Scream overkill all you want. The fact of the matter is that, whether you like it or not, hyper-realistic, ultra definition, get-as-close-to-being-in-the-action-as-you-possibly-can 4K TV
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Ut65NVXuTQY/4k-porn-is-here-and-shows-you-every-single-detail-1446534021I admit it -- I'm suffering from Snowden fatigue. The sheer volume of revelations about how the surveillance industrial complex digs its blue latex-gloved fingers into every nook and cranny of our lives has me exhausted. And there seems to be no end in sight.
Take, for example, this week's revelation that the NSA routinely scrapes address books from popular Webmail services, looking for connections. Per IDG News:
On a typical day, the NSA collects about 500,000 buddy lists and inboxes (which seems to refer to address books), according to the documents. But the number is also sometimes higher. On one representative day mentioned in the documents, the NSA gathered 444,743 Yahoo address books, 105,068 Hotmail contact lists and 82,857 address books from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from other providers for a total of 689,246.
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Or the revelations about Microsoft building backdoors into Skype for the spooks. Or the efforts to coerce encrypted email services into violating the privacy of hundreds of thousands of customers. I cannot articulate the differences between EgotisticalGoat, Erroneous Identity, or Epicfail, let alone the dozens of other perversely named spy programs.
The NSA nightmare -- told through pictures
Fortunately, someone has built a life raft for those of us drowning in the tsunami of data about NSA spying. Last week the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank and advocacy group, published a remarkably clear breakdown called "What the Government Does with Americans' Data." It should be required reading for anyone who cares about what's left of our Constitution, once the buffoons in our nation's capital have stopped using it as confetti. There's an 88-page report, a summary of the conclusions, chilling numbers to consider, and a handful of amazingly concise infographics. Start with the latter to get the gist, then go to the intro.
The tl;dr version: The NSA gathers a massive amount of information on people who are not in any way connected with any terrorist activity, then holds onto it for at least five years and often much longer. It also shares this information with 10 different federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the FDA.
As one infographic explains, if the NSA happens to hoover up a U.S. citizen's data along with that of suspected foreign evil doers, it will hold onto it for up to six years to analyze whether it contains "significant foreign intelligence information" or "evidence of a crime that has been, is being, or is about to be committed."
In other words, if you get caught in a digital dragnet, the spooks will sift your data to see if you've been naughty. If you have, they send that information to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.
In this Monday, June 24, 2013 photo, Mohammed Rantisi, 55, offers the Fajr, the first of the five daily prayers, at a mosque in Gaza City. On the day of his induction, Baraa, Mohammed's son, was told to wait near a mosque. A white car drove up. Secret passwords were exchanged. And then he was sworn into the Muslim Brotherhood, an exclusive movement that sees itself on a divine mission to establish Islamic rule. AP reporters got rare access to the Rantisi family, the closest thing to a royal clan in the Brotherhood in Gaza, at a time when the movement is under siege throughout the region. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
In this Monday, June 24, 2013 photo, Mohammed Rantisi, 55, offers the Fajr, the first of the five daily prayers, at a mosque in Gaza City. On the day of his induction, Baraa, Mohammed's son, was told to wait near a mosque. A white car drove up. Secret passwords were exchanged. And then he was sworn into the Muslim Brotherhood, an exclusive movement that sees itself on a divine mission to establish Islamic rule. AP reporters got rare access to the Rantisi family, the closest thing to a royal clan in the Brotherhood in Gaza, at a time when the movement is under siege throughout the region. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
In this Monday, June 24, 2013 photo, Mohammed Rantisi, 55, prays al Fajr "early morning" prayer behind the Imam at a mosque in Gaza City. On the day of his induction, Baraa, Mohammed's son, was told to wait near a mosque. A white car drove up. Secret passwords were exchanged. And then he was sworn into the Muslim Brotherhood, an exclusive movement that sees itself on a divine mission to establish Islamic rule. AP reporters got rare access to the Rantisi family, the closest thing to a royal clan in the Brotherhood in Gaza, at a time when the movement is under siege throughout the region. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
In this Monday, June 24, 2013 photo, Mohammed Rantisi, 55, does exercises early morning at al-Nasser Gym in Gaza City. On the day of his induction, Baraa, Mohammed's son, was told to wait near a mosque. A white car drove up. Secret passwords were exchanged. And then he was sworn into the Muslim Brotherhood, an exclusive movement that sees itself on a divine mission to establish Islamic rule. AP reporters got rare access to the Rantisi family, the closest thing to a royal clan in the Brotherhood in Gaza, at a time when the movement is under siege throughout the region. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
In this Monday, June 24, 2013 photo, Nabhan Rantisi, 58, fixes an electronic device at his workshop at Al-Aqsa college in Gaza City. On the day of his induction, Baraa Rantisi, Nabhan's nephew, was told to wait near a mosque. A white car drove up. Secret passwords were exchanged. And then he was sworn into the Muslim Brotherhood, an exclusive movement that sees itself on a divine mission to establish Islamic rule. AP reporters got rare access to the Rantisi family, the closest thing to a royal clan in the Brotherhood in Gaza, at a time when the movement is under siege throughout the region. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
In this Monday, June 24, 2013 photo, Nabhan Rantisi, 58, and his 15-year-old daughter Roaa get on an elevator at Al-Aqsa college in Gaza City. On the day of his induction, Baraa Rantisi, Nabhan's nephew, was told to wait near a mosque. A white car drove up. Secret passwords were exchanged. And then he was sworn into the Muslim Brotherhood, an exclusive movement that sees itself on a divine mission to establish Islamic rule. AP reporters got rare access to the Rantisi family, the closest thing to a royal clan in the Brotherhood in Gaza, at a time when the movement is under siege throughout the region. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — On the day of his induction, Baraa Rantisi was told to wait near a mosque.
At the appointed time, a white car drove up. Baraa and the driver exchanged passwords — the name and nickname of an early Muslim leader — and Baraa got in.
Then a man in a sparsely furnished room instructed Baraa and two other recruits on the values of Islam. Baraa placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim holy book, and swore "unwavering loyalty and obedience."
With that oath 10 years ago, Baraa joined the Muslim Brotherhood, an exclusive movement that sees itself on a divine mission to establish Islamic rule.
The story of Baraa, 24, and his extended family shows how the Brotherhood's cohesion and discipline have built it up into a successful movement that seized power in the Arab Spring. But some argue that the same closeness and authoritarian nature has worked against the Brotherhood, which now faces challenges in Egypt, Gaza and Tunisia.
"They fail to make the transition from a closed organization into an open and broad-based transparent government," said Fawaz A. Gerges of the London School of Economics. "They behaved, while in government, exactly as they behave internally."
Over several months, AP reporters had rare access to the Rantisis, a Brotherhood family that is perhaps the closest thing to a political dynasty in the movement in Gaza. Baraa's father Mohammed, his mother Kifah and some of his siblings, uncles and cousins are Brotherhood members.
The movement forms the core of their lives.
It was the Brotherhood that selected devout Kifah from a wealthy family to marry Mohammed, now 55. It also gave him $2,000 to set up a clinic. In return, the orthopedic surgeon treated patients for free at a local mosque and paid 2.5 percent of his salary in monthly dues.
The Rantisis reflect the basic recruitment principles of the Brotherhood: Family and religion.
The neighborhood mosque serves as a base. From there, Brothers coach football, organize trips and tutor students for free while scrutinizing potential recruits, said Baraa's uncle Nabhan, 58, a former recruitment chief.
Smokers and slackers are disqualified. The most dedicated mosque regulars are offered try-outs, where they must perform their five daily prayers at the mosque and discuss religious books assigned to them. They must also score at least 70 out of 100 on written and oral exams: Nabhan said the failure rate during his tenure was 10 percent. Probation is up to three years.
Baraa's uncle Salah, 52, a gynecologist, is a supervisor in charge of about 500 Brothers, who decides how to spend the monthly membership dues. One member recently got 300 shekels ($84) toward his university tuition, and another $200 toward wedding expenses.
Hamas, the Brotherhood branch that has ruled Gaza since 2007, is unique in the global movement because of its violent struggle against Israel, but it adheres to the organization's principles.
As in Egypt, the Brothers in Gaza have built a network of clinics, kindergartens, schools and welfare programs. The Brotherhood extends from North America to Bangladesh. Brothers in Qatar, Turkey, Malaysia and other countries offer scholarships to Gaza students, such as Salah's son Mohammed, who is studying medicine in Tunisia.
Despite its close-knit nature, the Brotherhood — along with the Rantisi household — is now split over direction, amid a crisis of power in Egypt and its spillover into Gaza.
Former president and Brotherhood leader Mohammad Morsi of Egypt was ousted in a July coup. Hamas, meanwhile, is losing millions because Egypt's military has largely closed smuggling routes to Gaza.
For embattled Brothers, the biggest question is how tolerant they should be in power.
Hardliners hold sway in Gaza. But the Brotherhood is finding that power has not translated into popularity.
An internal Hamas poll in February showed 70 percent of Gazans have a negative view of the government's campaign to collect revenues, Baraa said, after years of anarchy without paying bills.
An independent poll in September showed only 21 percent in Gaza had a positive view of their government, down from 36 percent three months earlier. More than half of 1,200 respondents said conditions are bad or very bad.
One reason may be the financial squeeze. Hamas has only paid partial salaries to government employees for three months, and some ministries have slashed budgets by 80 percent.
In Egypt, the backlash against the Brothers grew in response to their attempts to entrench Islamic rule. Gaza, a conservative Muslim society of 1.7 million, often goes along, but has pushed back at times.
In April, even some Hamas members protested when police rounded up more than two dozen young men who wore low-waist pants or gel-styled spiky hair, and shaved the heads of several.
Baraa criticized the head-shaving policemen on Facebook. His uncle Salah said police acted properly. And his mother came down somewhere in between: She opposed the police crackdown, but said personal choice has its limits. With her two grown daughters, the debate is not over whether to wear Western clothes, but over how loose or tailored their Islamic robes should be.
Hamas has cracked down hard on women. Few dare appear in public without a headscarf, and Hamas police has stopped young couples in the streets, demanding to see a marriage license.
There is some protest, even within the Brotherhood, where women have a separate organization and are mostly involved in social work rather than politics. During a recent meeting, Kifah said, one participant demanded to know how much longer women would be kept out of the top decision-making body, the 15-member political bureau.
Yet the Brothers consider themselves moderate, particularly when compared to Salafis, who preach an ultraconservative form of Islam.
Baraa embodies both the tradition and the modern pressures within the movement. The strict tone of the Rantisi household was set by Kifah, 47, one of the first Gaza women in the 1980s to veil her face. Kifah is the highest-ranking Rantisi in the movement, among just five women in Gaza's 51-person Shura advisory council.
Baraa, stylish with Ray-Ban sunglasses, slim-fit khakis and beige moccasins, has challenged his mother's contention that music is a gateway to sin.
"From fifth grade, I had hot discussions with her," said Baraa, who writes poems and downloads opera and rap from YouTube. "She'd say, 'someone needs to break your head,' and I told her, even if they did, it wouldn't change my views."
But he has also embraced the Brotherhood way.
As a child, he learned the Quran by heart. In his early teens, he once stole his school principal's keys to get into locked classrooms to distribute the Hamas student magazine. He was accepted into the movement at 14, instead of the usual 17.
Two years ago, Baraa asked his mother to find a bride from a respected Brotherhood family, with fair skin and soft hair. After visiting seven families, his mother settled on Abrar, daughter of a founder of the Hamas military wing.
Baraa and Abrar, 21, married eight months later. They live in the same building as Baraa's parents with their 10-month-old son, Mohammed.
"I am very happy with her," Baraa said. "My first present for her was a face veil. My wife is mine. No one else should see her face."
Baraa says the Brotherhood gives his life meaning but goes astray when it imposes its views on others, especially while in power.
"I believe Hamas is for its members," Baraa said, "But the government is the mother of all."
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-16-Mideast-Inside%20The%20Brotherhood-ABRIDGED/id-fd79bb702c9a43cfafec6443f9a61a84
Courtesy Taylor Hargis
Joshua Hargis, who was seriously wounded, salutes as he is awarded the Purple Heart.
By Jeff Black, Staff Writer, NBC News
A salute by an Army Ranger — hospitalized with serious wounds after a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan — is warming the hearts of many people after being posted online.
Cpl. Josh Hargis’ commander was at a military hospital awarding the seemingly unconscious soldier a Purple Heart for his injuries, pinning the medal to the blanket covering him.
And that's when Hargis surprisingly raised his arm to salute — struggling with his doctors and medical tubes to do so.
The commander sent a picture along with a letter about the incident to Hargis’ wife, Taylor, writing that "grown men began to weep" at the sight of the salute.
The commander added that it was “the single greatest event I have witnessed in my ten years in the Army.”
Hargis was wounded Oct. 6 when an Afghan woman detonated a suicide bomb vest, killing four members of his 3rd Army Ranger Battalion and wounding 12 other American soldiers, according to a report on the website of the soldier's hometown newspaper in Ohio, the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Taylor Hargis posted the picture along with the note on Facebook Oct. 12, where it has been shared more than 4,000 times. The story and picture were also distributed on the Guardian of Valor website, which called the picture the "the salute seen around the world."
The letter from the commander, according to Taylor Hargis' Facebook post, read in part:
"Josh, whom everybody in the room (over 50 people) assumed to be unconscious, began to move his right arm under the blanket in a diligent effort to salute the Commander as is customary during these ceremonies. Despite his wounds, wrappings, tubes, and pain, Josh fought the doctor who was trying to restrain his right arm and rendered the most beautiful salute any person in that room had ever seen. I cannot impart on you the level of emotion that poured through the intensive care unit that day.
It was assumed that Army Ranger Josh Hargis was unconscious during his Purple Heart ceremony in the hospital, but then he raised his arm in salute. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
"Grown men began to weep and we were speechless at a gesture that speak volumes about Josh's courage and character. The picture, which we believe belongs on every news channel and every newspaper, is attached. I have it hanging above my desk now and will remember it as the single greatest event I have witnessed in my ten years in the Army."
Hargis, 24, is a 2007 graduate of of Dater High School on the city’s west side and attended the University of Cincinnati, NBC affiliate WLWT in Cincinnati reported. He has since been moved from Afghanistan to Germany and onto San Antonio, Texas, the station said.
A reporter for another local station, WCPO, spoke to Hargis’ mother Laura Heitman, who said that Taylor and Josh Hargis are expecting their first child. Heitman also said she had recently talked to her son.
Her son, she said, “sounded amazing when I talked to him. He was in good spirits.”
Terri Wessel, who said she had taught Hargis in high school, told WCPO that the picture brought tears to her eyes.
“Seeing the picture of him saluting was the first I knew of him being injured,” Wessel told the station.”I teared up when I saw the picture but smiled at the same time as that picture summed up the type of man that Josh is. True American hero in my mind.”
Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663306/s/32816df0/sc/8/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C10A0C150C20A980A6470Egrown0Emen0Ebegan0Eto0Eweep0Ewounded0Esoldier0Eawakens0Ein0Ehospital0Eto0Emake0Esalute0Eseen0Earound0Ethe0Eworld0Dlite/story01.htmRome (AFP) - Italian warships rescued 290 migrants in the Mediterranean on Tuesday and Sicily declared a state of emergency as Rome launched a huge patrol operation to scare off people-smugglers.
Drones, warships and helicopters were deployed inside and outside Italian waters following two tragic shipwrecks this month in which more than 400 Eritrean, Somali and Syrian refugees drowned.
Hi-tech radars and night-vision equipment are also being used by Italian forces in the operation, named Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) -- the term used by the ancient Romans to refer to the Mediterranean.
The navy has dispatched five warships to patrol what Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has called the "sea of death", and said on Tuesday that it had rescued 290 migrants near the island of Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost territory.
An Italian cargo ship also helped the Greek coastguard rescue 73 Syrians stranded on a yacht in the Ionian Sea after it ran out of fuel.
And a Panamanian merchant vessel picked up about 80 people adrift on a large raft in Libyan waters and took them to Sicily, the coastguard said.
Following a call for aid via satellite phone, the Italian coastguard asked a Liberian merchant ship to change course to help about 100 people in Libyan waters, while another ship came to the aid of a dinghy with 90 people on board in Maltese waters.
Sicily's regional assembly meanwhile approved an emergency decree that governor Rosario Crocetta said would speed up security measures to deal with the growing influx of refugees on the island.
The latest arrivals come on top of the 32,000 asylum seekers that the United Nations refugee agency says have landed in Italy and Malta so far this year.
Most leave from an increasingly lawless Libya and arrive on tiny Lampedusa, where the local refugee centre is often severely overcrowded.
Border guards said on Tuesday they had also seized a "mother ship" and arrested 17 crew members, who are believed to be Egyptian, following a landing in the southern Calabria region on Sunday.
These larger fishing vessels are often used by smugglers to carry out most of the journey. Migrants are then put on smaller boats when they are nearer the coast to evade controls.
Thousands have perished over the years as the crossings are often made on ageing vessels.
The refugee shipwreck on October 3 off Lampedusa was the country's worst ever, with 364 people killed when their 20-metre boat caught fire, capsized and sank within sight of the shore.
Just a few days later another heavily laden boat flipped over in rough seas off Malta, killing at least 36 of the Syrian refugees on board.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the final toll could be "between 50 and 200".
'Stop people dying at sea'
European Union Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has said the EU border agency Frontex should deploy a vast maritime search-and-rescue operation from Cyprus to Spain.
But experts say stepped-up security at sea could leave thousands of migrants stranded in north Africa at the mercy of militias and traffickers and reinforce a "Fortress Europe" mentality.
Experts also say it will be difficult to persuade EU governments to finance a major patrol or agree to a European border control, particularly in recession-hit countries or where anti-immigration sentiment is on the rise.
"Search and rescue is good in principle, but it touches on sensitivities over relinquishing control of national waters," Elizabeth Collett, director of Brussels-based think tank Migration Policy Institute Europe, told AFP.
Collett said that beyond scaled-up patrols, Europe needed to address the more complex issues of dismantling smuggling rings and deterring people from attempting the perilous crossings.
Professor Alessandra Venturini from the European University Institute Migration Policy Centre said the priority was to "stop people dying at sea".
"Centres at transit points in Turkey and Egypt where people can make asylum requests could help reduce the numbers attempting to enter the EU illegally," she said.
Italy also wants a change in asylum laws that currently mean all asylum-seekers must stay in the European country where they first arrive while their application is considered.
Southern European countries like Italy argue this puts an unfair burden on them as the landing points, but northern European states argue they end up taking in most of the refugees.
Antivirus programs used to be simple: They protected your PC from malware, viruses, and suspicious Internet sites, and that was that. But now we’re using multiple devices—often interchangeably—and we’re trusting our data to the cloud. What’s a security company to do?
For McAfee, the answer is a security suite that offers protection for every aspect of your digital life. LiveSafe isn’t just an antivirus program—it’s comprehensive digital security for your cloud files, your passwords, and your many, many devices.
LiveSafe ($80 for a one-year subscription, $20 if purchased with an Intel Ultrabook) comes as a small plastic card with a product key. The key lets you download and install the program on as many computers, tablets, and phones as you like (McAfee tells me there is no limit, though the company does reserve the right to investigate suspicious activity). LiveSafe is compatible with most platforms, including Windows PCs; Macs; and Android, iOS, and BlackBerry devices. It’s not yet available for Chromebooks or Windows Phones, but that may change in the future as the market shifts.
The only hitch I ran into—and it was a pretty big one—was trying to install the program on computers that already had an antivirus program installed: a desktop running Windows Vista with Norton 360, and a laptop running Windows 8 with a 60-day trial version of Norton Internet Security. In both cases, LiveSafe appeared to flag Norton’s security programs as dangerous and then proceeded to shut down.
While this response is not abnormal—after all, antivirus programs act a lot like viruses themselves, digging deep into your PC’s underbelly and accessing root files in order to sniff out malware—LiveSafe’s response was. Instead of prompting me to uninstall the offending Norton programs, LiveSafe crashed. On the Windows 8 laptop, the program gave me an error message and then shut down; on the Vista desktop, the program caused my computer to go into a blue-screen fit and then LiveSafe shut down. When I asked McAfee about this, I was told there should be a warning that asks you to uninstall Norton before proceeding. However, I never received one despite several installation attempts. Uninstalling Norton’s programs first allowed me to install LiveSafe smoothly in both cases, but I would have preferred that LiveSafe alert me more gently to the Norton issue.
LiveSafe has optimized its interface for Windows 8 users, which essentially means you get large buttons for features and navigation instead of small, difficult-to-press links. The optimization peters out quickly, though: I noticed a few link-heavy menus (such as the Navigation Center).
LiveSafe displays the most important information in its main window. A color-coded bar along the top indicates whether your computer is secure or vulnerable. From here, you can also quickly access protection for viruses, spyware, Web content, and email—as well as check that your software updates are current and your subscription is still active.
LiveSafe’s most distinctive feature is McAfee Personal Locker, a secure cloud storage space (1GB) designed specifically for highly sensitive documents. Personal Locker uses biometric protection—facial and voice authentication—along with a PIN. Facial recognition is fairly simple: You take a photo of yourself on the device you’re using, and Personal Locker compares it to a photo of you it has on file. Voice recognition is a little more complicated, featuring two sentences that you must read aloud to the machine. The first sentence is the same every time. The second sentence is randomly generated from Personal Locker’s archives, to check for “alive-ness.” This way, nobody can crack your Personal Locker with a photo and a voice recording.
Personal Locker also lets you set different levels of security for different files: a PIN only for less-sensitive documents, and full facial and voice authentication for more valuable assets. Best of all, even if your subscription lapses, you’ll still have access to your account for three months afterward.
Another interesting feature is McAfee SafeKey, which creates and stores unique, secure passwords and syncs them across all your devices. You can install it as an add-on to your Web browser or as an app on your devices.
LiveSafe also comes with 24/7 tech support, and if you purchase LiveSafe with an Intel-branded Ultrabook, you’ll get an extra perk: a McAfee tip and help hotline.
LiveSafe offers antivirus, antimalware, and hardware-enhanced antitheft protection. The antitheft protection is similar to Apple’s Find My iPhone feature and other device-tracking software: It lets you locate and remotely lock lost or stolen devices, remotely secure data, and protect data against uninstalls.
We consulted independent data from AV-Test’s July/August 2013 antivirus tests. AV-Test ran 26 consumer products and nine business products on a computer running Windows 7 (SP1). The test used the free Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) as the baseline, which offered 91 percent protection against zero-day malware attacks in a real-world testing environment.
By comparison, McAfee LiveSafe Internet Security offered 97 percent protection against zero-day malware attacks in real-world tests, which is better than MSE but not as good as other products on the market. LiveSafe detected false positives and false warning messages, flagging only one case of legitimate software as dangerous.
AV-Test did not test the mobile (phone and tablet) segments of LiveSafe. The Android version of LiveSafe offers a security scan, as well as privacy tests (the app can check other apps for exposure), automatic Web monitoring, backup, and device tracking.
McAfee’s LiveSafe is a great deal for a multi-device individual or family, as it allows an unlimited number of devices per subscription. Its antivirus performance is pretty good, but its protected cloud storage and password manager really make it stand out from the competition.
