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Monday, July 10, 2017

Bible Codes, Random Stuff, and More

On Bible Codes:
Obviously, I am somewhat curious about the origin of religion... Recently, I came across a book called 'Bible Code'. It basically said that hidden in the Torah/Bible (which was written thousands of years ago) there were prophecies which predicted future events. 
- here are some free, online resources which you can lookup to find out further details of this phenomenon:
ItM 028 - Newest Torah Codes Revealed for 2016-2017 with Richard Shaw
Bible Codes - The Proof of God
Last  Sign Before  Mashiach -  End of Days  in bible code  Glazerson
The Bible Code - Secret Messages In The Scripture
- if you look at the methodology you'll realise that they seem to pull stuff out of nowhere at times? Even they realise they are subject to the '21 Enigma'. Namely, they can end up finding meaning in and at anything if they look deep enough? Please examine my previous series of posts on pre-cogs/prophets to better determine what feels more more scam like and what feels more legitimate? Either way, if there is a code embedded in our Holy Texts it feels pretty remarkable someone would go to so much trouble?
- I decided to build my own script/program to see whether this was possible or true across the board. The script/program works on a basic 'Equidistant Letter Distancing' using spacings between 2 and 100. Throw any text that you want at it by making the relevant coding changes inside of driver.sh (I obviously decided to look for codes in the texts of the world's major religions, some novels, and some children's books) Send the content to another file for further analysis later on via "./driver.sh > analysed_results.txt"
- download the code here (results from my analysis of the Holy Texts of the worlds major religions are included in the analysis_results folder and also in the analysed_results.txt file which are also included in the archive)(even though I admit I don't update it properly and as often as I should as usual please see my website if you want details of my other work, https://sites.google.com/site/dtbnguyen/):
- script/program notes:
# After coming across a book and some documentaries on Bible Codes I 
# decided to build a program/script which would examine arbitrary books
# for codes based on Equidistant Letter Spacing codes. This is obviously
# the culmination of this work.
# 
# To use it run driver.sh (modify driver.sh if need be) to scan files of
# your choosing. Obviously, the core metrics you'll be looking at are:
# [original_file_word_count (extracted equidistant words)]
# [analysis_file_word_count (words found in dictionary)] 
# [normalised_word_metric (analysis_file_word_count/original_file_word_count)]
# Obviously, the higher the normalised_word_metric the better the higher
# likelihood there is a code/entropy in the text that you are currently
# examining.
#
# Test files that were used during testing were obtained from the following:
# holy bible txt format
# quran english txt version
# quran txt format
# torah english text version
# bhagavad gita
# buddha 4 truths pdf
#
# The results of my experiment are included in the analysis_results
# folder and analysed_results.txt file. Clearly, most of the results
# indicate few if any coded words and those results that do indicate coded
# words aggregate around 0.05 to 0.2 
# [normalised_word_metric (analysis_file_word_count/original_file_word_count)]
# 
# Moreover, the incidence of codes arise just as often in novels and 
# children's books as from many religious texts?
#
# It obviously has other other uses as well such as stenography and 
# computer security and forensics.
#
# One caveat is that this script/program was built in a very short space
# of time which means that it might not be as efficient as it could possibly
# be had I spent more time on it. It can take anywhere from a few minutes
# to several hours to scan a few files depending on the files you intend 
# to process and the setup you currently have in your environment.
- something which feels very obvious is that no matter what type of text you throw at it you'll still get data back showing that there are patterns... I actually ran the Holy Scriptures of all of the world's major religions, some novels, and even some children's books at it... One thing I do agree with though is that even in English the Jewish Torah does seem to contain more coded patterns then the others? That said, it does seem to have a format that seems more amenable to this script/program? My guess is that like my news bias checker/script if I continue work on this the results may 'normalise' a bit more?
- as you can see from most of the results most files produce empty files without any underlying codes. For those that do produce codes the words seems to have very little meaning to them with normalised_word_metric scores aggregating at often inconsequential levels of about 0.05 to 0.1. Obviously, the higher the normalised_word_metric the better the higher likelihood there is a code/entropy in the text that you are currently examining
# [original_file_word_count (extracted equidistant words)]
# [analysis_file_word_count (words found in dictionary)] 
# [normalised_word_metric (analysis_file_word_count/original_file_word_count)]
- a big warning. I built this in a very short space of time so it mightn't be as efficient or well coded as it could be (analysis of eleven files took about two and half hours)? Things got so bad during testing that I thought about trying to run some sort of task sharing capability? My guess is that the easiest thing to do is do a network share file mount of some sort and run the script via SSH on the remote system (easier then some of the task specific applications out there? Might explore this later down the track?). Just running it on a better/higher specification machine may change things though (I remember using my own hardware to do some compilation work and it would take several hours while it took about half an hour on computers at work?)? If still slow, just do something else or leave it running in the background while you wait for it to finish
cpu sharing
use ssh to run local script remotely
https://serverfault.com/questions/215756/how-do-i-run-a-local-bash-script-on-remote-machines-via-ssh
- I looked around on the various source code repositories (GitHub, BitBucket, Sourceforge, etc...) and all I could see was stuff that related to hidden text inside of images, video, etc... Not much, that was geared towards this particular task...
- clearly, this particular script/program only scans for horizontal codes and not for vertical/diagonal codes. That said, this was a proof of concept only for me personally and any change to this program to add such functionality would mean that I require more computing power or else I'd have to let the script/program run for (possibly) days on end which is a bit over the top for me personally?

Random Stuff:
- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
http://sites.google.com/site/dtbnguyen/
http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com.au/
- animal news roundup. Sometimes I wonder whether or not some animals have it better then humans? 
Bear Chases Man Up a Tree
Bear In The Street Only in Russia funny video
In Soviet Russia, Bears Own you!
Russian Man Feeding A Wild Bear Through A Window
Grizzly Bear Meets Human What Happens Next Is Incredible
Kodiak Bear Waving
Polar Bear Fur Cleaning
Meet Hua Rong The Amazing Rolling Panda - Live Cam Highlight
Polar Bear Rolling in Snow
Funny bears @ Zoo   HD
Grizzly Bear rolling down a hill at Denali National Park.
Unbearably Cute Panda Cub Exam Compilation
- latest in science and technology
DEVOTION TO RIDICULE Ft. Lawrence Krauss, Theoretical Physicist
Second launch of China’s Long March rocket 5
RAW - SpaceX Rocket Launches from Cape Canaveral
‘Until a reboot do us part’ - Japanese guys are marrying VR brides
100s of ‘clay figures’ crawl through Hamburg protesting G20
Counting the Cost - Google versus the European Union - Counting the Cost
- latest in defense
Inside Story - Are the Saudis funding extremism
‘Sustainable Security & Power’ - Iran holds five-day naval drill in Caspian Sea
RAW - Chinese aircraft carrier formation conducts trans-regional training
Why Did the US Black Out this Report
US threatens use of military force against North Korea
Syria The Flash-point For a New World War
North Korea conducts new missile test, launched towards Sea of Japan
RAW - USS Coronado takes part in joint drills with Philippine Navy
North Korea conducts new missile test, launched towards Sea of Japan
The future is now - Russian military unveils next-generation combat suit
RAW - SAA breaks through rebel defense line in Ayn Tarma
Putin Meets With Henry Kissinger New World Order Architect
What will more sanctions mean for North Koreans - Inside Story
Syrian President Bashar al Assad Trampled By US Russian Deal
- latest in finance and politics
CrossTalk Bullhorns - Nothing Burger (EXTENDED VERSION)
CrossTalk - ‘Impeachmentitis'
'America loves Poland' - Trump delivers speech in Warsaw (STREAMED LIVE)
Astana peace talks - Fifth round ends without agreement
Counting the Cost - Qatar's gas expansion
Assange feels threatened by both Republicans & Democrats following Clinton email leaks–Annie Machon
Inside Story - Is anti-Qatar quartet spreading hate speech in mosques
Did Saudi Arabia miscalculate with Qatar feud - UpFront
What's next for Qatar and the GCC - UpFront
'ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, really' - Iraqi Interior Minister
‘Big Nothing Burger’ - CNN contributor admits Russia scandal made for ratings
Jim Rogers - China to be most important country in 21st century
NATO games in Ukraine push world 5 minutes before nuclear midnight - Stephen Cohen
Mikhail Gorbachev - America needs a Perestroika
'Last thing US wants in the world is democracy. It wants control'
'Not a good idea' - German FM on Erdogan's public appearances outside G20
Inside Story - Are the Saudis funding extremism
Tony Blair should be prosecuted for Iraq War, high court hears
‘No right to stay anonymous,’ CNN analyst says… after months o channel’s unnamed source reporting
Inside Story - Can Washington push for a dialogue on the Gulf crisis
Jeremy Corbyn on UK policies and the GCC crisis - Talk to Al Jazeera
Keiser Report - ‘Oligarchic America’ (E1091)
Keiser Report - Rationing of Money (E1092)
HONEYMOON'S OVER Ft. Konstantin Kosachev, Russian Senator
Inside Story - Are the Saudis funding extremism
The Stream - Trump and the media at war - Who’s right
The Stream - Trump and the media at war - Who’s right Part 2
Inside Story - Is the African Union still relevant

Random Quotes:
- The Ford-class carrier program is in much deeper trouble than the Navy and the DoD are willing to admit. As further testing reveals further serious deficiencies, cost overruns will balloon and promised combat capabilities will shrink.

There is the very real possibility that, as currently configured, Ford will prove to be unsuitable for combat because the EMALS catapults or the AAG arresting gear might be unreliable at sea under surge conditions or because the reactor and electrical system might not function in the face of battle damage. Or, worse, because of all of the above.

If the AAG fails operational tests, it can be replaced with the legacy Mk. 7 hydraulic arresting gear—though the retrofit will be painfully expensive and may delay the program by a year or more. If the EMALS fails operational tests, installing a steam catapult substitute would require an extensive redesign of the entire ship.

To avoid these disastrous consequences, it is inevitable that the Navy’s Ford program management and its contractors will expend maximum effort on weakening and delaying the overall operational tests — and on abrogating the most crucial ones. If the Secretary of Defense and Congress do not act vigorously to protect the current operational test plan and schedule, the taxpayer will have spent at least $44 billion to buy three carriers that are likely to fare worse in combat than existing carriers and that in wartime will jeopardize the lives of the nearly 4,300 sailors aboard each carrier.

There’s a near-certainty that upcoming testing of Ford will require major redesign and retrofits to it, and corresponding design changes for Kennedy and Enterprise. To avoid further wasteful retrofits, the schedule for these second and third ships needs to slowed down and the plans for the as-yet unnamed fourth ship, CVN-81, should be put on complete hold until the final IOT&E report is released, currently scheduled for Fiscal Year 2020.
- The F-16 USAF SLEP intends to extend the aircrafts current structural service life from 8,000 equivalent flight hours (EFH) up to 13,856 EFH by modifying and/or repairing life limiting, fractural critical, and safety of flight critical structure. This effort seeks to award a contract to a vendor who can manufacture and/or procure, assemble, and deliver up to the estimated maximum quantity of 841 F-16 Block 40-52, C/D-Model SLEP modification kits necessary to extend the structural service life of these aircraft, in accordance with Government standards and specifications defined in the Technical Data Package (TDP).
- Seven percent of all American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, according to a nationally representative online survey commissioned by the National Dairy Council.

If you do the math, that works out to 16.4 million misinformed, milk-drinking people. The equivalent of the population of Pennsylvania (and then some!) does not know that chocolate milk is milk, cocoa and sugar.

But while the survey has attracted snorts and jeers from some corners — “um, guys, [milk] comes from cows — and not just the brown kind,” snarked Food & Wine — the most surprising thing about this figure may actually be that it isn’t higher.

For decades, observers in agriculture, nutrition and education have griped that many Americans are basically agriculturally illiterate. They don’t know where food is grown, how it gets to stores — or even, in the case of chocolate milk, what’s in it.

One Department of Agriculture study, commissioned in the early ’90s, found that nearly 1 in 5 adults did not know that hamburgers are made from beef. Many more lacked familiarity with basic farming facts, like how big U.S. farms typically are and what food animals eat.

Experts in ag education aren’t convinced that much has changed in the intervening decades.

“At the end of the day, it’s an exposure issue,” said Cecily Upton, co-founder of the nonprofit FoodCorps, which brings agricultural and nutrition education into elementary schools. “Right now, we’re conditioned to think that if you need food, you go to the store. Nothing in our educational framework teaches kids where food comes from before that point.”
- Younger Russians also have fewer reasons to favor the current political and economic order. The rolling nationalization of the Russian economy and the economic crisis eliminated many sources of social mobility in Russian society and destroyed private-sector employment opportunities, while the best positions in state-owned corporations are occupied by the offspring of ruling elites. Younger Russians therefore have very limited career opportunities: the unemployment rate among young people under twenty-five is about 20 percent.

While there is little doubt that the Kremlin will use all possible means to disrupt the protests, there are reasons for optimism. First, the authorities have few available tools for brainwashing younger Russians who do not watch state TV channels. To a large extent, this generation is lost to the Kremlin. Second, Russian society is changing and becoming increasingly integrated into the globalized world. Its younger generations are much more pro-Western and pro-democratic than those that came before. This cultural change will ultimately bring about political change as well.
- "Anyway, mixing humanitarian supplies with military ones or carrying civilian cargo for the needs of military operations, creates many problems, especially for the humanitarian organizations," the Russian military analyst emphasized.

Russia Intercepts US Aircraft Over Baltic Sea Amid Massive NATO Drills - Pentagon
As a result, humanitarian workers find themselves in the crosshairs of local authorities or insurgents on the ground.

To illustrate his point, Plekhanov cited a hepatitis vaccination program carried out in Pakistan under the auspices of the CIA to find out Osama Bin Laden's location.

"After the elimination [of Bin Laden by the US], Islamists kicked off a brutal campaign against healthcare workers, who were engaged in vaccination against various diseases and had nothing to do with the American military," the analyst emphasized.

As for Scott Darden, UNICEF and the Red Cross have announced that they had no idea that Transoceanic Development collaborated with the Pentagon.
- MELBOURNE, Australia — Malaysia has adapted its Russian-built Sukhoi Su-30 multi-role combat aircraft to drop U.S. laser-guided bombs, with a successful release of a live weapon at the end of last year.

A video by the Tentera Udara Diraja Malaysia, or Royal Malaysian Air Force, to celebrate its 59th anniversary showed a brief clip of a Su-30MKM dropping a 500-pound GBU-12 laser-guided bomb, with the accompanying caption stating that the event happened in November 2016 at the service's weapons range at Kota Belud in the state of Sabah, Malaysia. 

The segment of the Su-30 dropping the GBU-12 has since been deleted from the video. 

It was unclear how the Air Force guided the weapon during the successful weapons release. Malaysia possesses the Thales Damocles surveillance and targeting pod for its Su-30MKMs, which it uses in conjunction with the Russian KAB-series of laser-guided bombs and Kh-29TE air-to-surface missile. 

Alternatively, Malaysian special forces on the ground are able to designate targets using hand-held designators.

The country also acquired six Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared pods in 2012 under a capability upgrade program for its eight Boeing F/A-18D Hornets. 

Malaysia operates a fleet of 18 Su-30MKMs alongside its Hornets as the Air Force's primary combat aircraft. The service's Sukhois are fitted with a mixture of Russian and Western systems, while Malaysia’s Hornets have previously employed the GBU-12 successfully against armed militants from the southern Philippines who had taken over the town of Lahad Datu, Sabah, in 2013.  
- Rickard said the American officials have been trying to meddle in Iran for decades, but Iranian people have been vigilant enough to foil any plots by the enemies.

“When they (Americans) are talking about a peaceful transition, they are talking about manipulating elections,” the analyst said on Thursday night.

People in Iran understand the kinds of actions that the US wants to do with the help of “NGOs or USAID” and other government-funded organizations, which act on behalf of the American government to push forward regime change policy in other countries, he said.

He further described the former Pahlavi regime, which was in power in Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution as “a puppet put in place by the United States on behalf of the United Kingdom,” stressing that Iran “has learnt its lessons.”

Rickard also criticized the United States for its intervention in other countries.

“The Americans have been probably one of the most notorious nations behind the United Kingdom in manipulating not only elections but also overthrowing governments around the world for decades.”

The reason behind US interference in the Middle East is that it “looks to actually control hegemony in the region.”

According to the linguist, the US still continues nation-building in other states, sells weapons in massive scales and pours bombs on other nations in order to carry out its regime-change policy throughout the world.

Meanwhile, Korb, said the US secretary of state’s remarks on regime change in Iran reveals Washington's tendency towards supporting more “moderate people” in the country.

Tillerson “wants to encourage those people in Iran who want to have a more democratic government,” he said.

The expert ruled out the possibility of American military intervention in Iran, saying that the US does not have any “intention of going into Iran to try and do anything.”
- The Japanese have a word, karōshi, to describe people who work themselves to death. There was a case recently of a 37-year-old doctor who, due to her excessive overtime (251 hours in the space of a month), developed depression and later suicided. In China the word used is guolaosi. Various reports over the past few years put the annual casualty figure at more than 600,000. South Korea, too, has a term for this pervasive condition: gwarosa. 

Maybe it's the West's turn now to create its own moniker.

Not at all because the problem is anywhere near as bad here. We rarely have employees, like in those territories, who fatally collapse at their desks from physical and emotional exhaustion. But an American study has been published in the esteemed Personnel Psychology journal which provides evidence that the type of work we do could be wiping years off our life in a more gradual, more insidious manner.

The study involved two surveys of almost 2400 people conducted seven years apart. By the time of the second survey, 8 per cent of the participants had died. When the researchers compared the deceased's responses to the others who had outlived them, the findings were quite revealing. They found there's a 15 per cent greater likelihood of death when two specific job-related factors were present: high job demands and low job control.

Here's what those terms mean. 

Job demands are reflected in the pressure many of us face at work. This could include the stress of having to meet tight deadlines, tasks that require intense concentration, and a hectic workload.

Job control reflects the influence you have over your work. If your employer gives you enough autonomy, involves you in decision-making, and provides you with discretion to determine how to do your job, you're said to have control. If you don't, as per many of the participants in the study, and that lack of control is compounded by demanding work, you're 15 per cent more likely to die.

The most common causes of death were cancer and diseases associated with the circulatory system, such as heart failure and strokes, which together accounted for three quarters of the deceased. Those afflictions are perhaps not that surprising when you consider prior studies that found a demanding job with low control leads to higher rates of blood pressure and cortisol.

Especially at risk are those who work in frontline service positions and manufacturing, who in the study accounted for 26 per cent and 32 per cent of the reported deaths, respectively. Those professions are notorious for placing huge demands on their workers while depriving them of the control they need.

In contrast, what do you think happened when the participants worked in jobs where high demands still existed but which were counterbalanced by equally high levels of control? Astonishingly, it's a combination that resulted in a 34 per cent decrease in the odds of dying. 

They're unambiguously impressive odds, and they arise because people cultivate fulfilment, as opposed to strain, when they have the opportunity to complete challenging tasks so long as "they have the necessary resources to cope with the increased workload".

They're also subsequently less inclined to engage in unhealthy practices or to suffer from physiological disorders stemming from psychological strain, such as depression, cardiovascular disease and diabetes "that are linked with mortality later in life". 

As the researchers conclude, it now seems abundantly clear "that certain work contexts may provide the catalyst to live longer or speed the path toward the inevitable".
http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/managing/work-in-progress/how-your-job-is-killing-you-20170615-gwrmqd.html
Malwarebytes' range now includes Malwarebytes Incident Response, Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection (now delivered as a service) and a new cloud-based management console.

Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection provides seven layers of protection, according to the company, including a signature-less, machine learning based anomaly detection engine that models known trusted files instead of modelling historical malware samples.

This, it says, is a better approach than constantly retraining as each new piece of malware appears, as the latter results in a process similar to the old signature-based method of threat detection.
- According to the KCNA report on the incident, over 20 officials, who claimed to be with the US Department of Homeland Security and police, "made a violent assault like gangsters to take away the diplomatic package from the diplomats." It added that the delegation was in possession of valid diplomatic courrier certificate.

The White House and the US State Department had issued no immediate comment on the North's statement.

Pyongyang warned that if the White House failed to give due response to the North's "reasonable and fair demand" on the incident, it would be "totally responsible" for all the consequences.

North Korea's statement came amid the latest tensions between the two archenemies, which occurred following Pyongyang's release of American student Otto Warmbier, whose parents said he was in a coma after being held by the Far East Asian country for the past 17 months.

Over the past weeks, Washington and Pyongyang have also traded a barrage of military threats. Washington says it is concerned by North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests. Pyongyang, defying successive UN sanctions and international pressure, says it will continue to strengthen its military capability to protect itself from the threat posed by the presence of US forces in the region.

North Korea says it will not give up on its nuclear deterrence unless Washington ends its hostile policy toward Pyongyang and dissolves the US-led UN command in South Korea. 
- Yaacov Ben Naim (below., right), the company's senior director of Cyber Research, told iTWire that Microsoft had been told about the new attack method, which CyberArk calls GhostHook.

However, given that one already needs to have gained admin access to a system in order to use GhostHook, Ben Naim said Microsoft had said that nothing would be done now, and that the flaw that permitted the intrusion would be fixed in the next version of Windows.

When asked whether Microsoft's response was similar to the analogy of someone not wanting to catch an intruder who was planning to set fire to a house just because another person had already gained entry, Ben Naim agreed it was quite similar.
- In order to properly understand the post-Cold War global hegemony foreign policy by the US Administration, it is necessary to realize the very nature of the US as a state. Basically, the US foreign policy of global hegemony is shaped by two most important internal processes which exist from the very beginning of the US independence and statehood (declared in 1776):

    1. A mass consumerist mentality of her citizens that is deeply permeated throughout American (sub)culture;

    2. Corresponding policy of maintaining world’s military supremacy for the sake to ensure privileged possession of the global goods, energy, natural resources and credit. For example, there are 800 US military bases across the globe and one of the biggest of them is located in Kosovo (Bondsteel) – one of the richest regions in Europe according to its reserves of the natural resources (at least 500 billion $US).[4]

The American strategy of global hegemony after the WWII was not only to compete the Soviet military power and political influence but it was and is much more important to establish such world that is going mandatory to be hospitable for the growth of the US economy. Therefore, the American military-political global dominance was ideologically justified by anti-communism and the US alleged leading role in defending the “free world”. However, after the end of the European communism, dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and dismemberment of the USSR, Washington simply justified a continuation of its Cold War policy of global hegemony by defending Europe (and probably the rest of the world) from the “Russian aggression”. A “free world” was identified with a full acceptance of the American values, norms, political and economic systems and (sub)culture. According to such geopolitical project, all of those governments who rejected to “dance according to the American playing” became proclaimed as the enemies of “free world” threatened to be bombed and occupied (like the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999). Nevertheless, the fundamental allegory of the American promotion of independence and democracy (the basic components of “free world”) is that this country is not either really independent (being the West Bank of Israel from 1948 onward) nor fully democratic (not being even among the first 30 democratic states in the world).

A numerous US military interventions after 1945, as an instrument for the realization of the geopolitical project of global hegemony, however, very much undermined the very meaning of democracy and leading at the same time to large-scale human rights abuses.The concept of Pax Americana is having as its crucial strategy to maintain cheap supplies of raw materials and especially of the cheap supply of oil as the crucial energetic source for the US consumerism economy. Therefore, immediately after the WWII the basic US strategy became to establish the American hegemony in the oil-rich countries in the region of the Middle East supporting there all kinds of non-democratic and even dictatorial regimes who expressed political loyalty to Washington as the regimes of Iran (Persia) from the CIA/M16-sponsored coup in 1953[5] up to the Islamic Revolution in 1978−1979, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and above all of Saudi Arabia.
- The Post report said that there was a move by the Obama team to take covert action to indicate to Russia that the kind of alleged meddling taking place would not go unpunished. Plans were thus devised to hit various sectors of the Russian economy.

"One preliminary suggestion called for targeting technology companies including Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based cyber security firm," the Post said.

"But sceptics worried that the harm could spill into Europe and pointed out that US companies used Kaspersky systems and software."

Eugene Kaspersky, who was recently in Australia, told iTWire at the time that he had no idea why his company was being targeted by the US government.

"I have no insider knowledge, but it seems it's a result of current crisis in relations between Russia and the US," he said in response to queries.

"There could be some grudge because we've unearthed many different advanced attacks and threat actors speaking all sorts of languages including English (and Russian and Chinese and many more, but those with a grudge probably don't care).

"And third, someone may be unhappy with our market success (and) might be using the moment to hit us."
- The way Harry’s remarks on the hardships of royal life have been portrayed illustrates perfectly why, for decades, royal handlers followed a simple rule – no print media interviews.
Except for very rare exceptions, with tame journalists, interviews with the royals only took place on television, and on-camera answers were not allowed to be edited without permission. Indeed, the BBC has a full time employee whose sole job is liaising with the palace about interviews with members of the royal family.
The Newsweek interview proves exactly what the previous generation of royal press handlers--who have all now left Kensington Palace to make way for a new guard led by thrusting young Canadian and lover of social media Jason Knauf--always argued: that there was nothing to be lost by being excessively cautious and deeply conservative when it came to media interviews.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/what-beef-has-prince-harry-got-with-his-dad-prince-charles
The team blasted the laser at electrons suspended in helium, and then measured how single electrons scattered the photons of light that hit them. Electrons are known to scatter just one photon at a time under normal circumstances, but in this experiment almost 1,000 were scattered simultaneously.

"When we have this unimaginably bright light, it turns out that the scattering – this fundamental thing that makes everything visible – fundamentally changes in nature," says Donald Umstadter, lead researcher on the study. "It's as if things appear differently as you turn up the brightness of the light, which is not something you normally would experience. (An object) normally becomes brighter, but otherwise, it looks just like it did with a lower light level. But here, the light is changing (the object's) appearance. The light's coming off at different angles, with different colors, depending on how bright it is."
- What are the key messages you want to leave iTWire readers with?

    Cyber space is a very dangerous place. Threats evolve, not devolve as evidenced by our identifying over 300 unique threats a minute.
    Go back to basics and look closely at what you are buying – then use you head instead of buying a so-called bargain.
    Any endpoint – mobile, IoT, computer - can be the entry point to the corporate or home network and cloud-based behavioural analysis and protection is proven more effective than signature-based
    As per point 3 know your boundaries – a company may have data on devices, offices, clouds, on-premise etc. It all needs to be protected.
    Be aware of the “kill chain”. A hacker uses LinkedIn to get your details, works out a socially engineered strategy, phishes, gets in, gets information, and then targets colleagues using your profile. It is time to stop sharing so much online especially if you are a person of interest.
    People are still the weakest link – this won’t happen to me is wishful thinking.
    You see a doctor when you are in pain but in cyber security, if you are in pain it is too late. Look for the best in class to prevent pain.
    Spending money on security solutions is only part of the spend – most will be spent in educating people to protect against their own gullibility.
    Don’t be reckless if you have any valuable information at all on your device – assess the risk because one day you are going to lose that valuable, irreplaceable information.
    In our case bigger is not better – work smarter not harder.
- Malwarebytes ANZ regional director Jim Cook warned that this outbreak would not be the last. "If Shadow Brokers keeps its promise to continue releasing NSA exploits, it seems that this sort of mass infection will become common – so now is the time to ensure you have a decent back-up system, patch process and a current end point security solution in place."

Forcepoint chief executive Matt Moynahan said an important takeaway was "the undeniable trend in the increasing ease by which attackers can penetrate the perimeter and get inside of corporate infrastructure".

"Perhaps even more important to consider is the motivation behind the attack and the harm intended on the target. In this case it was to hold companies ransom for US$300; it could have been much worse. To address these new and evolving threats, we need to understand the intent and motivations behind them.

He said that if there was no investment in the cyber security of critical infrastructure "we will continue to see massive attacks with economic, employee and public safety ramifications. From the government to the boardroom, leaders need to make cyber resiliency a requirement, putting focus and funding behind it".

"While the perception may be that if we criminalise cyber attacks we will inhibit innovation, the reality is that if we do not treat cyber crime more seriously, attacks like WannaCry and Petya will start to feel even more commonplace than they already do.”

The Shadow Brokers, which dumped a number of NSA exploits, among them EternalBlue which was used in the WannaCry attack, has said that any future exploits would only be available for sale on a subscription model.
- Interestingly I use Firefox and Ghostery for normal browsing and the latter went crazy on this site finding 27 of the 133 companies had bypassed Ghostery somehow – and reported that 106 of the companies had failed to respond to my opt-out request. Did I want to try again?

But then the fun started – in a few hours of browsing so many sites appeared broken or links were not working that I had to use a virgin copy of MS Edge to open many of them! I guess Judge Davila is not a frequent Web surfer.

According to the Guardian, Facebook is pleased with the ruling. You bet it is, as it could have been the end of creepy, unwelcome, highly targeted advertising which is the sole reason Facebook exists – to use your personal information against you. Google's “do no evil” has nothing on Facebook.

This is a chilling decision, legitimising data collection on an extreme scale.

    Stop using the drug of choice – Facebook and remove every vestige of your existence
    Never click a third party social media sharing button (like, dislike etc)
    Never use Facebook, Twitter, etc to sign into other supposedly unconnected site (single sign on)
    Sign out of Google Web Mail and browser logins before browsing
    Pay attention to privacy policies and use the option to check and modify them
    Run AdBlock Plus, Ghostery, DoNotTrackMe, Priv3 or similar
    Use in private browsing mode
    Use a VPN

The tragedy is that advertising companies, Facebook included, are working on ways to get around using cookies. Device fingerprinting developed for fraud detection (mac address, IP address, processor ID etc) and Canvas fingerprinting of the HTML 5 canvas element are being trialled as alternative and totally passive trackers. Wikipedia has an interesting and unbiased article on Internet privacy here. 
- In the chargesheet, issued on 20 April 2016, the European Commission said Google had breached EU anti-trust rules by:

    requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google's Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to license certain Google proprietary apps;
    preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code; and
    giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.

At the time the EC said: "The Commission believes that these business practices may lead to a further consolidation of the dominant position of Google Search in general Internet search services.

"It is also concerned that these practices affect the ability of competing mobile browsers to compete with Google Chrome, and that they hinder the development of operating systems based on the Android open source code and the opportunities they would offer for the development of new apps and services."
- In designing the nozzle of the F135 engine that powers the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Pratt & Whitney aimed to rival the low signature of the nozzles on its previous F119, while beating it on maintenance costs. The F135 nozzle comprises two overlapping sets of 15 flaps, offset so outer flaps are centered on the gaps between the inner flaps. The inner flaps are thin, have metallic exteriors and straight sides and terminate in inverted “V”s. The sides create rectangular gaps between them with the nozzle fully diverged. The outer flaps, which Pratt calls “tail feathers,” are thicker and covered in tiles with blended facets. They terminate in chevrons that overlap the ends of the inner flaps to create a sawtooth edge. Toward the fuselage, the tiles end in four chevrons and are covered by additional tiles (not attached to the engines in this photo) that terminate fore and aft in chevrons and interlock with adjacent tiles in sawtooth-fashion.

The F135 nozzle likely suppresses IR signature using multiple methods. The trailing-edge chevrons create shed vortices, shortening the plume, while their steeper axial angle likely directs cooler ambient air into the exhaust flowpath. The inner surfaces of both sets of flaps are white and covered in minute holes similar to those on the F119, which might supply cooling air. The space between the tail feathers and the trailing chevrons may also contain ejectors to provide even more cooling air. The tiles and inner flap surfaces are likely composed of low-emissivity, RAM composites."
- First, they examined climate change. Food production accounts for one-quarter to one-third of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and the brunt of responsibility for those numbers falls to the livestock industry. Despite this, how our dietary choices affect climate change is often underestimated. In the US, for example, an average family of four emits more greenhouse gases because of the meat they eat than from driving two cars – but it is cars, not steaks, that regularly come up in discussions about global warming.
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Saving Money (without Sacrificing), Random Stuff, and More

- use price matching when you can to get an extra discount. Note, a lot of companies advertise low prices just to get you through the door. ...