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Monday, October 19, 2009

A report accidentally published on the Internet provides insight into a secretive European Union surveillance project designed to monitor its citizens, as reported by Wikileaks earlier this month. Project INDECT aims to mine data from television, internet traffic, cellphone conversations, p2p file sharing and a range of other sources for crime prevention and threat prediction. The €14.68 million project began in January, 2009, and is scheduled to continue for five years under its current mandate.

INDECT produced the accidentally published report as part of their “Extraction of Information for Crime Prevention by Combining Web Derived Knowledge and Unstructured Data” project, but do not enumerate all potential applications of the search and surveillance technology. Police are discussed as a prime example of users, with Polish and British forces detailed as active project participants. INDECT is funded under the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), and includes participation from Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Indicated in the initial trial’s report, the scope of data collected is particularly broad; days of television news, radio, newspapers, and recorded telephone conversations are included. Several weeks of content from online sources were agglomerated, including mining Wikipedia for users’ and article subjects’ relations with others, organisations, and in-project movements.

Watermarking of published digital works such as film, audio, or other documents is discussed in the Project INDECT remit; its purpose is to integrate and track this information, its movement within the system and across the Internet. An unreleased promotional video for INDECT located on YouTube is shown to the right. The simplified example of the system in operation shows a file of documents with a visible INDECT-titled cover taken from an office and exchanged in a car park. How the police are alerted to the document theft is unclear in the video; as a “threat”, it would be the INDECT system’s job to predict it.

Throughout the video use of CCTV equipment, facial recognition, number plate reading, and aerial surveillance give friend-or-foe information with an overlaid map to authorities. The police proactively use this information to coordinate locating, pursuing, and capturing the document recipient. The file of documents is retrieved, and the recipient roughly detained.

Technology research performed as part of Project INDECT has clear use in countering industrial and international espionage, although the potential use in maintaining any security and predicting leaks is much broader. Quoted in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, Liberty’s director, Shami Chakrabarti, described a possible future implementation of INDECT as a “sinister step” with “positively chilling” repercussions Europe-wide.

“It is inevitable that the project has a sensitive dimension due to the security focussed goals of the project,” Suresh Manandhar, leader of the University of York researchers involved in the “Work Package 4” INDECT component, responded to Wikinews. “However, it is important to bear in mind that the scientific methods are much more general and has wider applications. The project will most likely have lot of commercial potential. The project has an Ethics board to oversee the project activities. As a responsible scientists [sic] it is of utmost importance to us that we conform to ethical guidelines.”

Although Wikinews attempted to contact Professor Helen Petrie of York University, the local member of Project INDECT’s Ethics board, no response was forthcoming. The professor’s area of expertise is universal access, and she has authored a variety of papers on web-accessibility for blind and disabled users. A full list of the Ethics board members is unavailable, making their suitability unassessable and distancing them from public accountability.

One potential application of Project INDECT would be implementation and enforcement of the U.K.’s “MoD Manual of Security“. The 2,389-page 2001 version passed to Wikileaks this month — commonly known as JSP-440, and marked “RESTRICTED” — goes into considerable detail on how, as a serious threat, investigative journalists should be monitored, and effectively thwarted; just the scenario the Project INDECT video could be portraying.

When approached by Wikinews about the implications of using INDECT, a representative of the U.K.’s Attorney General declined to comment on legal checks and balances such a system might require. Further U.K. enquiries were eventually referred to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who have not yet responded.

Wikinews’ Brian McNeil contacted Eddan Katz, the International Affairs Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (E.F.F.). Katz last spoke to Wikinews in early 2008 on copyright, not long after taking his current position with the E.F.F. He was back in Brussels to speak to EU officials, Project INDECT was on his agenda too — having learned of it only two weeks earlier. Katz linked Project INDECT with a September report, NeoConopticon — The EU Security-Industrial Complex, authored by Ben Hayes for the Transnational Institute. The report raises serious questions about the heavy involvement of defence and IT companies in “security research”.

On the record, Katz answered a few questions for Wikinews.

((WN)) Is this illegal? Is this an invasion of privacy? Spying on citizens?

Eddan Katz When the European Parliament issued the September 5, 2001 report on the American ECHELON system they knew such an infrastructure is in violation of data protection law, undermines the values of privacy and is the first step towards a totalitarian surveillance information society.

((WN)) Who is making the decisions based on this information, about what?

E.K. What’s concerning to such a large extent is the fact that the projects seem to be agnostic to that question. These are the searching systems and those people that are working on it in these research labs do search technology anyway. […] but its inclusion in a database and its availability to law enforcement and its simultaneity of application that’s so concerning, […] because the people who built it aren’t thinking about those questions, and the social questions, and the political questions, and all this kind of stuff. [… It] seems like it’s intransparent, unaccountable.

The E.U. report Katz refers to was ratified just six days before the September 11 attacks that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center. In their analysis of the never-officially-recognised U.S. Echelon spy system it states, “[i]n principle, activities and measures undertaken for the purposes of state security or law enforcement do not fall within the scope of the EC Treaty.” On privacy and data-protection legislation enacted at E.U. level it comments, “[such does] not apply to ‘the processing of data/activities concerning public security, defence, state security (including the economic well-being of the state when the activities relate to state security matters) and the activities of the state in areas of criminal law'”.

Part of the remit in their analysis of Echelon was rumours of ‘commercial abuse’ of intelligence; “[i]f a Member State were to promote the use of an interception system, which was also used for industrial espionage, by allowing its own intelligence service to operate such a system or by giving foreign intelligence services access to its territory for this purpose, it would undoubtedly constitute a breach of EC law […] activities of this kind would be fundamentally at odds with the concept of a common market underpinning the EC Treaty, as it would amount to a distortion of competition”.

Ben Hayes’ NeoConoptiocon report, in a concluding section, “Following the money“, states, “[w]hat is happening in practice is that multinational corporations are using the ESRP [European Seventh Research Programme] to promote their own profit-driven agendas, while the EU is using the programme to further its own security and defence policy objectives. As suggested from the outset of this report, the kind of security described above represents a marriage of unchecked police powers and unbridled capitalism, at the expense of the democratic system.”

Friday, September 1, 2006

India’s present High Commissioner to Pakistan, Shiv Shankar Menon will, with effect from 1st October, take over the post of Foreign Secretary, succeeding Shyam Saran. Saran has been designated the Special Envoy for negotiating the Indo-US nuclear deal. Menon, 57, is a 1972 batch Indian Foreign Service officer who has served in countries such as China, Israel, Austria, Japan and Sri Lanka and was an advisor in the Department of Atomic Energy during the course of his diplomatic career. He succeeded Vijay Nambiar as High Commissioner to Pakistan in 2003, and will now hold the post of Foreign Secretary for a term of three years.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

On the 20th birthday of Nintendo‘s mascots, Mario and his brother Luigi, Nintendo has released the newest addition to the popular Game Boy line.

The Game Boy Micro is the smallest handheld release by Nintendo to date. Unlike other handhelds in the Game Boy Advance series, the Game Boy Micro can only play Game Boy Advance games and not games designed for the original Game Boy system. The handheld features a new link port, includes multiple removable faceplates, and additional faceplates can be purchased separately. This system has an MSRP of USD$99.99.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has been detained on charges of money laundering, embezzling government funds, taking bribes and forging documents. Television coverage showed him shouting “political persecution” while being led away in handcuffs.

“The KMT and the Chinese Communist Party see me as their number one prisoner as I am the biggest stone blocking their way to reunification,” Chen said according to reports.

However, court proceedings were halted so that he could be taken to hospital, due to an injury sustained after he was detained. He was discharged when doctors found that his injuries were minor, and Chen returned to court the following morning.

Lai Ching-teh, an opposition leader, said, “The former president told the judges that he was pushed from behind while being escorted out of the prosecutors’ office, and demanded that he be sent to the National Taiwan University Hospital to examine his injuries.”

“This political manipulation is aimed at destroying the DPP and insulting a former leader by handcuffing him. We assure the public that the DPP will not be defeated,” said Lee Chun-yee, a legislator from Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Chen has publicly admitted that his wife wired tens of millions of dollars oversea, but denies any wrongdoing. He has also admitted to getting government money by submitting false receipts, though he claims that the purpose of this was only to fund “secret diplomatic missions” and not benefit himself.

Chen is a lawyer by profession and served as the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from May 20, 2000 through May 20, 2008.

Chen, his wife, son, daughter-in-law and brother-in-law have been named as defendants in a separate money laundering case.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Ten billion songs have been downloaded from the iTunes Store, an online digital media store which is owned by Apple Incorporated. Louie Sulcer, of Woodstock in Georgia, downloaded “Guess Things Happen That Way” by American musician, Johnny Cash, which became the ten billionth song downloaded from iTunes. Sulcer won an iTunes gift card worth US$10,000 (approximately £6,550 or €7,380), after purchasing a song on the iTunes Store to win the prize.

Beforehand, Apple had launched a competition entitled “Countdown to 10 Billion Song Downloads”, where the person to make the ten billionth “entry” of a song from the iTunes Store would win the gift card. An “entry” could be created by either downloading a song from the iTunes store, or by filling in a form on the Apple website.

The rules of the competition stated that “the downloading of the 10 billionth song is considered to be either the downloading of the 10 billionth song from iTunes or the receipt of the non-purchase entry after the download of the 9,999,999,999th song, whichever comes first.” Below is a table of the twenty most downloaded songs of all time from Apple’s iTunes Store. The list was initially placed on the website.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

A new book released today by author Marc Headley, Blown for Good, reveals details inside Scientology headquarters at the organization’s “Gold Base“, located near Hemet, California. Headley joined the organization at age seven when his mother became a member, and worked at Scientology’s International Management Headquarters for several years before leaving in 2005.

While an employee of the Scientology headquarters located in Riverside County, California, Headley had the experience of practicing Scientology counseling services called “auditing” with Scientologist Tom Cruise, shortly after the actor had completed work on the film Days of Thunder. In 1990, Cruise was training to become proficient in the Scientology auditing techniques, and Headley was selected to become the actor’s auditing partner. Though a young actor at the age of 28, Cruise was already known for his work on films including Top Gun and Born on the Fourth of July. Headley writes in the book that he was chosen to work with Cruise because he had not yet progressed in Scientology levels, and because he was seen as a low security risk due to his young age at the time. Headley writes that he worked with Cruise for hours and hours each day, for a period of three weeks, on Scientology techniques called “Training Routines“.

The book provides details of what life was like for the author inside the organization’s headquarters. The inner flap of the book includes a map of the “International Headquarters of Scientology; Gilman Hot Springs, California”. Headley writes that under the direction of Scientology leader David Miscavige, employees who signed billion-year contracts routinely put in 100-hour weeks of work for minimal pay. According to Headley, possible discipline faced by the Scientology employees for perceived mistakes included being separated from family as part of the Scientology policy of “disconnection“, being declared a “suppressive person“, or being sent to the “Rehabilitation Project Force“, a program where Scientologists were assigned harsh labor.

Headley’s tasks while working at the Scientology compound Gold Base included dealing with audiovisual equipment used for organization presentations and speeches by Miscavige, and supervising production of thousands of audiotapes of lectures given by Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard. From 1989 to 2005 Headley worked at the Scientology film production studio on scripts for movies which would be used to instruct new members of the organization on its practices. He faced repercussions from Miscavige if he could not meet production quotas. Headley asserts that he was physically abused by Miscavige, a claim made previously by other former Scientology officials in a series of investigative articles published in the St. Petersburg Times.

The book gives background on a 9-minute long video of Tom Cruise, leaked to the Internet in January 2008, that featured the actor discussing his views on Scientology. The Church of Scientology‘s attempts to remove the leaked video from the Internet motivated the group Anonymous to focus its efforts against the organization. Headley writes that initially the promotional video about Cruise was supposed to feature celebrities including Will Smith speaking about the actor, but Miscavige instead insisted Cruise should simply talk about himself.

Headley describes a form of Miscavige’s management previously related in the St. Petersburg Times, where the Scientology leader made his staff play musical chairs to the Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody“. Miscavige told 70 Scientology executives that they were to compete for chairs, and that only the last individual left after several rounds would remain at the compound, while the other executives would be assigned to remote locations. After a dramatic competition with multiple staffers in tears that they would be separated from their families, Miscavige stated no one would be removed from the compound.

In 2005, Headley left the Scientology compound in Hemet on a motorcycle, and fell off his vehicle after being chased by Scientology security guards. Riverside County police helped Headley escape from the Scientology security. Headley traveled to Kansas City to meet his father. He was later joined by his wife Claire who had also worked at the Gold Base compound.

Headley filed suit against Scientology in January 2009. In the legal case, he asserts that Scientology violated United States labor law with regard to his treatment while an employee of the organization. Headley and his lawyer Barry Van Sickle succeeded against attempts by the organization to get the suit dismissed. Headley’s lawsuit is set to begin in U.S. federal court in November 2010.

American talk radio hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou discussed the book Wednesday on their program The John and Ken Show on KFI. “This is, the Scientology cult, is I guarantee you, a thousand times more bizarre than you could have ever imagined. And what these celebrities do, like Tom Cruise, is a thousand times more strange than you could ever imagine. I have never read about behavior like this in my life, I can’t imagine it. It’s really weird,” commented one of the hosts about material revealed by Headley in the book. Headley writes in the book that he started to question his involvement in Scientology when secretly listening to The John and Ken Show and watching Conan O’Brien make fun of Scientology celebrities. The National Enquirer reported on the release of Blown for Good, calling it an “explosive new book”.

The book was reviewed Wednesday by the Editor in chief of The Village Voice, Tony Ortega, who characterized it as a “remarkable account”. “Headley’s book also provides stunning material that has rarely been collected in one place, even with the Internet’s deep resources on L. Ron Hubbard’s strange creation. Headley’s story provides a damning account of life working for Scientology leader David Miscavige at the secretive desert base”, wrote Ortega in the review. He commented, “Perhaps the best service that Headley provides with Blown for Good is giving non-Scientologists the sense of what it’s really like to work, day in and day out, in such a strange organization, from the lowliest laborer mucking out excrement in a Gold Base pond (Headley says shit was coming out of his ears and pores for days) to what kind of luxuries the celebrities and high-ranking members enjoy.”

Friday, July 16, 2010

File:T3 concourse day.jpg

An Air India Boeing 777 from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was the first international flight to land at Delhi’s new Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi International Airport.

However, this was only one of nine “terminal process proving flights” that landed or departed from the brand-new steel and glass T3 on either Wednesday or Thursday. Seven of the proving flights departed or arrived on Wednesday and two on Thursday. The new terminal was inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 3. Terminal 3 is designed to handle large international aircraft like the Airbus A380, which landed as one of the terminal process proving flights on Thursday.

Though Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which operates the airport, had planned earlier to commission the new terminal for international operations on Wednesday, the commissioning was pushed to July 28 due to unfinished construction.

However, the proving flights proceeded as planned, and DIAL, with 450 employees from 13 airlines, conducted a full trial of all operations on Tuesday.

In addition to the Air India arrival from New York, United States, the first departure in the new Terminal was a Jet Airways international flight to Kathmandu, Nepal. The first domestic flight that departed from T3 was an Air India flight from Jaipur, Rajasthan.

On Tuesday, before the Air India 777 was slated to arrive, an official from that airline said that “All the 220 passengers and 18 crew members of the New York flight (AI-102) would clear their immigrations at the new terminal. It is going to be a real test for all the agencies at T3.” DIAL also stated that “passengers traveling by these nine flights (July 14 and July 15) are being informed individually by their respective airlines. Flight information is also being displayed on standees at terminal 2. The information about flights arriving and departing from Terminal 3 will also be displayed prominently at various points on the eight lane road from Hotel Radisson to Terminal 3.”

The terminal process proving flights aimed to make sure that everything, including airlines, air traffic control, ground handling agencies, duty free shops, flight caterers, aviation oil companies, customs, and immigration, are all in working order.