Home Tags Posts tagged with "U.S."
Tag:

U.S.

News Update

U.S. to halt some arms sales to Saudi, citing civilian deaths in Yemen campaign

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

A Saudi soldier fires a mortar towards Houthi movement position, at the Saudi border with Yemen April 21, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer

The United States has decided to limit military support to Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen because of concerns over widespread civilian casualties and will halt a planned arms sale to the kingdom, U.S. officials told Reuters.

The United States will also revamp future training of the kingdom’s air force to focus on improving Saudi targeting practices, a persistent source of concern for Washington.

The decision reflects deep frustration within President Barack Obama’s government over Saudi Arabia’s practices in Yemen’s 20-month-old war, which has killed more than 10,000 people and sparked humanitarian crises, including chronic food shortages, in the poorest country in the Middle East.

It could also further strain ties between Washington and Riyadh in the remaining days of Obama’s administration and put the question of Saudi-U.S. relations squarely before the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20.

Still, the decision was not the cut-off in support that Saudi Arabia’s biggest critics had hoped for and much of the U.S. military relationship will remain intact.

For example, the United States will keep refueling Saudi-led coalition aircraft involved in the campaign, and it is not cutting off all arms sales to the kingdom. And, in a nod to Saudi Arabia’s security concerns, Washington will share more intelligence on the Saudi border with Yemen.

The kingdom has been subject to cross-border attacks by the Iran-allied Houthi movement. A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen’s civil war in March 2015 and has launched thousands of air strikes against the Houthis.

Rights groups say Saudi-led coalition attacks on clinics, schools, markets and factories may amount to war crimes. Saudi Arabia has either denied the attacks or cited the presence of fighters in the targeted areas and has said it has tried to reduce civilian casualties.

“I think it’s a signal but too weak of a signal,” said William Hartung of the U.S.-based Center for International Policy, responding to the U.S. decision. “As long as they’re going to refueling aircraft which is central to the bombing campaign, it’s hard to see that they’re using all the leverage they have,” said Hartung, who authored a report earlier this year on U.S. arms offers to Saudi Arabia during Obama’s tenure.

An Obama administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said “systemic, endemic” problems in Saudi Arabia’s targeting drove the U.S. decision to halt a future weapons sale involving precision-guided munitions.

“We’ve decided not to move forward with some foreign military sales cases for air-dropped munitions, PGMs (precision-guided munitions),” the official said.

“That’s obviously a direct reflection of the concerns that we have about Saudi strikes that have resulted in civilian casualties,” the official said. A second official confirmed the decision to suspend the sale of certain weaponry.

The officials declined to offer details. But a specific case put on hold appeared to involve the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of guidance systems manufactured by Raytheon Co that convert dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions that can more accurately hit their targets.

A Raytheon spokesman referred questions to the Pentagon and State Department. Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told a news briefing he was unaware of the Reuters report.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi officials.

REFUELING TO CONTINUE

The White House launched a review of U.S. assistance for the Saudi-led coalition after planes struck mourners at a funeral in the capital, Sanaa, in October, killing 140 people, according to one U.N. estimate.

The United Nations human rights office said in August that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for roughly 60 percent of the 3,800 civilians killed since March 2015.

Human rights groups, which have criticized the United States for supporting the Saudi war effort by selling the kingdom arms and refueling coalition jets, said the move by Washington was not enough. “This move falls far short of what is needed to end civilian bloodshed and alleviate suffering in Yemen,” said Amnesty International’s Samah Hadid in Beirut.

The rights groups pointed to the continued refueling of coalition planes, which the Obama administration official said for now was “not going to be touched.”

Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California and a leading advocate in Congress for a suspension of U.S. cooperation with the Saudi-led coalition, said he was pleased the Obama administration had moved to cut off some arms sales, but he also felt the administration had not gone far enough.

“It is completely bizarre that they are continuing to refuel Saudi jets that drop bombs on civilians in Yemen,” Lieu said.

The decision to suspend the arms sale to the Saudis marks a reversal for the administration. Officials have long argued that supplying so-called “smart weapons” helped in reducing civilian casualties.

But that argument ultimately failed to convince the Obama administration during its review, which the first official said was still ongoing.

“It’s not a matter of how smart or dumb the bombs are, it’s that they’re not picking the right targets. The case in point … is the one on the funeral,” the official said.

The airstrikes on the funeral took place after the Saudi-led coalition received incorrect information from Yemeni military figures that armed Houthi leaders were in the area, an investigative body set up by the coalition said in October.

Earlier this year, the U.S. military reduced the number of U.S. military personnel coordinating with the Saudi-led coalition’s air campaign, slashing it to six people from a peak of 45 personnel.

“Their responsibilities are being adjusted and limited so that they are less enmeshed in some of the offensive operations in Yemen,” the official said.

Reuters reported earlier on concerns by some U.S. officials that the United States could be implicated in possible Saudi violations of the laws of war.

In May, Washington suspended sales to Riyadh of cluster munitions, which release dozens of bomblets and are considered particularly dangerous to civilians.

Last week, the State Department announced plans to sell Saudi Arabia CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopters and related equipment, training and support worth $3.51 billion. U.S. officials said the weaponry would help Saudi defend its border, not conduct offensive operations in Yemen.

[Source:- Reuters]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Tech Update

U.S. investigates security of mobile devices

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

A woman uses her mobile phone before a concert in Los Angeles, California March 17, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission have asked mobile phone carriers and manufacturers to explain how they release security updates amid mounting concerns over security vulnerabilities, the U.S. agencies said on Monday.

The agencies have written to Apple Inc, AT&T Inc and Alphabet Inc, among others, in order “to better understand, and ultimately to improve, the security of mobile devices,” the FCC said.

The FCC sent letters to six mobile phone carriers on security issues, while the FTC ordered eight mobile device manufacturers including BlackBerry Ltd, Microsoft Corp, LG Electronics USA Inc and Samsung Electronics America Inc [SMELA.UL] to disclose “the factors that they consider in deciding whether to patch a vulnerability on a particular mobile device.”

The FTC also seeks “detailed data on the specific mobile devices they have offered for sale to consumers since August 2013” and “the vulnerabilities that have affected those devices; and whether and when the company patched such vulnerabilities.”

The agencies are opening the inquiry about how mobile carriers and manufacturers handle security updates for mobile devices because consumers and businesses are conducting a growing amount of daily activities on mobile devices and new questions have been raised about how the security of mobile communications.

The “safety of their communications and other personal information is directly related to the security of the devices they use,” the FCC said. “There have recently been a growing number of vulnerabilities associated with mobile operating systems that threaten the security and integrity of a user’s device.”

The FCC said it sent letters to mobile carriers including AT&T, Verizon Communications Inc, Sprint Corp, U.S. Cellular Corp, Tracfone Wireless, which is owned by America Movil SAB, and T-Mobile US, which is owned by Deutsche Telekom, “asking questions about their processes for reviewing and releasing security updates for mobile devices.”

The companies must respond to the FCC and FTC questions within 45 days.

There were more than 355 million U.S. mobile wireless devices in use in 2014, the FCC said in a December report. The agency said that number had risen to 382 million by mid-2015, citing company disclosures.

The FCC noted that a vulnerability called “Stagefright” in the Android operating system could affect almost 1 billion Android devices globally. Reuters reported in August that Google and Samsung planned to release monthly security fixes for Android phones.

The change came after security researcher Joshua Drake found a vulnerability that could allow attackers to send a special multimedia message to an Android phone and access sensitive content even if the message is unopened.

Google did not immediately comment on Monday. Apple declined to comment.

Consumers may be left unprotected, potentially indefinitely, by any delays in patching vulnerabilities, the FCC said.

John Marinho, vice president for cybersecurity at CTIA, a wireless trade group, said in a statement that “customers’ security remains a top priority for wireless companies, and there is a very strong partnership among carriers.”

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Tech Update

U.S. high court approves rule change to expand FBI hacking power

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

A lock icon, signifying an encrypted Internet connection, is seen on an Internet Explorer browser in a photo illustration in Paris April 15, 2014. REUTERS/Mal Langsdon

The Supreme Court on Thursday approved a rule change that would let U.S. judges issue search warrants for access to computers located in any jurisdiction despite opposition from civil liberties groups who say it will greatly expand the FBI’s hacking authority.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts transmitted the rules to Congress, which will have until Dec. 1 to reject or modify the changes to the federal rules of criminal procedure. If Congress does not act, the rules would take effect automatically.

Magistrate judges normally can order searches only within the jurisdiction of their court, which is typically limited to a few counties.

The U.S. Justice Department, which has pushed for the rule change since 2013, has described it as a minor modification needed to modernize the criminal code for the digital age, and has said it would not permit searches or seizures that are not already legal.

Google, owned by Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), and civil liberties groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Access Now contend the change would vastly expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s ability to conduct mass hacks on computer networks.

They say it also could run afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

While Congress can reject amendments to the rules that govern federal courts, it rarely exercises that authority and is not expected to do so during a heated election year. And few lawmakers have shown interest in the subject.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, condemned the rule change as having “significant consequences for Americans’ privacy,” and vowed to introduce legislation to reverse it.

“Under the proposed rules, the government would now be able to obtain a single warrant to access and search thousands or millions of computers at once; and the vast majority of the affected computers would belong to the victims, not the perpetrators, of a cybercrime,” Wyden said in a statement.

The Justice Department’s quest to broaden warrant jurisdiction has not drawn as much attention as other recent confrontations over government access to digital information. These included the FBI’s standoff with Apple over encryption arising from the agency’s effort to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in December’s San Bernardino massacre.

A Justice Department spokesman said the change was necessary because criminals increasingly use “anonymizing” technologies to conceal their identity online, and remote searches are often the only way to apprehend such suspects.

The change does not authorize any new authorities not already permitted by law, the spokesman said.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Blogging

Last Week’s Radio Derb Transcript: The Bonnie and Clyde of U.S. politics

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as Bonnie and Clyde--more attractive than either the real-life Barrows or the Clintons.

The Bonnie and Clyde of U.S. politics.     For the month of April, the big primary contests coming up are New York on the 19th and Pennsylvania on the 26th. For the GOP, New York offers 95 delegates, allocated in proportion to how many votes each candidate gets. Pennsylvania yields 71 delegates, winner take all. For the Democrats, New York has 247 delegates and Pennsylvania 189, both proportional.

Latest polls show Trump far out ahead in New York, with Ted Cruz actually polling third, behind John Kasich. Hillary Clinton is well ahead of Bernie Sanders here.

For Pennsylvania the same, Trump and Clinton leading. Trump’s not leading by that much, though, and Cruz could possibly catch him. The flaw here for Trump is the people who tell pollsters they’re undecided. When they do decide, they tend to break big-time for Cruz. That’s why Trump’s voter numbers have been lagging his polls.

Again, regional culture is a guide to the likely results. Bernie Sanders’ appeal is to the less clannish, more universalist groups, like those Germans and Scandinavians in the Midwest. On a word-association test with the phrase “democratic socialism,” the response “Scandinavia” has to score pretty high; although in fact the first real advances towards modern democratic socialism took place in Bismarck’s Germany. So it’s no surprise that Bernie won in Minnesota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin.

In New York and Pennsylvania there are more clannish, tribal groups — Americans of Italian, Irish, and Jewish origins — and Mrs Clinton will naturally do better among those, as will Trump.

Meanwhile, Mister Clinton’s been out campaigning for his wife. These two are a real tag team, aren’t they? — the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics.

Thursday this week Bill was in Philadelphia at a rally for his business partner — I beg their pardon: his wife — when protesters from the George Soros front organization Black Lives Matter tried to disrupt the event by yelling and hoisting banners.

The focus of the protesters was the 1994 federal crime bill, which funded lots of new police hires and prisons, and created new death penalty offenses. The bill was mainly a response to the crack epidemic of the eighties and early nineties, and to demands from black community leaders for more law enforcement.

The blogger M.G. included the 1994 laws in her list of what she calls “diversity whack-a-moles“: blacks demand that the government do something about something and then, when the government does do the thing requested, complain that it’s hurting blacks.

[Source:- Vdare]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

Intentionally In-Tune With U.S. Hispanics

by admin
written by admin

As the U.S. Hispanic demographic continues to growOpens in a new window, companies are learning that they need to diversify their marketing efforts. This demographic is about 17 percent of the U.S. population, and streams more content via digital platforms than any other. To reach them effectively, marketers should know how U.S. Hispanics want to be communicated with and how they will respond to messaging.

Using Spanish language content will only get brands so far with the U.S. Hispanic market. They have a different culture than the rest of Americans, so engaging with them requires an understanding of cultural nuances that go far beyond language barriers. Culture embodies a series of values, preferences and ways of life, so the advertising strategy will need to acknowledge these cultural matters.

For example, a Dallas-based pizza chain saw declining sales during the Catholic season of Lent. The company realized that many of its Hispanic consumers were devout Catholics and didn’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent. The pizza chain adjusted its strategy and was able to increase sales by running specials on meatless pizzas. This is why intentional marketing and big data are such an important part of your U.S. Hispanic marketing efforts.

To optimize your U.S. Hispanic outreach, implement intentional marketing as a means to proactively think about what their needs are and how you can address them appropriately. For example, I own a call center and to address intentional marketing and optimize our website, I have to understand that our customers are looking for general information about call centers. Instead of publishing content exclusive to my call center, I can drive more traffic and build our search ranking by publishing content that teaches consumers about general call-center services. Understanding what your U.S. Hispanic customers are trying to learn about a service is one way to improve website traffic.

Big data, on the other hand, allows you to identify specific categories that U.S. Hispanic consumers are interested in. Big data goes beyond demographics to look at behavioral variables. Through cluster analysis segmentation, big data companies such as Nielsen, Acxiom and Experian have identified groups of consumers that have behavioral and lifestyle commonalities. Cluster analysis segmentation can also indicate the preferred brand of consumers in different clusters.

For U.S. Hispanic marketing, big data can provide additional insights about this diverse population. For instance, who the heavy transactors are (i.e., people who spend regardless of how much money they have) and who the “technoinnovators” are (i.e., people who want new tech products the minute they’re released). Variables such as “urbanicityOpens in a new window” are also analyzed so that marketers can understand how clusters of customers living in the suburbs of Atlanta are different spenders than those in Manhattan, even if they’re in the same lifestyle stage.

[ Source :- Emarketingandcommerce ]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Internet

Can Anything Prevent Another Internet Shutdown in the U.S.?

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Can Anything Prevent Another Internet Shutdown in the U.S.?

An internet shutdown in the Northeastern U.S. happened roughly a week ago, and the experts are looking for ways to prevent this attack from ever happening again.

Websites like Twitter and Spotify were inaccessible for thousands of people following the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a major domain name system (DNS) host. DNS, the technical network that converts web address names into numbers, is essentially the “yellow pages” of online addresses.

The perpetrators likely “hijacked the devices [equipped with internet] by installing the malware and then conscripted them into a ‘botnet,’ which is essentially an army of electronic devices unwittingly controlled by an unauthorized individual or entity,” Jeff Baron, a web pioneer who owned an accredited domain name registrar business, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. (RELATED: Internet Crashes Will Be Hard To Stop After Obama’s Internet Giveaway)

The DDoS attack reportedly infected hundreds of thousands of devices around the globe and than directed those electronics to flood servers with artificial traffic. The compromised devices include anything connected to the internet, which nowadays can be mobile phones, televisions, home security systems, vehicles, refrigerators, and even toasters.

How Can We Prevent Another Internet Shutdown?

But there are ways to combat such attacks.

“One self-help mechanism would be for a ‘good’ hacker to write a virus that finds insecure devices and simply disables them. This would remove insecure devices from the pool of computers that could be used as bots,” Eli Dourado, technology policy director at the Mercatus Center, told TheDCNF. “It would be inconvenient to consumers whose devices suddenly stopped working, but that inconvenience may be necessary to prevent more serious attacks in the future.”

There are also security network services available, like Cloudfare and Akamai, but they can be expensive, said Ryan Hagemann, technology and civil liberties policy analyst at the Niskanen Center. “As with any decision, a company or individual will need to assess whether the benefits of employing such a service outweigh the costs.”

This technology is labeled under the “Internet of Things,” or IoT, which is a system of interrelated computing devices, digital machines, or objects that can transfer data over a network without requiring human help.

“IoT development is only in its infancy, but embedded intelligence and connectivity could have a wide range of benefits, including reduced cost, better product reliability, enhanced personal safety and better use of resources,” William Rinehart, director of technology and innovation policy at American Action Forum, wrote in an email.

Adam Thierer, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, wrote a book called Permissionless Innovation, which outlines the number of benefits IoT technology will have, from wearable technologies to recreational and commercial drones.

IoT application is estimated to rake in $11.1 trillion per year by 2025, according to a report conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute.

The comprehensive study demonstrates how IoT will help various industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, retail, urban development and infrastructure, among many others.

“For example, in health care, a dashboard that simply shows a physician a patient’s heart rhythm could be convenient, but a system that can put together a variety of personalized data and determine that the patient’s condition is deteriorating before that danger shows up in an electrocardiogram could be a life saver,” the McKinsey report explains.

But the assessment acknowledges that these benefits will not be automatic and that maintaining or balancing privacy concerns will be important.

“There’s no silver bullet that will provide an easy remedy to this problem,” Hagemann argues. “As such, it is incumbent on users to educate themselves in online security best practices and for industry to take more proactive steps to optimize the security of their devices.”

Thierer agrees, adding, “If policymakers want to foster the growth of the IoT…they will need to resist the temptation to base policy on worst-case thinking about these technologies.”

[“Source-smallbiztrends”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Tech Update

UPDATE 1-Tech companies urge U.S. Supreme Court to boost cellphone privacy

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

WASHINGTON, Aug 15 (Reuters) – More than a dozen high technology companies and the biggest wireless operator in the United States, Verizon Communications Inc, have called on the U.S. Supreme Court to make it harder for government officials to access individuals’ sensitive cellphone data.

The companies filed a 44-page brief with the court on Monday night in a high-profile dispute over whether police should have to get a warrant before obtaining data that could reveal a cellphone user’s whereabouts.

Signed by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names, including Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Snap and Alphabet’s Google, the brief said that as individuals’ data is increasingly collected through digital devices, greater privacy protections are needed under the law.

“That users rely on technology companies to process their data for limited purposes does not mean that they expect their intimate data to be monitored by the government without a warrant,” the brief said.

The justices agreed last June to hear an appeal by Timothy Carpenter, who was convicted in 2013 in a series of armed robberies of Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Ohio and Michigan. Federal prosecutors helped place him near several of the robberies using “cell site location information” obtained from his wireless carrier.

Carpenter claims that without a warrant from a court, such data amounts to an unreasonable search and seizure under the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. But last year a federal appeals court upheld his convictions, finding that no warrant was required.

Carpenter’s case will be argued before the court some time after its new term begins in October.

The case comes amid growing scrutiny of the surveillance practices of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies and concern among lawmakers across the political spectrum about civil liberties and police evading warrant requirements.

Nathan Freed Wessler, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing Carpenter, said the companies’ brief represented a “robust defense of their customers’ privacy rights in the digital age.”

Verizon’s participation in the brief was important, he added, given that it receives, like other wireless carriers, thousands of requests for cellphone location records every year from law enforcement. The requests are routinely granted.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which is defending current law enforcement procedures in the case, declined to comment on Tuesday.

Civil liberties lawyers have said police need “probable cause,” and therefore a warrant, to avoid constitutionally unreasonable searches.

In their brief, the companies said the Supreme Court should clarify that when it comes to digital data that can reveal personal information, people should not lose protections against government intrusion “simply by choosing to use those technologies.” (Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)

[“Source-businessinsider”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
error: Content is protected !!