What's in the News

...

Is there any evidence they have changed? I can't find it, not that I'm pessimistic, I just don't see it.

Seeds of change. Given that the powers themselves are prone more to overreach than self limitation, actual change depends on legislation. And that, in idealistic theory, depends on the people. So if the people are on their way to some kind of change, then viola!

On the positive side...

I'm just encouraged by what I see as Russia interrupting plans for NATO's humanitarian bombing Syria. After Libya, perhaps China and Russia will not be so compliant to no-fly zones. I think a balance of power is necessary between USA-Russia-China, otherwise whoever's on top just gets too powerful, and such an arrangement might be effective in curtailing the CIA, MI6, et al.

Competition is where it's at for balancing power. The internet makes information competition possible. BRICS bank or China's new AIIB might be competition for the World Bank and IMF, and their NATO collection agency, lol, so competition here might be good, too. And military competition would be best avoided.

My first instinct is to say this sounds less a balance and more a nightmare. I don't like or trust what the world would be under Chinese and to a lesser extent Russian guidance. I'll probably have to think about it more though because that's mostly my prejudice talking. 

I thought I was fairly worldly and knew all about 'kinky'. Apparently not!    This Kiwi has left me speechless... and I'm sure, his victims mumbling for a while -

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/world/article/new-zealand-tooth-fetish-sex-offender-jailed#sthash.fxU4UiQf.dpbs

Somehow brings to mind the glory days of 1966 to 1976...yaay..the intellectual abilities and logic functions of 16 and 17 year old Chinese kids, and college kids...when I have a sign hung around my neck announcing that I've been watching Black Sails instead of The Yellow Haired Girl, and enjoyed it..and am made to parade around the running track in my shame it may be time to drift back to the antipodes.
Rx

Rattie,

You expressed my thoughts exactly... but with more eloquence -

"Damn! It's just like the Cultural Revolution... except with more advanced technology. The little buggers will be reporting my online porn search habits."

I wonder how they verify posting activity. If it's not some kind of honour system where posters report to a team leader who reports to a supervisor who reports to a etc and so on, then what are they doing?

Incidentally, it's not entirely as if this doesn't happen outside China. There's some schools of thought saying major copyright holders spend some amount of their budgets on work-at-home people who post anonymously on, say, torrent sites, downgrading the supposed quality of a given movie torrent, or talking up scare stories, to turn casual downloaders away.

This "army" does seem to have some different quality to it, though.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/24/asia/china-smuggled-meat/

Passing nicety required .

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/24/asia/china-smuggled-meat/

Passing nicety required .

Yeah, fun stuff. This is in Changsha, fortunately the dog meat is fresh.

Passing nicety required .

No it's not.
(Or may be due to me using https://github.com/huhamhire/huhamhire-hosts/releases )

NSA's hacking tool is apparently as easy to use as a Google search

It's been a couple of years since Edward Snowden and The Guardian introduced us to the NSA's spying tool called XKeyscore. Now, The Intercept has published new details about it from 48 documents Snowden provided, revealing that it's a lot more powerful than previously thought. Apparently, it's fed a constant flow of data from all over the world straight from fiber optic cables, can store content from three to five days and metadata for even longer (up to around 45 days). Based on these new documents, the publication has confirmed that the tool helped the agency look up other private info beyond emails and chats, including "pictures, documents, voice calls, webcam photos, web searches, advertising analytics traffic, social media traffic, botnet traffic, logged keystrokes, computer network exploitation (CNE) targeting, username and password pairs, file uploads to online services, Skype sessions and more." The NSA even tracked phone connections to Google Play and Samsung's App Store.

XKeyscore isn't only powerful, though: it's also incredibly easy to use. Toucan Systems CEO and security researcher Jonathan Brossard told The Intercept that hacking remote computers using the tool takes just a few "minutes, if not seconds." Plus, doing so is as simple as typing words into Google search -- it's so easy that the agency can train personnel on how to use the tool effectively within a single day....


XKEYSCORE global spy system detailed in new Snowden leaks

Staggering scale of surveillance revealed.

Top secret documents leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have cast further light on the secretive XKEYSCORE analysis system used to process information captured from taps on internet fibre-optic backbones and other communications channels.

Published by The Intercept, the documents date back to 2013 and detail a global mass surveillance system that indiscriminately takes in every bit of data it can for NSA analysts to process.

XKEYSCORE is a distributed system for querying tens of billions of records stored in its databases. It is used by spy agencies within the Five Eyes alliance - Australia, the US, NZ, Canada and Britain.

The system had around 150 field sites globally in 2008, some located in Australia and New Zealand where local and visiting US intelligence analysts also have access to the captured data.

Content is stored in XKEYSCORE for three to five days, but metadata such as call records and browsing history is kept much longer, for 30 to 45 days, the documents showed.

The extent of the full collection of internet users, businesses and other organisations' data with XKEYSCORE is substantial, and includes, among other things:

Emails
Chats
Website traffic
Pictures
Documents
Voice calls, including internet voice calls
Webcam photos
Search engine traffic
Advertising analytics traffic
Social media traffic
Botnet traffic
Logged keystrokes
Computer network exploitation (CNE) targeting
Intercepted username and password pairs
File uploads to online services
Skype sessions

The NSA defended its use of systems such as XKEYSCORE to The Intercept, arguing they were ;necessary to protect the US, its populations and its allies against a wide range of serious threats....


/all the things

China's '300': When Spartans met the Beijing police

Dozens of half-naked models, dressed as Spartan warriors -- familiar to Chinese moviegoers from the 2006 action-fantasy film "300" -- were subdued by Beijing police while taking part in a marketing stunt, promoting a salad delivery service Wednesday...

Related:





And... boom



This. Is. CHIINAAAAAAH!

I must assume that the police take-down wasn't part of the planned marketing stunt.