Hawley's comments echo what some tech insiders and media experts have said in recent years: Some of the internet's biggest problems begin with the ad-based business model.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube "hold themselves out to their users as being free, but they're not free and they're not free at all," Hawley said. "I mean they depend on collecting personal, private, confidential information from their users without consent, on monetizing it without permission and then trying to get their users, frankly, addicted to their platforms so they can assure a sufficient base of customers to sell their ads."

YouTube, Snapchat, Gmail, Nest, Discord, and a number of other web services are suffering from outages in the US today. The root cause appears to be problems with Google’s Cloud service which powers apps other than just Google’s own web services. Google has issued a status update on its Cloud dashboard, noting that issues began at around 3:25PM ET / 12:25PM PT.

The issues appear to be mostly affecting those on the East Coast of the US, but some YouTube and Gmail users across Europe are also reporting that they’re unable to access the services. Google’s own G Suite Status dashboard shows problems with practically every single Google web service, and Down Detector lists YouTube outage reports in a number of countries worldwide.

Discord, Snapchat, and Vimeo users are also experiencing issues logging into the apps, and these all use Google Cloud on the backend.

By Aaron Kesel

Facebook and Amazon’s insanity only seems to continue with no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Now, the two big conglomerate giants want to move into the uncharted territory of reading human emotions, both in their own ways.

Facebook wants a robot that has five senses which can read human emotions. Facebook wants “emotionally sensitive” robots that can explore the world, identify objects and people and enable its users to make more friends...

uBlock Origin developer Raymond Hill, for example, argued this week that if user experience was the goal, there were other solutions that wouldn’t hamstring existing extensions.

“Web pages load slow because of bloat, not because of the blocking ability of the webRequest API—at least for well crafted extensions,” Hill said.

Hill said that Google’s motivation here had little to do with the end user experience, and far more to do with protecting advertising revenues from the rising popularity of adblock extensions.

The Chinese military is also working on a similar plan to replace Windows with a custom OS.

By Patrick Wood

How much more financial plundering can Americans endure before America is declared an outright Oligarchy and the middle class declared dead?

The Trump Administration has aggressively teamed up with Big Tech billionaires to diversify their fortunes into “underserved areas” by allowing tax deferment on realized capital gains derived from liquidation of their core investments. This is a massive Public-Private Partnership operation that could push as much as $6 trillion of “unlocked capital” into areas that would be turned upside down, and worse, inundated with Smart City technology designed to create a data extraction extravaganza for years to come.

In short, this is an operation of Big Tech, for Big Tech and by Big Tech, but President Trump has aided and abetted their efforts to manipulate government rules for their own self-interest. Undesired consequences will most certainly follow...

The evil tech giants are now systematically de-platforming all channels and sources of real human knowledge, awakening and truth. For the topics that really matter, the only information that’s allowed to be found on Google, Wikipedia, iPhone apps, YouTube or Twitter is anti-knowledge, or “false facts” that defy reality and indoctrinate the masses to believe in delusions rather than see what’s really happening in the world around them.

The liquidators of Christchurch-based Cryptopia have filed a petition in the Bankruptcy Court in New York to preserve the company's information stored on servers in the US.

The first report into Cryptopia's affairs, released yesterday, revealed the steps being taken by liquidators David Ruscoe and Russell Moore to secure the company's assets.

According to the report, liquidators are continuing the process, begun before the company was placed in liquidation, of recovering crypto-assets compromised from the hack of Cryptopia's exchange.

In mid-January, owners of Cryptopia – Adam Clark and Rob Dawson – called the Police after a cyber-attack saw an unknown amount - never confirmed but said to be in the tens of millions - siphoned off by hackers.

*I'm still stacking!*

Far from helping people access knowledge and facts, search engines like Google now push anti-knowledge — the opposite of knowledge — in order to keep people dumbed down.

The evil tech giants are now systematically de-platforming all channels and sources of real human knowledge, awakening and truth. For the topics that really matter, the only information that’s allowed to be found on Google, Wikipedia, iPhone apps, YouTube or Twitter is anti-knowledge, or “false facts” that defy reality and indoctrinate the masses to believe in delusions rather than see what’s really happening in the world around them.

In other words, on every topic that matters — science, medicine, vaccines, climate, history, politics, biology, culture and more — Big Tech systematically suppresses useful knowledge that might empower humans and replaces it with anti-knowledge that keeps people dumbed-down and trapped in mental prisons.

It’s unreasonable to get mad at someone for spoiling a movie that came out more than two years ago, and a National Security Agency official thinks the same logic should apply to cybersecurity exploits.

Rob Joyce, the NSA’s top cyber policy adviser, on Thursday rebuffed blame after one of the agency’s cyber weapons was used to hold Baltimore’s computer networks for ransom, arguing the attack would’ve been avoided if the city was more proactive with its digital hygiene.

“NSA shares the concerns of all the law-abiding citizens around the world about the threat posed by that criminal, malicious cyber activity, but the characterization that there’s an indefensible nation-state tool propagating ransomware is simply untrue,” Joyce said at a cybersecurity conference hosted by CrowdStrike.

Using Twitter to debate may be responsible for a drop in the quality of public discourse, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that Twitter use among students correlated with a drop in test results of between 25 to 40 per cent.

Experts say that the drop was most noticeable among higher-achieving students, and that the use of social networking sites had impaired their performance.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said last year that his firm is responsible for 'building a systemic framework to help encourage more healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking.'

But the finding may confirm what many people have already claimed - that social media is not the best place for a well-informed discussion.

A new phishing campaign is underway that pretends to be from the "Office 365 Team" warning you that your email account cancellation has been approved and that all your email will be deleted unless you cancel the request within the hour.

Microsoft issued a second warning for users of older Windows releases to patch their systems to block potential attackers from abusing the critical Remote Desktop Services (RDS) remote code execution vulnerability dubbed BlueKeep.

The first time, Microsoft issued a security fix designed to protect Windows computers running vulnerable RDS installations and block any malware capable of exploiting the flaw tracked as CVE-2019-0708 and of propagating between unpatched machines.

This second time, Redmond's "recommendation remains the same. We strongly advise that all affected systems should be updated as soon as possible. It is possible that we won’t see this vulnerability incorporated into malware. But that’s not the way to bet."

Alan Davidson, Mozilla’s vice-president of global policy, trust and security, said the Amazon Echo, the hardware that runs the Alexa service, is a wonderful product but when he recently examined what his family had recorded and stored, he found the archive included conversations among his young children.

“I was shocked, honestly, and my family was shocked to see these recordings of our young children from years ago that are in the cloud and stored about us. It’s not to say that something was done wrong, or unlawfully,” Davidson said. “But users have no idea – they have no idea this data is out there and they don’t know how it’s going to be used in the future either.”

It's 3am. Do you know what your iPhone is doing?

Mine has been alarmingly busy. Even though the screen is off and I'm snoring, apps are beaming out lots of information about me to companies I've never heard of. Your iPhone probably is doing the same - and Apple could be doing more to stop it.

On a recent Monday night, a dozen marketing companies, research firms and other personal data guzzlers got reports from my iPhone. At 11.43pm, a company called Amplitude learnt my phone number, e-mail and exact location. At 3.58am, another called Appboy got a digital fingerprint of my phone. At 6.25am, a tracker called Demdex received a way to identify my phone and sent back a list of other trackers to pair up with.

And all night long, there was some startling behaviour by a household name: Yelp. It was receiving a message that included my IP address - once every five minutes.

Google Chrome users will continue to have access to the full content blocking power of the webRequest API in their browser extensions, but only if they're paying enterprise customers.

Everyone else will have to settle for extensions that use the neutered declarativeNetRequest API, which is being developed as part of a pending change to the way Chrome Extensions work. And chances are Chrome users will have fewer extensions to choose from because some developers won't be able to rework their extensions so they function under the new regime, or won't want to do so.

Google is planning to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users only, according to 9to5Google. This is despite a backlash to an announcement by Google in January proposing changes that will stop current ad blockers from working efficiently.

And the software giant is not backing down: It says the only people that can use ad blockers following the change will be Google’s enterprise users.

The proposal – dubbed Manifest V3 – will see a major transformation to Chrome extensions that includes a revamp of the permissions system. It will mean modern ad blockers such as uBlock Origin – which uses Chrome’s webRequest API to block ads before they’re downloaded – won’t work. This is because Manifest V3 sees Google halt the webRequest API’s ability to block a particular request before it’s loaded.

By Jamie Redman

Cryptocurrencies have been trending upwards in price over the last few weeks, but in certain countries around the world digital assets have become far more valuable. For instance, in Argentina, the nation’s sovereign currency has lost considerable value and cryptocurrencies like BTC are seeing all-time price highs. The surge in value is not just taking place in Argentina as a few other countries suffering from hyperinflation are seeing significant demand as well...

By B.N. Frank

Activist Post has reported already about the many and increasing ways that data is being collected on all of us without our knowledge and/or consent. This data is often being sold to 3rd parties to analyze so they can try to sell us more products. This is sometimes referred to as “Surveillance Capitalism.”

Utility companies have bragged about being able to collect customer data with their “Smart” Meters. These meters have plenty of other issues in addition to privacy violation. “Smart Cities” are intentionally built to collect data 24/7 on all residents and visitors whether they like it or not. A recent article from Nextgov.com confirmed...

By MassPrivateI

TSA-style body scanners are coming to public spaces, and that should scare the hell out of everyone.

If you thought the NYPD’s Z-Backscatter vans and police mini-Z’s were intrusive, you have not seen anything yet.

Soon, nowhere will be safe from Big Brother’s prying eyes, as police prepare to use HEXWAVE to spy on people in public spaces...

By Dagny Taggart

Google is very interested in your shopping habits – so much that the tech giant is collecting and saving your purchase history. The company has been quietly keeping track of your online (and sometimes, offline) purchases for years...

Comments at: https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1133735101156564992

Start your day feeling good…your whole day just seems to go great
Middle East is better situated for peace possibilities then ever before
President Trump and Chairman Kim having fun at Joe Biden’s expense
The Netflix of online education, a free market system for classes
Online education CAN become good enough to replace regular classes
Anti-Abortion states and the financial impact
Candace Owens is making something obvious to African-Americans
What to do about social media determining who wins in 2020
WaPo has conflated crime and black people…that’s just wrong

Joe Rogan has been among those who are bringing more popular awareness to the problem of increasingly accurate creations of fake images, videos and voice.

It appears that researchers are turning to artificial intelligence to thwart artificial intelligence by using digital watermarks to verify authenticity...

By Aaron Kesel

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been admitted into the hospital ward of Belmarsh following reports by Assange’s defense lawyer that a motion to delay a hearing in Sweden next Monday, on the provably fraudulent rape allegations (which this reporter has exposed), has been denied...

Election forensics analyst and author Jonathan Simon as well as investigative journalist Yasha Levine, who has written extensively on how the military has long sought to weaponize public technologies including the internet, were consulted for their views on ElectionGuard, its connections to the military-industrial complex and the implication of those connections for American democracy as part of this investigation.

Comments at: https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1133372902022062080

Devin Nunes retweeted my guides for identifying FAKE NEWS
Drone “bullet”, hovers and waits for its target…then kills it
Are Prediction models for 2020 election results, better than 2016s?
The impact: Social media’s “thumb on scale” algorithms
People who CAN be persuaded…in key states, decide who’s President
VOX’s ridiculous claim about FOX News, impact on CNN, MSNBC
YouTube supposedly blocking people from playing a certain video
John Lewis says he cried…
…when President Trump said something…that he didn’t say
Joe Biden’s campaign strategy of invisibility, noticed by others
President Trump UNDERSTANDS PEOPLE, at a level few others can
Have you EVER felt safer about North Korea?
Duncan Hunter’s support for Navy Seal photographing war carnage
Creativity from AI computer programs? Yes, it CAN be done
Prediction:

For users who are affected by this issue, you can switch back to your original profile to restore your addons and user data.

To do this, go to about:profiles and then click on the button labeled Set as default profile under the profile that contains your data.

Once you select that profile, close and start Firefox again and your data should be back.

Nearly 1 million Windows systems are still unpatched and have been found vulnerable to a recently disclosed critical, wormable, remote code execution vulnerability in the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)—two weeks after Microsoft releases the security patch.

If exploited, the vulnerability could allow an attacker to easily cause havoc around the world, potentially much worse than what WannaCry and NotPetya like wormable attacks did in 2017.

Dubbed BlueKeep and tracked as CVE-2019-0708, the vulnerability affects Windows 2003, XP, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 editions and could spread automatically on unprotected systems.

Alexa's poor reputation for privacy may soon worsen as a patent filed by the firm suggests the virtual assistant may start listening before its 'wake word' is said.

Under the plans Alexa will be able to detect when it is being given a command even if the wake word is said at the end of the sentence instead of at the front.

The move raises concerns over user privacy as Alexa will, by default, always be listening to conversations on the off-chance its wakeword is spoken.

AT&T has come a long way from the supernormative, feel-good messages of its You Will ads; now CEO Randall Stephenson predicts a future where his company will dynamically alter your TV ads based on what it thinks you will buy; and chase you with that ad from your TV to your computer to your phone, and then spy on your location to see whether you go to a retailer to buy the thing you've had advertised to you; and use that intelligence to command high advertising rates from advertisers.

Many parents already have concerns, but some may now have a new argument for limiting their children's 'screen time' — addiction to video games has been recognized by World Health Organization (WHO) as a mental health disorder.

The WHO's International Classification of Diseases (ICD), a reference bible of recognized and diagnosable diseases, describes addiction to digital and video gaming as "a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behavior" that becomes so extensive it "takes precedence over other life interests".

Comments at: https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1132647797591760898

Anti-Trumpers convincing themselves he WANTS to be impeached
Not likely he wants impeachment on his Presidential record
CNN home page, news…or mind reading?
Using the wrong words to describe things…to CREATE news
President Trump’s “Bidan” tweet about Joe being called “low IQ”
Chairman Kim, a friend, mocking President Trump’s rival
Breitbart article, my Episode 540 video about Trump’s 2020 chances
The caveat is…IF nothing changes, President Trump can’t win
Social media has a stranglehold and time to perfect persuasion
BBC video immersing viewer in WWI trench warfare
“They Shall Not Grow Old”
Voiceovers of the actual words from WWI military volunteers
Pre-Suasion, by Cialdini tells us what will happen in the 2020 election
Social media controls the order in which you see things

ad news for users of Instagram, as apparently the site has been leaking the phone numbers and email addresses of its users for the last few months.

Back in February, data scientist David Stier notified Instagram when he discovered the site was showing some user's contact info in the source code. While the information wasn't showing directly on profiles, having it displayed in the source code on the user's page would still make it easy for someone to scrape the info and build a database.

The problem was fixed by March, but by then it may have already been too late. During Stier's investigation, he found that this flaw had been present since at least last October while viewing archived versions of the website. That's more than enough time for this to have been discovered and exploited.

A website that bills itself as providing a safer way to store Bitcoin and other digital currencies has been using a coding sleight of hand to generate private keys that are suspiciously trivial for the operators to guess, leaving all funds stored in the wallets open to theft, researchers with a different service said on Friday.

More than 2 billion users spending one currency, controlled by one billionaire. What’s to worry about?

The U.S. military plans to analyze 350 billion social-media posts from around the world to help it track how popular movements evolve.

A tender for the project, based at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, calls for screening messages from at least 200 million users from more than 100 countries in more than 60 languages to better understand “collective expression.” Messages, including user names, will be examined for comments, metadata, location and hometown identifiers.

While it’s part of an existing Department of Defense Analysis effort to harness big data for social research, “the scale and global reach of this program is striking,” Antoine Bousquet, a senior lecturer in international relations at Birkbeck, University of London, said by email.

Several million records said to include bank account details, Social Security digits, wire transactions, and other mortgage paperwork, were found publicly accessible on the server of a major U.S. financial service company.

More than 885 million records in total were reportedly exposed, according to Krebs on Security. The data was taken offline on Friday.

Ben Shoval, a real-estate developer, reportedly discovered the files online and notified security reporter Brian Krebs. Krebs said that he contacted the server’s owner, First American Corporation, prior to reporting the incident.

A hacking tool developed by the US National Security Agency is now being used to shut down American cities and towns, says a Saturday report in The New York Times.

Code-named EternalBlue, the hacking exploit involves malicious software and was leaked in 2017 by a group called Shadow Brokers. Hackers used the tool that same year in the worldwide WannaCry ransomware attacks, which locked up computer systems at hospitals, banks and phone companies and required a ransom to set the networks free. It was also used in the 2017 NotPetya assault against Ukraine, which has been called one of the most destructive cyberattacks ever.

Now, though, EternalBlue has reportedly landed in the NSA's own backyard: Baltimore, site of the agency's headquarters. The city has been hobbled since a ransomware attack on May 7 ensnared the local government's computers, disrupting city services. Baltimore's IT department is only slowly getting systems up and running again.

The time to defend free speech is now, and the place is wherever you stand. We must be hyper-vigilant because the outrage addicts and crypto-fascists will never stop hunting thought criminals. We must defend speech we abhor just as vehemently as the speech we like. We must not let voices be silenced and their owners disappear into the black bag of deplatforming.

Comments at: https://twitter.com/CarpeDonktum/status/1132401710301941760