"Would NSA surveillance have stopped 9/11 plot?"

“Would NSA surveillance have stopped 9/11 plot?”
Effective Counterterrorism and the Limited Role of Predictive Data Mining
by Jeff Jonas and Jim Harper
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6784
While this 2006 paper primarily focused on highlighting the limited role of predictive data mining towards counter-terrorism — this paper also presents evidence that 9/11 could have been averted without the currently contested meta-data collection program OR even new technology, for that matter.
I was working with watch lists, private and publically available data immediately after 9/11 in attempts to assist our nation … as such many of the insights presented in the “Hiding in Plain Sight” section are largely based upon my first hand experience.
That said … in my opinion, while “more data (e.g., population-wide meta data collection) could be helpful in uncovering criminal activity” — this was not essential to detect and possibly preempt 9/11. And even if such data was provably helpful, is it really constitutional? Hence the vibrant debate …
Jeff Jonas

EDUCATIONAL CYBERPLAYGROUND NETHAPPENINGS MAILING LIST Celebrates 25 year Anniversary

Educational CyberPlayGround, Inc. Nethappenings Mailing List Celebrates 25th Year!
One of the Oldest Mailing Lists on the Net!
NetHappenings Founded in 1989 is the granddaddy of all education mailing lists distributes announcements about the Internet, latest resources, especially those that are education-related.
SINCE 1989 — We Celebrate Our 25th year Anniversary!!
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iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED

https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569
Author: Brocker, Matthew; Checkoway, Stephen
Abstract: The ubiquitous webcam indicator LED is an important privacy feature which provides a visual cue that the camera is turned on. We describe how to disable the LED on a class of Apple internal iSight webcams used in some versions of MacBook laptops and iMac desktops. This enables video to be captured without any visual indication to the user and can be accomplished entirely in user space by an unprivileged (non- root) application. The same technique that allows us to disable the LED, namely reprogramming the firmware that runs on the iSight, enables a virtual machine escape whereby malware running inside a virtual machine reprograms the camera to act as a USB Human Interface Device (HID) keyboard which executes code in the host operating system. We build two proofs-of-concept: (1) an OS X application, iSeeYou, which demonstrates capturing video with the LED disabled; and (2) a virtual machine escape that launches Terminal.app and runs shell commands. To defend against these and related threats, we build an OS X kernel extension, iSightDefender, which prohibits the modification of the iSight’s firmware from user space.
Date: 2013-12-11 Series: Department of Computer Science, December 2013;
Technical Report 13-02

Harriton High School Used Apple Laptop Webcams To SPY On Students At Home

The school district acknowledged it took nearly 60,000 snapshots from student computers, without their knowledge, from September 2008 to February 2010. The district has admitted that the LANrev system it used had a program called TheftTrack that could snap webcam photos, take screenshots and record IP addresses every 15 minutes.

NASA – MEET ED STONE Intersteller Human Race space traveler

Through the Eyes of Scientists — Meet Edward Stone

Edward Stone describes how he was always interested in what was new as a young man and how space physics got his attention.
When the Atomic Age Began it was a lot of fun!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KsJhvm7D_Q&w=560&h=315]
Aug 4, 2013
INTERVIEW WITH DR. ED STONE (Project Scientist)
Professor of Physics and Project Scientist Dr. Ed Stone discusses the success of the Voyager mission.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1sKKQQKQc&w=560&h=315]