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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/12/2013 in all areas

  1. Great recipe with a super sauce - the amount of calories really depends on how much olive oil one adds to the sauce - I like a drizzle of toasted sesame oil for a bit of smoky flavor and less olive oil. 12 oz green beans 2 t Dijon mustard 2 T lemon juice 1 T extra virgin olive oil 1 T shallot 1/4 t ground black pepper 1 T parsley Steam the green beans, broccoli, cauliflower or whatever veggie for maybe 6-8 minutes or longer, just until they start to get a bit tender. While the beans steam, combine the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl. Drain the veggis and toss with the sauce and serve immediately. Can also be eaten cold. Nutrition Facts Serving Size 102.5g Amount Per Serving Calories62 Calories from Fat 34 % Daily Value*Total Fat 3.8g 6% Saturated Fat 0.6g 3% Trans Fat 0.0g Cholesterol 0mg 0% Sodium 36mg 1% Total Carbohydrates 6.9g 2% Dietary Fiber 3.1g 12% Sugars 1.4g Protein 1.8g Vitamin A 14% • Vitamin C 31% Calcium 4% • Iron 6% * Based on a 2000 calorie diet
    2 points
  2. Tiny Utah-based ISP makes a name for itself by rebuffing government snoopsMeet Xmission, the internet service provider embracing transparency as it shields customers from warrantless authorities Rory Carroll in Salt Lake City guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 July 2013 11.49 EDT The new NSA data centre is not far from Pete Ashdown's privacy-centric internet service provider. The irony is not lost on him. Photograph: Rick Bowmer/AP Silicon Valley's role in US government surveillance has triggered public anxiety about the internet, but it turns out there is at least one tech company you can trust with your data. The only problem: it's a relative minnow in the field, operating from offices in Utah. Xmission, Utah's first independent and oldest internet service provider, has spent the past 15 years resolutely shielding customers' privacy from government snoops in a way that larger rivals appear to have not. The company, a comparative midget with just 30,000 subscribers, cited the Fourth Amendment in rebuffing warrantless requests from local, state and federal authorities, showing it was possible to resist official pressure. "I would tell them I didn't need to respond if they didn't have a warrant, that (to do so) wouldn't be constitutional," the founder and chief executive, Pete Ashdown, said in an interview at his Salt Lake City headquarters. Since 1998 he rejected dozens of law enforcement requests, including Department of Justice subpoenas, on the grounds they violated the US constitution and state law. "I would tell them, please send us a warrant, and then they'd just drop it." Ashdown, 46, assented just once, on his lawyer's advice, to a 2010 FBI request backed by a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. "I believe under the fourth amendment digital data is protected. I'm not an unpaid branch of government or law enforcement." Ashdown was wary about Silicon Valley's carefully worded insistence that the government had no direct access to servers. Access to networks, not servers, was the key, he said. Pete Ashdown has rejected dozens of law enforcement requests, citing user privacy laws. The state attorney general alleged XMission was soft on crime but the company, with a staff of 45 and turnover of $7m, suffered no official retaliation, said Ashdown. "I didn't feel that I was in danger, or that my business suffered." In the wake of revelations over National Security Agency surveillance and ties to Silicon Valley he has published a report detailing official information requests, and the company's response, over the past three years. The Electronic Freedom Foundation called it a model for the industry. "XMission's transparency report is one of the most transparent we've seen," said Nate Cardozo, a lawyer for the San Francisco-based advocacy group. EFF has lobbied big service providers – in vain – to publish individual government requests and their responses to the requests. Google and other giants would need a different format for scale but could emulate the Utah minnow's spirit, said Cardozo. "The major service providers should demonstrate their commitment to their users and take XMission's transparency report as a model." EFF's most recent Who Has Your Back report – an annual ranking of privacy protection by big tech companies – gave Twitter the maximum of six stars and just one each to Apple and Yahoo. Utah is an unlikely home for an internet privacy champion. The state's conservative politicians cheered the Bush-era Patriot Act and welcomed the NSA's new 1m sq ft data centre at Bluffdale, outside Salt Lake City. Ashdown, who toured the facility with a group of local data centre operators, said he had not received NSA information requests but saw irony in it siting its data behemoth in his backyard. The agency's online snooping betrayed public trust, he said. "Post 9/11 paranoia has turned this into a surveillance state. It's not healthy." The only solution to internet snooping was encryption, he said, a point he repeated on a blog. Ashdown, 46, attributes part of his wariness of authority to his mother, who saw the Nazis overrun Denmark. He ran as the Democratic candidate for the US senate in 2006, promising to bring technology savvy to Washington, but lost to the Republican incumbent, Orrin Hatch. He ran again in 2012, but lost in the primary. An additional disappointment was the discovery that many if not most ordinary people – at least until the NSA scandal – cared little about privacy when selecting internet providers. "Unfortunately it's not what people think about. They put name recognition and cost ahead of privacy. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/09/xmission-isp-customers-privacy-nsa
    2 points
  3. Allowed? I thought it was expected!
    2 points
  4. At the Thai hospitals, are you allowed to call in a lady boy or three to perform and entertainment to keep the patients from becoming restless?
    2 points
  5. lookin

    Questions for tool guy :)

    If you can't change the corroded battery contacts, you may be able to sandpaper them down to shiny metal. The important thing is to make a good connection between the contacts and a new set of batteries. You can also look in your closet for the AC adapter that came with the keyboard. That's another way to get power to it. If you can't find it, Radio Shack sells universal AC adapters. Take the CASIO along with you and ask the salesperson to show you the right connector for your unit. Who knows? You may even find a husband!
    1 point
  6. Makeup will have been sure to secure his toupee with Super Glue before the wind scenes.
    1 point
  7. Suckrates

    Pacific Rim

    YES, this would be MY personal choice !
    1 point
  8. One of the most important things about Thai hospitals that I need to know, are you subjected to tasteless split pea soup, wilted lettuce salads, creamed chipped beef and jello, or are you fed some of my favorites like spring rolls with sweet Thai sausage, skewered at each end satays and porked lady boy? And of course, sticky rice. very sticky rice? Something sweet to end the enjoymeny like a milky Thai custard?
    1 point
  9. TampaYankee

    State vrs Zimmerman

    FWIW, I think a case is there for manslaughter. Zimmerman clearly was the armed aggressor. If anyone was standing his own ground it was Treyvon. I think there is enough circumstantial evidence to believe that beyond a reasonable doubt. The stalking by an armed Zimmerman even after 911 urged him to back off, the lack of blood or DNA on Trayvon supposedly after an intense body-to-body tussel, the limited injury to Zimmerman in contrast to his story of a life-threatening beating, the contradictions in Zimerman's story to police and on Hannity with those presented in court by his attorneys. That said, I expect a hung jury or acquital. There is just too much noise woven into the facts as presented. I doubt the jury has the analytical chops to separate the wheat from the chaff, which would take a lot of time. The prosecution did not have a slam dunk. Their main witness was shaky. IMO the defense did not present a cogent defense but did throw up a lot of dust and mud to obscure a circumstantial case with a weak main witness. As always, it depends on the jury analysis and emotions, and character too. One fact is unassailable IMO. The Sanford Police and Sherif, organizations, labs and individuals, deserve a lot of credit for the facts of this case being so clouded and screwed up. Heads should roll. I know some have but I suspect more should. Also, I think the bald-headed defense attorney ought to be sanctioned after the trial. IMO he attempted, not too discretely, to create chaos and grounds for an appeal by his numerous idiotic attempts to object to the court procedure as laid out by the judge, as it unfolded, to provoke either judicial error or prosecution error that would be grounds for appeal, if not grounds for mistrial. His courtroom behavior was unacceptable on several occasions, most especially in the last few days IMO.
    1 point
  10. Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages• Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism • Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch • Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls • Company says it is legally compelled to comply Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, Laura Poitras, Spencer Ackerman and Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 July 2013 13.53 EDT Skype worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video and audio conversations. Photograph: Patrick Sinkel/AP Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month. The documents show that: • Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal; • The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail; • The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide; • Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to "understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases; • Skype, which was bought by Microsoft in October 2011, worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video of conversations as well as audio; • Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport". The latest NSA revelations further expose the tensions between Silicon Valley and the Obama administration. All the major tech firms are lobbying the government to allow them to disclose more fully the extent and nature of their co-operation with the NSA to meet their customers' privacy concerns. Privately, tech executives are at pains to distance themselves from claims of collaboration and teamwork given by the NSA documents, and insist the process is driven by legal compulsion. In a statement, Microsoft said: "When we upgrade or update products we aren't absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands." The company reiterated its argument that it provides customer data "only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers". In June, the Guardian revealed that the NSA claimed to have "direct access" through the Prism program to the systems of many major internet companies, including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo. Blanket orders from the secret surveillance court allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time. Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas. Since Prism's existence became public, Microsoft and the other companies listed on the NSA documents as providers have denied all knowledge of the program and insisted that the intelligence agencies do not have back doors into their systems. Microsoft's latest marketing campaign, launched in April, emphasizes its commitment to privacy with the slogan: "Your privacy is our priority." Similarly, Skype's privacy policy states: "Skype is committed to respecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data, traffic data and communications content." But internal NSA newsletters, marked top secret, suggest the co-operation between the intelligence community and the companies is deep and ongoing. The latest documents come from the NSA's Special Source Operations (SSO) division, described by Snowden as the "crown jewel" of the agency. It is responsible for all programs aimed at US communications systems through corporate partnerships such as Prism. The files show that the NSA became concerned about the interception of encrypted chats on Microsoft's Outlook.com portal from the moment the company began testing the service in July last year. Within five months, the documents explain, Microsoft and the FBI had come up with a solution that allowed the NSA to circumvent encryption on Outlook.com chats A newsletter entry dated 26 December 2012 states: "MS [Microsoft], working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal" with the issue. "These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012." Two months later, in February this year, Microsoft officially launched the Outlook.com portal. Another newsletter entry stated that NSA already had pre-encryption access to Outlook email. "For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption." Microsoft's co-operation was not limited to Outlook.com. An entry dated 8 April 2013 describes how the company worked "for many months" with the FBI – which acts as the liaison between the intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley on Prism – to allow Prism access without separate authorization to its cloud storage service SkyDrive. The document describes how this access "means that analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO for this – a process step that many analysts may not have known about". The NSA explained that "this new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response". It continued: "This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established." A separate entry identified another area for collaboration. "The FBI Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) team is working with Microsoft to understand an additional feature in Outlook.com which allows users to create email aliases, which may affect our tasking processes." The NSA has devoted substantial efforts in the last two years to work with Microsoft to ensure increased access to Skype, which has an estimated 663 million global users. One document boasts that Prism monitoring of Skype video production has roughly tripled since a new capability was added on 14 July 2012. "The audio portions of these sessions have been processed correctly all along, but without the accompanying video. Now, analysts will have the complete 'picture'," it says. Eight months before being bought by Microsoft, Skype joined the Prism program in February 2011. According to the NSA documents, work had begun on smoothly integrating Skype into Prism in November 2010, but it was not until 4 February 2011 that the company was served with a directive to comply signed by the attorney general. The NSA was able to start tasking Skype communications the following day, and collection began on 6 February. "Feedback indicated that a collected Skype call was very clear and the metadata looked complete," the document stated, praising the co-operation between NSA teams and the FBI. "Collaborative teamwork was the key to the successful addition of another provider to the Prism system." ACLU technology expert Chris Soghoian said the revelations would surprise many Skype users. "In the past, Skype made affirmative promises to users about their inability to perform wiretaps," he said. "It's hard to square Microsoft's secret collaboration with the NSA with its high-profile efforts to compete on privacy with Google." The information the NSA collects from Prism is routinely shared with both the FBI and CIA. A 3 August 2012 newsletter describes how the NSA has recently expanded sharing with the other two agencies. The NSA, the entry reveals, has even automated the sharing of aspects of Prism, using software that "enables our partners to see which selectors [search terms] the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism". The document continues: "The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism collection of any selector…" As a result, the author notes: "these two activities underscore the point that Prism is a team sport!" In its statement to the Guardian, Microsoft said: We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues. First, we take our commitments to our customers and to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data only in response to legal processes. Second, our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we believe they aren't valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate. Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That's why we've argued for additional transparency that would help everyone understand and debate these important issues. In a joint statement, Shawn Turner, spokesman for the director of National Intelligence, and Judith Emmel, spokeswoman for the NSA, said: The articles describe court-ordered surveillance – and a US company's efforts to comply with these legally mandated requirements. The US operates its programs under a strict oversight regime, with careful monitoring by the courts, Congress and the Director of National Intelligence. Not all countries have equivalent oversight requirements to protect civil liberties and privacy. They added: "In practice, US companies put energy, focus and commitment into consistently protecting the privacy of their customers around the world, while meeting their obligations under the laws of the US and other countries in which they operate." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data
    1 point
  11. Big Brother is listening and watching. What I still don't understand with six hundred plus million subscribers with SKYPE, how can these computer programs really separate the wheat from the Hito?
    1 point
  12. This is one of the comments from youtube: This makes me immensely happy. As someone who lives and breathes country, but is also in the lgbt community, I often feel like I've got two different worlds I'm trying to straddle - this, for me, is so much more than a song. This is another step to me having one version of myself no matter where I'm at - no more fractured identity, just ME. Steve, you are WONDERFUL. Don't let the inevitable haters get you down. You're talented, and star material.
    1 point
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