It’s not looking good for the Spanish banking system. Standard & Poor’s just slashed the credit ratings of five banks and said the country is headed into a double-dip recession. One of them, Bankia, just asked the government for 19 billion euros in aid - a roughly $23.8 billion boost.
Without a government for the last eleven days, and amid mainstream discussion of a Euro Zone exit, the Greek people are realizing that the economic and political system as they know it is rapidly descending into chaos.
Soon, Americans may find every private email they write could be opened, copied and inspected by government snoopers. The latest cyber security bill – called CISPA – has passed the House of Representatives, coming a step closer to becoming law. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the act, if it goes through in the Senate. He cited civil liberty concerns as the reason for his threat. CISPA has raised a massive outcry with internet users and freedom activists, who say it’s a hard hit ...
Colombian authorities are probing whether any of the women involved in the prostitution scandal that’s cost six Secret Service agents their jobs were underage, according to a new report.
National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney reveals he believes domestic surveillance has become more expansive under President Obama than President George W. Bush. He estimates the NSA has assembled 20 trillion "transactions" — phone calls, emails and other forms of data — from Americans. This likely includes copies of almost all of the emails sent and received from most people living in the United States. Binney talks about Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and challenges NSA Dir...
Infowars has a great new article on the myths of 'limited war'. It's a great read. Here are some excerpts:
Residents of an Afghan village near where an American soldier is alleged to have killed 16 civilians are convinced that the slayings were in retaliation for a roadside bomb attack on U.S. forces in the same area a few days earlier.
Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agenc...
From Salon.com "AB 32 mandates that California must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. But California's crazy government-by-initiative system means that just because a law has been passed by the California House and Senate and signed by the governor doesn't make it secure. On the ballot this November, voters will get their own chance to weigh in on AB 32 by deciding whether or not to pass Proposition 23, the misleadingly named "California Jobs Initiative."
Pakistan has officially banned Facebook on May 19th. Therefore, access to the beloved FarmVille game is also blocked. What will happen to those eager farmers? Will they find a way around it? Will Pakistanis stand for this outrage?
In today's Silicon Alley Insider, the legendary Apple founder, Steve Wozniak, says "his new Toyota Prius occasionally goes insane on the highway--and that it's a software problem, not a hardware problem. He has tried to tell Toyota and the US government, but they won't listen."
According to mainstream media reports, one of Barack Obama’s White House spokesmen said this in response to the recent “free speech” trial in Russia:
Anonymous U.S. officials are quoted by the NY Times stating explicitly that a Hezbollah suicide bomber attacked the Israeli tourist bus yesterday. While this is entirely possible, I think we should remember the bizarre bombing plot of a few months ago in which a small-time Iranian drug dealer was alleged by the Justice Department to have direct links to the Revolutionary Guards, and to have plotted the assassination of the Saudi ambassador. By the way, this is the same person, Bandar ibn Sult...
35-year-old artist from Shandong, China, Liu Bolin, has created a series of photographs entitled "Camouflage". No trick photography employed, no photoshop alterations. Every effect was created by anal, fastidious painting and the exact alignment of subject to background.
Fist full of pennies weighing you down? This will certainly make your pockets lighter.
The last few months of WikiLeaks controversy has surely peaked your interest, but when viewing the WikiLeaks site, finding what you want is quite a hard task.
If you're a frequenter of Null Byte, I bet you have at least some interest in information security. Furthermore, you have a hobby that if applied in certain ways, will get you arrested. I've received quite a few messages from the community here about federal cybercrime law and how it applies to them, so I decided to get together with my lawyer to come up with some answers.
BPA: Why Plastic Ain't Good For You BPA or Bisphenol A is in many of the products we use. Everything from Ziploc bags to shower curtains, we are exposed to BPA all the time.
You walk over to your laptop, wiggle your mouse to wake up the screen, then fire up your browser to come visit Null Byte. Catching the article about Anonymous and how they presumably will not take down the Internet, you find yourself wondering... how would someone take down the Internet? Could they even do it?
How many of you know all the amendments of the Constitution? Do you even know how many there are?? Well, many of the people I speak to don't. And let me tell you, that's a bad thing. Knowing even the basics of the Amendments can have a profound effect in your lives. Ever got pulled over by a cop? Did you know you can deny his request to search your car (unless he sees something 'suspicious')? If you own a gun, you sure know about the Second Amendment. Here's a neat one: a public phone booth i...
Note: Little Brother is available as a free ebook download. Warnings
Water Purification Device Prompts TSA to Close Down Minneapolis Airport In another stupendous incident of comical over-reaction, the TSA ordered the evacuation of two airport terminals in Minneapolis after a water purification device was found in a woman’s luggage.
In a riveting interview on TruNews Radio, Wednesday, private investigator Doug Hagmann said high-level, reliable sources told him the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing for “massive civil war” in America.
In case you haven't figured out already, our government is always on the move to figure out new ways to extend their control. The CISPA, for one, is one of the best examples, along with "re-education" programs, and racial divide (Trayvon). What I've noticed in the past few months is that their new "ideas" are coming out at an increasingly alarming rate.
A Pakistani lawyer who represents victims of U.S. drone strikes has been forced to cancel a trip to the United States after the U.S. government failed to grant him a visa. Shahzad Akbar was scheduled to speak later this month at an International Drone Summit in Washington, D.C. Akbar is co-founder of the Pakistani human rights organization, Foundation for Fundamental Rights. He filed the first case in Pakistan on behalf of family members of civilian victims.
News in a nutshell: Iran Boosting enrichment efforts
Education Laws: Compulsory Education Law
As of right now, Guinness World Records claims that the highest human flight with a rocket belt is 152 feet, accomplished by Eric Scott in 2004. But they may need to update their records soon thanks to Martin Aircraft Company in New Zealand, whose Martin Jetpack finally showed the world it can fly—really fly.
I'm not much for politics, but I do like to keep tabs on our elected government officials from time to time, since I am a registered voter and believe that every one should vote (unless they're just voting to say they voted). This pretty much means I pay attention to my local and state officials, the presidential candidates, and of course, any political scandal that makes me chuckle.
Area 51 is the most secretive military base in the United States, a base that U.S. government officials to this day still barely acknowledge because of its top secret development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. But a slew of Cold War-era documents have finally been declassified, and National Geographic has discovered a rather low-tech method the military used to hide its high-tech prototypes.
If you're not familiar with the animations of Jan Švankmajer, you're in for quite a trip. The Czech artist and filmmaker is known for his metaphorical, captivatingly surreal stop-motion and claymation films, and is God to many (including talents such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam and the Brothers Quay).
A radical art group of Russian political pranksters, who go by the name of Voina, have delivered a giant "Up Yours!" to the Russian government... in the form of a 213-foot-tall penis.
This is a follow up to my last post on watching games in 3D. My main concern (because apparently I'm something of a technical snob, since no one else I went with considered it an issue), was that I perceived a lack of definition for a theater presentation.
Name your price for 5 indie games!http://www.wolfire.com/humble This event will run for a week and the money raised will go towards two charities. The Humble Indie bundle is a collection of five indie games where you can set your price! Want to buy the whole package (worth $80 retail) for $10, $5, $1, or even a penny? sure, go ahead, you can pay as much or as little as you want. Some have payed over a hundred for the bundle, but the average is around $7-$8 dollars.The games:
As Popsci says, these DIY snow vehicles show winter who's boss. The Snow Chopper
Generally, we're not much for current events-slanted issues of Wonderment, but the hottest topic in HowTo deserves far more than our humble attention.
Election day is less than two weeks away and the political rhetoric is at an all time high. From the constant political commercials to the endless cable news coverage, it's hard to escape the noise. And nothing is worse than your social media sanctuaries being invaded by some clown's personal political insights.
Most DIY freaks do-it-themselves because they love it. Because they're curious, creative, and like to take the long road (or figure out an ingenious short cut).
Blackbirds are NOT singing in the dead of night. At least, not in Arkansas.
Hello and welcome to another InfoSecurity World tutorial. The intent of this article is to teach one how to encrypt sensitive files. When set up correctly with a strong password, it would be almost impossible to hack. Even the FBI have had issues decrypting this software. I'm here to teach you how to create a general encrypted container—not the complex hidden TrueCrypt volume.
