Society's Child
Adups is a company that facilitates over-the-air updates for mobile devices, so its firmware is preinstalled on lots of devices. However, the firmware does much more than it claims, and has the ability to snoop in areas that it shouldn't, and without the user ever knowing. That information can then be collected by Adups for whatever purposes it desires.
Trustlook, another digital security firm, dug deeper on what devices utilize Adups and could be used by the Chinese company to scrape your private information, and the list is absolutely massive. Trustlook says that over 700 million Android smartphones have Adups firmware installed that puts the user at risk of having text messages, call histories, and device information collected without their knowledge or consent.
Many of the manufacturers who utilize Adups are smaller companies who only release their devices in Asia or specific smaller markets. However, there are a few notable names on the list, including Lenovo, ZTE, and the aforementioned Blu.
The Blu R1 HD was the first device found to be relaying this sensitive information back to Adups, and the company took action to halt the app's nefarious habits, but it's now up to the rest of the dozens and dozens of manufacturers on the list to do the same. The best course of action right now seems to be keeping the phone as updated as possible, and installing any security patches that come down the pipeline.
Kern County, California, has a population of less than one million residents, but their two largest police forces killed more people in 2015 than the New York City Police Department (NYPD), despite the Big Apple's population being 10 times larger.
After the pair were deemed the deadliest local law enforcement agencies nationwide by the Guardian, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced Thursday that media reports and citizen complaints had given her cause to investigate both Kern County Sheriff's Office and the Bakersfield Police Department.
"Excessive use of force and police misconduct erode and undermine the public's trust in our law enforcement agencies," Harris said in a statement.
Google is often accused of violating the privacy of users, but according to the new lawsuit filed in the California Superior Court in San Francisco under California's Private Attorneys General Act, it is even worse for employees.
The employee says in his complaint that their "internal spying program" encourages employees to report their coworkers if they believe that the person is leaking information to the press. The company also allegedly warned their staff not to write about any potentially illegal happenings within the company — even to their own attorneys.
The bomb dropped by the British Air Force back in the 1940s was found during construction work, Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper reported, citing a spokesman from the city council.
The evacuation and defusing of the device will take place during Christmas, which falls on the weekend this year. Authorities say the hazardous area has a radius of 1.5km, meaning that about 54,000 people from 32,000 households will have to spend Christmas away from home.
They will all be fined next week, and have 60 days to pay, according to the spokesman for Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, who spoke to the AP. He added that an appeals process is being formulated in case of a challenge.
This is the first time anything like this has happened in the state in 40 years, when one elector went rogue and voted for Ronald Reagan instead of Gerald Ford, who won in Washington but lost the general election to Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976. It was that year that the penalties for going rogue were signed into law, but 2016 is the first year they will be enforced.
This time, one third of the electors went rogue in an act of symbolic protest, giving Clinton eight votes, instead of the 12 she had secured, thus making Washington the leading state in so-called 'faithless electors.' The vast majority of the Electoral College voted as expected, sealing Donald Trump's victory, with 304 but two votes to Clinton's 227. It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

Maltese troops survey a hijacked Libyan Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A320 on the runway at Malta Airport, December 23, 2016
It's understood the plane was making an internal flight from Sebha to Tripoli before it was diverted to Malta International Airport. Armed soldiers then surrounded it on the runway.
Libyan and Maltese authorities are continuing negotiations with the hijackers, while Malta-based journalist Saviour Balzan tweeted that the hijackers agreed to let the passengers go and to give up their weapons.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat confirmed in a series of tweets the gradual release of the 118 passengers and crew from the plane. It remains unclear at this stage, however, the exact number of people still on board.
Seven people were detained following overnight raids by Victoria Police, the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) on Friday. Five people are still in custody and are answering questions about the alleged terrorist plot.
"Overnight our police and security agencies have disrupted a very substantial terrorist plot," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said at a press conference.
Police believe that Islamic State/(IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)-inspired terrorists wanted to use explosives and other weapons on Christmas Day to target locations in the city, including St Paul's Cathedral, Federation Square and Flinders Street Station.
"What they have uncovered is a plot to explode improvised explosive devices in central Melbourne in the area of Federation Square, on or about Christmas Day," Turnbull noted.
Almost 40% of young Americans were living with their parents, siblings or other relatives in 2015, the largest percentage since 1940, according to an analysis of census data by real estate tracker Trulia.
Despite a rebounding economy and recent job growth, the share of those between the ages of 18 and 34 doubling up with parents or other family members has been rising since 2005. Back then, before the start of the last recession, roughly one out of three were living with family.
The trend runs counter to that of previous economic cycles, when after a recession-related spike, the number of younger Americans living with relatives declined as the economy improved.

Clean water supplies are replenished in recently liberated East Aleppo district of Hanano.
On the 11th December 2016 I visited Hanano in East Aleppo. Hanano had been liberated days previously by the Syrian Arab Army and allies including Hezbollah and Russia. Hanano had been under a Nusra Front [Al Qaeda] terrorist regime for the last, almost, five years.
The testimonies we filmed testified to starvation, wholesale deprivation of humanitarian aid, summary executions, torture and the use of civilians as human shields. Nusra Front were the overlord of the district, controlling an estimated 22 militant brigades funded, equipped and armed by NATO and Gulf states and condemning the Syrian civilians to a life of fear and imprisonment in their own homes.
Women were married, raped and discarded en masse, children were imprisoned and anyone caught supporting the Syrian Government could be executed or imprisoned & tortured. The very antithesis of the narrative being run by the corporate media for the entire duration of the almost five years of wholesale suffering endured by both West and East Aleppo, carved into two and targeted by the Nusra Front-led terrorists and militants.
The importance of election integrity had eluded Brazile when she was a regular on CNN, posing as neutral in the Clinton-Sanders battle. "Brazile is not apologizing for leaking CNN debate questions and topics to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary," the Washington Post reported last month. "Her only regret, it seems, is that she got caught."
Many big factors affect any presidential race, and the Russian government may have tried to be one of them for the 2016 election — though it's hardly the slam dunk that agencies like the CIA and U.S. mass media are now claiming. But in any event, this month it has become routine for a lot of progressive organizations and individuals to descend into a dangerous mode of partisan flackery.













Comment: It would be interesting to know if the police departments in question have received training from Israeli police.