Integer factorization, etc.
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From: Risto Lankinen on 18 Apr 2008 18:31 the UKUSA Agreement, giving them impunity to target and watch-list Americans. * * * * * * * * * * *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * P475: Three decades after its creation, the NSA is still without a formal charter. Instead, there is a super hush-hush surveillance court that is virtually impotent; the FISA, which has enough loopholes and exceptions to render it nearly useless; and an executive order that was designed more to protect the intelligence community from citizens than citizens from the agencies. In addition, because it is an executive order, it can be changed at any time at the whim of a President, without so much as a nod toward Congress. P471: On January 24, 1978, President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order imposing detailed restrictions on the nation's intelligence community. The order was designed to prevent the long list of abuses of the 1960s and 1970s. But four years later President Ronald Reagan scrapped the Carter order and broadened considerably the power of the spy agencies to operate domestically. P473: Under the Reagan executive order, the NSA can now, apparently, be authorized to lend its full support - analysts as well as computers - to "any department or agency" in the federal government and, "when lives are endangered," even to local police departments. [ Yea billions of dollars a year military SIGINT support technology... oh so invisible in its great mass. A total blurring of the lines between Military and civilian control of the domestic population. ] P475-477: Like an ever-widening sinkhole, the NSA's surveillance technology
From: Risto Lankinen on 18 Apr 2008 18:55 with kidnapping * and beating someone they suspected was a drug dealer last year while * trying to rob him of cash and cocaine, Federal prosecutors said. * * Three men charged in all put on bullet-proof vests and police badges, * according to the complaint, and stopped the victim after identifying * themselves as Federal agents. The Federal agents then beat the man, * handcuffed him, forced him into their car and drove off, witnesses * said. * * The victim, whom Federal officials refuse to identify, dashed from the * car when it stopped at an intersection and persuaded a motorist to take * him to a police station. Wow. People seeking sanctuary from Federal thugs in the local police station. They thought the person had 220 pounds of cocaine. A corrupt justice system from the U.S. Attorney General all the way down to the lowest individual agents. We're becoming more like Mexico every year. ---- * Internet posting... * * Joe Pinson * 30 years old, MEDICAL MARIJUANA user. * FIVE YEARS MANDATORY MINIMUM, FIRST OFFENSE. * * Mr. Pinson was a part-time bus driver for the Jewish Hospital before * his arrest. He grew up suffering from severe asthma and tried all * kinds
From: David Bernier on 18 Apr 2008 18:52 Chiefs but even the secretaries of the : branches of the armed forces, the NSCID devolves incredible authority : and responsibility on the NSA director, giving him, at least where : SIGINT is concerned, his own Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. Let's just say lots of secrecy, Military power, Military and civilian personnel, MANY BILLIONS of dollars of funding per year and no accountability. Called UKUSA. * "A Spy Agency Admits Accumulating $4 Billion in Secret Money" * By Tim Weiner, The New York Times, May 16, 1996 * * In a complete collapse of accountability, NRO, the Government agency that * builds spy satellites, accumulated about $4 billion in uncounted secret * money. [First they said it was $1 billion, then $2 billion...] * * The new head of the agency, John Nelson, said that the secret agency had * undergone "a fundamental financial meltdown." * * The agency's secrecy made Congressional oversite next to impossible, * intelligence officials said. * * Just two years previously, the NRO constructed a "stealth building". * It was a
From: Pubkeybreaker on 18 Apr 2008 19:16 Technologies [Bell Labs is their research and development arm] and * U.S. Venture Partners said today that they had formed a company that would * make products to help people prove their identities through electronic * fingerprinting technology. * * The first product of the company, Veridicom Inc., will be a postage-size * fingerprint sensor used to retrieve information, authorize purchases or * allow entry into restricted areas. * * The postage-size sensor will measure the ridges and valleys on the skin * when a finger is pressed against a silicon chip, and then check the * measurements against the user's profile. Not big at all, is it? # "Faster, More Accurate Fingerprint Matching" # By Andrea Adelson, The New York Times, October 11 1992 # # "We think there will be a revolution in fingerprinting," said David F. # Nemecek, a deputy for the FBI's Information Service Division. # # The next step is for manufacturers to make a single-finger mobile scanner # for use in patrol cars. Some FBI cars are expected to get them next year. $ "The Body As Password", By Ann Davis, Wired Magazine, July 1997 $ $ In October 1995, the Federal Highway Administration awarded a $400,000 $ contract to San Jose State University's College of Engineering to develop $ standards for a "biometric identifier" on commercial driver's licenses and
From: Marshall on 18 Apr 2008 22:20
'arousal filter' and 'homeostatic loops'? The scope of Cybernetics is, in a word, awesome. A cyberneticist can talk from atoms to cells to nervous systems, to management of a company, country, world, solar system. Whether an organism is mechanical, biological or social, it requires a feedback mechanism to survive. Your nervous system does some amazing things to fight off infections. It creates custom anti-bodies to attack foreign microbes. Custom living cells created through a system of feedback to spot that there was a problem, analysis of the problem, action on the problem. This is a life-sustaining feedback 'homeostatic' loop. [bracket comments are mine] When Stafford Beer says Cyberstride needed to filter 'homeostatic loops': * "The Human Use of Human Beings - Cybernetics and Society" * by Norbert Wiener, 1954, pre-ISBN * * The process [such as that employed by our nervous system] by which we * living beings resist the general stream of corruption and decay is * known as homeostasis. Stayin' alive, stayin' alive... So, "statistical filtration for all homeostatic loops" means one is checking on the health of the monitored system. The cybernetician uses the same language for feedback of weapons systems (picking out a submarine from the background noise of the ocean) as they d |