Department of Homeland Security contract seeks to 'hack' game ...

The Department of Homeland Security has enlisted a San Francisco company to help crack open the encrypted data in consoles, which it claims may hold key evidence in cases ranging from the exploitation of children to terrorism.

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Anyone who has ever played a few games of Call of Duty or Halo online knows that communities like Xbox Live aren?t exactly models of good behavior. But the federal government believes the?occasional?bursts of?profanity?may not be the worst of what?s going on according with consoles, and it wants a way to dig deeper.

According to forensic experts, pedophiles are increasingly using gaming systems to exploit children, while terrorists are using it for communication. With this evidence, a contract was awarded on April 5 by the Naval Supply Systems Command to Obscure Technologies for the research and development of ?hardware and software tools that can be used for extracting data from video game systems.?

With today?s practice of owners jailbreaking consoles in order to play pirated games, gaming companies have fought back with hard-to-break encryptions. As a result, the extraction of data, according to the contract, is a rather complex process and one that the Department of Homeland Security believes can only be achieved by Obscure Technologies. For the small San Francisco computer diagnostics and forensics company, likely with sales under $500,000 and less than five employees, the contract award was for a sum of $177,235.50.

?Analysis of the game systems requires specific knowledge of working with the hardware of embedded systems that have significant anti-tampering technology. Obscure Technologies has substantial experience in working with such systems. Obscure Technologies has the ability to do cradle-to-grave turnkey servicing of complete hardware systems design,? the contract states. But what may have attracted the government to this company was its lead engineer?s ability to reverse engineer Microsoft?s Xbox.

According to Foreign Policy, which first broke the story, law enforcement agencies came to the Department of Homeland Security?s Science and Technology Directorate requesting a system that can extract data from consoles. The DHS then delegated the responsibilities of heading the research and executing the contract to the Naval Postgraduate School.

With the multi-function nature of modern consoles, including access to social networking profiles, the Internet and peer-to-peer messaging, there?s plenty of interest to law enforcement, but it?s difficult to access. Under the impression that game console data is impervious to being hacked and therefore safe from authorities, pedophiles have in fact been using consoles as a haven for exploitation. In 2008, the FBI announced the alarming rate with which Xbox Live was being used by pedophiles for luring and communicating with children.

Aware of the issues surrounding privacy, the contract explicitly states that Obscure Technologies will only crack consoles purchased out of the United States for the duration of the research. As for the data to be extracted from the overseas consoles, the DHS plans on making their research and data publicly available at conferences and academic journals, but under the ?constraints of the Common Rule (CFR 46) governing the use of human subject data.? In other words, any identifiable information pertaining to the owner of the consoles will be scrubbed.

While law enforcement officials have expressed their interest in obtaining gaming information for the purpose of identifying predators and terrorists, you can?t help but wonder about how officials will begin using the to be developed technology for the other purposes, as well.

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Chinese teen sells kidney to buy iPhone, iPad

BEIJING (AP) ? Authorities have indicted five people in central China for involvement in illegal organ trading after a teenager sold one of his kidneys to buy an iPhone and an iPad.

The case has prompted an outpouring of concern that not enough is being done to guard against the negative impact of increasing consumerism in Chinese society, particularly among young people who have grown up with more creature comforts than the generations before them.

Prosecutors in the city of Chenzhou charged the suspects with intentional injury for organizing the removal and transplant of a kidney from a 17-year-old high school student surnamed Wang, the official Xinhua News Agency said late Friday.

A woman on duty Saturday at the Chenzhou Beihu District People's Procuratorate in Hunan province confirmed that prosecutors are handling the case and that the defendants are facing charges of intentional injury.

She refused to give her name and referred further questions to the city-level procuratorate's media office, where phone calls rang unanswered.

The defendants include a surgeon, a hospital contractor, and brokers who looked for donors online and leased an operating room to conduct the procedure, Xinhua said.

It said about 1.5 million people in China need organ transplants, but that only about 10,000 transplants are performed each year, fueling the illegal trade in organs.

Xinhua described one of the defendants named He Wei as being broke and frustrated over gambling debts. It said he asked another defendant to look for organ donors in online chat rooms and someone else to lease an operating room for the transplant, which took place in April last year.

He received 220,000 yuan ($35,000) for the transplant, gave the student 22,000 yuan ($3,500) and shared the remaining money with the other defendants and several medical staff involved in the operation, Xinhua said.

When the student returned home, he was asked how he could afford a new iPhone and an iPad and he told his mother that he sold one of his kidneys, the report said.

The Southern Daily newspaper reported last month that other individuals have sold, or seriously considered selling, their kidneys to earn money for reasons that included paying off large debts, making a payment on a smartphone, or paying for an abortion for a girlfriend.

"Without facing complete hardship, these young people born after the 1990s made rash decisions. In the choice between their bodies and materialism, they resolutely chose the latter," the official Communist Party newspaper Guangming Daily said in an editorial late last month about the Southern Daily report.

"In today's society where desires are infinite and demands are boundless ... blindly competing with others in the pursuit of high-end 'technology' will gradually ruin lives," it said.

Associated Press

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Channel Your Knowledge With These Home Improvement Secrets ...

Doing a quality job on your home improvement project is ideal! However, that is not the only thing that you need to consider. Make sure the work is done with safety in mind first of all! Not sure where to begin with home improvement? Don?t worry; this article has helpful home improvement tips to get you started.

A clothesline is a great way to save money on your electric bills and extend the life of your clothes, but do not build or install one too close to bird feeders or bird baths. The birds that you attract may soil your clothes and linens, so it?s a good idea to keep these items in separate parts of your yard.

When you are maintaining the exterior of your home during the fall season, make sure to check your gutters for leaf clogs or have someone come and clean them for you. This way you will not have roof damage or unforeseen leaks occurring during the winter and save yourself the stress associated with a problem that could have been prevented.

Add shutters to the outside windows on your home for a dramatic change in architecture. If your exterior looks a bit drab or flat, you can use this simple tip to give it much more depth and interest. Paint them a coordinating color to your house, often the color of the front door.

After you have finished the painting part of your home improvements, it is important to clean up properly. If you used latex paint, all you need to clean up is soap and water. If your surfaces were painted with alkyd paints, you will need paint thinner to clean the brushes and gear that you used to do the job. Remember to not pour paint thinner or excess paint down the drain since it can lead to ground-water pollution. Both paint thinner and excess paint needs to be disposed at a toxic waste collection facility.

Don?t throw out your small baby food jars; instead use them to organize your workspace. Superglue or screw the lids of the jars to the underside of a wall shelf. Insert small items into the jars, such as: beads, jewelry parts, screws or nails. Then twist the jars back into place under the shelf. This helps take full advantage of a wall shelf and small jars you didn?t think you would ever need.

Hire a chimney swift to regularly clean and inspect your chimney. This is particularly important if you burn wood but even more conventional heat sources need a clean operable chimney to effectively vent. You don?t want toxic fumes building up in your house and you certainly don?t want a chimney fire!

When you are planning a home improvement project, be sure to allow enough room for all the resulting debris to accumulate. Demolition makes a big mess that you have to put somewhere. Make sure you have figured out ahead of time where all the debris will be placed so that you do not end up with a big pile of stuff in your way while you are trying to work.

If you are renovating the exterior of your home, don?t neglect the garage door. In many homes, the garage door is the biggest single architecture feature of a home as it is viewed from the street. A new garage door or even just a coat of paint on the old door, can really make a difference.

Before making renovations on your home, you should first think about the health of your home and how you can improve it. You should scan your house and figure out what you would like to get and what you actually need to get. Determining these things can help you figure out what you should do next.

For a paint finish that really lasts, always sand, strip and prime, prior to applying a fresh coat. Many people think that skipping the preparatory steps of painting will speed up the process, but down the road old paint will peel through the new finish, ruining your paint job and forcing you to strip off yet another layer of paint before repainting again.

One of the first things that you need to take into account when starting a home improvement project is how to dispose of unwanted debris. Demolition will cause you to have unwanted garbage that you need to store and dispose off efficiently. At the start of the project, you should set aside a space for this to be stored.

A great way to let outdoor light inside your kitchen is by using minimal window coverings. Using dark drapery and valances can block out natural lighting and make your kitchen appear dark. Using a light colored curtain or sheer, can be a great help in lighting up your kitchen, the natural way.

Any home improvement project can turn into a huge headache, if it is not done properly or if done right can be a great addition to your home and improve the value of it! Hopefully, you have found a lot of helpful advice in this article that will get you on your way to successful and satisfying home improvement projects today.

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Annals of Government Medicine (Powerlineblog)

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VC Giants, Thinking Smaller: Why Kleiner Perkins? Aileen Lee Is Getting Into Seed Funding

As a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Aileen Lee has been a part of one of the most well-respected and established venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. But after 13 years with the firm, Aileen Lee is shifting her focus in a very interesting way -- she's starting a new venture fund focused on smaller, "seed-stage" investments. This is the first time that a Kleiner partner has ever left to start their own seed fund, so Lee is in uncharted territory of sorts. In an interview with TechCrunch today, Lee outlined some of the reasons behind the launch of her new endeavor.

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Election 2012: A fable of equality

As voters, we can let rich private equity managers take over the electoral process and further the inequality gap. Or we can do something about it.

Imagine a country in which the very richest people get all the economic gains. They eventually accumulate so much of the nation?s total income and wealth that the middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going full speed. Most of the middle class?s wages keep falling and their major asset ? their home ? keeps shrinking in value.

Skip to next paragraph Robert Reich

Robert is chancellor's professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Clinton. He has written 13 books, including 'The Work of Nations,' 'Locked in the Cabinet,' and his most recent book, 'Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future.' His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.

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Imagine that the richest people in this country use some of their vast wealth to routinely bribe politicians. They get the politicians to cut their taxes so low there?s no money to finance important public investments that the middle class depends on ? such as schools and roads, or safety nets such as health care for the elderly and poor.

Imagine further that among the richest of these rich are financiers. These financiers have so much power over the rest of the economy they get average taxpayers to bail them out when their bets in the casino called the stock market go bad. They have so much power they even shred regulations intended to limit their power.?

These financiers have so much power they force businesses to lay off millions of workers and to reduce the wages and benefits of millions of others, in order to maximize profits and raise share prices ? all of which make the financiers even richer, because they own so many of shares of stock and run the casino.?

Now, imagine that among these richest of these financiers are people called ?private-equity? managers who buy up companies in order to squeeze even more money out of them by loading them up with debt and firing even more of their employees, and then selling the companies for a fat profit.

Although these private-equity managers don?t even risk their own money ? they round up investors to buy the target companies ? they nonetheless pocket 20 percent of those fat profits.

And because of a loophole in the tax laws, which they created with their political bribes, these private equity managers are allowed to treat their whopping earnings as capital gains, taxed at only 15 percent ? even though they themselves made no investment and didn?t risk a dime.

Finally, imagine there is a presidential election. One party, called the Republican Party, decides to nominate as its candidate a private-equity manager who has raked in more than $20 million a year and paid only 13.9 percent in taxes ? a lower tax rate than many in the middle class.

Yes, I know it sounds far-fetched. But bear with me because the fable gets even wilder. Imagine this candidate and his party come up with a plan to cut the taxes of the rich even more ? so millionaires save another $150,000 a year. And their plan cuts everything else the middle class and the poor depend on ? Medicare, Medicaid, education, job-training, food stamps, Pell grants, child nutrition, even law enforcement.

What happens next?

There are two endings to this fable. You have to decide on which it?s to be.

In one ending the private-equity manager candidate gets all his friends and everyone in the Wall Street casino and everyone in every executive suite of big corporations to contribute the largest wad of campaign money ever assembled ? beyond your imagination. The candidate uses the money to run continuous advertisements telling the same big lies over and over, such as ?don?t tax the wealthy because they create the jobs? and ?don?t tax corporations or they?ll go abroad? and ?government is your enemy? and ?the other party wants to turn America into a socialist state.?

And because big lies told repeatedly start sounding like the truth, the citizens of the country begin to believe them, and they elect the private equity manager president. Then he and his friends turn the country into a plutocracy (which it was starting to become anyway).

But there?s another ending. In this one, the candidacy of the private equity manager (and all the money he and his friends use to try to sell their lies) has the opposite effect. It awakens the citizens of the country to what is happening to their economy and their democracy. It ignites a movement among the citizens to take it all back. They repudiate the private equity manager and everything he stands for, and the party that nominated him. And they begin to recreate an economy that works for everyone and a democracy that?s responsive to everyone.

Just a fable, of course. But its ending is up to you.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. This post originally ran on www.robertreich.org.

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Organic Search Engine Optimization ? Simple Business Solutions

The amount of a method inward links or (back links) the topical relevancy, the Page Rank of the back link website, the involving outward links and lots of other factors all influence the way in which that google search determines which website is most relevant with a keyword. As it turned the decision to present more weight to oneway links then meta-data was be great for Google. Taking their place as the preferred search engine of day time Google has become a juggernaut of technology and advertising profits, giving it the ability to contest with huge corporations like Microsoft. With one main motor optimization to deal with SEO became a massive industry that did start to branch out. What begun as a number of simple online page edits became a market with a large number of techniques, technologies and careers. Words that pioneered the seo industry like Meta-Data and keywords fell behind in usage as link building web 2 . 0 and Local all took their place.

You shouldn?t have to undergo gobs of search engines like google and yahoo to reap the rewards of search engine optimization. If you could have a large site you shouldn?t worry about spending plenty of time optimizing it and running the risk of never finishing method. Start together with your most important pages and then think about the irrelevant pages. By this particular one page a day method you won?t run the danger of sitting at your computer until your eyeballs fall out within your head. It might take your time and some experimentation to optimize web page but you may consider it time well spent while you see an increase in the amount of traffic, the surge in traffic should result in more sales. Anyone that is involved in any sort of Internet marketing lately sees the term, ?search engine marketing?, or SEO, everywhere lately.

Page rank is said to the associated with hits and recognition you be in online business. A good seo specialist will be the one provides a detailed knowledge on what methods have to be implemented from what time. After all, he / she would be answerable for bringing traffic to your website and increasing your chances of business opportunities. There are lots many stuff that a search engine marketing specialist could be carrying out for seeking good ways if doing business. First regarding, an SEO specialist would go on a note of what the positioning owner wants from him. Is it the web designing services or content development for the site or its conversion There lots many aspects to be handled by seo specialist.

But, the tactic is dangerous, and choosing an Web optimization service that wears a black hat and don?t use ethical Website positioning practices need to really be informed regarding the hazards in advance. Corporations frequently have a tendency to stop selecting an Search engine optimization support, SEO-house scene at the side of the venture usually falls to your currently reboot, the IT office. Approaching the Seo mindset of the strictly technical issue is the undeniable fact that approaches like as goal phrases that will not essentially be in step with the as well as sales departments objectives. In addition, the IT sources frequently technique Search engine marketing purely technical viewpoint, without staying knowledgeable of ethical Search engine marketing practices, and you could cause severe situations. Penalization is an extremely actual chance, and it will likely be difficult to accumulate back the particular index, should your internet-site happens to become cleared. In depth Search engine optimization service will regulate not only a handful of opponents which you seem to be pretty valuable, but also websites that relate up bigger than you, but your selected search phrases.

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