Free Republic

The United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) on its face isn’t alarming. I’m not even sure if this database is official or operational but people tracking crime isn’t new, nor is suspect. You should note that this database tracks non-violent “far-right”crime as well. What I do find alarming, albeit par for the course, is the keywords under which this database article is searchable: Keywords Al Qaeda related crimes, database construction, domestic terrorism, extremist crime, far-right crime, political violence The investigator of this University of Maryland project (http://www.start.umd.edu/start/research/projects/project.asp?id=43) is Steven Chermak (http://www.start.umd.edu/start/research/investigators/investigator.asp?id=47). This is how these people think: if you have...

The progress in 3-D printing has been nothing short of astounding over the last decade. The soaring stock prices of publicly traded 3-D printing companies 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD ) and Stratasys clearly illustrate the industry has made advances. Today, even consumers can get their hands on a plastic 3-D printer at a reasonable price -- an unheard-of possibility just five years ago. This phenomenal industry progress has led some to believe Moore's law applies to 3-D printing. Are they right? One inventor in Colorado disagrees. Moore's law? Not really At the Inside 3D Printing conference in Chicago this year,...

FireEye Labs has identified a new Windows local privilege escalation vulnerability in the wild. The vulnerability cannot be used for remote code execution but could allow a standard user account to execute code in the kernel. Currently, the exploit appears to only work in Windows XP. This local privilege escalation vulnerability is used in-the-wild in conjunction with an Adobe Reader exploit that appears to target a patched vulnerability. The exploit targets Adobe Reader 9.5.4, 10.1.6, 11.0.02 and prior on Windows XP SP3. Those running the latest versions of Adobe Reader should not be affected by this exploit. Post exploitation, the...

"Having been early to the party of Angie's List (ANGI) short sellers, I would be remiss not to update readers to the fact that I changed my outlook for the company. In my columns spanning over the course of a year, my issues with Angie's List were not so much with its business model but with the valuation. I did not believe their subscription model would justify the market cap. Most consumers prefer FREE and the number of those who would pay an ongoing annual subscription of $50 is naturally far less than the 80 million visitors a month who...

Many people feel strongly about not shopping on Thanksgiving. Well, I have a cause of my own. Not doing business with any company that offshores its call centers. After dealing with some script-reading cretin out in God-Knows-Where because Old Navy's online credit card payment isn't working, I've decided that enough is enough. With so many Americans out of work, businesses should set up call centers here in the USA, not in some Third World slum half a world away. This may not be PC, but we all know it's true.

The bride was gorgeous; the groom was old and arthritic, and everyone agreed they were an odd match. When Amazon married the United States Postal Service for its new Sunday package delivery service, who got the better deal? Most people probably would pick USPS, the quasi-government agency operating with all the fiscal sanity of Obamacare. Prevented by Congress from implementing cost-cutting measures, USPS has lost a staggering $45 billion since 2007, and already has defaulted three times on its obligations. Its business model is kaput; first-class mail volume decreased by 30 percent over seven years, and the future looks even...

Back in the mid-1990s, I did a lot of web work for traditional media. That often meant figuring out what the client was already doing on the web, and how it was going, so IÂ’d find the techies in the company, and ask them what they were doing, and how it was going. Then IÂ’d tell management what IÂ’d learned. This always struck me as a waste of my time and their money; I was like an overpaid bike messenger, moving information from one part of the firm to another. I didnÂ’t understand the job I was doing until...

You know how liberals like to laugh it up if a conservative thinks a satire article is real, right? Well, yesterday Free Wood Post published this article: Sarah Palin: “Thanksgiving is for Real Americans Not Indians” As you can see at places like here and here, the libs thought they had something on Palin, at least for the moment. It took some people on their own sites to point out that Free Wood Post is a satire site.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt recently publicly protested alleged U.S. government spying on Google data centers. “The NSA allegedly collected the phone records of 320 million people in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be a risk," he said. The massive Government Matrix invasion of privacy only emphasizes the dramatic actions of 32-year-old Lavabit founder Ladar Levison. In August, rather than give the government the key to unlock the content of his 400,000 paying subscribers, Levison pulled the plug on the encrypted email service he spent ten years to build. “All this information is being compiled, archived, indexed...

Windows updated my computer and now I have ads and pop ups. I cant stop them. Any Ideas?

HealthCare.gov is ripe for cyber attacks targeting personal information, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee charged Wednesday. The site is vulnerable bcause the federal agency charged with ensuring the security of government websites played virtually no part in its development, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said. Apart from two e-mails and a phone call, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not participate in the Centers’ for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) development of the enrollment portal for the landmark health law, McCaul said. “DHS had effectively no input into the security of HealthCare.gov, despite it being arguably the most...

Our family is heavily involved in FIRST Robotics. I have a favor to ask. Up Next- Team 3528 made a video and entered it in the Rockwell Automation "Engineering Our Future" video contest describing what we would engineer to help change the world. They’re giving away $10,000 in team grants to use on future projects. It's all based on the number of votes, so we need to get as many people to vote between now and November 29. They allow you to vote once every 24 hours, so I’d appreciate if you could vote as many days as possible. In...

My wife and I were in a restaurant having lunch the other day with one of our sons, and couldn’t help but notice a nearby family: a mom, dad, two boys, and a daughter. The daughter was middle school age, and clearly in contemporary middle school mode: ear buds securely in place, staring off into space. Every aspect of her demeanor made it clear: I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to be with my family. So I am going to stay in my world of music and media. By plugging in, I’m tuning out. And her...

f you’ve been busy trying to log on to the ObamaCare website, or stumbling around in search of the cupcake shop to which the New York health care website mistakenly directs you, let me catch you up with the latest news. We’ll start with the embarrassment of a country that once launched a man to the moon, but now can’t even launch a website. Now, not only must we suffer through the chaotic disruption of our entire medical system, but the launch also besmirched the stellar reputation of American technology. Oops! Make that Canadian technology. Canadian? It turns out the...

We hope they suffer a whole lot more than the millions of Americans who’ve lost their insurance thanks to them. Don’t forget, America, Democrats own this horror show in its entirety and they must pay next November. Senate Democrats vented their frustrations over the faulty rollout of the Affordable Care Act in a meeting Thursday with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and other senior officials. “There’s a lot of frustration, everywhere,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said after the meeting. McDonough tried to assure angry senators he is personally taking charge of the disparate federal offices in charge of...

EU leaders are calling for the suspension of a trade pact with the US worth billions of dollars over NSA spying. The 28-nation bloc suspects the so-called ‘Safe Harbor’ deal is being undermined by US espionage and has demanded safeguards for EU citizens. The EU’s top politicians have slammed Washington for a “breakdown of trust” and seek guarantees for the safety of EU customer data. “For ambitious and complex negotiations to succeed there needs to be trust among the negotiating partners,” EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Wednesday in a speech at Yale University. The Safe Harbor agreement has been...

It is weird to entrust the same policy-makers who were caught lying publicly on the record to Congress in an internal review of NSA programs. As laughable as Wall Street banks regulating themselves, geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser told RT. RT: Let’s listen to what General Alexander said defending the NSA policies. “It is much more important for this country that we defend this nation and take the beatings than it is to give up a program that would result in this nation being attacked.” He’s got a good point, hasn’t he? Eric Draitser: Well, to some degree that’s true, but...

The best warfare strategy is to attack the enemy's plans, next is to attack alliances. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War A growing chorus of nations is decrying Washington's unrestrained cyber espionage. However, there is only one country with both the means and motivation for using mounting international resentment to challenge American hegemony. The NSA surveillance of America's allies has opened up two vital fronts in which China can erode American global dominance. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying has claimed the rhetorical high ground, calling cyber security "a matter of sovereignty". She said Beijing is eager to address...

My mother is being shoved off her plan (1-2014). She's 90 and I have called them twice to get her onto their BS Supplement and Part D. Both times, people with heavy accents answer and say they'll research ... while the line immediately goes to dead air! NICE For THIS she worked her entire life!

By now, many of you have read the tweet-saga outlining my experience with Healthcare.gov, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to lay it out in a format more conducive to the story. Yesterday, I was stoopid. I ignored the signals, the bright, flashing, red signals, my own instinct, and even Consumer Reports, and I created an account at the new healthcare website. Here's why: I am presently on long-term disability leave from my employer. Although I haven't worked in a year and a half, I am still, technically, an employee, but if I cannot return to work prior to...

NATO and Russia announced Wednesday that they have achieved the ability to target and locate bombs planted in large crowds, such as commuter hubs and sporting events. The Stand-off Detection of Explosives and Suicide Bombers system (STANDEX) "could help NATO allies and Russia prevent terrorist attacks such as those carried out on the public transport systems in London, Madrid and Moscow" in the past decade, NATO said in a video news release that included Russian partners. The project took four years and 4.8 million euros (US$6.6 million) of investment, paid for by NATO, Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Turkey, and the...

India is on the verge of implementing an internal email policy for official communications in order to avoid using American-based web services that have been compromised by the National Security Agency. In December, India will unveil a new internal policy devised to avoid major email service providers - such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook.com - that house their servers in the United States. A communications official confirmed Tuesday that the plan is near implementation, The Times of India reported. "Email policy of the government of India, as this policy will be called, is almost ready and we are taking views...

US intelligence agencies are using Australian embassies throughout Asia to intercept data and gather information across the continent, according to the latest report based on documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Data collection facilities operate out of the embassies in Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi, Bejing, and Dili, according to Fairfax media. There are also units in the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, the most populated city in Malaysia, and Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. More intelligence collection occurs at US embassies and consulates, as well as at the diplomatic outposts of other ‘Five Eye’ nations, particularly...

Games are becoming more and more popular. A survey by Information Solutions Group has found that many choose to play games when they should be working. Does it surprise you that people are playing games while at work? How common is it?

A video from Spiegel Online Shows NSA has 80 SCS sites worldwide, including in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. [Photo: haiwainet. cn] US intelligence has been operating a global network of 80 Special Collection Services (SCS), including Asia listening posts in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hong Kong and Taipei, the German magazine Spiegel reports. In an SCS document cited by the magazine, the agency said it had a "not legally registered spying branch" in the US embassy in Berlin, the exposure of which would lead to "grave damage for the relations of the United...

(Reuters) - Singapore said on Friday it would consider growing public complaints against infidelity website AshleyMadison.com when deciding whether to allow the platform to operate. Scrutiny of the site, which has 22 million members in about 30 countries, forms part of a wider debate over censorship in Singapore. The city state bans Playboy magazine, removes racy scenes from movies and blocks dozens of websites, in moves that have added to its image as Asia's "nanny state". AshleyMadison.com, founded in Canada in 2001, began a Japanese service in June and a Hong Kong service last month. Its operators have announced plans...

(Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government is planning a state secrets act that critics say could curtail public access to information on a wide range of issues, including tensions with China and the Fukushima nuclear crisis. The new law would dramatically expand the definition of official secrets and journalists convicted under it could be jailed for up to five years. Japan's harsh state secrecy regime before and during World War Two has long made such legislation taboo, but the new law looks certain to be enacted since Abe's Liberal Democratic Party-led bloc has a comfortable majority in both...

The subtlest of subterfuge is being practiced at all times, everywhere, by those of the Alinskyite Left. Although they’re malevolently delusional about what makes a society just, moral, and economically healthy, they can be as cunning as foxes and brilliantly Machiavellian in their strategy and tactics. Primary among the items on their agenda is to continually ridicule those of us on the Right. In fact, Saul Alinsky himself, in his classic community-organizing handbook titled Rules for Radicals, taught his rule #5 as follows: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates your opponent, which...

The Syrian Electronic Army has been up to its old tricks again, this time claiming to have infiltrated president Barack Obama’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts, and re-election web site.A series of tweets were sent from @BarackObama account and updates were made to the president’s Facebook account on Monday linking to a YouTube video from the pro-Assad hacktivist collective. Rather than hack the accounts themselves, those responsible appear to have achieved their aims by compromising URL shortening service ShortSwitch, researchers at Symantec said.The website donate.barackobama.com was temporarily redirected to the Syrian Electronic Army site, according to The Hacker News.Some tweets...

An experiment has shown that radiation from WiFi does not pose apparent harm to the human body and many doubt that WiFi is a cancer risk, reports Guangzhou Daily. Many young people are wary of the effects of 24-hour long exposure to WiFi. Some netizens appealed to their friends and relatives to turn off their WiFi connection or router before going to sleep, and some even claimed that WiFi could kill plants. According to the recent reports, however, WiFi can be likened to natural light in that it is a kind of radiation in a broad sense and is harmless...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia came in second behind Russia among 26 nations with resource and efficiency-driven economies in the Connectivity Scorecard 2013, thanks to its wide broadband penetration. Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said Malaysia surpassed Asean countries including Thailand (13), Vietnam(14), Philippines (18) and Indonesia (20) in broadband penetration. Singapore is ranked under another grouping for innovation-driven economies. "This global ICT Index is the first of its kind to rank countries, not only on their development of ICT infrastructure but also to measure the extent in which governments, businesses and consumers make use of connectivity technologies to enhance...

AFP - NTT Communications said Monday it would pay a combined $875 million for two US-based cloud computing firms, marking the latest major overseas acquisition by a Japanese firm. The telecoms giant said it had agreed to buy Virtela for $525 million, while it would shell out $350 million for an 80 percent stake in RagingWire as it looks to boost its ability to supply online access to software and data storage for big global clients. The deals come as NTT looks to counter a slowdown in its mainstay long-distance telecom business. "The acquisition (of RagingWire) will more than double...

(Reuters) - Gogo Inc said on Monday it had agreed to provide Japan Airlines Co Ltd with in-flight Internet service on the airline's domestic fleet of 77 aircraft, marking Gogo's first significant international contract, according to the company's chief executive. Shares of Gogo were up 10.6 percent at $17.94 in afternoon trade in New York on Monday. The in-flight Internet provider, based in Itasca, Illinois, said the JAL service would use Gogo's satellite technology and begin operating by mid-2014. The deal is another step in a global race to provide better Internet connections on more planes, especially over oceans, using...

(Reuters) - Faster isn't necessarily better for China's telecom carriers as they prepare to roll out high-speed 4G mobile phone networks at the expense of their profitability for years to come. China Mobile Ltd, which has the most subscribers in the world, is investing billions of dollars to upgrade its infrastructure so clients can enjoy speedier Internet and data access once the government awards 4G telecom licenses before the end of the year. Its rivals China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd and China Telecom Corp Ltd are being forced to follow suit, especially as China Mobile is in talks with Apple...

The government has asked Washington to confirm whether Korean presidents were among 35 world leaders who were the target of wiretapping by the U.S. National Security Agency in 2006. A Foreign Ministry official said the Korean Embassy in Washington has sought clarification from the U.S. government. The allegation arises from an investigation by a German magazine that revealed that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been the victim of wiretapping by the NSA for a decade and that 34 other world leaders were also targeted. If the allegations are confirmed, the official warned Seoul will take "strong" measures. After a flood...

If you wanted to build a case study in the perfect recipe for IT project disaster, you wouldn't have to look any further than the new official Obamacare website, Healthcare.gov. The site, which was supposed to be the official gateway for Americans to purchase cheap (now clearly up for debate) health insurance, has become an overnight poster child for just how bad the government can fumble a well-to-do technology implementation. The common symptoms are all present: budget overruns, too little time to test, poor design & planning, and you can take it from there. So when the President came out...

It's hard to fathom the sheer insanity following the creation and utter failure of the ObamaCare website. With an amazingly high price tag of roughly $300 million for the site itself, and hundreds of millions going to associated companies to facilitate the rollout, this entire situation has been an incredible disaster for President Obama and a colossal waste of taxpayer money. The final cost of the website is still being pondered as the GAO says the cost was $394 million and that's not including the costs of administrative costs and salaries for the exchanges themselves. Of course, since it's taxpayer...

The New York Times reports, One specialist said that as many as five million lines of software code may need to be rewritten before the Web site runs properly. 1. There is zero chance that rewriting five million lines of code is the answer. Either the solution is a lot simpler or there is no solution other than to start over. My instinct from the outset was that starting over was the right answer. I am not alone. 2. The other day, President Obama said, “No one is madder about the Web site than I am, which means it’s...

So I get a private call, dead air for a few seconds, then the phone rings back to the caller. Indian accented man answers claiming my computer is infected with a virus, no company name nothing. So I ask which computer. a few meaningless back and forth. Ask me to google teamviewer.com, instead of just going to teamviewer.com. wanted access to my system, wouldn't tell me the virus. did an off line scan anyway. So note to selfs, do not let anyone your not 100% sure is legit connect to your system with teamviewer

The Obamacare Website is Like a Box of Chocolates….. I’ve been trying to access the Obamacare website, and it’s actually been kind of entertaining. You never know what you are gonna get. Here are some of the things I encountered while trying to apply on the website: •I’m not sure, but I think I ended up with reservations at Motel 6 •I had to pay 15% more for my car insurance •I happened upon some inappropriate selfies of Kathleen Sibelius •A live feed opened up that allowed me to spy on the NSA •The internet filters at work blocked the...

“This massive IT launch sure came in on time, under budget, and without headaches” is a statement that nobody has ever said. But even controlling for that, Healthcare.gov looks to be having a disastrous launch. People are naturally asking about the practical and political implications of this disaster. Is it a problem for the Affordable Care Act as a whole, with its mixture of individual mandates and risk-pooling? Is it a political disaster for President Obama and the Democrats? Does this show us major problems in the way that government procures its contractors? These are important questions, but some are...

Researchers from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) have developed a naked-eye 3D tablet computer, which should be in the shops by the end of this year. Naked-eye 3D technology has put 3D lens onto the screen, allowing viewers to watch 3D images without glasses, Fang Yong, deputy director of the spectrum modulation technology center at the SJTU Wuxi Research Institute, said on Tuesday. Users will not suffer from eye strain or dizziness. According to Fang, the research team has filed a patent and the televisions and computers with the technology are on the way.

China signaled concern on Tuesday that ample credit could fuel inflation as a report showed house prices jumped the most in nearly three years, with double-digit gains in major cities. A policy adviser to the People's Bank of China told Reuters the authority may tighten cash conditions in the financial system to address the inflation risks, while the central bank refrained from supplying cash to money markets for the second day running. (Read more: China's home price rises don't tell the whole story) If it also avoids injecting cash at its next money market operation on Thursday, the effect will...

China shares have enjoyed a three-month-long rally and now it's time for investors to turn selective, analysts said. Since the beginning of July, the Shanghai Composite has tacked on more than 11 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index has gained around 12 percent, even as many regional markets suffered a bout of extreme volatility amid concerns the U.S. Federal Reserve would begin to taper its asset purchases. Indonesian shares, for example, have fallen around 6.5 percent over the same period. "Market return is more likely to be muted or show slight downside near term unless we see positive surprises...

Cross ownership of banks poses a threat to the entire financial system, but authorities have done little to deal with the problem. “[Pervasive] cross ownership involving state-owned, joint stock, and foreign banks, financial companies, and state-owned and private firms is complicated and becoming a serious problem in Vietnam,” economist Dinh Tuan Minh said. Economist Bui Kien Thanh said cross ownership is one of the main reasons for the increasing bad debts in Vietnam, which were at 8.6 percent of banks’ total loans as of the end of March, according to the central bank. The issue is serious that it was...

For some reason FR & Google are okay, but any other website, including small private sites, connect and then quickly disappear and I get a message that the tab has been recovered and immediately get the following message: We were unable to return you to yahoo.com.(or whatever) Internet Explorer has stopped trying to restore this website. It appears that the website continues to have a problem. I ran into some of this yesterday, but it's definitely worse today.

Nearly half a million health insurance applications have been filed on ObamaCare's enrollment site, the Associated Press reported late Saturday. However, Health and Human Services (HHS) officials still refuse to disclose how many people have successfully signed up for coverage on the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it is difficult to pinpoint whether the administration is on track to meet its goal of seven million enrollees during the six-month sign-up period. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is under intense scrutiny as the enrollment system continues to face severe problems. Earlier in the week, Obama said he was "not happy" with the...

Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom giant banned from selling to U.S. government agencies due to its alleged ties to Chinese intelligence services, has turned the tables on its accusers by offering itself as a safe haven for customers concerned that the NSA has compromised their own IT vendors.“We have never been asked to provide access to our technology, or provide any data or information on any citizen or organization to any Government, or their agencies,” Huawei Deputy Chairman Ken Hu said in the introduction to a 52-page white paper on cybersecurity published Oct. 18. (Full report available here as a...

Insurers say the federal health-care marketplace is generating flawed data that is straining their ability to handle even the trickle of enrollees who have gotten through so far, in a sign that technological problems extend further than the website traffic and software issues already identified.

This was brought about by an idea in an earlier thread this week discussing Valve and PC Gaming. I had no idea how many other Freepers had Steam. A cursory glance indicated no existing groups for Free Republic, so I decided to create one. Request an invite at: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FreeRepublicGamersMost of all, have fun, and stay true to the Constitution.