The hacktivists, who have long sought complete transparency online and elsewhere, published a total of thirteen documents, one of which outlines the US government’s “NetOps Strategic Vision” for monitoring the Internet. The documents are mostly pulled from 2008, just after when the government reportedly began using PRISM to mine servers at technology companies including Microsoft and Yahoo. An NSA slideshow published Thursday by the Guardian and the Washington Post reveals the intelligence community first gained access to Google in January of 2009 and Facebook in June of the same year. “NetOps will transform along with the Global Information Grid to dynamically support new warfighting, intelligence, and business processes and enable users to access and share trusted information in a timely manner,” one document states. “The future Global Information Grid will result in a richer Net-Centric information environment comprised of shared services and capabilities based on advanced technologies.” “It will be heavily reliant on end-to-end virtual networks to interconnect anyone, anywhere, at any time with any type of information through voice, video, images, or text. It will also be faced with greater security threats that NetOps must help address.” Much of the leak contains vague language that outlines the desired goals of the “NetOps Vision,” not details on how surveillance is conducted or the individuals or groups targeted by the NSA. At least a section of Friday’s information dump was previously made available by the government, according to technology news site ZD Net, which found the data on Web.Archive.org. Anonymous, however, reminded readers to share the documents before the figurative “they” try to make them disappear. “Anonymous has obtained some documents that ‘they’ do not want you to see, and much to ‘their’ chagrin, we have found them, and are giving them to you,” the poster writes. “This is happening in over 35 countries and done in cooperation with private businesses, and intelligence partners worldwide. We bring this to you so that you know just how little rights you have.” … Read More
Omnidirectional "treadmill" lets you run through your favorite games
Using Kickstarter to help fund the project, Virtuix hopes to take virtual reality to the next level with Omni, an omnidirectional “treadmill”. The company's innovative 360-degree base translates real-world steps into in-game motion as gamers walk and run their way through their favorite titles — in any direction. When the base… … Read More
Anonymous Release Details of 200 EDL Members
http://www.youtube.com/v/_RYP1C9Nn8w?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata See the article here: Anonymous Release Details of 200 EDL Members
Bitcoin’s big mystery: who created the virtual currency system?
It’s no secret that Bitcoin comes with its fair share of controversy but what most people don’t realize is, it’s also shrouded in a veil of mystery. That’s because, even five years after its launch, nobody knows who came up with the original idea for the virtual currency system. … … Read More
Bitcoin supporters promise banking ‘revolution’
http://www.youtube.com/v/XR2-a3YK9Bs?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Follow this link: Bitcoin supporters promise banking ‘revolution’
‘Bitcoin threatens economic monopoly, bolsters free speech’
On Wednesday, The US Department of Homeland Security seized a payment processing account belonging to Mt. Gox, the largest international Bitcoin trader over claims the monetary exchange service had falsified financial documents.The US government has never hidden the fact that it is closely watching the virtual currency, which international regulators have thus far failed to keep a lid on.But while banks and governments have treated the Bitcoin payment system as an “existential threat” to current financial system, Taaki argues that the virtual currency epitomizes real free trade and is a necessary tool to maximize the benefits of a free and open market. RT: You’re at the heart of the Bitcoin system – could you explain for us in a nutshell how Bitcoin works, and why anyone would want to take part?Amir Taaki: The basic gist of it is, there is this network of people worldwide, and any person that joins the Bitcoin network is responsible for upholding it. The Bitcoin is actually a form of money, like the dollar, euro or pound, but it’s virtual currency on the Internet. It is a type of currency which is not overseen by central banks, governments or states, and there are no restrictions on how you can use it. You can send it to anyone, anywhere in the world. A person can download Bitcoin software, get set up with it in five minutes, and start accepting payments from Iran or North Korea. It’s proper free trade, not the fake kind where you need to register corporations or companies, and then you’re shut out of the market because of regulations: No! It’s the kind of money where anybody in the world can participate. It might be alright in the West, when anybody can set up an account and get a Visa or Mastercard, but it’s not the same. Paypal alone is blocking access from over 60 different countries worldwide. Bitcoin does not have any of these restrictions or limitations. The payment system is used as a political tool to shut down speech on the Internet, and that’s why the Bitcoin is so important. RT: Still, to many people the whole Bitcoin system seems to be very complex – how do we know that it’s safe and can be trusted?AT: The Bitcoin system is a really simple system because it’s based off this concept of open source. I can download the source code for Bitcoin and you can read through it. It’s like how someone [can read] French or Spanish or English – I can read the source code and see that it does exactly what it says it does. It’s something really powerful when I have Bitcoins stored on my computer and I send it over the Internet direct to someone without any middleman whatsoever using software that I wrote myself, completely. When I have a bank account, I don’t know what happens in that bank account. I don’t know who I’m dealing with or all the middlemen and institutions there. Bitcoin has none of that. It’s total control over your money.RT: As we’ve heard, the U.S. government has raided a business involved in Bitcoin transactions – could it stop BitCoin althogether, if it was determined to do so?AT: No, and this is actually great news. So far they’ve been moving covertly, in the shadows, pushing Bitcoin here and there, and this is the first time they’ve actually played their hand and made a move against Bitcoin that’s out there in the public. Bitcoin is a tool which threatens the powers of all of these institutions which have the economy rigged [in their favor]. Yesterday, I was in Canary Wharf, there are these police and they’re not even real police. They look like police, they dress like police but they’re not – they’re security guards. And they were going around harassing us when we were going to the FCA [Financial Conduct Authority] to ask questions. They will make moves against Bitcoin, because it does threaten this power that they have; this monopoly over the economy. But Bitcoin is a tool, which, if done right, cannot be censored. You can’t stop people from doing trade with each other. It’s a proper tool for free trade. I’ve been saying for a long time that we need to build Bitcoin in the underground market and things like what has just happened in the US prove this is true. We need a foundation for Bitcoin, and the underground economy doesn’t only mean drugs or guns or weapons. It means normal things like people doing trade with each other – local business sending goods to each other and trading. There’s a lot more to the underground economy than just the common picture which is painted out there. It’s something which allows people to progress and to actually create the kind of wealth and business that should be possible in a truly free market. … Read More
‘Central banks looking at Bitcoin as real threat to dominance’
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that there was an “ongoing investigation” that followed the blocking of the account of Dwolla, a business that allows users to convert U.S dollars into BitCoin and back again.According to the Department of Homeland Security in the US, the peer-to-peer currency violates new laws that require online transfer systems to identify its users.“The shutdown of Mt.Gox is a little bit worrying, it looks as if the US government wants to put a stranglehold on the kind of business that’s popping up around Bitcoin, but, crucially, it doesn’t affect much the currency itself. It’s just the exchanges around it and the US exchanges. And by the nature of it, Bitcoin being an international currency, shutting down an exchange like Mt. Gox, even if it affects the liquidity of Bitcoin, can’t kill Bitcoin.”What’s more, the idea of rivalry between Bitcoin and regular currency is a relatively new phenomenon, as Mahdawi indicated.“Central banks around the world are looking at the development of Bitcoin with a lot of fear, and not just central banks, but the traditional banking as a whole. If you think about it, Bitcoin has been around since 2008, it’s been around for ages. The regulators didn’t pay any attention to it whatsoever, they dismissed it as sort of monopoly money.”According to Mahdawi, just in the past few months, Bitcoin has really gained legitimacy, we saw the huge spike in terms of its value, we’re seeing investors pour money into Bitcoin. “A couple of weeks ago, Union Square Ventures, a very credible investment group, spent $5 million investing in Coinbase, which is sort of a PayPal for Bitcoin. A lot of infrastructures are building around Bitcoin, and that’s why the [Federal Reserve] is looking at it as a real threat to its dominance,” she said.The virtual currency leads to people re-assessing the value and the meaning of money, Mahdawi stressed.“The interesting thing about Bitcoin is that it’s made everybody start to talk about what money is, and why money has any value. If you think about it, since 1971, when the US came off the gold standard, the dollar hasn’t been linked to gold, it hasn’t been linked to anything. You have a piece of paper which says ‘In God we trust’ on it, but it isn’t the government we trust. That piece of paper is absolutely meaningless. You’re putting your trust into banks and central authorities. Bitcoin is a whole new idea of money when the money is basically regulated by network and by people.Mahdawi believes that with people losing trust in governments, the idea of something like Bitcoin is really gaining in popularity, and people are beginning to realize that dollars are no more real as a currency than something like Bitcoin and they are starting to re-assess what the future of money is. “Bitcoin isn’t going to wipe the dollar off the face of the Earth in the next few years, but I think we’re going to see the emergence of the alternative currencies in a world where traders buy through the internet, in a borderless world with the internet, so the idea of sovereign currency is starting to make less and less sense,” she said.Mahdawi suggests that Bitcoin could represent a new path in the history of currencies.“We’ve been in the recession now for several year, the eurozone crisis…People are starting to realize that the government isn’t the best people to put their money to, the government isn’t necessarily going to protect their money for them. So something like Bitcoin represents a call for alternative, [an idea] that you might be better off putting your money in technology rather than in the government. We’re seeing lots of governments beginning to scratch their heads and think about ways they could regulate Bitcoin, think about what things like Bitcoin means to them. Last October, the European Central Bank produced a paper on virtual currencies, and that was the first time that a public institution had produced any kind of meaningful document that looked at virtual currencies.”The journalist notes that if you look at the bibliography of that document “you will find that the European Central Bank is looking at Wikipedia articles, at Mashable articles trying to find out what on Earth the virtual currency means for them.”"This week, in the UK, a lot of government officials and people involved in financial regulation got together to start thinking about what Bitcoin means for them. All over the world, the governments are starting to take note and kind of wonder what the future of money means, and how that’s going to affect their dominance,” Mahdawi added. … Read More
