MIT OCW - France, 1660-1815: Enlightenment, Revolution, Napoleon

This course covers French politics, culture, and society from Louis XIV to Napoleon Bonaparte. Attention is given to the growth of the central state, the beginnings of a modern consumer society, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, including its origins, and the rise and fall of Napoleon.http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/21h-346-france-1660-1815-enlightenment-revolution-napoleon-spring-2011/

STRATFOR site now has free access.

After last weeks web site hack of the popular security think tank, they now have allowed access to all. But not information is available. Even I received an email stating that fact, but as an inclusio, was also attached with some surprising comments, now know to be from the hacker group itself. There are some excellent reports available, without the need to subscribe.

Temporarily, our site is free to all visitors.Explore Stratfor.com to access subscribers-only analysis.

Stratfor is a subscription-based provider of geopolitical analysis. Subscribers gain a thorough understanding of international affairs, including what's happening, why it's happening, and what will happen next.

While Google is currently dealing with disgruntled investors over not meeting projected fourth-quarter profits, the search giant is rolling out a revision to privacy policies that may concern consumers.

Announced on the Official Google Blog earlier today, Google will be simplifying how the privacy policy is structured across more than 60 different Google products on March 1, 2012. Users will definitely benefit from the simplicity of a single document regarding privacy instead of sixty policies, but may not like the company direction stated within the blog post. As outlined in the revised privacy policy and terms of service, any user action on one of those 60 products can be shared between other products. While this system already allows the user to use one single sign-on to work across many different Google products, it will also tie into how aggressively Google inserts targeted recommendations into the user interface on all current and future Google products. 

How it works:

When a user that watches several live recordings of Katy Perry performances on YouTube, they may find a targeted advertisement for Katy Perry show tickets when they log into their Gmail account. Another example of this practice could involve Google recommending that the user follows Starbucks Google+ brand page after the user utilizes Google Maps to search for a nearby location of the popular coffee chain. With user content like emails, Google+ posts, YouTube videos and search queries already being plugged into this sharing algorithm, users can expect to see more frighteningly relevant Adsense ad placements across the Web as well as intuitive recommendations when using other Google products. 

This definitely doesn’t constitute a major shift in how Google has shared information between products over the past few years, but rather just simplifies the process on Google’s end when rolling out new products and making changes to existing products. If anything, today’s blog post is more of a disclosure of existing practices rather than a major shift in company strategy. As mentioned in USA Today, Peter Eckersley, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s technology project director, stated that “It has always been the case that Google kept effectively linkable records of our uses of Gmail, Search, Maps and Market for Android, and other services. Only very sophisticated users have ever been able to remove any of that linkability, and that remains the case today.“ 

How do I opt-out?

In short, it’s currently impossible to opt-out and keep the account. Privacy experts are very concerned about Google’s complete lack of an opt-out policy within this new policy revision. When a user signs up for any of the 60+ Google products after March 1, they will be automatically opted into this new sharing policy. According to Common Sense Media chief executive James Steyer in a Washington Post interview, he stated “Even if the company believes that tracking users across all platforms improves their services, consumers should still have the option to opt out — especially the kids and teens who are avid users of YouTube, Gmail and Google Search.” As the privacy policy is currently structured, the only way to opt out of Google’s tracking is to delete the account.

Google plans to notify all current Google product users of the policy change in an upcoming email as well as messaging that will appear across various Google sites. However, this new policy will not apply to Google Chrome, Google Books or Google Wallet. While Google believes that this shift will help consumers understand privacy more clearly, privacy advocates are extremely skeptical. According to Center for Digital Democracy director Jeffrey Chester, he stated “There is no way a user can comprehend the implication of Google collecting across platforms for information about your health, political opinions and financial concerns.”

This announcement of company direction is a transparent attempt at competing with Facebook and Apple. Both of those companies utilize a unified platform in regards to rolling out new products and features, something that Google hasn’t been able to produce due to fragmentation between products within the company. Google is also dealing with a backlash from critics regarding how the company integrated Google Plus posts into search results. The response from social networks Facebook and Twitter involved the creation of the “Don’t Be Evil” add-on for Web browsers which strips the Google+ information from a search result page

Google's new Public Alerts feature lets you find emergency information about your area, in real time.

Finding out information about emergencies in your area just got easier. Google announced today its new Public Alerts feature, which incorporates real-time emergency information with Google Maps. The service allows users to search their area, and discover any potential impending doom.

“If a major weather event is headed for your area, you might go online to search for the information you need: What’s happening? Where and when will it strike? How severe will it be? What resources are available to help?,” writes Google on its Official blog. “The Google Crisis Response team works on providing critical emergency information during crises. Our goal is to surface emergency information through the online tools you use everyday, when that information is relevant and useful.”

The Public Alerts system includes “relevant weather, public safety and earthquake alerts” from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service, and the US Geological Survey (USGS).

A visit to the Public Alerts page automatically shows a list of current emergency warnings across the country, with corresponding points on the map. To find out if your area has any impending warnings, simply search your location, or a location where you plan to travel, and any ongoing emergency notifications will be displayed. If any alerts appear, simply click on the item on the left sidebar to see more details about the emergency situation.

If no notifications exist, the results will come up empty. Based on Google’s description, it appears that it works best if you know the type of emergency to look out for, like flooding or a blizzard.

Google stipulates that Public Alerts is, like most Google products, a work-in-progress. “We’re learning as we go and we’re working hard to continuously improve the range and relevance of the content you see, so we’d really like your feedback,” the company rights. To let Google know about any problems or suggestions, click on the link that appears on the bottom right corner of the Public Alerts page.

TOR

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships,  via traffic analysis.

Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

Go to tornetwork.org

Megaupload Shutdown: Should RapidShare and Dropbox Worry?

An anonymous reader sends in an article discussing whether other commonly used file storage sites are in danger of being shut down now that Megaupload has been closed. Quoting: "In the wake of the crackdown on the file-sharing website Megaupload, sites offering free content-sharing, file linking and digital locker services, such as RapidShare, SoundCloud and Dropbox, could be next in the crosshair of anti-piracy authorities. ... RapidShare and MediaFire are two of the biggest services left after Megaupload's exit. However, these sites have undergone a revamp, and now ... no longer host pirated content that could lead to a permanent ban. Others in the line of fire are DropBox, iCloud and Amazon S3, which support hosting any file a user uploads. Though their intention of supporting open file-sharing is legitimate, there is really no control over the type of content being uploaded."

Tales of IT Idiocy

"IT fight club, dirty dev data, meatball sandwiches — InfoWorld offers nine more tales of brain fail beyond belief. 'You'd think we'd run out of them, but technology simply hasn't advanced enough to take boneheaded users out of the daily equation that is the IT admin's life. Whether it's clueless users, evil admins, or just completely bad luck, Mr. Murphy has the IT department pinned in his sights — and there's no escaping the heartache, headaches, hassles, and hilarity of cluelessness run amok.'"

Nano-Scale Terahertz Antenna May Make Tricorders Real

"Researchers from Imperial College London and A*STAR in Singapore have shown off a terahertz antenna that's just 100 nanometers across — about 30,000 times smaller than existing terahertz antennae — and two orders of magnitude stronger than other T-ray beam-forming techniques. T-rays are a lot like EHF (extremely high frequency), which is used by millimeter wave scanners in airports, medical imaging, and emerging wireless networking standards like WiGig — but stronger, faster, and more detailed. Where EHF radiation can see through your clothes, T-rays can penetrate a few millimeters of skin. Furthermore, because atoms and molecules have a unique terahertz-range signature, T-ray scanners can detect toxic substances, bombs, drugs — or even cancerous tumors under your skin. Most importantly, though, due to the nano scale of these antennae, it's possible to create huge antennae arrays on a single silicon chip, meaning hand-held T-ray scanners are now a possibility. In the not so distant future, every household might have a Star Trek-like tricorder capable of detecting cancer or other diseases."

Steganography with WinRAR

I've been asked, how to distribute a secure file that can be camoflaged to look benign as a picture and pass through a firewall, using port 80 (HTTP). Simple.


You need WinRAR or other file compression tool, but RAR is quite simple to use.

Step 1:
Collect your files that you want to hide and compress into one by using Winrar.
Suppose 'data_files.rar' as the filename

Step 2:
Select an image file (picture.jpg) for the destination, 'image.jpg'

Step 3:
Put the two files (File picture.jpg and data_files.rar) in a same folder.
For example, c:\tempDrive

Step 4:
Open a command prompt as admin, in that directory and type:
c:\tempdrive\> copy / b + picture.jpg data_files.rar newpicture.jpg

Step 5:
That will create a new file with a name newpicture.jpg.

When you open the file newpicture.jpg, at first glance there would be no different than your original picture.jpg file unless you view the file size, now larger. You can still open the file with Picture Editor or Irfan and it display as normal. There are no signs that there are actually an additional file in it.

Step 6:
How to unlock your secret files?
Right-click on the file picture.jpg then choose [Open With] -> [Choose Program ..]. Select WinRar and then click [OK].

You will be able to view your both the .jpg and .rar files and can extract as usual.

6 Weeks to Save the Euro

World leaders were warned last night that they have just six weeks to save the euro from collapse.

On another day of gathering economic gloom, George Osborne savaged eurozone leaders for failing to get a grip on their towering debts. The Chancellor set a deadline of six weeks – when leaders of the G20 group of leading countries will meet for crunch talks in France – for action.

He said: 'Patience is running out in the international community. There is a sense from across the leading lights of the eurozone that time is running out for them.

'The eurozone has six weeks to resolve this political crisis.' Mr Osborne also signalled dramatic plans to prop up Britain's faltering economy, opening the door for a  rescue plan that would see the  Bank of England lend directly to struggling small businesses.

In development:

•IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the challenge facing the world 'could not be more urgent';
•World markets remained dangerously volatile, with Britain's leading firms seeing £78billion wiped off their value this week;
•The G20 insisted it would take necessary steps to try to stop the eurozone crisis spreading;
•Debt-laden Greece admitted for the first time that an 'orderly default' was an option;
•Economists at the Royal Bank of Scotland predicted that Europe is falling back into recession.
There is a growing expectation in Whitehall that the Bank of England will authorise another emergency injection of cash into the economy with a second round of 'quantitative easing' – essentially, printing money.

As much as £300billion is expected to be flooded into the economy despite the risk that it will push inflation still higher, increasing the cost of living. The Bank has already poured £200billion into the economy to try to bolster growth, but there have been renewed calls for another dose of the medicine.

Mr Osborne, in Washington, signalled that he is open to the idea of the Bank ring-fencing some of the cash for direct loans to small or medium-sized firms that are in urgent need of help to expand or simply keep afloat. The move would be a victory for the Daily Mail's Make the Banks Lend Campaign, which has highlighted the banks' refusal to provide credit to small businesses and demanded action to help the lifeblood of the British economy.

The Chancellor said it was 'bad politics' that was leading to 'bad economics' in the EU, insisting the continent must implement a package of measures agreed in July to provide bailouts for foundering countries in the single currency.

So is history about to repeat itself? The Chancellor wants a £350billion European Financial Stability Facility, which provides bailouts for countries at risk of defaulting on their debts and sending shockwaves through the world's banking system, to be beefed up. 'I am not sure it is adequate,' he said.

Britain is also pushing the euro countries to move quickly to ensure banks in the danger zone have more capital, to ensure they can withstand market pressures. Mr Osborne refused to be drawn on whether Greece would be forced into a debt default and a potential exit from the single currency, but revealed that Britain has contingency plans to cope with such an outcome.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the challenge facing the world 'could not be more urgent'
'I have made it a priority for the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England to make sure that the UK banking system is adequately capitalised and has sufficient liquidity to deal with all eventualities,' he said.

He admitted that the growing international economic crisis would hit Britain, but flatly rejected calls to soften his deficit reduction plan. 'The UK is taking appropriate action,' he said. 'It is very clear what has got to happen. We are sticking to the plan. We have got ahead of the curve and have credibility.' Michael Saunders, an economist at CitiBank, said he had halved growth forecasts for Britain to 1 per cent this year and just 0.7 per cent next year. He said he expected unemployment to rise from 7.9 per cent to 9 per cent, which would bring the total close to the 3million who were out of work in the 1980s.

Mme Lagarde warned again of 'downside risks on the horizon' for the global economy and said developing economies must play a part in propping it up. The IMF boss said: 'There is growth. The bad news is that it is slow growth. There are downside risks on the horizon, and they are piling up. Negative feedback loop between weak growth, weak banks, and what is very much perceived as weak political commitment. This has led to a crisis of confidence.'

Echoing Mr Osborne's refrain about the need for deficit reduction in Britain, she added: 'We are all in this together. There are dark clouds over Europe and huge uncertainty in the U.S., and with that we could see collapse in global demand.'

The reality is that months of appalling indecision, driven by some of the mini-countries within the monetary union, had in fact underlined the need for Germany and France to seize the political opportunity to bring the crisis to an end.   The final deadline set by the G20 for sorting out the mess is the Cannes G20  summit on the first weekend of November. That, if all goes well, should see the formal launch of the European Financial Stability Facility (of which Britain is not a part), a bailout fund that is capable of rescuing Greece.

That may all seem hunky-dory. But in the world of fast-moving, testosterone- and panic-fuelled financial markets, it looks a lifetime away. If shares were to continue to fall at the mad pace of the last few days – wiping out great chunks of the capital of Britain's major companies – then all bets would be off.  The big lesson of the Great Depression  of the 1930s is that governments and  central banks around the world were too slow to act. Euro leaders claim they are victims of Parliamentary timetables which have meant long delays in getting the bail-out fund up and running.

But investment managers, hedge funds, the big global banks and other market participants have lost faith in the eurozone's will to act. The eurozone needs to move to a war footing, by pumping new capital into its banks, and setting up a rescue fund with the capacity to save Italy or Spain if it became necessary. Britain cannot divorce itself from events given that up to 80 per cent of our trade is with euro-area nations. Without a eurowide rescue, the  prospects of heading off a prolonged slump – which will devastate every British household and business – will be remote.