Investigators from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and officials of the plant, which is operated by FirstEnergy Corp., have been looking through surveillance tapes to try to identify who was responsible for leaving the radioactive goldfish in the tunnel on May 2. They believe one of the 700 employees and contractors who work at the plant smuggled the fish into the facility, Jennifer Young, spokeswoman for FirstEnergy Corp., told AP. The fishy tale has served as an embarrassment for the plant, which has already come under scrutiny for a case in which four contractors were exposed to life-threatening hard radiation in 2011. The plant has also been scutinized for a serious lack of security.“Last year, Perry got into trouble with the NRC about weaknesses preventing unauthorized access to the plant,” David Lochbaum, a spokesman at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Plain Dealer. “Goldfish are not authorized to be inside the tunnel, yet they were there. And Perry cannot determine how they got there or who put them there.”Officials believe the goldfish were taken through the front door and likely hidden in a plastic bag in a worker’s pocket. All workers are required to pass through security, which detects metal and bombs but not fish and water. Investigators believe the fish were left unnoticed in the tunnel for several days before scaffolding crews discovered them and filed a report.But despite looking through surveillance tapes for more than a week, little progress has been made in identifying the perpetrator(s). “While we continue to look at the video for evidence, identifying folks in the video has been challenging,” Young told AP.Both of the 1 ½-inch-long fish died shortly after their discovery, but officials at the plant claim that neglect and starvation may have been the cause – not radiation. Chemists found that the fish were admitting small amounts of radiation, but not enough to put anyone at risk, including the fish.“They did not have exposure to enough radioactivity to hurt them,” Young told The Plain Dealer. “It was probably due to lack of care before they got to the plant. The radiation could not have killed them.”Lochbaum said the story might sound funny to some, but that smuggling live animals into the plant shows a serious lack of security. The story has caused some to recall an episode of the “Simpsons” in which Blinky, an orange fish, has a third eye due to his exposure to radiation.“What might be an amusing account of misplaced goldfish today could become tomorrow’s nightmare story if someone with an axe to grind, another Timothy McVeigh type, places a bomb instead of two goldfish in Perry,” Lochbaum told The Plain Dealer, referring to the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.The fish admitted small levels of radiation, but the incident is most problematic for the plant for once again highlighting the lack of security – an issue that FirstEnergy Corp. has been scrutinized for before. … Read More
Google’s five-year stronger consumer authentication roadmap
Google has revealed its five-year roadmap for stronger authentication and security, which includes a number of proposed adjustments to the way users login to its services such as hardened access controls and long-life tokens. The roadmap shifts practices away from the traditional sign-in process that most users are currently familiar… … Read More
State Department takes down blueprints for 3D-printable handgun
The State Department on Thursday ordered the nonprofit Defense Distributed to remove blueprints for the world’s first 3D-printed gun from its website. “All such data should be removed from public access, the letter says. That might be an impossible standard. But we’ll do our part to remove it…
America’s staggering education gap
You want my advice, you should pour a tall cup-a-Joe and settle in to read this essay by Sean Reardon in this AMs NYT on education and wealth. He covers a lot of ground, but the theme that resonated most with me is one I’ve stressed often in these parts regarding the growing evidence of linkages between increased income inequality and diminished opportunities. A prominent channel through which this occurs is, of course, education.It’s not just that rich kids do better in school than poor kids. That’s an old problem.What is news is that in the United States over the last few decades these differences in educational success between high- and lower-income students have grown substantially.Moreover, these growing differences show up in college access and completion.…the proportion of students from upper-income families who earn a bachelor’s degree has increased by 18 percentage points over a 20-year period, while the completion rate of poor students has grown by only 4 points. …15 percent of high-income students from the high school class of 2004 enrolled in a highly selective college or university, while fewer than 5 percent of middle-income and 2 percent of low-income students did.Continue Reading… … Read More
Crowd-funded documentary hopes to present Aaron Swartz’s life and struggles
The documentary, which is to be directed by Brian Knappenberger, has thus far managed to collect $15,000 through Kickstarter, with 29 days to go to reach its funding goal of $75,000. Knappenberger, who recently directed the Anonymous documentary “We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists,” looks to depict Swartz’s early emergence on the hacktivist scene, in addition to his early interest in politics that blossomed into a prominent role in advocating for open access to knowledge and online resources. The film will also highlight Swartz’s involvement in Reddit prior to its acquisition by Condé Nast, as well as his pivotal role in the creation of the world’s first RSS protocol, which quickly became the backbone of a multitude of online tools still in use today. More importantly perhaps, Knappenberger will delve into Swartz’s arrest following a mass download of millions of academic articles from the online service JSTOR in 2011, and the subsequent legal battle widely believed to have driven the young activist to suicide. Of particular interest will be the project’s focus on the federal prosecution’s tactics under US Attorney Carmen Ortiz and Assistant US Attorney Stephen Heymann, who pursued an aggressive Internet fraud case against Swartz that eventually saw him charged with eleven counts of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984 (CFAA). The CFAA itself has been the subject of criticism from Internet activists and some lawmakers, who charge that its outdated definitions leave open the possibility for prosecutorial overreach in cases such as Swartz’s.According to early clips of the film and information provided via its Kickstarter campaign, the film is currently titled “The Internet’s Own Boy,” and will include extensive interviews with family members and individuals who were close to Swartz, as well as members of the academic community at MIT.For its part, MIT became the source of pointed criticism from the online community who rallied around Swartz’s arrest and eventual suicide, accusing the prominent institution of facilitating both his arrest and heavy-handed prosecution.Since Swartz’s suicide, California congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has spearheaded efforts to enact “Aaron’s Law,” a proposal which would seek to change the CFAA and federal wire fraud statutes to prevent prosecution over a large variety of crimes under terms-of-service violations.Fittingly, the new documentary will be released under a Creative Commons license, which means that it is likely to be available for download in a variety of open-copyright formats. Knappenberger hopes to complete the film by the end of 2013, and expects the full project to cost around $175,000 to complete. … Read More
American Free Press: UK Bilderberg 2013 Meeting Confirmed
American Free Press received e-mail from Grove Hotel staffer, apparently confirming that Bilderberg 2013 will be going down near Watford in the United Kingdom from June 6-9. … Read More
LulzSec leader arrested in Australia, authorities say
Australian authorities claim they have arrested the self-proclaimed leader of the hacking group LulzSec. The unnamed individual was charged with two counts of unauthorized modification of data to cause impairment and one count of unauthorized access to, or modification of, restricted data. Combined, the offenses carry a maximum sentence of… … Read More
