Ninja Robot Monkey

German hackers clone RFID e-passports

2006-08-05T23:27:00.000-04:00

Oh snap. First the Dutch get their RFID e-passport system cracked, then VeriChip gets its "counterfeit proof" RFID implant copied by a pair of hackers in front of a live audience, and now some hackers in Germany have undermined some of the security behind the electronic passports that the United States and other countries are planning to implement this month.

Time to play in a tree

2006-08-02T03:08:00.000-04:00

It's worth a DNA swab:

But the afternoon adventure turned into a frightening ordeal for Sam Cannon, Amy Higgins and Katy Smith after they climbed into the 20ft tree - then found themselves hauled into a police station and locked in cells for up to two hours.

Their shoes were removed and mugshots, DNA samples and mouth swabs were taken.

Officers told the children they had been seen damaging the tree which is in a wooded area of public land near their homes.

The lesson is: do not do anything. Otherwise you will be tagged and marked. I'm happy that our U.K. brethern see this threat.

Don't keep trade secrets on your laptop

2006-08-01T20:31:00.000-04:00

Another good reason to encrypt your data:

The case made its way to a Nevada court, which found Romm guilty. An appeal of the case went to the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, which was charged with deciding an important issue: can border patrol agents search laptops without a warrant and without probable cause? The court's ruling was handed down on Monday, and said that yes, agents can search laptops for any reason.

Geek drool

2006-08-01T18:15:00.000-04:00

Nvidia unwraps 64x SLI monster GPU rig

What do you get for the graphics buff who has everything? How about Nvidia's Quadro Plex 1000, a racked collection of GPUs in their own box, together capable of rendering 80bn pixels every second and powering monitors with a combined resolution of up to 148 megapixels.

It doesn't come cheap, mind - prices start at $17,500. Nvidia has three models on offer. Two contain two Quadro FX 5500 GPUs, while the mid-range version, the Model II, has two Quadro 4500 X2 GPUs - ie. four graphics cores.

Whew! Democracy is safe.

2006-08-01T02:12:00.000-04:00

OVF

The most serious issue is the ability to choose between "EPROM" and "FLASH" boot configurations. Both of these memory sources are present. All of the switches in question (JP2, JP3, JP8, SW2 and SW4) are physically present on the board. It is clear that this system can ship with live boot profiles in two locations, and switching back and forth could change literally everything regarding how the machine works and counts votes. This could be done before or after the so-called "Logic And Accuracy Tests".

A third possible profile could be field-added in minutes and selected in the "external flash" memory location, the interface for which is present on the motherboard.

Awesome.

Why Should Feds Track College Students?

2006-08-01T01:51:00.000-04:00

They shouldn't.

Whether you call it a "national unit records database" (the first name) or a "consumer-friendly information database" (the second), it is in fact a mandatory federal registry of all American students throughout their collegiate careers - every course, every step, every misstep. Once established, it could easily be linked to existing K-12 and workforce databases to create unprecedented cradle-to-grave tracking of American citizens. All under the watchful eye of the federal government.

One more nail in the coffin.

Bank customers going bust in record numbers

2006-07-31T21:14:00.000-04:00

You mean lending crap loads of money to everyone is a bad idea?

Struggling Britons, who are weighed down by loans and credit card debt, are going bust in record numbers.

HSBC today revealed that it has been forced to write-off £2 billion in the first half of this year - much of it loaned to British customers.

The bank pointed to rising levels of bankruptcy and the number of people reduced to taking out debt repayment plans.

HSBC today warned that 'serious' and 'excessive' levels of consumer debt in the UK was a growing issue.

I wonder if the UK has a negative savings rate like the US does...

Next troublesome missile test: Taiwan?

2006-07-31T19:16:00.000-04:00

Ouch.

As Asia grapples with the fallout from North Korea's projectile posturing, another military flashpoint in the region - the Taiwan Strait - is in the midst of missile tensions as well.

A private TV station reported earlier this month that Taiwan's military was preparing to test-fire a tactical missile in September capable of striking targets in China. While the details were sketchy and the claim was swiftly denied by the Ministry of National Defense, they struck a chord with analysts who have heeded the frustration among hawks in Taiwan over the island's vulnerability in the face of China's military might, including its expanding missile arsenal.

In the event of an imminent attack, Taiwan would be justified in launching a preemptive strike against military targets in China, runs the hawkish argument. This should go hand-in-hand with improved defenses on the island, including advanced interceptor missiles and attack aircraft. "Even if we are going to buy [US-made] Patriot missiles, we also need to develop our own offensive missiles," says Lee Wen-chung, a government legislator.

Federal judge throws out Minnesota's video game law

2006-07-31T17:24:00.000-04:00

Good.

A federal judge on Monday threw out a pending state law that would have fined minors for obtaining adult-only video games, saying it was unconstitutional.

The law - one of several attempts across the country to prevent minors from getting gruesome or sexually explicit video games - was scheduled to take effect Tuesday.

It would have fined youths under age 17 $25 for renting or buying video games designed for adults - those rated "M" for mature or "AO" for adults only. The law also would have required stores to post warning signs about the fines.

Video game makers sued to stop the law, saying it violated the right to free speech.

So, You're Living in a Police State

2006-07-29T17:07:00.000-04:00

It's Funpressive!

U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.

Muppet Hunter D

2006-07-28T13:57:00.000-04:00

More critical legislation passed in the House

2006-07-27T23:31:00.000-04:00

Chat rooms could face expulsion

Web sites like Amazon.com and MySpace.com may soon be inaccessible for many people using public terminals at American schools and libraries, thanks to the U.S. House of Representatives.

By a 410-15 vote on Thursday, politicians approved a bill that would effectively require that "chat rooms" and "social networking sites" be rendered inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the Internet's most ardent users. Adults can ask for permission to access the sites.

Congress fighting the good fight.

Why hedge funds will destroy the world

2006-07-27T22:37:00.000-04:00

Hedge fund.

If hedge funds were a country, it would be the eighth-biggest on the planet. They can sink whole economies, and have the potential to crash the entire global financial system. Yet they are beyond regulation. We should be very afraid.
...
Hedge funds by numbers

$1.5trn Total amount of money managed by hedge funds worldwide

9,000 Estimated number of hedge funds today

$250bn Estimated value of the Asian hedge-fund industry by 2010

$750,000 Amount that GLG Partners was fined for alleged insider trading by its star hedge-fund manager, Philippe Jabre

Cell Phone Picture Called Obstruction Of Justice

2006-07-27T22:24:00.000-04:00

Land of the free.

Police at the 35th district said they were in Cruz's neighborhood that night arresting a drug dealer.

Cruz said that when he heard a commotion, he walked out of his back door with his cell phone to see what was happening. He said that when he saw the street lined with police cars, he decided to take a picture of the scene.

"I opened (the phone) and took a shot," Cruz said.

Moments later, Cruz said he got the shock of his life when an officer came to his back yard gate.

"He opened the gate and took me by my right hand," Cruz said.

Cruz said the officer threw him onto a police car, cuffed him and took him to jail.

No one is allowed to watch the watchers.

War on Sunlight

2006-07-27T20:16:00.000-04:00

Which nanny statist will be the first to utter the battle call?

As many as 60,000 people a year die from too much sun, mostly from malignant skin cancer, the World Health Organization has reported.

It found that 48,000 deaths every year are caused by malignant melanomas, and 12,000 by other kinds of skin cancer. About 90 percent of such cancers are caused by ultraviolet light from the sun.

House Passes 'Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act'

2006-07-27T15:39:00.000-04:00

Good news for people that like all of our Amendments:

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and law-abiding gun owners won another major victory today when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass HR 5013, the NRA-backed "Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act." HR 5013 passed with a broad bi-partisan margin of 322-99.

Law-abiding gun owners scored a significant victory in the House of Representatives today. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina confirmed a fear long-held by American gun owners: the day government bureaucrats declare our Second Amendment null and void, leaving law-abiding citizens defenseless in the midst of chaos and lawlessness.

Bet on Gold, Not on Funny Money

2006-07-26T17:06:00.000-04:00

From Yahoo!:

In many ways, the conditions are far worse now than they were in 1996. Today, we have a slowing demand for the dollar. At the same time, it appears that the Federal Reserve is increasing the supply of dollars.

As you know, low demand and high supply means a drop in value of anything, including the dollar. And in order to save the dollar's purchasing power, Ben Bernanke, the new Federal Reserve chairman, may be forced to raise real interest rates. By "real," I mean an interest rate that's higher than the rate of inflation.
...
I'm betting that gold is cheap, and that it'll correct as oil goes higher and countries such as Russia, Venezuela, the Arab states, and Africa become more reluctant to accept the U.S. dollar. For a while now, we've been allowed to pay for the goods and services from other countries with funny money, but the world appears to be less and less willing to take it as payment.

War on Zombies

2006-07-25T21:42:00.000-04:00

Are we winning?

Six friends spruced up in fake blood and tattered clothing were arrested in downtown Minneapolis on suspicion of toting "simulated weapons of mass destruction."

Police said the group were allegedly carrying bags with wires sticking out, making it look like a bomb, while meandering and dancing to music as part of a "zombie dance party" Saturday night.

"They were arrested for behavior that was suspicious and disturbing," said Lt. Gregory Reinhardt, a police spokesman. Police also said the group was uncooperative and intimidated people with their "ghoulish" makeup.

Lame.

On quotas

2006-07-24T22:15:00.000-04:00

Not just for speeding tickets anymore:

You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they're reporting your actions to meet a quota, even though some top officials deny it.
...
"Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft ... and they did nothing wrong," said one federal air marshal.

More data points to filter through. Yay.

The Disarming Facts

2006-07-24T21:20:00.000-04:00

Dave Kopel has a good article discussing the gun bans and the effects in places like the Sudan:

The Darfuris are Muslims, but like the majority of Sudan’s population, they are black Africans, in contrast to the Arabs who control the government.

The foundation of Sudan’s genocide is, as with almost every other genocide in world history, the disarmament of the victims.

In Sudan, it is virtually impossible for an average citizen to lawfully acquire and possess the means for self-defense. According to the national gun-control statutes, a gun licensee must be over 30 years of age, must have a specified social and economic status, and must be examined physically by a doctor. Females have even more difficulty meeting these requirements because of social and occupational limitations.

When these restrictions are finally overcome, there are additional restrictions on the amount of ammunition one may possess, making it nearly impossible for a law-abiding gun owner to achieve proficiency with firearms. A handgun owner, for example, can only purchase 15 rounds of ammunition a year. The penalties for violation of Sudan's firearms laws are severe, and can include capital punishment.

The practical application of the gun laws is different. If you are someone the government wants to slaughter—such as all the black Africans of southern and western Sudan, regardless of their religion—then you are absolutely forbidden to possess a firearm. A U.S. Department of State document notes: “After President Bashir seized power in 1989, the new government disarmed non-Arab ethnic groups but allowed politically loyal Arab allies to keep their weapons.”

On the other hand, if you’re an Arab who wants to kill blacks, then Sudan’s gun control laws became awfully loose. In Darfur, there has been a long rivalry between camel-riding Arab nomads and black African pastoralists. The Arabs consider the blacks to be racially inferior, and fit only for slavery. In Darfur Rising, the International Crisis Group explains: “Beginning in the mid-1980s, successive governments in Khartoum inflamed matters by supporting and arming the Arab tribes, in part to prevent the southern rebels from gaining a foothold in the region….Arabs formed militias, burned African villages, and killed thousands. Africans in turn formed self-defense groups, members of which eventually became the first Darfur insurgents to appear in 2003.”

An illustration of what happens when the power imbalance between the government and the people is too great.

And what about Iran?

2006-07-24T20:50:00.000-04:00

Justin Logan at Cato @ Liberty has a post regarding Iran. Highlights:

As for a brief commentary on the prudence of various policy options, I would refer to a useful analogy offered by Mr. Gerecht’s other colleague, Michael Rubin, in referring to our options in dealing with the Islamic republic:

When faced with a hornet’s nest, the choice to destroy it or leave it alone is better than the compromise of lightly tapping it with a stick.

Agreed. For his part, Mr. Rubin did us the courtesy of openly advocating a full-blown regime-change type assault against Iran, but it is not clear whether Mr. Gerecht is advocating destroying the Islamic republic, or just tapping it with a stick. We would do quite well to learn whether Mr. Gerecht is only in favor of striking the nuclear facilities in Iran, or also attacking the locations of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the missile sites, the presumed chemical and biological weapons sites, and the Iranian leadership. Of course, this would lead to a discussion of targeting, which would put hundreds, if not thousands of aim points on the table, and we would ultimately be talking (once again) of a preventive war to remove a foreign bogeyman who supposedly poses an intolerable threat to this, the most powerful country in the history of the planet.

Finally, one is hard pressed to imagine how Mr. Gerecht will explain away the reckless and shameful incompetence of the hawk faction in the Bush administration as described by the Washington Post. The Iranians approached the Bush administration directly in 2002 (after the ridiculous “axis of evil” speech!) and proposed cooperating against al Qaeda, informing the US of the identities of 290 members of al Qaeda that Iran had captured and sent back to their countries. The Iranians proposed further cooperation against al Qaeda. The Bush administration’s response?

Representatives of Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld fought back. Any engagement, they argued, would legitimate Iran and other historic state sponsors of terrorism such as Syria… Participants said Bush’s divided national security team was unable to agree on an answer. Some believe important opportunities were lost.

The hubris offered by the administration towards Iran in 2002 can point directly to why we are in the situation we are now. Iraq is a bloody mess, the US is supplying/funding both sides in the Israel/Lebanon war, and there's still no word on the North Korean problem.

This administration is radical in its foreign policy and it's a foreign policy with lofty goals. Goals that ignore the complications of the real world. We are faced with an increasingly disastrous foreign policy and sweeping increases in government power domestically, yet this government has done nothing to earn the powers it is claiming (I would argue that no government deserves the power this one is claiming, natch).

Interesting times indeed.

Conservatives Without Conscience?

2006-07-24T19:45:00.000-04:00

Glenn Greenwald wrote a rather verbose review of John Dean's book over the weekend, apparently about the same time I finished it. One person that Dean mentions is the irascible Phyllis Schlafly. I'm only vaguely familiar with her work, even though my grandmother was quite active with Schlafly's organization, The Eagle Forum, in the 70s and 80s.

Dean characterized Schlafly as a person that would rate high on the Right Wing Authoritarian scale, but also noted that she joined Bob Barr in the Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances group.

Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.

In Turnaround, Gun Dealer Tries Suing Bloomberg

2006-07-24T19:40:00.000-04:00

Looks like fun:

A Georgia gun dealer that Mayor Bloomberg sued as part of his effort to get firearms off the city's streets hit the mayor with a lawsuit of his own yesterday, saying Mr. Bloomberg slandered his business and broke federal law.

Adventure Outdoors Inc., which is being represented by a former Republican congressman of Georgia, Bob Barr, filed a $400 million lawsuit in Superior Court of Cobb County.

Again I find myself agreeing with Bob Barr. The world has been turned upside down.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

2006-07-24T15:56:00.000-04:00

Good:

Bad:

Ugly:

I <3 YouTube.

Lawmaker used rules on secrecy to gain edge

2006-07-24T13:42:00.000-04:00

In the name of national security, of course:

Randy ``Duke" Cunningham, the imprisoned former California congressman, took advantage of secrecy and badgered congressional aides to help slip items into classified bills that would benefit him and his associates, an independent inquiry has reported.
...
Hoekstra said he still has questions about how much Cunningham relied on legislation and how much he bullied people at the Pentagon to direct money to certain contractors. ``We clearly see that he tried to use the committee to do bad things," Hoekstra said in an interview.

Just one bad apple...

Entrapment by any other name

2006-07-21T17:52:00.000-04:00

"Lucky Bag" Operation So Not Cool

Last February, the NYPD announced that it was conducting "Operation Lucky Bag" to suss out criminals. The police leave a shopping cart, purse or bag on a subway platform to tempt thieves, and then arrest crooks who try to steal the items! Of course, lawyers are concerned about entrapment, and Gothaimst had wondered what if someone, trying to be a good samaritan, attempted to take the bags to the lost and found. Well, someone did - and she was arrested! The Downtown Express reports that 52 year old Helen Calthorpe was arrested after picking up a shopping bag at the Columbus Circle 1 platform.

Feds sharpen secret tools for data mining

2006-07-20T21:55:00.000-04:00

Heh.

At least five of the data-mining programs were developed under a Pentagon program, called Total Information Awareness (TIA), that Congress disbanded nearly three years ago because of concerns that it threatened personal privacy, according to government records and participants in the projects.
...
Data-mining systems used by intelligence agencies include:

• Hardware and software from NCR subsidiary Teradata that is capable of storing and searching databases as large as 4 million gigabytes, or twice as much information as is held in all research libraries in the USA. Teradata executive Bill Cooper won't say what's in the Teradata systems that intelligence agencies use, but he says their applications include searching financial transactions for signs of money laundering.

• A program designed to identify members of terrorist networks and determine the most important members of those networks. Cogito Inc., of Draper, Utah, sold the program to the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies, company executive William Donahoo says.

• Software from Verity Inc. used by the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. A 2004 congressional report says DIA's Verity system includes personally identifiable information about Americans from other agencies and commercial sources.

Add to that NVAC and ARDA (specifically Aquaint, VACE and ENVIE). The EFF lawsuit has made it through the first round, hopefully it will get to discovery.

Portals

2006-07-20T16:26:00.000-04:00

OPEC 'uncomfortable' with oil prices

2006-07-19T18:11:00.000-04:00

Climb past mid-$70s seen as threat to global economy, petrol industry's health.

The latest spike in oil prices to near $80 a barrel is "very uncomfortable" and is hurting the world economy, the president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said on Wednesday.
...
High prices bring more revenue to OPEC in the short term, but exporters worry that sustained price increases dent global economic growth and encourage consuming nations to divert investment away from oil to alternative energy.

Good. If the prices stay high then the market will force us to look at alternative sources of energy. Bad for the oil producers, good for everyone else.

Following the law can get you in trouble

2006-07-19T16:48:00.000-04:00

Librarian rebuked for following law

Reutty followed the law by protecting the privacy of library users. New Jersey State Law requires that a subpoena is issued before library records are released to police. Nevertheless, the Mayor has harshly criticized her actions, reportedly saying that she displayed “a blatant disregard for the Police Department.” She could be formally reprimanded and subject to a 30-day unpaid suspension after a hearing next month.

The police should have used a National Security Letter. No pesky "rights" will get in the way then.

Nanny state alert

2006-07-19T16:40:00.000-04:00

Burke aims cooking-oil ban at major chains

Chicago's most powerful alderman on Tuesday narrowed his war against artery-blocking cooking oils to a single front: fast-food giants and major restaurant chains.

On the eve of a City Council hearing on his headline-grabbing ordinance, Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th) signed off on a watered-down version that would limit trans fats only at establishments owned by companies with at least $20 million in annual gross sales.

ACLU suggests US may be spying on three other financial services

2006-07-19T16:33:00.000-04:00

Raw Story:

The three systems are:

* Bolero: The Bill of Lading Electronic Registry Organization is an electronic exchange of trade for documents such as bills of lading (descriptions of shipped goods that control ownership of property when it is in transit). Owned in part by SWIFT, Bolero counts many of the world's largest corporations as customers.
* CHIPS: The Clearing House Interbank Payment System, another financial transfer service, is privately owned by the New York Clearing House Association. It primarily handles international funds transfers denominated in U.S. dollars for banks and their large customer transactions. Customers include most of the major U.S. banks.
* Fedwire: A wire transfer service run by the Federal Reserve, Fedwire allows U.S. banks to transfer funds to other participants on behalf of each other and their customers.

Mmmmm. Big brother.

I feel safer

2006-07-19T16:29:00.000-04:00

Ah, the DHS:

The Homeland Security Department wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars last year on iPods, dog booties, beer-making equipment and designer jackets, congressional investigators have concluded.

More than 100 laptop computers and a dozen boats also bought by Homeland Security employees are missing, the investigators found.

Poor training, lax oversight and rampant confusion over what employees are allowed to buy with government-issued purchase cards left Homeland Security "vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse," according to a draft report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative and auditing arm.

The beer making equipment was clearly used to research the techniques of terrorist microbrewers.

What the Fed should be good at

2006-07-19T03:56:00.000-04:00

US expands evacuations

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice directed the State Department to waive a requirement for Americans evacuated from Lebanon to pay for their travel costs, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

There are a few things that the Federal Government should be good at, one is protecting our citizens that are overseas. We're the only nation that taxes overseas citizens; we should at least give them something for their money.

Watch the volume on this one

2006-07-18T22:08:00.000-04:00

This is one of the funniest/saddest/stupidest videos I've seen in a while:

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Viruses leap to smart radio tags

2006-07-18T21:04:00.000-04:00

RFID tags are a concern for many privacy advocates. This sounds like fun:

Computer viruses could be about to take a giant leap and start spreading via smart barcodes, warn experts.

Security researchers have infected a Radio Frequency ID tag with a computer virus to show how the technology is vulnerable to malicious hackers.

The researchers warn that RFID tags could help mount many different types of attacks on computer systems.

Makers of radio tag systems were urged by the group to introduce safeguards to guard against RFID-borne bugs.

From the "Why don't you get a gun safe department"

2006-07-18T20:19:00.000-04:00

Thank you for calling 911. Please hold:

Homeowners once looking for protection, ex-hunters and wary parents were among those who pulled up to The Pyramid Saturday to unload their rifles, semiautomatics, shotguns and revolvers.

The gun turn-in program that ran throughout the day was held by the Memphis Police Department in cooperation with WMC TV-5 and Soul Classics 103.5.

Not intended to round up the firearms of lawbreakers, the event was aimed at law-abiding citizens who have the power to stop their own guns from falling into violent hands, said Sgt. Vince Higgins, spokesman for Memphis police.

Free market

2006-07-17T15:36:00.000-04:00

Hmmm.

To implement monetary policy, short-term repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements are used to temporarily affect the size of the Federal Reserve System's portfolio and influence day-to-day trading in the federal funds market.

Is the Fed attempting to stop the stock market decline by introducing $9.5 billion in temporary reserves via Treasury repos?

Overkill

2006-07-17T13:09:00.000-04:00

Radley Balko released his paper on hypermilitarized police today [PDF]. Interesting and very disturbing.

This bodes well for freedom

2006-07-16T16:05:00.000-04:00

From All Headline News:

A leading insurance provider has announced plans to implant chips into patients who are suffering from chronic diseases. The chip will allow medical personnel to access patient's medical histories.

Going out of business sale?

2006-07-15T17:01:00.000-04:00

Foreign Companies Buy U.S. Roads, Bridges:

On a single day in June, an Australian-Spanish partnership paid $3.8 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road. An Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, and Texas officials decided to let a Spanish-American partnership build and run a toll road from Austin to Seguin for 50 years.

Few people know that the tolls from the U.S. side of the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, go to a subsidiary of an Australian company — which also owns a bridge in Alabama.

Bankruptcy sale! Everything 20-50% off!

Pakistan's ISI masterminded 11/7

2006-07-14T15:57:00.000-04:00

This does not bode well if it's true:

Forty-eight hours after bombs ripped through Mumbai, the needle pointed to Pakistan. Intelligence agencies on Thursday confirmed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was the “mastermind” of the blasts that killed about 200 people.

The Mumbai Police, meanwhile, identified the trio who planned and executed 11/7: Rahil, Zahibuddin Ansari and Faiyaz, linked to the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) and the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). Of them, Rahil had reportedly made an abortive bid to trigger a blast at Byculla railway station on March 11 — the eve of the anniversary of the 1993 Bombay blasts.

The agencies, which briefed National Security Adviser MK Narayanan and Cabinet Secretary BK Chaturvedi, said the blueprint for Tuesday’s blasts was made by the ISI while the “plan” was executed by “local Indian operatives”.

Israel invades Lebanon, Pakistan coordinates a terrorist bombing and Iraq is descending into chaos. The world is on the brink.

Is the United States Bankrupt?

2006-07-14T15:11:00.000-04:00

An article from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis website discusses the possibility of national bankruptcy (emphasis mine):

Consider, for starters, Gokhale and Smetters’s (2005) analysis of the country’s fiscal gap, which measures the present value difference between all future government expenditures, including servicing official debt, and all future receipts. In calculating the fiscal gap, Gokhale and Smetters use the federal government’s arbitrarily labeled receipts and payments. Nevertheless, their calculation of the fiscal gap is label-free because alternative labeling of our nation’s fiscal affairs would yield the same fiscal gap. Indeed, determining the fiscal gap is part of generational accounting; the fiscal gap measures the extra burden that would need to be imposed on current or future generations, relative to current policy, to satisfy the government’s intertemporal budget constraint.

The Gokhale and Smetters measure of the fiscal gap is a stunning $65.9 trillion! This figure is more than five times U.S. GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one’s head around $65.9 trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143 percent.

The Gokhale and Smetters study is an update of an earlier, highly detailed, and extensive U.S. Department of the Treasury fiscal gap analysis commissioned in 2002 by then Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. Smetters, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Economic Policy at the Treasury between 2001 and 2002, recruited Gokhale, then Senior Economic Adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, to work with him and other Treasury staff on the study. The study took close to a year to organize and complete. Gokhale and Smetters’s $65.9 trillion fiscalgap calculation relies on the same methodology employed in the original Treasury analysis. Hence, one can legitimately view this figure as our own government’s best estimate of its present-value budgetary shortfall.

The cheery article then concludes

Countries can and do go bankrupt. The United States, with its $65.9 trillion fiscal gap, seems clearly headed down that path. The country needs to stop shooting itself in the foot. It needs to adopt generational accounting as its standard method of budgeting and fiscal analysis, and it needs to adopt fundamental tax, Social Security, and healthcare reforms that will redeem our children’s future.

Bulls bet on gold to top $1,000

2006-07-14T12:35:00.000-04:00

From the Telegraph:

A sudden surge in demand for gold options cashable at over $1,000 an ounce is the clearest sign to date that hedge funds and savvy traders are betting on a big rise in bullion prices.

UBS said investors had begun to show keen interest in "call" options to expire in December with strike prices of $1,000 an ounce and above.

Trust us! We're the government!

2006-07-14T01:12:00.000-04:00

A big, fat duh:

In a policy reversal, President Bush has agreed to sign legislation allowing a secret federal court to assess the constitutionality of his warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, a senior Republican senator announced Thursday.

By having the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court conduct the review instead of a regular federal court, the Bush administration would ensure the secrecy of details of the highly classified program. The administration has argued that making details of the program public would compromise national security.

However, such details could include politically explosive disclosures that the government has kept tabs on people it shouldn't have been monitoring.

Why an inflationary bust is inevitable

2006-07-14T00:36:00.000-04:00

From Money Week:

So, in order to generate nominal GDP growth of US$751 billion, in 2005, total credit market debt had to increase by US$3,340 trillion — 4.4 times faster than GDP. Now, as is the case for the current account deficit, which hovers around 7% of GDP at present, the optimists will say that debt growth that is four times larger than GDP growth is sustainable. This may be the case for now, but the point is that, in the 1950s and 1960s, debt and GDP grew at about the same rate, with the result that in 1980, when Paul Volcker tightened meaningfully, total credit market debt was “only” about 130% of GDP.

Then, in the 1980s, debt grew at about two-and-a-half times GDP, in the 1990s at about three times GDP, and now at more than four times. In other words, as GaveKal Research pointed out, in order to sustain the asset bull markets and the economic expansion, debt growth will have to accelerate soon to initially five times GDP, later to six times, and if we extrapolate the trend that has prevailed since the 1960s, eventually to more than 20 times GDP.

Debt growth at 20 times GDP? Yowch. Not to worry, I'm sure Ted Stevens can help out.

Conservatives Without Conscience

2006-07-13T23:57:00.000-04:00

I just ordered the book. Sounds interesting.

America: Freedom to Fascism

2006-07-13T22:18:00.000-04:00

Freedom is my Anti-Gov

2006-07-13T22:08:00.000-04:00

Not looking good

2006-07-13T18:10:00.000-04:00

Iran's president speaks up:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, has warned that continued Israeli strikes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can lead to an "explosion" in the Islamic world that would target Israel and its supporters in the West.

Oil prices close at new record high

2006-07-13T16:52:00.000-04:00

CBC news:

Oil prices hit a new high closing price of $76.70 US a barrel on Thursday, as violence in the Middle East roiled the market.

The price of light sweet crude oil for August delivery was up $1.75 US per barrel from Wednesday's close on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The previous high close for oil was $75.78 US on July 7.

And it's going to keep going up. Has WW3 officially started now?

Rapebear!

2006-07-12T16:15:00.000-04:00

ARRROOOOOOOOO!

h/t The World According to Pooh

If you don't want to cut government programs

2006-07-12T15:58:00.000-04:00

Just ditch the tool designed to measure their successfulness. From Cato:

The Program Assessment Rating Tool was developed by the Bush administration in 2002 to track the effectiveness of government programs by requiring federal programs and agencies to submit periodic questionnaires describing their goals, progress, and results. PART is a well-intentioned effort to bring financial accountability to the federal government, and in 2005 it won an innovation award from Harvard.

Unfortunately, accountability seems to be a dirty word in Washington. The House Appropriations Committee recently approved a bill that would cut off PART's funding, effectively shutting it down.

The reason? As committee spokesman John Scofield notes, "It's nice to get a cute little number . . . but PART tends to be an excuse to cut Congress' priorities."

Essentially, House appropriators are concerned that increased attention to the ineptitude of the government will compromise their efforts to expand it.

They'll get rid of ear marks and pork when you rip it from their chubby, money grubbing hands.

Nine percent spending hike

2006-07-12T15:36:00.000-04:00

From The Heritage Foundation:

This year’s nine percent spending hike is the largest since 1990. This is occurring even though the economy is healthy. Lawmakers should not assume they can continue increasing spending at this rate and be bailed out by equally fast revenue growth.

...

Since 2001, federal spending has leaped 45 percent.

Like drunken sailors.

Iranian oil bourse moved back to September

2006-07-12T15:25:00.000-04:00

The dollar is still be replaced by the Euro:

Iran will start the initial phase of its planned Iranian oil bourse at the end of September, the news agency ISNA reported last Wednesday. An unnamed oil ministry official told ISNA that his ministry had already presented the relevant documents to the economic and finance ministry and the bourse organisation.

The building that will house the oil bourse has reportedly already been purchased in the southern Iranian island of Kish. Petrochemical and oil-related products will be made available to customers in the first phase but the volume of the shares to be traded is not yet clear, the official told ISNA. Economics and Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari said last April that the issue had already been agreed upon and that the oil ministry had given the go-ahead for the opening of the bourse. The exchange will have a positive impact on oil sales, not only in Iran but in the wider Gulf region and is slated to replace the current dollar-based oil exchange with one based on the Euro, he said.

Russia has lifted its currency controls and paid of its debt and central banks are moving away from the weak dollar. This is what happens when the US engages in reckless geopolitical and fiscal policy.

America's savings hoax exposed

2006-07-12T15:18:00.000-04:00

Spend, spend, spend!

One: Stop wasting your time and money on useless repetitive studies. Stop droning on with the same tired mantra: We know America is a debt-ridden, consumption-addicted nation with a bankrupt public policy on savings, run by myopic politicians whose main goal is re-election and kowtowing to special-interest money. Neither party has the will or the guts to stand up and get into action. That's reality folks!

Two: Only one thing will reverse America's failed savings policy: a catastrophe! Past prosperity has lulled us to sleep. But that's coming to an end. The Brookings Institution warns that if we do nothing for the next 10 years, problems will get so bad that balancing the budget would require a 40% plus cut in benefits and spending, or offsetting tax increases. They also acknowledge that politically nothing will be done until a crisis explodes.

Three: What can you do? No news here. Ten studies and things keep getting worse. Yes, 33% listen and invest regularly. But the other 67% are oblivious, addicted to short-term consumption and immediate gratification. Solution? Save 10% or more.

I should be surprised at the 67%, but for some reason I'm not. The housing boom lulled many into a false sense of security. Watching double digit gains in home equity is nice and all, but a bust always follows a boom. These things move in cycles, and considering the size of this boom, the landing may be very hard.

The nanny state marches on

2006-07-12T14:25:00.000-04:00

Bipartisan asshatery via the Daily Show.

$200 Billion Broadband Scandal

2006-07-12T13:56:00.000-04:00

Ouch.

The Harms and Outcome

* Costs to Customers — We estimate that $206 billion dollars in excess profits and tax deductions were collected — over $2000 per household. (This is the low estimate.)
* Cost to the Country — About $5 trillion dollars to the economy. America lost a decade of technological innovation and economic growth, about $500 billion annually.
* Cost to the Country — America is now 16th in the world in broadband. While Korea and Japan have 40-100 Mbps at cheap prices, America is still at kilobyte speeds.
* The New Digital Divide — The phone companies current plans are to pick and choose where and when they want to deploy fiber services, if at all.
* Competitor Close Out — SBC, BellSouth and Verizon now claim that they can control who uses the networks and at what price, impacting everything from VOIP and municipality roll outs to new services from Ebay and Google.

I want my 45 Mbps pipe!

Monumental stupidity

2006-07-12T04:37:00.000-04:00

These games? They make you kill things!

Guidry added that the law is "not going to curtail the free speech of anybody," but then he used the old "games are training kids to kill" argument. "This is more than speech. This is truly training for violence," he said. "You assume the character of a mass murderer. You go out and kill people as violently as you can because you score more points."

Mr. Guidry, video games also taught me how to rocket jump! That's why you see me sailing through the air everywhere I go. It's the perfect form of travel (assuming you find health packs laying around).

White House Lowers '06 Deficit Estimate

2006-07-12T03:49:00.000-04:00

Yay?

The Bush administration yesterday lowered its estimate of this year's federal budget deficit to $296 billion -- a figure that prompted the White House to claim vindication for its tax cuts, and Democrats to issue new denunciations of the nation's fiscal problems.

It's like having someone throw you into a steaming pile of manure, but the pile is slightly smaller than you thought it would be.

Is inflation really under control?

2006-07-12T03:39:00.000-04:00

No.

The Treasury department parrots the Fed line that consumer prices, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), are under control. But even many mainstream economists now admit that CPI grossly understates true inflation. The most glaring problem is that CPI excludes housing prices, instead tracking rents. Everyone knows the cost of purchasing a home has increased dramatically in the last ten years; in many regions housing prices have more than doubled in just five years. So price inflation certainly is alive and well when to comes to the largest purchase most Americans make.

The CPI has been a joke for a while. As long as you don't eat, don't use energy, don't buy a house, and don't use healthcare, everything is fine!

Just the facts ma'am

2006-07-12T03:34:00.000-04:00

There are some interesting charts about The National Budget, Debt & Deficit over at MarkTAW.com. The spike at 2000 and the following rapid decline would be funny if it weren't so sad. Notice any patterns?

That's right. Deficits don't matter.

Syria Will End Dollar Peg, Moves Reserves to Euros

2006-07-12T03:30:00.000-04:00

I guess this is what happens with $8.5 trillion in debt:

Syria, accused by the U.S. of supporting terrorism, plans to end its currency peg to the dollar by December to reflect closer trade ties with Europe, central bank Governor Adib Mayaleh said.

The Central Bank of Syria has already converted half its foreign-exchange reserves to euros, Mayaleh said in a telephone interview from Damascus, without being more specific. Syria's reserves, including gold, totaled $4.1 billion at the end of 2005, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, similar to the amount held by Lithuania's central bank.

Global derivatives market expands to record US$298t

2006-05-22T15:00:00.000-04:00

Insanity.

The global derivatives market expanded to a record US$298 trillion in the second half of 2005, led by a 34 per cent increase in contracts to insure debt payments, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said on Friday.

Credit-default swaps rose to US$13.7 trillion, the Basel, Switzerland-based bank said in its bi-annual derivatives survey.

Growth of the market for derivatives slowed to 5 per cent from 8 per cent six months earlier, based on those contracts traded outside of exchanges.

The credit derivatives market is expanding so quickly that banks have not kept up with the paperwork, leaving trades unconfirmed for days or weeks. Former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan on Thursday said he found it 'appalling' that some people were recording the trades on 'scraps' of paper.

Oh Daytona, don't you spy on me

2006-05-11T16:06:00.000-04:00

Daytona:

Historically, DaytonaTM databases have scaled up to the point where either the customer runs out of data to store or else runs out of the means to store the data. Our most recent best example of that is AT&T's 312 terabyte Hawkeye database which is implemented using Daytona as a federation of two HP Integrity Itanium Superdome partitions running HP-UX.

The 64 CPU (SMP) partition houses 6 largish Daytona tables of call detail data. As of Sept 14, 2005, the largest one of these tables contained 743 billion records whose average (compressed) length was 52.2 bytes. This 52.2 bytes uncompresses on average to a uncompressed format measuring 216 bytes, implying an expansion factor of 4:1 . (This uncompressed format is essentially a human-readable ASCII format.) This compressed table takes up 38.8 terabytes; clearly it is much better to buy 38.8 terabytes of disk than 159 terabytes. In all, this partition contains 1.026 trillion records. (FYI, all terabytes here are 1024 based.)

The second partition is qualitatively different: it consists of a low-level data store that in and of itself does not use Daytona and which stores all of the raw data that is distilled into the Daytona records in the first partition. Most of this raw data is in the so-called AMA format, which is a standard format long used by telecoms. There is a lot of information in the raw records that is not present in the corresponding distilled Daytona records and actually the distilled Daytona records contain some information that is not in the raw records. This raw data is stored using an exceedingly effective AT&T compression algorithm called pzip achieving compression ratios of 6:1 here. Special home-grown C code is used to parse unpzip'd AMA data into a human-readable form.

There is a web-interface that binds these two partitions into a federated database: the interface invokes precompiled web-parameterized Daytona queries on the first partition and displays their output. Then if the user would like to see a display of the corresponding raw records located on the second partition, they press a button and the web-interface performs a Daytona query on the first partition that uses the Daytona indices to produce information that informs the custom C code on the second partition where to find the corresponding raw records. This is essentially a nested-loops indexed join. The fact that this integration is so simple and was so easy to implement is a testament to Daytona's flexibility.

And I was happy when I bought a pair of 300GB SATA drives...

What have I missed?

2006-05-11T15:04:00.000-04:00

Gold @ 720, silver @ 15, and it looks like the NSA has been collecting info on domestic calls.

Shine on!

2006-01-26T01:43:00.000-05:00

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/?itemid=2078

It’s coming. Despite roadblocks put up by the Silver Users Association, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in conjunction with the American Stock Exchange, has proposed new rules that will guide the trading of the upcoming silver exchange traded fund (ETF).

Let’s be clear – the proposed rule from the SEC governing trading of the silver ETF (Rule Change Relating to the Listing and Trading of Shares of the iShares® Silver Trust) should not be confused with the pending registration of iShares Silver Trust (SLV) shares with the SEC. These are separate matters. However the SEC action indicates the very clear intention of the SEC and AMEX to prepare for the eventual trading of the silver ETF. The proposed rule will take at least until February 7, 2006 to be approved, and possibly, it could be subject to further delays and/or changes.

Metals go zing!

2006-01-10T04:13:00.000-05:00

Shortfall of metals risks China's rise

HOLD tight, it's going to be another belter of a year for metals.

In fact, so critical is the supply situation, according to one local analyst, that China's growth could be compromised because it cannot get its hands on enough raw materials.

The starkness of the situation is illustrated by copper. While stocks of the red metal have been rising in recent weeks, the London Metal Exchange's holdings account for just two days' worth of world consumption.

Merrill Lynch's US operation sent a note to clients last week that copper, aluminium, nickel and steel would be in tight supply for 2006.

Savings? We don't need no stinkin' savings

2006-01-09T23:29:00.000-05:00

Americans saving less than nothing / Spending could outstrip income in 2005, which hasn't happened since the Depression:

When the Commerce Department recently tallied up consumer finances for November, it found that Americans shelled out more money than they took in. It was the seventh such month of red ink during 2005.

Kevin Lansing, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, tracks the personal savings rate -- the Commerce Department's measure of how much consumers have left after spending is subtracted from income. In November the savings rate was a negative 0.2 percent.

Given how much red ink households racked up in the first 11 months of last year, Lansing said the nation's personal savings rate could well be negative for all of 2005.

That, he added, would be "the first such occurrence since the Great Depression."

RFID (sniff, sniff)

2006-01-09T23:24:00.000-05:00

Mastercard has a new commercial out touting their new PayPass™ technology. It's an RFID key fob that you swipe at the counter:

Texas Instruments today announced plans to deliver ISO/IEC 14443 compliant radio frequency identification (RFID) chips designed to meet the stringent security requirements for MasterCard International's PayPass™ line of RFID payment cards and tokens. TI expects to submit this product for MasterCard certification in the second quarter of 2005. Full production is planned to start in the second half of this year.

Stalky pointed out why it might not be a Good Thing™:

The Texas Instruments DST tag is a cryptographically enabled RFID transponder used in several wide-scale systems including vehicle immobilizers and the ExxonMobil SpeedPass system. This page serves as an overview of our successful attacks on DST enabled systems.

Deficits don't matter

2006-01-07T15:29:00.000-05:00

OPEC, Russia to pick up US deficit slack:

THE principal source of money to finance the cavernous US current account deficit is shifting from Asia to Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries members and Russia, a move that may undermine world financial stability.

An analysis of global payments balances by ANZ chief economist Saul Eslake concludes that it cannot be assumed that the surpluses of the oil-producing nations will be recycled back to the US as smoothly as have Asia's surpluses.

The US has consistently defied the doomsayers by running ever-larger deficits without the least flicker of concern on bond markets.

Eslake notes that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warns every six months that the global payments imbalances are unsustainable. Its latest forecast is for the deficit to surpass $US800 billion ($1.05 trillion) in 2005, rising to $US980 billion by 2007.

That sound you hear?

2006-01-06T01:44:00.000-05:00

It's the other shoe:

China indicated on Thursday it could begin to diversify its rapidly growing foreign exchange reserves away from the US dollar and government bonds – a potential shift with significant implications for global financial and commodity markets.

Economists estimate that more that 70 per cent of the reserves are invested in US dollar assets, which has helped to sustain the recent large US deficits. If China were to stop acquiring such a large proportion of dollars with its reserves – currently accumulating at about $15bn (€12.4bn) a month – it could put heavy downward pressure on the greenback.

Dollar slips

2006-01-04T16:42:00.000-05:00

Dollar Falls on Speculation Fed Closer to Halting Rate Policy

The dollar had the biggest two-day drop against the euro in five years after the Federal Reserve suggested it is closer to halting its interest-rate increases.

A shift in Fed policy may prevent a further widening of the yield advantage on U.S. assets that pushed the dollar up more than 14 percent against the euro and yen in 2005. A European Union report today showed inflation exceeded the European Central Bank's target for an 11th consecutive month.

``There's a dollar-bearishness out there right now,'' said Peter Lorraine, a managing director of foreign-exchange trading at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. ``Once the Fed says they're getting near the end, the dollar is falling.''

Heh. No kidding, Pete?

Time to raise the debt ceiling

2005-12-30T16:46:00.000-05:00

Snow urges Congress to raise debt limit:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary
John Snow warned lawmakers on Thursday that a legally set limit on the government's ability to borrow will be hit in mid-February and urged Congress to raise it quickly.

Failure to do so potentially risks throwing the country into its first default in history, Snow warned in what has become virtually an annual rite as U.S. borrowing needs spiral.

"The administration now projects that the statutory debt limit, currently $8.184 trillion, will be reached in mid-February 2006," Snow said in a letter to 21 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate released by Treasury after financial markets had closed.

Time to print more monopoly money. It's a good thing the Fed will stop reporting M3 next year.

When faced with a record high in computer security problems

2005-12-30T16:37:00.000-05:00

Cut the budget:

The Treasury Department says that cyber crime has now outgrown illegal drug sales in annual proceeds, netting an estimated $105 billion in 2004, the report said.

At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security's 2005 research budget for cybersecurity programs was cut 7% to $16 million.

Computer security is now more profitable than illegal drugs, yet the budget for fighting cybercrime is a fraction of the budget for the War on Drugs. Not only is the budget a fraction, it has been cut. Nice priorities.

Iran studies Russian nuclear proposal

2005-12-29T18:46:00.000-05:00

Things heat up:

Iran is studying a Russian proposal for the Islamic republic to enrich uranium on Russian soil, a top national security official said, although commentators urged caution over a possible breakthrough.
...
He said that the Russian proposal was based on the establishment of a "joint Iran-Russia company on Russian soil" for the enrichment of uranium, a key component of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Mmmm, government cookies

2005-12-28T15:44:00.000-05:00

Via Boing Boing:

The Whitehouse.gov Web site is bugged! Apparently the Webmaster for the site has hired Webtrends to track visitors around the site using Web bugs and permanent cookies. Here's the Web bug that I found on the home page of the Whitehouse.gov Web site (...) Similar Web bugs can be found on other Web pages at the Whitehouse Web site.

Before 9/11, the Clinton administration said this kind of Web tracking is a no-no for U.S. government Web sites [Link]. Because of the unique laws and traditions about government access to citizens' personal information, the presumption should be that "cookies" will not be used at Federal web sites. Under this new Federal policy, "cookies" should not be used at Federal web sites, or by contractors when operating web sites on behalf of agencies, unless, in addition to clear and conspicuous notice, the following conditions are met: a compelling need to gather the data on the site.

More info for TIA?

Stupid litigation

2005-12-28T15:32:00.000-05:00

aka, How to make money by doing nothing:

Rates Technology says that two patents they hold (awarded in 1995, 2001) for minimizing the cost of long distance calls using the Internet are being infringed upon by Google Talk. Copies of these two patents along with one more mentioned in the filing are included in the complaint.

Rates Technology is asking for a jury trial along with:
+ Enforcement of the patents
+ Damages including the loss of profits so provide a royalty
+ A preliminary injuction against Google
+ Attorney's fees

So who is Rates Technology? That's a good question. Finding substanative material on the open web is a challenge. However, a web search did turn up this excellent this blog post from TMCnet publisher Rich Tehrani, that Rates Technology, a company Tehrani says, exists, "to collect revenue from other companies" has also sued Nortel, Sharp Electronics and others over patents it holds. The post also includes has a blurb from a December 7, 1998 WSJ story about the company and recent comments (April 2005) from Rates Technology CEO, Jerry Weinberger.

When you can't innovate, sue. For some reason I don't think this is what the founding fathers meant when they wrote:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

Lawsuits like these -- and there are plenty -- is one of the reasons why the entire "intellectual property" system needs to be scrapped. A new kind of company has emerged, filled with bottom feeders, who's only business model is to buy technology patents and wait for a company to develop a possibly related system that infringes on their "idea".

These scumbags won't be the first ones against the wall, but they'll be in the top ten.

Treasury yield curve inverts

2005-12-27T11:57:00.000-05:00

But this time it's different™:

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury fell below that of two-year notes early Tuesday, inverting the yield curve for the first time since December 2000.

At 6:23 am ET. the 10-year note yielded 4.393 percent while the two-year note yielded 4.396 percent.

The inversion of the yield curve is rare because investors tend to demand higher yields on longer-dated bonds to compensate for the risk of higher inflation later.

"This clearly suggests we are very close to the end of the tightening cycle...and is not an indication of a recession," said Michael Rottmann, strategist at Hypovereinsbank.

Covering the political fall out

2005-12-27T04:10:00.000-05:00

A former SIGINT officer with the NSA says they were probably doing illegal things:

Under the provisions of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency (NSA) and with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). These acts involve the Director of the National Security Agency, the Deputies Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, and the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

These probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts were conducted via very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as Special Access Programs (SAP)s. I was a technical intelligence specialist dealing almost exclusively with SAP programs and operations at both NSA and DIA.

The surveillance was broader than first admitted:

The NSA, with help from American telecommunications companies, obtained access to streams of domestic and international communications, said the Times in the report late Friday, citing unidentified current and former government officials.

And Gov. Richardson (D - NM) may have been one of the people monitored under the looser rules:

Gov. Bill Richardson is concerned that some of his phone calls were monitored by a U.S. spy agency and transcripts of them were given to the president's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton.

More bad news for those of us that value privacy

2005-12-25T01:16:00.000-05:00

Where did you go today?

Want to know if the NSA is looking at you?

2005-12-24T13:46:00.000-05:00

Here's a good idea.

More on ARDA

2005-12-23T15:28:00.000-05:00

While ARDA's site may be down, it is easy to find information on some of their programs.

Aquaint doesn't ask questions. It wants to model the information seeking activity. In terms of TIA, this seems to be part of the processes of "Structured argumentation and evidential reasoning" and "Story telling".

VACE is the another easily recognizable project in the TIA program that has been moved over to ARDA. It's a combination of "Biometric signatures of humans" and possibly "Human network analysis and behavior model building engines". The project aims to monitor foreign news casts and "automatically detect, extract, and report high interest people, patterns, and trends in visual content".

ENVIE is another project being pursued by ARDA. ENVIE tries to overcome some of the "Foreign language machine translation and speech recognition" problems by using visual cues to link together relevant information.

AmazingMiracleSoft®

2005-12-21T17:54:00.000-05:00

Heh.

Ars Technica has a handle on it

2005-12-20T22:33:00.000-05:00

This is rapidly becoming a hot topic again. Over at Ars Technica is a good article about what the NSA might be doing. The follow up explains why a large data collection and processing system is a bad idea.

More on the missing TIA

2005-12-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

Another place where some of the TIA initiatives may have moved is the aforementioned ARDA (links to archive.org). So what is ARDA?

The Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA) is an Intelligence Community (IC) center for conducting advanced research and development related to information technology (IT) (information stored, transmitted, or manipulated by electronic means). ARDA sponsors high risk, high payoff research designed to produce new technology to address some of the most important and challenging IT problems faced by the intelligence community. The research is currently organized into four technology thrusts, Information Exploitation, Quantum Information Science, Global Infosystems Access and Novel Intelligence from Massive Data.

Although the site is down, more information on what ARDA does can be found in their Call for 2005 Challenge Workshop Proposals:

The 2005 Challenge Problems will focus on the following technical areas of interest, although ARDA may also consider compelling proposals that fall outside these areas:
1. Information Exploitation (Info-X, http://www.ic-arda.org/InfoExploit/index.html) in particular the VACE and AQUAINT programs.
2. Novel Intelligence from Massive Data (NIMD)
3. Advanced Capabilities for Intelligence Analysis (ACIA)
4. Information Assurance (IA)
5. Advanced Imaging (as a seedling workshop)
6. Nanoelectronics for High Performance Computing (as a seedling workshop)

More bleeding edge IT work.

So where did TIA go?

2005-12-20T13:27:00.000-05:00

One obvious continuation on the TIA is the National Visualization and Analytics Center. So what does NVAC™ do?

From the about page:

In the fight on terrorism, analysts are bombarded with enormous volumes of data coming from a variety of sources: documents, emails, measurements, images, numbers and even sounds. Often, this information is incomplete, fuzzy, disjointed, or out of context.

Recognizing that humans have a keen ability to process visual information, researchers are creating computer tools—known as visual analytics—that can interpret and analyze vast amounts of data. Visual analytics is the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces. People use visual analytics tools and techniques to:

Synthesize information and derive insight from massive, dynamic, ambiguous, and often conflicting data.

Detect the expected and discover the unexpected.

Provide timely, defensible, and understandable assessments.

Communicate assessment effectively for action.

That list sounds very familiar. It seems to be a synthesis of the stated goals of the former TIA. Probably the most telling part is:

By uncovering hidden associations and relationships, analysts glean insight and knowledge to assess terrorist threats to detect the expected and discover the unexpected.

Does "Human network analysis and behavior model building engines" ring a bell?

DefenseTech talks about TIA

2005-12-20T12:15:00.000-05:00

Tim F. just posted a link at Balloon Juice about DefenseTech's coverage of TIA. TIA was officially abandonded, but the projects have been moved to new places like the Advanced Research and Development Activity. Before delving into the the specific TIA mission goals, it will be interesting to see where former TIA projects have been moved to. More on that later.

Further thoughts on TIA 2: FISA Boogaloo

2005-12-19T22:18:00.000-05:00

The President "was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office." Other people are dealing with the legal aspects of this case and they are, like, real lawyers 'n' stuff. So I'll stick to technical ideas.

TIA is an interesting program from a technological perspective. I've only offered a possible explanation on how a system could safely operate outside the confines of the FISA statute. Stalky was mentioning earlier that analyzing only the patterns of communications wouldn't be nearly as useful as analyzing the content too. And he's right.

In previous examples I used telephone calls as the example of what this theoretical TIA system could do. But in the Information Age, the NSA would not limit itself to telephone calls. A more total TIA system would collect and analyze not only traffic patterns of emails, chat rooms, web traffic, and phone calls, ideally it would also parse the content.

For telephone conversations, off the shelf voice recognition software is already very good. I'm sure what the NSA uses is much, much more advanced. So let's turn back to the bullet list of TIA goodies and look at a few:

Collaboration and sharing over TCP/IP networks across agency boundaries

This one is not really TIA specific, but does address a big problem with government systems. Integration. I would imagine the "former" IAO was tasked with integrating inter and intra-agency communications in order to share intelligence more effectively. That's a pretty big task on its own.

Large, distributed repositories with dynamic schemas that can be changed interactively by users

I'm guessing this refers to creating a semantic web of information where analysts can define the taxonomy to suit a particular situation. Pure speculation though.

Foreign language machine translation and speech recognition

The NSA probably has the recognition part pretty well covered, but machine translation is still pretty tricky. Keyword recognition is probably more important than contextual analysis.

Biometric signatures of humans

Facial recognition? Voice recognition? :shrug:

Real time learning, pattern matching and anomalous pattern detection

Machine learning. Check the link. Wikipedia can explain it better than any short description I can offer.

Entity extraction from natural language text

This also refers to the semantic web and more importantly, contextual analysis. If I'm not mistaken, this is pretty cutting edge stuff, e.g. cool. Who knew government work could be fun?

Human network analysis and behavior model building engines

This was touched on previously.

Event prediction and capability development model building engines

There was a spectacular PR failure by the administration regarding a real world implementation of this idea. I'll search for the link later. It was amusing.

Structured argumentation and evidential reasoning

More AI goodies.

Story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance

Sounds AI-ish, maybe 1984ish. This one will require some research.

Business rules sub-systems for access control and process management

That sounds more like government work...

Biologically inspired algorithms for agent control

Genetic algorithms for AIs -- data mining stuff.

Other aids for human cognition and human reasoning

Sounds like more AI training/research.

If my predictions prove correct, I'll probably cover these topics one by one, in the future. Perhaps Stalky will join me, as my knowledge is shallow in some of these areas, and he'll be able to fill in alot of the gaps.

CAN YOU TYPE LOUDER?

2005-12-19T19:40:00.000-05:00

http://www.drudgereport.com/

NYT AND REPORTER/AUTHOR JAMES RISEN PLANNING MORE REVELATIONS ABOUT GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE ON CITIZENS, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE. EXCLUSIVE SET FOR TUESDAY PAPER... MORE...

Jeez I hate Drudge.

So I'll make a prediction now: The system in question involves automated data collection that has a volume that would overwhelm the FISC. I'm also predicting that FISA doesn't apply to the data gathering due to the definitions in § 1801. (f).

Small world networks and the NSA

2005-12-19T19:13:00.000-05:00

Let's say you get ahold of a foreign phone number that belongs to someone that's a terrorist or a known associate of a terrorist. Of course the NSA is going to tap that phone and that wiretap will not require a warrant. But what other information can you get from that one number? You get a list of all of the numbers that are dialed out of the phone and the numbers that dial into the phone.

What if some of those numbers are in the US? The NSA is not allowed to monitor the contents of those communications without a warrant. But the NSA can monitor if those US phones call overseas. The contents of the call require a warrant, but the act of calling does not.

So why not get a warrant for each time you want to see where a US number dials an overseas number? Scope. This would be an automated system that acts in a very quick fashion. Each call to a foreign number would then peg that number as another watch number, then the process would start again. Such a system would quickly overwhelm the FISC with requests and most of the requests would, rightfully, be denied.

So what purpose does all of this to and from traffic monitoring serve? That's where the former TIA program comes in. While a huge list of cross-referenced numbers may not mean much for you or me, we are really having computers find patterns. Using the theories behind small world networks you can cull and correlate that information and begin to develop a better picture of how terrorist networks interact. The earlier post about LiveJournal is a simpler example of the scale the NSA would operate on.

Senator Rockefeller's letter to Cheney

2005-12-19T18:35:00.000-05:00

Over at Talking Points Memo:

As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter's TIA project sprung to mind, exacerbating my concerns regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regards to security, technology, and surveillance.

TIA you say? I have some thoughts about what the system may do and why warrants may be cumbersome.

Sallie Mae ups the ante

2005-12-19T18:18:00.000-05:00

To drive growth, the education-lending giant is socking students with rates of up to 28%.

Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, decries Sallie's growing presence in the ugly business of collecting on defaulted debt. Pennsylvania state representative Doug Reichley alleges that Sallie is engaging in "predatory lending."

Indeed, Sallie uses high interest rates and fees to charge students as much as 28 percent annual interest on loans. As a result, some have seen their school-loan debt balloon into six-figure delinquencies that they can't hope to pay when the collection agency (which nowadays may be owned by Sallie) comes calling.

Jacking those interest rates seems like a great idea. Scumbags.

About TIA

2005-12-19T17:43:00.000-05:00

Total Information Awareness "was" a program based out of the Information Awareness Office. The DARPA site has been pulled since the program was officially discontinued, but you can find the archived site at Archive.org. In one of the iterations of the site, they discuss what TIA consists of:

Collaboration and sharing over TCP/IP networks across agency boundaries

Large, distributed repositories with dynamic schemas that can be changed interactively by users

Foreign language machine translation and speech recognition

Biometric signatures of humans

Real time learning, pattern matching and anomalous pattern detection

Entity extraction from natural language text

Human network analysis and behavior model building engines

Event prediction and capability development model building engines

Structured argumentation and evidential reasoning

Story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance

Business rules sub-systems for access control and process management

Biologically inspired algorithms for agent control

Other aids for human cognition and human reasoning

Of specific interest in regards to the NSA leak and FISA would be "Human network analysis and behavior model building engines". Think of human network analysis as something like monitoring LiveJournal. If you were trying to model a social network, you could do so by checking a friends list. You could check the link density and comments to model how "close" of a relationship two LiveJournal users have. The human network analysis does not need to monitor the contents of the links, nor the contents of any comments between users. In order to analyze the human network, you just need to see the where and how often.

Applying the same network analysis to suspected terrorist communications, you can create a list of targets for further scrutiny. If this is what the NSA is doing, do FISA regulations really apply?

More on data mining, FISA and TIA

2005-12-19T17:11:00.000-05:00

The idea I'm offering up is that collecting information on where a communication is to and from may not fall under FISA requirements. Looking at § 1801. Definitions

(f) "Electronic surveillance" means --
(1) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes;
(2) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States, without the consent of any party thereto, if such acquisition occurs in the United States, but does not include the acquisition of those communications of computer trespassers that would be permissible under section 2511 (2)(i) of title 18;
(3) the intentional acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes, and if both the sender and all intended recipients are located within the United States; or
(4) the installation or use of an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device in the United States for monitoring to acquire information, other than from a wire or radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes.

The first three would only apply to "...the contents of..." a communication. (4) is more interesting, but the phrases "other than from a wire or radio communication" and "warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes."

Since the NSA would not be interested in the contents, the communication would be over a wire (telco) and the information would not be used for law enforcement purposes, I think there may be a loophole.

FISA, NSA and TIA

2005-12-19T16:50:00.000-05:00

There have been rumblings on the internets that the reason FISA was bypassed was that the request process takes too long. I can think of a scenario where this actually makes sense, and President Bush’s language at the press conference this morning reinforces the idea.

TIA. Total Information Awareness was a program that was started sometime after 9/11 and headed by Admiral Poindexter. The goal was to gather all data in order to predict patterns and the like. The President said that they were still using FISA, but they also went around FISA to “detect” communications. The choice of the word “detect” puts a new spin on what may be going on.

If you are data mining for patterns that are trying to map out terrorist networks, you may not need to necessarily eavesdrop on the communication itself. What you can do is come up with some statistical probability that a series of communications fits a terrorist pattern. The President was clear to say that we need the ability to move faster than the FISA process allows. If you are mapping where the communications are going, in this instance from the US to someplace that is not the US, but you are not actually monitoring the contents of the communication, it makes no sense applying for a FISA warrant.

In fact, considering the amount of data that would need to be gathered to create something statistically significant, FISA warrants would be a hinderance due to the massive number that would need to be applied for.

Linkage after more research.

Brrr!

2005-12-19T14:46:00.000-05:00

Bidding war chills U.S. plan to import natural gas

Even with natural-gas prices surging to new heights and heating bills soaring across the U.S., much of the nation's import capacity remains idle.

The nation has four onshore terminals for receiving and processing imported gas, and they are importing only about half the volume they can handle. The reason: U.S. buyers are being aggressively outbid by Europeans and Asians for the limited number of cargoes available.

The supply crunch means imports won't cool the U.S. market and natural-gas prices could stay high -- and sensitive to weather changes -- for years to come, even as the U.S. builds more terminals to handle overseas gas.

"There will be continued competition for supply, certainly through the end of the decade," says Martin Houston, president of North American operations for BG Group PLC, the largest importer of liquefied natural gas into the U.S.

First they came for your hole

2005-12-19T13:33:00.000-05:00

And you wondered "wth is an analog hole?"

A frightening bit of legislation was introduced to the US House Judiciary Committee on Friday. The Digital Transition Content Security Act of 2005 (PDF) is sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) (PDF) and would close that pesky analog hole that poses such a dire threat to the survival of the music and movie industries. The bill was originally planned for introduction in early November, but was tabled after hearings held by the House Subcomittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property.

Calling the ability to convert analog video content to a digital format a "significant technical weakness in content protection," H.R. 4569 would require all consumer electronics video devices manufactured more than 12 months after the DTCSA is passed to be able to detect and obey a "rights signaling system" that would be used to limit how content is viewed and used. That rights signaling system would consist of two DRM technologies, Video Encoded Invisible Light (VEIL) and Content Generation Management System—Analog (CGMS-A), which would be embedded in broadcasts and other analog video content.

Under the legislation, all devices sold in the US would fall under the auspices of the DTCSA: it would be illegal to "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic" in such products. It's a dream-come-true for Hollywood, and in combination with a new broadcast flag legislation (not yet introduced) would strike a near-fatal blow to the long-established right of Fair Use.

An important documentary

2005-12-19T01:43:00.000-05:00

On sushi and etiquette

More secrecy is a Good Thing™

2005-12-18T17:40:00.000-05:00

In light of the recent revelations about the danger of Quakers and the need for warrantless wiretaps, this is interesting:

Suit Decries New Secrecy in Government

Breaking a tradition of openness that began in 1816, the Bush administration has without explanation withheld the names and work locations of about 900,000 of its civilian workers, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

``Citizens have a right to know who is working for the government,'' said Adina Rosenbaum, attorney for the co-directors of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University, who sued under the Freedom of Information act to get the data.

Since 1989, TRAC has been posting on the Internet a database with the name, work location, salary and job category of all 2.7 million federal civilian workers except those in some law enforcement agencies. The data are often used by reporters and government watchdog groups to monitor policies and detect waste or abuse.