Given what has already been revealed about the NSA’s data gathering, if you were a clever trader and had access to this information, how would you mine it? How would you go about finding patterns or events to exploit?
Read more...Clearly the stories of Nelson Mandela and Edward Snowden are very different, but there are some parallels that almost no one in the media is willing to acknowledge.
Read more...If oil and gas is a profoundly dynamic phenomenon, then so too must be environmental risk and conflicts over natural resources—and we are not getting the full picture from the mainstream media, according to Michael T. Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, TomDispatch blogger, and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books, 2008). As risk multiply, conventional sources evaporate and we are left with “extreme” energy, renewables may be the only way to avoid war and disaster.
Read more...Some Silicon Valley figures, along with some Democratic party-aligned media outlets, have tried assailing Glenn Greenwald, and indirectly, Edward Snowden, by trying to discredit certain aspects of the Guardian account of NSA surveillance in the US. But the tech pedants’ efforts to take down Greenwald and Snowden aren’t simply petty and disingenuous, they are ultimately destructive of the interests of American technology companies and American security.
Read more...I’m opening up the thread for readers to discuss what they have done or plan to do in the wake of the revelations about the extent of NSA surveillance.
Read more...If such a thing is possible, the intelligence community’s unhappiness with Edward Snowden has ratcheted up another notch. It was bad enough that he revealed yesterday that the NSA had been hacking targets in mainland China and Hong Kong.
Read more...By Dan Fejes. Cross posted from Pruning Shears
There is an emerging theme on the left that the true blame for our metastasized domestic spying programs lies with the American people. And it’s nonsense.
Read more...Yves here. It’s important to understand the scope and caliber of the police state apparatus that’s in place. The fact that it’s “dirty” meaning error-ridden and incomplete, is likely the big reason you have analysts like Edward Snowden with wide-ranging access. You still need humans to make connections and interpretations (and that introduces another layer for errors and plants to occur). And that also no doubt is used to justify even wider-ranging and more intrusive searches, such as NSA analysts listening to personal phone conversations of soldiers stationed in Iraq. That sort of casualness leads to abuses like NSA snoops inviting their colleagues to listen in on phone sex.
Read more...Former CIA employee, most recently Booz Allen employee Edward Snowden was already the intel community’s biggest nightmare, and now this:
Read more...The NC commentariat has already done a deep dive into the IT and practical issues surrounding the NSA surveillance program leaks from Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian. This Real News Network interview with Paul Jay looks at the Administration’s initial response to those revelations. It’s a useful piece to circulate to friends and colleagues who might be unduly receptive to the “this is all done for your safety” claims. I suppose it’s useful to have Obama make it explicit he thinks that his interpretation of security needs comes before upholding the Constitution.
Read more...By Patrick Durusau, who consults on semantic integration and edits standards. Durusau is convener of JTC 1 SC 34/WG 3, co-editor of 13250-1 and 13250-5 (Topic Maps Introduction and Reference Model, respectively), and editor of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard at OASIS and ISO (ISO/IEC 26300). Originally published at Another Word for It.
Why Verizon?
The first question that came to mind when the Guardian broke the news on NSA-Verizon phone record metadata collection.
Here’s why I ask:
Read more...It’s hard to know where to begin with a story up at the Wall Street Journal, Risk-Averse Culture Infects U.S. Workers, Entrepreneurs.
Read more...The “March Against Monsanto” in 52 countries, an unapproved strain of its genetically modified wheat growing profusely in Oregon, cancelled wheat export orders…. A rough week for Monsanto. Now it threw in the towel in Europe where its deep pockets and mastery of lobbying had failed: “It’s counterproductive to fight against windmills,” it explained.
Read more...For those immune to Apple lust or otherwise unwilling to cut the Cupertino giant slack just because it has sleek products and cool stores, a new article by tax maven Lee Sheppard at Forbes gives a layperson-friendly overview of how Apple managed to keep $44 billion of revenues out of the hands of the tax men.
Read more...Yves here. This post illustrates a chief reason why regulation has become a bad word.
Read more...