Show Notes: linuxunplugged.com/369

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Show Notes: techsnap.systems/407

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Show Notes:

techtalk.today/279

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Links

• XPS 13 Developer Edition
• rikailp – Twitch
• GeekGamerTV – Twitch
• MNGrrl comments on FCC Now Says There Is No Documented ‘Analysis’ of the Cyberattack It Claims Crippled Its Website in May
• Verizon accused of throttling Netflix and YouTube, admits to “video optimization”
• FCC Now Says There Is No Documented ‘Analysis’ of the Cyberattack It Claims Crippled Its Website in May
• Open Internet
• Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition – Official site

The post Selling Your Soul | User Error 18 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Yahoo might be turning into the next AOL, Cyanogen Inc switches to Apps, 3D printing finger prints to login, GPU power on demand & the farming Robot that can heal your garden shame.

Plus Chris gets serious about sleep tech & our Kickstarter of the week!

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Links:

• Verizon is buying Yahoo for $4.8 billion – YouTube
• Yahoo’s remaining assets to rebrand after sale to Verizon in 2017 | TechCrunch
• Cyanogen Inc. reportedly fires OS development arm, switches to apps
• AMD MxGPU – The World’s First Hardware Virtualized GPU – YouTube
• Michigan police 3-D printing murder victim’s fingers to try to unlock his phone
• This farming robot can automatically grow food in your backyard garden – Tech Insider
• ‘Marijuana Tampon’ Might Be the End of Your Period Cramps – Natural Healing
• Sleep as Android – Android Apps on Google Play
• SleepCloud study – Sleep as Android
• SleepCloud Data
• Chris Fisher on Twitter: “Do any of you use Sleep as Android (with SleepCloud)? Do your REM sleep stats look this bad? I need more data!
• SleepyHead CPAP Review Software

Kickstarter of the Week:

• The Superbook: Turn your smartphone into a laptop for $99 by Andromium Inc. — Kickstarter

The post Farming out Yahoo! | TTT 253 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Mike shares his recent Linux switch experience & why he thinks it might stick this time. We chew on Verizon buying Yahoo & the grief Marissa Mayer is getting.

Plus we congratulate the winner of last week’s challenge & announce the next one!

Thanks to:

• Get Paid to Write for DigitalOcean

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— Show Notes: —

Hoopla:

Verizon to acquire Yahoo’s operating business

Dear Yahoos,

Moments ago, we announced an agreement with Verizon to acquire Yahoo’s operating business.

• Sad Yahoo Sale Confirms That Marissa Mayer Failed

Whatever her future role, the Verizon sale is a blunt admission that Mayer’s grand resuscitation plan for Yahoo failed. She tried valiantly to inject some life into the company—with acquisitions, layoffs, splashy hires, and a way-too-late emphasis on mobile, among other strategies—but ultimately, it wasn’t enough.

Bad press from just the last few months:

• Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Thoroughly Failed on Promise to Not Screw Up Tumblr – Breitbart
• Marissa Mayer: A Case Study In Poor Leadership – Forbes
• As Marissa Mayer fails, Yahoo goes on the block – Deduced Reckoning
• Faith in Yahoo shaken as CEO Marissa Mayer’s turnaround plan fails – Times of India
• Marissa Mayer Has Become A Symbol Of Silicon Valley’s Disastrous Tokenism – Breitbart
• Failed Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Could Get $55M Parachute
• Marissa Mayer Yahoo CEO Under Attack
• Is Yahoo’s Mayer still ‘amazing’ or simply ‘failed’? – MarketWatch

Coding Challenge

Going through #CoderRadio coding contest submissions @ChrisLAS @Xaccary pic.twitter.com/qTgO85SdgM

— Michael Dominick (@dominucco) July 23, 2016

• Kyle’s Python Solution

Episode 215 Katy Perry Coding Challenge

I have a Pery colorful coding challenge for #CoderRadio fans this week @ChrisLAS

— Michael Dominick (@dominucco) July 25, 2016

• Make Mike an app that creates a Youtube playlist of or otherwise allows him to play his favorite Katy Perry music videos: Dark Horse, Roar, This is How We Do, Teenage Dream, Last Friday Night, International + + Smile and Unconditionally.
• The app must take advantage of the browser having his Youtube Red account cached for commercial viewing or he must be able to auth with his Youtube Red account to achieve the same.
• All solutions must be tablet friendly

Rocking the Ratel

The post Real Life on the Ratel | CR 215 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Verizon Enterprise gets breached & the irony is strong with this one, details on the NPM fiasco & why the SAMSAM is holding up the doctor.

Plus some great questions, a packed round up & much, much more!

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• Get Paid to Write for DigitalOcean

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The NPM Fiasco

• NPM is a package manager, for node.js
• The Node.js ecosystem is “special”
• It provides packages that are mostly code snippets, usually individual functions
• Many packages, depend on a number of other packages to work correctly
• For example, the package ‘isArray’, which is a one-line function to tell if an object is an array, is depended upon by 72 other packages
• There was a package called ‘kik’, created by Azer Koçulu
• Kik.com, a mobile messaging app, wanted to create their own new package, called kik, for some new open source project
• Unpleasant discussions occurred
• Eventually kik.com had the NPM managers transfer ownership of the kik package name to the kik.com account
• Azer was offended by this, and deleted all of his packages from NPM (around 250 different packages)
• This fallout had unintended consequences
• One of the modules, left-pad, was a simple 11 line function to left-pad a string or number with spaces or zeros.
• Left-pad had been downloaded 2,486,696 times in the last month
• It was a dependency for a huge number projects, including: Node.js it self, Babel,
• NPM then restored the module to unbreak the other applications
• module’s author’s Medium.com post
• kik.com’s Medium.com post
• Official NPM blog post
• Blog Post: Have we forgotten how to program?
• Left-pad as a service
• “The fact that this is possible with NPM seems really dangerous. The author unpublished (erm, “liberated”) over 250 NPM modules, making those global names (e.g. “map”, “alert”, “iframe”, “subscription”, etc) available for anyone to register and replace with any code they wish. Since these libs are now baked into various package.json configuration files (some with 10s of thousands of installs per month, “left-pad” with 2.5M/month), meaning a malicious actor could publish a new patch version bump (for every major and minor version combination) of these libs and ship whatever they want to future npm builds.”

Verizon Enterprise Customer Data Breached

• “Verizon Enterprise Solutions, a B2B unit of the telecommunications giant that gets called in to help Fortune 500’s respond to some of the world’s largest data breaches, is reeling from its own data breach involving the theft and resale of customer data, KrebsOnSecurity has learned”
• “Earlier this week, a prominent member of a closely guarded underground cybercrime forum posted a new thread advertising the sale of a database containing the contact information on some 1.5 million customers of Verizon Enterprise”
• “The seller priced the entire package at $100,000, but also offered to sell it off in chunks of 100,000 records for $10,000 apiece. Buyers also were offered the option to purchase information about security vulnerabilities in Verizon’s Web site”
• “Verizon recently discovered and remediated a security vulnerability on our enterprise client portal,” the company said in an emailed statement. “Our investigation to date found an attacker obtained basic contact information on a number of our enterprise customers. No customer proprietary network information (CPNI) or other data was accessed or accessible.”
• So it seems to just be contact details from a database on the website, not more intimate details like login credentials for their networks, or other details that Verizon would posses as they administers and investigated the networks of the customers
• It appears the data is in MongoDB format, which suggests that might be the format it was stored in on the Verizon side
• “The irony in this breach is that Verizon Enterprise is typically the one telling the rest of the world how these sorts of breaches take place. I frequently recommend Verizon’s annual Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) because each year’s is chock full of interesting case studies from actual breaches, case studies that include hard lessons which mostly age very well (i.e., even a DBIR report from four years ago has a great deal of relevance to today’s security challenges).”
• “According to the 2015 report, for example, Verizon Enterprise found that organized crime groups were the most frequently seen threat actor for Web application attacks of the sort likely exploited in this instance. “Virtually every attack in this data set (98 percent) was opportunistic in nature, all aimed at easy marks,” the company explained.”
• While this attack may have been more targeted in nature. Although it is possible it was just opportunistic, because Verizon failed to secure its database
• Customers of Verizon who’s data was breached are likely targets for various types of spear phishing, including emails pretending to be from Verizon, who provides network security and post-breach investigation services to these customers

Cisco Talos reveals SAMSAM ransom ware

• Cisco Talos is currently observing a widespread campaign leveraging the Samas/Samsam/MSIL.B/C ransomware variant. Unlike most ransomware, SamSam is not launched via user focused attack vectors, such as phishing campaigns and exploit kits.
• This particular family seems to be distributed via compromising servers and using them as a foothold to move laterally through the network to compromise additional machines which are then held for ransom.
• A particular focus appears to have been placed on the healthcare industry.
• Adversaries have been seen leveraging JexBoss, an open source tool for testing and exploiting JBoss application servers, to gain a foothold in the network. Once they have access to the network they proceed to encrypt multiple Windows systems using SamSam.
• Upon compromising the system the sample will launch a samsam.exe process which begins the process of encrypting files on the system.
• SamSam encrypts various file types (see Appendix A) with Rijndael and then encrypts that key with RSA-2048 bit encryption. This makes the files unrecoverable unless the author made a mistake in the implementation of the encryption algorithms.
• One interesting note regarding the samples Talos has observed is that the malware will abort the encryption routine if the system is running a version of Microsoft Windows prior to Vista. This is likely done for compatibility reasons.
• There were a couple of open source tools that were seen being leveraged by the adversaries. The first is JexBoss, which is a testing and exploitation framework for JBoss application servers.
• This was being used as an initial infection vector to gain a foothold in the network to spread the ransomware.
• The second is a component of REGeorg, tunnel.jsp. REGeorg is an open source framework to create socks proxies for communication.
• As we have monitored this activity, we have started to see changes in the amount and types of payment options available to victims. Initially, we saw a payment option of 1 bitcoin for each PC that has been infected.
• Later we saw the price for a single system has been raised to 1.5 bitcoin. It is likely the malware author is trying to see how much people will pay for their files.
• They even added an option for bulk decryption of 22 bitcoin to decrypt all infected systems.

Feedback:

• Peer to Peer Comms
• SNMP vs Syslog
• Backing up a FreeNAS box.

 
HEADS UP Stand ready to patch all of your Windows, Linux, BSD, OS X, iOS, Android, and other servers. And all of your routers, print servers, set-top boxes, smart TVs, IoT devices. And basically anything with a CPU. The “BADLOCK” bug will be releaved on April 12th, 2016 , a critical vulnerability in the SMB protocol, so affects Windows and all other implementations of the protocol (samba, whatever apple uses, whatever android uses, etc)

Round up:

• Docker for Mac and Windows Beta: the simplest way to use Docker on your laptop
• Krebs: Stolen credit cards are now a buyers market, a look inside “Joker’s Stash” to find out
• Microsoft deletes ‘teen girl’ AI after it became a Hitler-loving sex robot within 24 hours
• Spammers and Phishers abusing open redirectors on .GOV domains to hide link destinations
• Once thought safe, DDR4 memory shown to be vulnerable to “Rowhammer”
• Apple suspects server tampering during shipping
• A Government Error Just Revealed Snowden Was the Target in the Lavabit Case
• A proposal for SSTS, a version of HSTS for SMTP — My server claims it will ALWAYS support crypto, if you ever see it not, someone is intercepting the connection
• By boosting the radio signal of your contactless car keys, theives can unlock and start 24 models of car while the owner is 300 feet away, and indoors
• AMEX reveals more about stolen card data
• The firm helping the FBI hack the iPhone may be Cellebrite
• Hackers accidently break into Water Treatment Plant, modify parameters by accident. No one was harmed
• Vulnerability in 70 CCTV DVRs Traced Back to Chinese Firm Who Ignores Researcher
• A cross-site scripting vulnerability, in the national vulnerability database, the site you use to find out about… cross-site scripting vulnerabilities
• Feds arrest man apparently responsible for The Fappening
• Facebook and Wikipedia offer a limited version of the internet in Angola, allowing access to only those two sites. Angola’s embed other sites, and pirated movies into the sites to share access

The post Can You Hack Me Now? | TechSNAP 259 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The open web is being locked down by the very companies that try to slice it up and sell it to you byte by byte. We discuss the major moves big telcos are taking to intrench the incumbents online.

Microsoft drops some more open source code & Tokyo’s rolling out the “drone squad”. Plus a very risqué Kickstarter of the week!

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• Tech Talk Today SWAG for the Holidays

Show Notes:

— Episode Links —

• Wired and Gizmodo both claim to have possibly found the creator of Bitcoin | Ars Technica
• Verizon to Start Testing Sponsored Data in Coming Days | Re/code
• AT&T Building Massive Fiber Network That Barely Exists – Slashdot
• Tokyo’s drone squad will deploy 10-foot drones armed with nets to police the sky | Ars Technica
• Microsoft releases Windows Live Writer as open source • The Register
• Kickstarter hires journalist to investigate Europe’s biggest crowdfunding failure

Kickstarter of the week: Penis candles for the world by Amanda Murphy —Kickstarter

End of Show Clip:

• Building the Steam Controller

The post Toll Free Exploitation | TTT 226 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Verizon’s super cookie just got nastier, Facebook has plans for free Internet from space & Google launches AMP, Accelerated Mobile Pages Project for a faster, open mobile web.

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— Episode Links —

• FAA Proposes $1.9 Million Fine For Unauthorized Drone Use
• Verizon’s Zombie Cookie Gets New Life
• Official Google Blog: Introducing the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project, for a faster, open mobile web
• Accelerated Mobile Pages Project, Backed By Google, Promises Faster Pages
• Carriers are Making More From Mobile Ads than Publishers Are — Medium
• Facebook to beam free internet to Africa with satellites
• Elon Musk’s satellite Internet project takes another step forward

The post Creeper Cookies | TTT 215 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Verizon has bought AOL in a big media push by the telco giant. Google’s self driving cars drive 1.7M miles & get in 11 wrecks… But there is a twist!

Plus Ubuntu, GE & Microsoft team of for Network connect fridges & more!

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In Big Media Push, Verizon Buys AOL For $4.4B [Memo From AOL CEO Tim Armstrong] | TechCrunch

AOL will become a subsidiary of Verizon as part of the deal, overseeing a bigger push into content and mobile video by Verizon.

“Verizon’s acquisition further drives its LTE wireless video and OTT (over-the-top video) strategy,” the carrier said in a statement.

In addition to original content across different platforms like video and written word, and desktop and mobile, there are other assets that could be interesting fits for Verizon.

For starters, AOL has been building up a programmatic advertising business to build up how AOL monetizes alongside newer formats like video and mobile. Currently that business — which is the fastest growing operation at AOL in terms of revenues — is split between ads on AOL-owned sites and third-party sites. Verizon picking this up could potentially further build out both, with the company partnering with the likes of ESPN to develop content and also giving the AOL-owned properties potentially much bigger audiences.

Google’s self-driving car head says after 1.7M miles, just 11 minor accidents have resulted, none Google’s fault

Over the 6 years since we started the project, we’ve been involved in 11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during those 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel, and not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident.

Google Confirms Cops Can Wiretap Your Hangouts

Hangouts is encrypted “in transit” and that “there are legal authorities that allow the government to wiretap communications.”

Microsoft Investing In Submarine Cables In Support Of Cloud

Microsoft is investing in several submarine cables to connect data centers globally and in support of growing data network needs.

​Ubuntu jumps into Internet of Things with Acer, GE, and Microsoft | ZDNet

Old enemies are becoming new allies as technology shifts from the PC/desktop model to first mobile computing and now the Internet of Things (IoT). Canonical, Ubuntu Linux’s parent company, is partnering with Acer, DataArt, and Microsoft.

The post Hangouts On The Record | Tech Talk Today 169 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Microsoft suffers a few major set back today & one rather important win. We’ll break it all down and talk about the long-term impact. Plus Google and the EU get into a tussle & Ikea has the solution to your power hungry smart device.

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Yahoo renews Microsoft search partnership – Business Insider

There are two major changes.

• Yahoo was responsible for the sales relationships for Bing search ads under the partnerships previously. All of those sales relationships are going to come under Microsoft in the coming months.
• The new deal now only requires Yahoo to pull a majority of its traffic from the Bing ads marketplace. Just 51%, rather than the 100% it was required to pull before. That means the other 49% of Yahoo’s search traffic could be monetized by Yahoo’s own ad units or by another search provider, like Google.

The are some HUGE ramifications:

• Yahoo has a lot of flexibility with the 49% of its search traffic that doesn’t have to be monetized by Bing. It could sell that traffic to Google, for example. That would immediately boost Yahoo’s revenues. One reason that may not happen is that, back in 2009, Yahoo tried to do a search ads deal with Google, and the Department of Justice scared Google out of it. Also, Mayer talks a lot about Yahoo’s own ads product, Gemini.
• Yahoo will probably be able to cut costs, shrinking its search ads sales force.
• Microsoft will have to hire a search ads force over the next couple months.

Verizon and AT&T Won’t Pre-Install Three Microsoft Apps on Samsung S6 – Digits – WSJ

Google and the EU — What’s Next? | Re/code

Google’s antitrust standoff with the European Union, a tumultuous legal tug-of-war begun in February 2010, reached a climax this morning with the EU laying the foundation for a formal complaint against Google for abusing its market position.

WikiLeaks Releases an Archive of Hacked Sony Emails

Microsoft will bundle its apps on Cyanogen’s Android OS | The Verge

Rumors of a Microsoft and Cyanogen partnership have been making the rounds recently, and the Android mod maker is confirming them today. In an email to The Verge, Cyanogen says it’s partnering with Microsoft to integrate the software giant’s consumer apps and services into the Cyanogen OS. Bing, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Microsoft Office will all be bundled later this year. As part of the partnership, Microsoft has committed to creating “native integrations” on Cyanogen OS.

These native integrations will likely result in increased integration for Microsoft’s apps and services in a way the company has been trialling recently with Android. Microsoft has experimented with a number of Android apps, and even a Next Lock Screen that aims to replace the traditional lock screen of Google’s Android OS. These experiments, and Microsoft’s many Android apps, are all aimed at pulling consumers away from Google services on Android.

Ikea Catalog

The post Microsoft Bumps, Bruises & Bribes | Tech Talk Today 158 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

A court injunction demands Apple, Google, and Microsoft remove a “forbidden” app off thousands of users phones, reports claim Verizon is launching its own app store, which they have flat out denied & we acknowledge the sunset of a PC classic.

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Verizon denies plan to launch its own Android app store (update) | The Verge

Verizon is going to launch its own app store in an effort to compete with the Google Play Store on Android devices, claims a report from The Information. The new store will be available globally and is the result of a partnership with other carriers and hardware makers, says the report. In 2010, Verizon Wireless launched a similar app store for Android and BlackBerry smartphones in the US, but it shuttered it in January 2013. The Information says the discussions for a new app store are still in an early stage, and there is not a concrete date for when it would launch.

However, Recode received a statement from Verizon saying that the carrier had no plans to offer a new app store. “We have no plans to do that,” Verizon spokeswoman Debra Lewis said. “Been there. Done that.” Amir Efrati from _The Information _tweeted the following in response: “I and @theinformation stand by this report 100%.” Efrait also said that “Verizon’s comment is misleading.”

The Information claims that this new effort is a response to recent cutbacks from Google in revenue sharing with carriers and hardware makers for apps sold through the Google Play Store. Verizon would be stemming future losses with its own app store, as revenues from app store sales are expected to grow significantly over the next few years. The report says that Verizon would also use data like location, time of day, and social indicators to recommend apps to users.

Brazil Court Issues Injunction Against Secret And Calls For App To Be Remotely Wiped | TechCrunch

A court in Brazil has ruled (via UOL) that Apple and Google must remove Secret, the anonymous social networking app, from their mobile software stores — and also from user devices where it’s already installed. The court has issued a preliminary injunction in the case, pending the results of a final ruling, as a result of a complaints by users harmed by rumors spread via the app, who said that the app was used to share an “intimate photo” of him, which included personal identifying information including his full name and telephone number.

The injunction actually goes so far as to require that the companies remotely wipe the app from existing devices. That’s a tall order, of course, but the court has also applied a fine of around $9,000 per day following a 10-day grace period in case the rules haven’t been followed.

Uber Opens Its API With 11 Launch Partners, Including OpenTable, TripAdvisor, and United Airlines | TechCrunch

Today, the company is announcing its API will become available to app developers, with 11 launch partners already signed up.

For Uber, the introduction of its API is designed to increase reach and get it in front of lots of new potential users. The company is in 150 cities and nearly 50 countries around the world, but there are untold number of users who might not have tried its service. Showing up in other apps that those users already have installed is a simple way to introduce them to getting an Uber on-demand.

While it’s trying to appeal to as many app developers as possible, to start Uber is launching with 11 API partners that have already committed to introducing Uber to their users. Those apps include Expensify, Hinge, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Momento, OpenTable, Starbucks, Tempo, Time Out, TripAdvisor, TripCase, and United Airlines.

Samsung’s first Nook tablet arrives at Barnes & Noble today for $179 | The Verge

Samsung is becoming Barnes & Noble’s first partner to create a Nook-branded tablet today with the unveiling and release of the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook. The name is a mouthful, but it basically means that the tablet is a rebranded version of Samsung’s existing Galaxy Tab 4 tablet — part of its low-end line — that’s now been customized with some Nook software. The tablet has a 7-inch, 1280 x 800 display and will sell for $179.

Feedback:

• If Distros were super hereos thread

Blizzard Not Expecting Major World Of Warcraft Growth

In a recent interview with MCV, World of Warcraft lead designer Tom Chilton admitted that Blizzard isn’t expecting to see the MMORPG grow like it did prior to the Cataclysm release. That’s likely because the subscription numbers have been on a steady decline since 4Q 2010

As of Q2 2014, World of Warcraft had 6.8 million subscribers. The upcoming fifth expansion pack, Warlords of Draenor, is expected to bring some players back. Previously, Blizzard indicated that it’s not unusual to see customers cancel their subscription until a new expansion arrives. Once that’s consumed, they will cancel again and wait for new content.

Last week, Blizzard announced that the upcoming Warlords of Draenor will be released on November 13, 2014.

The post Brazil Remote Wipes Your Junk | Tech Talk Today 47 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Satya Nadella makes his first big move as Microsoft’s CEO and announces their year long plan to cut 18,000 jobs. Netflix takes the first for net neutrality straight to the FCC, Google starts to embrace Bitcoin, and a classic game getting a new life.

Plus why we might see more mobile spectrum soon, and more!

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Microsoft Will Cut up to 18,000 Jobs | Re/code

Microsoft on Thursday announced it plans to cut up to 18,000 jobs this year–its deepest-ever cuts–as the company looked to digest its Nokia acquisition and reposition itself for the future.

The company is “moving now” on 13,000 of the job cuts, with the vast majority of the overall cuts coming in the next six months and fully implemented over the next 12 months.

Some 12,500 of the cuts are coming from the Nokia Devices and Services unit–roughly half that unit’s workforce.

• Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote:

“The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign our workforce,” Nadella said in a note to employees Thursday. “It’s important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we are adding roles in certain other strategic areas. My promise to you is that we will go through this process in the most thoughtful and transparent way possible.”

• Microsoft announces massive layoffs, kills Nokia X phones

Not unsurprisingly, Nadella specifically announced the end of the Nokia X Android endeavour.

In addition, we plan to shift select Nokia X product designs to become Lumia products running Windows. This builds on our success in the affordable smartphone space and aligns with our focus on Windows Universal Apps.

Microsoft stock hits decade high ahead of layoffs – Neowin

• MSFT: 44.08 +1.63 (+3.84%) : Microsoft Corporation – Yahoo! Finance
• Microsoft Corporation: NASDAQ:MSFT quotes & news – Google Finance

Sprint, T-Mobile Look to Raise $10 Billion for Spectrum Auction – WSJ

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking to buy airwaves used by television broadcasters in a reverse auction, and then resell them to wireless carriers in a forward auction. It is a complicated process and the first time such an idea has been tried, the FCC said.

Sprint and T-Mobile are working on a plan to raise roughly $10 billion to spend in an auction of wireless airwaves, people familiar with the matter said.

If Sprint and T-Mobile jointly spend $10 billion as currently envisioned, it would exceed the $9 billion outlay AT&T Inc. has earmarked for the auction.

The companies, which have been discussing a possible merger since last year, are planning to form a joint venture that will bid in a 2015 auction of airwaves held by television broadcasters, the people said.

The funds are part of a roughly $45 billion financing package being put together by SoftBank to finance Sprint’s acquisition of T-Mobile, the people said. SoftBank acquired Sprint last year for $22 billion.

T-Mobile would oversee the venture, a concession from Sprint’s Chairman during the merger talks, people familiar with the matter said.

An announcement of the merger could come this summer, people familiar with the matter said.

Google Search Integrates Bitcoin Price Calculator

The news comes roughly one month after Google Finance partnered with Coinbase to launch a bitcoin price tracker that enabled BTC-to-fiat price conversions across a wide range of global currencies.

A representative from Google confirmed the update to CoinDesk, noting that the tool works on Google Search’s smartphone app as well.

How it works

Google search engine users can now type in basic queries such as “bitcoin price” or “price of BTC” in order to instantly access the tool.

The update also handles more complex queries including “price of 3 bitcoin” or “5 BTC”, and responds by showing the current price of bitcoin along with a chart illustrating the currency’s history dating back before 2011.

Investors should note, however, that per Google’s disclaimer policies, the resulting search may not reflect real-time value.

Netflix to FCC: reclassify Comcast and Verizon so they can’t choke the internet

Netflix came out swinging in its submission to the FCC over proposed internet “fast lanes,” arguing Wednesday that this would be a bad idea and that the agency should instead focus on forcing broadband providers to deliver the speeds they promise to their customers.

In its 28-page filing, which coincides with the close of an initial public comment period, Netflix singled out Comcast and Verizon for degrading its movie streams to “nearly VHS quality” and for holding subscribers ransom in a battle over who should pay for upgrades to internet infrastructure.

The company also took aim at the FCC’s “fast lane” proposal, arguing that it creates a perverse incentive for the ISPs to create congestion so that they can then turn around and demand money for traffic to pass through. Arguing that “no rule is better than a bad rule,”

Project AM2R – “Another Metroid 2 Remake”: AM2R runs on Linux!

The developer recently transitioned to Game Maker Studio. In the process, many features had to be redone from scratch, so Linux support was written in too. Early builds show very good promise, and an offical build should be avaiable soon.

The post The Great Microsoft Purge | Tech Talk Today 28 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Great news for Nexus lovers, and how Google builds Android for specific devices, YouTube announces 60 frames per-second support and crowd funding.

Plus never get trapped by a speed camera again, and Germany pushes back against Verizon’s NSA cooperation.

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— Headlines —

No, Google Isn’t Going To Kill Its Nexus Devices

Every time Google releases a new named and numbered version of Android, it also announces a new Nexus device, built by one of Google’s top manufacturing partners like LG or Samsung. Dave Burke, the head of Android engineering and the Nexus program at Google, says that the company plans to keep doing just that.

“People just get excited by concepts and forget why we do things,” Burke told me in an interview. “We are still invested in Nexus.”

Burke would not discuss Silver. “Android Silver is not something that we are commenting on right now,” he said. But the prospect of Silver doesn’t mean that Nexus is going away.

You can’t build a platform in the abstract, you have to build a device (or devices). So, I don’t think can can or will ever go away. And then, I think Nexus is also interesting in that it is a way of us explaining how we think Android should run. It is a statement, almost a statement of purity in some respects. I don’t see why we would ever turn away from that, it wouldn’t make sense.

YouTube introduces 60fps video and crowdfunding )

First up is the news that YouTube will soon be introducing
support for 48 and 60 frames per second. In the announcement on the
YouTube Creators blog gamers have been singled out as the group
that this will most benefit

Also new is fan funding, which has been hinted at for a while. The feature will allow fans to contribute money to your channel at any time for any reason and will be introduced soon. This will make a huge difference to those whose channels aren’t necessarily big enough to benefit from ad revenue. YouTube has already got a handful of creators to sign up to test this out across both desktop and Android.

The car that outsmarts speed cameras

Speed camera fines could become a thing of the past if Hyundai has its way.

The brand is set to sell a luxury sedan in Australia that is capable of outsmarting speed cameras with a combination of GPS and braking technology.

Speaking in Seoul at the launch of the Hyundai Genesis, company spokesman Guido Schenken told journalists that the car could identify speed cameras and slow down if drivers are going too fast.

Over NSA worries, Germany ends government contract with Verizon | Ars Technica

Germany has opted not to renew its government contract with Verizon, citing concerns over spying by the National Security Agency. The contract will expire in 2015.

In a German-language statement (Google Translate) posted to the Ministry of the Interior’s website, Berlin noted that it needs “an infrastructure with an increased level of security.”

Verizon has maintained the contract since 2010.

“There are indications that Verizon is legally required to provide certain things to the NSA, and that’s one of the reasons the cooperation with Verizon won’t continue,” Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate told reporters, according to the Associated Press.

• Germany accuses US of spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone | Ars Technica

SELF2014: The Linux Game Industry – YouTube

The post Linux Got Your Goat | Tech Talk Today 20 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The best stories from day 0 of E3 and we debate about the value of the Playstation TV. Plus it’s round two of Netflix vs Verizon, and we debunk the recent Turing test story.

Plus feedback, calls, and more!

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E3 2014 day one: everything you need to know

The first day of E3 2014 has come and gone, and it did not disappoint. All four major press conferences brought new games, footage, and excitement for PC gamers. Did you miss the fun? Don\’t worry: we\’re here to help. Here\’s our round-up of day one at E3 2014.

E3 2014: PlayStation TV Coming to North America

With support for PlayStation Now, Vita titles, and PS1 and PSP classics, PlayStation TV owners will have access to over 1000 games when it launches for $99 USD.

At E3 2014, Microsoft\’s Xbox One focus is all about games

The takeaway: Trust us, we\’ve listened and learned since last year — the Xbox One entertainment vision is in the backseat, and it\’s now all about the games.

"Today we are dedicating our entire briefing to games" – Phil Spencer, Microsoft Game Studios #E32014 #E3 pic.twitter.com/2yM7TmRhut

— Re/code (@Recode) June 9, 2014

• Twitter / Recode

\”Today we are dedicating our entire briefing to games\” – Phil Spencer, Microsoft Game Studios

E3 Winners & Losers: Day Zero

• Batman: Arkham Knight

TheGodEmperor has an amazing List compiled of Platform Exclusives and multi-plat

No, A \’Supercomputer\’ Did NOT Pass The Turing Test For The First Time And Everyone Should Know Better

Okay, almost everything about the story is bogus. Let\’s dig in:

1. It\’s not a \”supercomputer,\” it\’s a chatbot. It\’s a script made to mimic human conversation. There is no intelligence, artificial or not involved. It\’s just a chatbot.
2. Plenty of other chatbots have similarly claimed to have \”passed\” the Turing test in the past (often with higher ratings). Here\’s a story from three years ago about another bot, Cleverbot, \”passing\” the Turing Test by convincing 59% of judges it was human (much higher than the 33% Eugene Goostman) claims.
3. It \”beat\” the Turing test here by \”gaming\” the rules — by telling people the computer was a 13-year-old boy from Ukraine in order to mentally explain away odd responses.
4. The \”rules\” of the Turing test always seem to change. Hell, Turing\’s original test was quite different anyway.
5. As Chris Dixon points out, you don\’t get to run a single test with judges that you picked and declare you accomplished something. That\’s just not how it\’s done. If someone claimed to have created nuclear fusion or cured cancer, you\’d wait for some peer review and repeat tests under other circumstances before buying it, right?
6. The whole concept of the Turing Test itself is kind of a joke. While it\’s fun to think about, creating a chatbot that can fool humans is not really the same thing as creating artificial intelligence. Many in the AI world look on the Turing Test as a needless distraction.

• The heat is on: Honeywell is finally challenging the Nest thermostat

It\’s a $279 Wi-Fi thermostat (available today to purchase through HVAC contractors; it\’ll be available in Lowe\’s stores by August) that is one of the most visually appealing products in the space, as well as an obvious response to the Nest Learning thermostat. But perhaps more importantly, Lyric is also a platform. The company\’s ambition is to launch a full suite of Lyric products that can all be controlled your smartphone.

Netflix to suspend its controversial ISP error messages

• Response to Demand Letter

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The post Netflix, E3 and Turing Myth | Tech Talk Today 6 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The FCC wants to carve out a fast lane for those who can afford it, is this the end of Net Neutrality, or are we all over reacting? We’ll analyze the situation.

Pro-Russian militants overtake more Ukraine Government buildings, and the new government is calling uncle.

Plus Colorado re-thinks their edible Cannabis rules, but something smells fishy, our follow up, and much much more!

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— Show Notes —

NSA is Crazy

Snowden hired an Espionage Act defense lawyer to work on a U.S. plea deal

Whistleblower Edward Snowden reportedly hired a lawyer in an attempt to cut a plea deal with the U.S. government.

Plato Cacheris, regarded as an expert in the Espionage Act—violation of which is the main charge brought against Snowden—has been working for Snowden since he leaked a host of National Security Agency documents last summer, according to the New York Times.

The End of Net Neutrality

F.C.C., in a Shift, Backs Fast Lanes for Web Traffic

The Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday that it would propose new rules that allow companies like Disney, Google or Netflix to pay Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon for special, faster lanes to send video and other content to their customers.

FCC’s new net neutrality proposal: What do we really know?

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal is scheduled to be released to the public on May 15, when the commission plans to vote on the first step in a long process to reinstate net neutrality rules shot down by an appeals court in January.

The first criticisms of Wheeler’s proposal came shortly after the Wall Street Journal broke a story Wednesday saying the FCC proposal would allow broadband providers to charge Web businesses for access to their fastest service.

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler.

The 1,300-word story was short on details, with only one or two paragraphs describing the proposal, and most of the rest of the story focused on reactions and on the history of the net neutrality fight.

• Franken says FCC Net neutrality proposal would “destroy” open Internet

Sen. Al Franken criticized as “misguided” a plan being considered by the FCC’s head to let companies pay for preferential access to ISPs, warning that it would “destroy” the concept of an open Internet.

In a letter sent to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Tuesday, Franken said that the idea would constitute “an affront to Net neutrality and have no place in an online marketplace that values competition and openness.”

“Your proposal would grant Verizon, Comcast, and other ISPs the power to pick winners and losers on the Internet, which violates core Net neutrality principles that you have publicly supported in the past. Although you claim that this proposal is not a ”turnaround,“ it is difficult to understand how it does not flatly contradict your own Commission’s Open Internet Order.”

• FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Hits Back at ‘Net Neutrality’ Critics

In a strongly-worded and occasionally defensive blog post published Tuesday, Wheeler declared that he is a “strong believer in the importance of an Open Internet,” and said that his priority is to quickly craft new net neutrality rules that would withstand legal challenges.

What will happen at the FCC meeting on May 15?

The FCC is scheduled to vote on a notice of proposed rulemaking, or NPRM, addressing the new net neutrality plan. In an NPRM, the commission releases a set of proposals and asks for public comment on them. It’s the first step in a long process for the FCC to pass new regulations.

Because of the controversy over the proposal, the FCC has already begun taking email comments at openinternet@fcc.gov.

After Comcast, Netflix signs traffic deal with Verizon

Netflix just confirmed that it will pay Verizon for direct access through the carrier’s network, allowing for improved streaming video for customers. According to a brief statement, “We have reached an interconnect arrangement with Verizon that we hope will improve performance for our joint customers over the coming months.” The announcement mirrors a similar peering deal inked earlier this year made by Netflix and Comcast, and likely won’t be the last of its kind.

• Netflix US & Canada Blog: The Case Against ISP Tolls

For a content company such as Netflix, paying an ISP like Comcast for interconnection is not the same as paying for Internet transit. Transit networks like Level3, XO, Cogent and Tata perform two important services: (1) they carry traffic over long distances and (2) they provide access to every network on the global Internet. When Netflix connects directly to the Comcast network, Comcast is not providing either of the services typically provided by transit networks.

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Ukraine

Ukrainian President Says Security Forces ‘Helpless’ Against Militias in East – NYTimes.com

As pro-Russian gunmen seized another city in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, the country’s acting president said that the government’s police and security officials were “helpless” to control events in large swaths of the region, where at least a dozen cities are now in the hands of separatists.

With the admission by the country’s acting leader, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, that major chunks of the country had slipped from the government’s grasp, the long-simmering conflict in Ukraine seemed to enter a new and more dangerous phase.

Kerry: U.S. Taped Moscow’s Calls to Its Ukraine Spies

Recording “Obtained” by the Daily Beast

The United States has proof that the Russian government in Moscow is running a network of spies inside eastern Ukraine because the U.S. government has recordings of their conversations, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a closed-door meeting Friday.

“Intel is producing taped conversations of intelligence operatives taking their orders from Moscow and everybody can tell the difference in the accents, in the idioms, in the language. We know exactly who’s giving those orders, we know where they are coming from,” Kerry said at a private meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Washington. A recording of Kerry’s remarks was obtained by The Daily Beast.

• Republicans Launch New Push To Arm Ukraine

Senate Republicans are pressing the Obama administration to do more to help Ukraine and hurt Russia and are introducing a new bill that would provide for weapons, sanctions, and more aid.

• The Obama Administration pushing hard to have us belive Russia is hurting from sanctions

Russia’s foreign exchange reserves were drained of a record $63 billion in the first quarter of the year, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said Wednesday in an address to the lower house of the parliament.
If that pace continues, losses this year would surpass the $120 billion Russia lost in 2008 at the height of the global recession.

• But Russia’s Economy was already slowing

Last year, Russia’s economy grew 1.3 percent, its weakest rate in the past 13 years with the exception of 2009, when the country suffered in the global downturn. The growth slowed further this year as investors pulled money out of the county amid concerns over Russia’s policy in Ukraine.

Supreme Court Considers Limits On Warrantless Cellphone Searches

At Tuesday’s Supreme Court argument, Riley’s lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, told the justices that the Founding Fathers never intended to allow such wide-ranging searches without a warrant. The warrantless search at the time of arrest, he noted, was to protect the officer’s safety and to prevent the destruction of evidence.

• Initial impressions from the oral argument in the Supreme Court cell phone search cases

This morning, I attended the Supreme Court arguments in the cell phone search cases, United States v. Wurie and Riley v. California. Here are some initial impressions of the argument

Weed Wackers:

Colorado eyes regulating marijuana edibles serving size after two deaths

Two recent Colorado deaths have been associated with legal edible marijuana products, and state regulators may now step in to better regulate portion sizes.

A 19-year-old student visiting the state on spring break jumped to his death off of a hotel balcony in March after eating 65mg of THC in a pot cookie. In April, a 47-year-old man fatally shot his wife in the head while high from candy marijuana edibles.

• Marijuana-infused-food rules in Colorado examined after deaths

Ten milligrams of THC is considered a serving size of the drug, but Colorado has no requirement that edibles be packaged in single servings, at least for now.

• State group debating THC levels in retail marijuana products, ‘edibles,’

10mg of THC is considered roughly equivalent to the amount in a medium-sized joint.

In Washington state, where retail sales don’t begin until July, edible pot products will have the same 10mg serving size, with a maximum of 10 servings per package, said Brian Smith of the Washington State Liquor Control Board, which is regulating recreational pot sales.

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The post Net Neutrality Doomed | Unfilter 95 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

A major blow was dealt to Net Neutrality when the court struck down the ruling preventing ISPs from abusing their monopolies and prioritizing some traffic over others. However, things might not be as bad as it sounds, we’ll dig in.

On Friday Obama is set to announce his reforms to the NSA, today the presidential review Panel testified to the Senate on their recommendations for reform and we’ve dug through the reports, watched the testimony, and will arm you with the facts before the spin goes into overdrive..

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

On this week’s Unfilter.

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— Show Notes —

NSA is CRAZY

• NSA review panel casts doubt on bulk data collection claims | World news | theguardian.com

Similarly, Michael Morell, a former deputy CIA director, told the committee that so-called “metadata” about a phone conversation inherently entailed information about the substance of the communication. “There is quite a bit of content in metadata,” Morrell said. “There’s not a sharp distinction between metadata and content. It’s more of a continuum.”

Morrell added that the bulk collection of domestic phone data “has not played a significant role in preventing any terrorist attacks to this point,” further undercutting a major rationale offered by the NSA since the Guardian first revealed the bulk phone-data collection in June, thanks to leaks by Edward Snowden.

But, Morell added, “that is a different statement than saying the program has not been important.” Morrell said that bulk collection can provide a reassurance that there is no domestic nexus to foreign terrorist plots detected by other NSA efforts.

**“It is absolutely true that 215 has not by itself disrupted prevented terrorist attacks in the United States,** but that doesn’t mean it’s not important going forward, said Morell, using a shorthand for the bulk phone metadata collection. ”Many of us have never suffered a fire in our homes but many of us have homeowners insurance."

• Three Leaks, Three Weeks, and What We’ve Learned About the US Government’s Other Spying Authority: Executive Order 12333 | Electronic Frontier Foundation

A _Washington Post _article reveals that the National Security Agency has been siphoning off data from the links between Yahoo and Google data centers, which include the fiber optic connections between company servers at various points around the world. While the user may have an encrypted connection to the website, the internal data flows were not encrypted and allowed the NSA to obtain millions of records each month, including both metadata and content like audio, video and text. This is not part of the PRISM collection under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act or the business records program under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, but a separate program called MUSCULAR under what appears to be Executive Order 12333 (“12333”).

• Executive Order 12333

On December 4, 1981 President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333, an Executive Order intended to extend powers and responsibilities of US intelligence agencies and direct the leaders of U.S. federal agencies to co-operate fully with CIA requests for information.[1] This executive order was entitled United States Intelligence Activities.

It was amended by Executive Order 13355: Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community, on August 27, 2004. On July 30, 2008, President Bush issued Executive Order 13470[2] amending Executive Order 12333 to strengthen the role of the DNI

• N.S.A. Devises Radio Pathway Into Computers – NYTimes.com

The technology, which the agency has used since at least 2008, relies on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into the computers. In some cases, they are sent to a briefcase-size relay station that intelligence agencies can set up miles away from the target.

The radio frequency technology has helped solve one of the biggest problems facing American intelligence agencies for years: getting into computers that adversaries, and some American partners, have tried to make impervious to spying or cyberattack. In most cases, the radio frequency hardware must be physically inserted by a spy, a manufacturer or an unwitting user.

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Net Neutrality is Now a Zombie:

• Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules | Ars Technica

While it could still be appealed to the Supreme Court, the order today would allow pay-for-prioritization deals that could let Verizon or other ISPs charge companies like Netflix for a faster path to consumers.

The court left part of the Open Internet Order intact, however, saying that the FCC still has “general authority” to regulate how broadband providers treat traffic.

• How the FCC screwed up its chance to make ISP blocking illegal | Ars Technica

The FCC’s problem was that several years before its 2010 Open Internet Order, it classified ISPs as information services instead of telecommunications services, exempting them from common carrier rules. As Ars wrote in 2010, the common carriage part of US communications law is “the one that said public networks like the telephone must be open to all comers at the same rate and could not discriminate. Even though the old AT&T ran a private network, the company had to complete everyone’s calls; blocking critics from using the network was illegal.”

If the FCC said broadband providers were common carriers, it would be easier to dictate the terms under which they must pass traffic from content providers to home Internet users. Because the FCC didn’t go the common carriage route but still enacted anti-blocking and anti-discrimination rules, the commission had to do some legal gymnastics to justify the Open Internet Order.

• The ruling PDF

• The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires Audiobook | Tim Wu | Audible.com

Most consider the Internet Age to be a moment of unprecedented freedom in communications and culture. But as Tim Wu shows, each major new medium, from telephone to cable, arrived on a similar wave of idealistic optimism only to become, eventually, the object of industrial consolidation profoundly affecting how Americans communicate. Every once-free and open technology was in time centralized and closed, a huge corporate power taking control of the master switch. Today, as a similar struggle looms over the Internet, increasingly the pipeline of all other media, the stakes have never been higher. To be decided: who gets heard, and what kind of country we live in. Part industrial exposé, part meditation on the nature of freedom of expression, part battle cry to save the Internet’s best features, The Master Switch brings to light a crucial drama rife with indelible characters and stories, heretofore played out over decades in the shadows of our national life.

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The post Neutered Net Neutrality | Unfilter 81 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Another mass shooting grabs the attention of the nation, and while the essential details of the story are yet to emerge, the media has already cast their villain, video games. In their quest to demonize their #1 competition, they once again rob the people of a balanced dialog. We’ll do our best, to fix that.

Plus: The world economies dodged a major bullet by the name of Larry Summers. We’ll dig into this parasites destructive past and why this week was a victory for everyone.

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

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— Show Notes —

NSA is CRAZY

• Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer on NSA data requests: ‘You don’t comply, it’s treason’ | The Raw Story

During an interview at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mayer was asked why tech companies had not simply decided to tell the public more about what the US surveillance industry was up to. “Releasing classified information is treason and you are incarcerated,” she said.

• FISA Court: Telecoms okay with NSA data collection – YouTube

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is revealing information about the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone records, called the Section 215 Bulk Phone Metadata Collection Program. According to a declassified brief released Tuesday by FISA Court Judge Claire Eagan, not a single telecom company has challenged the legality of the NSA’s collection of their customers’ metadata. The court briefing also went on to say that it believed members of Congress were fully briefed on the program. RT’s Sam Sacks has the reaction from members of Congress about the first brief the FISA Court declassified of its own volition.

• Same Day It’s Revealed Verizon Has Never Challenged NSA, It Mocks Internet Companies For Doing So

“I appreciate that the consumer-centric IT firms that you referenced [Yahoo, Google, Microsoft] that it’s important to grandstand a bit, and waive their arms and protest loudly so as not to offend the sensibility of their customers,” Stratton said.

“This is a more important issue than that which is generated in a press release. This is a matter of national security.”

• Brazil’s Rousseff cancels state visit to U.S. over spying

Brazilian President Dilma
Rousseff has canceled a state visit to Washington in October
over reports that the United States spied on her personal
communications and those of other Brazilians, a leading
Brazilian newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Rousseff’s visit, scheduled for Oct. 23, was conceived to highlight the improvement in ties between the two biggest economies in the Americas and Brazil’s emergence over the past decade as a regional power.
The trip has been seen as a platform for deals on oil exploration and biofuels technology, and Brazil’s potential purchase of fighter jets from Chicago-based Boeing Co.
The itinerary includes a state dinner at the White House, the only such event offered by the Obamas this year.

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Navy Yard shooting

• 13 Killed in D.C. Navy Yard Shooting, Victims Identified

A former Navy man launched an attack Monday morning inside a building at the Washington Navy Yard, spraying gunfire on office workers in the cafeteria and in the hallway at the heavily secured installation, authorities said. Thirteen people were killed, including the gunman.

• Navy Yard Shooter’s Video Games To Blame, Not Guns, Hasselbeck Says

Elisabeth says that Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old IT contractor, was clearly influenced to go shoot up the Washington Navy Yard… by his gaming habit.

• Fox News’ Hasselbeck: Navy Yard shooting shows need for video game registry, not gun control

“What about frequency testing?” she added. “How often has this game been played? I’m not one to get in there and say, monitor everything, but if this, indeed, is a strong link, right, to mass killings then why aren’t we looking at frequency of purchases per person? And also, how often they’re playing and maybe they time out after a certain hour.”

• [Video games getting blamed for Navy Yard attack… (https://www.gamezone.com/originals/2013/09/17/video-games-getting-blamed-for-navy-yard-attack-is-misdirection-and-irresponsible-of-mainstream-media)

But the Telegraph describe the “darker side to Alexis’s character” – the side that saw him playing violent “zombie” video games in his room for hours at a time.

Larry Punts

• Bernanke says unemployment hasn’t improved enough to slow stimulus

“Conditions in the job market today still are far from what all of us would like to see,” Bernanke said at a news conference after the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee voted to continue its bond-buying program at the same pace.

The unemployment rate has dropped from 8.1% when the stimulus program began a year ago to 7.3% last month, Bernanke said.

The figure is close to the 7% level Bernanke has said the Fed wanted to see at the end of the bond-buying program.

But he noted that the rate still is “well above acceptable levels.”

• Larry Summers withdraws name for Fed chair job

During his time as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, Summers earned his reputation as a deregulator. Summers urged Congress to repeal parts of a Depression-era rule called Glass-Steagall, which prevented financial institutions from simultaneously acting as investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies. This move paved the way for banks to become larger than ever.

Also in the late ’90s, Summers pushed back against a movement to regulate complex derivatives. Some say, both those decisions played a role in precipitating the 2008 financial crisis.

• The Confidential Memo at the Heart of the Global Financial Crisis

The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.

• Touch on Glass Steagal?

• The Glass-Steagall Act Explained

Syria

• How the United States, Russia arrived at deal on Syria’s chemical weapons

According to a State Department official’s account of the negotiations, which began Thursday evening and ended Saturday afternoon with a framework accord to secure and eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, it was a deal that almost did not happen.

In the end, the deal was written entirely by the U.S. side. The Russians agreed to it in an impromptu poolside conversation between Kerry, Lavrov and their deputies, who dragged over chairs to join them. Kerry made final edits to the draft on an iPad in his hotel room.

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The post Gaming is to Blame | Unfilter 67 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We’ll go inside some clever bank malware, a dedicated server provider our very own Allan uses discovers a backdoor…

Plus: Picking the right virtual machine storage, a big batch of your questions, and much much more!

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