The stinger gets stung. A left-wing political group released a new video Monday of a counter-sting that has uncovered evidence of right-wing activists trying to sow chaos at Donald Trump’s inaugural ceremony, an effort to portray critics of Trump who march against him as violent fringe figures.
Hurting Breitbart is an attractive idea, I suppose. But Breitbart is scheduled to be replaced by the White House Press Secretary anyway, so why bother.
Source: Gamergate Showed How to Kneecap a Website. Now This Group Is Trying to Do the Same to Breitbart.
One of the Texas pol’s posts falsely claimed the FBI had discovered an Islamic terrorist training camp outside of Houston.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who is being touted as one of President-elect Donald Trump’s possible picks for U.S. agriculture secretary, has built up quite a habit for posting unsupported and blatantly fabricated stories on his campaign’s Facebook page.
“Hundred and fifty posts a week. No, I’m not going to research every one of them,” he told a host for Austin-based radio station KUT News. “If it’s thought provoking, I’ll put it up there and let the readers decide. Everyone that reads that is grown-ups.
“I’m just doing what BiteMe does. The difference is that I have over 300,000 followers and they have maybe three.”
Source: Potential Trump cabinet pick defends posting fake news stories – NY Daily News
Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently suggested President-elect Donald Trump’s social media skills meant that the American people no longer needed the news media.
Which is why the Bitemaster has posted a list of reliable Hard News websites in the right column of this blog.
Source: Dick Cheney tells CNN reporter: Trump’s Twitter account means ‘we don’t need you guys anymore’
An interesting but troubling story in today’s SF Chronicle about students, although internet savvy, can’t distinguish fake news stories from the real facts. You can read it at http://tinyurl.com/zpow9ye
An excerpt:
————————————————————————————–
When presented with a big, colorful chart sponsored by the oil company Shell versus a screenshot of an article from the Atlantic, high school students overwhelmingly argued that Shell’s post was the more reliable of the two “because it provided more data and information” than the article did. Only about 15 percent of students noticed the paid post
was sponsored by Shell and said the science article was the more trustworthy source.
This inability to evaluate information persists even after students are accepted to major colleges and universities — including Stanford, Wineburg said.
The “great majority” of college students tasked with evaluating information from the American College of Pediatricians, a conservative advocacy group that has been named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its vehement opposition to women’s and LGBT rights, were unable to suss out the group’s bias, even when given the chance to independently check the group’s credentials. Some even cited the professional-looking website of the organization as reason to trust its pseudo-science.
Thanks to MrMild, we’ve learned that filmmaker Charlie Lyne made a 10 hour film of paint drying, then raised money on Kickstarter to pay the British Board of Film Classification to watch the damn thing.
Apparently, any movie shown in the UK must be rated by the Board, and getting rated costs about $10 per minute. Once a film is submitted with the proper fee, two examiners sit and watch it while taking notes. They then use those notes to decide on a rating.
You can imagine that Lynn doesn’t like the system, but he’s now forced a pair of those civil servants to sit in a dark screening room in Soho Square and watch 607 minutes of paint drying.
Let’s hoist a pint of warm beer to Charlie Lyne.
PS: The film was rated “U,” meaning “no material likely to offend or harm.”
Source: We talked to the man who forced the U.K. film board to watch 10 hours of paint drying
Arizona news anchor Vanessa Ruiz is bilingual and pronounces Spanish words and names correctly. There has been the expected blowback on the Interweb. For example:
“Please speak with out your accent! I hope I didn’t offend, but I love the first amendment without second hand accent.”
We totally support Ruiz’s attempt to educate Americans, but hope someone will establish a GoFundMe to send her to America latina (Latin America) so she can teach them to correctly pronounce English words, such as
And the list goes on . . .
You always knew your ISP or broadband provider was slow as shit. Well, a new study by BattlefortheNet revealed that the major Internet providers are intentionally slowing traffic from the Net’s most popular websites.
Why? I don’t know. But I’d guess they want you to “upgrade” to a more expensive tier which will still provide snail-like connectivity.
At least we now know why so many people complain that they’re having trouble reaching the BITEME website.
Source: Major Internet providers slowing traffic speeds for thousands across US
The Obama administration has stepped up the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program on U.S. soil to search for signs of hacking.
There once was a story that went something like this: A guy wanted to know how many submarines the Navy had, so he called the Navy and was told that the information was classified. So he called the Soviet embassy and they gave him the number.
The point of the story was that our enemies already knew the answer and the only point of keeping it a secret was to prevent American citizens from finding out.
So now Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor, has revealed that the Obama administration has expanded a secret National Security Agency program of warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic, searching for evidence of malicious computer hacking.
The Chinese, no doubt, already knew all about the NSA’s surveillance of our Internet traffic, so the only possible reason that Obama didn’t reveal it to us was that he wanted to avoid the possibility that we wouldn’t approve it. And for that, he can Bite Me.
I really don’t want the Chinese hacking into my computer — or my bank’s — but I also don’t want the gummint rifling through my Internet traffic. I know I can’t have it both ways and there will have to be compromises but I’d like to be part of the debate and not just have the Executive Branch decide what’s best for me.
Source: New Snowden Documents Reveal Secret Memos Expanding Spying
The Feds have given your local police department some nifty tech to track where you and your cellphone are at all times. However, the device, called “Hailstorm,” comes with strings attached:
. . . the Obama administration has aggressively tried to keep [details about Hailstorm] secret. Citing security reasons, the government has intervened in routine state public-records cases and criminal trials, and has advised police not to disclose details. . . .
The Hailstorm, made by Florida-based Harris Corp., can sweep up cellphone subscriber-identity data by tricking phones into thinking it’s a cell tower. That data is then transmitted to the police, allowing them to locate a phone without the user even making a call or sending a text message.
All I can say is that I want to get me one of these things! Installed in the BiteCastle’s Security Office, it will enable me to know where every BiteMe employee is 24/7.
Baltimore police use secret cell phone surveillance tech – NY Daily News.
[Edited 12-27-2017 to add:] NB: The first such product on the market was the Stingray from Harris Corporation (Remember Harris-Intertype? Same guys.). But other similar products can be found under names such as Kingfish, Amberjack, and Hailstorm.