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MuckRock has obtained a whole stack of Stingray-related documents from the FBI. As is to be expected, there's not much left unsaid by the agency, which is at least as protective of its own Stingray secrecy as it is with that of law enforcement agencies all over the US. There's nearly 5,000 pages of "material" here, most of which contains only some intriguing words and phrases surrounded by page after page of redactions. Want to know [REDACTED]'s thoughts on the possible legal implications of Triggerfish? Just close your eyes and allow your imagination to run free. Here's a quick reference...

Quantum gravity The most exciting discovery in physics could come about thanks to telecoms satellites. Is a single theory of reality in sight? Kindle ESA’s Optical Ground Station in the Canary Islands has set a new distance world record in ‘quantum teleportation’ by reproducing the characteristics of a light particle across 143 km of open air. Photo courtesy ESA Sidney Perkowitz is professor of physics emeritus at Emory University in Atlanta. His latest books are Slow Light (2011) and Hollywood Chemistry (2014), and he is at work on a new edition of Universal Foam (2001). Watching a rocket as it...

Taiwan-based Foxconn Group will invest US$40 million in Pennsylvania, the US, over two years, according to group president Terry Guo. The investment is in line with the US government's Advanced Manufacturing in America policy, Guo said. Foxconn will invest US$30 million in Foxconn East America, a subsidiary based in Harrisburg, to expand an existing R&D team to set up an advanced manufacturing facility for high value-added products for applications including automobiles, medical care and environmental production, Guo said. The expansion will recruit about 500 employees. In addition, Foxconn will invest US$10 million in Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburgh specifically for...

The European Commission is set to ignore attempts to delay the implementation of a proposed new data protection regulation (DPR) suggested at last week’s EU summit, claiming that the meeting’s conclusions have been misinterpreted. EurActiv has learned that the EU executive instead believes that a mandate to push forward with new rules by spring next year remains possible, and that this can be achieved even in the face of strong opposition from the UK. … The Parliament, and Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, have consistently tied the need for stronger data protection to acknowledge alleged privacy abuses arising from information leaked...

Inside Iraqi Corruption Charles R. Smith Tuesday, March 29, 2005 John A. Shaw is a curious example of Washington politics gone mad. Shaw is a veteran government employee who served inside the White House under Presidents Ford, Nixon and Reagan and was an associate deputy secretary in the Department of Commerce. In 2001, Shaw was appointed by Bush Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld to head the newly formed Office of International Technology Security. In this post, Shaw began the difficult task of reforming government controls over the export of sensitive technology to foreign countries. In 2003, Shaw began investigating allegations of...

<p>One of the largest Chinese telecommunications equipment suppliers, Huawei Technologies Company, recently unveiled plans to establish Future Wei, a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary with headquarters in Plano, Texas.</p> <p>Ordinarily, such a foreign investment in the United States would be welcomed by the local Chamber of Commerce and others anticipating associated employment and revenue opportunities. As Americans learn more about the parent company and what Chinese enterprises like it are up to, however, patriots in Texas and elsewhere in this country are likely to say "No way, Huawei!"</p>

<p>Mexico's lower house of Congress gave broad approval Thursday night to a telecommunications reform that threatens to loosen tycoon Carlos Slim's grip on the phone market and broadcaster Televisa's dominance of the airwaves.</p> <p>The proposal attracted overwhelming support, with 414 lawmakers in favor of the reform and only 50 opposed.</p>

Mexico's government has threatened the country's telecommunications giants with forced asset sales, unveiling a plan to loosen billionaire Carlos Slim's hold on the telephone market and curb broadcaster Televisa's dominance of the airwaves. The long-awaited bill seeks to shake up the telecoms sector by allowing increased foreign ownership of media and phone companies, and giving regulators the power to make players controlling more than 50 percent of the market sell assets. "The purpose of these measures is to free up the sector's potential, and do it as quickly as possible," President Enrique Pena Nieto said as he presented the plan...

WASHINGTON – The United States now is facing two serious national security challenges, but they aren’t expected to be addressed effectively because of the serious budgetary headaches Congress has created, and a virtually deadlocked legislature on just about every issue pending, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. And the White House apparently isn’t paying attention. The first is the growing concern of the impact that an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, event – either natural or manmade – could have on the national grid system, on which the Department of Defense has a 99 percent dependency. The other concern...

Africa boasts more cellphone users than all of North America The silver lining of being a developing continent is that you can skip entire stages of technological progress, like going directly from no phones to cellphones without suffering through land lines in between. Africa, for example, now has more mobile subscribers than the United States or Europe, and that means big things for African economies. Like we've mentioned before, beyond its wild growth, the African cellular telecommunications market is a hotbed of innovation. Areas like telemedicine and cellphone-based money-transfer schemes don't just make life easier, they help people live healthier...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.fbi.gov/boston/press-releases/2012/fbi-seeks-assistance-in-locating-wanted-fugitive-ahmad-abousamra FBI Seeks Assistance in Locating Wanted Fugitive Ahmad Abousamra $50,000 Reward is Being Offered for Information Leading to His Arrest FBI Boston October 03, 2012 BOSTON—FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers announced today that the FBI is seeking the public’s assistance to locate wanted terrorist Ahmad Abousamra, a U.S. citizen from Mansfield, Massachusetts who left the United States in 2006. He may be living in Aleppo, Syria, with his wife, at least one child (a daughter), and extended family. A reward of up to $50,000 is being offered for information...

A South African company in the spotlight for paying $100,000 in speaking fees to White House adviser David Plouffe is also in business with a Liberian official under U.N. sanctions for his ties to convicted war criminal and former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. That's among the latest details to emerge on the connections involving MTN Group, a subsidiary of which paid President Obama's former campaign manager for engagements in late 2010, shortly before he joined the White House. The ties to Liberia's bloody Taylor era center on Benoni Urey, who was commissioner of maritime affairs in Liberia during Taylor's reign....

In a shocking revelation on RT.com, it has been reported that President Barack Obama’s White House has now quietly taken control over all private electronic communications in the United States. The move was made in the name of national security and has some civil liberties groups quite concerned. President Obama signed an Executive Order on Friday, July 6. The order was a statement provided as the “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions.” This is considered to be the broadest move yet by the White House when it comes to expanding the power of the federal government. “The...

A striking demonstration of a means to boost the information-carrying capacity of radio waves has taken place across the lagoon in Venice, Italy. The technique exploits what is called the "orbital angular momentum" of the waves - imparting them with a "twist". Varying this twist permits many data streams to fit in the frequency spread currently used for just one. The approach, described in the New Journal of Physics, could be applied to radio, wi-fi, and television. The parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that are used for all three are split up in roughly the same way, with a spread...

The Barack Obama Administration has, since its inception, been moving the United States dramatically leftward, trying to (at the very least) make us a western European socialist entity. Ideologically, a full-on participant in – rather than a rational outlier of – the patently absurd United Nations (UN). Perhaps the greatest – and worst – example of President Obama’s UN-ing of America was his Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s December 2010 illegal Network Neutrality Internet power grab. The Administration going to these unlawful lengths to commandeer control of the ‘Net makes it a little more difficult to persuade international autocrats and dictators...

ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2011) — Physicists with the Institute of Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers (IUSL) at The City College of New York have presented a new way to map spiraling light that could help harness untapped data channels in optical fibers. Increased bandwidth would ease the burden on fiber-optic telecommunications networks taxed by an ever-growing demand for audio, video and digital media. The new model, developed by graduate student Giovanni Milione, Professor Robert Alfano and colleagues, could even spur enhancements in quantum computing and other applications. "People now can detect (light in) the ground channel, but this gives us a...

Ever wondered how to identify if an aircraft around you is a friend or a foe? How to determine its intent? Well, an electronic system that can detect an aircraft's intent is sure to enthuse electronic, computer science and electrical buffs. Such pin-point technologies are now coming from defence PSU Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL), which is all set to showcase Network Centric Warfare (NCW) technologies developed in-house during Aero India 2011. NCW makes use of computer processing power and networking communications technology to provide shared information of the battle space among defence forces. The shared awareness increases synergy for command...

Credo Mobile, a wireless service provider with an activist streak, has issued a petition calling out Sarah Palin's use of gun crosshairs to identify Democratic politicians. The petition, titled "Sarah Palin: Violent threats have consequences," comes partly in response to the shooting Saturday in Tucson, Ariz., that killed six people and injured 14 others, among them Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Before the shooting occurred, Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, posted a map of the United States with crosshairs over 20 House districts represented by Democrats. One of those crosshairs was over Giffords' district in Tucson. The map included text that...

My chat, a few minutes ago with a live chat sales person at Vonage.com: Connected to vonage-ap1.cnxchat.com Session ID: 367003 In order to protect your privacy please do not give out your password or credit card number in a chat conversation. Ana has joined this session! Connected with Ana. Your reference number for this chat session is 367003. Ana: Thank you for choosing Vonage. I'm Ana, your chat sales agent. Before you start the signup process, what questions do you have? You: Hello Ana. You: I have to confess at the beginning here... Ana: hi You: I'm not interested in...

Four U.S. senators have registered concern about the proposal of a start-up company, Amerilink Telecom Corp., to upgrade Sprint Nextel’s national network to 4G data-rate capacity using Chinese-provided equipment from Huawei Shenzen Ltd., a company with longstanding ties to the Chinese military. The point made by the senators – Joe Lieberman, Susan Collins, Jon Kyl, and Sue Myrick – is that China could install a surveillance or sabotage capability in a very large segment of the U.S. wireless infrastructure. The scope of the Sprint Nextel 4G upgrade reportedly encompasses about 35,000 transmission towers throughout the 50 states. Huawei has been...