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Thursday, January 2nd, 2014
Time |
Event |
12:21a |
US Customs Destroys Virtuoso's Flutes Because They Were "Agricultural Items" http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/isBP5PZmGhI/story01.htm http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/35028/f/647410/s/3567c35b/sc/38/l/0Lnews0Bslashdot0Borg0Cstory0C140C0A10C0A10C2352480Cus0Ecustoms0Edestroys0Evirtuosos0Eflutes0Ebecause0Ethey0Ewere0Eagricultural0Eitems0Dutm0Isource0Frss10B0Amainlinkanon0Gutm0Imedium0Ffeed/story01.htm McGruber writes "Flute virtuoso Boujemaa Razgui performed on a variety of flutes, each made by himself over years for specific types of ancient and modern performance. Razgui has performed with many U.S. ensembles and is a regular guest with the diverse and enterprising Boston Camerata. Last week, Razgui flew from Morocco to Boston, with stops in Madrid and New York. In New York, he says, a US Customs official opened his luggage and found the 13 flutelike instruments — 11 nays and two kawalas. Razgui says he had made all of the instruments using hard-to-find reeds. 'They said this is an agriculture item,' said Razgui, who was not present when his bag was opened. 'I fly with them in and out all the time and this is the first time there has been a problem. This is my life.' When his baggage arrived in Boston, the instruments were gone. He was instead given a number to call. 'They told me they were destroyed,' he says. 'Nobody talked to me. They said I have to write a letter to the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. This is horrible. I don't know what to do. I've never written letters to people.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. | 1:31a |
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The New York Times Pushes For Clemency For Snowden http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/6vzIo7qNmLc/story01.htm http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/35028/f/647410/s/356cb2c0/sc/1/l/0Lyro0Bslashdot0Borg0Cstory0C140C0A10C0A20C13282410Cthe0Enew0Eyork0Etimes0Epushes0Efor0Eclemency0Efor0Esnowden0Dutm0Isource0Frss10B0Amainlinkanon0Gutm0Imedium0Ffeed/story01.htm Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Editorial Board of the New York Times has weighed in on the criminal charges facing Edward Snowden and writes that 'Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight..' 'He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home, face at least substantially reduced punishment in light of his role as a whistle-blower, and have the hope of a life advocating for greater privacy and far stronger oversight of the runaway intelligence community.' The president said in August that Snowden should come home to face charges in court and suggested that if Snowden had wanted to avoid criminal charges he could have simply told his superiors about the abuses, acting, in other words, as a whistle-blower. In fact, notes the editorial board, the executive order regarding whistleblowers did not apply to contractors, only to intelligence employees, rendering its protections useless to Snowden. More important, Snowden told The Washington Post that he did report his misgivings to two superiors at the agency, showing them the volume of data collected by the NSA, and that they took no action. 'Snowden was clearly justified in believing that the only way to blow the whistle on this kind of intelligence-gathering was to expose it to the public and let the resulting furor do the work his superiors would not. ... When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government,' concludes the editorial. 'President Obama should tell his aides to begin finding a way to end Mr. Snowden's vilification and give him an incentive to return home.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. | 2:30p |
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Five Alternatives To Snapchat http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/mSvKe7rgtY0/story01.htm http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/35028/f/647410/s/356e7799/sc/4/l/0Lyro0Bslashdot0Borg0Cstory0C140C0A10C0A20C14282550Cfive0Ealternatives0Eto0Esnapchat0Dutm0Isource0Frss10B0Amainlinkanon0Gutm0Imedium0Ffeed/story01.htm Nerval's Lobster writes "Snapchat isn't having the best 2014: less than a week after a cyber-security collective revealed an exploit that could allow hackers to swipe users' personal data from the messaging service, a couple hackers reportedly went right ahead and stole 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers, posting them as a downloadable database. It's easy to see why Snapchat's become so popular: the idea of messages that vaporize within a few seconds of opening holds a lot of appeal to not only the excessively paranoid, but also anyone who simply wants to keep their online footprint to a minimum. But as several security experts are pointing out, the idea of 'disappearing messages' was never a foolproof one. 'If you took a photo of your phone while the risky image was on screen, or took a screenshot, or dumped your phone's graphics RAM, or used basic forensic data recovery techniques to retrieve the "deleted" files after viewing them, or fetched the image through a session-logging web proxy,' Phil Ducklin wrote in a Jan. 1 posting on the Naked Security Website, 'then you'd quickly have realised that Snapchat's promises of "disappearing images" were fanciful.' For those who no longer trust Snapchat, but want that same vaporizing-message functionality, some alternatives exist, including Silent Circle (which offers a messaging app, for a subscription fee, that forces messages to self-destruct after a set period of time) and Wickr (features military-grade encryption — AES256, ECDH521, RSA4096, TLS — and the app-builders claim they don't have the keys to decrypt; messages vaporize after a set time)." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | 4:57p |
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