Organized Crime Has a New Tool in Its Belts - Artificial Intelligence
As new technologies offer a world of opportunities and benefits in many sectors, so too do they offer new avenues and for organized crime. It was true at the advent of the internet, and it’s true for the growing field of artificial intelligence and machine learning, according to a new joint report by Europol & the United Nations Interregional Crime & Justice Research Center.
Come on, Mike! I'm losing control! - Art by Chinese "keyboard warrior" "乌合麒麟 Wuheqilin"
Some more of the artists controversial pieces:
After the Australian officials "demanded China to apologise for posting 'repugnant' fake image" and the entire western media completely ignored the very real report on atrocious Australian military war crimes in Afghanistan, the Chinese social media reacted with the following image:
Second Swiss firm allegedly sold encrypted spying devices
According to SRF sources, the Swiss company Omnisec AG had ties to US intelligence services. This follows revelations in February by SRF, German television ZDF and The Washington Post that Zug-based firm Crypto AG was at the heart of a huge international spying operation led by the CIA, and to a lesser extent by the German BND spy agency. Omnisec was one of the largest competitors of Crypto AG.
Russia plans government biometrics database for fingerprints, DNA, facial recognition
Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs is planning to stand up a database of fingerprint, DNA and face biometric data collected from Russians and foreigners within the next three years, state news agency TASS writes. Software will be developed for the new Federal Information System of Biometric Accounting by the end of 2023, according to a statement from the Ministry. The database would include foreign citizens and stateless individuals in addition to Russians.
Previously: Russia To Grant Police Access to Bank Customers’ Biometric Data (2017)
Russia’s police and intelligence services will gain access to bank customers’ biometric data without their consent under new legislation making its way through the State Duma.
First, it was a "technical issue" in Europe which back on July 1 caused European stock markets to suffer a 3 hour outage. Then, in August, New Zealand’s stock market was forced to halt trading over four days in August after distributed-denial-of-service attacks overwhelmed its website. Then on October 1, another "technical issue" hit the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which resulted in an unprecedented all-day trading halt. And just a few weeks later, in late October, trading in all stocks and derivatives on Euronext NV markets was shut down for three hours affecting activity in countries including France and Belgium. The problem was traced to due to a software issue. Now, about a month later, the "glitching" rolling market blackout struck again, this time in Australia whose stock exchange opened for less than half an hour before a software issue forced it to close for the rest of Monday’s session, just as the country rolled out an "updated" trading system.
A Chinese defense contractor recently test-launched a swarm of loitering munitions from a light tactical vehicle, and there's a video of the system in action. Loitering munitions, more commonly known as suicide drones, fill a capability gap between cruise missiles and traditional fixed-wing combat drones by lingering over the battlefield. China is not alone in exploring swarm drone capabilities, but it has made significant strides in recent years.
Dragon flies, eagle crashes at geoeconomic summits - by Pepe Escobar
XI made his case for multilateralism, international cooperation and Global South representation while Trump was absent or golfing
Macron Accuses Russia, Turkey of Promoting Anti-French Sentiment in Africa
President Emmanuel Macron accused Russia and Turkey of seeking to promote anti-French sentiment in Africa by funding people who whip up resentment against France in the media, in an interview published Friday. "We must not be naive on this subject: many of those who speak, who make videos, who are present in the French-speaking media are funded by Russia or Turkey," he told Jeune Afrique magazine, accusing Moscow and Ankara of trying "to play on post-colonial resentment." 🤪🤪🤪
An heiress, a judge and a job: France's Sarkozy goes on trial for corruption
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy goes on trial on Monday accused of trying to bribe a judge and of influence-peddling, one of several criminal investigations that threaten to cast an ignominious pall over his decades-long political career.
Mexico says it wants its ex-officials tried in Mexico
Mexico’s foreign secretary said Thursday the country no longer wants officials accused of corruption to be put on trial in the United States, a move that could scale back a tradition that saw most of Mexico’s corruption cases tried north of the border.
Mexico Threatened All U.S. Cooperation Over General’s Arrest
Mexico threatened to cut cooperation with the U.S. after the surprise arrest of its former defense minister in Los Angeles, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Thursday. The U.S. violated a 1992 pact that all investigations on Mexican soil must be shared with the Latin American nation, Ebrard said at a press conference alongside President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. “There are two paths. Either this violation of the accord that exists between us is repaired, or we put all cooperation off the table,” Ebrard said. “We just want mutual respect,” Lopez Obrador added.
Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up (scientificamerican)
Thawing permafrost is releasing microorganisms, with consequences that are still largely unknown.
Want: A VLF Radio Receiver (less than 1kHz range) such as Explorer E-202 or WR-3 - A simple but effective portable device for natural radio signal reception.
Did China use microwave weapons on Indian soldiers?
The electromagnetic weapon, which cooks the human tissue of enemy troops, 'turned the mountain tops into a microwave oven' ... While the US has also developed microwave-style weapons, China’s alleged use of them may be the first against enemy troops anywhere in the world. Also envisioned for use in crowd control, the sensation was once described in a medical journal as equivalent to touching a hot lightbulb.
'Extremely Aggressive' Internet Censorship Spreads In the World's Democracies (umich.edu)
#Comment: The Banana-republic-yfication and breakdown of nation-states continues to move forward at breathtaking speed. The increasingly extreme use of surveillance, repression and violence by governments and corporations is a clear sign of the growing desperation of the ruling elites, which completely lost the plot and are highly vulnerable. Fun times.
How did France get all that gold?
"France has the fourth largest gold reserves of 2,436 tons, without a single gold mine in France. Mali (occupied by France) does not have any gold reserves in its banks, although it has 860 gold mines and produces 50 tons per year. How did France get all that gold?"
The cryptocrats want everyone to know, that its "Time to heal" and then "Build Back Better" (and shut up, take their gene modification vaccination, adopt their post-national digital ID/Money - and accept the restructuring of the global economy that remove any sense of ownership & agency for most). The collapsing western "Great Reset" empire is a shit show.
William F. Friedman (1891 - 1969)
#Comment: To put "knowledge is power" on your gravestone is surely an effective and comedic way to illustrate the severe limits of both...
Subscriber City: What happens when you need an app to access anything (reallifemag)
"Apps merge the need to isolate with a celebration of convenience, as though having our access to the world mediated by tech companies were the silver lining" ... "Once consumers were trapped in the garden, lured in by ease of use and escape from the chaos of the open web, platforms could treat users however they wanted to" ... "In the emerging subscriber city, segregation will be obscured by a screen-thin veil of convenience and optimization"
Silence is Bliss
#Comment: Just about now, the majority of people around the world most be longing for a long break from the USA - that 4.23% of the global population which has been disproportional dominating all channels for decades with their entertaining but often very noisy and violent show. Life on planet earth with out Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Madison Avenue, Wallstreet, K-Street and the military industrial swamp on the main-stage will inevitably be much more quiet - but hey, silence is bliss. از سکوت لذت ببر! - 享受安静! - наслаждайся тишиной! - चुप्पी का मज़ा लो! - 静寂を楽しんでください！Genieße die Stille!
OM was originally instigated by Ho Chi Zen, of the Erisian Liberation Front, who is the same person but not the same individual as Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, author of The Honest Book of Truth. The guiding philosophy is that originally proposed in The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by von Neumann and Morgenstern: namely, that the only strategy which an opponent cannot predict is a random strategy. The foundation had already been laid by the late Malaclypse the Younger, K.S.C., when he proclaimed, "We Discordians must all stick apart." This radical decentralization of all Discordian enterprises created a built-in random factor even before Operation Mindfuck was proposed. To this day, neither Ho Chi Zen himself nor any other Discordian apostle knows for sure who is or is not involved in any phase of Operation Mindfuck or what activities they are or are not involved in as part of that project. Thus, the outsider is immediately trapped in a double-bind: the only safe assumption is that anything a Discordian does is somehow related to OM, but, since this leads directly to paranoia, this is not a "safe" assumption after all, and the "risky" hypothesis that whatever the Discordians are doing is harmless may be "safer" in the long run, perhaps. Every aspect of OM follows, or accentuates, this double-bind.
Donald Trump’s Operation Mindfuck
