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They ask that you post this:AOMEI Backupper, a FREE and easy-to-use backup software, supports system backup, file backup, disk partition backup, scheduled backup, etc. Download at: http://www.backup-utility.com
Without fail in the weeks leading up to Black Hat and DEF CON, there are inevitably talks that are either pulled by organizers, cancelled by presenters, or strong suggestions are made that the talks don’t happen. This year’s first casualty, Ben Caudill’s scheduled DEF CON demonstration of ProxyHam, has already fanned some seriously speculative flames from the research and anti-surveillance camps about exactly why the talk isn’t happening.
Devices such as ProxyHam, a hardware proxy ideal for whistleblowers and others concerned about online privacy, apparently make some people nervous. On July 10, through his company Rhino Security Labs’ Twitter feed, Caudill announced that not only was his talk canceled, but source code for ProxyHam would not be released, all development was at a standstill, and existing devices were being disposed of. Early speculation on why Caudill’s talk drifted from a run-in with law enforcement, to the delivery of a National Security Letter, or concerns over possible violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
ProxyGambit is a simple anonymization device that allows you to access the Internet from anywhere in the world without revealing your true location or IP, fracturing your traffic from the Internet/IP through either a long distance radio link or a reverse tunneled GSM bridge that ultimately drops back onto the Internet and exits through a wireless network you're no where near.
While a point to point link is supported, the reverse GSM-to-TCP bridge allows you to proxy from thousands of miles away with nothing other than a computer and Internet with no direct link back to your originating machine.
ProxyGambit Directional Antenna to Laptop
A high speed (150Mbps+) link is available with direct line of sight from 10km+ away, or if further away, a 2G GSM connection produces a reverse TCP tunnel serializing a shell into the device accessible from anywhere in the world via the Internet or GSM. Either method proxies your connection through local wifi networks near the device, shielding and making it more difficult to determine your true location, IP and identity.
British Prime Minister David Cameron hopes to have access to all means of electronic communication by anyone in the country and ban the use of encrypted apps such as Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and iMessage unless they agree to provide backdoors.
Intellectual Property
We are adding a new paragraph to section 1.3., which outlines the licence and rights that you give to us and to the PayPal Group (see paragraph 12 below for the definition of “PayPal Group”) to use content that you post for publication using the Services. A similar paragraph features in the Privacy Policy, which is removed by the addition of this paragraph to the User Agreement. The new paragraph at section 1.3 reads as follows:
“When providing us with content or posting content (in each case for publication, whether on- or off-line) using the Services, you grant the PayPal Group a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, publicity, trademarks, database rights and intellectual property rights you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future. Further, to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, you waive your moral rights and promise not to assert such rights against the PayPal Group, its sublicensees or assignees. You represent and warrant that none of the following infringe any intellectual property right: your provision of content to us, your posting of content using the Services, and the PayPal Group’s use of such content (including of works derived from it) in connection with the Services.”
If you haven’t been following these developments, multi-national businesses are working with governments to take control of internet usage, regulations, and even local government utilities through international treaties like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is being secretly being constructed, without public or legislative consult, and is a massive outline of future controls by businesses on many aspects of your life. You aren;’t supposed to know what lies ahead with the TPP. Search online for more information on the TPP, and check WikiLeaks for more details on what little has been exposed to this attack on freedom. This is clearly a step along these growing lines of corporate fascism.
It looks like PayPal has joined the dark side, but freedom rings within the Bitcoin community, and this just underscores why Bitcoin is here and why it is the future of online technology and business. It’s all about control. Their control. See the link above about their plans for biometric control over your account. Paypal looks ready to confiscate your online content, and your business if you let them. Bitcoin brings power to the people. The choice is yours. Consider yourselves warned.
Is PayPal on a righteous path or are they on the wrong side of history? Do you like owning your content, or can PayPal take it, just because you use their payment service?
PayPal joins the Dark Side
...
Whut!?!
And what is “content” supposed to be? PayPal is a payment service. So the only content there is, is the online stuff people and companies sell using PayPal as payment provider. Did PayPal just claim control over all of that?
15.5 License Grant from You to PayPal; IP Warranties. Subject to section 15.6, when providing PayPal with content or posting content using PayPal Services, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable, and sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, publicity, trademarks, database rights and intellectual property rights you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future. Further, to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, you waive your moral rights and promise not to assert such rights against PayPal, its sublicensees or its assignees. You represent and warrant that none of the following infringe any intellectual property or publicity right: your provision of content to PayPal, your posting of content using the PayPal Services, and PayPal’s use of such content (including of works derived from it) in connection with the PayPal Services.”
You aren’t imagining it. Turns out, your stuff really is breaking down more quickly than before. A recent study by a European environmental agency just confirmed it: the lifespan of your electronic goods is—indeed—shrinking.
Aside from using it, there’s not much you can do with modern ag equipment. When it breaks or needs maintenance, farmers are dependent on dealers and manufacturer technicians—a hard pill to swallow for farmers, who have been maintaining their own equipment since the plow.
“[DIY repair] is cheaper than calling out the technician. But that information is just not out there,” Dave explained to me.
The cost and hassle of repairing modern tractors has soured a lot of farmers on computerized systems altogether. In a September issue of Farm Journal, farm auction expert Greg Peterson noted that demand for newer tractors was falling. Tellingly, the price of and demand for older tractors (without all the digital bells and whistles) has picked up. “As for the simplicity, you’ve all heard the chatter,” Machinery Pete wrote. “There’s an increasing number of farmers placing greater value on acquiring older simpler machines that don’t require a computer to fix.”
The problem is that farmers are essentially driving around a giant black box outfitted with harvesting blades. Only manufacturers have the keys to those boxes. Different connectors are needed from brand to brand, sometimes even from model to model—just to talk to the tECU. Modifications and troubleshooting require diagnostic software that farmers can’t have. Even if a farmer managed to get the right software, calibrations to the tECU sometimes require a factory password. No password, no changes—not without the permission of the manufacturer.
John Deere, in particular, has been incredibly effective at limiting access to its diagnostic software. Which is why I wouldn’t have been able to tweak the programming on Dave’s tractor, even if I had been able to hack together the right interface. John Deere doesn’t want me to. The dealer-repair game is just too lucrative for manufacturers to cede any control back to farmers.
Car companies seek copyright restrictions to stop car enthusiasts, home mechanics
Claiming that modern vehicles are “too complex” for home mechanics to fix, automakers are seeking copyright restrictions to prevent gearheads from working on their own cars.
The Association of Global Automakers, a lobbying firm for 12 manufacturers, is asking the U.S. Copyright Office to prevent car owners from accessing “computer programs that control the functioning of a motorized land vehicle, including personal automobiles, commercial motor vehicles, and agricultural machinery, for purposes of lawful diagnosis and repair, or aftermarket personalization, modification, or other improvement.”
“In order to modify automotive software for the purpose of ‘diagnosis and repair, or aftermarket personalization, modification, or other improvement,’ the modifier must use a substantial amount of the copyrighted software – copying the software is at issue after all, not wholly replacing it,” the AGA claimed. “Because the ‘heart,’ if not the entirety, of the copyrighted work will remain in the modified copy, the amount and substantiality of the portion copied strongly indicates that the proposed uses are not fair.”
Auto Alliance, which also represents 12 automobile manufacturers, is also asking the agency to scrap exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allow car enthusiasts to modify and tune their rides.
“Allowing vehicle owners to add and remove [electronic control] programs at whim is highly likely to take vehicles out of compliance with [federal] requirements, rendering the operation or re-sale of the vehicle legally problematic,” Auto Alliance claimed in a statement. “The decision to employ access controls to hinder unauthorized ‘tinkering’ with these vital computer programs is necessary in order to protect the safety and security of drivers and passengers and to reduce the level of non-compliance with regulatory standards.”
But people have been working on their own cars since cars were invented.
“It’s not a new thing to be able to repair and modify cars,” a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Kit Walsh, said. “It’s actually a new thing to keep people from doing it.”
Interestingly, this attack on the do-it-yourself auto hobby coincides with the current push towards self-driving cars, and who do you think will resist autonomous cars the most?
Auto hobbyists, such as hot rodders, drag racers and home tuners.
“The biggest threat to our hobby is those people in powerful situations who’s idea of a great day out in their car is to spend it riding in the back seat while someone else handles the driving ‘chore’ for them,” a hot rodder said on the subject. “These are the same people who will ban ‘old junk’ from the roads, enforce ’50 miles per gallon’ standards on new, and then older vehicles, and eventually force everyone to drive ‘standardized’ cars that will fit precisely in parking spaces, take up the minimum space on public roads, and follow all the ‘environmentally friendly’ buzz words while boring real car drivers like us to death.”
And the first step to keep people from behind the steering wheel is to keep them from opening the hood.
Yikes, A Guy Played So Much Candy Crush That He Ruptured a Tendon
Let us bring you yet another cautionary tale of a deceptively sweet and bubbly menace to our nation. We speak, of course, of Candy Crush. A 29-year-old man actually ruptured a tendon after weeks of torturing his thumb in pursuit candy matches. We kid you not.
So uhh, how much Candy Crush do you need to play before it becomes dangerous to your physical health? According to a case report in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, the man told doctors he’d been playing for six to eight weeks pretty much nonstop—in his words, “playing was a kind of secondary thing, but it was constantly on.” That whole time, his left thumb was swipe swipe swiping, until it basically gave out. He came in with pain and unable to move his thumb. And yes, he needed surgery.
The oddest detail, according to the authors of the report, is that the man never noticed any pain before his tendon ruptured, possibly because he was so absorbed in the game. “Although this is only a single case report, research might consider whether video games have a role in clinical pain management and as nonpharmacologic alternatives during uncomfortable or painful medical procedures,” the case report concludes. So Tylenol or Candy Crush, pick your poison?
Here are 8 great apps that make your world a little freer—and a whole lot easier to navigate.
Waze is a real-time, crowd-sourced map that not only tells you about traffic jams and finds the cheapest nearby gas station for you but also warns you of speed traps, police checkpoints, and ticket cams. Get this: The info is so good that the National Sheriffs Association is pressuring app stores to shut Waze down.
Open WhisperSystem’s Red Phone and Text Secure provide easy end-to-end encryption for phone calls, text messages, and chats. If you’re on Apple iOS, check out Signal.
Meerkat and Periscope allow you to livestream everything from your kids’ soccer games to police stops directly to Twitter. The only thing blocking these apps is that they’re only available on Apple’s iOS for now.
The Peacekeeper Emergency Response System app cultivates “benevolence” and independence in communities by allowing you to create your own personal emergency response network so that friends, family, and others can come to your aid at a moment’s notice—and you can come to theirs.
And then of course there’s Uber, the ride-sharing app that almost singlehandedly undermined taxi cab cartels all over the world. Uber is driving down a dark road by collaborating with state and local governments to keep out new competitors, but it’s also true that its ease of use and superiors product has brought safe, affordable rides to neighborhoods that never knew them before.
Here's a bonus app: Reason's mobile app is super-light and fast-loading—and constantly updated with our latest blog posts, videos, and articles about "Free Minds and Free Markets."
We're in the midst of a tech revolution that's changing childhood for the worse. It's the constant digital surveillance of our kids. Here are five devices that are turning moms and dads into the NSA.
(1) Today there are literally hundreds of baby monitors on the market that stream live video, and many are infrared so you can peer in the dark as your baby snoozes under his Mozart mobile. Some models pivot and tilt, which seems like the sort of tool that might appeal to Seal Team 6. But parents?
(2) Then there are all the gadgets you can attach to your baby, like the Owlet monitor. Do you know your blood oxygen level? Why are we treating healthy babies like they need neonatal intensive care?
(3) Making parents afraid for their kids is a goldmine for companies, which explains the coming arrival of Smart Diapers that help parents analyze the chemical content of their babies' output. Because how dare you toss such a vital diagnostic specimen just into the Diaper Genie?
(4) Once the kids venture out, there's a tsunami of tracking devices that allow parents to strap the equivalent of an FBI ankle bracelet onto their offspring. One of these is V. ALRT, which can detect if your kid falls down. Can you imagine how anxiety inducing—and yet completely useless—this will be? “Warning your child has fallen. Commence feeling bad."
(5) The new Apple Watch is a revolutionary device, but I worry it could turn into the Swiss Army Knife of tracking tools—video feeds, GPS locators, biometric sensors.
These gadgets promise they’ll give parents peace of mind, but they do the exact opposite. They create constant fear—fear so great that you believe you must buy these things or your child is in grave danger. Once you’ve become convinced that your happy, healthy baby in her crib needs blood oxygen monitoring—or that you need to track your teen's heart rate and GPS on a date, which is too disgusting to think about, you'll be a total wreck. Meantime, your kids feel all the joy of a prisoner under house arrest.
Saying, “these devices provide peace of mind,” is like saying, “this box of mosquitoes will provide a good night’s sleep." Do not open the box.
More and more, posts and commentaries on the Internet in Russia and even abroad are generated by professional trolls, many of whom receive a higher-than-average salary for perpetuating a pro-Kremlin dialogue online.
There are thousands of fake accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and vKontakte, all increasingly focused on the war in Ukraine. Many emanate from Russia's most famous "troll factory," the Internet Research center, an unassuming building on St. Petersburg's Savushkina Street, which runs on a 24-hour cycle. In recent weeks, former employees have come forward to talk to RFE/RL about life inside the factory, where hundreds of people work grinding, 12-hour shifts in exchange for 40,000 rubles ($700) a month or more.
St. Petersburg blogger Marat Burkhard spent two months working at Internet Research in the department tasked with clogging the forums on Russia's municipal websites with pro-Kremlin comments. In the following interview, he describes a typical day and the type of assignments he encountered.
RFE/RL: Marat, you wrote on your blog that your time at Internet Research gave you enough material for an entire book. Why did you decide to write there? Entertainment? Adventurism?
Marat Burkhard: Yes, adventurism is the right word. Because in my opinion, this kind of work doesn't exist anywhere else.
RFE/RL: Was it hard to get the job?
Burkhard: Yes, it was hard. You have to write sample texts first, and then they decide if you're suitable for the work. They weed people out that way.
RFE/RL: What kind of texts?
Burkhard: First they make you write something neutral -- Vegetarianism: Pros And Cons. After that, the assignments start to get more to the point -- for example, what do I think about humanitarian convoys in Donetsk?
Microsoft sends Internet Explorer to tech's scrapheap
SAN FRANCISCO — It's the end of the line for Internet Explorer.
The much maligned browser that battled Netscape to guide people around the World Wide Web was consigned to history this week by Microsoft, joining Palm Pilots, flip phones and Myspace as relics of a distant digital age.
A staple of the Internet for nearly two decades, the Explorer brand will be replaced by a flashier, speedier browser codenamed Project Spartan that will run on phones, tablets and personal computers but is expressly made for a new era of mobile devices.
Junking the Explorer brand is part of a new game plan at Microsoft. CEO Satya Nadella is determined to remake the aging technology giant as an innovator rather than a follower.
Even when it debuted, Explorer was a me-too product. Browser pioneer Netscape Navigator was the world's first commercial Web browser. It ignited the Internet boom and had already transformed how people roamed the Web. Even the Explorer name was derived from Navigator.
"Explorer was never a cool brand," Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo says. "It's like one step from AOL."
