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Wall Street

States Negotiating Immunity For Banks Over Foreclosures


Raw Story
Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:20 UTC
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New York- State attorneys general are negotiating to give major banks wide immunity over irregularities in handling foreclosures, even as evidence has emerged that banks are continuing to file questionable documents.

A coalition of all 50 states' attorneys general has been negotiating settlements with five of the biggest U.S. banks that would include payment of up to $25 billion in penalties and commitments to follow new rules. In exchange, the banks would get immunity from civil lawsuits by the states, as well as similar guarantees by the Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development, which have participated in the talks.

State and federal officials declined to say if any form of immunity from criminal prosecution also is under discussion. The banks involved in the talks are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial.
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Magnify

TSA Announces Privacy Overhaul of Nude Airport Scanners

David Kravets
Wired
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 02:54 UTC
tsascanners
© Wired
The Transportation Security Administration announced Wednesday that one type of body scanner deployed in as many as 78 airports nationwide will be revamped to no longer display an image of travelers' naked bodies, bowing to months of criticism over the privacy implications of the technology.
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Laptop

US: Alleged hacker just trying to highlight 'flaw'


abc-7
Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:56 UTC


The father of the University of Central Florida student who was arrested by the FBI said his son had no intention of committing a criminal act. He says his son was only trying to point out a flaw in the system.
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Display

Google sends warnings to machines with infected search

John Leyden
The Register
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:23 UTC
Alerts are genuine - until scareware scum get on board

Google is issuing warnings to people whose computers are infected with a type of malware that manipulates search requests.

A strain of rogue anti-virus software also includes a search hijacker component. The hijacker is designed to further enrich scammers by redirecting users of compromised machines through various dodgy pay-per-click affiliate sites instead of genuine search engines.

Instead of going straight to Google, surfers on compromised machines are sent via proxies. The traffic generated from malware-infected machines has an unique signature that has allowed Google to return warnings to victims using these machines.

The malware is programmed to ping a specific Google internet address from compromised machines. Google came across this when it took a server associated with this address offline during routine maintenance.
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Display

LulzSec hacker Sabu: Murdoch emails 'sometime soon'

John Leyden
The Register
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:24 UTC
Secretive figure tells our man release is coming

The promised dump of its emails from News International by hacktivist group LulzSec failed to materialise on Tuesday. However a prominent affiliate of the group told El Reg that the release had only been delayed, rather than postponed.

The UK end of the Murdoch media empire was hacked on Monday night, so that surfers visiting The Sun's website were redirected towards a spoof story on the fictitious suicide of Rupert Murdoch. The hack involved exploiting weaknesses on a retired site, running Solaris, set up by NI at the time NI was building a paywall for The Times.

This pwnage was then used in a stepping stone attack that ultimately allowed the hackers to gain root on a server that gave them the ability to add a redirection script to the "breaking news" element of The Sun's website.
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Stormtrooper

Canada: Toronto G20 a year later: it's shocking how easily Canada became a brutal police state

Craig McKee
indybay.org
Tue, 19 Jul 2011 08:45 UTC
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© unknown

Peaceful protesters and bystanders were beaten, pepper sprayed, shot with rubber bullets, detained without counsel, denied food and water for hours, and crammed into overcrowded cells - handcuffed the whole time. (http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com)

In true Orwellian fashion, masked rioters were allowed free reign to go on a destructive rampage while peaceful protesters were beaten, rounded up and denied any semblance of their civil rights.

The scene was Toronto, Canada's largest city, and the event was the G20 Summit held June 26-27, 2010. The event - for which security cost in the vicinity of $1 billion - led to the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. It was an exercise in crushing dissent, and it left the impression that those in power are only willing to support free speech until people most need to exercise it.

While police were allowing the masked Black Bloc rioters to destroy anything they wanted, they weren't shy about beating and arresting peaceful protestors. In fact, they arrested many who weren't even protesting, but who were just trying to walk down the street. One journalist, despite identifying himself, was punched several times in the face by a riot officer. A reporter for The Guardian was held by two officers while a third punched him in the stomach and when he was on the ground, elbowed him in the back of the head.
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MIB

Book: Hollywood producer 'was' Mossad agent


Ynet
Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:12 UTC
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© UnknownArnon Milchan in the center


New biography outs Israeli producer as man who purchased components for Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Could one of Hollywood's greatest Israeli producers have been a Mossad agent? In a new biography called Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, authors Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman claim that the producer took part in secret Mossad operations.

According to the book, Milchan supervised accounts and financed "the essential needs of Israel intelligence operations outside the country." Those "essential needs" include purchasing components for Israel's nuclear arsenal.
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Star of David

Israel ups ante over Palestine

Jason Koutsoukis
The Sydney Morning Herald
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:00 UTC
Ayalon
© unknownAyalon
The Israeli deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Danny Ayalon, has warned that a Palestinian push for full membership of the United Nations in September would set the stage for ''confrontation and conflict'' with Israel.

In a press briefing on Monday, Mr Ayalon urged the international community to stand behind Israel and reject the Palestinian effort, instead persuading the Palestinian leadership to return to direct negotiations with Israel.

''The issue here is the basic route which the Palestinians opt for,'' Mr Ayalon said. ''Are they opting for negotiations, are they opting for co-operation, are they opting for normalisation of relations ... or do they want to go for this unilateral route of confrontation and conflict? ...''
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Mr Ayalon, who over the past six months has travelled throughout Europe and South America to weaken the Palestinian effort, said it would be another low moment for the UN if a clear majority voted to recognise a Palestinian state.
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Eye 1

US: Police to Begin iPhone Iris Scans Amid Privacy Concerns

Zach Howard
Reuters
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 01:59 UTC
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© Reuters/Yuriko NakaoA customer tries out the iPhone 4 at Apple Inc's store in the Ginza district of Tokyo June 24, 2010.
Dozens of police departments nationwide are gearing up to use a tech company's already controversial iris- and facial-scanning device that slides over an iPhone and helps identify a person or track criminal suspects.

The so-called "biometric" technology, which seems to take a page from TV shows like MI-5 or CSI, could improve speed and accuracy in some routine police work in the field. However, its use has set off alarms with some who are concerned about possible civil liberties and privacy issues.

The smartphone-based scanner, named Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System, or MORIS, is made by BI2 Technologies in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and can be deployed by officers out on the beat or back at the station.

An iris scan, which detects unique patterns in a person's eyes, can reduce to seconds the time it takes to identify a suspect in custody. This technique also is significantly more accurate than results from other fingerprinting technology long in use by police, BI2 says.

When attached to an iPhone, MORIS can photograph a person's face and run the image through software that hunts for a match in a BI2-managed database of U.S. criminal records. Each unit costs about $3,000.

Some experts fret police may be randomly scanning the population, using potentially intrusive techniques to search for criminals, sex offenders, and illegal aliens, but the manufacturer says that would be a difficult task for officers to carry out.

Sean Mullin, BI2's CEO, says it is difficult, if not impossible, to covertly photograph someone and obtain a clear, usable image without that person knowing about it, because the MORIS should be used close up.

"It requires a level of cooperation that makes it very overt -- a person knows that you're taking a picture for this purpose," Mullin said.
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Document

US: Minnesota Governor Signs Budget, Ends State Shutdown

Martiga Lohn
The Associated Press
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:14 UTC
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© The Associated Press / Jim MoneMinnesota Gov. Mark Dayton is handed one of the bills as he signs the state budget bill which ends the government shutdown, Wednesday, July 20, 2011 in St. Paul, Minn. Dayton's signature came just hours after lawmakers gave their own approval to the deal after meeting in special session that started Tuesday afternoon and lasted until early Wednesday morning. After signing the budget, Dayton said he was "not entirely happy" with it.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed a new budget Wednesday, ending the nation's longest state government shutdown in the past decade.

Dayton's signature came just hours after lawmakers gave their own approval to the deal after meeting in special session that started Tuesday afternoon and lasted until early Wednesday morning. All sides formalized an agreement that Dayton struck with leading Republicans late last week.

The two sides argued bitterly over taxes and spending for months. When government shut down July 1, it closed state parks and rest stops, laid off 22,000 state employees, stopped road projects and much more.

The end to the shutdown began when Dayton moved last week to accept a borrowing plan offered by the GOP shortly before the stoppage began.

After signing the budget, Dayton said he was "not entirely happy" with it.

"It's not what I wanted, but it's the best option that was available and would be for any time," he said. Dayton said the budget "gets Minnesota back to work."

Details were still emerging Wednesday about how quickly state operations would restart. Dayton said he expected most state employees to be back on the job Thursday.
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