Saturday, March 31, 2018

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh: Sex, drugs and the Rolls Royce guru...

Every day at 2pm on a dusty road through the mountains of Oregon, hundreds of young people dressed head to toe in various 'sunrise' hues of red and orange would gather to wait solemnly for a car to go past.

It was always a Rolls-Royce, although a different one each day, and it would glide slowly past as they bowed and threw roses on the bonnet.

Inside, wearing robes, a tea cosy-style woolly hat, flowing grey beard and beatific smile, was the object of their devotion, the guru and mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Once he had passed by, the crowds would return to toiling in the fields — or 'finding their true selves' in group sex sessions.

Rajneesh — not to be confused with the far tamer Maharishi, who was the Beatles' Indian guru — presided over a New Age sex cult that was second to none in its embrace of 'free love', unorthodox meditation techniques and sheer outrageousness. Full story...

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The petrol pump attendant...

Virginity auctions: Brit teens sell sex online as one offer fetches $1.5million...

British teenagers are being encouraged to auction their virginity online after a woman from the UK broke the record for selling her first experience of sex.

A website which is used as a platform to broker deals between virgins and those seeking sex with them has bragged of the huge sum collected by the 26-year-old. The woman, “Jasmine”, fetched a staggering €1.2 million ($1.5 million) for the sale of her first time. A Hollywood actor purchased it, according to the agency.

Jasmin says she got to audition three men via dates, before their final bids were placed. In a statement, the student wrote that she had no regrets.

“This was an amazing expirience! (sic). After I got public attention it took some months but finally I sold my virginity! Last week I dated three guys for Dinner here in London. A football player from Manchester United, who really want (sic) super nice to me. Also I've had a date with a business-man from Munich. He was a real Gentleman and we really liked each other. But to be honest he was finally to (sic) old for me. Full story...

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Friday, March 30, 2018

U.S. to seek social media details from all visa applicants...

The State Department wants to require all U.S. visa applicants to submit their social media usernames, previous email addresses and phone numbers, vastly expanding the Trump administration's enhanced vetting of potential immigrants and visitors.

In documents to be published in Friday's Federal Register, the department said it wants the public to comment on the proposed new requirements, which will affect nearly 15 million foreigners who apply for visas to enter the U.S. each year. Previously, social media, email and phone number histories were only sought from applicants identified for extra scrutiny, such as those who have traveled to areas controlled by terrorist organizations. An estimated 65,000 people per year are in that category.

The new rules would apply to virtually all applicants for immigrant and non-immigrant visas. The department estimates it would affect 710,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 million non-immigrant visa applicants, including those who want to come to the U.S. for business or education, according to the documents.

The documents were posted on the Federal Register's website on Thursday but the 60-day public comment period won't begin until Friday's edition is published. Full story...

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Thursday, March 29, 2018

More lies from the presstitutes...

The shameless liars that comprise the US media intentionally exaggerated the marchers against “gun violance” by four times the acutal number.

Why?

Why are the media presstitutes involved in advocacy of agendas and not in reporting factual news?

Recent polls show that a majority of Americans believe that gun ownership makes people safer. Americans do not believe that people should be denied safety because of an occasional nutcase or a staged shooting to advance the gun control agenda. Indeed, they wonder who is behind the gun control agenda. They wonder about the dumbshits who are protesting the Second Amendment instead of Washington’s rush into conflict with Russia.

I have no doubt that gun control groups are organized by agents of the police state. The United States is falling apart. All of the increase in income and wealth is going to the One Percent. Everyone else is hurting more each day. See Chris Hedges, for example: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49082.htm

The vast majority of Americans are being ground into the dirt by government at all levels. There is no democracy. There is only looting. The One Percent fear that sooner or later even insouciant Americans might rise up. But they can’t if they are disarmed. That is all gun control is about. Full story...

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‘I want to see facts’

The UK must provide solid evidence of Russia's alleged involvement in the Skripal case, the Czech president has said. While he did not oppose the country’s move to expel Russian diplomats, he believes it to be “a bit superfluous.”

“I want to see the facts. I will certainly welcome if the United Kingdom presents some evidence that the Russians wanted to kill the double agent Skripal,” Czech President Milos Zeman told the Blesk news outlet on Tuesday.

The Czech government has expelled three Russian diplomats, joining the UK, which made the move in order to “punish” Moscow over the Skripal case. The former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned on March 4 in the British town of Salisbury. Without any evidence, top UK officials promptly pinned the blame on Moscow, claiming that a military-grade nerve agent of Russian origins was used in the attack.

While Zeman did not oppose the government’s decision to expel Russian diplomats, he said it was “it's a bit superfluous.” Full story...

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Just some people having fun in Russia...

Tensions high in Sacramento as city mourns unarmed man killed by police...

Family, friends and strangers, some expressing anger and frustration, gathered in Sacramento on Wednesday for a public wake for 22-year-old Stephon Clark, an unarmed man shot by police in his grandparents' backyard.

Some attendees wore black shirts calling for justice, while one woman held up a clenched fist as she exited the Bayside of South Sacramento church. The wake was largely quiet until Clark's brother, Stevante Clark, shouted at the media to leave before being picked up and carried away.

The outburst came a day after he disrupted a Sacramento City Council meeting and chanted his brother's name at Mayor Darrell Steinberg.

Some said the two police officers who shot Clark should be criminally charged, while other mourners said they could envision their own families in Clark's family's place.

 "This feels like the '60s, it doesn't feel like 2018. We've definitely regressed," said Cynthia Brown, a friend of Clark's grandfather who brought her 10- and 15-year-old grandsons to the wake. "To me, (they) could be Stephon Clark." Full story...

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Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Switzerland’s invisible linguistic borders...

It was one of the shortest train rides I had ever taken: just seven minutes and one stop from the Swiss city of Neuchâtel. Yet when I disembarked in the small town of Erlach, everything seemed, somehow, different. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Something about the architecture perhaps? People’s body language? Even the air, crisp and ridiculously fresh in that distinctively Swiss way, felt somehow changed.

I walked for a while, befuddled. I was still in Switzerland, that much I knew. I had not crossed any international border. Then I glanced at a street sign, and I knew. I had unknowingly crossed the Röstigraben, the amusing term for the invisible line separating German- and French-speaking Switzerland.

Röstigraben means literally ‘rösti ditch’ or ‘rösti trench’ (in French, it’s rideau de rösti, or rösti curtain). The term dates to World War I, when Switzerland’s loyalties were divided along linguistic lines. Rösti is a traditional Swiss-German meal consisting of pan-fried potatoes, and, well, more potatoes, sometimes with bacon, onion and cheese. Geographically, the Röstigraben roughly follows the Saane river (Sarine in French). You won’t find it on any map, though. It is a border of the mind, albeit one imprinted on the Swiss mind from a young age. Full story...

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In the late 1960s, Singapore was gripped by a genital panic!

At the very end of the Malay peninsula sits the city state of Singapore, which was once plagued with retracting penises. In 1967, in one of the best-documented epidemics of koro, (or genital retraction syndrome) ever, hundreds of people rushed to hospitals, deathly afraid that if they loosened their grip they would die.

Today Singapore is one of the wealthiest and most successful countries on earth, and much of its old character seems to have been washed away by a tide of modernization. An international crossroads for hundreds of years, the city is now clean and safe and has everything most countries aspire to. You can walk along the street and be sure none of your body parts will disappear. But this wasn’t always the case.

The mass genital shrinking epidemic began in October of 1967. In one case, a 16-year-old male rushed into the General Hospital’s outdoor clinic with his parents close behind. “The boy looked frightened and pale,” as one report described it, “and he was pulling hard on his penis to prevent the organ from disappearing into his abdomen.”

The boy’s parents shouted for the doctors to help because the boy had suo yang (the Chinese word for koro, which we consider a culturally-related “genital retraction syndrome”) and if the retraction didn’t stop, he would die. The doctors reassured the family and gave the boy ten milligrams of chlordiazepoxide, after which he improved. Full story...

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Afghan mum cradling baby during university exam goes viral...

Afghan farmer Jahantab Ahmadi sits on the ground, her baby resting in her lap, as she focuses on the university entrance exam she hopes will help her fulfil her dreams.

The powerful photo, taken by a professor at Nasir Khusraw private university in central Afghanistan, has gone viral after striking a chord in a country where most women are illiterate and treated as second-class citizens.

The picture has sparked an outpouring of admiration and offers of financial help for the 25-year-old mother of three.

“I don’t want to be deprived of my studies,” said Ahmadi, who comes from a remote farming village in Daikundi province where wheat, corn and potatoes provide a meagre income. “I want to work outside the house. I want to become a doctor, someone who serves women in my community or society.”

Ahmadi passed the exam after undertaking an arduous journey to reach the provincial capital Nili — two hours on foot through mountains and nine hours in public transport on a bumpy road. Full story...

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Facebook data misuse scandal affects "substantially" more than 50 million...

Chris Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower whose revelations about Facebook data being misused for political campaigning has wiped billions off the share price of the company in recent days and led to the FTC opening a fresh investigation, has suggested the scale of the data leak is substantially larger than has been reported so far.

Giving evidence today, to a UK parliamentary select committee that's investigating the use of disinformation in political campaigning, Wylie said: "The 50 million number is what the media has felt safest to report -- because of the documentation that they can rely on -- but my recollection is that it was substantially higher than that. So my own view is it was much more than 50M."

We've reached out to Facebook about Wylie's claim -- but at the time of writing the company had not provided a response. Full story...

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Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Facebook and Google can sway elections...

World famous psychiatrist warns that increased use of psychiatric drugs will translate to more mass shootings...

The psychiatric/pharmaceutical drug industry is worth a staggering $80 billion a year in sales alone, and Washington is literally crawling with lobbyists who have seemingly bottomless pots of cash to smooth the regulatory path for drug manufacturers. This has led to a situation in which the politicians tasked with protecting some of the most vulnerable people in the nation – those with mental health issues – have adopted a “see no evil, hear no evil approach.” They happily look the other way as doctors and psychiatrists continue to prescribe antidepressant and anti-anxiety drugs despite their dangerous side effects, which include mania, violence, psychosis and homicidal ideation (the desire to commit murder).

While many politicians focus on the gun debate when discussing the issue of mass shootings, what virtually none of them ever mention is the clearly established link between such mass homicides and psychiatric drugs. The mental health watchdog organization, CCHR International, recently reported that at least 36 school shootings or other school-related acts of violence were committed by people who were either on psychiatric drugs or withdrawing from them – which can be just as dangerous.

These acts of violence resulted in the deaths of 80 people and the wounding of a further 172. In addition, there have been many similar incidents where information regarding the mental health and psychiatric drug use of the killer/s was not made public, so the problem is likely far worse. Full story...

Read also: Why I took a gun to school...

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The scare about global warming is overdone, according to more than 40 scientific papers...

The scare about global warming is overdone, according to more than 40 scientific papers published in just the first three months of 2018.

What their charts clearly show is that “nothing climatically unusual is happening.”

In the chart below from a study by Polovodova et al, we see that 20th century warming is perfectly normal in a long-term historical context. It was no warmer – indeed, is slightly cooler – than either the Roman Warm Period or the Medieval Warming Period.

(...)

In further bad news for climate alarmists, it seems that two of their favorite bellwethers of global warming doom – Greenland and the South Pole, are cooling not warming. More + charts...
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Indian man carves road through hills so children can attend school...

A man in a remote eastern Indian village has single-handedly carved a five-mile (8km) road through hilly terrain to help his children attend school.

It had been taking Jalandhar Nayak’s three sons about three hours each way to navigate the narrow, rocky route to class. So two years ago the vegetable seller from Odisha state picked up a chisel, a garden hoe and pickaxe and began building a shorter route.

His efforts came to the attention of government officials this week when he was featured in a local media bulletin.

“My children found it hard to walk on the narrow and stony path while going to their school. I often saw them stumbling against the rocks and decided to carve a road through the mountain so that they can walk more easily,” he told News World Odisha. Full story...

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Facebook has lost $70 billion in 10 days — and now advertisers are pulling out...

Shares of Facebook Inc fell again on Monday after the U.S. consumer protection regulator made public its investigation of how the social network allowed data of 50 million users to get into the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

Scrutiny by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which generally confirms the existence of an investigation only in cases of significant public interest, adds to pressure by lawmakers in the United States and Europe for Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to explain how his company handles user data.
Facebook shares fell as much as 6.5 per cent, briefly dipping below US$150 for the first time since July 2017, before recovering the day’s losses to close up 0.4 per cent at US$160.06.

The shares are still down 13 per cent since March 16, when Facebook first acknowledged that user data had been improperly channeled to Cambridge Analytica. The company has lost more than $70 billion in market value since then.

At the day’s session low the company had lost US$100 billion in market value since March 17, when newspapers first reported that Facebook member data was improperly used by consultants Cambridge Analytica to target U.S. and British voters in close-run elections. Full story...

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Monday, March 26, 2018

How brainwashing works...

Facebook knows a lot about you, even your call history and SMS data...

(...)

f this information isn’t creepy enough wait till you find out that Facebook is also collecting call history and SMS data from Android users.

A couple of days ago, a big story broke out stating that Facebook exposed data of 50 million Facebook users to a researcher who worked at Cambridge Analytica, which worked for the Trump campaign.

And now Several Twitter users are reporting finding months or even years of call history and SMS data in their downloadable Facebook data file. People freaked out and outraged about the Cambridge Analytica prompted them to download all the data that Facebook stores on their account, and millions deleting their Facebook accounts.

“Oh wow my deleted Facebook Zip file contains info on every single phone cellphone call and text I made for about a year,” says ‏Twitter user Mat Johnson. Another, Dylan McKay, says “somehow it has my entire call history with my partner’s mum.” Others have found a similar pattern where it appears close contacts, like family members, are the only ones tracked in Facebook’s call records. Full story...

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Saturday, March 24, 2018

When caste follows you overseas: Ostracism, discrimination among South Asians in US...

Caste is an integral part of Hindu society and practices. But does your caste identity have a bearing on your experience or how you are perceived by others even outside India?

According to a recent survey, caste discrimination is prevalent in the United States of America among the South Asian immigrant community - across people from various countries and those who practice different religions.

A survey conducted by Equality Labs titled ‘Caste in the United States: A Survey of Caste Among South Asian Americans’ showed that of the 1,500 respondents, 52% of Dalits and 25% of Shudras were worried about their caste being ‘outed’, as they could end up facing rejection from public and religious spaces, bullying and more. In contrast, only 1% of Brahmins were worried about their caste being ‘outed’.

TR, a parent who responded to the survey, said that her child was secluded from other children when the mother of another child discovered that they were Dalit. “Word that my family was Dalit spread like wildfire, my child became secluded from other Caste Hindu children. It angered me and it broke my heart that my child had to face the feeling of being an outcaste in the 21st century in the United States!”

Many such parents have reported that their children have been treated differently in schools and feel alienated. Full story...

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Cambridge Analytica: How the royal family became embroiled in a data harvesting scandal...

The extended Royal family has become embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal. As journalists investigate the shady deals of the consultancy firm, it has been exposed that ties to the data company go right to the top.

As the week progressed, more and more links between CA and the establishment have been revealed. Board members for parent company SCL Group include a Lords member, Tory donors, ex-British army officers and defense contractors… there’s even a direct descendant of a queen in there for good measure.

CA is one arm of SCL group, formerly known as Strategic Communication Laboratories. The Observer article, which initially broke the CA scandal, said “for all intents and purposes, SCL/Cambridge Analytica are one and the same.”

SCL's board is a who's who of the British establishment, with minor royals rubbing shoulders with Conservative Party donors and the military top brass. Full story...

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Facebook: six degrees of giant squid...

(...)

The game is no longer about sending you a mail order catalogue or even about targeting online advertising. The game is selling access to the real-time flow of your daily life –your reality—in order to directly influence and modify your behavior for profit. This is the gateway to a new universe of monetization opportunities: restaurants who want to be your destination. Service vendors who want to fix your brake pads.
Shops who will lure you like the fabled Sirens. The “various people” are anyone, and everyone who wants a piece of your behavior for profit. Small wonder, then, that Google recently announced that its maps will not only provide the route you search but will also suggest a destination.
This is just one peephole, in one corner, of one industry, and the peepholes are multiplying like cockroaches. Among the many interviews I’ve conducted over the past three years, the Chief Data Scientist of a much-admired Silicon Valley company that develops applications to improve students’ learning told me:
“The goal of everything we do is to change people’s actual behavior at scale. When people use our app, we can capture their behaviors, identify good and bad behaviors, and develop ways to reward the good and punish the bad. Full story...

Friday, March 23, 2018

Trump take note – why Singapore’s claim that the death penalty works for drug offences is fake news...

Speaking before the country’s parliament, Singapore’s minister for home affairs, K Shanmugam, extolled the country’s success in fighting drugs. He attributed these results to Singapore’s harsh drug laws, which include the use of capital punishment.

It may seem surprising to the uninitiated that Singapore has the death penalty for drug crimes. But, as the minister said: “Our penalties are severe because we want to deter such offences”.

Singapore is one of a tiny number of countries classified by Harm Reduction International (HRI) as “high application” states in the use of capital punishment for drugs. This means that death sentences and executions are a regular part of the criminal justice system. Indeed, there have been two executions for drug offences just this month, killings which were condemned by UN human rights officials.

The idea that harsh drug laws such as the death penalty are effective is one actively promoted by Singapore. And it is a belief now allegedly being adopted by US president Donald Trump. Given Trump’s notorious concern with what he considers “fake news”, it is somewhat surprising he has embraced one of the more dubious claims in global drug control – the myth that Singapore’s harsh penalties have nearly eliminated drug use and drug crime. Full story...

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Simon's cat: Purrthday cake...

Racism used for ‘divide and rule’ in Malaysia, says report...

MALAYSIA’S government is utilising racism as a tool to “divide and rule” the country, according to a damning new report from a local human rights organisation.

Pusat KOMAS released the Malaysia Racial Discrimination Report on Wednesday, tracking what it said were increased instances of racism recorded in the media during 2017 in the multicultural, Muslim-majority Southeast Asian nation.

Malaysia has long dealt with racial and religious tensions between its Malay majority and sizeable ethnic Chinese and Indian communities. The ruling United Malays National
Organisation (UMNO) has for decades provided economic advantages to Muslim Malays to the exclusion of minorities.

With the country’s 14th General Election expected sometime in the coming months, the Pusat KOMAS report argued that “racism has become more pronounced and is being increasingly used as a tool to divide and rule.” Full story...

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Facebook's data gold rush: Web giant's takings soared by £12BILLION after it let companies hoover up users' data...

Facebook revenues soared to billions of pounds after it started giving away users' details.

The social media giant practically doubled its takings every year after opening up profiles to 'tens of thousands' of app developers.

Facebook users were yesterday waking up to how much private information has been handed out.

During the data gold-rush – which lasted from 2009 to 2015 – it appears almost anyone who described themselves as a 'developer' could freely mine Facebook's database.

In this period, the technology firm's revenues rose sharply, from £500million in 2009 to nearly £13billion by 2015.

The company is now facing probes from law enforcement agencies around the world, including in Britain. Full story...

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Has Russia had enough?

This morning I watched a briefing the Russian Foreign Ministry provided for the diplomatic community where international toxic substances experts presented information concerning the alleged nerve agent used in the alleged attack on Skripal and his daughter. This information has been known for some time, and none of it has been reported in the Western presstitute media.

In the briefing the Russians once again relied on facts and existing agreements that govern the investigation of such events and asked why the British were demanding explanations from Russia when the British refuse to comply with established procedures and refuse to produce any evidence of what the British allege to have occurred.

The response from the US and French embassy representatives was simply to state that they needed no evidence to stand in solidarity with their British friends, that Russia was guilty by accusation alone, and that they would hold Russia accountable.

The benefit of this absurd response, which the Russians declared to be shameful, is to make clear to the Russian government that it is a waste of time to try, yet again, to confront unsupported accusations from the West with facts and appeals to follow the specified legal processes. The West simply does not care. The issue is not the facts of the case. The agenda is to add another layer to the ongoing demonization of Russia. Full story...

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Pot meet kettle alert: Google’s AI guru attacks Facebook’s algorithms...

Last night Google’s deep-learning expert François Chollet tweeted a long and slightly illuminating thread, decrying the state of artificial intelligence programming. In light of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica debacle–where a data firm was able to obtain millions of user profiles–Chollet sees the increasingly frightening prospect of algorithms being trained to control information supply. While it’s scary that Facebook essentially allowed a Trump-affiliated program to execute a series of targeted ad campaigns, the hidden story is Facebook’s innate power and how it can be used for psychological control.

Indeed, this is a very interesting and horrifying problem. Platforms adopting algorithms to fine-tune the content it feeds to users presents an easy pathway for psychological control. “If Facebook gets to decide, over the span of many years, which news you will see (real or fake), whose political status updates you’ll see, and who will see yours, then Facebook is in effect in control of your political beliefs and your worldview,” writes Chollet.

But this criticism is somewhat rich coming from the deep-learning guy at Google. While perhaps we should pause, nod, and agree that this is a problem, Chollet may not be the most appropriate messenger. Google, after all, is a company that itself has created some very powerful algorithms, ones that people rely on day in and day out. I would go as far to say that Google’s artificial intelligence programs are far more insidious than Facebook’s. Full story...

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'Christianity as default is gone': the rise of a non-Christian Europe...

Europe’s march towards a post-Christian society has been starkly illustrated by research showing a majority of young people in a dozen countries do not follow a religion.

The survey of 16- to 29-year-olds found the Czech Republic is the least religious country in Europe, with 91% of that age group saying they have no religious affiliation. Between 70% and 80% of young adults in Estonia, Sweden and the Netherlands also categorise themselves as non-religious.

The most religious country is Poland, where 17% of young adults define themselves as non-religious, followed by Lithuania with 25%.

In the UK, only 7% of young adults identify as Anglican, fewer than the 10% who categorise themselves as Catholic. Young Muslims, at 6%, are on the brink of overtaking those who consider themselves part of the country’s established church.

The figures are published in a report, Europe’s Young Adults and Religion, by Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University in London. They are based on data from the European social survey 2014-16. More + charts...
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Thursday, March 22, 2018

Iraq war: 15 years later...

Giving up porn for Lent means drop in computer viruses...

Software and security experts said malware infections fell 17 percent in the United States since the beginning of the Christian Lenten season—a trend they say is due to people giving up pornography for Lent.

Experts at Enigma Software (ESG) found that there has been a reduction of nearly one-in-five malware viruses since Lent began for millions of Christians on Ash Wednesday, February 14. Many Christians commit themselves to various acts of penance during the approximately 40-day religious observance period, including fasting during daylight or more mundane tasks like refraining from swearing.

This year, Lent ends three days before Easter Sunday on March 29. But the reduction in detected malware infections has led several software experts to connect the dots between the decrease in viruses and a decrease in time spent on porn websites during Lent each year.

“It’s very common for people who participate in Lenten activities to curtail usage of things like social media and technology in general in the weeks leading up to Easter,” ESG spokesperson Ryan Gerding told WGNO-TV. Full story...

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Which advertisers have access to your Facebook data? Here’s how to find out...

We all know that Facebook has access to more personal data than our spouses, friends or parents may ever know. The recent scandal involving Facebook and political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which has allegedly illegally harvested data from over 50 million Facebook users in 2014 and used this to influence elections in several countries, has raised the important question – how safe is my personal data on Facebook?

Most Indian users may have found the data breach irrelevant to their own lives, but what if you could access all of the data that Facebook has collected about you over the years? What if you could know the names of all the advertisers that may have access to your personal data, thanks to Facebook?

Although Facebook does allow a user to access the names of the advertisers, the worrisome fact is that the Social Networking giant does not clearly mention what specific data of the person is being shared with the advertisers. Despite numerous requests by activists and organisations, the company’s response has been evasive. In an email sent on April 6, 2017, Facebook responds to the question “Which contact info does each advertiser have? (which email, which phone number, etc), posed by an activist. The social media giant states, “Advertisers do not give Facebook any users' contact details. We only get such details in hashed form and they are, in any event, deleted within 48 hours. We are therefore not able to confirm what contact information an advertiser has for a particular user.”

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, we tell you how to access the names of all the advertisers, who have access to your data - most probably without your knowledge. Full story...

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Cambridge Analytica's real business isn't data...

As the Cambridge Analytica scandal unfolds, the Western world is meeting a little-known part of its political industry, the one that has operated in developing nations since at least the 1990s. CA's methods as revealed by the U.K.'s Channel 4 News, whose reporter posed as a potential Sri Lankan client, may be a bit extreme -- but for the most part, the consultancy has been one of many firms that have brought Western-style electioneering to lawless environments in which it has been blatantly abused.

In the U.S., political marketing developed from an art into a science by the 1980s. By the end of the following decade, the U.S. had an industry of about 7,000 people who worked on campaigns, political scientist Christian Schafferer wrote in 2006. The U.S. market became too competitive for all these professionals. This, however, was the era of Pax Americana, when most countries' establishments sought American knowledge and at least the external veneer of Western democracy. The Global Political Consultancy Survey of 1998-2000 revealed that 57 percent of the top U.S. political consultants also worked overseas -- in post-Communist countries, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East. Sometimes, from Honduras to Israel, opposing politicians were being advised by different U.S. consultants.

The same survey showed that campaign professionals from Western Europe -- especially the U.K., France and Germany -- were also in demand. In the post-Communist world in particular, their experience was deemed at least as relevant, if not more so, than their U.S. colleagues'. That's where London-based Cambridge Analytica comes in, too. Political consulting is a globalized market now. Full story...

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“All of you so black how to recognise?” Hotel cafe manager tells off Singaporean Indian worker...

A Singaporean was met with an unapologetic racist remark when he was simply trying to do his job at Hotel Boss – a 19-storey, 1500-room hotel located at 500 Jalan Sultan – recently.
The man, Facebook user Hunter Hers Helmsley, wrote online earlier this month that he visited the hotel to pick up a group of guests who were eating at a cafe in the hotel lobby. As Hunter approached the cafe, he was encountered the manager of the cafe who asked him for his room number.
Hunter explained that he was not a hotel guest and that he was there to fetch a group of guests. The worker peeked into the cafe and noticed his guests who requested for him to wait so they could finish their meal. When some time had passed, Hunter went back to the cafe to look for the guests since there was no sign of them.
The same cafe manager saw Hunter and asked him for his room number again. When Hunter explained that he is not a guest and that he had already shared this with her, the cafe manager allegedly retorted, “All of you so black how to recognise?” Full story...
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