Sorry if I’m a tiny bit skeptical that the developers actually know how much work creating a modern browser really is.
An innovation in web browsing created by 2 teenagers with a vision to create a more secure, intuitive, and better way to browse the web
I really hope they succeed, however I do have my doubts.
In September 2013, in response to a question from Senator Chuck Grassley, the NSA revealed the 12 known cases it had on record over the past decade or so of intentional abuses of the NSA surveillance data, by individuals spying on people they clearly shouldn’t have been spying on. Many of these examples were classified as “LOVEINT” (a play on the traditional SIGINT — for signals intelligence) for people who looked up the private information of those in whom they had a romantic interest. Of course, as we’ve noted, many of these cases were only discovered after the people self-reported the violation — and some of that happened years later, suggesting many such abuses go undiscovered.
Well, more than a year has gone by and guess whether or not Holder fulfilled that promise? If you guessed no, you’d be right. Grassley has now sent a new letter asking just when he can actually expect an answer, and suggesting it ought to happen soon.
Sure, why not…
Bilal Robot started with a simple idea of how do I motivate and teach young children, surrounded by technology, how to pray. I wanted to capture their imagination but also provide them with an educational tool that will redirect their attention away from video games. A companion that will teach, discipline and grow with child.
As Attorney General Eric Holder is about to leave office, Senator Ron Wyden has sent him a letter more or less asking if he was planning to actually respond to the various requests that Wyden had sent to Holder in the past, which Holder has conveniently ignored. Wyden notes, accurately, that the government’s continued secrecy on a variety of issues “has led to an erosion of public confidence that has made it more difficult for intelligence and law enforcement agencies to do their jobs.”
First up, an explanation of what legal authority the government was using for extrajudicial executions via drones and the like in areas not declared as war zones. Holder ignored that. Wyden would like an answer. As you may recall, the administration has dragged its feet on this issue for a while, and when a court told the DOJ to release the memo, it released a document that just pointed to another secret memo.
The new head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Richard Burr, has long been known as a staunch defender of anything the CIA/NSA decide to do. That’s why we still find it odd that he’s now in charge of overseeing them, a job that was created to try to prevent their abuses. In the past, Burr has even argued that all hearings by the committee should be held in secret, to prevent any information from ever getting out. So, perhaps it wasn’t that surprising when he kicked off his new role by claiming that his predecessor, Senator Dianne Feinstein, had somehow broken all sorts of protocol in actually distributing copies of the committee’s 6000+ page report on the CIA’s torture program and how the CIA lied to Congress about it. Burr was demanding all the copies back, while supposedly acting furious that it had been distributed. He claimed that it “was not a valid disclosure” and that it was done without approval.
As part of that complaint, he went to the Senate Parliamentarian (basically the referee who makes the calls on all the arcane and sometimes ridiculous rules of the Senate), asking for a determination that Feinstein had violated the rules in distributing the report. Instead, he got the opposite. The Parliamentarian has noted that Feinstein did nothing wrong in distributing the report.
Who would have thought?
“If the law on it’s face does not–if you have to go through too many contorted legal [inaudible], I mean what is legal? That’s where we need to, not have perhaps cute legal interpretations.”
– Rebecca Richards (Civil Liberties and Privacy Officer, NSA)
Well done, Team Internet. After a year of intense activism, we may have finally convinced the Federal Communications Commission to change course and craft clear, bright-line rules to protect the open internet, based on legal authority that will actually survive the inevitable legal challenge.
According to an op-ed published today in Wired, in a few weeks the FCC will vote on new rules that start with one crucial step: reversing the FCC’s 2002 decision to treat broadband as an “information service” rather than a “telecommunications service.” This is what’s known as Title II reclassification. According to the highest court to review the question, the rules that we need to preserve the open internet — such as forbidding discrimination against certain applications — require the FCC to treat access providers like “common carriers, ” treatment that can only be applied to telecommunications services. Having chosen to define broadband as an “information service,” the FCC can impose regulations that “promote competition” (good) but it cannot stop providers from giving their friends special access to Internet users (bad). Nonetheless, in May of last year the FCC was still trying to stick with its original decision and, as a result, proposed rules that would actually have undermined the open internet. Millions of internet users spoke out against those rules and called for reclassification. Today, we know our voices were heard.
Jane Doe 3 [a TSA supervisor]: You know who did 9/11?
George: Osama bin Laden.
Jane Doe 3: Do you know what language he spoke?
George: Arabic.
Jane Doe 3: Do you see why these cards are suspicious?
What I do insist on is that we maintain a proper perspective and that we do not provide a victory to these terrorist networks by overinflating their importance and suggesting in some fashion that they are an existential threat to the United States or the world order. You know, the truth of the matter is that they can do harm. But we have the capacity to control how we respond in ways that do not undercut what’s the — you know, what’s essence of who we are.
This is actually one of the better approaches I’ve seen in quite a while. Kudos to the developer.
Software, which has traditionally been expensive to buy, has always been targeted by those with small budgets seeking to enjoy products often placed out of reach. But price doesn’t always provide an excuse for those obtaining software without permission. With the rise of smart phones and tablet computers, software has become cheaper than ever, with many paid apps now available for just a few dollars.
One such app is Today Calendar Pro from UK developer Jack Underwood. It’s an already popular replacement calendar for Android with 4.5 stars from several thousand voters on Google Play. However, like many devs, Underwood is trying to find a way to bring down piracy rates. Just a few hours ago he revealed to Reddit users that 85% of people are using pirate versions of his app.
How to reduce that volume quickly became the topic of conversation. Some Reddit users were very aggressive but Underwood eventually settled on a more gentle approach.
“Today Calendar Pro has a 85% piracy rate, so the way we’ve chosen to combat that is to have the app randomly insert pirate-themed events if the app decides the install is pirated,” Underwood told TorrentFreak.
