Monday wrap up

Is government capable of evil at times?

"I have been involved in government at the state and federal level for a long time and have had my share of political and legal run-ins with government agencies, but rarely in more than 50 years in politics have I encountered a government agency more committed to secrecy—perhaps even deception—than the US Department of Energy." 

 So writes former governor of Idaho Cecil D. Andrus in this account of the U.S. government's plan to ship commercial spent fuel to the Idaho National Lab for what the feds call "research" but what the Andrus (and his predecessor) feel is an attempt to store high level nuclear waste in Idaho. According to him, despite Freedom of Information Act requests, the federal government is not sharing its plan for the waste once it gets to Idaho. 

This is a disturbing tale of government secrecy and stonewalling, and the problem with nuclear waste: no one wants it in their backyard.

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The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has opened up in order to give seeds to Syrian scientists who had to relocate their research due to the war. CNN reports:


 "Known as the 'Doomsday Vault,' this seed bank — operated by the Norwegian government and containing a seed of just about every known crop in the world — is meant to be humanity's backup in the event of a catastrophe that devastates crops.

But it was not a natural disaster that has caused scientists to have to dip in and make the first significant withdrawal from the vault.

Rather, it was the most preventable of man-made disasters -- war. The bloody conflict in Syria has left scientists at an important gene bank in Aleppo -- where new strains of drought- and heat-resistant wheat have been developed over time -- unable to continue their work in recent years.

With no sign of conditions in Syria improving, scientists have begun recovering their critical inventory of seeds, sourced from around the Fertile Crescent and beyond, that have been in safekeeping beneath the Arctic ice."

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The Frog In The Beaker That Is gradually being heated to deadly levels...

 Researchers from BYU recently took a survey of internet users (PDF), mostly from the U.S., to determine how they balanced opinions of security and privacy.

 They found, perhaps surprisingly, that over 90% of users are fine with somebody snooping their encrypted traffic, so long as they were informed of the snooping.

Most of them also supported legislation requiring notification and/or consent. "Most respondents also agreed that employers should be able to monitor the encrypted Internet connections of employees even without notification or consent, especially when an employee used a company computer.

 There was less agreement when it came to employees using personal devices; approximately a third of respondents opposed surveillance in that case."

That said, "Despite accepting surveillance in a number of situations, 60 percent of respondents said that they would react negatively if they discovered that a network they currently use employed TLS proxies."

The study also found 4.5% of participants were "jaded" toward the state of privacy and security on the internet, feeling that their traffic is already monitored, and that the government would circumvent whatever technologies we put in place to protect it.

 The researchers say this group "once cared about these issues but has lost all hope and has largely given up on ever achieving a secure world."

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