Say 'Hello' to CISPA, It Will Remind You of SOPA
Meet CISPA.
You may not have heard of it yet because it's been flying under the radar. It's a lot like PIPA, which was a lot SOPA (I'm sure you heard of those). Actually, some people are calling it "worse than SOPA," and it's sponsored by a congressman who thinks the death penalty should be considered for Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking military information to Wikileaks.
Be worried: they think we stopped paying attention after SOPA -- so they made this. CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (PDF) (aka H.R. 3523), is up for a vote in two weeks. Unlike its failed cousins, it has the support of companies such as AT&T, Facebook, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, Verizon, and many more. A full list of all 28 corporate supporters is here.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), is also trying to get tech press to tell you to think that his bill CISPA is "nothing like SOPA." Don't believe it.
CISPA's primary function is to remove legal barriers that might keep Internet companies from giving all your communication and information to the government. It allows "cyber entities" (such as Internet service providers, social networks like Facebook and cell phone companies like AT&T) to circumvent Internet privacy laws when they're pressured by Homeland Security to hand over or shut down -- well, almost anything of yours online that the government wants, no warrant needed. -Source
RFID Moving Target: When Johnny needs Tagged
If people do not observe and take warning they too will be tagged and bagged on this wide road of false security. Wake Up!
Thousands of students skip school everyday. It is a problem in every school district across the globe. Now RFID tracking technology is being used in countries like the UK and Brazil to help tackle the issue.
This week education officials in Bahia, Brazil say 20,000 students have started wearing “intelligent” school uniforms embedded with an RFID locator microchip, similar to those used to track missing pets.
The tracking system uses an RFID microchip embedded either under the school’s coat of arms or in one of the sleeves. Education officials say the microchip would be impossible to remove, without destroying the uniform. As students enter the school, the tracking system registers their arrival. The tracking system also registers when a student leaves.
China’s Mysterious Internet Outage; Speculation Over a ‘Kill Switch’
At approximately 11am local time yesterday, Internet users around China reported significant Internet blackouts. Not only were they unable to access some Chinese sites, but also many foreign Web sites that had not previously been blocked.
The issue was not isolated to China. Web users in Hong Kong and Japan also reported issues with accessing Chinese sites. A number of explanations immediately came to light, with the most viable cause being the 8.7 magnitude earthquake in Indonesia on Wednesday, that might have damaged undersea cables.
However, reports from China’s major telecommunication companies — China Telecom and Unicom — suggest that this was not the case. China Telecom confirmed that the earthquake had not interfered with the underwater cables in any way. -Source
US Military Developing Multi-Focus Augmented Reality Contact Lenses
Proving that biological limitations are only a problem for other people, the US Department of Defense and Innovega have begun work on a system, called iOptik, that gives humans the ability to focus on the near foreground and distant background at the same time.
Proving that biological limitations are only a problem for other people, the US Department of Defense and Innovega have begun work on a system, called iOptik, that gives humans the ability to focus on the near foreground and distant background at the same time. -Source
