Wired

[Cyprium]

Who's wired into the system? Well, better question might be, who isn't? It's become very normal to have all the gadgets..it always precedes from luxury to necessity. At one time everyone lived a normal life without a cell phone...who does that now? At one time, everyone survived without telephone at all...and without television, computers, gps systems, etc.

There are carefully calculated advantages to having any one of these things. There are draw backs too. Most don't calculate the cost past their wallet but there is a greater price to pay nonetheless. We all have computers obviously...and those computers have been the means of waking one another up..passing vital information...even setting the stage for a vast educational experience that contradicts the intentions for which the internet was created. (halleluYah).

We know what it costs us in our privacy, i'm sure..we all are aware there is no such thing as private internet activity. Where is a wise place to draw the line in being "connected"? Well, that depends on the price you're willing to pay for convenience, communication and entertainment. As for us....we drew the line at cell phones, gps, television of any kind and still haven't given up the old stand by dial up internet connection (because you know there's a reason the government wants us all on wifi, right?).

It was a price worth paying to share information about those things that are hidden from the public's eye....but weighed in the balances, we are not willing to pay the price of brain tumors for communication convenience or being tracked wherever we might go rather than buying one of those outdated atlases.The price of entertainment was too high too...being subject to whatever signals are routinely spread across the digital landscape of television was not worth the pretty pictures on the screen. Wall-mart's great, low prices weren't worth their CIA cameras or their RFID.

"Peer pressure" won't tip the scales...being "normal" won't either. Normal doesn't even enter the range of my radar.As the world makes it harder to live without their luxuries..we simply have to work harder to go around them. Convenience will never pay for itself.

Everyone can make their own decisions about where their own line gets drawn..but everyone should definitely do so with all the information they can get about what prices they will pay for wiring into the system.

9 Reasons Wired Readers Should Wear Tinfoil Hats: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/reasons-to-wear-tinfoil-hats/

[Bean]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whis...

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton...

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request...

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," but "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."...

He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. "I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me."...

"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them."...

Three weeks ago, Snowden made final preparations that resulted in last week's series of blockbuster news stories. At the NSA office in Hawaii where he was working, he copied the last set of documents he intended to disclose...

On May 20, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever since...

"I've left the room maybe a total of three times during my entire stay,"...

He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them.

Though that may sound like paranoia to some, Snowden has good reason for such fears. He worked in the US intelligence world for almost a decade. He knows that the biggest and most secretive surveillance organisation in America, the NSA, along with the most powerful government on the planet, is looking for him...

And he knows only too well the sophisticated technology available to them and how easy it will be for them to find him...

"All my options are bad," he said...

Snowden did not always believe the US government posed a threat to his political values. He was brought up originally in Elizabeth City, North Carolina...

In 2003, he enlisted in the US army and began a training program to join the Special Forces...

He recounted how his beliefs about the war's purpose were quickly dispelled. "Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone," he said.

After he broke both his legs in a training accident, he was discharged.

After that, he got his first job in an NSA facility, working as a security guard for one of the agency's covert facilities at the University of Maryland. From there, he went to the CIA...

By 2007, the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland. His responsibility for maintaining computer network security meant he had clearance to access a wide array of classified documents.

That access, along with the almost three years he spent around CIA officers, led him to begin seriously questioning the rightness of what he saw.

He described as formative an incident in which he claimed CIA operatives were attempting to recruit a Swiss banker to obtain secret banking information. Snowden said they achieved this by purposely getting the banker drunk and encouraging him to drive home in his car. When the banker was arrested for drunk driving, the undercover agent seeking to befriend him offered to help, and a bond was formed that led to successful recruitment.

"Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world," he says. "I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good."

[Bean]

[Cyprium]

The pill that texts the doctor - from inside your body

...Human beings aren't robots, and if they're asked to take medicines or do anything that requires very high levels of routine repetition they are going to find that really tough," says Andrew Thomson, chief executive of California-based Proteus Digital Health.

"The biggest burdens in our health system are about chronic disease, and people typically who have some type of chronic disease need to take medicines every day. And they need to take them appropriately.

"And what we know is that most people don't actually do that very well."

So how do you make sure your elderly and forgetful mum is taking her medication regularly?

According to Proteus, by having that tablet text or even tweet you when it hits the stomach.

This isn't science fiction - although the company appropriately enough shares its name with the Proteus, the microscopic vessel that boldly went where none of us have gone before - inside the human body

The key is a tiny ingestible sensor that can be embedded in a tablet. It works like a potato battery.

"If you stick a bit of copper and a bit of magnesium in a potato and you wire it up you can power a lightbulb. It's a simple bit of chemistry that says two dissimilar metals in an ionic solution create an electrical charge," says Mr Thomson.

"What we have done is to take two absolutely required dietary minerals, one is copper and one is magnesium, and put them on a grain of sand that's less than a millimetre square in a way that means that when we combine it with a drug, when you swallow it you become a potato."

The ionic fluid is stomach acid. Enough voltage is created to power the sensor, which communicates with a small plaster-shaped patch worn by the patient, which also tracks vital signs, movement and sleep.

The patch in turn sends all of this data to an application which lives in the cloud. It can be accessed from a smartphone, tablet or PC, and set to send an alert to family, caregivers or healthcare professionals to say the pills have been swallowed.

"Effectively when you swallow one of our digital drugs it will say, Hello I'm here, I'm Novartis, I'm Diovan, 1.2mg, I'm from plant number 76, I'm batch number 12 and I'm pill number 2." says Mr Thomson.

The application can also track the drug's effects - whether it's been prescribed at the right dosage, or if it simply isn't working.

The technology is being piloted in the UK at High Street chain Lloyds Pharmacy. Patients receive a labelled dosage tray, with an extra pill that contains the sensor. This will record the time each dose is taken, while the tracking patch builds up a picture of their health and movements.

"If you think about a hypertension patient who doesn't take their medicines, the long term result of that will be things like a stroke or a heart attack which may cost the health system tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars," says Mr Thomson.

"And the cost of the medicines is 30p a month. One of the most important things to understand here is that helping people appropriately use medicines has the potential to save hundreds of millions of pounds."..."

Full Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23620996

[Kathy]

How your travels are tracked this holiday season

 

Happy "Tracksgiving"

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/11/26/happyt...

[Cyprium]

The hermit/cave scenario gets more appealing every day, right?

[Bean]

15 Creepiest Modern Technologies

some of this is outdated, even though the video is only 5 mos. old, but still worth watching.. and, the streetlamps thing is truly creepy..

[Bean]

DARPA.. controlling your car from afar..

Michael Hastings car was speeding 60 miles and hour running a red light seconds before blowing up in flames... Hastings covered the CIA and other high-powered officials and even received death threats over his journalism.

Most people wouldn’t connect these particular dots, but the message isn’t meant for most people. I’d suggest that if you are in a position to take down someone who has tasked an organization like the Joint Special Operations Command, this message is for you.

It’s also interesting that an incident in a garage is mentioned in this Forbes piece..

http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=36167

so.. who's ready to go retro in the transpo depot..

[Bean]

BEWARE!  Windows 10... ickiness!!  It's free.. and if you're already using Windows you can start downloading version 10 (supposedly the last version ever of Windows) today (2 months earlier than scheduled).. do not do it!

"designed with privacy in mind" LOL.. be assured it's not YOUR privacy they have in mind..

"Cortana - their AI voice-recognition digi-assistant"  how creepy is that!  Cortana.. think "cerebral cortex"

throw away your cell phone.. stay away from MS 10.. get the hell out of the system as best you can..

[Bean]

Oh - and you know, logging in with your fingerprint and a retina scan is obviously a seriously sketchy choice to make..

but the hololens headset - people will quickly tire of the ridiculous-looking and cumbersome headgear and that will just pave the way for yep, you guessed it, just installing something in your hand or forehead or eye to make it all "more convenient and secure".. i'm not saying it's the mark of the beast but gosh, it's certainly a "type" for it... bleh!

[Tristran Hepburn]

@Bean.

Are you sure this is still possible because with 51% of the American middle-class now poor, it seems that the chances of Americans having the money to buy a headset is diminishing by the day let alone have a laptop.

Secondly, in the computer language C# (version 2010, Win 7), i could not find any "off/null/disabled/exit/0/false" options for laptop cameras in camera properties. So internal cameras using Windows 7 are already monitoring everyone.

The only solution is to cover the camera with tape.

[Bean]

hey Tristran.. pretty sure the 'middle-class' is all but gone here.. there's essentially the poor, the working poor and then the non-poor.. so basically it's have and have not.. it seems with the changing markets that line will become more defined as time passes, too.  i think the easiest way for Satan to get the average person on board is to make whatever it is 'free'..

covering up the camera with tape.. preferably some black electrical tape since it's so very opaque is a great idea and i highly recommend it.. here's a tutorial link that hopefully can help w/that version http://peripherals.about.com/od/webcamerasvideoinputs/ss/DisableaWe...

[Tristran Hepburn]

Yes i used that option.

However, there is nothing stopping a NSA spy program from coming in, switching it on, taking a picture, then leaving.

The camera object itself doesn't have the 'enable' property. The property is somewhere else.

i am going to have to look deeper into the 'properties' objects in C#.

i agree, with everyone poor now, who would turn down the opportunity of having 1 million new one world currency credits in their bank account for alien technology, free energy and free food from food dispensers as shown on Star Trek ? Answer : very few