Apple's iPhones and Google's Androids Send Cellphone Location

Apple Inc.'s iPhones and Google Inc.'s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal—intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data.

Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people's locations via their cellphones. These databases could help them tap the $2.9 billion market for location-based services—expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

In the case of Google, according to new research by security analyst Samy Kamkar, an HTC Android phone collected its location every few seconds and transmitted the data to Google at least several times an hour. It also transmitted the name, location and signal strength of any nearby Wi-Fi networks, as well as a unique phone identifier.

Google declined to comment on the findings.

Until last year, Google was collecting similar Wi-Fi data with its fleet of StreetView cars that map and photograph streets world-wide. The company shut down its StreetView Wi-Fi collection last year after it inadvertently collected e-mail addresses, passwords and other personal information from Wi-Fi networks. The data that Mr. Kamkar observed being transmitted on Android phones didn't include such personal information.

Apple, meanwhile, says it "intermittently" collects location data, including GPS coordinates, of many iPhone users and nearby Wi-Fi networks and transmits that data to itself every 12 hours, according to a letter the company sent to U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) last year. Apple didn't respond to requests for comment.

The Google and Apple developments follow the Journal's findings last year that some of the most popular smartphone apps use location data and other personal information even more aggressively than this—in some cases sharing it with third-party companies without the user's consent or knowledge.

Apple this week separately has come under fire after researchers found that iPhones store unencrypted databases containing location information sometimes stretching back several months. ...

Unlike many cell-phone-enabled violations of your privacy, whose purpose is mainly to enrich the app maker, the storage of location data on iPhones and the gathering of location data by Android phones at least provide benefits to users and are under user control.

The database works behind the scenes mainly to improve wireless data service, traffic maps and other basic functions of a smartphone.

Location data isn't even gathered if location services are turned off.

Yes, the storage of unencrypted location data on your phone is a potential privacy breach waiting to happen. But there's a whole list of privacy violations taking place through your phone every day.

The hard reality is that there's only one way to guarantee privacy with a cell phone: Remove the battery.

via Apple's iPhones and Google's Androids Send Cellphone Location - WSJ.com.

Web creator's net neutrality fear

The inventor of the web has said that governments must act to preserve the principle of net neutrality.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee told the BBC that legislation may be needed if self-regulation failed.

He been asked by the UK government to negotiate an agreement on an open internet between service providers and content firms like the BBC and Skype.

Sir Tim would prefer self-regulation by the internet industry, but progress has been slow.

"If it fails the government has to be absolutely ready to legislate," he said.

"It may be that the openness of the internet, we should just put into law."

Net neutrality, the idea that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally, has been a controversial issue in the United States and is now moving up the political agenda in the UK.

Two tier

Internet Service Providers have claimed that they need to be able to control the growing traffic online, and content creators fear that the result could be a two-speed internet.

Sir Tim said that he understands the need for traffic management but any move to discriminate between different content businesses would be a step too far.

"What you lose when you do that is you lose the open market," he said.

"What the companies gain is that they get complete control of you."

But Professor William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute warned that enshrining net neutrality in law had its dangers.

"Once you allow the state in, you open the door to all sorts of regulation of the internet controls on content creation," he said.

Sir Tim, who was speaking at the opening of the World Wide Web Consortium's UK offices in Oxford, said that internet access was now becoming a human right.

At the same time it was also a very powerful tool for either a government or a large company to get to control of.

He warned that this could lead to users being blocked from visiting sites that were not politically correct, or religiously correct, or commercially correct. ...

via BBC News - Web creator's net neutrality fear.

Classroom 'slave sale' prompts parent protests

Trying to bring a history lesson on the American Civil War to life, teacher Jessica Boyle turned her fourth grade Norfolk, Virginia, classroom into a slave auction: she ordered black and mixed-race students to one side of the classroom; then the white students took turns buying them.

Parent complaints began rolling in shortly after the April 1st lesson, and the principal at Sewells Point Elementary School, Mary Wrushen, told parents in a letter last week that Ms Boyle had gone too far.

“The lesson could have been thought through more carefully, as to not offend her students or put them in an uncomfortable situation,” Ms Wrushen wrote.

Lessons on the civil war have long been among the most sensitive topics in Virginia classrooms, many located near the grounds of the Confederacy’s bloodiest battles. And the role that slavery played in the conflict’s origins has been particularly controversial.

Ms Boyle’s attempt to drive home the connection between slavery and war took place in an elementary school named for one of Virginia’s earliest civil war skirmishes, the Battle of Sewells Point, which was fought within sight of the school grounds, near the mouth of Hampton Roads. Ms Boyle taught her lesson less than two weeks before the 150th anniversary of the conflict.

“She had not conducted a mock slave auction in class before,” Norfolk public schools spokeswoman Elizabeth Thiel Mather wrote in a statement.

She added that “appropriate personnel action is being taken” but would not discuss the details.

Ms Boyle has been teaching in Norfolk for six years.

Sewells Point’s fourth grade class is about 40 per cent black and 40 per cent white. ...

via Classroom 'slave sale' prompts parent protests - The Irish Times - Wed, Apr 13, 2011.

Simulations are all the rage. I'm hearing that one school in my area is having some children "killed" in drunk driving accidents. The "drunk driver" in the simulation is really arrested and really spends time in jail. The "dead kids" are taken and hidden away during the exercise and their parents must really go to the coroners office to ID the bodies.  A school assembly is held and the obituaries of the kids killed are read.  I think this could save some lives because the risks of kids drinking and driving are real. I'm not so sure, however, that kids are at risk of becoming slave owners in Norfolk, Virginia. I've never been there, so I can't say for sure...

Obama restarts Guantanamo trials

What we have done and are doing at Guantanamo disgusts and angers me. You can't hold people in prison without a trial. That, by itself, is a crime against humanity, an inexcusable human rights violation.  Thanks to what we learned about Abu Graib, it is not difficult to imagine all sorts of horrors still going on in these places.  Some released from Gitmo say they were tortured.  It makes me believe we have not just a president who goes back on campaign promises, but that we have a fake government.



YouTube - Obama restarts Guantanamo trials.

Kucinich compares Bradley Manning detention to Abu Ghraib

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) charged today that the miilitary's treatment of Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking confidential materials to Wikileaks, is comparable to the abuse carried out at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Manning was forced Wednesday night to sleep naked in his cell at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., the Marines confirmed Friday. First Lt. Brian Villiard called it a "situationally driven" event, but would not elaborate on what led to the stripping of Manning, the Associated Press reports. The actions were described as "not punitive."

"Is this Quantico or Abu Ghraib?" Kucinich said in a statement today. "Officials have confirmed the 'non-punitive' stripping of an American soldier who has not been found guilty of any crime. This 'non-punitive' action would be considered a violation of the Army Field Manual if used in an interrogation overseas. The justification for and purpose of this action certainly raises questions of 'cruel and unusual punishment,' and could constitute a potential violation of international law."

The congressman cited the Army Field Manuel, which states: "If used in conjunction with intelligence interrogations, prohibited actions include, but are not limited to- Forcing the detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner."

Kucinich said he has repeatedly requested to visit Manning, in order to observe the conditions of his detainment. Manning has been held in restrictive conditions at Quantico since July 2010, and some have questioned why the legal proceedings against him have taken so long. ...

via Kucinich compares Bradley Manning detention to Abu Ghraib - Political Hotsheet - CBS News.

Unborn child to 'testify' on Ohio abortion bill

A fetus has been scheduled as a legislative witness in Ohio on a unique bill that proposes outlawing abortions after the first heartbeat can be medically detected.

Faith2Action, the anti-abortion group that has targeted Ohio to pilot the measure, called the in-utero witness the youngest to ever come before the House Health Committee at 9 weeks old.

Faith2Action president Janet Folger Porter said the intent is to show lawmakers who will be affected by the bill, which abortion rights groups oppose. Ohio Right to Life has not endorsed the measure.

An aide to committee Chairman Lynn Wachtmann said a pregnant woman will be brought before the committee and an ultrasound image of her uterus will be projected onto a screen. The heartbeat of the fetus will be visible in color.

via Unborn child to 'testify' on Ohio abortion bill.

It that doesn't work, Janet has convinced her husband to donate a committee of composed of  60 million of his best sperm, every one of which is sacred, to testify as a corroborating witnesses.

Libya: Who is propping up Gaddafi?

Unlike in Egypt or Tunisia, it is not the conventional military that holds the balance of power in Libya.

Instead, it is a murky network of paramilitary brigades, "revolutionary committees" of trusted followers, tribal leaders and imported foreign mercenaries.

The actual Libyan Army is almost symbolic, a weakened and emaciated force of little more than 40,000, poorly armed and poorly trained. It is part of Col Muammar Gaddafi's long-term strategy to eliminate the risk of a military coup, which is how he himself came to power in 1969.

So the defection this month of some elements of the army to the protesters in Benghazi is unlikely to trouble Col Gaddafi. Not only can he do without them, his security apparatus has not hesitated to call in air strikes on their barracks in the rebellious east of the country.

So, who is propping up his regime and allowing it to stay in power while two of its neighbouring leaders have fled amid a massive momentum for regime change throughout the Middle East? ...

There are persistent reports that Col Gaddafi's regime has been making extensive use of hired African mercenaries, mostly from the Sahel countries of Chad and Niger, to carry out atrocities against unarmed civilian protesters.

Libyan witnesses say they have been firing from rooftops into crowds of demonstrators, in essence carrying out the orders that many Libyan soldiers have refused to obey.

Col Gaddafi has long fostered close relations with African countries, having turned his back on the Arab world some time ago, and there are an estimated 500,000 African expatriates in Libya out of a total population of six million.

The number of those serving as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries is thought to be quite small but their loyalty to his regime is said to be unquestioned and there are reports of extra flights being laid on to bring in more in recent days.  ...

via BBC News - Libya: Who is propping up Gaddafi?.

Obama faces pressure to intervene in Libya

Pressure mounted on the White House on Tuesday to intervene to stop Muammar Gaddafi's bloody crackdown on democracy protests as a lawmaker close to President Barack Obama urged oil firms to halt work in Libya.

The United States faced calls to impose sanctions but also to take direct action such as bombing Libyan airfields and imposing no-fly zones -- military steps that most analysts consider unlikely. Some critics questioned Obama's silence on the violence in which hundreds of Libyans have died.

U.S. officials called for an end to the violence but seemed to rule out any unilateral action, stressing the United States was working with other countries on a way forward.

Senator John Kerry, the influential chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged the White House to consider reimposing tough sanctions on Libya.

"World leaders must together put Colonel Gaddafi on notice that his cowardly actions will have consequences," Kerry said.

The White House said it was studying Kerry's proposal to reimpose sanctions that were lifted by the Bush administration but, for now, was focused on ending the bloodshed, which sent U.S. oil prices to near 2-1/2-year highs. ...

U.S. options to influence events in Libya are limited, unlike in Egypt and Bahrain where Washington was able to bring pressure to bear as a long-time ally and benefactor. U.S. foreign aid to Libya was less than $1 million in 2010.

Military action does not appear to be on the table, although the United States has not shied from the use of force against Gaddafi in the past. It bombed Tripoli and Libya's second city, Benghazi, in 1986 in retaliation for an attack on a West Berlin disco used by U.S. military personnel.

"There is absolutely no talk of military intervention," said Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution in Washington. "We don't know the opposition and it is not clear that they would be on our side."...

 

via Obama faces pressure to intervene in Libya | Reuters.

Woah. Let's hope the CIA has better Intel than the Brookings Institution about the opposition to Gaddafi. ;-) Assuming they do, this is another way of saying Gaddafi is the lesser of evils for US interests.

Final US manufacturer ceases production of lethal injection drug; executions delayed

At the beginning of 2011, more than two thirds of the world had abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, and only 58 countries actively retained it. - link

The sole United States manufacturer of a key component of lethal injections announced Friday that it will cease production of the drug, contributing to shortages and delaying executions.

Sodium thiopental, the first of a three drug cocktail used in 34 states to render the prisoner to be executed unconscious, was manufactured in Italy until Italian authorities stated that they would only license the manufacture if it was used for medical purposes and not, crucially, for executions.

In a statement, the company, Hospira, said that they have never condoned the use of their drug, marketed as 'Pentothal', in executions, and that they could not "prevent the drug from being diverted to departments of corrections for use in capital punishment procedures".

The move means that the United States is without a viable supplier for sodium thiopental. Although many European countries manufacture the drug, which is primarily used in Europe as an anæsthetic, no manufacturer has been found that is willing to supply it for use in conjunction with the death penalty, the abolition of which has been lobbied by the EU since 2008.

The shortage means that executions in California and Oklahoma have been delayed, with Texas' last remaining stocks of the drug due to expire in March, weeks before two scheduled executions. These delays are likely to be prolonged as the legal process of drawing up new drugs to be used for injections is lengthy. Pentobarbital, an alternative which used at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, is used for lethal injections in Oregon, and has started to be used by Oklahoma.

Hospira's decision caused mixed reactions throughout the medical community, with the American Society of Anesthesiologists stating Monday that sodium thiopental is an "important and medically necessary anesthetic agent" that is a "first-line anesthetic in many cases", citing geriatric and cardiovascular conditions, among others. It said that, although they disagree with the death penalty, "we also do not condone using the issue as the basis to place undue burdens on the distribution of this critical drug to the United States. It is an unfortunate irony that many more lives will be lost or put in jeopardy as a result of not having the drug available for its legitimate medical use."

via Final US manufacturer ceases production of lethal injection drug; executions delayed - Wikinews, the free news source.

The use of sodium thiopental has been the cause of current Supreme Court challenges to the lethal injection protocol, after a study in the medical journal The Lancet, where autopsy studies on executed inmates revealed that there was not a high enough concentration of thiopental in their blood to have caused unconsciousness.

via Wikipedia

More lives may be lost, but in a natural way... in a way that is not state sanctioned murder.

" ... most death certificates for executed inmates check the cause of death as homicide since none of the other causes (natural, accidental, etc.) fit." - yahooanswer

 

DR Congo army commander 'led mass rape' in Fizi + more than 600 raped along border.

An army commander in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been accused of leading the recent mass rape of at least 50 women.

One of the victims, as well as sources quoted in a UN report, all accuse Lt Col Kibibi Mutware of links to New Year's Day rapes in the town of Fizi.

There have been numerous cases of mass rape in DR Congo's conflict but this is believed to be the largest single incident allegedly involving the army.

... As in previous cases of rape in DR Congo, many victims are expected to keep their plight secret to avoid being abandoned by their husbands and families.

Two of them agreed to talk anonymously after medics told the BBC they had been raped.

"I was raped in front of my four children," one of them told the BBC.

"I'm ashamed, very ashamed. If I meet two or three people who are having a discussion, I assume they are talking about me, even though it is not the case."

The other woman was able to identify her attackers.

"It was 1900 [in the evening] and those who raped me were members of the military," she said in a low voice, her body wrapped in a colourful cloth.

"There were four of them - Kibibi and his bodyguards. They stole all our belongings and our money."

'Rumours'

This woman was not the only one accusing Lt Col Kibibi, current commander of the 43rd sector in the army's Amani Leo (Peace Today) operation against rebel groups which still roam eastern DR Congo eight years after the country's war officially ended....

Lt Col Kibibi is a strong man with a small moustache and a boonie hat. When I met him, he was sitting behind a table on which only two mobile phones and one walkie-talkie were visible.

Speaking in the thatched hut from which he commands his troops, he dismissed all accusations levelled against him as rumours and said that those soldiers who committed the crimes had disobeyed his orders to stay in the camp.

He added that he only left his base briefly on 1 January to assess the death of the lynched soldier, and only heard about the night's violence the next morning. ...

Lt Col Vianney Kazarama, the army spokesman for operations in South Kivu province, acknowledged that government soldiers were responsible for the Fizi attack but he promised swift legal action.

"All those people who have abused the population have already been arrested. The zero-tolerance policy will be enforced on the spot in Fizi," he told the BBC. ...

Lt Col Kibibi is a former member of the CNDP rebel group, which has previously been accused of numerous human rights abuses.

He was integrated into the national army as part of a peace agreement in 2009.

According to a local military source, his unit is a mixture of former militias based on Rwandan-speaking ethnic groups.

Those troops were deployed to Fizi where a conflict between the majority Babembe group and the neighbouring Banyamulenge - another Rwandan-speaking ethnic group - had been simmering for generations.

Fizi residents and soldiers also clashed in April 2010.

The 16 years of unrest in eastern DR Congo have become notorious for the widespread sexual abuse of women and young girls.

More than 300 women, men and children were raped by a coalition of rebel groups in the town of Luvungi and neighbouring villages in North Kivu within miles of a UN base in August. ...

via BBC News - DR Congo army commander 'led mass rape' in Fizi.

More than 600 women and girls were recently raped along the Congo-Angola border during a mass expulsion of illegal immigrants, according to the United Nations.

Many of the victims said they were locked in dungeon-like conditions for several weeks while they were raped repeatedly by security forces. At least one woman died from her internal injuries, United Nations officials said.

Maurizio Giuliano, a United Nations spokesman in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said Friday that it was unclear on which side of the Congo-Angola border the women had been attacked, and that the United Nations was calling on both countries to investigate promptly.

“What worries us is that rape seems to be becoming endemic in several parts of Congo,” Mr. Giuliano said, also referring to recent rapes in the eastern Kivu provinces. “We fear it’s becoming part of the routine.”

Read more at NYT

Four armed men barged into Anna Mburano’s hut, slapped the children and threw them down. They flipped Mrs. Mburano on her back, she said, and raped her, repeatedly.

It did not matter that dozens of United Nations peacekeepers were based just up the road. Or that Mrs. Mburano is around 80 years old.

“Grandsons!” she yelled. “Get off me!”

via New York Times

This must stop. Get better UN troops down there. Investigate. Have fair trials and get these African military rapists locked up. Change the culture so it doesn't keep happening.  I don't know if the soldier in the image is a rapist, but looking at him and reading these stories, I'm so angry that I'm visualizing really bad things happening to him. What else can be done? Arm the women and children with better weapons than these animals?

Court OKs searches of cell phones without warrant

The California Supreme Court allowed police Monday to search arrestees' cell phones without a warrant, saying defendants lose their privacy rights for any items they're carrying when taken into custody.

Under U.S. Supreme Court precedents, "this loss of privacy allows police not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee's body ... but also to open and examine what they find," the state court said in a 5-2 ruling.

The majority, led by Justice Ming Chin, relied on decisions in the 1970s by the nation's high court upholding searches of cigarette packages and clothing that officers seized during an arrest and examined later without seeking a warrant from a judge.

The dissenting justices said those rulings shouldn't be extended to modern cell phones that can store huge amounts of data.

Monday's decision allows police "to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an arrestee's person," said Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, joined in dissent by Justice Carlos Moreno.

They argued that police should obtain a warrant - by persuading a judge that they will probably find incriminating evidence - before searching a cell phone.

The issue has divided other courts. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco ruled in May 2007 that police had violated drug defendants' rights by searching their cell phones after their arrests. The Ohio Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in a December 2009 ruling in which the state unsuccessfully sought U.S. Supreme Court review.

The Ohio-California split could prompt the nation's high court to take up the issue, said Deputy Attorney General Victoria Wilson, who represented the prosecution in Monday's case.

"This has an impact on the day-to-day jobs of police officers, what kind of searches they can conduct without a warrant when they arrest someone," she said. "It takes it into the realm of new technology." ...

via Court OKs searches of cell phones without warrant.

And yes, they can get past your password. See iPhone forensics.

... With iPhone use increasing in business networks, IT and security professionals face a serious challenge: these devices store an enormous amount of information. If your staff conducts business with an iPhone, you need to know how to recover, analyze, and securely destroy sensitive data. iPhone Forensics supplies the knowledge necessary to conduct complete and highly specialized forensic analysis of the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch. This book helps you:

• Determine what type of data is stored on the device


• Break v1.x and v2.x passcode-protected iPhones to gain access to the device


• Build a custom recovery toolkit for the iPhone


• Interrupt iPhone 3G's "secure wipe" process


• Conduct data recovery of a v1.x and v2.x iPhone user disk partition, and preserve and recover the entire raw user disk partition


• Recover deleted voicemail, images, email, and other personal data, using data carving techniques


• Recover geotagged metadata from camera photos


• Discover Google map lookups, typing cache, and other data stored on the live file system


• Extract contact information from the iPhone's database


• Use different recovery strategies based on case needs

And more. iPhone Forensics includes techniques used by more than 200 law enforcement agencies worldwide, and is a must-have for any corporate compliance and disaster recovery plan. ..

- oh really, no sir, oreilly.

This is absurd and, I believe, unconstitutional.  Due to the way cell phones are used, this  gives access to the banking accounts of anyone arrested, even those falsely arrested.  This is way more information than should be... unless the person was arrested while robbing a bank using a cell phone as a weapon. This is not Nazi Germany, and so, here are a few notes on iPhone remote wipe:

... after wiping three or four devices, I noticed something that Apple doesn’t tell you in the Find My iPhone/Remote Wipe documentation: The time it takes to “wipe” an iPhone or iPod touch varies greatly depending on the model. When I sent the wipe command to an iPhone 3GS, it took a minute or less for the process to complete. But when I sent the command to an older iPhone or to any iPod touch, it took more than two hours.

Why the difference? If you followed our WWDC keynote coverage last month, or watched the keynote later in iTunes, you may recall that the iPhone 3GS includes hardware encryption, so all data is encrypted on the fly. This means that for the iPhone 3GS, Remote Wipe doesn’t need to actually wipe the phone’s entire contents; it simply needs to delete—securely—the encryption key, a process that’s nearly instantaneous. Without the encryption key, your data is as good as wiped.

With older iPhones and both iPod touch models, however, your data isn’t encrypted, so a Remote Wipe really does need to securely delete every last bit. ...

As Jonathan Zdziarsky, the author of iPhone Forensics, points out, someone can force-reboot the iPhone or iPod touch at any point during this lengthy wipe process, put the device into recovery mode, and restore the device's OS in iTunes. This leaves any not-yet-wiped personal files and data accessible to forensic-recovery tools. ...

Another issue is that, as mentioned above, in order for your iPhone or iPod touch to receive a Remote Wipe command, the device must be connected to the Internet. If a thief is more interested in your data than the hardware, removing an iPhone’s SIM card takes the phone off the grid with the exception of Wi-Fi connections. If the thief can access the Settings app, he or she can also disable Wi-Fi to prevent an iPhone or iPod touch from automatically connecting to nearby WiFi networks. (Again, this emphasizes the importance of setting a screen-lock password.)

In other words, you shouldn’t feel completely safe just because you have Find My iPhone enabled. But at least now know how it works—and why some wipes are quicker than others.

So, if you care about your privacy, get a 3GS (or iPhone 4 I assume?) and learn how to wipe it: Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Contents and Settings.

Thanks to Greg who tells us how to restore it after you do.  (I haven't tested this, but I will soon... as soon as I get all of my contacts backed up...in case this trashes my phone.)

"Having used the MobileMe Remote Wipe feature on my original iPhone, I was left with a phone that would only show the apple logo for a few seconds at power on and then do nothing. Resetting did not work and trying to recover from iTunes as I had expected seemed impossible as the iPhone was not even showing up in iTunes.

1. Wake your iphone up so you see the apple logo.


2. Hold down the power button (the one on top) and the home button until the screen goes black.


3. This turns the phone off, don’t keep holding the button or the phone will restart.


4. Now that the phone is off, press and hold the home button.


5. While holding the home button connect your phone back to your computer, continue to hold the home button until itunes says it has found a phone that needs to be restored.


6. restore phone.”

So, if you wipe the encryption key for your hardware encrypted 3GS... is there a law enforcement back door encryption key? I haven't found anything about that yet, but Apple does have remote access to your iPhone before it is wiped:

"Though Apple has declined to comment on iPhone security issues, the company has more or less admitted iPhones are vulnerable to security threats, because an emergency measure exists. In August 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs acknowledged the existence of a remote kill switch for iPhone apps, meaning if a malicious app made its way onto iPhones, Apple could trigger a command to delete the app from users’ devices. There is no evidence that the kill switch has ever been used."

Not sure if there IS a back door key after a wipe, but they do want access while you are using your phone.  It is likely that everything you do every minute is recorded and captured. Your calls, your photos, everything. I bet the NSA loves FaceTime. This is about the FBI from Wired:

Ryan Singel - ... The FBI now wants to require all encrypted communications systems to have back doors for surveillance, according to a New York Times report, and to the nation’s top crypto experts it sounds like a battle they’ve fought before.

Back in the 1990s, in what’s remembered as the crypto wars, the FBI and NSA argued that national security would be endangered if they did not have a way to spy on encrypted e-mails, IMs and phone calls. After a long protracted battle, the security community prevailed after mustering detailed technical studies and research that concluded that national security was actually strengthened by wide use of encryption to secure computers and sensitive business and government communications.

Now the FBI is proposing a similar requirement that would require online service providers, perhaps even software makers, to only offer encrypted communication unless the companies have a way to unlock the communications.

In the New York Timesstory that unveiled the drive, the FBI cited a case where a mobster was using encrypted communication, and the FBI had to sneak into his office to plant a bug. One of the named problems was RIM, the maker of BlackBerrys, which provides encrypted e-mail communications for companies and governments, and which has come under pressure from India and the United Arab Emirates to locate its severs in its countries.

According to the proposal, any company doing business in the States could not create an encrypted communication system without having a way for the government to order the company to decrypt it, and those who currently do offer that service would have to re-tool it. It’s the equivalent of outlawing whispering in real life.

Cryptographers have long argued that back doors aren’t a feature — they are just a security hole that will inevitably be abused by hackers or adversarial governments.

The proposal also contradicts a congressionally-ordered 1996 National Research Council report that found that requiring back doors was not a sensible policy for the government.

You are already wiretapped by the government if you have an iPhone according to this post on infowars:

An alarming white paper concludes that the Apple iPhone contains a backdoor spyware module that allows hackers or the government to conduct secret surveillance of the user, part of an established trend of corporations and the state working hand in hand to eavesdrop on citizens via widely-used software and hardware products.

Earlier this week, a technology group in Russia released the results of their attempts to reverse engineer the iPhone, concluding that the product has "A built-in function which sends all data from an iPhone to a specified web-server. Contacts from a phonebook, SMS, recent calls, history of Safari browser - all your personal information can be stolen."

The module could act as a backdoor for trojan developers or AT & T, said the report, adding that "government structures" would have access to the information.

Since AT & T displayed no hesitation in handing over information about their subscribers to the U.S. government as part of the controversial and illegal NSA wiretapping scandal , it would be no surprise to learn that included in the trendy new must-have gadget is a spyware module that allows the government to listen in to your conversations.

AT & T were chosen by Apple as the exclusive service provider for the iPhone, at present all other cellphone companies are blocked from offering any kind of service compatible with the iPhone.

Just thought you should know.

Luckily, there is hope. This guy has found a way to make your iPhone 100% secure from everyone:

Microsoft To Add Tracking Protection To IE9

Less than a week after federal regulators proposed giving web users a "do-not-track" option against online advertisers, Microsoft announced that it will add its own tracking protection mechanism in the next version of Internet Explorer 9.

Microsoft said Tuesday that the privacy tool would be in IE when it ships next year. The mechanism would give users the option of subscribing to a "tracking protection list" that would contain the names of web addresses used by tracking companies. Organizations on the list would be prevented from communicating with the browser.

Tracking has become a powerful tool for online advertisers to identify groups of people who may be interested in products or services based on their web activities. The practice has been denounced by privacy advocates who argue advertisers have no right to use people's personal information, including their use of the web, without first getting permission.

The Interactive Advertising Board, the trade group representing the $23 billion online ad industry, released a statement to InformationWeek expressing concerns with the tech vendors' plans, while also supporting its efforts at self-regulation in the privacy area. "We are concerned that the new browser features will block the advertising that supports free content on the Internet, and may inadvertently block news, entertainment and social media content as well," the IAB said.

Consumer advocacy groups had a different take on Microsoft's plans. The Consumer Watchdog welcomed the tech vendor's announcement, while insisting that self-regulation by companies wasn't enough and Congress still needed to pass "do not track me" legislation to protect consumers. "Privacy protection demands enforceable rules," John M. Simpson, a project director in Consumer Watchdog, said in a statement. ...


via Microsoft To Add Tracking Protection To IE9 -- Online Advertising -- InformationWeek.

Pentagon wants to wage cyber attack on enemies

The Pentagon's new Cyber Command is seeking authority to attack computer networks around the globe to protect American interests, drawing objections from Obama administration lawyers uncertain about the legality of offensive operations.

Cyber Command's commander, General Keith Alexander, who also heads the National Security Agency, wants his new command to be able to mount what he has called ''the full spectrum'' of operations in cyberspace.

Offensive actions could include shutting down part of an opponent's computer network or changing a line of code in an adversary's computer. They are operations that destroy, disrupt or degrade targeted computers or networks.

Advertisement: Story continues below

But current and former officials say that senior policymakers and administration lawyers want to limit the military's offensive computer operations to war zones such as Afghanistan, in part because the CIA claims covert operations outside the battle zone are its responsibility and the State Department is concerned about a diplomatic backlash.

The administration debate is part of a larger effort to develop a coherent strategy to guide the government in defending the US from attacks on computer and information systems that officials say could damage power grids, corrupt financial transactions or disable an internet service provider.

The effort is fraught because of the unpredictability of some cyber operations; an action against a target in one country could unintentionally disrupt servers in another.

Policymakers are also struggling to delineate Cyber Command's role in defending critical domestic networks in a way that does not violate Americans' privacy.

The policy wrangle predates the administration of President Barack Obama but was renewed last year as Mr Obama declared cyber security a matter of national and economic security. The Pentagon has said it will release a national defence cyber-security strategy by the end of the year. ...

via Pentagon wants to wage cyber attack on enemies.

If Obama can have a hit list for the murder of American born persons, what's the big deal about them hacking your computer? They would probably only do it if you had information about a crime they committed or something.

Pentagon wants to wage cyber attack on enemies

The Pentagon's new Cyber Command is seeking authority to attack computer networks around the globe to protect American interests, drawing objections from Obama administration lawyers uncertain about the legality of offensive operations.

Cyber Command's commander, General Keith Alexander, who also heads the National Security Agency, wants his new command to be able to mount what he has called ''the full spectrum'' of operations in cyberspace.

Offensive actions could include shutting down part of an opponent's computer network or changing a line of code in an adversary's computer. They are operations that destroy, disrupt or degrade targeted computers or networks.

Advertisement: Story continues below

But current and former officials say that senior policymakers and administration lawyers want to limit the military's offensive computer operations to war zones such as Afghanistan, in part because the CIA claims covert operations outside the battle zone are its responsibility and the State Department is concerned about a diplomatic backlash.

The administration debate is part of a larger effort to develop a coherent strategy to guide the government in defending the US from attacks on computer and information systems that officials say could damage power grids, corrupt financial transactions or disable an internet service provider.

The effort is fraught because of the unpredictability of some cyber operations; an action against a target in one country could unintentionally disrupt servers in another.

Policymakers are also struggling to delineate Cyber Command's role in defending critical domestic networks in a way that does not violate Americans' privacy.

The policy wrangle predates the administration of President Barack Obama but was renewed last year as Mr Obama declared cyber security a matter of national and economic security. The Pentagon has said it will release a national defence cyber-security strategy by the end of the year. ...

via Pentagon wants to wage cyber attack on enemies.

If Obama can have a hit list for the murder of American born persons, what's the big deal about them hacking your computer? They would probably only do it if you had information about a crime they committed or something.

Uncle Sam Wants Your DNA: Privacy a price to pay for travel ticket?

Anger is growing in Europe about new Washington data sharing demands, in what they call a move to stop potential terrorists from entering the U.S. The requirements include fingerprints, DNA samples and cross border payments - data considered by many as private and sensitive. Travellers from countries refusing to share the information will have to apply for a visa to enter the U.S. However some EU states - like Austria and Germany - have already agreed to hand over the personal data of its citizens.

In June the EU and the United States signed the so-called SWIFT deal, giving American government officials access to all bank transactions within Europe.

via YouTube - Uncle Sam Wants Your DNA: Privacy a price to pay for travel ticket?.

08.07.2010 - The European Parliament today approved a EU-US deal on sharing bank data to help track terrorist financing.

MEPs voted by 484 in favour, 109 against and 12 abstentions to back the new accord, clearing the way for it to come into force on 1 August. The deal, known as SWIFT after the private company that handles electronic banking data, sets conditions for access to international banking transfer records from EU countries by the US Treasury's Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP).

Alexander Alvaro, a German liberal MEP who drafted the Parliament's opinion on the accord, said the Parliament had won concessions from US and EU authorities that would better guarantee the rights of Europeans. “It manages to protect the security of our citizens,” said Alvaro.

via europvoice

Outrageous. How do they collect DNA? Possibly a cheek swab and then something like the HDA-GT12?

April 27, 2006--eGene Inc. (OTCBB:EGEI - News), a leading biotechnology company, announced that it is looking for global business partners in the DNA sample collection in airport terminals.
The company's leading product, the compact and automated digital genetic analyzer, HDA-GT12(TM), is already achieving rapid penetration and acceptance in the current genetic research and testing market. - ftalk

This was from about a year ago: October 7, 2009

A lawsuit filed today by the ACLU of Northern California seeks to stop California's policy of mandating that DNA is collected from anyone arrested for a felony, whether or not they are ever charged or convicted. The ACLU opposes this law because it violates constitutional guarantees of privacy and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and because of the harmful impact on communities of color.  ... "Forcing a person to provide a DNA sample without any judicial oversight violates the Constitution," said Michael Risher, staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC). "The result of this new program is that thousands of innocent Californians will be subject to a lifetime of genetic surveillance because a single police officer suspected them of a crime. ... California's huge forensic DNA database--the third largest in the world--already faces tremendous backlogs." - aclu

Are they actually collecting DNA at airports? Some say yes, on the sly, with a cover story of searching for explosives residue.

Airline passengers are about to get a new set of instructions before boarding a plane: Put your palms forward. More and more passengers will be putting their hands up; to get swabbed for explosive residue. ... General Mitchell International Airport is on the list of airports to implement this step up in security and increase the number of random searches. Passengers we spoke to seem to agree; security comes first; "It is safety for everyone, it shouldn't matter" says one traveller. - cbs58

Perhaps I just thought of this because the second line in my song "I'm Growing Your Clone" is...

"Skin cells from your hand, I've captured your DNA and ..."

Some say there is a secret diabolical reason DNA is being collected, along with those nude body scans being secretly recorded at airports.   If the human population (and along with it our genetic diversity) were going to diminish drastically, a database would be needed to help enable the survival of the elite.

Those nuclear subterrenes have been digging for many years now. It's a good bet Iron Mountain is not the only place records (fuel, water, seeds, dna, patents, gadgets, alien bodies(?), etc.) are being stored.

Uncle Sam Wants Your DNA: Privacy a price to pay for travel ticket?

Anger is growing in Europe about new Washington data sharing demands, in what they call a move to stop potential terrorists from entering the U.S. The requirements include fingerprints, DNA samples and cross border payments - data considered by many as private and sensitive. Travellers from countries refusing to share the information will have to apply for a visa to enter the U.S. However some EU states - like Austria and Germany - have already agreed to hand over the personal data of its citizens.

In June the EU and the United States signed the so-called SWIFT deal, giving American government officials access to all bank transactions within Europe.

via YouTube - Uncle Sam Wants Your DNA: Privacy a price to pay for travel ticket?.

08.07.2010 - The European Parliament today approved a EU-US deal on sharing bank data to help track terrorist financing.

MEPs voted by 484 in favour, 109 against and 12 abstentions to back the new accord, clearing the way for it to come into force on 1 August. The deal, known as SWIFT after the private company that handles electronic banking data, sets conditions for access to international banking transfer records from EU countries by the US Treasury's Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP).

Alexander Alvaro, a German liberal MEP who drafted the Parliament's opinion on the accord, said the Parliament had won concessions from US and EU authorities that would better guarantee the rights of Europeans. “It manages to protect the security of our citizens,” said Alvaro.

via europvoice

Outrageous. How do they collect DNA? Possibly a cheek swab and then something like the HDA-GT12?

April 27, 2006--eGene Inc. (OTCBB:EGEI - News), a leading biotechnology company, announced that it is looking for global business partners in the DNA sample collection in airport terminals.
The company's leading product, the compact and automated digital genetic analyzer, HDA-GT12(TM), is already achieving rapid penetration and acceptance in the current genetic research and testing market. - ftalk

This was from about a year ago: October 7, 2009

A lawsuit filed today by the ACLU of Northern California seeks to stop California's policy of mandating that DNA is collected from anyone arrested for a felony, whether or not they are ever charged or convicted. The ACLU opposes this law because it violates constitutional guarantees of privacy and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and because of the harmful impact on communities of color.  ... "Forcing a person to provide a DNA sample without any judicial oversight violates the Constitution," said Michael Risher, staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC). "The result of this new program is that thousands of innocent Californians will be subject to a lifetime of genetic surveillance because a single police officer suspected them of a crime. ... California's huge forensic DNA database--the third largest in the world--already faces tremendous backlogs." - aclu

Are they actually collecting DNA at airports? Some say yes, on the sly, with a cover story of searching for explosives residue.

Airline passengers are about to get a new set of instructions before boarding a plane: Put your palms forward. More and more passengers will be putting their hands up; to get swabbed for explosive residue. ... General Mitchell International Airport is on the list of airports to implement this step up in security and increase the number of random searches. Passengers we spoke to seem to agree; security comes first; "It is safety for everyone, it shouldn't matter" says one traveller. - cbs58

Perhaps I just thought of this because the second line in my song "I'm Growing Your Clone" is...

"Skin cells from your hand, I've captured your DNA and ..."

Some say there is a secret diabolical reason DNA is being collected, along with those nude body scans being secretly recorded at airports.   If the human population (and along with it our genetic diversity) were going to diminish drastically, a database would be needed to help enable the survival of the elite.

Those nuclear subterrenes have been digging for many years now. It's a good bet Iron Mountain is not the only place records (fuel, water, seeds, dna, patents, gadgets, alien bodies(?), etc.) are being stored.

US medical tests in Guatemala 'crime against humanity'

US testing that infected hundreds of Guatemalans with gonorrhoea and syphilis more than 60 years ago was a "crime against humanity", Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has said.

President Barack Obama has apologised for the medical tests, in which mentally ill patients and prisoners were infected without their consent.

Mr Obama told Mr Colom the 1940s-era experiments ran contrary to American values, Guatemala said.

The US has promised an investigation.

'Shocking, tragic, reprehensible'

Syphilis can cause heart problems, blindness, mental illness and even death, and although the patients were treated it is not known how many recovered.

Evidence of the programme was unearthed by Prof Susan Reverby at Wellesley College. She says the Guatemalan government gave permission for the tests. ...

The patients - prisoners and people suffering mental health problems - were unaware they were being experimented upon.

The doctors used prostitutes with syphilis to infect them, or inoculation, as they tried to determine whether penicillin could prevent syphilis, not just cure it. ...

via BBC News - US medical tests in Guatemala 'crime against humanity'.

... a Public Health Service team led by physician John C. Cutler infected 696 subjects from the Guatemalan National Penitentiary, an army barracks, and a national mental health hospital.

The U.S. physicians did not get permission from the subjects, she wrote.

“The doctors used prostitutes with the disease to pass it to the prisoners (since sexual visits were allowed by law in Guatemalan prisons) and then did direct inoculations,” either on to the men’s sexual organs, forearms, face or through spinal injections.

via TruthOut

The experiments were funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health to the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (now known as the Pan American Health Organization) and involved multiple Guatemalan government ministries. A total of about 1500 study subjects were involved although the findings were never published. Information about these experiments was uncovered by Professor Susan Mokotoff Reverby of Wellesley College. Reverby found the documents in 2005 while researching the Tuskegee syphilis study, in Cutler's archived papers, and shared her findings with United States government officials. - wiki

John Charles Cutler, M.D. (June 29, 1915 - February 8, 2003) was a senior surgeon, and the acting chief of the venereal-disease program in the United States Public Health Service^. He oversaw the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and the syphilis experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s. In 1954 he was in charge of experiments at Sing Sing prison to see if a vaccine made from the killed syphilis bacterium, would protect prisoners against infection when he later exposed them to the bacterium. - wiki

The syphilis bacteria is interesting (perhaps to bio-weapons designers) because it evolved quickly over the course of 50 years starting in 1496:

The sex disease syphilis adapted from a severe, debilitating illness to a milder form in order to survive, research suggests.

Dr Robert Knell, of Queen Mary's College, London, argues the disease was too virulent for its own good.

Sufferers became so repellent that they were unlikely to have sex. To ensure that they did, and continued to pass on the bacterium, it had to change.

Dr Knell's theory is published in the journal Biology Letters.

Syphilis in its early form caused disfiguring pustules on the face accompanied by a foul smell.

Dr Knell argues this would have been obvious to any potential sexual partners of a sufferer, enabling people to avoid the infected person and thereby reducing transmission.

Other symptoms, such as agonising pains in the joints, would have effectively disabled the sufferer, or at least distracted them from seeking out new sexual partners.

As a result, less virulent strains of the disease were transmitted more often, thus leading to changes in the severity of the disease. ...

Syphilis first appeared in Europe in 1496 and was known as the Great Pox or French Disease.

At first it caused terrible sickness, including severe ulceration of the part of the body first infected (often the genitals), pustules, soft tissue being eaten away to the bone, and the rapid onset of "gummy" tumours.

However, within 50 years syphilis changed from an acute, severe and debilitating disease to the milder infection that is modern syphilis. ...

via BBC

No horrific photos of people with syphilis will be posted here, but check out the BBC link above for an early Halloween startle.

Obvious question: What are they doing right now that they will apologize for 50 years from now?

US medical tests in Guatemala 'crime against humanity'

US testing that infected hundreds of Guatemalans with gonorrhoea and syphilis more than 60 years ago was a "crime against humanity", Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has said.

President Barack Obama has apologised for the medical tests, in which mentally ill patients and prisoners were infected without their consent.

Mr Obama told Mr Colom the 1940s-era experiments ran contrary to American values, Guatemala said.

The US has promised an investigation.

'Shocking, tragic, reprehensible'

Syphilis can cause heart problems, blindness, mental illness and even death, and although the patients were treated it is not known how many recovered.

Evidence of the programme was unearthed by Prof Susan Reverby at Wellesley College. She says the Guatemalan government gave permission for the tests. ...

The patients - prisoners and people suffering mental health problems - were unaware they were being experimented upon.

The doctors used prostitutes with syphilis to infect them, or inoculation, as they tried to determine whether penicillin could prevent syphilis, not just cure it. ...

via BBC News - US medical tests in Guatemala 'crime against humanity'.

... a Public Health Service team led by physician John C. Cutler infected 696 subjects from the Guatemalan National Penitentiary, an army barracks, and a national mental health hospital.

The U.S. physicians did not get permission from the subjects, she wrote.

“The doctors used prostitutes with the disease to pass it to the prisoners (since sexual visits were allowed by law in Guatemalan prisons) and then did direct inoculations,” either on to the men’s sexual organs, forearms, face or through spinal injections.

via TruthOut

The experiments were funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health to the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (now known as the Pan American Health Organization) and involved multiple Guatemalan government ministries. A total of about 1500 study subjects were involved although the findings were never published. Information about these experiments was uncovered by Professor Susan Mokotoff Reverby of Wellesley College. Reverby found the documents in 2005 while researching the Tuskegee syphilis study, in Cutler's archived papers, and shared her findings with United States government officials. - wiki

John Charles Cutler, M.D. (June 29, 1915 - February 8, 2003) was a senior surgeon, and the acting chief of the venereal-disease program in the United States Public Health Service^. He oversaw the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and the syphilis experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s. In 1954 he was in charge of experiments at Sing Sing prison to see if a vaccine made from the killed syphilis bacterium, would protect prisoners against infection when he later exposed them to the bacterium. - wiki

The syphilis bacteria is interesting (perhaps to bio-weapons designers) because it evolved quickly over the course of 50 years starting in 1496:

The sex disease syphilis adapted from a severe, debilitating illness to a milder form in order to survive, research suggests.

Dr Robert Knell, of Queen Mary's College, London, argues the disease was too virulent for its own good.

Sufferers became so repellent that they were unlikely to have sex. To ensure that they did, and continued to pass on the bacterium, it had to change.

Dr Knell's theory is published in the journal Biology Letters.

Syphilis in its early form caused disfiguring pustules on the face accompanied by a foul smell.

Dr Knell argues this would have been obvious to any potential sexual partners of a sufferer, enabling people to avoid the infected person and thereby reducing transmission.

Other symptoms, such as agonising pains in the joints, would have effectively disabled the sufferer, or at least distracted them from seeking out new sexual partners.

As a result, less virulent strains of the disease were transmitted more often, thus leading to changes in the severity of the disease. ...

Syphilis first appeared in Europe in 1496 and was known as the Great Pox or French Disease.

At first it caused terrible sickness, including severe ulceration of the part of the body first infected (often the genitals), pustules, soft tissue being eaten away to the bone, and the rapid onset of "gummy" tumours.

However, within 50 years syphilis changed from an acute, severe and debilitating disease to the milder infection that is modern syphilis. ...

via BBC

No horrific photos of people with syphilis will be posted here, but check out the BBC link above for an early Halloween startle.

Obvious question: What are they doing right now that they will apologize for 50 years from now?

U.S. court: $1m bail for Israeli charged in largest human trafficking case in U.S. history

A federal judge has set bail at $1 million for the chief executive of a labor recruiting company accused of importing and exploiting 400 workers from Thailand.

Forty-five-year-old Mordechai Orian, head of Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc., was ordered Wednesday to be held in federal custody until he can raise the money.

KITV reports federal prosecutors claim Orian, an Israeli national, is a flight risk. They had sought to keep him in custody until his trial, and they plan to appeal.

Orian is accused in what the FBI calls the largest human-trafficking case charged in U.S. history.

He was indicted last week on charges that he lured the workers with false promises of lucrative jobs, then confiscated their passports, failed to honor their employment contracts and threatened to deport them.

His public relations agency has said he complied with the FBI in negotiating his surrender in Honolulu.

via U.S. court sets $1m bail for Israeli charged in human trafficking case - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Here is the web site. Perhaps the post 9/11 worldview is that with the right wording, can get away with a really big conspiracy?

Global Horizons, Inc. thinks globally and acts locally with a post-9/11-worldview, one which understands that economies cannot continue to grow and prosper without an ample, qualified and legal workforce. Too, it understands the aspirations of countless workers who dream of having better jobs in better places, but who wish to return to their country of native origin when they've completed the job. This fulfills both the economic and security needs of the host country. - http://gmpusa.com/

Best sarcasm award goes to Daily Kos:

And here is the "About Us" section that appears on their website, footnoted by yours truly for the irony challenged ...

Who We Are

When Global Horizons, Inc. began sixteen years ago, it was the first company to establish a new and improved (1) labor-recruiting (2), labor-providing (3) business model (4) to meet the temporary and permanent needs (5) of employers worldwide. The company is continuing (6) to set a powerful new standard in Twenty-First Century (7) recruiting. An emerging industry leader, it is successfully turning local, regional and national workforce challenges into significant opportunities (8).

The Global Horizons story began in 1989, in the midst of a massive worker shortage in a foreign country. Born out of necessity (9) and acting boldly (10), the newly-formed organization brought thousands of qualified workers (11) into a strategic nation (12), averting impending economic disaster (13) for that country. Today, Global continues to build on the experience and wisdom gained during that time (14)of humble beginnings.



FOOTNOTES

1. Unless you include Ancient Egypt


2. Kidnapping


3. Pimping


4. Legal-appearing Crime Syndicate


5. Rent-A-Slave, Buy-A-Slave


6. Until somebody finds out – Like the FBI


7. 21st Century – BC


8. Significant opportunities for us, for you, not so much - unless you really hate your biological family and enjoy picking pineapples


9. We were out of money and could no longer afford the quality of cocaine and prostitutes we were accustomed to


10. With the type of sociopath-like disregard for humanity that would embarrass Ted Bundy


11. Who knew you could fit that many people on a blow-up raft?


12. One with easy-to-bribe officials


13. Fair Wages & Lower CEO Pay


14. MEMO TO EMPLOYEES: Never Kidnap a Warlord’s Daughter

A nod to the FBI. Good job. Thanks and keep it up. This is the kind of big crime that we, as taxpayers, like to see cleaned up.