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Friday, August 28, 2015

Friday Factualism Fadoodle

Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, was so impressed with the NSA's surveillance software that they were willing to "share all data relevant to the NSA's mission" in order to get it.

"The data in question is regularly part of the approved surveillance measures carried out by the BfV.

In contrast, for example, to the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BfV does not use a dragnet to collect huge volumes of data from the Internet. Rather, it is only allowed to monitor individual suspects in Germany -- and only after a special parliamentary commission has granted approval.

 ... Targeted surveillance measures are primarily intended to turn up the content of specific conversations, in the form of emails, telephone exchanges or faxes.

But along the way, essentially as a side effect, the BfV also collects mass quantities of so-called metadata.

Whether the collection of this data is consistent with the restrictions outlined in Germany's surveillance laws is a question that divides legal experts."

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Shaun Nichols from the Register reports that unimportant Flash content will be click-to-play by default in Google Chrome from September 1. 

He writes, "Google is making good on its promise to strangle Adobe Flash's ability to auto-play in Chrome

The web giant has set September 1, 2015 as the date from which non-important Flash files will be click-to-play in the browser by default – effectively freezing out 'many' Flash ads in the process. 

Netizens can right-click over the security-challenged plugin and select 'Run this' if they want to unfreeze an ad.

 Otherwise, the Flash files will remain suspended in a grey box, unable to cause any harm nor any annoyance."

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The reconnaissance mission of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, dubbed the Mega Expedition by Ocean Clean, has been concluded.

 The large-scale cleanup of the area is set to begin in 2020. 

The primary goal of the Mega Expedition was to accurately determine how much plastic is floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

 This was the first time large pieces of plastic, such as ghost nets and Japanese tsunami debris, have been quantified.

 “I’ve studied plastic in all the world’s oceans, but never seen any area as polluted as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” said Dr. Julia Reisser, Lead Oceanographer at The Ocean Cleanup

“With every trawl we completed, thousands of miles from land, we just found lots and lots of plastic.”

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 Japan’s biggest crime syndicate is about split with a potential for an outbreak of violence between a breakaway group and those loyal to leader Tsukasa.

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Chinese security forces have launched a roundup of church activists who opposed a Communist party campaign to remove crosses.

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 Nitrogen triiodide is a highly unstable substance that detonates when disturbed. So The Royal Institution disturbed it. In slow motion.

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