Free Republic

President Joe Biden will convene the National Security Council on Sunday amid soaring international tensions over the expected Russian invasion of Ukraine, the White House announced. The meeting will take place one day after Russian leader Vladimir Putin oversaw missile drills in an apparent display of military might as violence was reported in Ukraine regions under the control of pro-Moscow separatists.

Those familiar with Bitcoin are aware that it consumes an enormous amount of energy. Estimates are that Bitcoin-mining consumes as much power as the entire country of Finland — roughly one half of one percent of all of the electrical power generated on Earth. The theory behind Bitcoin is that avoiding detection of fraudulent transactions should be more expensive in terms of time, effort, and energy than is keeping track of honest transactions. There is necessarily some power required to keep track of honest transactions, and, in the case of Bitcoin, the power required is considerable. The rationale behind the...

People don’t want outsiders reading their private messages —not their physical mail, not their texts, not their DMs, nothing. It’s a clear and obvious point, but one place it doesn’t seem to have reached is the U.S. Senate. A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have re-introduced the EARN IT Act, an incredibly unpopular bill from 2020 that was dropped in the face of overwhelming opposition. Let’s be clear: the new EARN IT Act would pave the way for a massive new surveillance system, run by private companies, that would roll back...

Barbed wire, lights and cameras spring up, changing life for locals and making trade cumbersome An extensive buildup of barriers along China’s 3,000-mile southern border is under way, according to public documents, official statements and interviews with residents, ostensibly to battle Covid-19 but with likely long-lasting ramifications on trade and travel. The small Chinese city of Ruili, in the far south next to Myanmar, has seen a major construction project in the past two years. It is a border fence equipped with barbed wire, surveillance cameras and sensors. Farther east, along China’s border with Vietnam, a 12-foot-high fence went up...

Grantees will be part of the police department camera registryKing City police rolling out a new crime-fighting program that gives residents $200 to buy and install outdoor security cameras. “We're confident this should pique some interest in the community as a city it's our attempt to partner with the community and work in collaboration to try and solve the crimes and make the community safer,” said King City police captain, James Hunt. Advertisement Police say security cameras are key in not only preventing home burglaries but helping to solve crimes as well. Video from such cameras helped identify suspects and...

Defund the Police sympathizers from the so-called “Squad” collectively spent over $325,000 on private security in 2021, after continuously promoting the radical left-wing policy, according to a report. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports analyzed by Fox News revealed that Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) was one of the biggest spenders from the so-called “Squad.” Bush reportedly spent over $65,000 in the fourth financial quarter filing alone on private security, totaling approximately $200,000 combined in 2021, using firms like Peace Security and Whole Armor Executive Protection. AD Bush, who spent the most out of all of the Squad members, was sworn...

Harry wants to have police protection rather than private security when he and his family are in the UK because they do not feel it is safe here, and in a statement by a legal representative he said he was prepared to pay for it. Harry is arguing his private protection team in the US does not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed keep the Sussex family safe. “The UK will always be Prince Harry’s home and a country he wants his wife and children to be safe in,” the legal representative for...

Tech PING! Thinking I need a camera security system. Has anyone looked at them? Thoughts? I want a stand alone camera system with night vision and recording capacity. Something that would work with my wifi? Something that works in the dark? (we live in the woods) Is there such a duck?

Norton has an interesting feature tucked inside its Norton 360 antivirus subscription—a cryptocurrency miner. It’s not turned on by default, but it is installed as part of your antivirus package whether you want it or not. The crypto-miner actually rolled out in July 2021 to some users, but the company has started a wider rollout recently. Some users are upset because the mining software is installed automatically as part of Norton 360, and the software pushes mining on users through a prompt that says, “Turn your PC’s idle time into cash,” as shown in the image above.Thankfully, you have to...

Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), the vice-chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot, said Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” that blaming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for the security breach during the riot is the same as blaming store owners who suffered damage as a result of the Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020 in the wake of the George Floyd killing.

Lenovo unveiled two new laptops made out of materials including recycled aluminum and “recycled black vegan leather,” delivered in packaging made from compostable bamboo and sugarcane. But beneath the environmentally friendly hardware there’s another innovation: Microsoft’s Pluton security processor. The new Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 and Z16, announced Tuesday at the International CES tech show in Las Vegas, are the first PCs to be unveiled with Pluton since Microsoft announced the security architecture in November 2020. Pluton takes security technologies that otherwise exist in a separate hardware component in Windows PCs and integrates them directly into the central processing unit. In...

The Public Health Agency admits it tracked 33 million mobile devices to monitor the population’s movement during lockdowns, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. The agency says cell tower locators were used to “understand the public’s responsiveness during lockdown measures.” “Due to the urgency of the pandemic the Agency collected and used mobility data such as cell tower location data throughout the COVID-19 response,” said agency spokesperson Mark Johnson. “It was to help understand possible links between the movement of populations within Canada and COVID.” The reason the directive was disclosed was, according to Johnson, to “to be open and transparent.” However,...

CVS is reportedly in the process of tuning over medical data to Microsoft. According to reports, Microsoft Azure will help CVS “enhance its omnichannel pharmacy capabilities and deliver customized, omnichannel health recommendations,” which is likely only possible if patients’ medical histories are laid bare for Microsoft, and possibly Gates, to view and analyze. H/T Godzilla - Threat Matrix

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—In a genius move to deter looters, a local Target store has disguised itself as a JCPenney. "We got tired of getting completely ransacked every time something happened in the news, so we decided to do something about it," said Store Manager Andy Boreschnoz. "To our knowledge, no one has ever shown interest in looting anything from a JCPenney, so we put up this very convincing banner." Executives from JCPenney disputed the claim, insisting that everyone loves their products. "Looters come from all around the world to loot our quality merchandise," said JCPenney's CEO Marc Rosen. "Please looters!...

p>OTTAWA—As the Liberal government prepares to unfurl its policy on next-generation mobile networks, global security experts say all signs point to the exclusion of Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies from the long-awaited blueprint. The development of 5G, or fifth-generation, networks will give people speedier online connections and provide vast data capacity to meet ravenous demand as more and more things link to the internet and innovations such as virtual reality, immersive gaming and autonomous vehicles emerge.The opposition Conservatives have long pressed the Liberals to deny Huawei a role in building the country’s 5G infrastructure, saying it would allow Beijing to spy...

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was asked what the Biden administration plan was to increase U.S. oil production. Her response is exactly what you might believe it would be from a thoroughly incompetent ideological administration. So what can a U.S. President and administration specifically do? We have abundant U.S. energy resources. Quite literally the strongest in the entire world. * Permit the use of preexisting approved leases in ANWAR (Alaska) to put more volume into the Alaskan oil pipeline that is severely underutilized. * Finish the Dakota access pipeline. * Reapprove the preexisting energy leases in New Mexico, Arizona, NE Atlantic...

Jake Tapper inadvertently admits COVID security theater.. CNN host Jake Tapper inadvertently revealed the security theater that is ‘COVID-safe’ after he tried to reassure people “we took off our masks just for the photo.” Tapper posted an image of himself and his CNN staffers for a “bake off” event before tweeting, “for anyone concerned, we took off our masks just for the photo, but generally we all wear masks around the office. also, we’re all vaccinated.” ... Apparently, COVID has developed artificial intelligence and knows not to infect people when they’re doing a photo-op. “Did you get everyone’s permission in...

Virtually all compilers — programs that transform human-readable source code into computer-executable machine code — are vulnerable to an insidious attack in which an adversary can introduce targeted vulnerabilities into any software without being detected, new research released today warns. The vulnerability disclosure was coordinated with multiple organizations, some of whom are now releasing updates to address the security weakness.Researchers with the University of Cambridge discovered a bug that affects most computer code compilers and many software development environments. At issue is a component of the digital text encoding standard Unicode, which allows computers to exchange information regardless of the...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Two people have been detained at the Los Angeles International Airport after police responded to reports of a person with a firearm Thursday night, forcing hundreds of travelers to evacuate. According to LAX, the report was made at around 7:30 p.m. about a person with a firearm in Terminal 1... ...As of Thursday at 8:53 p.m., the south side of the airfield opened to flights, but the north side remained closed. One passenger spoke with ABC7 shortly after the incident and claims the pilot said someone believed they saw a gun and yelled, "Gun!"...

AUSTIN, Texas — The Biden administration rejected Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s appeal that the federal government reimburse the state for millions of dollars spent responding to the border crisis. In a letter sent Sunday, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell denied the Republican governor’s request that it reconsider its denial to approve the state’s request for an emergency declaration. “After a thorough review of all the information contained in your initial request and appeal, we reaffirm our original findings that supplemental federal assistance under the Stafford Act is not warranted for this event. Therefore, I must inform you that...