Tech trade groups push for party platforms to oppose UN Web regulation

A coalition of tech trade associations is calling on Republicans and Democrats to include language in their policy platforms that would oppose efforts to give a United Nations agency more control over the Internet.

The eight trade groups — including the Information Technology Industry Council and Telecommunications Industry Association — warn that foreign governments plan to submit proposals to expand the U.N.’s International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) authority over the Internet at an upcoming conference in December. Those proposals are reportedly backed by China, India, Russia and other U.N. members.

The Republican and Democratic national committees should discourage that move by adopting language “embracing a free and open Internet” in their policy platforms at their upcoming conventions, the trade groups wrote in letters sent to the two parties.

“It is in the interest of all Americans, and people across the globe, to prevent those who wish to stifle the spread of democratic values or economic progress from interfering with the opportunities the Internet provides,” the letters state.

The tech groups are not alone: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), advocacy group Demand Progress and others have asked Republicans and Democrats to include some sort of language in their party platforms that promotes preserving Internet freedom, but they did not specifically mention the ITU proposals. Republicans and Democrats are currently considering staking out positions on Internet freedom in their platforms.

The House passed a resolution this month by Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) that urged the Obama administration to oppose efforts to give the ITU more authority over the Internet. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced a similar resolution in the Senate, but it hasn’t seen action yet.

via Tech trade groups push for party platforms to oppose UN Web regulation – The Hill’s Hillicon Valley.

Louisiana Sinkhole Engulfs Boat … is 1.5 Million barrels of stored liquid butane at risk of exploding?

A 400-foot deep sinkhole in Louisiana is expanding and today swallowed the boat of two cleanup workers who had to be rescued from the hole. Officials are still fearful of the possibility of explosions from nearby gas-filled caverns.

“It has expanded 50 feet and during that expansion there were workers that were working on the cleanup of the diesel,” Kim Torres, spokeswoman for the Office of Emergency Preparedness, told ABCNews.com today.

The two workers were in a boat tied to a tree when the area where the tree grew fell into the sinkhole.

The workers were rescued by airboat. They were uninjured but their boat disappeared into the sinkhole. The cleanup process has been halted.

The gaping hole measures about 526 feet from northeast to southwest and 640 feet from northwest to southeast. It is in Assumption Parish, La., about 50 miles south of Baton Rouge.

The sinkhole sits in the middle of a heavily wooded space where it has consumed all of the soaring cypress trees that had been there. Flyover photos show some of the treetops still visible through the mud.

Authorities enacted a mandatory evacuation for residents of about 150 homes in the area. Last week, Torres said that most residents chose to stay in their homes. But as of today, 60 percent of those homes have been evacuated even though the mandatory evacuation order was not escalated to a forced evacuation, when authorities remove residents.

“I think everyone realized it was serious even though they felt it was contained [before],” Torres said. “When you put human lives in…it just becomes more serious and maybe people are heeding the warning a little bit more.” ….

via Louisiana Sinkhole Engulfs Boat, Workers Rescued – ABC News.

Ecuador gives Assange asylum, but for Australia ‘nothing has changed’

For a few hours before Ecuador’s announcement that it would grant the WikiLeaks founder political asylum, and for 12 hours after the announcement, #Assange trended on Twitter across Julian Assange’s homeland, Australia.

It was as though the void left by the London Olympics was filled by the oddly mesmerizing spectacle of a widely anticipated decision, well ahead of the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministers’ blistering critique of Great Britain, the United States and Sweden and the parlous situation in which the white-haired Assange finds himself.

As Assange’s supporters rallied in London outside the Ecuadorian Embassy where he has been holed up for 58 days, in Australia the political elite seemed to be scurrying to the safety of black letter law.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has made no comment in the wake of Ecuador’s decision and it’s unlikely she will, formally. In the political typhoon of the 24-hour news cycle she will no doubt be asked for her reaction to Ecuador’s clear belief that it is offering Assange support denied him by his own government.

Her response is expected to echo the PR-filtered offering of her usually loquacious — but suddenly media shy — Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr. His spokesperson told CNN that having watched events unfold through the night, the Assange drama has “elements of fascination, in particular the strong statements on the United States.”

Australia appears to be narrowly interpreting the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister’s statement that “… Mr Assange is without the due protection and help that he should receive from any state of which he is a citizen,” as an assertion that consular assistance has been denied.

“He has received 62 instances of consular contact in the last 18 months — more than any other Australian in comparable circumstances,” the spokesman said. “We don’t expect him to be thanking us, but to suggest he didn’t receive it is wrong. …

via Ecuador gives Assange asylum, but for Australia ‘nothing has changed’ – CNN.com.

If criminals ran the world, they would make it a crime to expose their crimes.

Drought in US so bad that gulf ocean salt water is running 90 miles up mississippi river, contaminating drinking water

The Mississippi River was closed temporarily to shipping traffic in New Orleans on Wednesday as contractors began building an underwater barrier that the Army Corps of Engineers says will stop the advance of salt water threatening drinking water in the New Orleans area. Due to low water levels in the Mississippi River, salt water has been moving far upriver and was at the outskirts of New Orleans by Wednesday, nearly 90 miles north of the mouth of the Mississippi.

Also Wednesday, Plaquemines Parish issued an advisory to residents living in the parish that high levels of sodium and chloride were being measured in drinking water.

River traffic had to be closed for about 3 miles while the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. installed a pipeline needed in building the massive underwater sill. The river was expected to be reopened Wednesday evening.

The company will dredge sediment to build up the barrier at a point near Myrtle Grove in Plaquemines. The company was given an $8.1 million contract to do the work. The barrier is expected to be done in 45 days.

Ricky Boyett, a corps spokesman, said the sill will begin pushing the salt water back into the Gulf in about two weeks. The salt water is expected to be stopped by the sill and then pushed out by the flow of the river. The corps says underwater sills have stopped salt water intrusion in the past. Sills were constructed in 1988 and 1999.

Typically the rush of freshwater down the Mississippi River keeps salt water contained to the southernmost portions of the river. But in times of drought the Gulf’s salt water can move farther inland. The river’s stage has been a couple feet below the mean average at New Orleans.

During the construction of the barrier, river traffic will be reduced to one lane as it passes the construction zone, Boyett said.

via Mississippi River closed to shipping traffic as work on sill begins | NOLA.com.

Jet Skier Breaks JFK Airport’s $100M Security System

Jet Skier Breaks JFK Airport’s $100M Security System – YouTube.

Raid In Russia Brings Underground Sect To Light

The recent headlines in the Russian press were sensational: Members of a reclusive Islamic sect were said to be living in an isolated compound with underground burrows, some as deep as eight stories underground, without electricity or heat.

Reporters have descended on the compound, on the outskirts of the city of Kazan, but have had only limited access and have not been able to confirm all the allegations by Russian officials.

Meanwhile, authorities are now trying to decide what to do with the estimated 70 members of the sect, who call themselves muammin, Arabic for “believers.”

Child-welfare authorities took custody of about 20 children, saying they had been denied medical attention and schooling, and that some had never seen daylight.

The members of the sect are followers of an 83-year-old Islamic cleric named Faizrakhman Satarov, who says he had a revelation from God that true Muslims must separate themselves from society.

Satarov declared his compound in Kazan — the capital of Tatarstan, a majority Muslim region about 500 miles east of Moscow — an independent Islamic state.

For nearly two decades, his followers quietly built houses and dug additional living quarters underneath them.

Satarov’s neighbors say they were aware that the group had unusual beliefs, but didn’t view them as a problem.

Ilya Vladimirov works at a small car-repair service next door to the compound. He says the sect members seemed like normal people, though the neighbors couldn’t see what went on inside their walls.

Vladimirov says he was one of several neighbors who were asked by police to go inside the compound to act as witnesses to the police search.

He says he personally saw two levels of underground dwellings, but that police told him that one house had basements four levels deep. He also says the children lived in unsanitary conditions, in rooms that were little more than cells.

From outside the high-walled compound, there’s little to be seen but a brick house with a wooden minaret …

via Raid In Russia Brings Underground Sect To Light : NPR.

A life underground can’t be much fun. A kid needs the grass and the clouds and the sun.

Teacher Accused of Having Group Sex With Students on Video

A former Texas high school English teacher and mother of three is on trial, accused of having sex with five male students.

The evidence against Brittni Colleps, 28, includes cell phone video that allegedly shows group sex between her and four students at her home. Prosecutors say it happened while her children and husband, who is an Army specialist stationed out-of-state, were away. The graphic video was shown to the jury this week.

“She [Colleps] said that she craved, that I had something that she wanted,” one of the students involved testified.

Police say the alleged incident took place at her Arlington, Texas home in April and May of 2011, according to ABC News affiliate WFAA. Since all of the students were 18 at the time of the alleged incident, Colleps is not facing statutory rape charges. Instead, she has been hit with five counts of having an improper relationship with a student.

One student told WFAA that one of the teenage boys was bragging about the alleged incident and another student put the claim in her diary. A teacher at the school found the diary in a classroom and that’s when the school notified police. …  ..

Colleps’ husband, Christopher, is sticking by his wife despite the accusations.

“If you know Brittni, you know she’s an empathetic loving, loyal person. Brittni is a loving mother and continuously puts the needs of our children above her own,” Christopher Colleps said before the trial began.

Brittni Colleps was suspended by the school district and her contract was not renewed this year, so she is out of work during the trial.

“She’s terrified … she has no idea whether she is going to prison next week or whether she will be home,” her attorney said.

If Colleps is convicted, she could spend 20 years in prison. …

via Teacher Accused of Having Group Sex With Students on Video – ABC News.

She had consensual sex with five 18-year-old adult “boys” and she’s 28. That’s extreme and a good way to get an STD, but it’s not a crime. It’s not even a crime if she was 80 and they were 18. (See Harold and Maude.) They were all adults under the law. She obviously needs “the rabbit” and a career change, but prison for 20 years, even for 20 minutes is absurd. If it was five 18-year-olds who were not her students, there would be no crime and not trial at all.

But wait, this is Texas. Is “the rabbit” even legal in Texas? You may recall that for over 35 years it was against the law in Texas to sell sex toys reminiscent of male genitals. CBS News Sept 15, 2010 had this story:

… A federal appeals court has overturned a statute outlawing sex toy sales in Texas, one of the last states – all in the South – to retain such a ban.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by as many as two years in jail, violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

Companies that own Dreamer’s and Le Rouge Boutique, which sell the devices in its Austin stores, and the retail distributor Adam & Eve sued in federal court in Austin in 2004 over the constitutionality of the law. They appealed after a federal judge dismissed the suit and said the Constitution did not protect their right to publicly promote such devices.

In its decision Tuesday, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between same-sex couples.

“Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct,” the appeals judges wrote. “The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. …

Everyone with strong moral opposition to consensual private intimate conduct which is none of their business should consent to 24 hour monitoring and wearing of a shock collar. The constantly watching Internet audience could then remotely electrocute them for any moral transgressions. I think they’d love it.  It’s the golden rule:  They want to physically punish people who violate their moral  views, so they should be placed in the same hellish world that they are craving and advocating.  Round up those high and mighty conservative Texans and let’s get the show started!

What’s In Your Wallet? Wait, You Don’t Need One

… Google, Starbucks and Wal-Mart are among the many firms that are eager to replace consumers’ wallets and stores’ cash registers, with smartphones and other mobile devices.

Recently, Intuit — the company that owns the personal finance site Mint and makes TurboTax and Quicken — has been selling a small attachment for smartphones called “Go Payment.” The device lets almost anyone, anywhere accept a credit card.

Girl Scouts On The Cutting Edge

Omar Green, Intuit’s director of strategic mobile initiatives, says he saw the future when he stumbled on a savvy Girl Scouts troop.

“It became very obvious to me that there was a grand sea change in payments when the Girl Scouts started using Go Payment,” Green says. “It was like, boom! It was crazy how much money these little girls were bringing in with Girl Scout cookies.

“So it hits me, we have got little 8-year-old girls who are not just consumers, but are merchants with Girl Scout cookies,” he says. “So the next year, we went after the Girl Scouts in a major way.”

For businesses, getting set up to accept credit cards was a big hassle five years ago. You needed to get a special machine to process electronic payments. Then you were charged a tangle of fees by banks and card processors.

“It’s time to rethink these models,” says Jack Dorsey, best known as the co-founder of Twitter. Dorsey’s other company, Square, has blazed new ground in mobile payments. It developed one of the first little plug-in fobs that could transform smartphones into tiny little cash registers. It’s also created an app that lets consumers pay for products just by walking up to the counter at a participating store and saying their name aloud. …

via What’s In Your Wallet? Wait, You Don’t Need One : All Tech Considered : NPR.

Then again, this could result in some massive security breach headlines:

A new mobile phone payment system announced by 15 major retailers may change the way Americans pay for purchases, but security concerns could make the exchange a hard sell.

The retailers, which include Walmart, Best Buy, 7-11, CVS, Publix and 11 others, announced Tuesday that their Merchant Customer Exchange will allow customers to pay and receive deals at their stores, with more participating companies to be announced in the coming months.

The exchange hasn’t released all the details of its new system, but a spokesman for the group said it will make “shopping less expensive.”

The retailers account for $1 trillion sales, according to the exchange.

Other mobile payments systems allow users to input their credit card data into an app on their smart phones. Many merchants have scanners at checkouts which allow users to wave their smart phone with its identifying bar code or identification number to make purchases.

Previous breaches at the point of sale for TJ Maxx beginning in 2005 show how large and costly any problems with payment systems can be. TJ Maxx offered its affected 45.6 million customers who had their credit and debit information stolen credit monitoring and paid up to $24 million in a settlement with MasterCard. Michael’s, which is a member of the new exchange, had its own security breach in 2011.

One concern is that consumers will expose their credit card data or personal information to crooks.

“Security is only as strong as the weakest link,” said credit and cyber-security expert Adam Levin of Credit.com. “Humans are the weakest link. You may be able to take advantage of great deal but that requires storing information in your cell phone.”

“If a cell phone is lost, or you have weak passwords, the danger is you are giving someone access to your information which they can use for themselves,” Levin said. …

via ABCNews

1 boy dead, another missing in Yosemite river

A 10-year-old boy died and his 6-year-old brother was missing after they were swept away along a popular but treacherous boulder-strewn stretch of the Merced River, Yosemite National Park officials said Thursday.

The two victims were part of a family visiting from Southern California that was hiking near the Vernal Fall Footbridge. Group members were cooling off in the river Wednesday when a current carried the boys away.

The older boy was pronounced dead around 3 p.m. Wednesday. Park visitors were able to pull him from the river about 150 yards downstream, but efforts to resuscitate him failed.

Authorities were still searching for the younger boy, who is presumed dead. Their mother was hospitalized after being pulled from the river with a back injury, park spokeswoman Kari Cobb said.

“She went into the river but made it out,” Cobb said.

The names of the boys were not immediately released.

The bridge is a vantage point on the Mist Trail where Vernal Fall first comes into view. The location was the site of tragedy last summer when three Central California friends cooling off in a pool above the fall were swept to their deaths.

Two of their bodies were discovered months later lodged under boulders near the site where the 10-year-old was found.

The Merced River runs through the heart of Yosemite Valley, and the Mist Trail to the fall is one of the most popular and sometimes perilous hikes in the park. The river falls 317 feet straight down to a narrow gorge filled with boulders the size of cars then descends another 400 feet by the time it reaches the bridge. Even when the rest of the river is moving slowly, the drop in elevation and narrow channel cause the water to move swiftly.

The boys were part of a group of about 15 extended family members who made the short hike to the bridge, park spokesman Scott Gediman said. While signs at the trailhead warn that the river can be dangerous, people often are drawn to the water’s edge.

“We’ve got a low water year this year, and around the banks it’s only 8 to 10 inches deep, but once you get out further, we have a swift current and it gets deeper,” Gediman said. “They both got swept away by the current.” …

via The Associated Press: 1 boy dead, another missing in Yosemite river.

 

Sharks tracked by surfing robot and free app

A surfing robot is being used to track great white sharks off the coast of California, US, by marine scientists.

The mobile transmitter is the latest addition to an extensive programme of electronic tagging.

Researchers aim to fine-tune 12 years of results with the self-propelled craft and raise public awareness of the area’s diverse wildlife.

Shark fans are able to follow the animals’ movements via a free app for smartphones and tablet computers.

The project is led by shark expert Professor Barbara Block from Stanford University, who describes the area off the coast of San Francisco as the “blue Serengeti”, comparing its underwater highways to the migratory routes in Africa.

Her latest project follows on from a 10-year programme dedicated to tracking predators in the Pacific Ocean using electronic tags on creatures ranging from seabirds to turtles.

The study revealed that the waters were a hotspot for a variety of species which frequent the area depending on the season and water temperature, many migrating between Mexico and Canada.

According to Prof Block, the great white sharks in particular demonstrated an “incredible homing ability”. But to further investigate their behaviour, she required a “mobile observatory”.

“Across the planet the goal of oceanographers and biologists alike is to observe the ocean in as much detail as possible,” she said, explaining that unobtrusive equipment is the key to accurate data.

After first hearing about the “environmentally friendly” unmanned technology developed by the Silicon Valley based company Liquid Robotics, Prof Block said she became “infatuated”.

The bright yellow shark-tracking robot designed by the company consists of two parts – a glider that descends 23ft (7m) down into the ocean with a surfboard above.

The glider has a special wing system that converts wave energy into forward thrust to keep the robot moving through the water. It also has a receiver that picks up the audio signals from the sharks’ electronic tags.

The surfboard carries the rest of the scientific instruments, including the satellite link that allows researchers to accurately pinpoint the animals’ locations.

When a shark or other tagged animal encounters the robot, their position is recorded and relayed back to the research team.

They have also placed a number of fixed buoys mounted with underwater audio receivers known as hydrophones to form a listening network in known hotspots. …

The resulting app, Shark Net, allows users to follow the sharks’ movements in real time as well as viewing videos, photos and interactive 3D models of the animals and learning about their life history. …

via BBC Nature – Sharks tracked by surfing robot and free app.

I just downloaded the free iPhone app called “Shark Net”and located some sharks off the coast of San Francisco. But more important, there are some serious land sharks that we need to be $1.6 billion more concerned about.