This is actually quite good advice:
“Assume that everything you post online will be available to the worst possible entities to cause you maximum grief,” he said.
Source: Want to harvest Facebook data? Get a mobile number and off you go • The Register
The thing is, for the rest of the civilized world, Bernie Sanders is a well thought-out decent guy. He only seems crazy compared to “normal” in America.
Don’t simply trust claims made in authoritative media tones — even if, perhaps especially if, journalists work for the most influential media outlets — unless they point to evidence that confirms or at least suggests their truth.
Source: A Crucial Realization About Journalism is Learned by Being its Subject
Even as the group has publicly celebrated its work, insider accounts detail a string of failures
Source: How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes – ProPublica
Added background checks, higher age limits, and safety course appear to add up.
Source: Connecticut gun controls estimated to have cut fatal shootings by 40% | Ars Technica
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or the so the saying goes. Nevertheless, every day millions of people use online services such as Google without paying a penny. It’s a situation the Internet generation has become very accustomed to.
For millions of BitTorrent users, things move to the next level. After using any of the thousands of available torrent sites for free, content such as music, movies, TV shows, software and games flood into homes around the world, without cash directly forming part of any transaction.
Of course, none of these mechanisms are truly free and for most public torrent sites it is advertising that provides the fuel to keep things running smoothly. While torrent site users don’t usually pay for access directly, by being a viewer of torrent site advertising and therefore a potential consumer, a convenient business arrangement allows ‘free’ access to ‘free’ content.
Unless you’re a user of the semi-private tracker Demonoid, that is.
In recent days Demonoid, once one of the most popular sites on the Internet, implemented new terms of access. If users don’t wish to contribute to revenue streams by viewing embedded advertising, they are now completely barred from the site.
It’s hard for some Americans to understand why the Obama administration is so determined to come to an agreement with Iran on its nuclear capability, given that huge Iranian rallies are constantly chanting “Death to America!” I know the chanting makes me unhappy, since I’m part of America, and I strongly oppose me dying.
But if you know our actual history with Iran, you can kind of see where they’re coming from. They have understandable reasons to be angry at and frightened of us — things we’ve done that if, say, Norway had done them to us, would have us out in the streets shouting “Death to Norway!” Unfortunately, not only have the U.S. and our allies done horrendous things to Iran, we’re not even polite enough to remember it.
Reminding ourselves of this history does not mean endorsing an Iran with nuclear-tipped ICBMs. It does mean realizing how absurd it sounds when critics of the proposed agreement say it suddenly makes the U.S. the weaker party or that we’re getting a bad deal because Iran, as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham put it, does not fear Obama enough. It’s exactly the opposite: This is the best agreement the U.S. could get because for the first time in 35 years, U.S.-Iranian relations aren’t being driven purely by fear.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, a Christian church put up what proved to be a controversial sign. The sign read, “Remember, Satan was the first to demand equal rights.”
And a shitstorm ensued, of course. Some people found this to be a swipe at gays seeking equal rights.I think, however, they’re looking at it the wrong way.
Lets look at Christian mythology with a critical eye. Who is this “God” character, and who is this “Satan” guy? Lets look at it with a little bit of a critical eye. So the first thing we need to remember is that the victors write the history books. So, you’ve got to look at the Bible as a piece of propaganda for the winning side.
So God apparently created everything. He created Tyrannosaurus Rex, which had arms too short to masturbate. Then, he created us, with arms long enough to play with our genitals, and hands that are pretty damn well suited to it. He gave us the capacity to feel pleasure, and he gave us the desire to chase it. He gave us a thirst for knowledge. He gave us a lot of great shit.
But, he demanded that we not use any of it, and he demanded that we love him.
Sounds like a sick bastard to me.
This God character sounds more like the psychological profile you’d get if you went to a high school, found the meanest 16 year old cheerleader, and told her that she had absolute power. Sorta like a North Korean dictator with serious cock size issues.
But, its even sicker than that.
He sticks the tree of knowledge right smack in the middle of the paradise he made for us, and then says “you can eat all this shit, pears, durians, blackberries, but I will fuck your shit up if you eat this fruit that cures your ignorance.”
He watches us all the time, like the NSA.
Oh, and he DEMANDS that we love him. If you don’t love me, I’ll burn your fucking ass forever and ever. That sounds more like a stalker than an omniscient being.
On the other hand, we have this Satan guy.
Maybe he’s not so bad after all.
Maybe he’s not so bad after all.
Satan likes us. Satan doesn’t mind if we enjoy ourselves. Satan doesn’t care if we love him or not. He’s there if we want him. Oh, and he suggests that maybe, just maybe, we ought to come out of the shadows of ignorance and eat from the tree of knowledge. From what I can tell from the mythology, Satan doesn’t watch us unless we request it. Opt-in surveillance, free will, enjoy yourself, and don’t be ignorant.
Does that sound like the bad guy to you?
Although he is generally in favor of this agreement [CETA], the [French] Secretary of State [for External Commerce] considers that before ratifying the treaty it will be necessary either to withdraw current sections on ISDS or rewrite them entirely. Moreover, the opinion of [the French Secretary of State] Matthias Fekl represents not only the official position of France, but also a consensus shared by Germany and the European social democrats. In the daily Le Monde, he said on Wednesday that the only options remaining on the table were “the withdrawal, pure and simple, of ISDS or coming up with something new.” There is therefore no question of the Secretary of State signing the Canada-EU treaty without “inventing something new, that is no longer [investor-state] arbitration, but a new way to settle disputes, by integrating public courts in the procedure.”
September last year the Digital Citizens Alliance and NetNames released a report that looked into the business models of “shadowy” file-storage sites.
Titled “Behind The Cyberlocker Door: A Report How Shadowy Cyberlockers Use Credit Card Companies to Make Millions,” the report offers insight into the money streams that end up at these alleged pirate sites.
The research claims that the sites in question are mostly used for copyright infringement. But while there are indeed many shadowy hosting services, many were surprised to see the Kim Dotcom-founded Mega.co.nz on there.
For entertainment industry groups the report offered an opportunity to put pressure on Visa and MasterCard. In doing so they received support from U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, who was also the lead sponsor of the defunct controversial Protect IP Act (PIPA).
Senator Leahy wrote a letter to the credit card companies claiming that the sites mentioned in the report have “no legitimate purpose or activity,” hoping they would cut their connections to the mentioned sites.
Visa and MasterCard took these concerns to heart and pressed PayPal to cut off its services to Mega, which eventually happened late last month. Interestingly, PayPal cited Mega’s end-to-end-encryption as one of the key problems, as that would make it harder to see what files users store.
The PayPal ban has been a huge blow for Mega, both reputation-wise and financially. And the realization that the controversial NetNames report is one of the main facilitators of the problems is all the more frustrating.
TorrentFreak spoke with CEO Graham Gaylard, who previously characterized the report as “grossly untrue and highly defamatory,” to discuss whether Mega still intends to take steps against the UK-based NetNames for their accusations.
Initially, taking legal action against NetNames for defamation was difficult, as UK law requires the complaining party to show economic damage. However, after the PayPal ban this shouldn’t be hard to do.
Gaylard is traveling through Europe at the moment and he notes that possible repercussions against the damaging report are high on the agenda.
“Yes, I am here to see Mega’s London-based legal counsel to discuss the next steps in progressing the NetNames’ response,” Gaylard informs TF.
Mega’s CEO couldn’t release any details on a possible defamation lawsuit, but he stressed that his company will fiercely defend itself against smear campaigns.
“Mega has been operating, and continues to operate a completely legitimate and transparent business. Unfortunately now, with the blatant, obvious, political pressure and industry lobbying against Mega, Mega needs to defend itself and will now cease taking a passive stance,” Gaylard says.
According to the CEO Mega is running a perfectly legal business. The allegation that it’s a piracy haven is completely fabricated. Like any other storage provider, there is copyrighted content on Mega’s servers, but that’s a tiny fraction of the total stored.
To illustrate this, Gaylard mentions that they only receive a few hundred takedown notices per month. In addition, he notes more than 99.7% of the 18 million files that are uploaded per day are smaller than 20MB in size, not enough to share a movie or TV-show.
These statistics are certainly not the hallmark of a service with “no legitimate purpose or activity,” as was claimed.
While the PayPal ban is a major setback, Mega is still doing well in terms of growth. They have 15 million registered customers across 200 countries, and hundreds of thousands of new users join every month.