FBI Warns Silicon Valley that Chinese Spies Are Among Their Ranks

Freedomist Editor August 23, 2021

FBI to Silicon Valley firms: your Chinese and Russian workers are spying on you

From boingboing.net
2021-08-19 13:35:09
Rob Beschizza
Excerpt:

There are your conclusions about the extent of the threat from foreign governments, but then there’s your government’s conclusions about the extent of the threat from them, you and the people you associate with. The FBI is reportedly warning Silicon Valley companies—in secret—that their Chinese and Russian workers may be forced to (or simply paid to) spy on them.

But the risk to tech companies is real, the FBI says: Employees are being persuaded, or more typically, coerced by foreign autocracies into stealing information or handing over login credentials. In one case [FBI special agent Nick] Shenkin worked on, Chinese government agents threatened to deny an employee’s mother dialysis back in China if he didn’t steal proprietary information from a large hardware/software company.

“This is a quotidian activity,” Shenkin told Protocol in an interview. “This is a massive fundamental activity that bolsters and is one of the mainstays of many autocratic countries and their…

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While Cancelling Americans for Not Being DNC, US Social Media Prepares to Platform the Taliban

Freedomist Editor August 23, 2021

Facebook and Twitter weigh giving a voice to the Taliban

From fortune.com
2021-08-21 11:00:00

Excerpt:

Their actions will have lasting impacts on the diplomatic stage and on the lives of everyday people in Afghanistan.

The militant group’s rise to power is forcing Silicon Valley’s biggest internet companies to revisit their policies on how to treat controversial political actors. While the Taliban is banned from holding accounts or spreading propaganda on most big online networks, its takeover of the government means the tech giants will soon have to decide whether to expand its access or grant it the ability to manage Afghanistan’s official state social media channels.

They may also have to make decisions about whether to keep up or flag content that both praises and criticizes the group, with potentially perilous consequences for those posting it.

..

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Dating Our Past Using Magnets

Freedomist Editor August 23, 2021

Magnetic Field May Provide New Ways of Dating Ancient Archaeological Artifacts

From scienceblog.com
2021-08-17 14:30:31
UC San Diego
Excerpt:

Archaeologists traditionally rely on finding organic remains for radiocarbon dating to pinpoint new finds in time, but often these are not found on sites dating over 5,000 years ago. As a result, dating sites in the ancient Levant from the Holocene (the last ca. 10,000 years) can be problematic – leading archaeologists and geophysicists to expand the possibilities for assessing the age of ancient artifacts with archaeomagnetic dating.

In an article published* in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers from the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Department of Anthropology have filled in some of the regional gaps in the record of Earth’s magnetic field. To do so, they used artifacts from the Neolithic period spanning roughly 8,200 to 5,500 years ago.

“Earth’s magnetic field has changed significantly in the past with implications for related phenomena, such as deep-Earth…

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Life Might Be Broader and More Complex Than Previously Imagined, Scientists Say

Freedomist Editor August 23, 2021

Scientists Are Proposing a Radical New Framework to Redefine Life on Earth

From www.sciencealert.com
2021-08-17 18:02:52

Excerpt:

….biologist Chris Kempes and complex systems researcher David Krakauer from Sante Fe Institute in New Mexico have posed the idea that our focus on evolution as a driving force of life may have “blinded us to additional general principles of life”.

To explore this, the researchers broaden the definition of “life” to the union of two energetic and informatic processes that can encode and pass on adaptive information forward through time.

Using this definition vastly increases what can be seen as life, to include concepts such as culture, forests, and the economy. A more traditional definition might consider these as products of life, rather than life itself.

“Human culture lives on the material of minds, much like multicellular organisms live on the material of single-celled organisms,” Kempes explains.

Based on their new definition, the researchers argue that life has emerged many times on Earth, and that we in fact are co-existing with many forms of current life.

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The Case to Strike Roe?

Freedomist Editor August 17, 2021

Supreme Court to Consider Significant Pro-Life Case

From thetablet.org
2021-08-16 15:34:52

Excerpt:

Tell us about the upcoming Dobbs Supreme Court case.

This is the first time in almost thirty years that the U.S. Supreme Court have evidenced any interest in permitting states to limit abortion prior to viability, commonly understood to occur at or near 24 weeks of pregnancy, when the child can live outside the mother’s womb. The Mississippi law before the Court only prohibits abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which is less than 0.7 percent of all abortions occurring in Mississippi and less than 5 percent of all abortions in the US. A win in this case is essential to building a culture of life, in which the lives of unborn children, and all human beings, are respected and protected.

Which is the most important amicus brief being submitted to the Court for this case and why is it the one you led?

Our amicus brief for 240 Women Scholars and Professionals, and Prolife Feminist Organizations, is crucial to persuading the Court that, contrary to the Casey Court’s claim that “[t]he ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by the availability of abortion,” women’s advancements in education, employment, and economic well-being are independent of abortion.

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Math and Language Use Different, Separated Brain Networks

Freedomist Editor August 17, 2021

How (and Where) the Brain Analyzes Math and Language When Spoken

From scitechdaily.com
2021-08-16 17:00:44
Society for Neuroscience
Excerpt:

Math and language processed by separate networks even if heard together.

Separate math and language networks segregate naturally when listeners pay attention to one type over the other, according to research recently published in JNeurosci.

Mathematical language borrows words from everyday speech, yet the brain processes math and language in two separate networks. While previous studies examined how these networks process written numbers and words, few looked at the processing of spoken mathematical language.

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Elon Gets Probed by US After Tesla Autopilot Crashes

Freedomist Editor August 17, 2021

US opens probe into Tesla Autopilot software after several crashes, Auto News, ET Auto

From auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com
2021-08-16 14:51:00

Excerpt:

San Francisco: The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot software, to assess the technologies and methods used to monitor, assist and enforce the driver’s engagement with the dynamic driving task during Autopilot operation.

There have been several Tesla Autopilot-related crashes, currently under investigation by the US NHTSA.

In a statement, the agency said that the probe will cover Tesla Models Y, X, S, and 3 vehicles released from 2014 through 2021.

“Most incidents took place after dark and the crash scenes encountered included scene control measures such as first responder vehicle lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board, and road cones,” the NHTSA said.

“The involved subject vehicles were all confirmed to have been engaged in either Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control during the approach to the…

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Sntiches Get Crypto, US Government Says

Freedomist Editor August 17, 2021

US Government Now Offers Informants Crypto Rewards in Addition to Bank Wires, Suitcases Full of Cash – Bitcoin News

From news.bitcoin.com
2021-08-16 15:30:07
Jamie Redman
Excerpt:

Attendees of the Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas were introduced to a new advertisement crafted by the U.S. State Department. According to individuals who accessed the government advertisement via an open Wi-Fi network called “#Rewardsnotransoms” they discovered the U.S. government is offering to pay crypto rewards to individuals who give up information concerning malicious, state-backed hackers.

US State Department Advertises ‘Rewards for Justice’ at Black Hat 2021 in Las Vegas

The never-ending war on terror continues as the United States government is focused on state-backed cybercriminals that have attacked U.S. infrastructure or have created terrorist organizations. Last week, reporters and attendees of the Las Vegas hacker conference called “Black Hat” explained that the U.S. government, specifically the State Department, was advertising a new program called “<a…

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Poverty Attacks the Brain, Literally

Freedomist Editor August 17, 2021

Scans show the physical marks of poverty on kid brains

From www.futurity.org
2021-08-16 15:16:44
Brandie Jefferson-WUSTL
Excerpt:

Researchers have discovered a link between poverty and smaller, slower growing brain regions.

Children in poverty are more likely to have cognitive and behavioral difficulties than their better-off peers. Plenty of past research has looked into the physical effects of childhood poverty, or documented mental health disparities between socioeconomic classes.

“If we can prevent poverty, we can help circumvent some of these negative outcomes.”

In their new study, researchers wanted to look at a suite of outcomes to determine whether poverty continues to affect people as they enter adulthood. And if so, how?

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Facebook Will Block Any Researcher that Attempts to Research It

Freedomist Editor August 17, 2021

Facebook is obstructing our work on disinformation. Other researchers could be next | Laura Edelson and Damon McCoy

From www.theguardian.com
2021-08-14 10:00:00

Excerpt:

Last week, Facebook disabled our personal accounts, obstructing the research we lead at New York University to study the spread of disinformation on the company’s platform. The move has already compromised our work – forcing us to suspend our investigations into Facebook’s role in amplifying vaccine misinformation, sowing distrust in our elections and fomenting the violent riots at the US Capitol on 6 January.

But even more important than the effect on our work is what Facebook’s hostility toward outside scrutiny means for the many other researchers and journalists trying to study Facebook’s effects on society. We’ve already heard from other researchers planning similar projects who are now pulling back. If Facebook has its way, there will be no independent research of its platform.

Our dispute with Facebook centers on a research tool called Ad Observer. Ad Observer is a web browser extension that Facebook users can choose to install to share with us limited and anonymous…

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