Apple unveiled plans to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused by governments looking to surveil their citizens.
Apple said its messaging app will use on-device machine learning to warn about sensitive content without making private communications readable by the company. The tool Apple calls “neuralMatch” will detect known images of child sexual abuse without decrypting people’s messages. If it finds a match, the image will be reviewed by a human who can notify law enforcement if necessary.
But researchers say the tool could be put to other purposes such as government surveillance of dissidents or protesters.
— Read on apnews.com/article/technology-business-child-abuse-apple-inc-7fe2a09427d663cda8addfeeffc40196
Author: Horror Reporter
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Apple to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse! Privacy experts alarmed at the possibilities of technology
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NO MORE DRUNK DRIVING THANKS TO THE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL!
BURIED IN THE NEW BILL: “ADVANCED IMPAIRED DRIVING TECHNOLOGY” . ..
If passed and signed into law, it will mandate “a system that … passively and accurately detect[s] whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than the blood alcohol concentration” of .08, in which case the system would “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation.”
Automobile manufacturers would have a three-year grace period to comply with the regulation.
MORE..
The provision gives ammunition to Republican critics who say the scope of the bill expands far beyond bridges and tunnels. Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) said he would oppose the bill over its subsidies for green energy, while Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) questioned whether the federal government could efficiently allocate more than $1 trillion in spending. Meanwhile, a number of House Democrats say they oppose the deal for not doing enough. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) attacked her partymates in the Senate for compromising with Republicans.
“It certainly looks like this opens the door for mandatory breathalyzers in every new car. It’s crazy,” said one senior Republican aide, who requested anonymity to speak candidly due to ongoing negotiations in the Senate.
Although the exact type of alcohol monitor the bill would require is unclear, passive alcohol sensors are described in a report by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). The group recommends “driver monitoring systems, touch-based systems that can read your blood alcohol concentration through your fingertips and air-sampling systems that can test and isolate just the air exhaled by the driver.”
MADD president Alex Otte praised Senate negotiators for using the infrastructure bill as a vehicle to pass the group’s “most significant” legislative push in recent years.
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SO YOU WANT YOUR MTV?
MTV WENT LIVE ON AUGUST 1, 1981, EXACTLY 40 YEARS AGO TODAY.. as the joke goes. Music television gave us 14 years of music in the past 40..
Let it be known forever that the first song ever played on MTV was VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR.
And since then, everything–INCLUDING MTV–killed the Video Star!
History. 40 years to the date..Here is some cool video of the first two hours of what the network offered this day in history:
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VACCINATED ICELAND SAYS THEIR COVID RESTRICTIONS MAY EXIST FOR 15 YEARS!
WITH ICELAND’S POPULATION NEARING RECORD LEVELS OF VACCINATED POPULATION, THIS NEWS IS CAUSING SURPRISE IN THE NATION:
Iceland, one of the first countries in the world to abolish all COVID-19 restrictions for vaccinated tourists, may see recently reimposed safety protocols in place for 15 years, according to one of the Nordic country’s chief medical experts.
Despite the overwhelming majority of Iceland’s adult population having been vaccinated, chief epidemiologist Thorolfur Gudnason said he cannot rule out that reintroduced COVID-19 restrictions may become necessary for many years to come.
MORE..
His comments come amid a rapid rise of the Delta strain, with the fully vaccinated making up a large proportion of the new infections.
“It can happen, no one knows what the future holds,” Gudnason told local newspaper Morgunbladid. “That is what we have been saying all along, that there is no predictability in this.”
Thorolfur Gudnason saidthat the COVID-19 epidemic will not end in Iceland until it is abolished all over the world.
He also admitted that the vaccine protection against infection was lower, maintained that the defense against serious illnesses was still estimated at 90 percent.
On 26 June, the Icelandic authorities chose to remove all domestic restrictions, prompting media outlets across the globe to hail it as the country that vanquished coronavirus. At that time, not a single case of COVID-19 had been registered in several weeks, and no deaths since December of last year had occurred.
The bottom line: Despite 90% of adults / 70% of the full population in Iceland having being vaccinated, Covid cases have recently rocketed.
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CAPE COD OUTBREAK INTRIGUE!
Anne Flaherty andArielle Mitropoulos have this information:
A week after the crowds descended upon Provincetown, Massachusetts, to celebrate the Fourth of July — the holiday President Joe Biden hoped would mark the nation’s liberation from COVID-19 — the manager of the Cape Cod beach town said he was aware of “a handful of positive COVID cases among folks” who spent time there. “We are in touch with the Health Department and Outer Cape Health Services and are closely monitoring the data,” Alex Morse told reporters.
The outbreak grew from that point.. Then the situation turned more troubling: A large number of those infected were vaccinated Americans!
MORE!
As of Thursday, 882 people were tied to the Provincetown outbreak. Among those living in Massachusetts, 74% of them were fully immunized, yet officials said the vast majority were also reporting symptoms. Seven people were reported hospitalized.
The initial findings of the investigation led by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seemed to have huge implications.
MORE FROM ABC:
Delta was known for its “hyper-transmissibility,” or as one former White House adviser put it “COVID on steroids.”
“What has changed is the virus,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and Biden’s chief medical adviser.
When a vaccinated person gets infected with delta — called a “breakthrough infection” — “the level of virus in their nasopharynx is about 1,000 times higher than with the alpha variant,” Fauci said in an interview Wednesday with MSNBC.
And this:
All indications now are that the Provincetown outbreak investigation is among the pieces of new evidence behind the CDC’s decision to ask Americans to once again put on their masks indoors, even if they are vaccinated.
DEVELOPING…
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Modern media exceptionalism: Did you really read the ‘news’ today?
All the news making headlines… good luck finding what matters!
This post just will take a brief out from the perils of modern life.
There ARE really things in the world happening besides the COVID hangover.. besides Democrats and Republicans fighting about the latest insignificant event.
And we are told to trust the ‘trusted’ sources.. the news media! Hear them snooze!
While real events occur, they are busy posting lame headlines for click bait and talking heads on TV for ratings. Do they even get ratings anymore? Ahh.. who cares, right? YouTube pumps them to the top of the algorithm .. Twitter brands them. They are number one baby.
But despite their accredited and heralded abilities to give you headlines that matter, they so often neglect news.
Like, the real news. The things that actually happen.
Local news had to report what big networks failed to: All this summer a hazy smoke has been in the air shading the sun even more orange near nightfall. Sure, it made for cool photos.. but where did this smoke come from, you ask? Yea.. everyone asked. Because the BIG networks failed to report on the ongoing Canadian wildfires.
An last night while you slept, a massive 8.2 quake hit near Alaska, and caused tsunami warnings throughout the Pacific. Luckily they didn’t come to fruition.
Bet you didn’t know it was the biggest there in 50 years and the shaking was continuous after the quake. You wouldn’t know because the “News” this morning did not even give it a passing mention. NOT A PEEP.
Thankfully Steve Lookner woke up in his Florida apartment to go live in the early AM. He is becoming the more trusted name in news for us!
Finally, just as quickly as news trucks descended on Florida to cover the apartment building collapse in Miami, they left.. most satellites gave up their feed long before the final body was removed from the wreckage..
I guess the attention span just isn’t ready for anything longer than a few characters of text.
We are supposed to trust them.
We are supposed to listed.The fight so often seems to be about which network to trust. Democrats have CNN and MSNBC and Republicans get FOX and whatever other startup exists on a cable platform near you.
We debate endlessly which one is more biased when in fact they all are.
Sadly what has been lost?
Real news, real information, real reporting.
It has become obnoxious beyond repair.
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Legal drama over BLACK WIDOW plays out in LA: Scarlett Johansson Sues Disney Over ‘Black Widow’ Release In Theaters, Disney+
The Walt Disney Co. fired back at Scarlet Johansson’s lawsuit over the release of Black Widow, in a biting statement in which it said that the litigation showed a “callous disregard” to the Covid-19 pandemic and even revealed that she has so far received $20 million from the project.
A Disney spokesperson said, “There is no merit whatsoever to this filing. The lawsuit is especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Disney has fully complied with Ms. Johansson’s contract and furthermore, the release of Black Widow on Disney+ with Premier Access has significantly enhanced her ability to earn additional compensation on top of the $20M she has received to date.”
— Read on deadline.com/2021/07/scarlett-johansson-walt-disney-co-black-widow-lawsuit-1234802440/Note that more may follow!
The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal, could be a watershed moment for talent who feel they have been cheated out of money by studios that decide to release their films simultaneously on streaming services and in theaters, a practice that upended the way Hollywood’s biggest names are paid.
Multiple stars and directors have pushed back on media companies that placed their films on streaming services during the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of giving them a months-long exclusive release in theaters, which is typical for big Hollywood movies.
Developing ..
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MASK ON. MASK OFF. MASK ON
POTUS MASKS UP AGAIN..
Just a few months ago as the birth of spring brought hope eternal..masks were off. President Biden said that it was once again time to greet each other with a smile..
A smile now turning to a frown..
Delta variant growing across America, the President and Staff are now appearing to don the masks again across the grounds of the White House.
The requirement was back after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said new research showed even vaccinated people could transmit, in rare cases, the more contagious Delta variant.
Showing how quickly the tide has turned in just two weeks:
Reporters and photographers wore masks. Members of the press office wore masks. Biden did too — he was photographed with a mask while talking with an opposition leader from Belarus before leaving for a trip to Pennsylvania.
Vice President Kamala Harris got a head start the day before, wearing a mask during a meeting with Native American leaders. An aide passed out masks to any journalists who had already fallen out of the habit of keeping one handy.
Meanwhile JoePA has called for $100 bucks to whomever gets vaccinated!
Cash for jabs!
The President said
Thursday called on state and local governments to use funds from his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to offer $100 payments to individuals in order to incentivize coronavirus vaccinations.
The payments would be offered to newly vaccinated Americans to provide “an extra incentive to boost vaccination rates, protect communities, and save lives,” the Treasury Department said in an announcement Thursday afternoon.
“Treasury stands ready to give technical assistance to state and local governments so that they may use the funds effectively to support increased vaccination in their communities, and Treasury will partner with the Department of Health and Human Services throughout this effort,” it said.
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New wave 6 He-Man characters released
The most exciting appears to be Webstor.. and the one and only Stinkor.
And just like the 80s, he’ll have a real smell too.
No word on how bad good or indifferent.
But in this new age, if you Stinkor stops smells it’s time to get a Covid test!
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The town of Kane PA rocked by insurrection arrest and subsequent national attention
CAPITOL RIOT ARREST OF RESTAURANT OWNER RATTLES HOMETOWN →
This is reporting from the Associated Press from a little small town named Kane, Pennsylvania:
A crank caller ordered an “insurrection pizza” from Pauline Bauer’s restaurant. A profane piece of hate mail addressed her as a domestic terrorist. She even became a punchline for Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show on CBS.
A swift backlash greeted Capitol riot suspects like Bauer when they returned to their homes across the U.S. after joining the mob that stormed past police barricades, smashed windows and disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory on Jan. 6. Relatives, friends or co-workers reported scores of them to the FBI. Some lost jobs. Others lost their freedom, jailed awaiting trials.
In Bauer’s hometown in rural Pennsylvania, her arrest and that of a longtime friend have rekindled partisan bickering, more often on social media than on street corners, some residents say. As Bauer and William Blauser Jr. fight the charges in court, many in the town of Kane have struggled to comprehend how two of their neighbors could be among the hundreds of Trump loyalists bent on overturning the election that day.
At this juncture, here is what we know: Bauer was heard shouting at police to “bring Nancy Pelosi out” to be hanged during the riot, the FBI says..
Bauer was arrested in May. Video showed her involved with another entering the Capitol through an east Rotunda door where at least three police officers were trying to block entry. Video from a police officer’s body camera captured Bauer saying to bring out Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House.“Bring them out now. They’re criminals. They need to hang,” she said.
Bauer has demanded to represent herself in court, appeared to threaten a court clerk with prison time, and declared herself a “self-governed individual” with special legal privileges.
Bauer does not simply appear in court, she clarified during a June 11 proceeding via Zoom. “I am here by special divine appearance, a living soul,” she told a judge that day, while stating that she did not want an attorney.
“I do not stand under the law,” she said. “Under Genesis 1, God gave man dominion over the law.”
More reporting from the AP on the ongoing legal battle:
Bauer has been combative with the judge presiding over her case and claimed the court has no authority over her. She was jailed for one night in June after she refused to answer a magistrate judge’s routine questions. During a recent hearing, she told U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden that she doesn’t want an attorney to represent her “or any lawyering from the bench.”
“I do not recognize your bar card, sir,” she told McFadden, who appointed a lawyer to act as her standby counsel.
She also told the judge that she wouldn’t allow a pretrial services officer to inspect her home, in person or virtually. The judge warned her that she could be jailed again if she refused to comply. He also denied her request to dismiss her charges, which include obstruction of an official proceeding and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.
“On what terms?” she asked.
“You know what? You don’t get to demand terms from me,” the judge replied.
