Tuesday Open Thread 03-10-15
Good Morning 99percenters!
Some news and Stevie Ray's older brother, Jimmie Vaughan.
The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple’s Secrets - By Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley
RESEARCHERS WORKING with the Central Intelligence Agency have conducted a multi-year, sustained effort to break the security of Apple’s iPhones and iPads, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Intercept.
The security researchers presented their latest tactics and achievements at a secret annual gathering, called the “Jamboree,” where attendees discussed strategies for exploiting security flaws in household and commercial electronics. The conferences have spanned nearly a decade, with the first CIA-sponsored meeting taking place a year before the first iPhone was released.
By targeting essential security keys used to encrypt data stored on Apple’s devices, the researchers have sought to thwart the company’s attempts to provide mobile security to hundreds of millions of Apple customers across the globe. Studying both “physical” and “non-invasive” techniques, U.S. government-sponsored research has been aimed at discovering ways to decrypt and ultimately penetrate Apple’s encrypted firmware. This could enable spies to plant malicious code on Apple devices and seek out potential vulnerabilities in other parts of the iPhone and iPad currently masked by encryption.
The CIA declined to comment for this story.
The REAL Reasons We’re At War With Russia
The Empire Doesn’t Like to Be Questioned
We’re at war with Russia.
Specifically, we’ve launched:
- A sanctions war
- A currency war
- A hot war in Ukraine
Indeed, it appears that U.S. leaders have targeted Putin for regime change.
Why?
Hyping Fear Is an Economic Engine of the News Business, and We All Pay the Price
If Bill O’Reilly’s lies bother you, his fear mongering should really scare youMuch has been made in the last few weeks of the factual nature of the news. Amidst allegations that NBC News anchor Brian Williams was less than accurate in claims about his experiences in Iraq, we now have an emerging controversy over the repeated lies of Bill O’Reilly. But the real story here is not just the decline of truth telling in television news, it’s the way that the truth has been replaced by fear
Rather than offer viewers accurate information, TV news increasingly depends on developing a fearful audience. As Psychology Today notes, “Fear-based news stories prey on the anxieties we all have and then hold us hostage.” O’Reilly, for instance, tells viewers that they have much to fear, that the world is filled with evil, and then offers personal stories that suggest he has unique insights into the way that violence operates in the world. Again, to quote Psychology Today, “[t]he success of fear-based news relies on presenting dramatic anecdotes in place of scientific evidence, promoting isolated events as trends, depicting categories of people as dangerous and replacing optimism with fatalistic thinking.”
Most of us have heard the phrase “if it bleeds, it leads,” but it’s worth asking when we simply started to take it for granted. In fact, the phrase was originally a reference to local TV news – a tacit criticism of the way local news programs used hype and sensationalism to attract viewers since they lacked the serious reporting of network news. In the early 1980s, just as media critics began noting that local news was turning toward even greater fear-based reporting, CNN was founded. The advent of the 24/7 news channel radically altered the kind of information offered to television news audiences.
Put simply, there wasn’t enough “real” news to sustain a 24-hour cycle. So cable news relied on two things to fill the hours: time spent hyping future stories and pundit reviews of news items. Both of these changes depended more on fear than facts to keep viewers tuned in. Anchors babbled on about worrying news stories, then pundits hyped them up with hysteria.
Jimmie Vaughan - Motorhead
Jimmie Vaughan - The Pleasure's all mine
Jimmie Vaughan - Tilt A Whirl
Jimmie Vaughan - Boom Bapa Boom
Comments
Good morning y'all...
for those who like to know who's online a link has been added to the Navigation Menu for quick and easy access. It was a pain scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page.
What's new with you?
Just stumbling along
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Morning.
That article on the 'Real Reasons We're at War with Russia".
Doesn't it sound funny to say "we're". It's like, we are at war. We, that's you and me and Bobbi McGee.
But I don't know about the reasons they give in that article. Punishment? Syria? Snowden? Sure, those are
factors, but in the end it's about Russia and China and world power. Syria is just a stage in the game. Just like
near the end of the Cold War when they decided to create Al Qaeda to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, the goal
was to take the country down then too. Not for Syria or Snowden, for power.
Is the head dead yet?
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
U.S./Obama administration going after
Venezuela.
This talk about the GOP and their Iran letter pisses me off because it completely lets Obama
and his imperialist warmongers off the hook from what they're doing. Remember the Iran
negotiations are inherently fraudulent because they're based on a lie, that Iran is going to
build a nuclear weapon if not contained and that it's the U.S. and Israel's job to make sure it
doesn't. That's where the focus should be, the lies of Obama, not the fucking GOP.
https://tonyseed.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/us-declares-venezuela-a-threat...
i liked cuba's commenton the matter...
Cuba throws weight behind Venezuela in row with US
Gets tiring doesn't it.
It's so fucking stupid.
This is Obama. No slack for him and the dems regardless the 47 senators thing.
They're all the same thing only different.
Surprised GOS doesn't have a live blog
on the great and glorious press conference of March aught 15. Prolly be along any minute.
Never thought of that. I'll run over and check it out. Thnx, cw!
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
FS Clinton soon to hold 'pseudo-press conference' [Correction]
at the UN.
Reported on "The Morning Briefing," she, or her Camp, did not contact the Press until 18 hours before the Press Conference--and "it takes 24 hours to get credentialed."
(Remember, though, there will be United Nations reporters already there. Of course, what the heck do they know about the subject at hand?)
If this reporting is accurate, I think that she's wasting her time once those facts get widely known. The Press will be furious. And they should be, if it shuts out State Department reporters, etc.
David Corn is now on the radio program, Real Clear Politics, acknowledging that she's cooked in a couple of aspects--including the "chain of custody" problem.
This particular issue can't really be resolved, no matter if they do a forensic exam on the server/computer.
Great point. I didn't even think about that one.
Heck, I was too stupefied that she attempted to pull off something like this, in the first place. The arrogance and stupidity were glaring.
Just like the Ambassador of Kenya, I would have been swiftly shown the door, if I had ever even contemplated something like this. And that would apply to millions of federal civil servants.
My guess: She'll give a memorized statement. Then take a couple of questions.
I'll be back with either a transcript, or a summary, of what she says, later this afternoon.
If a "real" progressive is at all serious, this is the time for them to step up.
I wish I could get Corn's interview on here (I'll see if they have podcasts--most don't). He sounds really worried--and that includes about the Foundation money.
UL
P.S. I'm almost sick, now. Corn is touting neoliberal/corporatist Governor Brown, who slashed California's Medicaid program (among other social programs), as they contemplate who might run if Hillary has to pull out of the race.
Corn is also bragging that Brown overcame his "image problem"--meaning, 'being a liberal.'
He sure did, LOL!
Sigh . . .
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
I'm gobsmacked! No wonder she has dodged this
for days.
Lanny Davis apparently presented her precise excuse: "convenience."
BTW, Andrea Mitchell just asked a question, so obviously, reporters got in (other than UN reporters).
All she'll admit to, is "I did it for convenience, and now looking back, think that it might have been smarter to not have done this."
and, she added,
"Regarding future issues, I trust the American People to make judgments. And I look forward to having a discussion about that."
I can't imagine this ending well for her. As one reporter said, she was trying to appeal to the "goodwill" of the American Public.
To make it clear--FSC has just informed the nation that she deleted the emails that she did not turn over.
"Trust me," is what one reporter just summed up as her message. (Money and Politics Reporter, Tom Hamburger, WaPo?)
(Truthfully, I can't wait to hear what the 15-20 reporters will have to say about this one. The first two are already laughing their *sses off, as you might expect, if you heard the Press Conference.)
Remember, this is "satellite" radio. These reporters can say 'what they really think.'
Amazing!!!!!!!!!!
UL
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
One phone?
So what kind of phone did she have that could only accomdate one email account? And she only wrote emails from her phone? Never from a laptop or a desktop?
Law of holes.
"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone
CL, the news program Host Mason just mentioned that
she is pretty sure that it is against some regulation to co-mingle email accounts on a phone.
(She was a White House reporter herself, for about 12 years.)
She also believes that FSC was not in compliance with the open records laws.
If Mason's correct, then it may have meant, that to be in compliance, FSC would have needed to carry two phones.
And that is what FSC meant by "for convenience."
She apparently objected to need to carry a second phone for official government business.
But, for cryin' out loud, what is so difficult about that?
My husband and I have 4 Wifi Devices (Hotspots), with "three carriers," getting ready to add a "fourth carrier" and device, this month.
We also (each) keep in our possession--as in vehicle, home, or purse (for me)--three to four different phones, all with different carriers.
Of course, they aren't all smartphones.
Some are just basic phones, which you pay for only if you use the phone--since they are 'for backup,' and/or for tower coverage in the event that we should cross into a "dead area."
How is it that two "regular folk" can easily, and voluntarily, manage this simply as a matter of making certain that they have reliable communications at all times (BTW, this is partly due to medical reasons), but the world's top diplomat finds it "too taxing."
I am simply dumbfounded.
Hey, gonna run and catch more reporter's interviews.
I'm hoping that I can find a transcript of the interview. I wrote down her 4 points (as she put it), and will post them later this week.
In the meantime, I'm interested in seeing the reaction to the deletion of, as one reporter put it, what easily could be tens of thousands of emails.
Oh, but don't worry about that: according to FSC, those thousands of emails were just about things as mundane as yoga, etc. (Read: "I'm just like you.")
BTW, her delivery of her remarks was done well.--she only laughed that nervous laugh, a couple of times, that I noticed. It was the 'substance' that may come back to haunt her. And, of course, with partisan Dems, it didn't matter in the first place. Gotta check out what her staunch defenders are saying now.
All the reporters [thus far] are in agreement that according to the Open Records Law, FSC's staff would not have the authority/power to cull what is relevant, and what is not relevant.
I'll look into this much deeper. I've heard the term, but I am not familiar with it, nor have I seen anything in writing on this.
CL, your questions raises another one--would the same apply to computers (meaning the need to have two). My guess is that is would. I'm curious. I'll try to check this out.
Heck, couldn't FSC have picked up a second computer at a yard sale, LOL?
Oh, I forgot--she's 'dead broke!'
;-D
UL
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
I'll buy
that there is probably a regulation against adding personal accounts to a US government phone, or one that you are allowed to expense back to the government.
"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone
Rick Klein, ABC News, got releases from "3" progressive
groups talking about needing another Dem Party Candidate to challenge FSC.
He writes for "The Note" at ABC online.
UL
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
OMG
The inevitable one has not even officially declared and she is already imploding, which does not surprise me at all.
She has not handled this well at all, beginning with waiting so long to respond. If a negative story hits the air waves, it is better to try to kill it as soon as possible before it has a chance to fester into something even bigger. I am still amazed at how amateurish her camp has handled this thus far.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy