February 19, 2013
Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors, or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing emails may contain links to websites that are infected with malware.
Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail spoofing (altering the sender address) or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering (manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information), and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.
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February 19, 2013
PLA Unit 61398, referred to by the US as the ‘Comment Crew’ (owing to the collective’s past pattern of embedding HTML commands in the comments section of popular websites) is an alleged cyber-warfare unit of the Chinese military. As a hacker group the entity has been known to US intelligence agencies since 2002; they gave it the codename ‘Byzantine Candor.’
The unit is reported to operate out of a 12-story building in Shanghai and the surrounding neighborhood. The story was first broken by the ‘New York Times,’ based on information from a report by the computer security firm Mandiant, who were retained by the New York Times after a compromise of their own computer systems. Mandiant’s report states that PLA Unit 61398 is believed to be under the 2nd Bureau of the People’s Liberation Army General Staff’s Department (GSD) 3rd Department and that there is evidence that it contains an entity Mandiant calls APT1, part of the Advanced Persistent Threat attacking American corporations and government entities.
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February 19, 2013
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is one of the world’s biggest hackers organizations. The CCC is based in Germany and other German-speaking countries. The CCC describes itself as ‘a galactic community of life forms, independent of age, sex, race or societal orientation, which strives across borders for freedom of information….’ In general, the CCC advocates more transparency in government, freedom of information, and the human right to communication.
Supporting the principles of the hacker ethic, the club also fights for free universal access to computers and technological infrastructure. The CCC was founded in Berlin in 1981 at a table which had previously belonged to the Kommune 1 (the first politically motivated commune in Germany) in the rooms of the newspaper ‘Die Tageszeitung’ by Wau Holland and others in anticipation of the prominent role that information technology would play in the way people live and communicate.
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February 19, 2013
2600: The Hacker Quarterly is an American publication that specializes in publishing technical information on a variety of subjects including telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer ‘underground’ and left wing, and sometimes (but not recently), anarchist issues.
The magazine’s name comes from the phreaker discovery in the 1960s that the transmission of a 2600 hertz tone (which could be produced perfectly with a plastic toy whistle given away free with Cap’n Crunch cereal—discovered by friends of John Draper) over a long-distance trunk connection gained access to ‘operator mode’ and allowed the user to explore aspects of the telephone system that were not otherwise accessible.
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February 18, 2013
The Great Recession is a marked global economic decline that began in December 2007 and took a particularly sharp downward turn in September 2008. The active phase of the crisis, which manifested as a liquidity crisis, can be dated from August 7, 2007 when BNP Paribas (one of the world’s largest global banking groups) terminated withdrawals from three hedge funds citing ‘a complete evaporation of liquidity.’
The bursting of the U.S. housing bubble, which peaked in 2006, caused the values of securities tied to U.S. real estate pricing to plummet, damaging financial institutions globally. The global recession affected the entire world economy, with higher detriment in some countries than others. As of December 2012, the economic side effects of the European sovereign debt crisis and limited prospects for global growth in 2013 and 2014 continue to provide obstacles to full recovery.
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February 18, 2013
‘Harlem Shake‘ is a song recorded by American DJ and producer Baauer. It was released as a free digital download by Mad Decent imprint label Jeffree’s in 2012. The song incorporates samples of growling-lion sounds and Plastic Little’s 2001 song ‘Miller Time,’ specifically its line ‘then do the Harlem shake.’
In 2013, a user-submitted video set to ‘Harlem Shake’ became a viral hit on YouTube. The song features an undulating synth, harsh snares, and a mechanical bassline. It is categorized by Resident Advisor’s Andrew Ryce as a hip hop and bass song, while David Wagner of ‘The Atlantic’ describes its music as trap, a sub-genre with stylistic origins in EDM and Southern hip hop.
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February 18, 2013
The Pink Pistols are a gay gun rights organization in the United States and Canada. Their mottos are ‘Pick on someone your own caliber’ and ‘Armed gays don’t get bashed.’
Inspired by a Salon.com article written by Jonathan Rauch, Krikket (aka Doug Krick), a libertarian activist from Illinois while living in Massachusetts, founded the Pink Pistols in 2000. The organization now has 60 chapters in 33 states and three countries that are principally made up of gun-owning LGBT individuals, though neither status is mandatory for membership.
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February 18, 2013
‘Private Guns, Public Health‘ is a 2004 non-fiction book by David Hemenway, an economist who has served as Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health as well as the Director of Harvard’s Injury Control Research Center. He argues that the widespread ownership of firearms in private hands in the U.S. promotes the spread of the ‘disease’ of gun violence, and he takes a collective interpretation of the Second Amendment while stating that increased regulations are absolutely necessary in the purposes of public safety. Hemenway makes the central case that ‘more guns in a community lead to more homicide.’
Hemenway interprets the issues of gun violence and gun politics in the U.S. through a public health lens, which he believes ’emphasizes prevention rather than fault-finding, blame, or revenge.’ He writes that he is not ‘anti-gun’ or ‘anti-gun owner’ any more than people who advocate for consumer safety measures in cars are ‘anti-cars.’ He sums the goal of the book up as ‘injury prevention.’
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February 18, 2013
‘More Guns, Less Crime‘ is a book by economist John Lott that says violent crime rates go down when states permit the concealed carry of guns. He presents the results of his statistical analysis of crime data for every county in the United States during 29 years from 1977 to 2005. The book examines city, county and state level data from the entire United States and measures the impact of 11 different types of gun control laws on crime rates. The book expands on an earlier study published in 1997 by Lott and his co-author David Mustard in ‘The Journal of Legal Studies.’
Lott also examines the effects of gun control laws, including the Brady Law. His conclusion is that ‘shall issue’ laws, which allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, steadily decrease violent crime. He explains that this result makes sense because criminals are deterred by the risk of attacking an armed victim. As more citizens arm themselves, the danger to criminals increases. Lott also examines the effects of training requirements on crime rate and accident rate. He finds that training requirements have very little effect on both crime rates and accident rates.
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February 18, 2013
Concealed carry, or CCW (carrying a concealed weapon), refers to the practice of carrying a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed manner, either on one’s person or in proximity. Concealed carry is legal in most areas of the United States. A handful of states and jurisdictions restrict or ban CCW, but all states except Illinois make provision for legal concealed carry via a permit or license, or via constitutional carry (CCW authorized by a State constitution).
Most states have ‘shall-issue’ statutes; that is, if a person meets the requirements to obtain a permit, the state must issue one. Some states, including California, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts have ‘may-issue’ statutes; these states may (or may not) issue permits to carry if a person meets the requirements to obtain one. States with may-issue statutes typically do not issue permits unless the applicant provides a documented need for a concealed weapon, such as for retired police officers, judges, and federal agents.
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February 18, 2013
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens among others. Gun control laws and policy vary greatly around the world. Some countries, such as the United Kingdom and Austrailia, have very strict limits on gun possession while others, such as the United States, have relatively modest limits. In some countries, the topic remains a source of intense debate with proponents generally arguing the dangers of widespread gun ownership, and opponents generally arguing individual rights of self-protection as well as individual liberties in general.
High rates of gun mortality and injury are often cited as a primary impetus for gun control policies. There is general agreement that gun violence is a serious public health and economic concern. Yet, society remains deeply divided over whether more restrictive gun control policies would save lives and prevent injuries. Scholars agree the rate of gun violence in the United States is disproportionately high relative to other wealthy countries. Nevertheless, strong disagreement remains among academics on the question of whether a causal relationship between gun availability and violence exists, and which, if any, gun controls would effectively stem the violence.
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February 17, 2013
Coolness is an admired aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style, influenced by and a product of the Zeitgeist (‘spirit of the age’). Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning.
It has associations of composure and self-control and often is used as an expression of approval. Although commonly regarded as slang, it is widely used among disparate social groups, and has endured in usage for generations. Because there is no single concept of cool, one of its essential characteristics is mutability—what is considered cool changes over time and varies among cultures and generations.
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