February 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

POLITICO: Dem duo's warning of CIA 'warrantless backdoor searches' revives domestic spying debate
by jim bell 13 Feb '22

13 Feb '22

POLITICO: Dem duo's warning of CIA 'warrantless backdoor searches' revives domestic spying debate. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/11/warning-cia-searches-revives-domes… A newly declassified letter from two Democratic senators warning that the CIA has been conducting “warrantless backdoor searches” of Americans’ data is roiling Washington’s long-running debate over balancing national security with civil liberties. In an April letter declassified on Thursday, Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico allege that the CIA “has secretly conducted its own bulk program … outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection.” “This basic fact has been kept from the public and from Congress,” wrote Wyden and Heinrich, who serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee and have criticized intelligence community practices in the past — Wyden quite vocally. Their letter, addressed to CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, is heavily redacted and does not specify the nature of the data collection or the type of information the agency has access to. But it’s raising new questions about the intelligence community’s handling of Americans’ data as part of its foreign surveillance efforts, most of which is regulated by Congress, and reviving yearslong concerns from privacy advocates who say the U.S. government has consistently violated U.S. citizens’ civil liberties. The senators cited a report from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that, according to the lawmakers, shows that the “full extent of the CIA’s collection was withheld even from” the Senate intelligence panel. They demanded a swift and “urgent” declassification of several aspects of the program, including the types of records that were collected and the “nature of the CIA’s relationship with its sources and the legal framework for the collection.” A congressional source who has viewed the report pushed back on some elements of the senators’ letter, addressing its sensitive allegations candidly on condition of anonymity. This person said that the CIA is not collecting the information on Americans that’s at issue; rather, its analysts have access to a repository of information collected by other intelligence agencies.

1 0

Yahoo News: New spying revelations prove once again Edward Snowden was right
by jim bell 13 Feb '22

13 Feb '22

Yahoo News: New spying revelations prove once again Edward Snowden was right. https://news.yahoo.com/spying-revelations-prove-once-again-175342050.html Your government is spying on you — again. A heavily redacted letter from Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M) revealed Thursday that the CIA has been doing some sort of bulk collection of Americans' data. We don't really know the details — those parts are blacked out in the redactions, natch — but it was enough to alarm the senators, who both sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "These documents reveal serious problems associated with warrantless backdoor searches of Americans," they said in a joint statement. This is an old problem, but one that was supposed to have been reined in. It's been nearly a decade since whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the National Security Agency had bulk collected records of Americans' phone calls and emails. Federal courts later found the practice was illegal, and Congress tightened up the laws to end the snooping. (Here's a good Twitter thread detailing the state of the law.) The CIA, however, literally plays by a different set of rules. The agency's program exists "entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection, and without any of the judicial, congressional or even executive branch oversight," Wyden and Heinrich wrote. That's an obvious problem. Even if bulk collection is somehow justifiable — and that's a big "if" — it's dangerous in a democratic society to let an agency like the CIA hoover up Americans' personal info without some form of outside scrutiny. That power is easily abused, and indeed the data has been misused in the past: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found in 2018 the FBI had regularly used NSA information to check up on potential informants who weren't suspected of criminal or national security violations. The FBI blamed the transgression on a "fundamental misunderstanding" of how the data could be legally used. Funny how that happens. Snowden, still living in exile after fleeing the United States when he turned whistleblower, had something to say about all of this. "You are about to witness an enormous political debate in which the spy agencies and their apologists on TV tell you this is normal and okay and the CIA doesn't know how many Americans are in the database or even how they got there anyway," he tweeted on Thursday. "But it is not okay."

1 0

Re: Batshit replies habitually in that way
by professor rat 13 Feb '22

13 Feb '22

Karl hearts Batshit - who said " Opposites attract? " - and just in time for Valentines. Aw. Hey, K-man. Just be careful consummating your relationship - Batshit being an AIDs denier and all. To lose one psychopathic Troller may be regarded as a misfortune - two would begin to look like carelessness.

1 0

Batshit replies habitually in that way
by professor rat 13 Feb '22

13 Feb '22

We've got Batshit-Crazy like a list Barry Manilow. And, along with his two fellow stooges, Gramps and Semich, they plumb new depths of dumbfuck trolling almost every other day. Thank fuck for APster deadpool markets is all I can say - online all-the-time - point and shoot - fire and forget - launch and leave then drag and drop. Nothing takes out the trash better than this.

2 1

[spam][crazy][random] Rotary Encoder: Slightly More Productive Goal
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

As I try to move from goals that are intentionally pointless to those that have some utility, I now want to resume my project of providing a way to build a free high quality servo. Servos are motors that can go to a specific orientation and optionally measure their orientation and/or applied force. Where I'm at, is I want to make a script that generates a printout to make a rotary encoder. Servos usually use potentiometers, which are inaccurate. Rotary encoders can be more precise. Unfortunately, I've misplaced or lost my existing work. But the subgoal is quite simple: A script that generates an wheel of color according to a provided radial function. I think if the darkness of the bands on the wheels increases linearly as a function of angle, the encoder could be calibrated to measure possibly-arbitrary precision via a photocell facing the rotary encoder.

1 0

Re: Mobility,smartphones ,electric batteries and cryptocurrencies
by V.I.Lenin 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

>fucking scammer, get lost Are you one of those who have a lot of supposedly "anonymous coins"?))) Or are you one of those who believes in algorithms only for central processors?)))) Or are you one of those who believes in Satoshi Nakamoto?))))) Or are you one of those who believe that states do not invest in cryptocurrency?)))))) Or are you one of those who thinks that the main holders of coins do not sell small amounts on the black market for expensive, because you need to pay back the costs?))))))) Or are you one of those who are still sure that through bitcoin and other coins, it is impossible to calculate the physical location of the owner?)))))))) why do you call good ideas a scam? Why is proof of beefsteak not a scam? Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com/) Secure Email.

3 3

small sci-hub update
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

i'm having trouble with my email client, so apologies if this comes through multiple times. twitter emailed this to me via the neural net feed it had for me. it just seemed nice to get this update. Alexandra Elbakyan (@ringo_ring) tweeted at 3:47 AM on Sat, Feb 12, 2022: I updated Sci-Hub, now you can watch download statistics in real-time, monthly stats and other. Will add more in the future. new version is running at sci-hub.se and sci-hub.ru on the picture: number of research papers downloaded in last 30 days https://twitter.com/ringo_ring/status/1492419986291408898

1 0

Re: Mobility,smartphones ,electric batteries and cryptocurrencies
by V.I.Lenin 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

Thanks for the battery information. Chia has the only true mining. if we take into account smartphones, then mining will be possible only on Chia. Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com/) Secure Email.

2 1

Litigating Universal Cognitive Liberty
by Gunnar Larson 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

Check out a recent article: https://litigationfinancejournal.com/litigating-universal-cognitive-liberty/ Litigating Universal Cognitive Liberty Freedom of thought is recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Interestingly, cognitive liberty is not recognized as an international human right. Some want to change that, making the argument that humanity has the right to be free to think whatever they want (freedom of thought). The Ottawa Citizen reports <https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/military-leaders-saw-…> that the Canadian armed forces have launched ‘psychological operations’ as an experiment in government propaganda to counter civil disobedience. International human rights scholars are quick to point out that the lack of protection of cognitive liberty in such instances is due to the relative lack of technology capable of directly interfering with mental autonomy at the time the core human rights treaties were created. Similar to a ransomware attack, the technology behind such operations can be abused. Canada is said to have exploited advanced technologies without the authority to do so. Even worse, it is alleged that Canada forcefully abused technology in the unsanctioned production of reports that appeared to be aimed at cognitive activities of Canadians. - Other reports highlight similar technologies being explored by the New York City Police Department. - In 2021 <https://gothamist.com/news/city-settles-lawsuit-protesters-who-accused-nypd…>, members of the National Lawyers Guild won $650,000 in litigation financed fees from abuse of the technology in New York. The semantics empowering freedom of thought as a human right hold new opportunities for modern international recognition of the right to cognitive liberty. -- *Gunnar Larson - xNY.io <http://www.xNY.io> | Bank.org <http://Bank.org>* MSc <https://www.unic.ac.cy/blockchain/msc-digital-currency/?utm_source=Google&u…> - Digital Currency MBA <https://www.unic.ac.cy/business-administration-entrepreneurship-and-innovat…> - Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ip) G(a)xNY.io +1-646-454-9107 New York, New York 10001

2 1

Los Angeles Review of Books covers Assange
by professor rat 12 Feb '22

12 Feb '22

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-enduring-power-of-the-charlatan/

1 0