How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents. Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable.
David Simon | The Audacity of Despair INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE. NEWS, COMMENTARY & INSIGHT The antioxidant myth is too easy to swallow | Henry Scowcroft When the press release arrived in our inboxes, we knew what would happen next. A controversial Nobel laureate had stated, in a peer-reviewed paper he described as "among my most important work", that antioxidant supplements "may have caused more cancers than they have prevented". Even the most fad-friendly sections of the UK media were bound to cover the story. In reality, Professor James Watson – one of the DNA double-helix's founding fathers – was only restating what we at Cancer Research UK (along with many others) have been pointing out for years. It's a topic we at Cancer Research UK come back to again and again on our science blog and on our social media pages. This isn't going to be a Goldacresque run-down of study after study of evidence (although here's a handy Cochrane review for the nerds). One possible reason for our entrenched attitudes is the ubiquitous use of the word "antioxidants" in adverts proclaiming the health benefits of various foods and drinks.
Mac Rumors: Apple Mac iOS Rumors and News You Care About What Apple's patents reveal about its plans For anybody who wants to know what a company is thinking, just look at its patent portfolio. Patents are about protection: without them there's nothing to stop your rivals from copying your best ideas and making money from your hard work. If you patent your revolutionary unicorn-powered laptop and a rival copies you, you'll be able to sue them until they squeak - and possibly get their product pulled from the shelves too. Smart companies patent everything, and Apple is a smart company - so a trawl through Apple's worldwide patent applications can uncover future products. Back in 2006, patent application 20,060,268,528 showed what was described as a "portable computing device capable of wireless communications... If you'd seen the patents Apple was filing in 2004 and 2005, the iPad wouldn't have been a big surprise either. So can you use the patent offices as crystal balls for Apple kit? The iMac touch Description What is it? Patents used Why we're excited A mightier Mac mini Description
NewsNow Breaking news, latest news, and current events Beware the spinal trap | Simon Singh This is Chiropractic Awareness Week. So let's be aware. How about some awareness that may prevent harm and help you make truly informed choices? First, you might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that, "99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae". In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body. In fact, Palmer's first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain.