February 2013
73 posts
“Beware slow moving newsrooms: On this metric, you’ll be competing against more agile, maybe less scrupulous staffs that “publish first, verify later”. This requires a smart arbitrage by the news producers. Once the first headline has been pushed, they’ll have to decide what’s best: immediately filing a follow-up or waiting a bit and moving a longer, more value-added story that will rank better in metrics two and three? It depends on elements such as the size of the “cluster” (the number of stories pertaining to a given event).”
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Google News: the secret sauce | Technology | guardian.co.uk
“smart arbitrage by news producers” among other gems
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The EU Council of Ministers is due to vote on plans to restrict discarded fish, caught by accident, in a bid to protect stocks across Europe’s fishing grounds.
Spy-in-the-wheelhouse CCTV cameras trialled in the UK are said to have cut cod discards from 38% to just 0.2%.
Fishermen on the trial are obliged to land all the cod they catch, whatever the size.
They have been rewarded with increased quotas and permitted extra days at sea.
” —BBC News - CCTV trial keeps an eye on fishermen [VIDEO], via Dan W.
“In the good old days, the traders were human beings. Now they are
computers programmed to trade in a millisecond not only on news but also on how the other computers are going to react to the news. The result is market movements that contain absolutely no information, except that computers have been programmed. In this situation, any normal human being just gets out of the game and waits a week or so to let the computers destroy each other.” —http://www.battleofthequants.com/Research/GKDailyReport120809.pdf
computers programmed to trade in a millisecond not only on news but also on how the other computers are going to react to the news. The result is market movements that contain absolutely no information, except that computers have been programmed. In this situation, any normal human being just gets out of the game and waits a week or so to let the computers destroy each other.” —http://www.battleofthequants.com/Research/GKDailyReport120809.pdf
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Security researchers at Columbia University have accused HP of selling printers with a flaw that could let hackers gain remote control over the devices. Once compromised, the access can be used to steal personal information, attack networks, and even set printers on fire by feeding them a continuous stream of instructions designed to heat them up.
The researchers, funded by government and industry grants, reported the flaw to federal officials and HP this month, and gave a demonstration to MSNBC, which has an extensive article on the subject today. HP told MSNBC that it is reviewing the details, but denied that the problem is as extensive as claimed by Columbia PhD student Ang Cui and Professor Salvatore Stolfo.
HP printers can be remotely controlled and set on fire, researchers claim (updated) | Ars Technica
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While not every journalist is an international war correspondent, every journalist’s cellphone is untrustworthy. Mobile phones, and in particular Internet-enabled smartphones, are used by reporters around the world to gather and transmit news. But mobile phones also make journalists easier to locate and intimidate, and confidential sources easier to uncover. Cellular systems can pinpoint individual users within a few meters, and cellphone providers record months, even years, of individual movements and calls. Western cellphone companies like TeliaSonera and France Telecom have been accused by investigative journalists in their home countries of complicity in tracking reporters, while mobile spying tools built for law enforcement in Western countries have, according to computer security researchers working with human rights activists, been exported for use against journalists working under repressive regimes in Ethiopia, Bahrain, and elsewhere.
“Reporters need to understand that mobile communications are inherently insecure and expose you to risks that are not easy to detect or overcome,” says Katrin Verclas of the National Democratic Institute. Activists such as Verclas have been working on sites like SaferMobile, which give basic advice for journalists to protect themselves. CPJ recently published a security guide that addresses the use of satellite phones and digital mobile technologies. But repressive governments don’t need to keep up with all the tricks of mobile computing; they can merely set aside budget and strip away privacy laws to get all the power they need. Unless regulators, technology companies, and media personnel step up their own defenses of press freedom, the cellphone will become journalists’ most treacherous tool.
” —Attacks on the Press: A Moving Target - Committee to Protect Journalists
“You can hijack an offshore business in four easy steps, and then start to save money on your tax bills, hide income and debts, and advance your business by acting like a real offshore company.”
—Loophole for All - Became a pirate, hijack an offshore company!
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