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bananas's JournalFacebook in privacy fail as psychiatrist's patients are recommended to become friends with each othe
Source: Daily Mail
- The psychiatrist first became aware of this problem when Facebook had begun recommending her own patients to her as potential friends
- She thinks Facebook's friend-finding algorithm was able to link up her patients because they all have her number in their phones
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According to Fusion writer Kashmir Hill, she has been contacted recently by a psychiatrist named Lisa who discovered that Facebook had started recommending her own patients as potential friends.
The mental health professional, who lives in a small town, was surprised and troubled by this development, since she was an infrequent Facebook user and had not granted the app access to her phone contacts.
However, upon reviewing her Facebook profile, Lisa realized that she had shared her phone own number on the social media site.
The matter took a more disturbing turn when one of her patients, a snowboarder in his 30s, came to her saying that he had begun getting recommendations to 'friend' septuagenarians with whom he had nothing in common, and whom he never met.
The young man quickly came to the realization that the elderly strangers the app was suggesting to him as potential friends must have been some of Lisa’s other patients.
Sometime later, another patient of Lisa’s got a friend suggestion on Facebook for a person she recognized from a chance encounter in the office’s elevator.
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‘It’s a massive privacy fail,’ said Lisa, who asked Fusion not to use her real name.
‘I have patients with HIV, people that have attempted suicide and women in coercive and violent relationships.’
As a precaution, the psychiatrist and her colleagues in the medical community now urge their patients not go on Facebook while at the office, or even leave their phones at home when going for an appointment.
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3765881/Facebook-privacy-fail-psychiatrist-s-patients-recommended-friends-other.html?ITO=1490
Police: Ithaca student fatally stabbed in 'large fight' at Cornell
Source: CNN
One Ithaca College student was killed and another was injured after being stabbed during a "large fight" on the nearby Cornell University campus early Sunday in Ithaca, New York, officials from both schools said.
Cornell University Police were called to the intersection in front of Olin Hall, which houses Cornell's school of chemical and biomolecular engineering, just before 2 a.m. There, they found two men had been stabbed, according to a police news release.
Police say the fight broke out after a student-organized event at Cornell, according to a statement from Ithaca College.
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A campus-wide gathering is slated for 4 p.m. on Monday in Ithaca College's Muller Chapel.
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Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/28/us/cornell-ithaca-college-students-stabbed/
James Bamford: Evidence points to another Snowden at the NSA
Commentary: Evidence points to another Snowden at the NSA
Wed Aug 24, 2016 3:23am EDT
By James Bamford
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Now, in the latest twist, hacking tools themselves, likely stolen from the National Security Agency, are on the digital auction block. Once again, the usual suspects start with Russia – though there seems little evidence backing up the accusation.
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A more logical explanation could also be insider theft. If that’s the case, it’s one more reason to question the usefulness of an agency that secretly collects private information on millions of Americans but can’t keep its most valuable data from being stolen, or as it appears in this case, being used against us.
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Rather than the NSA hacking tools being snatched as a result of a sophisticated cyber operation by Russia or some other nation, it seems more likely that an employee stole them.
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Snowden’s leaks served a public good. He alerted Americans to illegal eavesdropping on their telephone records and other privacy violations, and Congress changed the law as a result. The DNC leaks exposed corrupt policies within the Democratic Party.
But we now have entered a period many have warned about, when NSA’s cyber weapons could be stolen like loose nukes and used against us. It opens the door to criminal hackers, cyber anarchists and hostile foreign governments that can use the tools to gain access to thousands of computers in order to steal data, plant malware and cause chaos.
It’s one more reason why NSA may prove to be one of Washington’s greatest liabilities rather than assets.
(James Bamford is the author of “The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.” He is a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine.)
Gov't to use state funds for cleanup of heavily contaminated Fukushima areas
Gov't to use state funds for cleanup of heavily contaminated Fukushima areas
NATIONAL AUG. 20, 2016 - 04:00PM JST ( 19 )
TOKYO - The Japanese government plans to use state funds for radiation cleanup activities in evacuation areas most seriously contaminated by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, government sources said Friday.
It is the first government plan to decontaminate so-called difficult-to-return zones, which include a large portion of the two towns hosting the crippled nuclear complex and some areas of other nearby municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture.
The move is intended to expedite the cleanup process, but may draw criticism from the public because it will effectively reduce the financial burden for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. over one of the world’s worst nuclear crises.
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Privatize the profits, socialize the costs.
China strongly warns Japan not to send SDF to South China Sea
Source: Japan Today
China strongly warned a high-level Japanese official around late June that Tokyo should not send its Self-Defense Forces to join U.S. operations that test the freedom of navigation in the disputed South China Sea, diplomatic sources said Saturday.
Japan will “cross a red line” if SDF vessels take part in U.S. freedom of navigation operations, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua told the Japanese official, the sources said, adding that the ambassador even hinted at military action if Japan crosses the line.
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According to the sources, Cheng told the high-level Japanese official in Tokyo that Japan should not take part in a “joint military action with U.S. forces that is aimed at excluding China in the South China Sea.”
He also said China “will not concede on sovereignty issues and is not afraid of military provocations.”
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Read more: http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/china-strongly-warns-japan-not-to-send-sdf-to-south-china-sea
San Diego to Spray in South Park for Mosquito That Can Carry Zika Virus
Source: NBC 7 San Diego
County vector officials began placing door hangers on about 100 homes, advising residents of plans to begin spraying some time during the day on Friday.
San Diego County officials will be spraying a two-block area of South Park after discovering the larvae from a mosquito known to be a carrier of the Zika virus, NBC 7 has learned.
County vector officials went door to door Thursday notifying residents that the spraying will take place Friday morning. The area in question is between 31st and 32nd streets and Grape and Elm streets.
NBC 7 has learned that a person who lives in South Park recently traveled abroad and did not contract the mosquito borne illness in San Diego. A county spokesperson says the case in South Park could turn out to be any number of mosquito borne illnesses, but suspect Zika or Dengue virus, because of the discovery of the Aedes larvae.
County officials want to make it clear, the Aedes larvae did not test positive for any disease, nor were any adult mosquitoes trapped nearby.
A county spokesperson says vector officials look for Aedes larvae and adult mosquitoes each time a suspected case is identified. This is the first time the county has found Aedes larvae close to a suspected case.
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Read more: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/health/San-Diego-Zika-Mosquito-Spraying--390591921.html
Homer's nuclear incompetence has North Korea banning 'The Simpsons'
Source: UPI
Homer Simpson's days may be numbered in North Korea.
The animated comedy The Simpsons is one of many foreign cartoons watched illegally in the country. But a source in North Pyongan province said the Kim Jong Un regime recently imposed a ban on U.S. and South Korean animations, Radio Free Asia reported.
The cartoons, like other forms of outside media, enter the country on flash drives or memory cards, the source said.
Cartoons like The Simpsons are included on the flash drives along with other films, but according to the source, the animated series drew the ire of North Korean authorities because one episode deals with damages from radiation exposure that occur in the course of Pyongyang's nuclear development.
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Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/08/18/Homers-nuclear-incompetence-has-North-Korea-banning-The-Simpsons/2841471537725/
China launches 'hack-proof' quantum communications satellite
Source: Reuters
China on Tuesday launched the world's first quantum satellite, which will help it establish "hack-proof" communications between space and the ground, state media said, the latest advance in an ambitious space programme.
The programme is a priority as Xi Jinping, the president, has urged China to establish itself as a space power, and apart from its civilian ambitions, it has tested anti-satellite missiles.
The Quantum Experiments at Space Scale, or QUESS, satellite, was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the remote northwestern province of Gansu in the early hours of Tuesday, the official Xinhua news agency said.
"In its two-year mission, QUESS is designed to establish 'hack-proof' quantum communications by transmitting uncrackable keys from space to the ground," it said.
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Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/16/china-launches-hack-proof-quantum-communications-satellite/
An Alternative Form of Mental Health Care Gains a Foothold
An Alternative Form of Mental Health Care Gains a Foothold
By BENEDICT CAREY
AUG. 8, 2016
Caroline White at the office of the Hearing Voices Network in Holyoke, Mass. The program, which relies on members supporting one another, does not use the words “patient” or “treatment.” Ms. White, who hears voices in her head, said psychiatric therapy had made her feel “hopeless, because the drugs just made me feel worse.”
HOLYOKE, Mass. — Some of the voices inside Caroline White’s head have been a lifelong comfort, as protective as a favorite aunt. It was the others — “you’re nothing, they’re out to get you, to kill you” — that led her down a rabbit hole of failed treatments and over a decade of hospitalizations, therapy and medications, all aimed at silencing those internal threats.
At a support group here for so-called voice-hearers, however, she tried something radically different. She allowed other members of the group to address the voice, directly:
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At a time when Congress is debating measures to extend the reach of mainstream psychiatry — particularly to the severely psychotic, who often end up in prison or homeless — an alternative kind of mental health care is taking root that is very much anti-mainstream. It is largely nonmedical, focused on holistic recovery rather than symptom treatment, and increasingly accessible through an assortment of in-home services, residential centers and groups like the voices network Ms. White turned to, in which members help one another understand each voice, as a metaphor, rather than try to extinguish it.
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Alternative care appears to be here to stay, however. Private donations for such programs have topped $5 million, according to Virgil Stucker, the executive director of CooperRiis, a residential treatment community in North Carolina. A recently formed nonprofit, the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care, has made several grants, including $160,000 to start an Open Dialogue program at Emory University and $250,000 to study the effect of HVN groups on attendees, according to Gina Nikkel, the president and CEO of the foundation. Both programs have a long track record in Europe.
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In this country, there is very little collaboration. Ms. White runs a hearing voices group in the forensic psychiatry unit of a hospital in Springfield, Mass., and there is a scattering of other medical clinics that work with voices groups. But the culture gap between alternative and mainstream approaches to psychosis and other mental problem remains deep, and most psychiatrists and insurers will need to see some evidence before forming partnerships. Last month, the influential journal Psychiatric Services published the first study of the Open Dialogue program in the United States, led by Dr. Gordon and Dr. Douglas Ziedonis of the University of Massachusetts.
The results are encouraging: Nine of 14 young men and women enrolled in the program for a year after a psychotic episode were still in school or working. Four are doing well without medication; the others started or continued on anti-psychosis drugs. Insurance covered about a quarter of the overall costs.
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Hackers show how they tricked a Tesla into hitting objects in its path
Hackers show how they tricked a Tesla into hitting objects in its path
Paul Szoldra
Aug. 8, 2016, 3:23 PM
LAS VEGAS — A group of researchers presenting at last week's Def Con hacker conference showed how they were able to overwhelm or deceive Tesla's sophisticated sensors to make a car hit an object it would normally detect in its path.
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The group, which consisted of Chen Yan, a PhD student at Zhejiang University, Jianhao Liu, a senior security consultant at Qihoo 360, and Wenyuan Xu, a professor at Zhejiang University and The University of South Carolina, presented a variety of new findings. They discovered methods for "quieting" sensors to diminish or hide obstacles in a car's path, "spoofing" them to make an object appear farther or closer than it actually is, and jamming, which, Yan said, renders the sensor useless as it's "overwhelmed by noise."
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Much of their presentation focused on the Tesla Model S, but they also successfully jammed sensors on cars from Audi, Volkswagen, and Ford.
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They also used off-the-shelf lasers to defeat the onboard cameras, and, in one of the most low-tech demonstrations, they wrapped objects up in cheap black foam that rendered them invisible to the car's sensors.
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It was the) same effect as jamming," said Yan. He told Business Insider after the talk that Tesla reacted positively when they disclosed their research, and it was researching ways to mitigate these types of attacks.
"They appreciated our work and are looking into this issue," he said.
The full presentation of their findings is available at Def Con's website.
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