A growing number of leading left-wing websites have confirmed that their search traffic from Google has plunged in recent months, adding to evidence that Google, under the cover of a fraudulent campaign against fake news, is implementing a program of systematic and widespread censorship.
Truthout, a not-for-profit news website that focuses on political, social, and ecological developments from a left progressive standpoint, had its readership plunge by 35 percent since April. The Real News , a nonprofit video news and documentary service, has had its search traffic fall by 37 percent. Another site, Common Dreams , last week told the WSWS that its search traffic had fallen by up to 50 percent.
As extreme as these sudden drops in search traffic are, they do not equal the nearly 70 percent drop in traffic from Google seen by the WSWS.
“This is political censorship of the worst sort; it’s just an excuse to suppress political viewpoints,” said Robert Epstein, a former editor in chief of Psychology Today and noted expert on Google.
Epstein said that at this point, the question was whether the WSWS had been flagged specifically by human evaluators employed by the search giant, or whether those evaluators had influenced the Google Search engine to demote left-wing sites. “What you don’t know is whether this was the human evaluators who are demoting you, or whether it was the new algorithm they are training,” Epstein said.
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shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Jul 09
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The Productivity Point of Assembly - It's Moving! (Open Wave) - 0 views
sites.google.com/...productivity-point-of-assembly
msoffice-2010 MSOffice-ecosystem MSOffice-productivity
shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Jul 09
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This commentary concerns the Microsoft Office Productivity Environment and the opportunity presented as Microsoft tries to move that environment to the MS-Web stack of servers and services. The MS-Web is comprised of many server side applications, but the center is that of the Exchange/SharePoint/MOSS juggernaut. With the 2010 series of product and services release, Microsoft will be accelerating this great transition of the Microsoft monopoly base. While there are many Open Web alternatives to specific applications and services found in the 2010 MS-Web stack, few competitors are in position to put their arms around the whole thing. This is after all an ecosystem that has been put in transition. Replacing parts of the MSOffice ecosystem will break the continuity of existing business processes bound to that productivity environment. This is a disruption few businesses are willing to tolerate. Because of the disruptive cost and the difficulty of cracking into existing bound business systems without breaking things, Microsoft is in position to charge a premium for comparatively featureless MS-Web products and services. Given time, this will no doubt change. And because of the impossible barriers to entry, Microsoft has had lots of time. Still, i'm betting on the Open Web. This commentary attempts to explain why...... I also had some fun with Google Docs templates. What a mess :)
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AppleInsider | Inside Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Exchange Support - 0 views
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Apple desktop and iPhone support of Microsoft Exchange is not support for Microsoft, as some think. It's actually a strategy to erode Microsoft's desktop monopoly. It's also part of a longer term plan to thwart Microsoft's hopes of leveraging their desktop monopoly into a Web Server monopoly. Excerpt: Apple is reducing its dependance upon Microsoft's client software, weakening Microsoft's ability to hold back and dumb down its Mac offerings at Apple's expense. More importantly, Apple is providing its users with additional options that benefit both Mac users and the open source community. In the software business, Microsoft has long known the importance of owning the client end. It worked hard to displace Netscape's web browser in the late 90s, not because there was any money to be made in giving away browser clients, but because it knew that whoever controlled the client could set up proprietary demands for a specific web server. That's what Netscape had worked to do as it gave away its web browser in hopes that it could make money selling Netscape web servers; Microsoft first took control of the client with Internet Explorer and then began tying its IE client to its own IIS on the server side with features that gave companies reasons to buy all of their server software from Microsoft. As Apple takes over the client end of Exchange, it similarly gains market leverage. First and foremost, the move allows Apple to improve the Exchange experience of Mac users so that business users have no reason not to buy Macs. Secondly, it gives Apple a client audience to market its own server solutions, including MobileMe to individual users and Snow Leopard Server to organizations. In concert with providing Exchange Server support, Apple is also delivering integrated support for its own Exchange alternatives in both MobileMe and with Snow Leopard Server's improved Dovecot email services, Address Book Server, iCal Server, the new Mobile Access secure gateway, and its include
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ShareFile Integrates Cloud File Share With Desktop Folders - PCWorld Business Center - 0 views
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Making cloud-based file transfer service easier. Improved FTP alternative for small and medium sized business. A ShareFile user's customers can access files on a company-branded Web portal, one of the business-friendly features that helps set the service apart from the likes of Dropbox, according to Steve Chiles, chief marketing officer at ShareFile. Users can also allow their customers to log in to the service and upload files from their own website. ShareFile comes with reporting features that allow users to see who has uploaded and downloaded files, and when they were transferred. The addition of Sync will help automate the process of uploading files, instead of having to do a lot of the upload work manually. The feature allows for both one-way and two-way synchronization of files. The user just has to drag and drop the file they want to synchronize into a designated folder. A folder can also be configured to send content to many recipients.
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Forget Custom iPad Magazines: Onswipe Turns Any Site Into One - Technology Review - 0 views
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Move over Flipboard, Push Pop and TreeSaver. Here comes OnSwipe. Packaging a Web site for a highly interactive and mobile world just got easier. excerpt: OnSwipe does something web developers should have been racing to accomplish ever since the iPad was first unveiled: it makes a website -- any website -- into a tablet-friendly experience. (It's already available to everyone who publishes their blog on Wordpress.com.) It uses HTML5 to make a site feel like an app, even though it's running in the browser. Onswipe points to a future of tablet media delivery that is incredibly simple, even boring: Websites that are designed to look good on tablets. Given the history of creating alternate designs for sites in order to make them mobile-friendly, why anyone ever imagined it would be otherwise is baffling. Probably, it was wishful thinking. IPad magazine app sales are tanking. Media aggregation apps like Flipboard and Zite are re-atomizing publishers' content into pleasurable, full-screen, mostly ad-free experiences. The great do-over that tablets were to represent for publishers like Condé Nast -- a chance to put the free-content genie back in the bottle, and charge for admission -- appears to have gone bust. Onswipe and the startups that will inevitably follow in its wake are the final nail in the coffin of the dream of appification of magazines and other media content
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shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Jul 11
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Why Microsoft's Office 365 will clobber Google Apps | VentureBeat - Peter Yared - 0 views
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Office365 Google-Apps Web-Productivity-Platform cloud-productivity
shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Jul 11
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Good comparison of Microsoft and Google "Cloud" initiatives. Sure, Microsoft has the numbers. They own the legacy desktop productivity platform. But their execution in the Cloud is horrific. Businesses will always opt for integrating existing desktop apps with Cloud productivity systems over rip-out-and-replace platform alternatives. But the benefits of highly interoperable and universally accessible Cloud communications and collaborative computing have to be there. So far MS has failed to deliver, and miserably so. excerpt: With Office 365, Microsoft has finally delivered an end-to-end cloud platform for businesses that encompass not only its desktop Office software, but also its server software, such as Exchange and SharePoint. Contrary to Google's narrative, cloud based office software is still a wide open market. The three million businesses that have "Gone Google" - proclaimed on billboards in San Francisco airport's new Terminal 2 - are for the most part Gmail users, who are still happily using Microsoft Office and even Microsoft Outlook. Gmail is a fast, cheap, spam-free and great solution for business email, especially relative to the expensive, lumbering email service providers. Google Apps has definitely found a niche for online collaboration, but generally for low-end project management types of spreadsheets and small documents. The presentation and drawing Google Apps are barely used. Yes, there are definitely Google Apps wins, since it seems cheap. On implementation, businesses find that switching to Gmail is one thing, but switching their entire business infrastructure to Google Apps is a completely different animal that goes far beyond simply changing how employees are writing memos.
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Evidence of Google blacklisting of left and progressive sites continues to mount - Worl... - 0 views
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Richard Stallman, the world-renowned technology pioneer and a leader of the free software movement, said he had read the WSWS’s coverage on Google’s censorship of left-wing sites. He warned about the immense control exercised by Google over the Internet, saying, “For people’s main way of finding articles about a topic to be run by a giant corporation creates an obvious potential for abuse.” According to data from the search optimization tool SEMRush, search traffic to Mr. Stallman’s personal website, Stallman.org, fell by 24 percent, while traffic to gnu.org, operated by the Free Software Foundation, fell 19 percent. Eric Maas, a search engine optimization consultant working in the San Francisco Bay area, said his team has surveyed a wide range of alternative news sites affected by changes in Google’s algorithms since April. “While the update may be targeting specific site functions, there is evidence that this update is promoting only large mainstream news organizations. What I find problematic with this is that it appears that some sites have been targeted and others have not.” The massive drop in search traffic to the WSWS and other left-wing sites followed the implementation of changes in Google’s search evaluation protocols. In a statement issued on April 25, Ben Gomes, the company’s vice president for engineering, stated that Google’s update of its search engine would block access to “offensive” sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.” In a set of guidelines issued to Google evaluators in March, the company instructed its search evaluators to flag pages returning “conspiracy theories” or “upsetting” content unless “the query clearly indicates the user is seeking an alternative viewpoint.”
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Huawei launches first product with own operating system - 0 views
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Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which has been caught in the crossfires of the Washington-Beijing trade war, on Saturday unveiled a new smart television, the first product to use its own operating system.The television will be available from Thursday in China and marks the first use of HarmonyOS, chief executive George Zhao said, adding that it will be marketed by its mid-range brand, Honor.Huawei revealed its highly-anticipated HarmonyOS on Friday as an alternative operating system for phones and other smart devices in the event that looming US sanctions prevent the firm from using Android technology.American companies are theoretically no longer allowed to sell technology products to Huawei, but a three-month exemption period -- which ends next week -- was granted by Washington before the measure came into force.That ban could stop the tech giant from getting hold of key hardware and software, including smartphone chips and elements of the Google Android operating system, which runs the vast majority of smartphones in the world, including Huawei's.Huawei -- considered the world leader in fast fifth-generation or 5G equipment and the world's number two smartphone producer -- has been blacklisted by US President Donald Trump amid suspicions it provides a backdoor for Chinese intelligence services, which the firm denies.
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Russia gears up to build its own 'independent internet' | The Times of Israel - 0 views
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The Russian government is reportedly considering building an “independent internet infrastructure” that it can use as an alternative to the global Domain Name System, or DNS system. Last month, Russia’s Security Council asked the government to start building a backup DNS system citing “the increased capabilities of Western nations to conduct offensive operations.”
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However, some defense experts say the move could “have more to do with Moscow’s own plans for offensive cyber operations,” according to the Defense One website. The alternative DNS would also serve the so-called BRIC nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — and would operate independently of international organizations.
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Russian president Vladimir Putin set a deadline of August 2018 to complete the infrastructure.
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Google Is Prepping A Sneak Attack On Microsoft Office - ReadWrite - 0 views
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Pretty good quote describing the reach of "Visual Productivity". Still, the quote lacks the power of embedded data (ODBC) streams and application obects (OLE) so important to the compound document model that sits at the center of all productivity environments and business system automation efforts.
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In a supporting comment, Zborowski pointed out that Google doesn't support the Open Document Format, suggesting that Microsoft is more open than Google.
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Productivity software is built to help people communicate. It's more than just the words in a document or presentation; it's about the tone, style and format you use to convey an overall message. People often entrust important information in these documents -- from board presentations to financial analyses to book reports. You should be able to trust that what you intend to communicate is what is being seen.
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Long-Secret Stingray Manuals Detail How Police Can Spy on Phones - 0 views
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Harris Corp.’s Stingray surveillance device has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in law enforcement for more than 15 years. The company and its police clients across the United States have fought to keep information about the mobile phone-monitoring boxes from the public against which they are used. The Intercept has obtained several Harris instruction manuals spanning roughly 200 pages and meticulously detailing how to create a cellular surveillance dragnet. Harris has fought to keep its surveillance equipment, which carries price tags in the low six figures, hidden from both privacy activists and the general public, arguing that information about the gear could help criminals. Accordingly, an older Stingray manual released under the Freedom of Information Act to news website TheBlot.com last year was almost completely redacted. So too have law enforcement agencies at every level, across the country, evaded almost all attempts to learn how and why these extremely powerful tools are being used — though court battles have made it clear Stingrays are often deployed without any warrant. The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department alone has snooped via Stingray, sans warrant, over 300 times.
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The documents described and linked below, instruction manuals for the software used by Stingray operators, were provided to The Intercept as part of a larger cache believed to have originated with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Two of them contain a “distribution warning” saying they contain “Proprietary Information and the release of this document and the information contained herein is prohibited to the fullest extent allowable by law.” Although “Stingray” has become a catch-all name for devices of its kind, often referred to as “IMSI catchers,” the manuals include instructions for a range of other Harris surveillance boxes, including the Hailstorm, ArrowHead, AmberJack, and KingFish. They make clear the capability of those devices and the Stingray II to spy on cellphones by, at minimum, tracking their connection to the simulated tower, information about their location, and certain “over the air” electronic messages sent to and from them. Wessler added that parts of the manuals make specific reference to permanently storing this data, something that American law enforcement has denied doing in the past.
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One piece of Windows software used to control Harris’s spy boxes, software that appears to be sold under the name “Gemini,” allows police to track phones across 2G, 3G, and LTE networks. Another Harris app, “iDen Controller,” provides a litany of fine-grained options for tracking phones. A law enforcement agent using these pieces of software along with Harris hardware could not only track a large number of phones as they moved throughout a city but could also apply nicknames to certain phones to keep track of them in the future. The manual describing how to operate iDEN, the lengthiest document of the four at 156 pages, uses an example of a target (called a “subscriber”) tagged alternately as Green Boy and Green Ben:
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In order to maintain an uninterrupted connection to a target’s phone, the Harris software also offers the option of intentionally degrading (or “redirecting”) someone’s phone onto an inferior network, for example, knocking a connection from LTE to 2G:
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A video of the Gemini software installed on a personal computer, obtained by The Intercept and embedded below, provides not only an extensive demonstration of the app but also underlines how accessible the mass surveillance code can be: Installing a complete warrantless surveillance suite is no more complicated than installing Skype. Indeed, software such as Photoshop or Microsoft Office, which require a registration key or some other proof of ownership, are more strictly controlled by their makers than software designed for cellular interception.
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Firefox Add-On Bypasses SOPA DNS Blocking | TorrentFreak - 1 views
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The pending Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) continues to inspire opponents to come up with creative solutions to circumvent it. A new anti-SOPA add-on for Firefox, titled “DeSopa,” is such a counter measure. When installed, users can click a single button to resolve a blocked domain via foreign DNS servers, bypassing all domestic DNS blockades and allowing the user to browse the site though the bare IP-address (if supported).
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“It could be that a few members of congress are just not tech savvy and don’t understand that it is technically not going to work, at all. So here’s some proof that I hope will help them err on the side of reason and vote SOPA down,” he adds.
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If browsing a site through a single IP address is not supported, this other anti-SOPA plugin provides an alternative.
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'Embarrassed' to use Facebook: Teens shift to other sites to 'unfriend' with parents - ... - 0 views
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Older teenagers have turned their backs on Facebook, an EU-funded study has found. Young people are opting for alternative social networks like Twitter and WhatsApp, while the "worst people of all, their parents, continue to use the service." Analyzing how 16-18 year-old teenagers from eight EU countries use Facebook, researchers came to the conclusion that youngsters are no hooked on Facebook any longer while their parents are. According to the head anthropologist on the research team, Daniel Miller, "mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it." "Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives. Parents have worked out how to use the site and see it as a way for the family to remain connected. In response, the young are moving on to cooler things," Miller, who is also professor of Material Culture at University College London, explained in his article for the academic news website, The Conversation. He said year 2013 marked the start of what looks likely to be "a sustained decline" of what had been "the most pervasive" of all social networking sites.
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The BRICS "Independent Internet" Cable. In Defiance of the "US-Centric Internet" | Glob... - 0 views
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The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff announces publicly the creation of a world internet system INDEPENDENT from US and Britain ( the “US-centric internet”). Not many understand that, while the immediate trigger for the decision (coupled with the cancellation of a summit with the US president) was the revelations on NSA spying, the reason why Rousseff can take such a historic step is that the alternative infrastructure: The BRICS cable from Vladivostock, Russia to Shantou, China to Chennai, India to Cape Town, South Africa to Fortaleza, Brazil, is being built and it’s, actually, in its final phase of implementation. No amount of provocation and attempted “Springs” destabilizations and Color Revolution in the Middle East, Russia or Brazil can stop this process. The huge submerged part of the BRICS plan is not yet known by the broader public.
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Nonetheless it is very real and extremely effective. So real that international investors are now jumping with both feet on this unprecedented real economy opportunity. The change… has already happened. Brazil plans to divorce itself from the U.S.-centric Internet over Washington’s widespread online spying, a move that many experts fear will be a potentially dangerous first step toward politically fracturing a global network built with minimal interference by governments. President Dilma Rousseff has ordered a series of measures aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security following revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted her communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company’s network and spied on Brazilians who entrusted their personal data to U.S. tech companies such as Facebook and Google.
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BRICS Cable… a 34 000 km, 2 fibre pair, 12.8 Tbit/s capacity, fibre optic cable system For any global investor, there is no crisis – there is plenty of growth. It’s just not in the old world BRICS is ~45% of the world’s population and ~25% of the world’s GDP BRICS together create an economy the size of Italy every year… that’s the 8th largest economy in the world The BRICS presents profound opportunities in global geopolitics and commerce Links Russia, China, India, South Africa, Brazil – the BRICS economies – and the United States. Interconnect with regional and other continental cable systems in Asia, Africa and South America for improved global coverage Immediate access to 21 African countries and give those African countries access to the BRICS economies. Projected ready for service date is mid to second half of 2015.
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Undoubtedly, construction was under way well before the Edward Snowden leaked documents began to be published. But that did give the new BRICS Cable an excellent hook for the announcement. With 12.8 Tbps throughput, it looks like this may divert considerable traffic now routed through the UK. But it still connects with the U.S., in Miami.
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Study: Surveillance will cost US tech sector more than $35B by 2016 | TheHill - 0 views
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A new study says that the U.S. tech industry is likely to lose more than $35 billion from foreign customers by 2016 because of concerns over government surveillance.“In short, foreign customers are shunning U.S. companies,” the authors of a new study from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation write.ADVERTISEMENT“The U.S. government’s failure to reform many of the NSA’s surveillance programs has damaged the competitiveness of the U.S. tech sector and cost it a portion of the global market share,” they said.The think tank’s report found that the cost to the tech sector associated with ongoing concerns over surveillance programs run out of the U.S. was likely to “far exceed” $35 billion by 2016, an earlier estimate set by the group.
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The group said that lawmakers must enact additional reforms to surveillance policy if they wish to help the tech sector regain the trust of foreign customers. That includes opposing “backdoors,” which allow law enforcement to access otherwise encrypted data, and signing off on trade agreements, including the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, that “ban digital protectionism.”The study’s authors found that the revelations about broad U.S. surveillance programs acted as a justification for foreign policymakers to enact protectionist policies aimed at aiding their own domestic technology sectors.Foreign companies have also used the information about U.S. surveillance programs to their advantage.“Some European companies have begun to highlight where their digital services are hosted as an alternative to U.S. companies,” the authors write.
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American companies, they found, have lost contracts to foreign competitors over fears about mass surveillance.Earlier this month, President Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, a bill that reformed the three Patriot Act provisions that authorized the bulk, warrantless collection of Americans’ phone records. The bill was widely supported by technology companies, including giants like Apple and Google.
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Legislative Cyber Threats: CISA's Not The Only One | Just Security - 0 views
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If anyone in the United States Senate had any doubts that the proposed Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) was universally hated by a range of civil society groups, a literal blizzard of faxes should’ve cleared up the issue by now. What’s not getting attention is a CISA “alternative” introduced last week by Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va) and Susan Collins (R-Me). Dubbed the “FISMA Reform Act,” the authors make the following claims about the bill: This legislation would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to operate intrusion detection and prevention capabilities on all federal agencies on the .gov domain. The bipartisan bill would also direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to conduct risk assessments of any network within the government domain. The bill would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to operate defensive countermeasures on these networks once a cyber threat has been detected. The legislation would strengthen and streamline the authority Congress gave to DHS last year to issue binding operational directives to federal agencies, especially to respond to substantial cyber security threats in emergency circumstances.
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The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to report to Congress annually on the extent to which OMB has exercised its existing authority to enforce government wide cyber security standards. On the surface, it actually sounds like a rational response to the disastrous OPM hack. Unfortunately, the Warner-Collins bill has some vague or problematic language and non-existent definitions that make it potentially just as dangerous for data security and privacy as CISA. The bill would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to carry out cyber security activities “in conjunction with other agencies and the private sector” [for] “assessing and fostering the development of information security technologies and capabilities for use across multiple agencies.” While the phrase “information sharing” is not present in this subsection, “security technologies and capabilities” is more than broad — and vague — enough to allow it.
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The bill would also allow the secretary to “acquire, intercept, retain, use, and disclose communications and other system traffic that are transiting to or from or stored on agency information systems and deploy countermeasures with regard to the communications and system traffic.”
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The bill also allows the head of a federal agency or department “to disclose to the Secretary or a private entity providing assistance to the Secretary…information traveling to or from or stored on an agency information system, notwithstanding any other law that would otherwise restrict or prevent agency heads from disclosing such information to the Secretary.” (Emphasis added.) So confidential, proprietary or other information otherwise precluded from disclosure under laws like HIPAA or the Privacy Act get waived if the Secretary of DHS or an agency head feel that your email needs to be shared with a government contracted outfit like the Hacking Team for analysis. And the bill explicitly provides for just this kind of cyber threat analysis outsourcing:
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(3) PRIVATE ENTITIES. — The Secretary may enter into contracts or other agreements, or otherwise request and obtain the assistance of, private entities that provide electronic communication or information security services to acquire, intercept, retain, use, and disclose communications and other system traffic in accordance with this subsection. The bill further states that the content of your communications, will be retained only if the communication is associated with a known or reasonably suspected information security threat, and communications and system traffic will not be subject to the operation of a countermeasure unless associated with the threats. (Emphasis added.) “Reasonably suspected” is about as squishy a definition as one can find.
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"The bill also allows the head of a federal agency or department "to disclose to the Secretary or a private entity providing assistance to the Secretary…information traveling to or from or stored on an agency information system, notwithstanding any other law that would otherwise restrict or prevent agency heads from disclosing such information to the Secretary."" Let's see: if your information is intercepted by the NSA and stored on its "information system" in Bluffdale, Utah, then it can be disclosed to the Secretary of DHS or any private entity providing him/her with assistance, "notwithstanding any other law that would otherwise restrict or prevent agency heads from disclosing such information to the Secretary." And if NSA just happens to be intercepting every digital bit of data generated or received in the entire world, including the U.S., then it's all in play, "notwithstanding any other law that would otherwise restrict or prevent agency heads from disclosing such information to the Secretary.". Sheesh! Our government voyeurs never stop trying to get more nude pix and videos to view.
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shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 15
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EXCLUSIVE: Edward Snowden Explains Why Apple Should Continue To Fight the Government on... - 0 views
firstlook.org/...ryption-just-doesnt-make-sense
surveillance state encryption Apple Google Snowden Comey back-door-debate
shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 15
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As the Obama administration campaign to stop the commercialization of strong encryption heats up, National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden is firing back on behalf of the companies like Apple and Google that are finding themselves under attack. “Technologists and companies working to protect ordinary citizens should be applauded, not sued or prosecuted,” Snowden wrote in an email through his lawyer. Snowden was asked by The Intercept to respond to the contentious suggestion — made Thursday on a blog that frequently promotes the interests of the national security establishment — that companies like Apple and Google might in certain cases be found legally liable for providing material aid to a terrorist organization because they provide encryption services to their users.
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In his email, Snowden explained how law enforcement officials who are demanding that U.S. companies build some sort of window into unbreakable end-to-end encryption — he calls that an “insecurity mandate” — haven’t thought things through. “The central problem with insecurity mandates has never been addressed by its proponents: if one government can demand access to private communications, all governments can,” Snowden wrote. “No matter how good the reason, if the U.S. sets the precedent that Apple has to compromise the security of a customer in response to a piece of government paper, what can they do when the government is China and the customer is the Dalai Lama?”
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Weakened encryption would only drive people away from the American technology industry, Snowden wrote. “Putting the most important driver of our economy in a position where they have to deal with the devil or lose access to international markets is public policy that makes us less competitive and less safe.”
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FBI Director James Comey and others have repeatedly stated that law enforcement is “going dark” when it comes to the ability to track bad actors’ communications because of end-to-end encrypted messages, which can only be deciphered by the sender and the receiver. They have never provided evidence for that, however, and have put forth no technologically realistic alternative. Meanwhile, Apple and Google are currently rolling out user-friendly end-to-end encryption for their customers, many of whom have demanded greater privacy protections — especially following Snowden’s disclosures.
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Open letter to Google: free VP8, and use it on YouTube - Free Software Foundation - 0 views
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Dear Google, With your purchase of On2, you now own both the world's largest video site (YouTube) and all the patents behind a new high performance video codec -- VP8. Just think what you can achieve by releasing the VP8 codec under an irrevocable royalty-free license and pushing it out to users on YouTube? You can end the web's dependence on patent-encumbered video formats and proprietary software (Flash).
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This ability to offer a free format on YouTube, however, is only a tiny fraction of your real leverage. The real party starts when you begin to encourage users' browsers to support free formats. There are lots of ways to do this. Our favorite would be for YouTube to switch from Flash to free formats and HTML, offering users with obsolete browsers a plugin or a new browser (free software, of course). Apple has had the mettle to ditch Flash on the iPhone and the iPad -- albeit for suspect reasons and using abhorrent methods (DRM) -- and this has pushed web developers to make Flash-free alternatives of their pages. You could do the same with YouTube, for better reasons, and it would be a death-blow to Flash's dominance in web video.
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If you care about free software and the free web (a movement and medium to which you owe your success) you must take bold action to replace Flash with free standards and free formats. Patented video codecs have already done untold harm to the web and its users, and this will continue until we stop it. Because patent-encumbered formats were costly to incorporate into browsers, a bloated, ill-suited piece of proprietary software (Flash) became the de facto standard for online video. Until we move to free formats, the threat of patent lawsuits and licensing fees hangs over every software developer, video creator, hardware maker, web site and corporation -- including you.
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Google to open source vp8 video codec - The Inquirer - 0 views
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By making VP8 open source Google will provide a high-quality and open alternative to H.264 and other existing codecs. When VP8 was first launched its inventors at On2 claimed it could provide "50 percent bandwidth savings compared to leading H.264 implementations." The move has the backing of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as a way of killing Flash and avoiding potential lock-in to patented technology.
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CSS Advanced Layout Module | W3C CSS3 Specification - 0 views
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The properties in this specification work by associating a layout policy with an element.
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The CSS3 "Layout Policy" is one of the primary differentials between HTML5-CSS3-SVG and XML alternatives ODF and OOXML. Neither ODF or OOXML provide a complete description (semantic) of the underlying document layout model.
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these policies give an element an invisible grid for aligning descendant elements
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CSS is a simple, declarative language for creating style sheets that specify the rendering of HTML and other structured documents. This specification is part of level 3 of CSS ("CSS3") and contains features to describe layouts at a high level, meant for tasks such as the positioning and alignment of "widgets" in a graphical user interface or the layout grid for a page or a window, in particular when the desired visual order is different from the order of the elements in the source document. Other CSS3 modules contain properties to specify fonts, colors, text alignment, list numbering, tables, etc. The features in this module are described together for easier reading, but are usually not implemented as a group. CSS3 modules often depend on other modules or contain features for several media types. Implementers should look at the various "profiles" of CSS, which list consistent sets of features for each type of media.