“Fuck!” That is the word that comes to the mind of Christian Steffen, the CEO of German satellite communications company Stellar PCS. He is looking at classified documents laying out the scope of something called Treasure Map, a top secret NSA program. Steffen’s firm provides internet access to remote portions of the globe via satellite, and what he is looking at tells him that the company, and some of its customers, have been penetrated by the U.S. National Security Agency and British spy agency GCHQ.
Stellar’s visibly shaken chief engineer, reviewing the same documents, shares his boss’ reaction. “The intelligence services could use this data to shut down the internet in entire African countries that are provided access via our satellite connections,” he says.
Month: September 2014
Bibamas – First Ever Bible Pajamas
… and lets hope they’re the last.
Our desire is to help children think more about Bible Heroes and not just Super Heroes when they go to bed each night! We want Bible Pajamas to help teach kids to be more like Jesus, pray like Jonah, have courage like Esther, and exercise faith like Moses.
No thanks.
Comcast Continues To Pretend To Support Net Neutrality With Misleading Claims
We’ve mentioned in the past how Comcast has been pretending to support net neutrality, with ad campaigns stating that it does — clearly in an attempt to confuse the public. Yesterday, Comcast even put a thing on its own front page claiming that the company is “committed to an open Internet and Net Neutrality.”
That links to a blog post from David Cohen, Comcast’s chief lobbyist / government relations guy, whose job it is to convince lawmakers to rubber stamp any of Comcast’s big plans; from killing (not preserving) net neutrality to letting it acquire Time Warner Cable. Cohen, who has ridiculously and cynically been given the title “Chief Diversity Officer” (by which we assume means the guy who gives money to minority groups to have them repeat Comcast’s talking points), tries to make the argument that Comcast supports net neutrality.
Internet Slowdown Protests Drove Over 300,000 Calls & 2 Million Emails To Congress, Plus Another 700,000 FCC Comments
In discussing yesterday’s internet slowdown day protest, we noted that, at its peak, the effort was driving over 1,000 calls per minute to Congress. The final numbers are now in, and they’re amazing.
Internet Slowdown Day Generated 1,000 Calls Per Minute To Congress
Techdirt has a tiny update on Internet Slowdown Day yesterday, which even this site participated in:
A brief update on how the Internet Slowdown Day effort went, in case you missed it. Tons of sites jumped on board, including my favorite, Clickhole (The Onion’s lovingly wonderful attempt to satirize clickbait sites), which showed off images of koalas that refused to load to in an effort to call for net neutrality… With the effort on so many different websites, reports are that, at its peak, there were over a thousand calls per minute going into the Congressional switchboard, which is a huge deal. Many in Congress are indicating that their offices are getting swamped with calls.
From reddit to Pornhub, Websites Slow Down for Net Neutrality on September 10
You know the net neutrality conversation is breaking new ground when even the porn sites are weighing in. And that’s just what we’re seeing: Major adult platforms Pornhub and Redtube are joining an online protest on September 10, calling for stronger protections for net neutrality. They’re teaming up with dozens of digital rights organizations, including EFF, Demand Progress, and Fight for the Future, as well as other Internet companies like Etsy, reddit and Mozilla, in a digital day of action designed to bring the net neutrality debate to hundreds of thousands of Internet users worldwide.
Net neutrality— the idea that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks equally—got major attention this Spring when the FCC released proposed regulatory guidelines that left Internet users and companies alike deeply concerned. The proposal included new language giving ISPs leeway to create a “fast lane” for certain websites (i.e. websites with deep pockets that were willing to shell out more money for faster access to users).
But you can’t have a fast lane without also having a slower lane. And that means everyday websites—including journalistic websites and start-up companies that could compete with established web services—could be slow to load, even as our expectations for loading speed leap ahead in the coming years.
That’s why the protest on September 10 will showcase a slow-lane Internet, by putting graphics of “page loading” warnings on participating sites. (Don’t worry—Pornhub promises it won’t actually load pages more slowly.)
The Miraculous Works Of The Criminal Justice System
“[Victor White III] was taken into custody, handcuffed behind his back, and transported to the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office for processing. Once at the Sheriff’s Office, White became uncooperative and refused to exit the deputy’s patrol vehicle. As the deputy requested assistance from other deputies, White produced a handgun and fired one round striking himself in the back.”
The autopsy report, issued by Iberia Parish Coroner Dr. Carl M. Ditch six months after the death, revealed that the bullet did not enter the body from behind, as police had claimed. Instead, the report stated that the bullet penetrated White’s chest from the front, perforated his heart and left lung, then exited through his left armpit and injured his upper left arm.
According to the report, the forensic pathologist found gunshot residue in the wound, but not the sort of stippling that a close-range shot can sometimes produce. He also found abrasions on White’s face.
Dr. Carl Ditch ruled that White shot himself, and declared his death a suicide.
The U.S. Government’s Secret Plans to Spy for American Corporations
Throughout the last year, the U.S. government has repeatedly insisted that it does not engage in economic and industrial espionage, in an effort to distinguish its own spying from China’s infiltrations of Google, Nortel, and other corporate targets. So critical is this denial to the U.S. government that last August, an NSA spokesperson emailed The Washington Post to say (emphasis in original): “The department does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber.”
After that categorical statement to the Post, the NSA was caught spying on plainly financial targets such as the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras; economic summits; international credit card and banking systems; the EU antitrust commissioner investigating Google, Microsoft, and Intel; and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. In response, the U.S. modified its denial to acknowledge that it does engage in economic spying, but unlike China, the spying is never done to benefit American corporations.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for instance, responded to the Petrobras revelations by claiming: “It is not a secret that the Intelligence Community collects information about economic and financial matters…. What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of—or give intelligence we collect to—U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line.”
But a secret 2009 report issued by Clapper’s own office explicitly contemplates doing exactly that.
Author Arrested for Writing About Murder in the 30th Century
Last week, Patrick McLaw was arrested after it came to light that he had written a book that begins just after a school shooting in which hundreds of people were killed. The community’s concern about this matter is not completely insane, because McLaw is a teacher at a local middle school. On the other hand, yes it is, because the shooting appears to be only a background event in a story that is set 900 years in the future. Also, it is a story.
City Of London Police Issue Vague, Idiotic Warning To Registrars That They’re Engaged In Criminal Behavior Because It Says So
This was mentioned briefly in our recent post about EasyDNS changing how it deals with online pharmacies, but it’s still dealing with bizarre requests from the City of London Police. As we’ve been detailing, the City of London Police seem to think that (1) their job is to protect the business model of the legacy entertainment industry and (2) that they can do this globally, despite actually just representing one-square mile and (3) that they can do this entirely based on their own say so, rather than any actual court ruling. It started last year when the City of London Police started ordering registrars to transfer domains to the police based entirely on their say so, rather than any sort of due process/trial that found the sites guilty of violating a law. The police wanted the domains to point to sites that the legacy entertainment industry approved of, which makes you wonder why the police are working on behalf of one particular industry and acting as an ad campaign for them.