Category: Politics

Politics

Engineers Build The World’s First Real 3D-Printed Gun

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As reported on TechCrunch. by John Biggs The Liberator, for all the hoopla, was not really a gun. This 3D-printed firearm, on the other hand, is a gun. It is a copy of a 1911 made using public-domain plans and a laser sintering system that solidifies metal powder. It fires just like a real semi-automatic pistolThe gun, created by Solid Concepts, is completely legal. The company has a Federal Firearms License and it’s trivial to find the blueprints online. The company…

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Government Politics

FAA committee concludes that flyers should be allowed to use smartphones, tablets during takeoff and landing

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As reported on Engadget. By Mat Smith Recall that silent rage you get when you’re told to switch of your Kindle, iPod or laptop for take-off and landing, even when there’s nothing wireless going on. Well, the FAA could be approaching a change in the rules. A 28-member committee, created by the Federal Aviation Administration itself, has offered up its recommendation that flyers should be able to use “most” devices during takeoff and landing. Data-based activities and voice calls would still…

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Government Politics

Cutting the cord: Brazil’s bold plan to combat the NSA

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As reported on The Verge. By Amar Toor President Dilma Rousseff wants to route internet traffic away from the US, but experts say it will do little to deter American espionage Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (left) meets with President Barack Obama at the White House in 2012. Revelations about the American government’s ongoing electronic surveillance have sent shockwaves across the globe, but few countries have reacted as boldly as Brazil, where lawmakers are currently considering a plan…

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Politics

FWD.us Gives First Hard Numbers On Its Impact On Immigration So Far

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As reported on TechCrunch. by JOSH CONSTINE  Is FWD.us really making a difference? Today it released its first quantified stats on its contribution to immigration reform, announcing that it drove 33,500 calls to Congress this summer and a total of 110,000 actions including social media shares. That’s not a stellar call count, but it represents solid work by the political action group founded and funded by tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg. In passing immigration reform, every little bit…

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Politics Tech

How Obama Can Say “We Don’t Have A Domestic Spying Program” Without Lying

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As reported on TechCrunch. by GREGORY FERENSTEIN President Obama found himself defending the practices of the National Security Agency to comedian Jay Leno Show last night. “We don’t have a domestic spying program,” said the Commander-in-Chief. “What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack. That information is useful.” If Obama’s denial sounds suspicious, it’s because he’s playing semantics. While the NSA is…

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Hacking Politics Security

Documents Reveal How the NSA Cracked the Kryptos Sculpture Years Before the CIA

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As reported on Wired. BY KIM ZETTER The Kryptos Sculpture. Photo: Wikimedia Commons   It took more than eight years for a CIA analyst and a California computer scientist to crack three of the four coded messages on the CIA’s famed Kryptos sculpture in the late ’90s. Little did either of them know that a small group of cryptanalysts inside the NSA had beat them to it, and deciphered the same three sections of Kryptos years earlier —…

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Politics Security

Brazil allegedly targeted by NSA spying, demands explanation from United States

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As reported on The Verge. By Chris Welch Earlier today, a report in Brazil’s daily Globo newspaper claimed that the National Security Agency has been spying on electronic communications and telephone calls originating from the country for the past decade. The Globo story was co-authored byThe Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald — the journalist who first broke news of sophisticated (and highly classified) US surveillance programs with the help of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Today’s report is allegedly substantiated by further documentation…

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Politics

These Photos Show Just How Massive The Protests In Egypt Have Become

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As reported on Businessinsider.com by PAUL SZOLDRA AND MICHAEL KELLEY Massive protests have swept across Egypt once more, and this time they are even larger than the Arab Spring protests that ousted Hosni Mubarak in 2011. A military source told AFP that “millions” of protesters took to the streets. “It is the biggest protest in Egypt’s history.” Their anger is now directed at President Mohamed Morsi, whom many believe has lost his legitimacy after becoming the country’s first democratically elected president. There are also…

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Politics

Danish Company Creates Software That Will Stop You From Printing A Gun

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As reported on TechCrunch. by JOHN BIGGS A Danish company called Create It Real has built a software package that recognizes digital gun part models and prevents them from being printed. The software compares each piece you are attempting to print with a database of potential firearm parts and, the company notes, “for safety reasons, there are no models of firearms stored on the user’s computer but rather a list of characteristics.” The CEO, Jeremie Pierre Gay, has…

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Politics Security

If The Government Can Access Our Facebook Data, What Happens When We Have Computers On Our Faces?

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As reported on TechCrunch. by SARAH PEREZ Wearables will follow a similar path as the smartphone market, Forrester analysts predicted in April 2012. ”Wearables will move mainstream,” they said. But will they? Do you believe this? Do I? Maybe? From fitness trackers to smartwatches to computers you wear on your face, this emerging market, enabled by the increasing miniaturization of hardware components and lightweight materials, has increasingly been piquing the interest of investors and early adopters alike. Futurist, artificial intelligence expert…

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