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It’s been known for some time that Skype, the popular standalone peer-to-peer application specializing in providing video chat and voice call services was initially developed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), contrary to the official story regarding its origins. Marketed for its groundbreaking proprietary Internet telephony (VoIP) protocol, its real purpose was data mining and domestic surveillance.
In retrospect, this should not be surprising; in post-Edward Snowden America, even publications like The New York Times have reported on tech companies like Yahoo, Google, Facebook, YouTube, AOL, Apple and many others as having cooperated with an increasingly intrusive (and in some cases criminal) government in crafting its Internet surveillance programs.
How surprised Silicon Valley and the government must have been to discover that through social media, most people were willing to simply give away just the kind of information in which these entities were interested! And we probably don’t have to tell you that the current administration has stretched the limits of intrusion upon personal privacy to criminal proportions…
The data that has been collected through these and other means (such as illegal NSA domestic surveillance programs brought to light in recent years) has been used to harass and persecute private organizations, political organizations, businesses, and private citizens.
The bottom line is that your Skype conversations are anything but private; if you’ve heard names like Max Kelly, Project Chess, or Prism, you know this to be true. And since government agencies build networks and databases based upon nodes of activity and the online routines of groups of people, engaging in unsecure online communications is comparable to a person having indiscriminate, frequent, unprotected sex.
So… what’s a user to do?
Product Information
Knowing what we know today, would you have indiscriminate, unprotected sex? Probably not. So when you make a phone call, do you discuss private information of a personal nature, or business, or your investments, or your credit card info?
Did you know how easy it was for someone to listen in to your Skype calls?
Protect yourself with the only product that the world’s real whistleblowers believe in – You might know their names – Julian Assange of Wikileaks, former CIA agent and whistleblower extraordinaire Scott Bennett, and the guy with all the information – Edward Snowden. If these fellows want protection they go to one place in Canada (of all places) for it – The Pink Pagoda.
What is it?
The Pink Pagoda is proprietary to the Bethune Institute of Canada and China, and was developed by people in the fields of intelligence and communications. Can’t ask for more expertise than that…
Click image to see Breitbart article
Why is Canada a good place to hide stuff?
Because American law doesn’t apply. Your goodies are safe from the prying eyes of an ever-intrusive government which has already proven that it has no respect for your privacy.
How does it work?
Well, if we told you that, we’d have to kill you. But seriously – if we were to disclose that, it would compromise our ability to protect you and ensure your online privacy. The method is proprietary, but works much in the same way other online services to which customers subscribe work – with a little other technology thrown in to detect when you are engaged in digital voice or video communications on any of your devices.
What does it do for you?
It renders your video chat and voice calls private (nobody can listen in). Our main concentration and launch was to be America only, but people talk and the need for personal communications privacy is life or death for folks in some foreign lands. We had no idea our utility was going to strike a nerve such as it has. Our capacity at the moment is unlimited, so we are not surprised at the number of foreign inquiries we are receiving. Ask Edward Snowden if he feels that his life might be in jeopardy; the answer is obviously ‘yes,’ and you see where he is putting his trust.
How do I get it?
The Pink Pagoda is now offering access to its secure calling utility at an annual introductory rate of $100.00 in one payment, or via monthly payments of $10.00.
"Today, Friday 31 July 2015, 9am CEST, WikiLeaks publishes "Target Tokyo", 35 Top Secret NSA targets in Japan including the Japanese cabinet and Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi, together with intercepts relating to US-Japan relations, trade negotiations and sensitive climate change strategy.
The list indicates that NSA spying on Japanese conglomerates, government officials, ministries and senior advisers extends back at least as far as the first administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which lasted from September 2006 until September 2007. The telephone interception target list includes the switchboard for the Japanese Cabinet Office; the executive secretary to the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga; a line described as "Government VIP Line"; numerous officials within the Japanese Central Bank, including Governor Haruhiko Kuroda; the home phone number of at least one Central Bank official; numerous numbers within the Japanese Finance Ministry; the Japanese Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Yoichi Miyazawa; the Natural Gas Division of Mitsubishi; and the Petroleum Division of Mitsui."
Today, 15 September 2014, WikiLeaks releases previously unseen copies of weaponised German surveillance malware used by intelligence agencies around the world to spy on journalists, political dissidents and others.
FinFisher (formerly part of the UK based Gamma Group International until late 2013) is a German company that produces and sells computer intrusion systems, software exploits and remote monitoring systems that are capable of intercepting communications and data from OS X, Windows and Linux computers as well as Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices. FinFisher first came to public attention in December 2011 when WikiLeaks published documents detailing their products and business in the first SpyFiles release.
https://www.gammagroup.com/default.aspx
https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles3
"Documents in Spy Files #3 include sensitive sales brochures and presentations used to woo state intelligence agencies into buying mass surveillance services and technologies. Spy Files #3 also includes contracts and deployment documents, detailing specifics on how certain systems are installed and operated.
Internet spying technologies now being sold on the intelligence market include detecting encrypted and obfuscated internet usage such as Skype, BitTorrent, VPN, SSH and SSL. The documents reveal how contractors work with intelligence and policing agencies to obtain decryption keys.
The documents also detail bulk interception methods for voice, SMS, MMS, email, fax and satellite phone communications. The released documents also show intelligence contractors selling the ability to analyse web and mobile interceptions in real-time."
[The site IS safe. Google is warning because authorities have warned Google to make this material unavailable by posting a warning. If you click "more details" there is an open link to the material there, which is entirely safe, but which they want to scare you about. Doubtless, your visit to that link will be reported to the NSA.]
If you trust the USG, the ATF, the IRS, etc., you still might not like that customers of FinFisher could be ANY government anywhere in the world including Mongolia, Oman, Dubai, Estonia, Pakistan, Vietnam, and even Nigeria. Everyone in Nigeria is part of a criminal enterprise or two so your data could go into the hands of such crooks. If you think Nigeria wouldn't allow that to happen, ask yourself "how many arrests have ever been made in Nigeria for the infamous 419 Advance Fee Fraud racket.
I have known Carly for over 25 years -- I am honored to have worked with Carly at AT&T, and then at Lucent Technologies when it began in 1995. As someone who worked for her, I always respected how she could at once put people at ease so that they felt heard and valued, but also be gently pushing the group toward a consensus on vital issues. Because of her ability to listen, build teams, work hard and make smart choices, Carly rose through the ranks easily. She was determined to do things and do them well.
As someone that has worked for and known Carly for more than two decades I can tell you that she has unmatched intellect, integrity and leadership abilities.
I've continued to watch Carly grow. I've watched her manage through flush times and lean times; her approach to solving problems never changed. Her natural ability to lead continuously impresses me: she surrounds herself with competent people, empowers them to find solutions and she works collaboratively with them in implementation. She never avoids the tough decisions and always takes responsibility for those she has made.
I believe it would be refreshing to have Carly lead our nation -- we have enormous problems facing us right now. The old, professional political class isn't working anymore. We need a leader with the skill to find solutions to problems, the courage to make tough decisions and the integrity not to blame someone else when things go wrong. I know from personal observation that Carly is that leader and am confident she will introduce Americans to a new era of leadership.
There is much about Carly’s career that people don’t know. Please visit FromSecretarytoCEO.com to learn more and please be sure to share it with your friends, colleagues and neighbors.
If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper,
before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of
the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to
vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell the country for his
daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting
an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men
behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and
we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the
property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. "
-- John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the New York Sun, 1880
"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have."
-- Richard Salent, Former President CBS News.
"News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising".
-- former NBC news President Rubin Frank
A year ago today 1,133 garment workers died in Dhaka, the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, when an 8-story factory making clothes for national brands like Gap and Benetton, collapsed; 2,500 other workers were pulled from the wreckage. Several companies hastily signed an “accord” requiring stricter safety standards, but Target and Walmart, e.g., refused, saying they would conduct their own safety inspections—you can trust us. In this past year hundreds of garment workers world-wide have died in fires and accidents. All of this is a cruel reminder of the iron logic of capitalism: maximize profit in the giant endlessly grinding vortex of accumulation. Rapacious, callous, petty, predatory, corrupt—capitalism nurtures our vilest qualities while trampling on and constraining our moral imaginations and our most generous instincts.The revolutionary Martin Luther King, Jr. [sic] railed against the triple evils of racism, militarism, and materialism, calling for a new age of racial justice, global justice, and economic justice.
Today is a moment to remember, a day to open our eyes anew, a time to be astonished at the injustices we participate in and visit upon one another but also at the alternatives and the possibilities within our reach.
There are creative ways to express yourselves, and here’s a modest one: wear your clothes inside-out today, and ask yourselves and everyone you meet: who made that?
======================================== Those who fail to study history, miss the point. Here is another headline that Dr. Ayers may have missed: NEAR CLOSING TIME ON MARCH 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Factory in New York City. Within 18 minutes, 146 people were dead as a result of the fire. That shocking tragedy provoked amazing reforms in child labor, fire protection, building inspections, and labor organization resulting in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Everyone loved the ILGWU. They even had a jingle could hear on the radio and sing along. They had a good run. It got harder and harder though to make a living in cut & sew operations, first in NYC and then in NYS because of local closed shop labor laws. So the fabricators and sewing was moved to non-union jurisdictions like N. Carolina and Virginia. The upside is that while there were no more jobs for cut & sew seamstresses and operators in NY, is that there were no more fires at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on 14th Street. Things got tight even in these non-union, right to work states, so the jobs went overseas. To Bangladesh. I don't know about the fire escapes in Bangladesh, or the fire inspectors, or the OSHA guys, the rescue squads, hospitals, Parking Violations Bureaus, or OTB parlors they might have like our "advanced industrial nation" here, but we seem to have successfully protected thousands of Americans and American immigrants from death and perilous injury. Aren't unions wonderful at protecting the American worker. Give em a raise! As David Dubinsky, President of the ILGWU, said at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the fire in 1961: "These were our martyrs because what we couldn't accomplish by reasoning with the bosses, by pleading with the bosses, by arguing with the bosses, they accomplished with their deaths." http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/legacy/TFAndILGWU.html
Inscriptions of various kinds were often painted on Chinese Porcelain. The useful practice of painting reign marks was only common during the eras of the Ming (1368 - 1644) and the Qing (1644 - 1911) dynasties. The marks tell us who was the emperor when the Porcelain was produced.
The presence of a painted reign mark does not mean a piece is authentic -- any Chinese high school student can paint characters in their own language. However, the markings can help to confirm other indications of date.
Get ready folks for a Big Tax Increase, supported totally by Dems and largely by Republicans in the senate. They don't think it conflicts with the Grover Norquist pledge. But the "Marketplace Fairness Act," like so much legislation over the past several years is exactly the opposite of what it's title implies.
The MFA, or Amazon tax, will make a federal law that you have to pay state sales tax at the rate of your residence (TN is 9.45%) on anything you buy through the internet, by phone, or mail order from an out-of-state merchant. That's right: Your state will impose a tax levy on your out of state purchases. It's an Internal Tariff, forbidden by the Constitution.
They will argue that their sales tax is really a "sales and use tax" that is due from you the consumer because you used something. Used something tax!
They say it is in the state law now, so you owe it, it is due, and they want to make you pay. Fortunately, without this Act, they have no way to make you pay and no way to find out (short of spying on your bank records) what you are buying outside the state. They say it is due. But they can't collect. That means, if they are going to engineer a way to collect taxes that they are not collecting from you now, they are hitting your family budget with a Big Tax Increase. And lying that it is not. Look at how much money the proponents of this outrage claim it will bring in to state revenues. That number, my friends, is the exact amount of your new Increased Taxes.
Of course that imposes a massive administrative expense on Amazon, eBay, and every other merchant to calculate and remit these taxes specific to your residence to your local political functionaries (bureaucrats)! PRICES MUST GO UP. They are going to mess with your eBay sales and force you to collect and remit taxes for THEM across state lines.
Your state of course must hire many new employees (with pensions and benefits), buy expensive software programs, computer servers, e-commerce equipment to monitor ALL this economic activity which is BIGGER GOVERNMENT. New enforcement police will be hired, armed and deployed to travel all over the country, stay in three-star hotels, eat free, and rent cars to check the books of your out-of-state suppliers.
That's what my Senator Lamar Alexander wants. He used to work for Reagan. Reagan would never abide this theft. Bob Corker has also told me that he supports this Massive Tax Increase and Enlargement of state Government. They are working in concert (complicity and cahoots with your Democrat Party Tax and Spend Liberals) to take more money from YOU and keep it for themselves! Unbelievable!
Enough is enough. Stop it. Get off our backs and cut government spending. Stop taking our money and wasting it. Stop trying to figure out how to get more money from us all the time. Give a bonus to any and every government employee who can give a suggestion to cut the cost of government and reduce his budget. Give him 10% of everything he can save. Cut the crap. You KNOW that would work. The government employee unions have been screwing us for years. Pick up on what Reagan did to the Air Traffic Controllers. Get real. Make like you cared about the voter and taxpayer instead of the parasites that suck and live off of OUR blood.
Truly, Government is theft.
PS. Control freaks like Bloomberg don't realize that we can set up business in Vancouver, China, or Tijuana to fill the demand from Americans sick and tired of being used and abused for politician's experiments. That will be good for Americans and workers in those cities, but not for the US economy.
In a victory for libraries and consumers, the U.S. Supreme Court today issued a 6-3 opinion in favor of petitioner Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai student who resold textbooks lawfully purchased by his family at bookstores in Thailand. AALL’s Copyright Committee chair Tracy Thompson-Przylucki wrote on the Copyright Committee blog:
In its opinion in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., a decision released today, the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that the first sale doctrine is not subject to any geographical limitations (Justice Ginsburg dissents). The Court’s decision means that purchasers of works produced outside of the U.S., if the works are lawfully subject to U.S. Copyright protections, are entitled to invoke the first sale doctrine to justify their subsequent sale, lease or loan of those works. This is an important victory not just for consumers like Kirtsaeng, but for libraries and library users.
ORI is gratified by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in favor of Supap Kirtsaeng in this important copyright case. This decision is a landmark win for consumers, small businesses, online marketplaces, retailers and libraries nationwide and an affirmation of the ORI motto, ‘you bought it, you own it.’ This decision definitively affirms the first sale doctrine, cementing the right of consumers and organizations to sell, lend and give away goods that they bought and own, regardless of where those goods were made.
While we are energized by this decision, we expect that some will continue attempts to eliminate owners’ rights, reduce competition in the marketplace and restrict the global trade of authentic goods. ORI will continue to be vigilant and diligent in protecting owners’ rights now and in the future and we expect policymakers to do the same.
For more information about the case, please see AALL’s issue brief by Amy Ash, member of the Copyright Committee and George H. Pike, 2011-2012 chair of the Committee. AALL submitted an amicus brief in support of Kirtsaeng with Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Special Libraries Association, and U.S. PIRG.
In two weeks, I’ll celebrate my eighth anniversary writing this column. And if I do any ruminating during my 15-second celebration, I’ll recognize that one thing still hasn’t changed: there’s still no single technical level of writing that makes everybody happy.
I still get complaints from total newbies, who are bewildered by terms like “smartphone” and “plasma TV.” And I still get bashed by the gearheads, who find the column not nearly technical enough.
I think a lot about the technical level of the column. Over the years, I’ve adopted a number of tricks that are designed to communicate technical points without losing the novices–and one of them is avoiding jargon.
Why tech writers use so much jargon, I don’t know. Maybe it’s self-aggrandizement; they want to lord their knowledge over everybody else. Maybe it’s laziness; they can’t be bothered to fish for a plain-English word. Maybe it’s just habit; they spend all day talking shop with other nerds, so they slip into technospeak when they write for larger audiences.
In any case, I’m making available to all, for the first time, my list of pretentious pet-peeve words to avoid. I used to consider plain-English writing a competitive advantage, so I’ve never leaked this list to potential rivals. But at this point, forget it; any tips that might contribute to clearer writing deserve to be free.
* Content. As in, “Web content.” Ugh. If you mean “Web pages,” say “Web pages.” If you mean “music,” say “music.” Nobody outside the tech industry says “content” when they mean “what’s on your player” or “what’s on your Web site.”
* Device. You know what’s weird? Cellphone companies never actually use the term “cellphone.” They always use the word “device,” as in the wince-inducing sentence, “The user can transfer D.R.M.-protected content to their device.”
Look, I get it: these days, cellphones do more than make phone calls. But you don’t need to abandon the term “cellphone” for that reason; the meaning of “cellphone” has already expanded to accommodate its new functions. If you say “cellphone,” your audience already understands that it means “a gadget that makes calls, gets on the Internet and takes crummy pictures.”
* Dialog. The term “dialog box” is already a problem, since it doesn’t really identify what it is (a message box on the screen, forcing you to answer a question–like how many copies of a printout you want). But unfortunately, there’s absolutely no alternative. And shortening this to “dialog” is definitely a step in the wrong direction.
* Display. “Display” can be a noun (“a display of fireworks”). It can also be a verb that takes a direct object (“He displayed emotion”). It is not, however, a verb without a direct object, except in magazines like PC World: “Shows filmed in high-definition end up displaying in letterbox format.”
Displaying what in letterbox format? Fireworks? Emotions?
The word this writer was looking for is “appearing.”
* D.R.M. What’s so nauseating about this term is that it started out as a euphemism. It means copy protection, which most people don’t like on their software, music files or videos. So with doublespeak like “digital rights management,” the companies who favor copy protection think they’re putting a positive spin on the concept. And by using “D.R.M.” instead of “copy protection,” we’re playing into their sad little manipulation.
Sorry, Charlie. It’s still copy protection, and we should call a spade a spade.
* Enable. Who on earth says, “Enable the GPS function”? Only user-manual writers and computer-book authors. Say “Turn on GPS” instead.
* E-mail client. Originally, someone coined “client” to distinguish your computer’s e-mail program from the computer that dishes it out (the server). But when you’re not explicitly trying to make that differentiation, just say “e-mail program.” The only people with e-mail clients are the lawyers who represent Outlook and Gmail.
* Functionality. WOW, do I despise this pretentious word. Five syllables–ooh, what a knowledgeable person you must be!
It means “feature.” Say “feature.”
* LCD. What I hate about this word is that it doesn’t say what it is (“the screen”). And even if you spell out what it means in parentheses, you still haven’t told readers what the heck you’re talking about. (“Liquid crystal display? Ohhh, so THAT’S what it means.”)
* P.D.A. Here’s another ridiculous term–ridiculous because it’s not self-explanatory. “Personal digital assistant?” Give me a break. It’s a palmtop.
* Price point. What are you, paid by the word? “Price” alone does the job.
* URL. This one’s common, but I still can’t stand it. “Uniform Resource Locator”? Oh, thank you–that helps. NOT!
I use “Web address.” Same number of syllables, and crystal-clear.
* RAM. Here again, there’s a plain-English word that does the same job without the intimidation: memory. That’s a word that says what it means.
* S.M.S. The ultimate pointless term. “Text message” is the same number of syllables, and also says what it is. “SMS” doesn’t do anyone any good–but it does baffle the non-technical.
* Support. I don’t mean “support” as in “tech support,” although even that term is a corporate creepy cop-out (it means “help line”). No, I mean the verb, as in, “The laptop supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.”
In no other corner of modern discourse is “support” used that way. I use “has,” “offers” or “works with.”
* USB. I use this term in my writing, but only reluctantly; there simply isn’t any other term that does the job. But it’s a hateful term–even knowing that it stands for “Universal Serial Bus” doesn’t begin to help you understand what it is. Let’s have more clever, self-descriptive names for jacks, like FireWire or (for Apple’s wireless) AirPort.
* User. There are two industries that refer to their customers as “users” –technology and illegal drugs.
When you’re writing about computers, there’s almost never a sentence where you couldn’t substitute “you” or, worst case, “the customer” as the noun and thereby improve the sentence. Instead of saying, “The user can, at his or her option, elect to remove this functionality,” say, “You can turn this feature off.” It’s not only clearer, but it gets you out of the awkward “his or her” bit.
* Wi-Fi. I use this one occasionally, but only with gritted teeth.
It’s just not a good term. It doesn’t say what it means. People think it stands for “wireless fidelity,” but the Wi-Fi Alliance, which hired a branding firm to create it, says it doesn’t stand for anything.
I use the term “wireless hot spot” when I can, but only because there’s no more comprehensible alternative. (“Bluetooth” doesn’t immediately convey that technology’s function. But at least it’s better than “Wi-Fi.” Once you hear that it’s named for a Danish king who brought together warring factions, you never forget its meaning.)
And there you have it: Pogue’s Anti-Jargon Dictionary. You’re free to use it to launch your own writing careers, with my compliments!
P.S.–Set your TiVo! This Sunday, October 19, I’ll report on the Encyclopedia of Life on “CBS News Sunday Morning.” (The Encyclopedia of Life, eol.org, is an ambitious international “moon shot” of a project. It will attempt to catalog and describe every single one of the Earth’s 1.8 million known species in one place, drawing on both experts and ordinary citizens to fill in the blanks.)
Knowing what we know today, would you have indiscriminate, unprotected sex? Probably not. So when you make a phone call, do you discuss private information of a personal nature, or business, or your investments, or your credit card info?
