Code Name (32)

Source: Times Online

Billions of pounds spent on Britain’s 4.2 million closed-circuit television cameras has not had a significant impact on crime, according to the senior police officer piloting a new database.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said it was a “fiasco” that only 3 per cent of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV.

Mr Neville, who heads the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) unit, told the Security Document World Conference that the use of CCTV images as evidence in court has been very poor.

Source: The Register

Global military contractor BAE Systems has announced that it will lead a large alliance of American academics in building an army of miniature robots to aid the US military. The effort, known as Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST), will receive $38m of US Army funding.

“Robotic platforms extend the warfighter's senses and reach, providing operational capabilities that would otherwise be costly, impossible, or deadly to achieve,” said Dr. Joseph Mait, MAST supremo at the US Army Research Lab.

The idea is that a variety of crawling or flying mini-droids will be produced, able to go into situations where human troops might fear to tread - caves, bunkers, mountains, hostile urban areas etc. The robo-bug army would then spy out targets and intel for human commanders to act upon.

Under MAST various enabling technologies will be advanced: "small-scale aeromechanics and ambulation; propulsion; sensing, processing and communications; navigation and control; microdevices ..." and so forth, according to BAE.

“The technologies that will be developed under MAST represent capabilities and techniques that will influence nearly all of the products that BAE Systems will develop and produce in the future,” added Steve Scalera, MAST manager for BAE Systems.

Source: Wired

Federal agents at the border do not need any reason to search through travelers' laptops, cell phones or digital cameras for evidence of crimes, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, extending the government's power to look through belongings like suitcases at the border to electronics.

The unanimous three-judge decision reverses a lower court finding that digital devices were "an extension of our own memory" and thus too personal to allow the government to search them without cause. Instead, the earlier ruling said, Customs agents would need some reasonable and articulable suspicion a crime had occurred in order to search a traveler's laptop.

On appeal, the government argued that was too high a standard, infringing upon its right to keep the country safe and enforce laws. Civil rights groups, joined by business traveler groups, weighed in, defending the lower court ruling.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the government, finding that the so-called border exception to the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches applied not just to suitcases and papers, but also to electronics.

Source: Yahoo Tech

A series of events at international airport security checkpoints -- and not just the all-gadgets-out-of-bags issue that Ben reported last week -- are troubling privacy and civil liberties advocates.

In the last few months, travelers have found their cell phones and laptops seized by officials, at least temporarily. In at least one case, an engineer was asked to turn on the PC, enter his password, and allow agents to copy a record of all the web sites he had visited on the machine. The laptop was then taken away from him altogether.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Asian Law Caucus filed a lawsuit last week to demand that the government disclose border search policies regarding electronic devices. At least two dozen incidents have now been logged, 15 of which involved officers searching records of cell phone calls, files on laptops, and even the contents of MP3 players. Almost all involve "travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom... are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling."

Source: BoingBoing

The easiest way to kill an RFID, and be sure that it is dead, is to throw it in the microwave for 5 seconds. Doing this will literally melt the chip and antenna making it impossible for the chip to ever be read again. Unfortunately this method has a certain fire risk associated with it. Killing an RFID chip this way will also leave visible evidence that it has been tampered with, making it an unsuitable method for killing the RFID tag in passports. Doing this to a credit card will probably also screw with the magnetic strip on the back making it un-swipeable.

The second, slightly more convert and less damaging, way to kill an RFID tag is by piercing the chip with a knife or other sharp object. This can only be done if you know exactly where the chip is located within the tag. This method also leaves visible evidence of intentional damage done to the chip, so it is unsuitable for passports.

The third method is cutting the antenna very close to the chip. By doing this the chip will have no way of receiving electricity, or transmitting its signal back to the reader. This technique also leaves minimal signs of damage, so it would probably not be a good idea to use this on a passport.

The last (and most covert) method for destroying a RFID tag is to hit it with a hammer. Just pick up any ordinary hammer and give the chip a few swift hard whacks. This will destroy the chip, and leave no evidence that the tag has been tampered with. This method is suitable for destroying the tags in passports, because there will be no proof that you intentionally destroyed the chip.

Source: Brasscheck TV

Perception is limited - always.

The challenge is not to perceive everything, it's to perceive what's important.

The primary tool of the propaganda system (also known as "the news media") is misdirection, having you pay attention to the wrong things.

One of the missions of Brasscheck TV is to provide you with key background information so that when you consume official propaganda (also know as "new reports") you realize there's more going on than what the news commentators are directing your attention towards.

This video is a fun demonstration of how this works in practice.

Send it to your friends. They'll love it.

Source: Torrentfreak

A recent audit of computer systems belonging to the South Australia Police has found that hundreds are being used to “share” films. In a move smacking of hypocrisy though, officers involved will not be charged.

According to The Australian, during an audit of computer systems by the South Australian police force’s IT branch, police computers belonging to hundreds of police officers were found to contain movies.

The origin of these movies is not clear, but it is probable that they’ve been downloaded via p2p at some point, either on these systems, or on the personal systems of officers and transferred over.

Senior officials of the SA police force have been made aware of the findings, including its commissioner Mel Hyde. However, police sources have told press that there will not be any investigation into this, citing the large numbers of police officers involved.

The Australian Federation against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has said it will write to the commissioner to seek an explanation, presumably as to why the police officers are being let off with what it considers a heinous crime. Quite ironically, AFACT boasts of “working closely with police” - perhaps this closeness has shown the police officers involved just how unimportant and meaningless this so-called ‘crime’ is in the grand scheme of things.

Otherwise a good documentary, but the film praises Christ as God, when Christ is only God's eldest son and his servant - not God himself.

Sura 5:75. They do blaspheme who say: "("I AM") is Jesus the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! Worship God, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with God,- "I AM" will forbid him the Garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help.
5:76. They do blaspheme who say: "I AM" is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One God. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous Penalty will befall the blasphemers among them.

http://jahtruth.net/kofkad.htm

Source: BBC

Biometric technology uses computerised methods to identify a person by their unique physical or behavioural characteristics.

Developments and uses have increased with demand to match concerns over international, business and personal security.

Biometrics is more personal than a passport photo or Pin, using traits such as fingerprints, face or eye "maps" as key identifying features.

Uses range from building access and laptop security to identity cards and passports.

However, there are concerns about the storing of biometric data and its possible misuse.

Continued

Source: BBC

Tens of thousands of children are being fingerprinted in school - often without the consent of their parents, a human rights group has complained.

Prints are taken for a library lending system which the makers say makes lending more efficient and less vulnerable to abuse.

But the pressure group Privacy International says the practice is illegal and breaches the human right to privacy.

"THEY like to push the weak around"

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