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Monday: A Different Ark

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[Caution: some content in this video is NSFW] Today’s Monday Movie is a short film by Patrick Cederberg published three years ago. This short reflects the love life of a youth whose age is close to that of my two kids. A few things have changed in terms of technology used — I don’t think either Facebook or Chatroulette is as popular now with high school and college students as it was, but the speed of internet-mediated relationships is the same. It’s dizzying to keep up with kids who are drowning in information about everything including their loved ones.

Their use of social media to monitor each other’s commitment is particularly frightening; it’s too easy to misinterpret content and make a snap decision as this movie shows so well. Just as scary is the ease with which one may violate the privacy of another and simply move on.

Imagine if this youngster Noah had to make a snap decision about someone with whom they weren’t emotionally engaged. Imagine them using their lifetime of video gaming and that same shallow, too-rapid decision-making process while piloting a drone.

Boom.

Goodness knows real adults with much more life experience demonstrate bizarre and repeated lapses in judgment using technology. Why should we task youths fresh out of high school and little education in ethics and philosophy with using technology like remote surveillance and weaponized drones?

Speaking of drones, here’s an interview with GWU’s Hugh Gusterson on drone warfare including his recommendations on five of books about drones.

A, B, C, D, USB…

  • USBKiller no longer just a concept (Mashable) –$56 will buy you a USB device which can kill nearly any laptop with a burst of electricity. The only devices known to be immune: those without USB ports. The manufacturer calls this device a “testing device.” Apparently the score is Pass/Fail and mostly Fail.
  • Malware USBee jumps air-gapped computers (Ars Technica) — Same researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University who’ve been working on the potential to hack air-gapped computers have now written software using a USB device to obtain information from them.
  • Hydropower charger for USB devices available in 2017 (Digital Trends) — Huh. If I’m going to do a lot of off-grid camping, I guess I should consider chipping into the Kickstarter for this device which charges a built-in 6,400mAh battery. Takes 4.5 hours to charge, though — either need a steady stream of water, or that’s a lot of canoe paddling.

Hackety-hack, don’t walk back

  • Arizona and Illinois state elections systems breached (Reuters) — An anonymous official indicated the FBI was looking for evidence other states may also have been breached. The two states experienced different levels of breaches — 200K voters’ personal data had been downloaded from Illinois, while a single state employee’s computer had been compromised with malware in Arizona, according to Reuters’ report. A report by CSO Online explains the breaches as outlined in an leaked FBI memo in greater detail; the attacks may have employed a commonly-used website vulnerability testing application to identify weak spots in the states’ systems. Arizona will hold its primary election tomorrow, August 30.
  • Now-defunct Australian satellite communications provider NewSat lousy with cyber holes (Australian Broadcasting Corp) — ABC’s report said Australia’s trade commission and Defence Science Technology Group have been attacked frequently, but the worst target was NewSat. The breaches required a complete replacement of NewSat’s network at a time when it was struggling with profitability during the ramp-up to launch the Lockheed Martin Jabiru-1 Ka-band satellite. China was named as a likely suspect due to the level of skill and organization required for the numerous breaches as well as economic interest. ABC’s Four Corners investigative reporting program also covered this topic — worth watching for the entertaining quotes by former CIA Director Michael Hayden and computer security consultant/hacker Kevin Mitnick in the same video.
  • Opera software users should reset passwords due to possible breach (Threatpost) — Thought users’ passwords were encrypted or hashed, the browser manufacturer still asks users to reset passwords used to sync their Opera accounts as the sync system “showed signs of an attack.” Norwegian company Opera Software has been sold recently to a Chinese group though the sale may not yet have closed.

That’s a wrap for now, catch you tomorrow! Don’t forget your bug spray!

Tuesday: One String

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There aren’t enough words to describe this genius who can do so much with a lone string. Brushy One String is the stagename of Andrew Chin, son of Jamaican musician Freddie McKay. McKay died in 1986 in his late 30s, leaving behind a body of work representative of the rocksteady (ex: Rock-a-Bye Woman) and reggae genres. While Brushy inherited his father’s musical talent, he’s parlayed into an interesting Rhythm-and-Blues-meets-Roots-Reggae crossover. Check out his website when you have a chance.

Wheels

  • Volkswagen and USDOJ talking about criminal investigation (Deutsche Welle) — Up in the air yet whether DOJ goes with deferred prosecution or asks for a guilty plea from the lawmaker for criminal activity related to the promotion and sale of its so-called “Clean Diesel” passenger vehicles during the last decade. Criminal fines are estimated at $1.2 billion. VW claims to be cooperating, but the company’s failure to disclose the additional cheat software in the 3.0L engines suggests some problems understanding what “good faith” means.
  • Volkswagen’s Australian manager believes diesel fix “imminent” (CarsGuide) — And “Under Australian law, we don’t believe there’s anything on our car which is illegal.” Uh-huh. Hence the fix for 80,000 1.6L and 2.0L passenger diesels. It’s true that Australia is not as strict about NOX as the U.S., but VW’s passenger diesels didn’t meet EU or AUS limits on other pollutants.
  • Ford expects to offer self-driving car without steering wheel within five years (Detroit News) — Well, then. Better hope regulations don’t require a steering wheel, huh? Ford has also invested $75M in LiDAR-maker Velodyne; Chinese search engine company Baidu has likewise made a $75M investment. LiDAR is expected to provide navigational assistance for these self-driving vehicles.

Way Up There

Words

  • Univision’s bid wins Gawker Media (Recode) — Of the two known bidders — Ziff-Davis and Univision — the latter’s $135M bid won bankrupt Gawker Media and its brands. Gawker’s lineup joins The Onion and The Root, purchased by Univision, and Fusion which Univision originally created jointly with Disney and now owns outright. Founder Nick Denton seems pleased with this outcome as his brands and workers continue without disruption; billionaire Pete Thiel gets partial revenge on Denton for outing him by forcing the bankruptcy and sale. Univision’s editorial policy will be less personal in its coverage — probably a good thing. Let’s check back in a year.
  • ‘Not a good fit’ says Barnes & Noble as CEO shown the door (GalleyCat) — Whoa. You don’t see such blunt statements about CEOs, especially one with less than a year under their belt. The company’s stock has been up though retail sales continued to struggle in competition against Amazon. Feels like there’s more to this story. In the mean time, Ron Boire is out the door and executive chairman Leonard Riggio will delay his retirement until a new CEO is found. Hope the next one can salvage NOOK tablet platform because I can’t stand Amazon’s Kindle.
  • Turkish court closes pro-Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem (Business Standard) — Claiming the paper was a propaganda outlet for Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), labeled a terrorist organist organization by Turkey, EU, and the US. The court said the closure was not related to the government’s post-coup purge of media believed to be sympathetic to Gülen movement. An appeal is possible.

I-Spy: Cyber Edition
You’ve probably heard about the alleged hacking of a NSA server and the subsequent attempt to auction contents from that server. Edward Snowden offered his perspective on the situation — I’ve Storify’d the tweet thread for your reading ease.

The disclosure and attempted auction were likely done by Russia for political reasons given the timing. Hacking and accessing the contents of the server should be expected — it’s ordinary spying, same as the U.S. does. But the revelation is a new tack; Snowden suggests it’s a warning to the U.S. about potential future disclosures. Read the thread for yourself.

I don’t think this hacking and disclosure happened in a vacuum. There’s a much bigger game to puzzle out — add the meeting between Russia and Saudi Arabia to “achieve oil market stability” as well as Russia’s express interest in Saudi Arabia’s plans to build as many as 16 nuclear reactors. Factor in a change in relationship between Iran and Russia now that Russia has deployed long-range bombers from Iran for the first time against ISIS. Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran have some of the largest proven oil reserves in the world, all three in the top 10 and in Saudi’s case, influence over OPEC. Is Russia preparing for asymmetric economic pressure?

Late adder: #BlueCutFire in San Bernadino County, CA is very bad, now 82,000 ordered to evacuate.

That’s it for now, still Tuesday in the next time zone. Let’s see if I can make it over the hump earlier tomorrow.

Wednesday: Not the Shape

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I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that’s not the shape of my heart

— excerpt, Shape of My Heart by Sting and Dominic Miller, 1993

After reading deeply about so many people suffering, I’m falling back on the equivalent of musical comfort food. A double helping as this Sting song is one of my favorites, performed here by some of my favorite musicians.

Suffer the little children

  • U.N. Commission of Inquiry reports Yazidis erased by ISIS (OHCHR) — The UN’s independent international Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic published “They Came to Destroy: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis” on June 16 but media outlets are only now reporting on the inquiry’s findings. ISIS has violated the 1948 Genocide Convention, by

    “ISIS has sought to erase the Yazidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm; the infliction of conditions of life that bring about a slow death; the imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, including forced conversion of adults, the separation of Yazidi men and women, and mental trauma; and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own families and placing them with ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from beliefs and practices of their own religious community”

    Seven weeks later mainstream media finally gets around to covering this report. I wonder how many more Yazidis have died or been degraded and tortured in that time. And I wonder if we’ll ever do anything constructive to halt the elimination of this people by a non-state (or state) actor. Before ISIS began its assault on the Yazidi, there were an estimated 800K to 1.5 million of them.

  • Australia continues to ignore plight of refugees on Nauru (HRW) — Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International investigated the conditions of refugees held on Pacific Island of Nauru, to which Australia shunts ayslum seekers and refugees from other countries. In spite of earlier investigations over the last 15 months and subsequent demands for improvements by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a Senate Select Committee, and an independent investigator, Australia continues to do nothing about the appalling and abusive conditions on Nauru. The gross neglect is now policy by default.
  • Czech president wants to reject all refugees (Deutsche Welle) — Milos Zeman has always talked anti-Nazi, but on the matter of EU’s policy on refugees he sounds like he’s done a 180 degree turn. His spokeman claims this position is based on terrorism:

    “Our country simply cannot afford to risk terrorist attacks like what occurred in France and Germany. By accepting migrants, we would create fertile ground for barbaric attacks…”

    In opposition to Zeman, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka has agreed to take 80 Syrian refugees. That’s far more than the U.S. has accepted on a proportional basis; we killed more Syrian civilians this month than that number.

Reading the Classics
From Sententiae Antiquae, Corrupt Leaders Make Corrupt Countries: An Ancient Course on Leadership. Nothing new under the sun; sure looks like we’ve debated this topic for millennia.

I like this bit by the Greek writer Onasander particularly:

…οὐδὲ χωρὶς στρατηγῶν οὐδὲ μία πόλις ἐκπέμψει στρατόπεδον, οὐδὲ δίχα τοῦ δύνασθαι λέγειν αἱρήσεται στρατηγόν.

…No land nor city will field an army without generals nor even choose a general who cannot speak effectively.

How do you say, “Wishful thinking” in ancient Greek?

Reindeer games here tomorrow, in spite of the season. See you then.

Friday: Death to All That Jazz

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My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

— excerpt, Dulce et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen

This week has been a long death march. Death to optimism, death to pre-existing notions of political parties, death to futures defined by progressive visions.

Ironically, the march led to today’s 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme — the beginning of World War I and the bloodiest day in British military history. The battle lasted five months and cost a million soldiers’ lives. The British suffered 60,000 casualties on the first day alone as they fought alongside the French against the Germans.

Among the British dead were black soldiers from Britain and British West Indies, and Indian Army Calvary who came from what is now India and Pakistan. The British recruited from South Africa, Egypt, China, and more to replace their losses as the Somme continued.

One hundred years later they have forgotten all of this shared pain and history, along with Winston Churchill’s post-WWII vision of a unified European family, a Pan-European Union which the United Kingdom, United States, and Russia supported.

On that bright and cheery note, have a little Death to Jazz — music which never dies.

Democracy elsewhere
Australians went to the polls on July 2nd for this year’s federal election. They didn’t torture themselves with a year or more of campaign crap, thank goodness. I can’t tell you much of anything about this election except that like the US and UK, there are two major parties running neck-and-neck — the Liberal/National coalition and the Labor party — while the world might hope for Greens to succeed. At least Aussies have more than two major parties to choose from even if they are more colorful than any of ours. Putting aside my flippant attitude, this election has serious consequences for the globe given the need for Australia’s climate change research in spite of its excessive reliance on sales of coal as well as its creeping authoritarian approach toward the internet and surveillance. What policies will the next Aussie government pursue?

Wheels

  • NHTSA launches investigation into fatal autopiloted Tesla crash (Tesla Motors) — OMG if you look at the Florida Highway Patrol report sketch of the accident you’ll immediately grasp what fail this was. This was a really horrific accident. Tesla’s post indicates the sensor read the gap below the semi-truck’s trailer as open space. Jalopnik picks apart the accident; they may be right that the obstruction detection sensor is too low on the vehicle. Besides the fact the driver was completely distracted and watching a movie while on autopilot, something else doesn’t sit right about this crash — like the truck failed to yield, or the car was traveling at too high a rate of speed? Truly a sad situation for the driver’s family and the truck driver.
  • Volkswagen thinks its 3.0L passenger diesel engines can be “fixed” to meet emissions standards (Reuters) — Wait, what? They used “undeclared auxiliary emissions-control devices” on this engine, and not the emissions controls defeat software used in the 2.0L engines, which somehow means they can fix the larger engines. I’ve missed something somewhere along the way because I don’t recall reading about any “auxiliary devices” before now. Color me skeptical.
  • June car sales remain on pace with May, except for Volkswagen (Business Insider) — Dieselgate has really done a number on VW brand here in the U.S.; sales are down 22% for the German automaker over last year. Other brands have picked up the slack, though; the biggest winner is Nissan.

Don’t forget about China
Fourth largest by area, second largest by GDP, and first largest by population, let’s not forget about China!

  • ICYMI: Insurance company to CIA employees bought by Chinese company (Newsweek) — You might want to read Marcy’s piece if you haven’t already. The U.S. really needs to improve the CFIUS review process given this egregious example. It only takes some big iron computing to crunch a match between Wright USA’s business database and other breached databases out there in the cyber-wilds to identify…well, you’re smart. Figure it out.
  • Taiwanese missile mistakenly fired, kills fishing boat captain (IBT) — No words for this, which could have been very ugly. Somebody kept a cool head.
  • Taylor Swift’s love life no longer the subject of Chinese bettors (Billboard) — Chinese government banned the sale of insurance instruments which paid off when celebrity singer/songwriter Swift broke off her romance. Good move, this one, because Swift changes partners like some women change purses and shoes. Don’t waste your money betting on what is surely a PR-driven romance between Swift and the flavor of the month, British film star Tom Hiddleston. (Better off betting on who will be the next James Bond — Hiddleston? Doubtful.)

Party Plans
It’s a long holiday weekend here in the U.S. If you don’t have plans, here’s a few tips.

  • The party moved, dudes; new sandbar this year (Mlive) — Court tossed the monster party held on one of Michigan’s inland lakes because it was monster. This year it’s being held at Wixom Lake instead of Torch Lake. Poor Wixomites; brace yourselves for 1000-plus partiers.
  • Non-Terrible Songs about America (BitchMedia) — This week’s BitchTapes playlist is estrogen driven, a nice even-handed, clear-eyed change of pace for a mellow Fourth of July. Kind of like a hug from your mom or sister who love you in spite of the fact they know only too well you’re a bonehead.
  • Baking cookies for holiday snacking? Don’t eat the raw dough! (Yahoo News) — We’ve always been told raw dough is risky to eat because of uncooked eggs in the batter. But unless you’ve checked yours against the FDA’s recall list, it’s the flour that’s the potential threat. E coli-tainted flour is still in the food system and could be in uncooked dough products. Cook them well, don’t eat them raw.

Holiday mode commences in three, two, one — boom! Because nothing says freedom like incendiary devices at close range!

Monday Morning: Scattered

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That’s how I feel this morning — my head feels like a bunch of scattered pictures lying on my bedroom floor. Can’t tell how much of this sensation is work hangover from a too-busy weekend, or a result of a themeless news morning.

Often as I browse my feeds I find narratives emerge on their own, bubbling up on their own. Today? Not so much. There are too many topics in flight, too many major stories juggled, too many balls in the air, everything’s a blur.

The biggest stories adrift and muddled are those in which elections are central:

  • U.S. primary season wrap-up and the general election ahead — and I’m not going to touch this topic with a 20-foot pole. Imma’ let better writers and statisticians handle it without me piling on.
  • The Philippines election — the leading candidate is alleged to encourage urban vigilante death squads to reduce crime.
  • Brexit — Britain votes on a referendum next month on whether to exit the EU. Brexit played a role in the election last week of London’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, who also happens to be London’s first Muslim mayor.
  • Australia’s double-dissolution election — PM Malcolm Turnbull last week announced both the House of Representatives and the Senate would be dissolved and replaced in an election on July 2nd. Turnbull faces replacement depending on which party amasses the most power during the election. There have only been seven double dissolutions since Australia’s federation under its constitution in 1901.

Anyhoo…here’s some miscellaneous flotsam that caught my eye in today’s debris field.

  • Number of unique mobile device users: 5 BILLION (Tomi Ahonen) — Do read this blog post, the numbers are mind-boggling. And intelligence agencies want to map and store ALL of the communications generated by these numbers?
  • Browser company Opera just went after iOS market with VPN offering (PC World) — Opera already announced a free VPN to Windows and Linux users; today it targeted Apple users with a VPN for iOS (do note the limited country availability). Don’t feel left out, Android users, you’ll get a VPN offering from Opera soon.
  • Swarm of earthquakes detected at Mount St. Helens (KOMO) — The eight-week-long swarm has been likened to those in 2013 and 2014 due to fault slippage. An eruption may not be imminent.
  • Jihadi Gang Warfare (@thegruq at Medium) — A really good read about the Islamic militant gang in Brussels and how their amateurishness prevented even greater bloodshed in both Paris and Brussels. Unfortunately a primer on how not to do urban terror.
  • Google isn’t just feeding romance novels to its AI to teach it language (Le Monde) — ZOMG, it’s using them to teach it morals, too! That’s what Le Monde reported that Buzzfeed didn’t.

    Valeurs morales

    Deux chercheurs de Georgia Tech, Mark Riedl et Brent Harrison, vont encore plus loin. Selon eux, la littérature peut inculquer des valeurs morales à des programmes d’intelligence artificielle. « Nous n’avons pas de manuel rassemblant toutes les valeurs d’une culture, mais nous avons des collections d’histoires issues de ces différentes cultures », expliquent-ils dans leur article de recherche publié en février.

    «Les histoires encodent de nombreuses formes de connaissances implicites. Les fables et les contes ont fait passer de génération en génération des valeurs et des exemples de bons comportements. (…) Donner aux intelligences artificielles la capacité de lire et de comprendre des histoires pourrait être la façon la plus efficace de les acculturer afin qu’elles s’intègrent mieux dans les sociétés humaines et contribuent à notre bien-être.»

    Moral values

    Two researchers from Georgia Tech, Mark Riedl and Brent Harrison, go even further. They believe literature can inculcate moral values in artificial intelligence programs. “We have no manual containing all the values of a culture, but we have collections of stories from different cultures,” they explain in their research article published in February.

    “The stories encode many forms of implicit knowledge. Fables and tales were passing generation to generation the values and examples of good behavior. (…) Giving artificial intelligence the ability to read and understand stories may be the most effective way to acculturate them so they can better integrate into human society and contribute to our well-being.”

    Gods help us, I hope they didn’t feed the AI that POS Fifty Shades of freaking Grey. Though I’d rather 90% of romance novels for morals over Lord of the Flies or The Handmaid’s Tale, because romance’s depiction of right and wrong is much more straightforward than in literary fiction, even the very best of it.

That’s quite enough trouble to kick off our week, even if it’s not particularly coherent. Catch you tomorrow morning!

Tuesday Morning: Brittle, Two

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Yesterday I talked about the shift toward mobile computing centered on smartphones, moving from PCs. Behind that transition, out of sight of the public, is the cloud which supports this shift. Content and applications are increasingly stored not on the user’s device but in a server (read: data farm) accessed over the internet.

One manifestation of the shift is the largest technology merger ever — computer manufacturer Dell‘s $70B acquisition of storage company EMC. Dell’s PC sales have been slowly falling over the last handful of years, not unexpected due to the maturity of the market and the shift to mobile devices. Servers have been a large part of Dell’s profits for years, but many opportunities often ended up with competitor EMC when Dell quoted storage. Mobile users need much more remote computing and storage — servers and storage in the cloud — which EMC’s storage area network (SAN) products provide. This made EMC an appetizing fit to augment Dell’s server offerings while offsetting the slowly fading desktop computer sales.

With the acquisition, Dell Technology (the new name for the merged companies) now competes more squarely against Hewlett-Packard, which also sells both desktop computers and enterprise storage.

HP, however, split into two companies late last year. One manufactures desktop and other smaller computing devices (HP), the other sells servers and storage products (HP Enterprise Business). One might wonder if HP was preparing to spin off the portion of the business that makes PCs just as its competitor IBM did in 2005 when it spun off its PC division to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo.

Media will say with the EMC acquisition that Dell is positioned for better end-to-end service — but with so much computing now done on smartphones, this is not true. Dell and its competitor HP are only offering up to the smartphone.

Speaking of smartphones…

Suspect ordered to open Apple iPhone with Touch ID
29-year-old Paystar Bkhchadzhyan, a small-time crook charged with identity theft, was ordered by U.S. Magistrate Judge Alicia Rosenberg to swipe an iPhone seized from her boyfriend’s apartment in order to unlock it.

It’s not clear whether the iPhone has been identified as belonging to Bkhchadzhyan based on multiple reports, only that she may have “control over” the device. Nor is it clear — since she has already pleaded no contest to the charge against her — if the iPhone’s contents will be used against her, or against her boyfriend.

It’s also not clear why law enforcement hasn’t used the “gummy bear technique” to open the phone, which would not force Bkhchadzhyan to lift a finger but instead use fingerprints already provided as evidence, bypassing any question of Fifth Amendment violations. Is this simple technique too much effort or too complicated for today’s police force?

DISH TV techs to offer Apple iPhone repair service
Not authorized by Apple, mind you, but DISH TV will offer new service to their customers who use iPhones, including battery and screen replacements. The company anticipates offering the same limited repair services to Android users in the near future. This says something about the transition of content consumption from TV to mobile devices, and the use of mobile devices as TV and content controllers.

LuxLeakers in court this week – Luxembourg’s version of Panama Papers
Antoine Deltour and Raphael Halet, former PricewaterhouseCoopers’ employees, appear in court this week on charges they stole and leaked documents on many of PwC’s corporate clients — Accenture, Burberry, Icap, Ikea, Walt Disney Co., Heinz, JP Morgan, FedEx, Microsoft Corp.’s Skype, PepsiCo Inc., Procter & Gamble, Shire Pharmaceuticals to name a few. The documents outline the tax avoidance/evasion strategies employed by these firms with PwC’s assistance and Luxembourg’s implicit or tacit approval. This case should have as much impact as the Panama Papers as the corporations involved are quite large and the Luxembourg government is implicated.

Australia: Your human rights abuses suck, but we Americans have no room to talk
If you don’t watch Australian politics, you should. Aussies have forced approximate 900 refugees to remain indefinitely on Manus Island of Papua New Guinea and the island country of Nauru, which are little more than rocks in the middle of the ocean with penal colonies masquerading as a refugee ‘welcome centers.’ The conditions have been wretched — and they must be if an outlet like Foreign Policy calls Australia’s practice ‘intolerable cruelty.’ Their captivity is now illegal according to PNG’s court, but the refugees are left without recourse. Two refugees have immolated themselves within the last week out of desperation. But Americans have not demanded Australia take the refugees because it would mean having to take some refugees here, too. Oh, and Gitmo — can’t point to island-based human holding pens without allowing other countries to point to Gitmo. Or our immigration detention and deportation processes.

That last bit — both of the immolated refugees were not offered immediate health care — is so disgusting and disheartening I can’t come up with anything more to write. Hope for a better day tomorrow, see you in the morning.

Tuesday Morning: Some Kind of Freak

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Today’s the intersection of my Gwen Stefani jag and International Women’s Day 2016. Need some more estrogen-powered music to celebrate IWD? Try this list — note and compare Lesley Gore’s You Don’t Own Me and Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walking against more recent tunes like No Doubt’s Just A Girl.

Let’s roll…

Volkswagen shocked, SHOCKED! the EPA went public on the diesel emissions standards cheat
But by the time the EPA made public statements regarding VW, the German automaker had already known about the International Council on Clean Transportation’s research results for a year and had yet to reveal to shareholders the risk of prosecution and penalties. VW’s leadership hoped for a mild and quiet slap on the hands and enough time for a technical solution before the EPA’s disclosure:

“In the past, even in the case of so-called ‘defeat device’ infringements, a settlement was reached with other carmakers involving a manageable fine without the breach being made public,” VW argued. “And in this case, the employees of Volkswagen of America had the impression on the basis of constructive talks with the EPA that the diesel issue would not be made public unilaterally but that negotiations would continue.”

Hope somebody is looking at insider trading for any sign that VW executives were unloading stock in the period between September 2014 when ICCT’s results were published, and when the EPA went public in 2015. Wonder what penalties there are under German/EU laws for this?

USDOJ appealed last week’s ruling in Brooklyn iPhone 5S case
At the heart of this appeal is Apple’s past cooperative actions when federal law enforcement asked for assistance in unlocking iPhones. Apple, however, said past acquiescence is not consent. USDOJ has now asked for review of Judge Orenstein’s ruling.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak appeared on Conan, sided unsurprisingly with Apple
Woz admitted to having tried his hand at writing viruses for Mac, but the entire premise terrified him, compelling him to destroyed his efforts. Video of his appearance included at this link.

France to punish phonemakers for encryption, while UK’s GCHQ says it should get around encryption
A narrow body of water, a different language, and a recent terrorist attack make for very different reactions to encrypted communications. France’s Parliament voted yesterday to punish phonemakers which do not cooperate with law enforcement on unencrypting data; the bill is not yet law, subject to further parliamentary process. Meanwhile, Britain’s spy chief said he hopes methods can be developed to get around encryption without building backdoors.

Drive-by quickies

And it’s Presidential Primary Day in Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho, Hawaii. I may avoid social media for most of the day for this reason. Hasta pasta!

Disclosure of US Troops Posing With Body Parts Newest Threat to Afghanistan Stability

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As I pointed out on Monday, the preferred story line surrounding the weekend Taliban attacks across Afghanistan was that Afghan security forces repulsed the attacks with little to no help from outside forces. In fact, Australia used this moment of public confidence in the capabilities of Afghan forces to announce that they would speed up withdrawal of their “forces” (with only 1500 troops there, the Australians hardly represent a true presence), joining NATO allies Canada and Norway, which already have withdrawn, and France, Germany and Britain, who have announced their withdrawal timetables.

Building on the weekend’s success story about Afghan capabilities, a major AP story this morning discusses US and NATO plans for the hand-off of security responsibility to Afghanistan:

The United States and its NATO allies are readying plans to pull away from the front lines in Afghanistan next year as President Barack Obama and fellow leaders try to show that the unpopular war is ending.

/snip/

This week’s sessions are meant to stitch together U.S. and NATO agreements on the pace of U.S. and allied combat withdrawal next year. U.S. and Afghan officials have already said they expect a shift to an Afghan military lead in combat operations by the middle of 2013, although the U.S. stresses that it will still have a large number of forces in Afghanistan as backup.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said Wednesday that the Afghans are on track to take the lead in securing the country by the end of 2013. Azimi said the Afghan Army has already reached its target number of 195,000 troops. Including police and other forces, Afghan security forces now number about 330,000.

A major test of the claim that conditions in Afghanistan are stabilizing will now come from the latest revelation of atrocities by US troops. The Los Angeles Times today published photos of multiple incidents of US troops posing with dismembered bodies of Afghan insurgents killed by roadside bombs:

The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs.

/snip/

Two soldiers posed holding a dead man’s hand with the middle finger raised. A soldier leaned over the bearded corpse while clutching the man’s hand. Someone placed an unofficial platoon patch reading “Zombie Hunter” next to other remains and took a picture.

Given the recent responses to the disclosures of US troops urinating on dead insurgents and burning sacred books, this latest disclosure seems likely to generate a new round of violent protests. This also seems to be the sort of event that sparks further “green on blue” attacks (pdf) where Afghan forces kill NATO forces.

New green on blue killings would be a major setback to the claim that Afghan forces are nearing the ability to take over full responsibility for security, even though the official US line on such events is that they are “isolated incidents“. Similarly, increased attacks by the Taliban would go against Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s is explanation to his “brothers” that their attacks only increase the odds of foreign forces staying longer in Afghanistan.