Free Republic

Dr. Anthony Fauci would give Cruella De Vil a run for her money. The activist group White Coat Waste Project, or WCW, has offered its latest installment on the federal government’s Fauci-funded experiments on dogs — which ultimately led to the canines suffering and being euthanized...

After years of Russiagate conspiracy theories about how the Russians had somehow rigged the 2016 presidential election using Facebook ads, the Senate Intelligence report awkwardly revealed that the Russian operation had focused most of its attention on black nationalists. The Senate report revealed that "most of the videos" put out by the Russian IRA troll factory on YouTube "pertained to police brutality and the activist efforts of the Black Lives Matter organization" and found that "no single group of Americans was targeted... more than African-Americans" around "race and related issues". But that was an understatement. The Russians had created their...

Two Intel staffers believe web services can be made more secure by not only carrying out computations in remote trusted execution environments, or TEEs, but by also verifying for clients that this was done so.Software engineer Gordon King and Hans Wang, a research scientist at Intel Labs, proposed the protocol to make that possible. In a paper distributed this month through ArXiv, they describe a HTTP protocol called HTTPS Attestable (HTTPA) to enhance online security with remote attestation – a way for apps to obtain an assurance that data will be handled by trusted software in secure execution environments.Essentially, it's...

The list of daily newspapers that have shut down grows more rapidly by the year, not to mention those that have had massive layoffs. Monday, another of America's oldest dailies, the Vindicator, which serves Youngstown, Ohio, said its last edition would be on Aug. 31. The paper had just celebrated its 150th anniversary. The local television station reported that 144 people will lose their jobs. The Vindicator was of modest size by daily newspaper standards. It claimed 100,000 online and newspaper readers. Like many papers, it has been owned by a family. Due to unsustainable losses, the Maag-Browns could not...

This week, Berners-Lee will launch, Inrupt, a startup that he has been building... its mission is to turbocharge a broader movement afoot, among developers around the world, to decentralize the web and take back power from the forces that have profited from centralizing it.

Credit for the initial concept that developed into the World Wide Web is typically given to Leonard Kleinrock. In 1961, he wrote about ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet, in a paper entitled "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets." Kleinrock, along with other innnovators such as J.C.R. Licklider, the first director of the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO), provided the backbone for the ubiquitous stream of emails, media, Facebook postings and tweets that are now shared online every day. Here, then, is a brief history of the Internet: The precursor to the Internet was jumpstarted in the early days of...

Today marks the 25 anniversary of Sir Tim Berners-Lee launching the first website CREDIT: AP On this day 25 years ago the world's first website went live to the public. The site, created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, was a basic text page with hyperlinked words that connected to other pages.Berners-Lee used the public launch to outline his plan for the service, which would come to dominate life in the twenty-first century."The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system," said Berners-Lee on the world's first public website. "The project...

Spacecom plans to launch the Amos-6 satellite during the second half of 2016. It will replace the older Amos-2 satellite. The deal is worth about 100 million dollars for the Israeli company and runs through 2021. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post that as part of his company's collaboration with Eutelsat, a new satellite called AMOS 6 is going to provide Internet coverage to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Zuckerberg said that the deal is part of his company's efforts to connect the entire world. According to Spacecom president and CEO David Pollack, an estimated 14 million users...

With the news about the Mozilla Foundation and the desire of many FReepers to drop the Firefox browser, there are some viable (IMHO) alternatives, both of which are character-based:Links is text WWW browser with tables and frames. It runs on Linux, Unix, OS/2 and Windows. Lynx is a text browser for the World Wide Web. Lynx 2.8.7 runs on Un*x, MacOS, VMS, Windows 95/98/NT, DOS386+ (but not 3.1, 3.11), as well as OS/2 EMX.

The U.S. government has attempted to obtain the master encryption keys that Internet companies use to shield millions of users' private Web communications from eavesdropping. These demands for master encryption keys, which have not been disclosed previously, represent a technological escalation in the clandestine methods that the FBI and the National Security Agency employ when conducting electronic surveillance against Internet users. If the government obtains a company's master encryption key, agents could decrypt the contents of communications intercepted through a wiretap or by invoking the potent surveillance authorities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Web encryption -- which often appears...

I'm looking for a little advice on automated test tools or techniques for testing an extension for Firefox. Specifically it's an extension that works with Firebug and analyzes html for accessibility issues. Anyone here ever test extensions? Use Selenium or other open source tools?

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday outlined a plan to transform the Universal Service Fund, an $8 billion fund that is paid for by the nation’s telephone customers and used to subsidize basic telephone service in rural areas, into one that will help expand broadband Internet service to 18 million Americans who lack high-speed access. The chairman, Julius Genachowski, said the overhaul of the fund would eliminate waste and inefficiencies in a program that is outdated, unfair and not accountable to the consumers who support it through monthly assessments on their phone bills. An F.C.C. official, who...

Make sure you click on the image and it will take you to a real cool image of space that you can zoom in on. Here is the link, This Is The Last Page Of The WWW

As a result, the Castro regime has intensified its crackdown on dissident groups in an attempt to ensure that what is happening in Cairo will not happen in Havana, according to some observers. "We do see instances of repression starting since the Egyptian upheaval. There have been brutal beatings on dissidents," said Susel Perez, of the Cuba Transition Project, at the University of Miami. " It is a direct sign from the Cuban government that this is something that will not be tolerated on the island." In a 53-minute video leaked last week, a Cuban counter-intelligence staffer warned an audience...

I realize this has been posted several times over the past few days. However, this blog notes the six "principles" today's order covers. And all of us here at FRee Republic know that what is WRITTEN in federal rule means nothing. It's what the FCC's lawyers SAYS it means is all that counts. 1) Transparency. Consumers and innovators have a right to know the basic performance characteristics of their Internet access and how their network is being managed. 2) No Blocking. A right to send and receive lawful traffic. This prohibits blocking of lawful content, apps, services, and the connection...

The FCC released its agenda for the Dec. 21 public meeting and a vote on proposed network neutrality rules remains on the docket. "The Commission will consider a Report and Order adopting basic rules of the road to preserve the open Internet as a platform for innovation, investment, competition, and free expression," the sunshine notice says, which is issued a week before the meeting. But the item is actually second on the agenda after a vote on transitioning voice-only 911 to a broadband-enabled network. Chairman Julius Genachowski has proposed expanding and clarifying network neutrality rules under Title I authority, which...

November 30th, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could potentially engage in one of the largest federal power grabs we have ever seen. After two years of this Presidential Administration and this Congress, that is saying an awful lot about an awful lot. And what’s worse, the FCC would be doing it without Congress weighing in. At the FCC’s November meeting – note the coincidental date of choice, AFTER the impending election – three unelected bureaucrats (of five) could simply vote themselves rulers of 1/6th of our entire economy – the information and technology sector. Meaning the Internet that you currently...

(AFP)DAVOS, Switzerland - The world needs a treaty to prevent cyber attacks becoming an all-out war, the head of the main UN communications and technology agency warned Saturday. International Telcommunications Union secretary general Hamadoun Toure gave his warning at a World Economic Forum debate where experts said nations must now consider when a cyber attack becomes a declaration of war. With attacks on Google from China a major talking point in Davos, Toure said the risk of a cyber conflict between two nations grows every year. He proposed a treaty in which countries would engage not to make the first...

Google's threat to exit China is igniting worries that the Web, a linchpin of globalization, may fracture into regional fiefdoms. The U.S. and China are ratcheting up rhetoric over the Internet's future. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday warned that "a new information curtain is descending across much of the world." China says it'll make no exception for Google (GOOG) or other U.S. firms on its Internet policies. China's government has lashed back at Clinton's speech, saying it damaged bilateral ties. On Monday, the Communist Party's People's Daily accused the U.S. of using social Web sites like Twitter to...

Dr. Howard Dean’s fans come out for the big Democratic summer shindig As Tom Andrews, the director of the leading national antiwar coalition, began his speech at the Maine Democrats’ big outdoor summer shindig in Falmouth, John Baldacci signaled his bodyguard/driver to move the large, dark SUV up the driveway. The vehicle soon hid in the trees, its engine quietly humming. At first, the governor seemed to be paying attention as Andrews, the former First District congressman, launched into rousing tales of how the country, under President George W. Bush, had gone "from peace and prosperity to war and recession."...