Police powers finally kettled by High Court | Netpol

For years it has been common practice for protesters held in a kettle (police containment) to be forced to submit to police filming and/or provide their details as a condition of leaving. There have been countless incidents in which protesters who have tried (lawfully) to refuse these demands have been threatened with arrest, or told they could not leave the kettle.

This should now change, as the High Court has today ruled that the police have no powers to force people to give their details, or comply with police filming and photography, simply because they are held in a kettle.
Lord Justice Moses criticised police practice in no uncertain terms. He stated,

Absolutely, in excess of 80% of data loss or theft, or associated crime comes from your own employees.

the best part is that the congressman thinks only boy fetuses masturabate

— Josh Fruhlinger (@jfruh) June 18, 2013

And as usual, these security guys' advice is, eh, unhelpful.

I'll maintain that the three rules of good security are:

1. Know yourself: What data do we actually need to keep safe, and what data can we accept that Googlestapo passes to our competitors? If you try to make all your data equally secure, all you end up doing is making all your date equally insecure.

2. Know your enemy: Formulate a plausible threat model. All security features come at a cost in time and bother. This has a number of consequences, but first among them is reducing compliance. Which means that any security feature that you don't actually need in order to defeat your threat model will potentially makes your system less secure, because it reduces security protocol compliance.

3. Do your own due diligence. You cannot outsource security. Nobody needs your encryption keys. And if you're a big enough operation to have data that needs to be protected, you're a big enough operation to run your own data center.

Typically, the security professionals will over-emphasize point 3. And they focus on the hardware and software, while the biggest vulnerability in any organization is the wetware.

- Jake

Spy-proof enterprise encryption is possible, but daunting - Network World

Data encryption could help enterprises protect their sensitive information against mass surveillance by governments, as well as guard against unauthorized access by ill-intended third parties, but the correct implementation and use of data encryption technologies is not an easy task, according to security experts.

Height is really only one factor of the whole

But (along with river/flooded area width) the only one relevant to statistical analysis of past flood sizes :-) Of course maintaining flood defences is about more than piling up stuff until a given height is reached.

Not the west but the east, but this reminds me of the story of the successive bridges built at Harper's Ferry, most of them destroyed by floods and some by war.

On the other hand, even rail bridges built with flood awareness can be managed in a wrong way. On the Dresden–Leipzig rail line, there is a bridge of the Elbe river at Riesa, on flat terrain with wide floodplains. When the war-damaged bridge was fully restored in the 1960s, several arches on the floodplain part were filled up with earth, leaving two smaller bridge parts. During the 2002 flood, water had to pass through these two openings, and all the pillars were washed out. Upon reconstruction, more arches were opened again.

The present flood on the Elbe hit another bridge further north, but this is a story of improper dimensioning: the approaches of the bridge of the Berlin–Hannover high-speed line and the parallel conventional line are just too low.

Doctors think of themselves as self-made men. And have a certain institutional arrogance (that medical schools really should be trying to curb, but usually don't).

- Jake

Poe's Law.

Looking at it on Google Street View.  Yeah, nothing says bustling city center like barber shops, pawn shops and payday lenders.  The tattoo parlor in what appears to be a shed in the market square is a nice touch as well.

It does still have a KFC.  As long as they're not replaced by Popeye's[1], it hasn't completely collapsed yet.

[1]Possibly not applicable over there.

Isn't Ron Paul also a gynecologist? What is it with Texas gynecologists and being wacko Republicans?

Drug gang hacks into Belgian seaport, cops seize TONNE of smack * The Register

Police in the Netherlands and Belgium have seized a tonne of cocaine, a tonne of heroin and a suitcase stuffed with €1.3m after uncovering a massive drug smuggling operation that used hackers to break into the systems of shipping companies.

According to the Netherlands public prosecutor (statement here in Dutch), a Netherlands-based drug ring hired hackers to manipulate systems in the major port of Antwerp in their neighbouring country, Belgium, in order to arrange pick-ups.

The hackers obtained access at two container terminals by using spear phishing and malware attacks directed at port authority workers and shipping companies, before changing the location and the delivery times of containers that had the drugs in them, according to the public prosecutor.

Courthouse News Service

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation hacked into the voicemail of Angelina Jolie's stunt double looking for news on Jolie's relationship with Brad Pitt, the body double claims in court.
     Eunice Huthart, of Liverpool, England sued News Corp., NI Group Ltd. fka News International Limited, News Group Newspapers, and John and Jane Does 1-10, in Federal Court. Murdoch is not named as a defendant.
     Huthart claims that nonparty Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who intercepted phone messages for the Murdoch tabloids, hacked her phone in 2004 and 2005. Huthart was working in Los Angeles then as Jolie's stunt double on the movie, "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."

Cover-up over hospital scandal - Telegraph

The Care Quality Commission is accused of suppressing an internal review that uncovered critical weaknesses in its inspections, which may have cost the lives of mothers and babies.

Regulators deleted the review of their failure to act on concerns about University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, where police are investigating the deaths of at least eight mothers and babies. There have been accusations that midwives colluded to hide errors. The trust, which faces at least 30 civil negligence claims, will also be subject to an independent inquiry in public.

The regulator has come under fire in recent years for failing to protect patients and prevent a series of scandals, as it relied on "tick-box" systems which let hospitals vouch for their own safety.

No, I think they would pitch a hissy fit.

Where "hissy fit" can mean anything from "whine to the Economist," through "do as much damage as you can as fast as you can to debtor states' payment system," up to "gunboat in the Aegean."

- Jake

Sometimes no amount of practice can help you if you just don't get it

I don't think they'll recognize their Target2 losses and mark their books down accordingly.

They'll probably insist that the debts are furloughed from any EU cohesion funds, CAP, etc. that would have otherwise gone to the relevant countries. At par, naturally. And withhold membership dues to the EU in compensation until that happens. The US has practically provided a manual on this sort of brinkmanship and chicanery in their dealings with the UN.

Practically, nothing other than convention prevents the BuBa from continuing normal operations with a negative equity. So if the Germans want to pretend that their Target2 balance is a gilt-edged asset, then no practical considerations stand in the way of their delusion.

- Jake

UN warns of Nigeria refugee crisis - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Thousands of people are fleeing to Chad, Niger and Cameroon as the crisis in neighbouring Nigeria deepens, the UN refugee agency has said.

UNHCR officers said on Tuesday that up to 3,000 refugees had arrived in Cameroon amid reports of at least 6,000 people escaping to Niger over the past weeks as the confrontation between the Nigerian army and the Boko Haram group intensified in the country's northeast.

"The immediate priority is to secure food and shelter as refugees are entering extremely harsh and difficult areas," Fatou Lejeune-Kaba, Africa spokesperson for UNHCR, told Al Jazeera.

Egypt and Ethiopia agree to bridge dam divide - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Ethiopia and Egypt have agreed to hold further talks on the impact of a huge Ethiopian dam project to quell tensions between the two countries over water-sharing.

"We agreed that we will start immediately on consultations at both the technical level... and the political level," Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr told reporters after meeting in Addis Ababa with his Ethiopian counterpart Tedros Adhanom on Tuesday.

The countries have been embroiled in a heated dispute after Ethiopia began diverting the Blue Nile River last month for the construction of the 6,000 megawatt Grand Renaissance Dam.

Scores detained in Turkey police swoop - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Police in Turkey have arrested 85 people following more than two weeks of anti-government protests.

Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler said on Tuesday that 62 people had been detained in Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city, while 23 others had been arrested in the capital Ankara as a result of raids in several cities.

"The operations are against members of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, who also attended the Gezi Park protests, as part of an investigation being conducted by prosecutors for more than a year," Guler added.

China launches new measures to tackle air pollution | Jennifer Duggan | Environment | guardian.co.uk

China's cabinet has outlined measures aimed at improving the country's air pollution problems, which have plagued many of its larger cities over recent years.

One of the main measures, announced in state media over the weekend, is a target to reduce emissions from heavily polluting industries by 30% by the end of 2017. In statement after a meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, the State Council said there would be "tough measures for tough tasks".

In January and February 2013 air pollution levels in the capitial Beijing and a number of other cities rose to what are believed to have been record levels. Dubbed the 'airpocalypse', Beijing was shrouded in a thick cloud of smog. On more than one occasion the US embassy in the city, which monitors air quality and publishes the results on a Twitter feed, described the levels as "beyond index".

After Fukushima, Japan beginning to see the light in solar energy | World news | Guardian Weekly

Across Japan, technology companies and private investors are racing to install devices that until recently they had little interest in: solar panels. Massive solar parks are popping up as part of a rapid build-up that one developer likened to an "explosion."

The boom was sparked by a little-noted government policy, implemented nearly a year ago, that guaranteed generous payments to anybody selling renewable energy, including solar power. Because of that policy, known as a feed-in tariff, investors and analysts say Japan has become one of the world's fastest-growing users of solar energy. This year alone, Japan is forecasted to install solar panels with the capacity of five to seven modern nuclear reactors.

Before the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, Japan had all but neglected renewable energy, instead emphasising atomic power. But the accident at Fukushima forced the shuttering of the country's 50 operable reactors, only two of which have been restarted. The remaining shutdowns could prove temporary, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledging restarts of reactors that have been deemed safe. A majority of Japanese, though, remain opposed to atomic energy, and analysts say the solar takeoff highlights Japan's appetite for other options.

Germany leans on EU states to weaken car emissions law | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Senior members of the German government have warned EU member states that German automakers could scale back or scrap production plans in their countries unless they support weakened carbon emissions rules, according to diplomatic sources.

With EU governments and lawmakers aiming to finalise the rules next week, which most of the 27 member states back, Germany has stepped up the pressure on them to water down limits on vehicle emissions to protect the country's mighty car industry, particularly luxury makers such as BMW and Daimler.

The sources added that some calls warning EU member states of possible consequences have come from members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's office.

Wiki say:

Michael Clifton Burgess, (born December 23, 1950) is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives representing Texas's 26th congressional district. In 2002, he defeated Scott Armey, the son of House Majority Leader and then-representative Dick Armey, in a primary runoff election. Prior to his election, he practiced as a doctor of Obstetrics and gynaecology

Yea, somehow, just when you thought Repugs couldn't get any stupider, they find a new low

FT - Global fish prices leap to all-time high

Global fish prices have leapt to all-time highs as China's growing appetite for high-end species - from tuna to oysters - runs up against lower catches.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's global fish price index, an industry benchmark that tracks the cost of wild and farmed seafood, hit a record high in May, up 15 per cent from a year ago and above the peak set in mid 2011.

LolWhat!?

What...you think the Buba won't want to monetise their inevitable Target2 losses?

Somebody is going to have to provide the accounting identity offset, after all.

Turkey's 'standing people' protest spreads amid Erdoğan's crackdown | World news | The Guardian

Lunchtime in the waterfront district of Beşiktaş in Istanbul on Tuesday and Ismail Orhan has been standing silently under a yellow parasol in the blistering heat for more than four hours.

"We'll be here for weeks, for months," said the 25-year-old, as office workers used their lunch break to join a new wave of passive resistance to the authorities.

Instantly dubbed the "standing man" or "standing people" protest, fuelled rapidly by Twitter and other social media, the mute, peaceful, immobile gesture of resistance to a government that has used brute force to dispel three weeks of protest was launched on Monday evening in Istanbul's Taksim Square by a performance artist, Erdem Gündüz. The "stand-in" instantly spread like a virus.

Brazil protests catch authorities on the back foot | World news | The Guardian

Brazilians woke up with a mix of euphoria, fear and confusion after the country's biggest night of protest in more than 20 years radicalised a new generation and left the established political class wondering how to react.

Vast demonstrations, in some cases of more than a 100,000 people, swept through at least a dozen major cities on Monday night, with protesters calling for better public services and an end to corruption.

With organisers now planning further protests, the authorities appear to be uncertain what to do next. Although police in some regions cracked down hard, President Dilma Rousseff praised the marchers.