the fundamental issues that leave us like boiling frogs.

Then it’s your feedback, our follow up, and much much more

On this week’s Unfilter.

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— Show Notes —

NSA is CRAZY

• Snowden’s lawyer: US desperate to get Edward, still a threat to him – YouTube

Who pays for Snowden’s security in Russia?

• Cutting the cord: Brazil’s bold plan to combat the NSA | The Verge

Earlier this month, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff announced plans to create an undersea fiber-optic cable that would funnel internet traffic between South America and Europe, bypassing the US entirely.

• Brazilian president Rousseff: US surveillance a ‘breach of international law’ | World news | The Guardian

Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, has launched a blistering attack on US espionage at the UN general assembly, accusing the NSA of violating international law by its indiscriminate collection of personal information of Brazilian citizens and economic espionage targeted on the country’s strategic industries.
Rousseff’s angry speech was a direct challenge to President Barack Obama, who was waiting in the wings to deliver his own address to the UN general assembly, and represented the most serious diplomatic fallout to date from the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

• NSA planted bugs at Indian missions in D.C., U.N. – The Hindu

  According to a top-secret NSA document obtained by The Hindu, the NSA selected India’s U.N. office and the embassy as “location target” for infiltrating their computers and telephones with hi-tech bugs, which might have given them access to vast quantities of Internet traffic, e-mails, telephone and office conversations and even official documents stored digitally.
  Though emails sent to India’s New York mission have remained unanswered so far, an Indian diplomat told The Hindu that the NSA eavesdropping might have done “extensive damage” to India’s stand on many international issues ranging from UN Security Council reforms to peacekeeping operations. “If they could implant bugs inside communications equipment of European Union office here and tap into their communications cables as well, there is no reason to believe that they didn’t snoop on us,” said the diplomat, speaking strictly on condition of anonymity.

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Economic Dissonance

• How income inequality hurts America – Sep. 25, 2013

“The 400 richest people in the United States have more wealth than the bottom 150 million put together,” said Berkeley Professor and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on a recent CNNMoney panel on inequality.

• Ex-Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich warns about income inequality

Former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich, who served in the Clinton administration, warned during an interview of the perils of widening income inequality in the United States, excessive executive compensation and the future of labor.

Reich is promoting his new documentary, “Inequality for All,” which looks at the income gap and possible solutions. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and won a special jury prize in the documentary competition for director Jacob Kornbluth.

• This Map Will Show You The Staggering Growth In Income Inequality Over The Past 40 Years

To put the staggering rise in income inequality another way: The incomes of the bottom 90 percent of Americans, adjusted for inflation, grew by $59 on average between 1966 and 2011, while the average income of the top 10 percent grew by $116,071 during the same period, according to an analysis by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston.

• Treasury Puts a Date on When Cash May Run Out – Oct. 17

The Treasury will only have $30 billion of cash on hand by mid-October, putting the United States on the precipice of an unprecedented default, the department said on Wednesday.

In the letter, Mr. Lew set Oct. 17 as the effective deadline for Congressional action: after that date, the country would be at severe risk of missing or defaulting on some of its payments every day going forward.

The Treasury makes more than 80 million individual payments a month. After exhausting its extraordinary measures, it would miss about 30 percent of those payments until Congress raised the ceiling again.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Treasury is facing a $12 billion Social Security payment on Oct. 23 and a $6 billion interest payment on the public debt on Oct. 31.

On Nov. 1 alone, it needs to spend $18 billion on Medicare, $25 billion on Social Security, $12 billion on military pay and veterans benefits and $3 billion on the Supplemental Security Income program.

Obamacare Showdown

• Sen. Cruz ends anti-Obamacare talkathon after more than 21 hours – The Washington Post

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) ended his marathon talking attack on President Obama’s health-care law Wednesday after 21 hours and 19 minutes — a feat of stamina that seems likely to complicate House GOP efforts to pass a funding bill aimed at averting a looming government shutdown.

The freshman senator ceded the floor — and got his first opportunity for a bathroom break — at noon, after running up against a deadline imposed by Senate procedural rules

• Premiums unveiled for health overhaul plans – SFGate

Before tax credits that work like an upfront discount for most consumers, sticker-price premiums for a mid-range benchmark plan will average $328 a month nationally for an individual, comparable to payments for a new car.

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The post It’s the Stupid Economy | Unfilter 68 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Mike and Chris contemplate how to gracefully kill a project, end a contract, or quit a job. Then they debate the merits of Google killing Reader, the challenges of Android, and reservations about open sourcing your code.

And much more, on this week’s Coder Radio!

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— Show Notes —

Feedback

• Stephen asks how feel about mobile websites packaged as apps.
• Mike has a two-parter: do you know Binpress? and is starting to have some reservations about open-sourcing his code.
• Alex shares “High Performance Javascript”
• Mike is having issues with Android fragmentation that is resulting in one stars.
• Michal shares his Ubuntu Pomo app

Pick of the week:

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The post License to Kill | CR 42 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Legend of the Stoned Owl, Episode 1: We Preview Bioshock 2, then discuss the shutdown of the original Xbox LIVE service, and what that could mean for digital downloads.

We wrap the whole episode up with a review of the recently released MMO, Star Trek Online, and somehow end up selling the cast on Champions Online!

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Show Info:

Legend of the Stoned Owl is a new show all about video games, the hosts take pride in there in-depth discussion about games, we take a holistic approach to our look at each game.

This show is designed for the audio listener, but we’ve included a video version that captures our screens and matches the flow of conversation that provides the viewer with a visual guide to the topics we discuss. The focus is always on the content, and not the hosts.

If you enjoy Legend of the Stoned Owl, be sure to grab one of our feeds to get the show when we release:

Show Notes:

NEWS

Fallout New Vegas coming out Fall 2010
Splinter Cell Conviction release date 4/13/10

REVIEW

Star Trek Online Released 4/2/10

The post Bioshock 2 Preview & STO Review | LOTSO 001 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.