Educational CyberPlayGround, Inc. NetHappenings Newsletter 11-26-2020
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HAPPY THANKSGIVING
► ► This is Donald Trump’s last Thanksgiving as a free man.
► ► Public Schools will be saved and the Wicked Witch Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is fired.
► ► 6 feet apart today is better than 6 feet under tomorrow.
FOR THE COMMON GOOD the COMMON WEALTH OF THE WORLD
Scotland becomes first country to have universal free period products
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scotland-becomes-first-country-have-universal-free-period-products-3045105
How a universal basic income could help women in abusive relationships
It would ensure no woman is ever dependent on her partner to meet her basic needs, removing one of the barriers against leaving an abusive partner
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/domestic-violence-abuse-bill-theresa-may-financial-independence-a8260736.html
‘I Stand With the Amazon Warehouse Workers’: Bernie Sanders Throws Support Behind Bold Union Drive in Alabama
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/24/i-stand-amazon-warehouse-workers-bernie-sanders-throws-support-behind-bold-union
Exploring the USSR’s underground obsession with Levi’s 501s
“There is more power in rock music and blue jeans than in the entire Red Army.”
https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/32495/1/exploring-the-ussr-s-underground-obsession-with-levi-s-501s
GET VACCINATED
Thread by @RingoRaccoon: “Hi everyone. I’ve been doing a lot of research on the Pfizer/Moderna COVID-19 vaccine as well as attended the briefings on it here at work […]”
https://threadreaders.com/thread/1331325821949153287
Hi everyone. I’ve been doing a lot of research on the Pfizer/Moderna COVID-19 vaccine as well as attended the briefings on it here at work. I wanted to share what your should expect when getting vaccinated because I feel like the more people know, the more prepared they’ll be
Both vaccines are over 90% effective and every trial has labeled them as safe so you should definitely get them. Both require two doses roughly 2-3 weeks apart. It is important you get BOTH shots or else your immunity won’t last the year. This will be a yearly process.
That being said, It isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Expect heavy flu-like symptoms after getting each dose. Most test participants say that these symptoms go away within 1-2 days. You’ll be fine but please don’t be scared after the 1st shot. Go get the second one.
I can’t stress enough how much you need that second dose. Your immunity will wane and become null within a few months without it. That second dose extends immunity for up to a year. Remember two shots. 2-3 weeks apart. Expect heavy flu symptoms after both dose.
This is the biggest fear we have over here. That people will only get the first dose and not bother with the second one because they either don’t know or are to scared after experiencing the symptoms from the first one. Make as many people aware as you can.
SOURCES:
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-vaccine-candidate-against
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2022483
► ► Google YouTube steers viewers away from anti-vax content
https://www.businessinsider.com/study-youtube-anti-vax-conspiracy-theories-2020-11
Why Oxford AstraZeneca’s Coronavirus Vaccine Data Has Come Under Scrutiny
The high success rate from one part of the study has come under scrutiny this week. Here’s what we know. The results were hailed a success, but it has since been revealed that some volunteers were only given a half dose because some of the vials did not have the right concentration of vaccine.
Mene Pangalos, R&D lead at AstraZeneca, admitted to this dosing error to Reuters on Monday.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oxford-astrazeneca-coronavirus-vaccine-trial-results_n_5fbfa4d4c5b68ca87f82203d
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-astrazeneca-dosing/dosing-error-turns-into-lucky-punch-for-astrazeneca-and-oxford-idUSKBN28327Q
Jonathan A. Weiss Esq. thanks for sending
https://cyberplayground.org/2020/01/21/jonathan-a-weiss-esq-bibliography/
RELIGIOUS ANTI VAXXERS
Religious SCOTUS wants to kill us. Majority #SCOTUS opinion:
“But even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away & forgotten. The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom.”
Stop. Our congregation has been meeting for Sabbath services on Zoom every Friday since the pandemic began. We are practicing our faith together. This is not about religious freedom. This is to pass the collection plate.
Dissenting opinion from Matthew 6:6: “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites who love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. He will reward you”.
If my religion was to serve poison to all my followers who would then have to over run our hospitals and put everyone else who needs medical attention at risk? Freedom has its limits and it starts we’re your actions effect everyone else.
The Goddess gave us science and medicine and reason, He expects us to use them to fight this. Irresponsible and unethical and amoral as to gather people together indoors during a deadly pandemic.
IN WW2 – everybody stayed inside and turned their lights off when asked and nobody sued.
DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH REPUBICANS
NO JUSTICE NO PEACE
► ► RETHUGLICAN CONTROL OF THE VOTING MACHINES
https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1329666010979319809
I’m telling you. The GOP wants ES&S to control 70% of the voting machine market again. Dominion is what broke up ES&S’s near monopoly. ES&S systems have vanished black votes in GA & TN. ES&S misled about remote access & internet connectivity to its systems. It is GOP connected. Voting machine vendor ES&S acquired Diebold in 09, giving ES&S control of 70% of the market. The DOJ forced ES&S to sell some of Diebold’s assets, which Dominion acquired. But ES&S kept some (I suspect most) contracts which is where the control comes from
https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1329666010979319809
“Exclusive: Thousands of Black Votes in Georgia Disappeared [from ES&S/Diebold voting systems]. and No One Can Explain It” Voting machine vendor ES&S (previously called AIS) received its initial funding from the families of Howard Ahmanson Jr. and Nelson Bunker Hunt, who were politically active Christian Fundamentalist billionaires. 1/
Hunt co-founded a secretive right-wing networking group called the Council for National Policy (CNP). Ahmanson was a prominent early member too. Recent members include KellyAnne Conway, Steve Bannon, & the Mercers, all alumna of Cambridge Analytica. 2/
Voting machine vendor ES&S’s chairman from 1992-1996 was Republican Chuck Hagel who resigned a few weeks before announcing his intent to run for the US senate, a race that was supposed to be a “dead heat” but that he instead won by 15 points. 1/
ES&S is still controlled by the McCarthy Group whose chairman & founder, Mike McCarthy was Republican Senator Chuck Hagel’s campaign treasurer. 2/
“Top Voting Machine Vendor [ES&S] Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States”
► ► RETHUGLICAN CONTROL OF THE MONEY
Mnuchin is moving unspent stimulus money into a fund out of Biden’s reach
https://www.businessinsider.com/mnuchin-moving-unspent-stimulus-money-biden-administration-cant-deploy-2020-11
On Night Ginsburg Died McConnell Pushed Trump to Nominate Barrett
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/on-night-of-ginsburgs-death-mcconnell-pushed-trump-to-nominate-amy-coney-barrett/
► ► RETHUGLICAN ZUCKERBERG FACEBOOK THUGGERY
This is the most important Facebook story I’ve ever published:
“I Have Blood on My Hands”: A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation
A 6,600-word internal memo from a fired Facebook data scientist details how the social network knew leaders of countries around the world were using their site to manipulate voters — and failed to act.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo
Facebook Researchers Found Its ‘Political Whitelist’ Influenced Misinformation Spread
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facebook-researchers-found-companys-political-whitelist-influenced-misinformation-spread
Behind the scenes that summer, some of Facebook’s employees had argued just the opposite, warning that exempting politicians from fact-checking “is protecting content that is especially likely to deceive,” according to an internal presentation reviewed by The Information and two people familiar with the matter. They cited a survey they did that found Facebook users were more likely to believe false information if it is shared by a politician.
Since 2018, Facebook had maintained a “political whitelist” of about 112,000 accounts belonging to government officials and candidates whose posts couldn’t be fact checked, a process that can trigger penalties for posts found to contain misinformation, such as reduced reach, according to the presentation. The employees, led by a trio of researchers on Facebook’s team charged with overseeing its role in civic discourse, wanted the list dissolved. The list’s existence and the research about its impact haven’t previously been reported.
Americans must know / read: @Intel and @Nvida are powering a supercomputer in Xinjiang that helps the Chinese Communist Party do “predictive policing” by using AI to track 100M photos per second and 1K video feeds simultaneously to detect any sign of dissent or Islam https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/technology/china-intel-nvidia-xinjiang.html
ENCRYPTION FOR THE GOOD OF THE WORLD
Poems That Solve Puzzles: The History and Science of Algorithms
In the early 1970s, James Ellis hit upon the idea of public key cryptography. His name for the technique was ‘non-secret encryption’. An engineer by profession, Ellis couldn’t come up with a satisfactory one-way function. Clifford Cocks happened to hear about Ellis’s discovery over a cup of tea with Nick Patterson. Cocks, an Oxford and Cambridge educated mathematician, found himself at a loose end that evening. He decided to study the one-way encryption problem. Spectacularly, Cocks solved the problem that evening. Just like the RSA team, he settled on multiplication of two large prime numbers. This was four years ahead of Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman. Cocks circulated the idea in the form of an internal GCHQ paper. Malcolm Williamson picked up on the memo and added a missing piece on key exchange some months later. The codebreakers at GCHQ couldn’t find a flaw in Ellis, Cocks, and Williamson’s unconventional method. Nevertheless, the hierarchy remained unconvinced. Non-secret encryption languished in the office drawers at GCHQ. Gagged by the Official Secrets Act, the authors said nothing. They watched on the sidelines as the Stanford and MIT teams reaped the glory. Ellis never gained the satisfaction of public recognition. He passed away just a few weeks before the embargo on his papers was lifted. Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman won the ACM Turing Award for 2002. Diffie and Hellman were honoured as the recipients of the 2015 award.”
Own and Control Your Digital Identity Decentralized Identifiers
Our lives are now linked to the apps, devices, and services that we use every day. But, with each new digital connection we expose our identity, and data, to new risks beyond our control.
What https://elastos.academy/get-dids/
Tool https://www.getdids.com/
My beginner’s guide to crypto, the magnum opuS
https://leighcuen.substack.com/p/what-sex-workers-need-to-know-about
Violet Blue Cybersecurity Roundup: November 24, 2020
Welcome to the Cybersecurity Roundup, where we have learned how time flies while you’re laughing through the tears. This week Apple’s security honcho was indicted for bribing cops with iPads for gun permits, iOS Covid-19 apps are as terrifying for privacy and security as we feared, a decent IoT security bill actually passed, you should think twice before buying that high-rated smart doorbell on Black Friday, and more.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/cybersecurity-24-44239759
Undersea internet cables offer more resilient connection | The Japan Times
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/11/24/commentary/world-commentary/undersea-internet-cables-japan/
K12 EDUCATION
NO TESTS TILL 2022
National math and reading tests used to track U.S. students’ knowledge in those subjects are being postponed until 2022 due to the coronavirus outbreak, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) said.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as “the nation’s report card,” previously had been planned to be held at the beginning of 2021 for hundreds of thousands of fourth and eighth graders in the United States.
“I have determined that NCES cannot at this time conduct a national-level assessment in a manner with sufficient validity and reliability to meet the mandate of the law”, NCES Commissioner James Woodworth said on Wednesday.
“I was obviously concerned about sending outsiders into schools and possibly increasing the risk of COVID transmission”, he said.
The NAEP assessments are a key indicator of educational progress in the United States with trends going back decades.
Woodworth said a change in operations and lack of access for students to be assessed means that NAEP would not be able to produce estimates of students’ knowledge when compared to either past or future national or state estimates.
Postponing the tests until 2022 will allow time for conditions to stabilize, the NCES commissioner said.
If the assessments were held in 2021, it would have cost tens of millions of dollars, he said, adding the delay allows states time to conduct their own state tests in spring 2021.
The leaders of the National Assessment Governing Board and the Council of Chief State School Officers supported the move.
The delay in the national tests makes having state tests in 2021 “a moral imperative,” according to Representative Bobby Scott, a Democrat and chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also supported proceeding with state assessments next spring and said in a letter to Scott that Congress would need to sign off on postponing the national testing for a year as NAEP is federally mandated.
https://www.srnnews.com
https://finance.yahoo.com