NSA leak: Facebook, Yahoo, Google and others face fight for reputations

NSA leak: Facebook, Yahoo, Google and others face fight for reputations | Technology | The Guardian.

Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple have been floundering for a response

Lisa O’Carroll

The Guardian

Tuesday 11 June 2013

Google’s Larry Page: ‘The level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish.’ Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

Google. Apple. Facebook. Microsoft: they are the brands that want the world to trust them with personal information, emails, photos, documents – yet they are now facing a battle to maintain that trust after disclosures that the US government was given access to their customers’ data online via the Prism programme operated by the NSA.

The companies involved – Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple – vigorously deny giving the Obama administration backdoor access to users’ internet information, but the potential damage to their brand reputation has left the companies floundering for a way to respond.

Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, professor of internet governance and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, believes there could be serious consequences for the collective reputations of all internet companies who have meticulously built their trade on trust.

He cites Amazon – not one of the companies involved in Prism – as a case in point when the company took the side of consumers after publishers protested about bad reviews. “It may have dissuaded someone to buy a book, but it instilled trust in Amazon which was far more important to it long-term,” said Mayer-Schonberger. “If you violate that trust, it is difficult to re-establish. Even if it turned out to be a hoax, trust has been destroyed because everyone is talking about it.”

He added: “These companies depend on their users being sufficiently trusting to give them personal data. Many of us are perfectly fine for these companies to use this information for their own commercial benefit, to place more relevant adverts on the right hand side, but we do not want it passed on to the government or to tax authorities for instance.”

Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at Centre for Democracy and Technology in New York said that for Google – a company which has Don’t be Evil as an informal company slogan and has pioneered online openess, “more transparency would be helpful”. He said: “An important step would be for these companies to exert even more pressure; pressure on the intelligence authorities to disclose more information about intelligence related surveillance that they are compelled to conduct.”

In his statement following the Prism revelations, Google CEO Larry Page indicated this was the tack his company would be taking to protect its brand reputation. “The level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish,” he said.

Civil liberty activists have also been alarmed. In the UK, the US surveillance, even of high level data, has raised questions about breaches of domestic data protection laws.

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Technology giants struggle to maintain credibility over NSA Prism surveillance

Technology giants struggle to maintain credibility over NSA Prism surveillance | World news | guardian.co.uk.

The phrase comes from a Prism presentation slide that states: “Collection directly from the servers of these US service providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”

Strongly-worded denials issued by Apple, Facebook and Google about their co-operation are followed by further revelations

• Dominic Rushe in New York
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 9 June 201

Apple, along with Facebook and Google, have issued strongly-worded denials that they knowingly participated in Prism. Photograph: Andrew Gombert/EPA

Technology giants battled to maintain their credibility on privacy issues over the weekend as further details emerged of their co-operation with US spy agencies.

Apple, Facebook and Google issued strongly-worded denials that they had knowingly participated in Prism, a top-secret system at the National Security Agency that collects emails, documents, photos and other material for agents to review.

All said that they did not allow the government direct access to their systems and had never heard of the Prism programme. Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, called press reports about Prism “outrageous”.

But after the publication by the Guardian of another slide from a top-secret NSA presentation and reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times, it was becoming clear that some major technology companies have, at the very least, taken steps to make it easier for intelligence agencies to access the information they want.

Tech companies are legally required to share information under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa). Those requests have to be made via a Fisa court and almost none are rejected. The companies are not obliged to make the process easier for the NSA.

The New York Times said the companies named in the Prism documents had co-operated to some degree with the US authorities. Twitter was a notable exception to the list and has reportedly declined to co-operate. Amazon, which offers back office services to a huge number of web companies, is also missing.

The tech companies’ denials have concentrated on suggestions that they had given the NSA “direct access” to their servers. The phrase comes from a Prism presentation slide that states: “Collection directly from the servers of these US service providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”

According to the New York Times, some companies, including Google and Facebook, discussed setting up secure online “rooms” where requested information could be sent and accessed by the NSA. Such systems would allow them to dispute the idea of direct access.

According to a report in the Washington Post on Sunday, Prism was created after extensive negotiations between the tech companies and federal authorities “who had pressed for easier access to data they were entitled to under previous orders granted by the secret Fisa court”.

On Saturday, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, acknowledged the existence of Prism but insisted it was only used under court supervision. He said: “The United States government does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of US electronic communication service providers. All such information is obtained with Fisa court approval and with the knowledge of the provider based upon a written directive from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.”

But the Washington Post reported that the secret court orders, made under section 702 of Fisa, served as “one-time blanket approvals for data acquisition and surveillance on selected foreign targets for periods of as long as a year”.

The Prism system allows agents at the NSA to send queries “directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations”, rather than directly to company servers. Sources told the Washington Post that companies cannot see the queries sent from the NSA to the systems installed on their premises.

Holmes Wilson, the co-founder of the online rights group Fight for the Future said it was clear that the systems set up with the tech companies presented huge privacy issues. “These companies are denying that they give direct access to their servers, but what they have created is a complex legal and technological mechanism that amounts to the same thing. God knows what other government agencies have access to this information.

“This makes it too easy for the government agencies. There is tremendous potential for abuse here. We are still only seeing glimpses of what is going on. It is only a matter of time before some employee goes rogue here,” he said. Wilson called for a congressional investigation. “Things can not go on like this,” he said.

The disclosure of Prism followed the Guardian’s revelation that Verizon was giving the NSA access to the metadata of millions of its US customers.

On Sunday senator Mark Udall, a Senate intelligence committee member, told ABC’s This Week: “My main concern is that Americans don’t know the extent to which they are being surveilled.”

He said: “We here this term metadata which has to do with where you make calls, when you make calls, who you are talking to. I think that’s private information.”

Udall called for greater transparency: “Let’s have the debate, let’s be transparent. Let’s open this up.”

Related articles

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Google Glass: we’ll all need etiquette lessons

Google Glass: we’ll all need etiquette lessons – Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

What happens when we can all record everything, asks Matt Warman

Photo: AP

By Matt Warman, Consumer Technology Editor

 24 Apr 2013

Do you mind if I record you reading this article? Would you mind if I record you every time you read an article? The chances are, if you’re reading this on screen, I could quite easily. It’s likely there’s a webcam in your PC or laptop or mobile phone that could track what you’re doing, and maybe in due course I could change the adverts depending on how high your eyebrows arch. Digital etiquette, however, makes such invasive technology impossible. Hackers, however, do it all the time.

That vision of constant surveillance is the one raised by Google Glass, nonetheless. The wearable computer that Google hopes we will all be wearing like glasses comprises a tiny camera, a microphone and a screen. Our every sight will be augmented with extra information, and everything recorded.

It’s likely, of course, that regulators will want a word with Google before this device goes on general sale, and it’s unlikely that Google would try to justify recording everything itself. But some fearful bars have already banned customers from wearing Glass, before they’re even out. As Google’s Eric Schmidt put it, “We’ll have to develop some new social etiquette. It’s obviously not appropriate to wear these glasses in situations where recording is not correct.” And indeed you have this problem already with phones. Companies like Google have a very important responsibility to keep your information safe but you have a responsibility as well which is to understand what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and behave appropriately and also keep everything up to date.”

Schmidt glosses over more substantial issues with that word “etiquette”, but he’s clearly also correct: when is the right time to record information, or to learn more about a person you can see? It would be disconcerting to pluck from the air, mid conversation, a nugget from an interlocutor’s LinkedIn profile.

There are practical concerns, too: Google Glass during a pub quiz would be cheating. Google Glass at your local swimming pool would be somewhere between impertinent and illegal. But what about at work, where some might think that such technology keeps employees on their best behaviour? Or out on the street where maps might help? Let’s not even consider a public toilet.

In truth, we are already under surveillance a lot more than we notice, by CCTV, by people casually recording things on their mobiles anyway, by software used in the workplace that logs when you’re at your computer. But none of these is quite the same: when should we take our Glasses off?

For now, there are two things to consider: Britons are often too polite to ask anyone to stop doing something anyway. When did you last sit on a bus and hear a request for an iPod to be turned down because it’s deafening half the back row?

But actually, and more important, Glass is an unimaginable future: it uses a technology that will only become more discrete, invisible almost. And it exists currently in the rarefied atmosphere of Silicon Valley. Like mobile phones, it’s likely that it will, eventually, become ubiquitous. As things stand, businesses, couples, friends, clubs, shops and pubs would all probably not be comfortable with that. Our attitude to personalised constant surveillance will emerge on the hoof – at a gallop.

193 Comments

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Court says YouTube not obligated to control content

Court says YouTube not obligated to control content | The Raw Story.

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, May 29, 2012

 

Topics: Christophe Muller ♦ TF1 ♦ YouTube

 

PARIS — A Paris court on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit against YouTube filed by French television, saying the video-sharing website was not obligated to control content of uploaded material.

YouTube is “a priori not responsible for the content of videos posted on its website” and “is under no obligation to control the content of videos posted online,” said the ruling by the Tribunal de Grande Instance, a civil court that adjudicates major cases.

The court ordered the national private TF1 channel and its affiliates, which had sued YouTube, to pay 80,000 euros ($100,000) in court costs.

TF1 had sued YouTube in 2008 after various videos were posted on the website, including television shows and interviews to which the channel said it had commercial rights.

The channel had accused YouTube of unfair competition, saying it had profitted from the videos at TF1′s expense.

The court rejected the argument, saying the channel failed to show any loss of sales.

YouTube France hailed the decision, with chief Christophe Muller saying the ruling “represents a victory for the Internet and for all those who use it to exchange ideas and information.”

“This decision defends the right of innovation on content platforms generated by users, allowing them to do even more to help French artists and creators to reach new audiences in France and abroad,” he said.

A spokesman for TF1 said the channel was surprised by the decision and was studying options to appeal the ruling.

Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion.

Up yours truly Google : Mozilla add-on Collusion reveals who is spying on internet users

Google privacy policy: Mozilla add-on Collusion reveals who is spying on internet users | Mail Online.

Up yours Google. You are not still using Explorer are you ?

By Rob Waugh

Last updated at 5:52 PM on 2nd March 2012

Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, has unveiled a new add-on for the popular web browser that gives web users an instant view of which companies are ‘watching’ them as they browse.

The move comes the same week that Google pushed ahead with its controversial new privacy policy, built to provide even more data for Google’s $28 billion advertising business – despite concerns that the massive harvesting of private data might be illegal in many countries.

The Collusion add-on will allow users to ‘pull back the curtain’ on web advertising firms and other third parties that track people’s online movements, says Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs.

Watching the watchers: A demonstration of Collusion’s ‘real time’ view of advertisers watching – as web users browse popular sites such as IMDB (one of the grey dots), their movements are tracked by unwanted third party advertisers (the red dots)

Firefox is the world’s second most popular web browser after Internet Explorer – a position under threat from Google’s Chrome

Google’s business is built on advertising – the company earned $28 billion from its AdWords service in 2010.

Google’s new privacy policy allows it to ‘streamline’ data from Android phones, YouTube, Gmail and web browsing to target its adverts even more precisely towards individual web users.

Mozilla’s Firefox is the world’s second most popular web browser, a position under threat from Google’s own Chrome browser.

The Collusion add-on is an official Mozilla product, and was unveiled at the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference this week by Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs.

It creates a ‘web’ showing web users exactly which advertising firms are watching as they browse.

‘Collusion is an experimental add-on for Firefox and allows you to see all the third parties that are tracking your movements across the Web,’ Mozilla said. ‘It will show, in real time, how that data creates a spider-web of interaction between companies and other trackers.’

‘Collusion will allow us to pull back the curtain and provide users with more information about the growing role of third parties, how data drives most Web experiences, and ultimately how little control we have over that experience and our loss of data,’ said Kovacs.

Mozilla aims to build up a database of the worst offenders – and make the data available to privacy campaigners.

‘When we launch the full version of Collusion, it will allow you to opt-in to sharing your anonymous data in a global database of web tracker data,’ says the company. ‘We’ll combine all that information and make it available to help researchers, journalists, and others analyze and explain how data is tracked on the web.

Google ignored an international outcry to launch its new privacy policy this week – despite concerns the policy may actually be illegal in many territories.

Vivian Reding, the European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship said, ‘Any company which wants to utilise the European market of 500 million citizens – which we’ve made borderless, a golden opportunity – then the European rules apply.’

‘Citizens should have the possibility of buying into more extensive use of their data – but that should be their freedom to choose, not done by a sneaking way of taking the freedom away from the citizens,’ said Reding in an interview with The Guardian.

European Union authorities said that the new privacy policy appears to violate European law,in an email to Google CEO Larry Page.

CNIL, the French privacy agency in charge of the investigation, said Google’s explanation of how it will use the data was too vague and difficult to understand ‘even for trained privacy professionals.’

A coalition of 50 consumer groups in Europe and the U.S. also sent a letter to Mr Page in a last ditch attempt to make the search giant rethink saying the controversial new policy is ‘unfair and unwise’.

European Commissioner in charge of Justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, Viviane Reding said, ‘Citizens should have the possibility of buying into more extensive use of their data – but that should be their freedom to choose, not done by a sneaking way of taking the freedom away from the citizens’

Google’s HQ: Google ignored an international outcry to launch its new privacy policy this week – despite concerns the policy may actually be illegal in many territories

Their condemnation came after concerns from the European Union, Japan and Korea among others that the policy may actually be illegal.

But it came into force at midnight local time yesterday across the world regardless, with Google claiming that ‘to pause, would cause confusion’.

Data from 60 of Google’s services will be shared between them – meaning Google account users, owners of Android phones and YouTube viewers will be subjected to even more intrusive ‘personalised’ adverts from now on.

Worried users are trading guides about how to protect sensitive private data such as search histories and the content of emails from Google’s new all-encompassing advertising profiles. Mail Online’s guide can be found here.

The search giant said in a blog post, ‘Our privacy policies have always allowed us to combine information from different products with your account – effectively using your data to provide you with a better service. However, we’ve been restricted in our ability to combine your YouTube and Search histories with other information in your account.’

Google CEO Larry Page: A coalition of 50 consumer groups in the EU and the US has written to the CEO to protest against the company’s new ‘one size fits all’ privacy policy

OUTCRY AROUND THE WORLD: GOVERNMENTS, PRIVACY GROUPS AND CONSUMERS PROTEST

America’s Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy rights group, sued the Federal Trade Commission in a federal court in an effort to force the FTC to exercise its powers and block Google’s privacy changes.

Earlier this week, the French regulatory agency CNIL warned Google CEO Larry Page that the new policy appears to violate the European Union’s strict data-protection rules.

The EU’s Article 29 Working Party said this week, ‘Our preliminary analysis shows that Google’s new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection, especially regarding the information provided to data subjects.’

Last week, 36 attorneys general in the U.S. and its territories derided the new policy as an ‘invasion of privacy’ in a letter to Page.

The Japanese government is also to investigate whether the new policy breaches Japan’s privacy laws, according to a report in the Tokyo Times.

South Korea is already investigating whether the new policy, which allows Google to ‘share’ data between 60 of its services to build profiles on its users, violates local laws.

‘Our new Privacy Policy gets rid of those inconsistencies so we can make more of your information available to you when using Google.’

A British privacy campaigner, Alex Hanff is suing the search giant for a refund on his Android phone, claiming that the changes to how Android data could be used amount to a change in the terms of his contract.

Some Android users claim that they are hardest hit by the policy changes, as they have no way to ‘opt out’ of mobile phone contracts.

‘The changes are a significant infringement of my right to privacy and I do not consent to Google being able to use my data in such a way,’ says Hanff.

A Google spokesperson said, ‘Our updated Privacy Policy will make our privacy practices easier to understand. Since announcing the changes in January, we’ve undertaken the most extensive notification in our history to let our users know that the updated Privacy Policy takes effect on 1 March.’

The Japanese government said yesterday it will investigate whether the new policy breaches Japanese privacy laws, according to a report in the Tokyo Times.

Google announced its new privacy policy with much fanfare last month – a ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy which will allow the search giant to share private data between its services so that, for instance, information harvested from Google searches can be used to target adverts within its Gmail service.

The EU’s data protection authorities asked French regulator CNIL to investigate the new policy in January.

‘Our preliminary analysis shows that Google’s new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection,’ CNIL said in a letter to Google Chief Executive Larry Page, which was posted on CNIL’s website this week.

Google’s Californian headquarters: The company says it intends to push ahead with the new privacy policy, despite the fact it may be in violation of data laws in many countries

GOOGLE’S PRIVACY CHANGES – WHAT THEY WILL MEAN FOR YOU

Why is Google changing its policy?

• Google is combining more than 60 different privacy policies so it will be able to throw all the data it gathers about logged-in users into personal dossiers.
  
• The information Google learns about you while you enter requests into its search engine can be culled, for instance, to suggest videos to watch when you visit the company’s YouTube site. 
• Being able to draw more revealing profiles about its users will help sell advertising – the main source of its $38 billion in annual revenue.
  

Can I stop Google using my data?

• Not if you’re a registered user of Gmail, Google Plus, YouTube, or other Google products. But you can minimize the data Google gathers. For starters, make sure you aren’t logged into one of Google’s services when you’re using Google’s search engine, watching a YouTube video or perusing pictures on Picasa.
  
• Google can still track you even when you’re not logged in to one of its services. But the information isn’t quite as revealing because Google doesn’t track you by name, only through a numeric Internet address attached to your computer.

I don’t want to keep using Google. Can I opt out?

• One of the major gripes is that registered Google users aren’t being given an option to consent to, or reject, the changes. In particular, people who bought smartphones running on Google’s Android software, and signed two-year contracts to use the devices, can’t easily avoid the new privacy rules unless they buy a different handset and pay an early-termination penalty.

The new policy makes it easier for Google to combine the data of one person using different services such as the search engine, YouTube or Gmail if he is logged into his Google account.

That allows Google to create a broader profile of that user and target advertising based on that person’s interests and search history more accurately. Advertising is the main way Google makes its money.

CNIL said data protection authorities in the EU ‘are deeply concerned about the combination of personal data across services,’ adding they had ‘strong doubts about the lawfulness and fairness of such processing.’

Vivian Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner who oversees the bloc’s data protection rules, said she welcomed CNIL’s letter and called on Google to delay its new policy.

Google argues that combining the data into one profile makes search results more relevant and allows a user to cross-navigate between different services more easily. It says the main purpose of the new policy is to combine the more than 70 different rules for Google’s wide-ranging services into one that is simpler and more readable.

The policy change has horrified privacy advocates and bloggers – tech site ZDNet said that Google would ‘know more about you than your wife does’ and said the policy was ‘Big Brother-ish’.

The European Union working party earlier asked for Google to stop the new policy while the working group investigated whether personal data is protected.

‘We call for a pause to ensure that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of EU citizens.’  

‘Given the wide range of services you offer, and the popularity of these services, changes in your privacy policy may affect many citizens in most  EU member states,’ the group wrote to Google Chief Executive Larry Page.

‘We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of citizens,’ it said.

Google described the privacy policy as being ‘simplified’ in an email it sent to all Gmail users.

‘If you’re signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you’ve expressed in Google Plus, Gmail and YouTube,’ Google said a new overview page for its privacy policies.

‘We’ll better understand (what) you’re searching for and get you those results faster.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2109223/Google-privacy-policy-Mozilla-add-Collusion-reveals-spying-internet-users.html#ixzz1o3rHngrG

The End Of The World Again

There have always been doomsday predictions – and we’re all still here. But is a new index which shows imminent Armageddon a cause for worry, wonders Ted Harrison

Have you been feeling anxious lately?

Depressed by the incessant stream of gloomy headlines from around the world? If so, you can take heart – up to a point. It may not go on much longer. The explanation lies in a little-known measure of current affairs known as the Rapture Index which monitors the frequency and intensity of the end-time signs mentioned in the Bible.

This year, the Rapture Index – a Doomsday Dow Jones – has been at an all-time high. In August it hit an unprecedented 184. Thousands of Christians around the world are on red-alert for the Rapture and Judgement Day.

In the last days, according to St Luke’s Gospel, “there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring”. There will also “be wars and commotions… Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom… and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences.”

Not surprisingly the fighting in Libya, continuing unrest in the Middle East, economic recession, natural disasters such as hurricanes and tsunamis, are all being interpreted as signs that the last days are imminent.

The index editor, Terry James, of Little Rock, Arkansas, says he records the signs and then factors them into a “cohesive indicator”. He stresses he is not in the business of making predictions, he simply measures the type of activity that “could act as a precursor to the Rapture. The higher the number, the faster we’re moving towards the end.”

In December 1993, when the index began, it stood at 57. Today it stands at over 180, comparable to its short-lived 9/11 peak 10 years ago. Any reading over 160, say the organisers, and it is time to “fasten the seatbelts”. The Apocalypse will start, so thousands of Christians believe, with the Rapture, when, suddenly, the righteous will vanish from the face of the earth – whisked up into heaven, leaving the unsaved to face earthquakes, fire, brimstone and destruction.

Sounds familiar? That’s because it is. The signs were all in place, and the Index high, five months ago. And, according to the 90-year-old American evangelist Harold Camping, the Apocalypse should have begun on 21 May. Shortly after his much-publicised prediction appeared to fail, Camping suffered a stroke, but even from his hospital bed he continued to number-crunch.

Now, he declares, he was right. 21 May was Judgement Day. And as the Rapture will happen exactly 5 months after Judgement Day, the Californian preacher has a new date in his diary. “We can be sure that the whole world [will be annihilated] on 21 October 2011.”

The new date is not being as widely publicised as the May prediction. Since Judgement Day has already happened, there is nothing people can do to save their souls, Camping believes. Before the May date his radio station sponsored a worldwide publicity blitz.

Steve Whyte, 43, and originally from Leicester, has been one of the most dedicated end-time ambassadors. He was taken seriously ill in Africa, arrested in Laos and ridiculed everywhere, but remained determined to keep going to the end. Two years ago, Steve, who is an architect, was working as project manager in charge of a $50m development in New York. He heard about Camping’s claim and, although sceptical, studied the biblical evidence himself. Unable to fault it, he decided he had to act. In January he left his home and handed the key to his sister. He didn’t expect to be home again. When leafleting in Manchester, Steve was approached by Dave Kellar, a retired English teacher who had been spreading the same message for two years around Britain.

Marie Exley-Sheahan, a US military veteran, decided to take the message to the Islamic world, starting in Turkey. “We were temporarily detained by police but we had no serious issues,” she wrote on her blog. “The Lord kept the angry people restrained and kept us out of harm’s way…”

On 21 May believers across the globe kept in constant contact via social network sites. As the 6pm deadline expired uneventfully in New Zealand and Australia, American believers started an online debate about the exact timetable. Did six o’clock mean Jerusalem time, or American time? Eventually as 21 May ended at midnight in mid-Pacific, Exley-Sheahan posted a final message on Facebook. “‘Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.’ Love to all…”

Following Camping’s first failed prediction in 1994, there was at least one suicide reported, and as time went by after 21 May, family and friends of some of the end-time ambassadors became increasingly anxious. After nine hours’ silence, Exley-Sheahan’s family made a desperate plea via Facebook for her to contact them. “Marie your Dad and I love u and will always We only ask u to think about this: NO ONE EXCEPT GOD KNOWS THE DAY AND HOUR OF JESUS RETURN TO EARTH. IF JESUS DIDN’T KNOW ISN’T IT CRAZY TO THINK SOMEONE ON EARTH KNOWS? PLEASE CALL.”

Marie eventually broke her silence on the 24th. “I am totally OK, alive and it is well with my soul… thank you all for your love, care and support.” Since then she has continued posting Bible texts relevant to Judgement Day.

“We’re still here,” said Dave Kellar, on the Monday after the apocalypse-that-wasn’t. “We’ve had some hassle and we are going to have a rethink of direction. One day what the Bible says will happen.” When asked now about the October prophecy, both Dave Kellar and Steve Whyte cite the latest message from end-time blogger “Brother Mike”.

“Even if the end of the world… does not come this year due to the frailties of our human understanding, that does not disprove everything we have taught; nor would it disprove the date of 21 October 2011, but it would simply mean that… we were not granted a clear understanding of the nature of the happenings on 21 October.”

Over the past 2,000 years there have been at least 200 confident prophecies made that the end would happen on a specific date. All, so far, have ended in disappointment and disillusionment.

Christians do not have the monopoly and several secular prophecies are currently going the rounds. The Cern collider will create a black hole; a hidden planet is said to be heading for the earth; the last day will be 21 December next year – according to an ancient Mayan calendar. No doubt, when 22 October arrives uneventfully, there will be acute disappointment felt. It is unlikely however that Camping will suffer the fate of the failed prophet Corporal William Bell. So angry were Londoners with him when 5 April 1761 came and nothing happened, that they had him thrown into Bedlam Asylum. What can be fairly safely predicted is that as long as the economic outlook remains gloomy the Rapture Index will stay high.

‘We’re all doomed’ – The apocalypse in film

The Rapture

Aimed squarely at the US evangelicals who might be keen on Camping’s rapture theories, and funded by a Canadian Christian film company, Left Behind sees the world’s Christians disappear into thin air (and/or heaven) while Johnny Atheist is left to deal with an end-of-days conflict on Earth. Based on a 16-book series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, there are two movie sequels. Go figure.

Nuclear Armageddon!

Yee-ha! Dr Strangelove, one of Kubrick’s masterpieces, manages to both capture the absurdity of the Cold War and make a nuclear armageddon funny, peaking with the immortal scene of Slim Pickens straddling a falling nuke before “We’ll Meet Again” plays out over a montage of nuclear catastrophe.

The Mayan prophecy

Mega-tsunamis! Dust clouds! Earthquakes! Volcanoes… Roland Emmerich’s block-apoc-buster 2012 packs them all into this 2009 schlocker in which John Cusack and his family battle to avoid the 2012 Armageddon predicted in a Mayan prophecy. A scenario which, if true, is at least good news for those who missed out on Olympics tickets.

The environmental disaster

Wall E, family-film company Pixar’s take on the apocalypse – humans just giving up on the ecosystem after filling it with junk – is probably the most likely endgame for Earth. Let’s just hope that when the real world ends, no cute junk-collecting robots are left behind on their own.

The flood

Waterworld was the first in the diptych of transcendentally bad apocalypse movies made by Kevin Costner in the mid-Nineties (the other was the dire The Postman). It sees Coster’s unnamed “Mariner”, a drifter with mutant web feet, entangled in a battle for a map of the last bit of dry land on Earth. Or Drylands, as the film has it. Apocalyptically bad.

It’s judgement day…or perhaps not

23 September 1186: John of Toledo

After calculating that a planetary alignment would occur in Libra (!) on this date John of Toledo sent out a letter (the “letter of Toledo”) warning of armageddon.

Result: Wrong!

5 April 1761: William Bell

Londoners literally ran for the hills after this religious extremist took a few minor earthquakes to mean a coming endtime. After 6 April dawned, Bell was promptly thrown into Bedlam. He didn’t see that coming.

Result: Wrong!

17 December 1919: Albert Porta

Meteorologist Albert Porta predicted that the conjunction of six planets would cause a huge magnetic current to destroy the Milky Way. It didn’t.

Result: Wrong!

Various dates: Nostradamus

History’s most famous Chicken Little has dominated the end of the world prediction business for five centuries now but – despite some dodgy claims that he predicted 9/11, WWII, etc – none have so far come true.

Result: Wrong (or is that what They want us to think?)

21 May 2011 (and next Friday): Harold Camping

American evangelist Camping hastily revised his prediction after the world didn’t end in May, claiming a five-month cooling-off period between Judgement Day and Armageddon.

Result: Wrong!/TBC

The End Of The World Again – Americas, World – The Independent.

Brain Facts for Human Memory | Trevor Ponder Human Memory

Brain Facts for Human Memory | Trevor Ponder Human Memory.

Brain Facts – Jan 09

January 24th, 2009

Some interesting facts you might be interested in

- The human brain, with roughly 100 billion neurons, can be equated to a computer with a 1,000,000,000,000 bit per second processor.  Even more fascinating:  by 2020, computers will be able to do this (according to Moore’s Law which has proven quite accurate in predicting how computer speeds will increase over time).

- The brain is not sensitive to pain, even though it processes pain signals.

- It only takes one week of learning to juggle in order for your brain structure to change.  This is more evidence that the brain keeps growing.

- The amygdala – where intense, personal, long-term memories are stored – is also the place where fear is processed.

- Hyperthymestic Syndrome is a rare condition of a memory that is actually too good.  Exemplified by Jill Price, the condition doesn’t mean you remember everything, and is different than a “photographic memory”.  In Price’s case, she remembers every event in your life.

- Your brain uses less power than your refrigerator light!  In a day, it only uses a bout 12 watts of power (the same as contained in two large bananas).

- Although the brain is only 3 per cent of the body’s weight, it consumes 17 percent of the body’s total energy.

- Frequent jet lag can damage memory.  Because stress hormones are released during jet lag, they damage temporal lobe and memory.

Why Google Earth Can’t Show You Israel | Mother Jones

Hector Milla/Flickr

— By Hamed Aleaziz

Fri Jun. 10, 2011

Since Google launched its Google Earth feature in 2005, the company has become a worldwide leader in providing high-resolution satellite imagery. In 2010, Google Earth allowed the world to see the extent of the destruction in post-earthquake Haiti. This year, Google released similar images after Japan’s deadly tsunami and earthquake. With just one click, Google can bring the world—and a better understanding of far-away events—to your computer.

There is one entire country, however, that Google Earth won’t show you: Israel.

That’s because, in 1997, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, one section of which is titled, “Prohibition on collection and release of detailed satellite imagery relating to Israel.” The amendment, known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, calls for a federal agency, the NOAA’s Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs, to regulate the dissemination of zoomed-in images of Israel.

When asked about the regulation, a Google spokeswoman said to Mother Jones, “The images in Google Earth are sourced from a wide range of both commercial and public sources. We source our satellite imagery from US-based companies who are subject to US law, including the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997, which limits the resolution of imagery of Israel that may be commercially distributed.”

And it’s not just Israel. The regulation also applies to the occupied territories. It’s why Human Rights Watch can’t provide detailed imagery of the Gaza Strip in its reports. Of course, this regulation cuts both ways; one also cannot see the destruction in Sderot resulting from rockets sent out of Gaza.

But, the impact of the regulation might be dwindling; after all, the US can only regulate the actions of American corporations. Turkey recently announced that its GokTurk satellite will provide high-resolution imagery of Israel when it becomes operational in 2013. Israel is unhappy with this possibility: An Israeli official told Al-Arabiya, “We try to ensure that we are not photographed at high resolutions, and most (countries) accommodate us.” The official adds: “Should we request this of the Turks? We won’t ask for it. There is no one to talk to.”

Why Google Earth Can’t Show You Israel | Mother Jones.

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• Why Google Earth Can’t Show You Israel (alhittin.wordpress.com)

Worldwide Freedom is Being Hacked

Will the “cyber threat” be the next bin Laden?

John Galt

Osama bin Laden and the shadowy network of terrorists he supposedly spawned has been the perfect template for controlling physical reality.  The fear created by 9/11, and the even worse fear of having it happen again, has bludgeoned common sense from the average person.  The Constitution itself has been overthrown, unleashing roving bands of state-sponsored goons to interrogate, molest, and kill with impunity.

And this is only what is happening in America.  The engineered financial collapse of the planet has led to a near-worldwide insurrection, whether it is directed specifically toward banksters, or merely in response to soaring food prices in areas already on the verge of starvation.  Globalists are attempting to head off Arab unrest by staging controlled opposition to bring the masses back in line, and to an extent it has worked, albeit in predictably messy fashion.  However, formerly isolated collapse/revolts such as Iceland, Ireland, and Greece are beginning to spread across Europe in a seemingly unstoppable wave of largely non-violent protest.  The response by government to this threat has been to restrict peaceful assembly and bash heads in lieu of proposing sound solutions and redressing legitimate grievances.

The acceleration of the violent police state response has not been without consequence for the controllers.  An increasing number of people are beginning to see what living under hot tyranny can really be like.  More importantly, it is evident from videos in France, particularly, that people the world over are beginning to awaken to the true culprits who are bringing about their debt slavery and loss of freedom.  This is due in large part to the one place where freedom still rings: the Internet.

Activism of all stripes is increasing on a worldwide scale via a mass awakening in the (still) free market of ideas to be found on the Internet.  Many of the deceptions that formerly took years to expose, are now routinely uncovered by alternative media in a matter of weeks or even days.  Much of the on-the-ground organization and rapid deployment owes to the quick communication lines in cyberspace.  From the controllers’ problem-reaction-solution paradigm, something must be done.

Enter the next shadowy terrorist threat.

Against the backdrop of a spate of hack attacks on corporate and government targets, China has been singled out as the most likely originator.  China has offered its response as a denunciation of the United States, saying, “The so-called statement that the Chinese government supports hacking attacks is a total fabrication . . . It has ulterior motives.”  There has been virtual saber rattling from both the Pentagon and NATO, as they have reiterated their cooperation; virtual attacks will lead to a real-world response, leading one military official to state: “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks.”

Today’s story reported on by AFP marks a change in tone from the U.S. lashing out specifically toward China, as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said from a security conference in Singapore: “We take the cyber threat very seriously and we see it from a variety of sources, not just one or another country.”  More ominously, British Defence Secretary Liam Fox alluded to a London-based security conference that will be held at the end of the year to address the “war of the invisible enemy.”

At least they pretended that bin Laden was real and hiding around every corner, but by openly labeling the cyber threat as “invisible” we see the stage set for total, permanent control over the infrastructure of the Internet, as well as the ideas finding a home there.  The London conference, as Fox tells us “will include discussions on a potential legal framework.”

There seems to be an orchestrated political theater at work in the backdrop of accusations and denials between the U.S. and China.  China already has strict Internet controls in place, and the U.S. is working at warp speed to outdo them, as DHS is already seizing domains for merely linking to copyrighted material, while bills are being proposed to use copyright infringement as the pretext for arbitrarily shutting down even the dissemination of information that is supposedly protected under fair use, as stated in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law.  Additionally, the rules of war are already spelled out in current treaties, which Gates conveniently ignores when he states:

‘serious international tensions’ could be avoided if there were rules ‘that let people know what kinds of acts are acceptable, what kinds of acts are not, and what kinds of acts may in fact be an act of war.’ …

Gates said this would help achieve a ‘clearer understanding of the left and right lanes, if you will, so that somebody doesn’t inadvertently or intentionally begin something that escalates and gets out of control.’

We are already supposed to have forgotten that the United States and Israel were conclusively revealed to be the authors of the Stuxnet virus; an offensive act of war on Iran by any definition.

This latest theater only exposes the wider agenda; one that intends to define an international legal framework of rules and regulations that govern the free Internet in response to a shadowy, undefined enemy . . . most likely funded and controlled from within our own borders.  It certainly worked after 9/11, which begs the question: is a large-scale Internet false flag on the way to hack into the final.

Activist Post: Worldwide Freedom is Being Hacked.

China calls US culprit in global ‘Internet war’

– Fri Jun 3, 8:20 am ET

BEIJING – The Chinese military accused the U.S. on Friday of launching a global “Internet war” to bring down Arab and other governments, redirecting the spotlight away from allegations of major online attacks on Western targets originating in China.

The accusations Friday by Chinese military academy scholars, and their urging of tougher policing of the Internet, followed allegations this week that computer hackers in China had compromised the personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including government officials, military personnel and political activists.

Google traced the origin of the attacks to the city of Jinan that is home to a military vocational school whose computers were linked to a more sophisticated assault on Google’s systems 17 months ago. China has denied responsibility for the two attacks.

Writing in the Communist Party-controlled China Youth Daily newspaper, the scholars did not mention Google’s claims, but said recent computer attacks and incidents employing the Internet to promote regime change in Arab nations appeared to have originated with the U.S. government.

“Of late, an Internet tornado has swept across the world … massively impacting and shocking the globe. Behind all this lies the shadow of America,” said the article, signed by Ye Zheng and Zhao Baoxian, identified as scholars with the Academy of Military Sciences.

“Faced with this warmup for an Internet war, every nation and military can’t be passive but is making preparations to fight the Internet war,” it said.

While nuclear war was a strategy of the industrial era, Internet war is a product of the information age, the article said. Such conflicts stand to be hugely destructive, threatening national security and the very existence of the state, it said.

China needs to “express to the world its principled stance of maintaining an ‘Internet border’ and protecting its ‘Internet sovereignty,’ unite all advanced forces to dive into the raging torrent of the age of peaceful use of the Internet, and return to the Internet world a healthy, orderly environment,” the article said.

China already heavily filters content and blocks numerous foreign websites, a system known as the “Great Firewall of China.” The police employ a large force of Internet monitors to scour the Web for content deemed illegal or subversive, and those users transmitting sensitive contact can be charged with sedition or other crimes.

A number of foreign governments say they’ve been targeted by hacking attacks from China, although Beijing routinely denies undertaking such operations and says it too is a victim of such activity.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters attacks such as the one alleged by Google were a primary reason why the State Department had for the first time created a cyber-security coordinator.

The FBI said it was investigating Google’s allegations, but no official government email accounts have been compromised. Google said all the hacking victims have been notified and their accounts have been secured.

China calls US culprit in global ‘Internet war’ – Yahoo! News.