U.N. summit votes to support Internet eavesdropping

A United Nations summit has adopted confidential recommendations proposed by China that will help network providers target BitTorrent uploaders, detect trading of copyrighted MP3 files, and, critics say, accelerate Internet censorship in repressive nations. Approval by the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union came despite objections from Germany, which warned the organization must "not standardize any technical means that would increase the exercise of control over telecommunications content, could be used to empower any censorship of content, or could impede the free flow of information and ideas." The ITU adopted the confidential...

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Piers Morgan Wants to Eviscerate the 2nd Amendment

Michael Moore isn’t the only media figurehead openly calling for stricter gun control on the social media site Twitter today. Not only does Piers Morgan apparently want to straight up take away people’s guns, but he has a multi-step plan for exactly how America should be disarmed. The host of CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight went on an anti-gun Tweet rant following the mass shooting in a Connecticut school that left 28 people, including 20 children, dead earlier this morning. “Only way forward for America is a national gun policy, same (much tougher) laws for everyone. No assault weapons for civilians, period,” Morgan wrote, before following...

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TSA Calls Bomb Specialist On Wheelchair Bound 12-Year-Old Girl With Bone Disorder

The TSA continues to keep Americans safe from terrorists, once again thwarting a dangerous threat, this time from a wheelchair bound twelve-year-old girl with a genetic bone disorder. Video of young Shelbi Walser crying her eyes out was shot by her mother, Tammy Daniels, earlier this week as she was detained for over an hour by TSA agents at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The girl, who suffers from brittle bone disease, and is confined to a wheelchair, was “randomly” selected for an explosives test while traveling to Florida for specialist medical treatment. “I was just scared, because I didn’t know what they were going to do,” Walser told KHOU News 8. A screener swabbed the girl’s hands and was no doubt delighted that she tested positive for “explosive material”. “It...

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Syrian Rebels Pledge Allegiance to al-Qaeda-Linked Group

More than 100 Syrian opposition groups, including armed battalions and civilian committees, have signed a petition expressing solidarity with Jabhat al-Nusra and denouncing the recent US decision to officially designate the al-Qaeda-linked group a terrorist organization. Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the Syrian opposition’s key fighting groups, has received much attention in Western media lately due to its expanding role in the rebellion trying to overthrow the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and the State Department’s decision to officially designate it a terrorist organization. Following the announcement by the State...

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Conspiracy Theory – Season 3, Episode 2: “Death Ray”

Conspiracy Theory – Season 3, Episode 2: “Death Ray” A lethal weapon that can vaporize targets and whole cities from miles away seems like the stuff of sci-fi movies, but Jesse and his team find that this technology could be all too real as they investigate who might have these secret plans – and what they plan on doing with it. When threats and danger hit way too close to home, will the crew be able to make it out alive? This conspiracy runs deep, but Jesse’s just the guy to do some real digging, with explosive results.    Read More >&g...

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Gangnam Style Singer: Kill All Americans!

Psy, the Gangnam Style singer wants to kill all Americans and torture them to death! Check out The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction in paperback Below; Mark Dice is a media analyst, political activist, and author who, in an entertaining and educational way, gets people to question our celebrity obsessed culture, and the role the mainstream media and elite secret societies play in shaping our lives. Check out Mark's books.. Mark frequently stirs up controversy from his commentaries, protests, and boycotts, and has repeatedly been featured in major media outlets around the world. Several of Mark's YouTube videos have gone...

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Apple penalized $2.22 million for misleading iPad 4G ads

  Apple and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have agreed that Apple should pay a $2.25 million penalty for calling its iPads "4G", even though they don't work on Australian 4G networks. However, the judge has not yet approved this amount. The ACCC took Apple to court in March for using the moniker "4G" to describe iPads that were able to connect to mobile networks, even though the 4G frequencies that the iPad uses don't work on current Australian long-term evolution (LTE) 4G networks. Facts agreed on by the ACCC and Apple Australia suggest that Apple's conduct breached...

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Hacker Looking For US Military Documents Finds VMWare Source Code

Members from the hacktivist group “LulzSec” are at it again, as source code from VMWare’s ESX hypervisor technology has been leaked to a website used to anonymously host hacked files. According to a company blog, VMWare has said a “single file” from their ESX source code had been leaked and posted to Pastebin. The company also went on to say the source code is 8-9 years old. Lain Mulholland, director of VMware’s security response center said the source code was publicly posted on Monday and said more code could be posted in the future. “The fact that the source code may have been publicly shared does not necessarily mean that there is any...

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President Obama's tax rate was 20.5%, lower than his secretary's

The White House says it underscores the argument for his 'Buffett rule' on taxing wealthier people. Their tax form for 2011 shows that President Obama and his wife, Michelle, paid a 20.5% federal tax rate on $789,674 in adjusted gross income. (Daniel Acker, Bloomberg / April 13, 2012) By Kathleen Hennessey and Michael A. Memoli, Washington Bureau April 13, 2012, 4:50 p.m. WASHINGTON — As President Obama mounts an aggressive campaign on what he calls tax fairness, his own tax burden has fallen to the lowest of his time in the White House, lower than many who make far less — including his secretary. The president and first lady reported a...

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Tell Facebook: Withdraw Your Support For CISPA

What is Facebook thinking?  They've signed on in support of CISPA -- the new bill that would obliterate online privacy, give the military crazy new abilities to spy on the Internet, and potentially let ISPs block sites and cut off users accused of piracy. First, please help push this viral on Facebook by using this link -- you'll be sharing the campaign, along with the photo of Mark Zuckerberg at right: If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends. Then please sign add your name to our open letter. ---The Center for Democracy and Technology says, "CISPA has a very broad, almost unlimited definition...

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eBay resellers cash in on iPad shortages

Average selling price for third-gen 16GB Wi-Fi iPad is $92 above list, says auctioneer Computerworld - eBay resellers are asking an average price of $591 for the base model of Apple's new iPad, or nearly $100 above list, the online auction site said today. Although Apple charges $499 for a 16GB Wi-Fi new iPad, the wait time for new orders now stretches two to three weeks. eBay sellers are taking advantage of the tight supply by trying to flip their pre-ordered 16GB Wi-Fi tablets at an average price of $591. "Selling my iPad 3 pre-order," said a seller identified as "resqbobby" in an eBay Marketplace listing. "Auction is for one white iPad...

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IPhone Failing to Gain Market Share in China as Samsung Lead Triples

Apple Inc. (AAPL) got a second partner in China to sell the iPhone in the world’s biggest mobile-phone market. The deal may be too late to catch Samsung Electronics Co. (005930), with a market share that’s three times larger and growing. China Telecom Corp. (728) began selling the iPhone last week as Apple tries to build on its 7.5 percent share of the country’s smartphone sales. Samsung controlled 24.3 percent of the market for phones that can play videos and games, according to Gartner Inc., using a strategy of allying with all three of the nation’s third-generation networks since such services started in 2009. ucceeding in China is important...

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Anonymous Got Hacked While Hacking

Anonymous might be the pre-eminent group of hacktivists on the internet, but they aren’t immune to a little hacking themselves. Security software company Symantec discovered that a piece of Anonymous-recommended DDoS software called Slowloris contained an insidious Trojan that was stealing financial info from people using it. Anonymous recommended the software during the fallout from the Jan. 20 raid on Megaupload, and the beginning of one of the biggest DDoS sprees in the group’s history, hitting The Universal Music Group, The Department of Justice, the FBI, the RIAA and more. DDoS software is easy to use without much computer knowledge.,...

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Anonymous Members Arrested Worldwide

Interpol has announced they managed to arrest two dozen suspected members of the Anonymous hacking outfit in 4 countries. Anonymous has long been known for creating an international network of Internet activists engaged in global hacking attacks on governmental and non-governmental online services in sign of protest against people oppressing free speech and endangering freedom of the web. This hacking outfit has, of course, been under police scope from the very start, and now Interpol reports that it took some action recently. Interpol report says that Anonymous has received a hit after police from Latin America and Europe has arrested twenty-five...

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European Commission clears Google, Motorola merger

Google is one step closer to acquiring Motorola Mobility, the smartphone maker, after it cleared the hurdle of the European Commission this afternoon. It is also expected that U.S. antitrust regulators will approve the deal, following the lead from European authorities. The executive body of the 27 member states falls within its deadline of ruling by February 13th. The Commission said: “it would not significantly modify the market situation in respect of operating systems and patents for these devices.” It also acknowledged that Google would be unlikely to “restrict the use of Android solely to Android”, which is a “minority player” in Europe. “The...

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Google pulls content in India

Google Inc. has agreed to remove some content in India that is considered offensive by political and religious leaders in the country, the Mercury News reports. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) was complying with a court order in the latest twist in legal fights over Web censorship around the globe. Google pulled content from its search service, its YouTube video site and its Blogger blogging site. The move comes after weeks of Indian government pressure on 22 Internet companies to remove photos, videos and text considered to be "anti-religious" or "anti-social." Read More >&g...

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Iran to kill Canadian web developer

Iran has decided that a Canadian man who visited the country a couple of years ago deserves to die for promoting porn. Iran's supreme court has upheld the death sentence for a web programmer who faces imminent execution after being found guilty of developing and promoting porn websites. Saeed Malekpour was visiting the country in October 2008 when he was picked up by plainclothes police and taken to Evin prison in Tehran, where he spent a year in solitary confinement without access to lawyers and without charge. After a year, Malekpour was wheeled out in front of the television cameras, confessing to a series of "crimes" in connection with...

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Documentary examines how toxic water at the nation’s largest Marine base damaged lives

(Gerry Broome/ASSOCIATED PRESS) - This 2007 photo shows some of the older base housing at Midway Park neighborhood at Camp Lejeune, N.C. By Darryl Fears, Published: January 21 Mike Partain didn’t believe the rumors about a place called Baby Heaven until he visited a Jacksonville, N.C., graveyard and wandered into a section where newborns were laid to rest. Surrounded by hundreds of tiny marble headstones, he started to cry. A documentary film crew that followed him for a story about water contamination at Camp Lejeune heard his whimpers through a microphone clipped to his clothes. The crew dashed from another part of the graveyard and found...

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Chris Dodd SOPA Bribery Investigation Petition Has Thousands of Signatures

A petition asking the White House to investigate former senator Chris Dodd for allegedly bribing federal lawmakers in the fight to pass the SOPA bill has thousands of signatures so far. The petition arose in response to comments Chris Dodd--who stepped down from his post representing Connecticut in the U.S. Senate in January of last year--made regarding his work for the Motion Picture Association to advocate for the passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act. The SOPA bill was shelved earlier this week after an intense opposition campaign forced some lawmakers to withdraw their support for the controversial bill, and Dodd has been critical of the...

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FBI arrests Chinese programmer

The Untouchables have fingered the collar of a Chinese computer programmer claiming he stole more than $10 million worth software from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Bo Zhang, 32, from New York, worked as a contract programmer at the bank and the Feds think he copied software to an external hard drive. The software, owned by the U.S. Treasury Department, cost about $9.5 million to develop, Reuters said. A New York Fed spokesman said in a statement that the bank immediately investigated the suspected breach when it was uncovered and promptly referred the matter to authorities. Zhang, who is a Chinese citizen, was released on $200,000...

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Anonymous strikes back after feds shut down piracy hub Megaupload

In one of the U.S. government's largest anti-piracy crackdowns ever, federal agents on Thursday arrested the leaders of and shut down Megaupload.com, a popular hub for illegal media downloads. Hours later, Megaupload's fans turned the table on the feds. "Hacktivist" collective Anonymous said it set its sights on the U.S. Department of Justice and apparently knocked the agency's website offline. "We are having website problems, but we're not sure what it's from," a DOJ spokeswoman told CNNMoney. The DOJ website glitches came soon after various Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous took aim at the agency. Anonymous's favorite weapon for...

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US Government Shuts Down MegaUpload.com, Arrests Four

And bam, MegaUpload.com is no more. The FBI has arrested four people behind the popular file-sharing website, and is looking for three more, in a worlwide investigation into the website. Apparently, the site is super-dangerous - the indictment behind the arrests minces no words. As a countermeasure, people claiming to be from Anonymous took down the websites of ViaCom and the Department of Justice. Update: Ars has analysed the indictment. It's pretty damning, but does have a few weird odds and ends. Update II: And more and more sites are falling by Anonymous' hands. Largest operation in their history. According to the US government, MegaUpload.com...

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In SOPA, PIPA protest, Wikipedia to black out

Might want to get your Encyclopedia Britannica set out of storage: Wikipedia will go dark Wednesday, joining a growing number of popular websites staging an online revolt against two anti-piracy bills. Founder Jimmy Wales made the announcement in tweets on Monday, telling followers his goal is to "melt phone systems in Washington" in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate. The online protest puts Wikipedia in the company of other websites such as Reddit and popular games such as Minecraft in leveraging its substantial size and clout to campaign against the bills. Wales suggested on Twitter...

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Obama signs controversial NDAA bill into law

US president Barack Obama signed into law on New Year's Eve a bill that, among other provisions, give the US military broader authority to detain people suspected of being affiliated with terrorists on US soil. The bill in question is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It allocates funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also includes "counter-terrorism" provisions which would allow the military to detain anyone on US soil indefinitely, without needing to guarantee a trial. Both critics and supporters of NDAA say this provision would apply to US citizens; however, the actual text of the bill is phrased less clearly and...

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