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7/30/2005

RFID Babysitter? :.

The new line of clothing, from Lauren Scott, a division of DST Media Inc., is poised to debut next spring. The clothing, including nightgowns, will be sold at Target stores and will include RFID technologies that parents can place in doorways and windows, which will trigger an alarm if children wearing the tagged clothes travel more than 30 feet.

The children's line of nightgowns and pajamas apparently is the first commercial application of RFID in clothing that has debuted so far, but others are expected soon, experts said.

"We've been contacted about this by retailers," said Tawnya Clark, vice president of sales and marketing at RSI ID Technologies in Chula Vista, Calif., a maker of RFID products. "They want to use RFID not only to track the clothes in the warehouse and during shipping. They want to track the clothes when they are bought by customers."


7/29/2005

Oil Over $61 :.

Oil prices surged a dollar to $61 a barrel on Friday as U.S. refinery fires and an oilfield outage in the North Sea underlined concerns about stretched global refining and crude production capacity.

U.S. light crude for September delivery rose as high as $61.05 and by 1600 GMT was up 86 cents at $60.80 a barrel. Crude hit a record in early July of $62.10.



Peak Oil: Post Collapse :.

There's a good thread on peak oil running in the Cryptogon forum.

Start thinking about the post collapse order, or, more likely, lack of order. If you buy some nice land in a remote area, and your neighbors all buy their food at Walmart, you've got a serious problem.

MO writes:

The peak oil question should not be, how will I get from point A to point B, on my corn jetta or fart scooter, but how to sustain existence during the ensuing mayhem of the transition to the post-petroleum era. I don't think you'll want to leave your house when that hits the fan.

To put a context, today I was driving on the highway, in the right lane, doing a sporty but conservative 70-something. Meanwhile in the left lane, psychotic pill popping soccer moms in their minivans and SUVs, testosterone pumped biffs in their hummers and king cabs, roared by at 90 MPH and faster, just guzzling up that $50 tank of gas like theres nothing to it. This is the norm, they know no other way, and have no conception of an alternative existence. I am conflicted that on one level I deride them, another level I pity them, and still another, am I one of them. Most of them, however, will never wake up.

Given I've tried to position my existential sphere in such an area, and the assumption that I can burn wood, drink from a spring, hunt, and farm, the next issue is dealing with the breakdown of the security and control apparatus. While we all know there are issues in its current instantiation, it does serve, to a degree, to protect basic human rights. The void left by a breakdown of government services will quickly be filled by power grabs of would-be local warlords, lone nuts, and nomadic gangs, all seeking to secure as much of whatever resources there are left, with violence and sadism as their means. Ultimately localized systems will reach a feudal equilibrium, but its a long bloody road and the end state is much worse than what we have now. I don't have a plan for that piece, yet.



Critics Squeeze Cisco Over China :.

Why not try to train a scorpion not to sting?

Internet equipment maker Cisco Systems is fighting a shareholder action that urges the company to adopt a comprehensive human rights policy for its dealings with the Chinese government, and with other states practicing political censorship of the internet.

A shareholder resolution filed last May by the Massachusetts-based investment group Boston Common Asset Management calls for Cisco to add human rights considerations to the criteria it uses to certify resellers.



Robotic Gun Turrets Along Israeli Fence :.

Watchtowers armed with remote-controlled machine-guns are to be built every two kilometres, and within a year, remote-controlled unmanned vehicles will begin patrolling the area.


7/28/2005

CAFTA Passed :.

Write letters to your elected representatives. Oh sure:


Related: Original Link to CNN Poll



Solar Power Breakthrough :.

It's a press release from a pink sheet company called, International Automated Systems Inc., but keep an eye on it anyway:

IAUS' unique thin-film solar panels can be produced at a fraction of the cost of today's photovoltaic solar panels. IAUS is on schedule to begin mass production of its solar panels by September 2005. Once in production, IAUS will be able to turn out nearly 200 megawatts of solar panels yearly, nearly 10 times greater capacity than a $100 million photovoltaic fabrication plant.

A solar area of only 100 square miles -- a size of land that equals only nine percent of the state of Nevada -- can generate enough electricity for the entire United States.

"The discovery of economical solar energy is more valuable than oil," said Neldon Johnson, president and CEO of International Automated Systems Inc. "The sun's energy is free, clean and virtually unlimited. IAS' new solar technology is a discovery of historical proportions that we hope will revolutionize energy production throughout the world."



Newspeak Update: Washington Recasts Terror War as 'Struggle' :.

The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, according to senior administration and military officials.



Microsoft Genuine Advantage Cracked in 24 Hours :.

HA!



Has Bush Gone Completely Nuts? :.

Don't you sleep well at night knowing that the nuclear football is always near this man?



The Nerd Who Saw Too Much :.

It took me a few minutes to recover from laughing so hard after I read this. I just wish McKinnon wasn't such a piss head. He might have actually seen some interesting stuff...

Must read for nerds with a dark sense of humor:

He did a few trial runs, hacking into Oxford University's network, for example, and he found the whole business "incredibly exciting. And then it got more exciting when I started going to places where I really shouldn't be."

"Like where?" I ask.

"The US Space Command," he says.

And so, for the next seven years, on and off, McKinnon sat in that aunt's house, a joint in the ashtray and a can of Foster's next to the mouse pad, and he snooped. From time to time, some NASA scientist sitting at his desk somewhere would see his cursor move for no apparent reason. On those occasions, McKinnon's connection would be cut. This would never fail to freak out the then-stoned McKinnon.

When I ask if he is brilliant, he says no. He's just an ordinary, self-taught techie. And, he says, he was never alone. "Once you're on the network, you can do a command called NetStat - Network Status - and it lists all the connections to that machine. There were hackers from Denmark, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Thailand…"

"All on at once?" I ask. "You could see hackers from all over the world, snooping around, without the spaceniks or the military realising?"

"Every night," he says.

"What was the most exciting thing you saw?"

"I found a list of officers' names," he says, "under the heading 'Non-Terrestrial Officers' …. It doesn't mean little green men. What I think it means is not Earth-based. I found a list of 'fleet-to-fleet transfers', and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren't US Navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet."

"The Americans have a secret spaceship?" I ask.

"That's what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe."

"What were the ship names?"

"I can't remember," he says. "I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect."



London Police: Open Fire Without Warning :.

A police source has told the Guardian that there is no need for officers to verbally warn a suspect before opening fire.

The source said: "If the firearms team are reasonably certain the person is a suicide bomber then there is no need to issue any warning.



IRA Permanently Abandoning Military Operations :.

Forget the IRA, compromised all the way to the top with MI5/MI6/FRU operatives. It's time to fear al-Qaeda. Never mind the fact that, according to Tony Blair, "al-Qaeda is not an organization."

Your papers please:

As British officials continued their hunt for Muslim extremists in what they described as their biggest security operations since World War II, another group that used fear and violence for decades - the Irish Republican Army - announced Thursday it was permanently abandoning military operations.


7/27/2005

Cryptogon Forum :.

Cryptogon finally has a forum area.

Why now?

If we want to gain a more accurate understanding of events, we have to cast a wide net into the memepool. Unfortunately, that means our haul of information is going to contain a large amount of chaff, noise and disinformation, along with a few morsels of good stuff. Our skills of discernment have never been more important. What we exclude is as important as what we include.

Cryptogon has an incredibly intelligent, motivated and diverse reader base. (I know this is true because I've personally interacted with many of you in email.) We need to start applying our collective intelligence gathering and analytical skills to Cryptogon-related areas of inquiry. I feel as though a forum could facilitate some extremely useful and interesting discussions. So, get in there, meet some other Cryptogon readers and get to work! Let's see what we can come up with.

Note: I'm running an off the shelf version of phpBB. This is a very powerful bulletin board system. It's so powerful, in fact, that things may get weird at first. I actually don't know if I've locked it down too much, or not enough. So, think of this as a beta attempt. I'll add permanent links to the forum area as soon as I'm convinced that we're running smoothly.



Fiber Optics Bring the Sun Indoors :.

Nice:

The HSL 3000, a hybrid lighting system developed by Sunlight Direct, carries the actual light of the sun indoors. The system's 48-inch primary mirror concentrates light into a secondary mirror, which strips away the infrared and ultraviolet components, and directs the visible light into the receiver. A tracking system has two motors governed by a GPS microprocessor, which can calculate the position of the sun within half a degree. This enables the mirror to follow the sun across the sky like a sunflower, gathering in maximum light intensity throughout the day. The tracking system itself requires very little power to operate. It could be supported by a small solar cell - equivalent to a 9-volt battery (which would last about a week).


7/26/2005

London Police: Operation Kratos :.

Essentially what we are dealing with is the formation of a death squadron mentality under the auspices of what is stilled officially considered a "civilian police force".


7/25/2005

Pringles Wi-Fi Cantenna Illegal in Sacremento :.

Mad pig disease is producing some really weird behavior in Sacremento. When the pig tells you to step away from the Pringles can, it's not kidding.

I guess these guys didn't get the memo:

Known as "cantennas," they consist of a Pringles can and some hardware worth $5 to $10 but can be used to amplify a wireless signal several miles away.

"They're unsophisticated but reliable, and it's illegal to possess them," said Lozito of the Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force.



ARMY.PENTAGON.MIL Search for N379P

A pentagon.mil user (host: uodlanfw.hqda-aoc.army.pentagon.mil, ip: 140.185.28.2) conducted the following Google Images search: n379p.

A couple of hours later, a cbs.com user (host: proxy-ny.cbs.com, ip: 170.20.11.59) conducted the same search.

Possible news story brewing on the CIA torture flights?



Cryptogon Reader Contributes $15

Longtime Cryptogon reader and regular contributor, AH, sent in $15. Thanks to AH, and all Cryptogon contributors! You guys are making July a record month for contributions.



British Police Chief: Shoot Heads Off First, Ask Questions Later :.

They just murdered an innocent man. Sorry, chap. Expect more of the same:

Britain's most senior police officer apologized for the killing of a young Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber, but warned yesterday that more such deaths are possible.

The frank statement from Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair forced many Britons to consider a difficult question: How much police violence can they accept in the name of public safety?

As sirens wailed through downtown London and the roundup of terrorism suspects continued, Sir Ian answered bluntly.

"Somebody else could be shot. But everything is done to make it right," he said. "This is a terrifying set of circumstances for individuals to make decisions."

If officers are dealing with someone suspected of carrying a bomb, they must be lethal, Sir Ian added. "The only way to deal with this is to shoot to the head. There is no point in shooting at someone's chest because that is where the bomb is likely to be."


7/24/2005

Must I Paint You a Picture? :.

America has already processed the softer scenes of prisoners set upon by dogs, stacked naked in pyramids, forced to perform sex acts on one-another, smeared in excrement and posed for electrocution. And the usual Americans have made peace with them, in their "freedom isn't free" subterfuge of every decent thing. Are they ready for the harder stuff? If not, after years of a concerted dulling of consciences, how much worse must they be?



WalMart Deploys Solar, Wind, Sustainable Design :.

Walmart built its empire by destroying the planet and turning human beings into nutrient agar. Just keep that in mind.

And now, Walmart as posterchild of the green revolution? Sh*t, why not? Oh yeah. Watch the idiot Left slobber all over this.

Evil will attempt to cloak itself in all kinds of ways as the end of this sickening paradigm approaches. Thank God (god/gods/dog, etc.) it's too little, too late to save this show.

Of course, the nightmare scenario is that They pull off system maintenance for another couple of decades:

Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, unveiled a new store outside of Dallas, Texas that could revolutionize how the company builds and powers their stores. The experimental design combines a host of renewable energy technologies including numerous solar PV arrays, two, small wind turbines, a bio-fuel boiler to recycle and burn recovered oil from store operations and a nearly endless list of energy-saving and sustainable design principles.



Cryptogon Reader Contributes $1

Thanks JD. If everyone who read Cryptogon donated just $1 per month, I'd be getting about five grand per month. Imagine the trouble I would cause with a budget like that! Hmmm. Maybe it's a good thing that I don't have that kind of money.



Carlyle Group Behind Explosive Scanners Going Into Subway Stations :.

Imagine my shock:

A new generation of body and baggage scanning systems could be introduced soon, a leading government security adviser suggested yesterday. Simon Stringer, managing director of the security division of Qinetiq, said wave sensors could screen people as they put their tickets through the gates before entering platforms. Passengers could be slowed down by making them walk through an S-shaped barrier.

Qinetiq - which is 56% owned by the government and 30% by the Carlyle Group - is developing a "passive millimetric wave" scan which could screen people in real time and without the radiation risks associated with x-rays, Mr Stringer said.


Research Credit: AV




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