Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Amy Mcgrath Nearly Pulled off One of the Biggest Upsets in 2018. Now She’s Taking on Mitch Mcconnell.

Kentucky Democrat Amy McGrath, the former Marine fighter pilot who entered the national spotlight last year after she narrowly lost to Republican Rep. Andy Barr in the state’s 6th Congressional District, is back. And this time she’s taking on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.  In a three-minute announcement video released Tuesday morning, McGrath sharply criticizes […]

Lovely news to read with the morning coffee... #apps #data https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/android-permission-bypass.html

#Glacial #melting in #Antarctica may become irreversible | World news | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/09/glacial-melting-in-antarctica-may-become-irreversible

#GlboalWarming #ClimateChange

You Can’t Get Good Help These Days

Can you believe a FORMER BARTENDER has deigned to criticize our brave concentration camp guards?

A New Wave of Environmentalists Want to Give Nature Legal Rights

In the summer of 2014, officials in Toledo, Ohio, announced that the city’s tap water was no longer safe to drink. A toxic algae bloom caused by fertilizer runoff had poisoned Lake Erie, the primary water source for the area’s half-million residents, sickening more than 100 people. Stores emptied of bottled water within hours. For […]

omg these 1941 London military bunker sketches are so very proto-James Bond

https://twitter.com/DrLivGibbs/status/1148486945154224129

Camped Out

Gotta hear both sides: useless centrists AND right-wing nutjobs!

Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders Are Going to Introduce a Climate Emergency Resolution in Congress

On Tuesday, Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in the House, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate, will introduce a resolution asserting there is a climate emergency and demanding a wide-reaching mobilization to prepare for the consequences of climate change. They want to “restore the climate for future generations.” “The global […]

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Signals It Will investigate NSA Surveillance, Facial Recognition, and Terror Watchlists

After a long dormant stretch, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has signaled it’s ready to tackle another big review of government surveillance and overreach. The PCLOB, an independent agency in the executive branch, last published a 2014 report on warrantless surveillance of the Internet by the U.S. intelligence community. While EFF welcomes the PCLOB’s efforts to bring oversight and transparency to the most controversial surveillance programs, we’ve disagreed with some of the Board’s findings, particularly on surveillance under FISA Section 702. So while it’s a good sign that the board is turning its attention to other major issues, its mixed history means it may be a little too soon to get your hopes up.  

 This week, the board, which was created after a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission to look into the violation of civil liberties, released a strategic plan [PDF] that does not shy away from investigating some of the biggest threats to privacy in the U.S. According to the document, they will be looking into the NSA’s collection of phone records, facial recognition and other biometric technologies being used in airport security, the processes that govern terrorist watchlist, what they call “deep dive” investigations into NSA’s XKEYSCORE tool and the CIA’s counterterrorism activity, as well as many other government programs and procedures.

It’s hard to say what the possible results of these inquiries can or will be. The PCLOB has the right to look into classified materials, as well as request written subpoenas from the Attorney General. In the past, however, PCLOB has been incredibly measured in their critique of mass surveillance programs. Their 2014 report, for instance, found that the Section 702 program is sound “at its core,” and provides “considerable value” in the fight against terrorism—despite going on to make ten massive recommendations for what the program must do to avoid infringing on people’s privacy. In other words, while finding serious privacy concerns with a program that vacuums up an untold number of Americans’ phone data, it still approved of its existence.

At the very least, we should expect detailed reports out of these investigations that detail exactly how and why our privacy is being trampled. Despite the fact that any reports likely wouldn’t be out for over a year, these reports could become valuable evidence as Congress considers future legislation, especially provisions like Section 702 that regularly come up for amendment and reauthorization.

Related Cases:  Jewel v. NSA

The Biggest Lie in Trump’s Environmental Speech Today

There were so many lies strung together in President Trump’s environmental speech from the White House on Monday, it’s a challenge to factcheck.  “I’m glad you finally let people know what we’re doing,” Trump said taking the podium from his EPA chief Andrew Wheeler, who was one of the string of speakers appearing Monday in […]

Just the tonic! How an afternoon tipple made from peas could help save the rainforest

Using peas instead of wheat to produce gin significantly reduces the carbon footprint associated with the process. This finding could be utilized in the production of other alcoholic drinks and greener biofuels, and could also help in the fight to save the rainforests.

Pennsylvania Lawmakers Move to Strip Reformist Prosecutor Larry Krasner of Authority

A new Pennsylvania law allows the state attorney general to prosecute some gun crimes in Philadelphia if Krasner takes a pass.

The post Pennsylvania Lawmakers Move to Strip Reformist Prosecutor Larry Krasner of Authority appeared first on The Intercept.

https://quitter.im/attachment/2703777

CBO Says $15 Minimum Wage Would Be Mostly Positive

The Congressional Budget Office has published a new report on the $15 minimum wage.¹ Unusually for the CBO, it was a little hard to dig out all the relevant numbers, which means I had to read the whole thing fairly carefully. That’s very annoying, isn’t it? Anyway, here are the main takeaways: Families below the […]

I'm extremely pleased to launch Run Your Own Social: How to run a small social network site for you friends.

This is a guide book to running a small, tight-knit federated social network server. It comes from my year of experience running Friend Camp. It's focused largely on SOCIAL solutions, though it does touch on the technical.

I've tried to keep it technology-neutral, and it should be a pretty easy read for anyone who's been on the fediverse for a while.

https://runyourown.social/

Announcing “Gotta Catch 'Em All: Understanding How IMSI-Catchers Exploit Cell Networks”

Our phones hold a plethora of important, private information about our personal lives, and it’s not just their contents that matter: the data that our phones exchange with cell towers during basic connection procedures can reveal critical, and private, information. Perhaps you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge; maybe you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. The contents of those calls aren’t as secret as you might hope to someone who knows that the calls were made, and when. And just knowing the location a phone was in at a certain time, regardless of whether a call was made, could place someone at a protest—or at the scene of a crime. 

While the field of cell network security has been rapidly advancing, there’s also been a significant rise in the exploitation of cell network security bugs by criminals and law enforcement, who are using them to gain access to that private data. Devices known as Cell-Site Simulators (CSSs, a.k.a. Stingrays or IMSI-catchers) are increasingly being used by law enforcement for both dragnet and targeted surveillance; and several years ago we saw the first crackdowns against criminals using cell site simulators on a mass scale to deliver spam.

Rightly, there’s been a lot of interest in—and confusion about—what CSSs are capable of. From activists worried about being targeted and tracked, to policy makers concerned about the privacy of their constituents, to technologists interested in learning about the security flaws so that they can deliver fixes, there’s a range in knowledge, though all of these groups have a stake in learning more. But the barrier to entry to the field of cell network security has historically been quite high, even if you already have a technical background. While there’s increasingly more highly technical research into the cell network attack techniques that CSSs rely on, very little exists for the average reader.

To help bridge this gap, we’re publishing “Gotta Catch 'Em All: Understanding How IMSI-Catchers Exploit Cell Networks”, an in-depth white paper that explains some of the most relevant cell network attacks from the ground up. The white paper is entirely self-contained, and is meant to make accessible the technical details of the kind of attacks CSSs might rely on. While the contents will be most accessible to technologists, all readers should be able to gain a thorough understanding from it. The paper also addresses many common technical questions that come up when discussing the capabilities of CSSs, such as: what are the different kinds of location tracking attacks, what are the known limits around cell network communication interception, and how does all this actually work?

Given the prevalence of cell phones, these vulnerabilities—and the CSSs that take advantage of them—should not just be a concern for security researchers. We’re all vulnerable. The metadata and data that our phones exchange with cell towers during basic connection procedures is being taken advantage of by third parties to invade our privacy. Demystifying the tech behind these techniques is critical for raising awareness about the issue and finding solutions. We hope you’ll join us.

Logitech keyboards and mice vulnerable to eavesdropping and remote attacks:

https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Logitech-keyboards-and-mice-vulnerable-to-extensive-cyber-attacks-4464533.html

Disgraced Trump Fundraiser Elliott Broidy Is Reportedly Being Investigated. Read Our Story on Him.

On Monday morning, the Associated Press reported that disgraced Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy is being investigated by the US attorney in Brooklyn, New York, for possibly using Broidy’s ties to Donald Trump and the GOP to score big-money business deals with foreign leaders, including officials in Angola and Romania. The AP notes that “prosecutors appear […]