Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth with more articles on the NSA and other topics

How A Former CIA Official Turned The NYPD Into A Spying Powerhouse
In 1985 the city settled the Handschu case and agreed to court-established rules about what intelligence the NYPD could collect on political activity. Under the rules, the department could investigate constitutionally protected activities only when it had specific information that a crime was being committed or was imminent.
Terrorism was not envisioned when the Handschu guidelines were agreed upon,” David Cohen wrote, “and their continuation dangerously limits the ability of the NYPD to protect the people it is sworn to serve.”
“Terrorist success is due in no small measure to the freedom with which terrorists enter this country, insinuate themselves as apparent participants in American society, and engage in secret operations,” he wrote, adding, “The freedom of our society has also made it possible for terrorist organizations to maintain US based activities.”
The police had to be able to investigate these groups, even when there was no evidence that a crime was in the works.
“In the case of terrorism,” Cohen wrote, “to wait for an indication of crime before investigating is to wait far too long.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/enemies-within-by-matt-apuzzo-and-adam-goldman-2013-9



Microsoft is a case study in dominance leading to incompetence and catastrophe.
Doing more of what succeeded spectacularly in the past works until it doesn't, at which point doggedly pressing on with the old formula of success leads to catastrophic failures.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-07/guest-post-when-dominance-leads-incompetence-and-catastrophe



Google Claims to Redouble Effort to Thwart NSA Surveillance
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/09/google-nsa-surveillance-strong-encryption



Legislation Seeks to Bar N.S.A. Tactic in Encryption
“We pay them to spy,” Senator Holt said. “But if in the process they degrade the security of the encryption we all use, it’s a net national disservice.”
“What buyer is going to purchase a product that has been deliberately made less secure?” asked congressman Holt. “Even if N.S.A. does it with the purest motive, it can ruin the reputations of billion-dollar companies.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/us/politics/legislation-seeks-to-bar-nsa-tactic-in-encryption.html?ref=politics&_r=0



NSA surveillance: A guide to staying secure
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance



John Sculley Just Gave His Most Detailed Account Ever Of How Steve Jobs Got Fired From Apple
http://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2013/09/09/john-sculley-just-gave-his-most-detailed-account-ever-of-how-steve-jobs-got-fired-from-apple/



Top 3 Online Universities for a Ph.D. degree.
1. Walden University
2. Grand Canyon University
3. Capella University
http://education-portal.com/articles/Top_Online_Schools_for_a_PhD.html



Meet the Family That Shuns Technologies Introduced After 1986
The McMillans had a vague sense that gadgets were cheating their children of their childhoods.
he was hanging out outside the house, and he asked his 5-year-old son Trey to join him.  Trey refused.  He was too busy with his iPad.
"That's when it hit me," Blair said, "because I'm like, wow, when I was a kid, I lived outside."
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/meet-the-family-that-shuns-technologies-introduced-after-1986/279496/



How Poverty Taxes the Brain
Human mental bandwidth is finite.
We only have so much cognitive capacity to spread around. It's a scarce resource.
This understanding of the brain's bandwidth could fundamentally change the way we think about poverty.
poverty imposes such a massive cognitive load on the poor that they have little bandwidth left over to do many of the things that might lift them out of poverty - like go to night school, or search for a new job, or even remember to pay bills on time.
going forward, this also means that anti-poverty programs could have a huge benefit that we've never recognized before: Help people become more financially stable, and you also free up their cognitive resources to succeed in all kinds of other ways as well.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/08/how-poverty-taxes-brain/6716/
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2013/sep/05/scarcity-explains-it-all/



The Largest Homeless Camp In Mainland USA Is Right In The Heart Of Silicon Valley
Surprisingly close to Apple headquarters
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-jungle-largest-homeless-camp-in-us-2013-8



Yahoo files lawsuit against NSA over user data requests
Yahoo on Monday joined other US technology giants in launching legal action against the federal government over the NSA surveillancerevealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Yahoo says 'withholding information breeds mistrust' and asks to be allowed to publish its number of received data requests
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/yahoo-lawsuit-nsa-surveillance-requests



On the NSA
Let me tell you the story of my tiny brush with the biggest crypto story of the year.
A few weeks ago I received a call from a reporter at ProPublica.
one of my biggest concerns was to avoid ........ sounding too much like an NSA conspiracy nut
I was totally unprepared for bombshell revelations describing the NSA's efforts to defeat encryption. Not only does the worst possible hypothetical I discussed appear to be true, but it's true on a scale I couldn't even imagine.  I'm no longer the crank.  I wasn't even close to cranky enough.
http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/09/on-nsa.html



NSA slides reveal: iPhone users are all ZOMBIES
Spooks at the US National Security Agency (NSA) can't believe we're all paying for the equipment it's using to spy on us, describing Steve Jobs as Big Brother and iPhone buyers as "zombies".
That assertion comes from NSA documents
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/09/fanbois_the_nsa_thinks_youre_all_zombies/



Apple attacks two key markets: Price on the 5C and speed on 5S push the envelope
The lower priced iPhone 5c for developing economy markets
The higher prices iPhone 5s with a much faster microprocessor for the U.S.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-attacks-two-key-markets-2013-09-10



The Link That Landed a Journalist in Jail
The notion that linking to stolen material makes the linker a party to the original crime is absurd.
http://www.freepress.net/blog/2013/09/13/link-landed-journalist-jail



The NSA is reportedly not the only government agency asking tech companies for help in cracking technology to access user data. Sources say the FBI has a history of requesting digital backdoors...
Columbia University professor Steven Bellovin said that inserting backdoors for the NSA Is a disaster waiting to happen  If the FBI, or the U.S. government, obtains a backdoor into a certain technology, that backdoor can be taken advantage of by hackers or cybercriminals as well.



How We Got From 9/11 to Massive NSA Spying on Americans: A Timeline
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/nsa-timeline-surveillance



Why fingerprints make lousy authentication tokens
The biometric characteristics of your retinas, fingerprints, hand geometry, gait, and DNA are actually pretty easy to come by without your knowledge or consent.
it's nearly impossible to keep them to yourself, and once they're in the wild, they can be used against you.
http://boingboing.net/2013/09/12/why-fingerprints-make-lousy-au.html



You know that home Wi-Fi network you have? The one with the super-complicated password you came up with to keep your neighbors from jacking your connection?
Chances are, Google knows that password.
As cryptographer Matthew Green proved with a simple experiment, Apple is storing user iMessages without user password or device key protection.
http://www.dailydot.com/news/google-wifi-passwords-android-snooping/