Summary: Tracking in Facebook criticised; Malicious features in mobile phones (tracking and listening) are being discussed as well
THIS 84th episode speaks about phones' exploitation for tracking and listening by authorities. For those who are not aware yet, as long as the main battery is inside a phone, or any battery at all is inside a phone (some have several batteries), then even when the phone is switched off it can be used to listen to the carrier and his/her environment. Craig Murray, a former British ambassador, says the MI5 uses this technique.
Android/Replicant are discussed, noting that they do not help resolve the above issue. One listener of TechBytes asked: "Maybe you could ask him [Stallman] about so called smartphones. Everybody knows he doesn't use any... But can he think any condition he could think about using one. Fairphone? Phone with FirefoxOS? Prepaid SIM without registration?" Stallman said he was hypothetically thinking about getting an OpenMoko phone, but eventually decided that tracking would be unavoidable.
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
