ACLU, Rutherford Institute say permit revocation violates First Amendment – The Charlottesville Newsplex

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (NEWSPLEX) -- The American Civil Liberties Union and the Rutherford Institute say a decision to move the Unite the Right rally to McIntire Park raises First Amendment concerns.

According to a letter sent to Charlottesville city officials, the "belated demand" to move the Aug. 12 demonstration from Emancipation Park "undermines [the] ability of demonstrators to effectively communicate their message."

The letter also calls the timing and justification for the demand a "callous disrespect for the rights of free speech and assembly."

Jason Kessler submitted a request for a permit to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue from Emancipation Park about two months ago.

According to an annotation on the letter, city code says requests for demonstration permits are deemed granted unless they are denied within ten business days following the application.

Kessler has said the protest will still take place in front of the Lee statue despite the city's actions regarding the permit on Monday.

"We are going to exercise our First Amendment rights no matter what," he said on Monday. "At this point, this is a civil rights issue. They have done everything in their power to deny me and my friends our civil rights and we're going to fight that."

"The city must provide factual evidence to support its attendance estimate and justify revoking the permit to demonstrate in Emancipation Park," said the letter. "While the city relies upon a forecast that 'many thousands' will attend the event, it has not disclosed the sources of the information it is relying on for that estimate and whether such sources have any factual basis. When First Amendment rights are at stake, the city should be transparent about the evidence and information underlying its action so that citizens can be sure that fears of overcrowding are not simply a pretext for censorship and meet the requirement for proof that a compelling government interest underlies its decision."

The organizations call the city's justification for revoking the permit specious in light of approval for permits for counter demonstrations on the same day in Justice and McGuffey parks that are reportedly expecting more than 1,000 people to attend.

They also say the city's decision amounts to a "hecklers' veto," saying the revocation violates the principle that the rights of speech and assembly cannot be restricted because one group may be met with opposition.

"The city must act in accordance with the law, even if doing so is distasteful to members of the community who disagree with the views espoused by the Unite the Right organizers," added the letter. "At the very least, the city must explain in more than just generalities its reasons for concluding that the demonstration cannot safely be held in Emancipation Park."

The ACLU and the Rutherford Institute are asking for a response from the city by Aug. 9.

To read the full letter and its annotations, click on the document in the Related Documents box.

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ACLU, Rutherford Institute say permit revocation violates First Amendment - The Charlottesville Newsplex

Inside the First Amendment: When leaks dry up, we turn to FOIA – Meridian Star

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When we talk about the importance of a free press, what we're really talking about is how important it is for the press to serve as a watchdog on the government. The highest responsibility of journalism is to supply the people with information about what their government is doing, so that the people can hold the government accountable, and make the best possible decisions when they vote.

But if you're not a journalist (full disclosure: I am not), you may not give a lot of thought to how journalists get that information in the first place. Official government press releases and briefings aren't really the place to find information about government misconduct. Obviously, leaks are a much better source when it comes to getting the real dirt. But the recent emphasis on prosecuting leakers is likely to have a major chilling effect on that source of information.

But there is a way that journalists can get their hands on FBI records, secret military policy memos, and NSA email exchanges without having to worry about their sources getting arrested or fired.

They can ask the government for them.

The Freedom of Information Act is a law that requires the government to hand over its records if someone asks for them. The act applies to federal government agencies, but every state has laws that allow the public to access its government records. Anyone can request information, whether they're a U.S. citizen or foreign national. And anything can be requested.

A government agency can, of course, deny your request if it decides that the information you're seeking falls into an exemption category, like information that would threaten national security, or invade someone's privacy. But if you think your FOIA request was unfairly denied, you can appeal, and if that doesn't work, you can sue.

Nabiha Syed, assistant general counsel for BuzzFeed, is intimately familiar with this process. A large part of her job involves getting government agencies to give up information that they would rather not share information that often ends up being crucial to BuzzFeed's reporting. She sees the right of the public to access government information as an exciting First Amendment frontier. "For the most part, the First Amendment says, 'This is hands off, the government's not going to be involved, you guys figure out speech,'" Syed says. "And then you have the First Amendment right of access, which says, 'Yes, but also, we are going to allow you to use the law as a sword to get access to judicial proceedings, to official records...to administrative proceedings.'"

Requesting or fighting for government records is an instrumental part of BuzzFeed's reporting strategy. Such records have allowed the BuzzFeed News team to report on misconduct in death penalty executions, for-profit foster care scandals, and the widespread abuse of seasonal migrant workers. Just last month, BuzzFeed News obtained a secret Department of Defense report that stated that Chelsea Manning's disclosure of Iraq-related documents would be unlikely to have any impact on U.S. operations in Iraq (directly contradicting the government's position at Manning's trial).

To be sure, the system is far from perfect, as many information-seekers can attest. As Jason Fagone wrote in his article "The Secret to Getting Top-Secret Secrets," "The Freedom of Information Act, passed in 1966 to increase trust in government by encouraging transparency, has always been a pain in the ass. You write to an uncaring bureaucracy, you wait for months or years only to be denied or redacted into oblivion, and even if you do get lucky and extract some useful information, the world has already moved on to other topics."

But when it does work, the payoffs can be enormous. As Nabiha Syed says, "How do we at least inject the information we need into the commons, into the public square, to try and heighten the conversations we're having? At least getting the underlying facts out there, in ways that are hopefully more authoritative than anecdotal, I think would be really helpful."

Lata Nott is executive director of the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute. Contact her via email at lnott@newseum.org, or follow her on Twitter at @LataNott.

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Inside the First Amendment: When leaks dry up, we turn to FOIA - Meridian Star

The First Amendment: Freedom of speech in the workplace – WDAY

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The 1st amendment says you can take to the streets or express controversial views, but the amendment doesn't protect you against the resulting consequences.

"You sort of check your first amendment rights at the door when you work for a private employer," said Lisa Edison-Smith.

Anyone who doesn't work for the state or federal government isn't protected by the 1st amendment and to most that's a little known fact.

"I didn't know that, that's actually quite a surprise to me," said Devon Solwold, Moorhead.

An employer can fire you if your views are fundamentally different than those of the company and one google employee learned that the hard way after getting fired for sending this memo internally, saying there are fewer women in tech because they are quote 'biologically different.'

On Tuesday employment lawyers say these cases are showing up more now than ever thanks to social media.

"There's this disconnect that people will often post and do things at a computer or an Ipad that they wouldn't say face to face to people. If it's not willing to say something face to face, don't do it in an electronic comment," said Edison-Smith.

While everyone we spoke to says it's an important right, it's one that should be used with caution and wisdom.

Employment lawyers say you can express your views outside of work without consequence unless they damage the reputation or business as a whole.

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The First Amendment: Freedom of speech in the workplace - WDAY

Toledo Pro-Lifers Face Muzzling of First Amendment Rights – Church Militant

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TOLEDO, Ohio (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Toledo city council is considering a new city ordinance designed to keep pro-life advocates away from Toledo's two abortion mills.

The ordinance, proposed on July 10 and called "Impeding Access to Health Care," would make it a misdemeanor offense for pro-life advocates to physically block access to an abortion facility.

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It also forbids pro-life advocates from "Engag[ing] in a course of conduct within twenty feet of the premises of a Health Care Facility or Reproductive Health Care Facility when that behavior places another person in reasonable fear of physical harm."

Pro-life advocates are crying foul over the rule, noting there are already laws making it illegal to harass people outside of abortion mills.

Jeff Barefoot, president of Greater Toledo Right to Life (GTRL), called it "a criminal ordinance in search of a perpetrator." He noted to Church Militant that, so far, no protesters have been charged or arrested for harassing women seeking abortions.

He adds that the ordinance doesn't define what "reasonable fear of physical harm" is and that it can be interpreted subjectively.

Abortion mill worker, Schuyler Beckwith, commented women seeking abortions at the Capital Care Network facility "are being screamed at, and they're being accosted with photographs that depict images that are not accurate about what we do at the clinic." She goes on to complain, "They're being prayed to, they're being harassed on a regular basis, and they come in, and they're mentally hurt."

Ed Sitter, executive director of Greater Toledo Right to Life, slammed the law as "unnecessary," calling it a "direct assault on an individual's freedom of speech and of assembly."

Greater Toledo Right to Life asserts, "Regardless of personal beliefs, this is an issue of free speech." The group asserts, "Sharing one's views in the public domain without physically threatening or harming anyone is a constitutional right."

The legislation was sponsored by Steven Steel, the president of the city council and a staunch abortion activist. The ordinance is expected to be put forward for a vote on August 30.

Pro-life advocates are asking Toledo residents to phone their city council member to voice their disagreement with the proposed ordinance.

Greater Toledo Right to Life is hosting a petition, asking people to vote "No" at the next meeting.

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Liberal Students Unite Against First Amendment Rights of Conservatives on ‘The Fosters’ – NewsBusters (press release) (blog)

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Liberal Students Unite Against First Amendment Rights of Conservatives on 'The Fosters'
NewsBusters (press release) (blog)
The August 8th episode of Freeform's The Fosters, titled Telling, perfectly illustrated how liberal students no longer accept the First Amendment rights of conservative students on campus. While on a college campus where she monitors an art class ...

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Liberal Students Unite Against First Amendment Rights of Conservatives on 'The Fosters' - NewsBusters (press release) (blog)

The FBI Booby-Trapped a Video to Catch a Suspected Tor … – Motherboard

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Malware and hacking tools are established parts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's toolkit when it comes to unmasking criminal suspects on the Tor anonymity network. In a new case revolving around someone blackmailing children, FBI agents sent the suspect a digitally-poisoned movie file that obtained the target's real IP address.

Though the FBI has used hacking techniques in a wide, controversial manner, the tactic used here highlights how the bureau can identify suspects in a much more targeted way too.

Monday, prosecutors announced charges against Buster Hernandez, 26, of Bakersfield, California. Hernandez is charged with threats to use an explosive device and sexual exploitation of a child. He is suspected of using the moniker "Brian Kil."

Since 2015, Brian Kil has used social media, email, and VoIP to communicate with a number of underage female victims and extort sexual photos from them, according to the criminal complaint. Under duress, some victims sent explicit images and videos to Kil.

When Kil used sites like Facebook to harass victims, investigators found he was always hidden either behind an anonymous proxy or the Tor network, meaning authorities could not simply subpoena relevant companies for the suspect's IP address.

"Your time is running out. You though [sic] the police would find me by now but they didn't. They have no clue," Kil wrote to one of the victims. As the harassment, threats, and publication of sexually explicit photos continued, law enforcement even held a community forum at Plainfield High School in January last year to discuss the case. Kil allegedly forced one of his victims to attend and report back, according to the complaint.

On June 9, Magistrate Judge Debra McVicker Lynch authorized the use of a Network Investigative Technique (NIT), an FBI blanket term for malware, exploits, and hacking tricks. The idea, the complaint adds, was to obtain Kil's real IP address.

The complaint explains how the FBI's tactic worked.

In this case, the FBI was authorized to add a small piece of extra code to a video file produced by one of the victims. Posing as the victim, the FBI then sent the booby-trapped file to Kil via Dropbox.

"Uploading now. Did you get it," a message from the undercover FBI agent to Kil reads, according to text messages included in the complaint. (The video did not include any depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit activity, the complaint reads).

Judging by the complaint, the NIT was successful. "When Kil viewed the video containing the NIT on a computer the NIT disclosed the true IP address associated with the computer used by Kil," the document adds.

Armed with the IP address, investigators then filed an emergency subpoena with the relevant internet service provider and were given a physical address. After intercepting communications to and from that IP address, investigators found someone viewed a photograph of the Columbine killers, according to the complaint. Kil, it turned out, had posted the same photo when he threatened the Plainfield School District in 2015. Physical surveillance showed that resident Buster Hernandez was always present when Tor was being used in the home.

Several recent cases have shown the FBI using hacking tricks in a targeted manner. In May, Forbes reported on an investigation in which the FBI used a similar technique but with Word documents rather than a video file.

These stand in stark contrast to the agency's broader use of malware. Motherboard found the FBI used a Tor Browser exploit to hack over 8,000 computers in 120 different countries.

Although this latest case doesn't highlight any vulnerabilities in the Tor network itself, it does act as a reminder that there are ways of deanonymizing people in a targeted way using novel or unorthodox law enforcement techniques.

Got a tip? You can contact this reporter securely on Signal at +44 20 8133 5190, OTR chat at jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com

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What Cryptocurrency Can Teach Us About Political Governance …

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Its a marvel to me to witness what is happening on planetEarth as it regardscryptocurrencies. Satoshi Nakamoto, whoever or whatever he/she/zhe is, began a revolution as big as the wheel and the printing press and the Internet that came before it, or so it seems to me.

With cryptocurrency, nobody can implement their preferred change arbitrarily.

MichaelWuensch / Pixabay

Over $93 billion dollars, and counting,have poured into the cryptocurrency market since Bitcoin wasreleased in 2009. Millions of individuals have come together without central direction to build this worldwide phenomenon.

Changes are happening every day that have global ramifications, all of which are happening without permission by governments, and often in spite of governments supposed authority to control other people. That is trulyawesome.

There is governance, to be sure, as it regards cryptocurrencies, but such governance is without centralized structure. Cryptocurrency manipulation must follow specific rules, and changing those rules requires popular acceptance by users and stakeholders of each given cryptocurrency. Nobody can implement their preferred change arbitrarily. The only thing arbitrary about cryptocurrencies is ones desire to get involved in the hundreds of different systems, and once involved, they must follow the rules.

Nobody can implement their preferred change arbitrarily. The only thing arbitrary about cryptocurrencies is ones desire to get involved in the hundreds of different systems, and once involved, they must follow the rules.

I think theres a model here for political governance, or in others words, governance around the idea that people have rights, and those rights should be protected, with physical violence if necessary. While people mostly agree that behaviors such as murder, rape, robbery, assault, and battery are undesirable and we all should be protected from them, theres a lot of disagreement on the smaller stuff, like whos entitled to what, provided by others that havent themselves committing any of the foregoing behaviors (ie. crimes). Thats not to say that people dont disagree on the big stuff, but the disagreement is morea matter of definition than of undesirability.

The only thing arbitraryabout cryptocurrencies is once involved, one must follow the rules.

Who should decide which entitlements should be enforced? The current model says that for a givenarbitrarily-derivedgeographical area, one entity should decide, even when a party to thedispute and that entity may be influenced in any number of ways. In other words,one size fits all, like it, leave it, or hope you get enough popular support to change it.

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India Close to Finishing Work on Cryptocurrency Rule Proposals – CoinDesk

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India's government has reportedly completed work on a proposalthat outlinespossible steps for regulating cryptocurrencies.

According to local media sourceBusiness Line,the report, submitted by an intergovernmental body put together in April, has been delivered to the Indian Ministry of Finance.

It's contents are currently unknown, though media reports in recent weeks suggest that at least some of the panel's participants want to adopt a more restrictive stance. Other sources have indicated that India may ultimately move to establish some kind of tax policy for cryptocurrencies.

As previously reportedby CoinDesk, the committee was established in order to examine the current framework in for cryptocurrencies in the country. Startups in India that work with bitcoin or blockchain have called for an inclusive stance from the government, particularly in light of confusion among consumers about the tech's exact legal status.

It's not clear when the Indian Ministry of Finance will publishthe report or in what form that release will take.

Meanwhile, efforts to examine the regulatory environment for the tech continue to expand.

CoinDesk reported earlier this week that theSecurities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has unveiled a broad advisory committee that will research blockchain and other technologies. The goal, according to SEBI, is to see whether the tech could be applied to its own regulatory processes.

India temple image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [emailprotected].

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Indian Inter-Disciplinary Committee Submits Cryptocurrency Report – ETHNews

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An inter-disciplinary committee that was formed to assess blockchain-based currencies has submitted its report to government officials.

The world now watches as Indian members of a government-appointed inter-disciplinary committee have released a report to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on cryptocurrency regulatory standards, according to a report made August 7, 2017, from New Delhi.

As recently as this April, the committee convened to conduct an all-inclusive review of all blockchain-based currencies. After accepting public comments on the subject during the month of May, the group met to deliberate in June, as reported by ETHNews. While the findings in the report have not been made public, it is very likely that they will have an influence on the country's future stance.

Zebpay, which is a founding member of the Digital Assets and Blockchain Foundation of India (DABFI), is pushing for a solution that allows DABFI to act as "a self-regulatory" organization.

Saurabh Agrawal, co-founder and CEO of Zebpay, highlighted a need for oversight and licensing of crypto-exchanges. "We are for some form of a task force or a controlling body that will be monitoring the activities of exchanges," said Agrawal. "We want ultimately exchanges to get licences just as banks are granted licences."

Once the report is made public, ETHNews will provide additional coverage of its regulatory ramifications.

Jeremy Nation is a writer living in Los Angeles with interests in technology, human rights, and cuisine. He is a full time staff writer for ETHNews and holds value in Ether.

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Indian Inter-Disciplinary Committee Submits Cryptocurrency Report - ETHNews

The Ethereum of China Is Now a Top 10 Cryptocurrency and Creating a Smart Economy – Inc.com

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NEO, formerly known as AntShares, is generally known as the "Ethereum of China." But an even more accurate description of the project would be "China's public blockchain," according to the company. NEO made news this week when it went from being a top 15 cryptocurrency to a top 10 cryptocurrency as of the time of this writing. NEO's token value surged from sub-$10 to more than $20, and its market cap to more than $900 million.

NEO's platform is similar to Ethereum's but has some clear advantages and a different overall mission. First of all, it provides various advanced languages for its compiler, such as Python and Go. Second, and more important, its NEO Contract (which is run through a NEO Virtual Machine) supports various commonly used programming languages, such as C# and Java, which is a major advantage. This makes its barrier to entry for new developers much smaller than other platforms', as they do not need to learn new languages to code.

The big move for NEO is creating an entire smart economy. It has incorporated digital assets, smart contracts, and a digital identity that can be used for real-world applications and become integrated into the real economy. China could (and may) be a candidate for that first real-world application and integration.

NEO is in a spot similar to Ethereum's in early 2017, both cryptocurrency value wise and launch phase wise. Its product is fully operational and does a few things differently from Ethereum, including execution of C# code, which allows NEO to do more things with the platform and attract more developers.

The platform is also primed for running initial coin offerings (ICOs). And I wouldn't be surprised if it continues to be the go-to platform for upcoming Chinese ICOs. As we saw this year with Ethereum, when ICOs launch demand for the token that is hosting them goes up drastically.

I personally am excited to see how NEO's smart economy will start incorporating into the real world. If it's able to integrate physical assets and even intentionally involve government in China, that could be a good thing for the growth of NEO's project, in this case.

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The Ethereum of China Is Now a Top 10 Cryptocurrency and Creating a Smart Economy - Inc.com

Experts Suggest Cryptocurrencies Could be This Generation’s Supplement for Pensions – Futurism

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In BriefIn a post-globalized, post-depression, pre-apocalyptic world,traditional pensions have lost the public trust. Howeverunfamiliar, the future of investing may lie in cryptocurrency. The Future of Crypto

Those who have retired within previous decades, or even some who are currently looking to retire, have earned pension funds which allow them to transition out of the traditional working force. This is unfortunately not a reality for many working today. Recently though, experts have suggested that the future of and potential for cryptocurrencies could be this generations supplement for pensions, re-affirming retirement as a viable alternative for working adults.

Ron Ginn, the young founder of Text Event Picsand investor inRipple,et al real estate, said to TheNew York Timesthat This is like getting to invest in the internet in the 90s. Im obviously very bullish, but I expect to make a couple million dollars off very little money. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Finance is getting its internet.

While cryptocurrency isnt a precise parallel to pension funds, its still a very hopeful and promising investment. At the very least the consensus leans toward its eventual reliability. Nothings carved in stone,but recent developments in financial technology have shown thatpalpable risk is correlated with significant gains.

Money has no value without trust, and this truth holds no less true for investment. Today, with pensions and 401(k)s growing rarer while memories of the recession of 2007-2009 still linger in the air, finding a realistic way to invest in a financially secure future (in the traditional sense) can seem like a lost cause. Consequentlymany see crypto investments as the safer alternative. Gabe Wax, who runs a recording studio in Brooklyn, told The New York Times, I constantly feel like Im looking over the edge. of a cliff [] I dont like the idea of money just sitting in a savings account with the way inflation works and how low interest rates are, youre losing money. Theres less money than theres ever been in the history of recorded music, so that gives me anxiety. Its weird to say that owning cryptocurrency soothes that anxiety, because its counterintuitive, but it does.

As major players like Bitcoinand Ethereum compete against new-name giants like Bitcoin Cash, which advanced to third-biggest in market capitalization in its first 48 hours,the dawn of cyrptocurrency has become an inevitable reality. Looking around, its rapid global proliferation is apparent in everydaywearable technologies,which softens the distinction between financial and digital.

The days of stable, reliablepension funds may be on the proverbial endangered list. Alas, this generations trust in the forces of globalization and traditional financial institutions may again be at low ebb. Consequently, while many in previous generations joined the workforce with implicit trust in traditional institutions, many younger investors will pivot to cryptocurrency. The futures never a certainty in economics, but wed all be remiss to ignore this increasingly viable means for financial security.

Disclosure: Several members of the Futurism team, including the editors of this piece, are personal investors in a number of cryptocurrency markets. Their personal investment perspectives have no impact on editorial content.

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This Putin Ally Wants to Get in on the Bitcoin Mining Craze – Fortune

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A company co-owned by one of President Vladimir Putins internet advisers plans to raise the cryptocurrency equivalent of as much as $100 million in a push to help Russian entrepreneurs challenge China in bitcoin mining.

Russian Miner Coin is holding a so-called initial coin offering, where investors will use units of ethereum or bitcoin to buy new RMC tokens. These new tokens will have rights to 18 percent of the revenue earned with the companys mining equipment, according to a presentation posted on its website.

RMC plans to use semiconductor chips designed in Russia for use in satellites to minimize power consumption in computers for crypto-mining, Putins internet ombudsman, Dmitry Marinichev, said at at a news conference in Moscow.

Russia has the potential to reach up to 30 percent share in global cryptocurrency mining in the future," Marinichev said, adding that $10 million from the proceeds of the ICO may be spent developing the processors.

More and more startups are offering tokens as a way to raise money upfront for digital assets in ICOs. Unlike a traditional IPO in which buyers get shares, a startups ICO nets you virtual tokens unique to the issuing company or network that grow in value only if the business proves viable.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month warned that ICOs may be considered securities and signaled greater scrutiny of the sector, though it stopped short of suggesting a broader clampdown.

Todays bitcoin mining requires special computers based on chips with minimized power consumption. Chinas Bitmain Technologies Ltd. is one of the leading producers of such equipment and also runs Antpool, a processing pool that combines individual miners from China and other countries. Rival Bitfury Group, founded by Valery Vavilov, a Russian-speaking native of Latvia, produces equipment for mining virtual currencies and runs large-scale centers in Georgia and Iceland.

Russia has 20 gigawatts of excess power capacity, with consumer electricity prices as low as 80 kopeks (1.3 cents) per kilowatt hour, which is less than in China, RMC said in the presentation. The company initially plans to locate mining computers based on Bitfury chips in individual Russian households to challenge Bitmain by using Russias lower power prices.

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Bitcoin climbs to record, nearly three times the price of gold – CNBC

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At Tuesday's price, the digital currency has more than tripled for the year, versus gold's nearly 10 percent rise.

"I think bitcoin is going to have increasing institutional sponsorship given the pending trading of bitcoin options and bitcoin futures," Fundstrat said.

Both derivatives products are expected to launch later this year or in early 2018.

That said, gold is far from disappearing as a store of value.

Lee pointed out that the overall size of the gold market at about $7.5 trillion dwarfs that of bitcoin. At Tuesday's prices, bitcoin had a market capitalization of roughly $57 billion, around the size of Charles Schwab.

In that case, Lee and other analysts have noted that even a small percentage of fund flows out of gold into bitcoin could send the digital currency's price sharply higher, potentially into the tens of thousands of dollars in the next few years.

Other digital currencies also rose Tuesday. The one-week-old bitcoin offshoot "bitcoin cash" rebounded from weekend lows near $200 to trade near $338.25, according to CoinMarketCap.

Ethereum traded nearly 5 percent higher at $280, about 12 percent higher for the month, according to CoinDesk.

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Bitcoin climbs to record, nearly three times the price of gold - CNBC

For fork’s sake! Bitcoin Core braces for another cryptocurrency split – The Register

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Bitcoin faces the possibility of yet another fork, a divergence anticipated by a code change proposal accepted by the developers of the Bitcoin Core client software.

A week ago, Bitcoin split in two: legacy Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, an alternative cryptocurrency. Holders of existing Bitcoin saw a windfall, the option to collect a matching amount of newly minted Bitcoin Cash, at many registries.

Present and future transactions require a choice between the two, assuming there's no rapprochement.

Old guard Bitcoin, meanwhile, on Tuesday celebrated community acceptance, more or less, of SegWit2x, a proposed code change intended to separate signature data from transaction identifier data and to increase the size of the blocks that store Bitcoin transactions.

The revision, scheduled to take effect on August 21, is intended to make Bitcoin transactions more scalable and faster. After that point, Bitcoin miners will begin rejecting blocks that fail to support the change.

Since 2015, the hard-coded 1MB block limit for Bitcoin transactions has been blamed for the long transaction clearance times and the problem has gotten worse as Bitcoin has become more popular.

With SegWit2x given the green light, a hard fork is planned later this year to implement the 2MB block size. Bitcoin miners will signal their acceptance through Bitcoin network, but not all are expected to go along and Bitcoin Core is planning for a split.

Several days ago, developer Matt Corallo published a pull request to the GitHub repo of the Bitcoin Core software that rejects the SegWit2x blockchain.

The pull request, a proposed code revision, was merged into the main branch two days ago and, barring further changes, should appear in the 0.15 release of the software. The revised client software will detect when you're connecting to a SegWit2x node of the Bitcoin network and disconnect from it.

"This is basically a sign from Bitcoin Core that they do not regard SegWit2x as being the real Bitcoin," explained Ryan X. Charles, CEO of Yours.org, in a YouTube video. "...This all but assures there will be another split when SegWit2x occurs."

Presently, it appears that in a few months, if the hard fork happens, those holding Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash could find a third currency, Bitcoin Core, in their electronic wallets.

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For fork's sake! Bitcoin Core braces for another cryptocurrency split - The Register

Dermatologists collaborate on data-driven pediatric psoriasis research – ModernMedicine

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Emerging research from an international dataset of pediatric psoriasis patients is revealing much needed information about how children fare with commonly used systemic treatments, says dermatologist Amy S. Paller, M.D., M.S.

And she says the collaborative effort is powered by pediatric dermatologists not industry.

Dr. Paller, professor and chair of dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and pediatric dermatologist at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Childrens Hospital of Chicago, presented findings from the PeDRA-EPPWG Study of Systemic Therapy in Pediatric Psoriasis at the July World Congress of Pediatric Dermatology in Chicago. She not only talked about the soon-to-be-published studys findings, but also how a retrospective analysis could inform a prospective registry.

Dr. Paller and colleagues launched the Pediatric Dermatology Research Alliance, or PeDRA, in 2012, recognizing that pediatric dermatologists needed to work as a group to research dermatologic conditions in children because many of the conditions are rare and lack pediatric-specific data.

Thats exactly what has happened in this work with pediatric psoriasis, Dr. Paller says.

Colleagues in the European Pediatric Psoriasis Working Group, or EPPWG were willing to buy in. The groups shared goals to better understand dermatologists experiences with systemic drugs for pediatric psoriasis, and to get experience with a joint registry, which hopefully would pave the way for a prospective pediatric psoriasis registry, according to Dr. Paller.

Ten centers from PeDRA in North America and 10 centers in Europe came together to perform the study.

It was a tremendous learning experience about some of the challenges of retrospective data collection and the benefit to prospective research using common data collection, Dr. Paller says.

The researchers extracted 54 different items from charts of patients treated with systemic therapy or phototherapy, but only allowed patients to be included who had at least a minimum dataset that could provide important information on demographics, clinical characteristics and severity, systemic agents used, treatment duration and efficacy, side effects and reasons for discontinuation of medications.

A review of thousands of patient records revealed 446 which met criteria for the minimal dataset; of those, 390 involved systemic therapy for pediatric psoriasis. In this joint PeDRA-EPPWG study, which was funded by the International Psoriasis Council, data was collected using the Research Electronic Data Capture, or REDCap, web-based data capture tool.

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Dermatologists collaborate on data-driven pediatric psoriasis research - ModernMedicine

US News & World Report Reveals 2017-18 Best Travel Rewards Programs – PR Newswire (press release)

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Marriott Rewards is No. 1 among the Best Hotel Rewards Programs due in part to the ease of earning points and its large network of hotels in popular destinations. The program offers complimentary Wi-Fi access and the ability to use points toward booking experiences such as sporting events and concerts. At No. 2, Wyndham Rewards continues to earn high marks for ease of earning a free night, member access to reduced room rates and the availability to earn points through two affiliated credit cards.

Soon to merge with the Virgin America Elevate program, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is the Best Airline Rewards Program for the third consecutive year. Its mileage-based earning structure makes it easier for travelers to earn miles at a faster pace than with revenue-based earning programs. Delta SkyMiles moves up to the No. 2 spot because of its competitive redemption rates for award flights and diversity of benefits, such as using miles for hotels stays, cabin upgrades, experiences and free flights.

"Today's travelers have so many rewards programs to choose from, comparing and contrasting them based on your specific needs can be a challenge," said Christine Smith, associate travel editor at U.S. News. "Our Best Travel Rewards Programs rankings emphasize the ease of earning points and miles, and redeeming them for free nights and flights, which everyday travelers identify as a top reason to join a loyalty program."

U.S. News ranks the Best Travel Rewards Programs in two categories: hotel loyalty programs and airline frequent flyer programs. The methodologies take into account membership benefits such as free amenities, program-affiliated credit cards and redeemable experiences network coverage and a strong emphasis on the ease of earning and redeeming free flights or nights. Additionally, U.S. News factors in property diversity for the Best Hotel Rewards Programs and Airline Quality Rating scores for the Best Airline Rewards Programs.

2017-18 U.S. News Best Travel Rewards Programs

Hotel Rewards Programs

Airline Rewards Programs

1. Marriott Rewards

1. Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

2. Wyndham Rewards

2. Delta SkyMiles

3. Choice Privileges

3. JetBlue TrueBlue

4. World of Hyatt

4. Southwest Rapid Rewards

5. Best Western Rewards

5. United MileagePlus

For more information on the Best Travel Rewards Programs, visit Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using #BestRewards.

About U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is a digital news and information company that empowers people to make better, more informed decisions about important issues affecting their lives. Focusing on Education, Health, Personal Finance, Travel, Cars and News & Opinion, USNews.com provides consumer advice, rankings, news and analysis to serve people making complex decisions throughout all stages of life. More than 30 million people visit USNews.com each month for research and guidance. Founded in 1933, U.S. News is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-news--world-report-reveals-2017-18-best-travel-rewards-programs-300501516.html

SOURCE U.S. News & World Report

http://www.usnews.com

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US News & World Report Reveals 2017-18 Best Travel Rewards Programs - PR Newswire (press release)

LITTLE LEAGUE SOFTBALL: Floyds Knobs in Portland for World Series after travel issues – Newsandtribune

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PORTLAND, Ore. The Floyds Knobs All-Stars had everything lined up for their cross-country trip to the Little League Softball World Series.

After the teams final local practice session, head coach Travis Unruh had everyone stay over at his barn Sunday night. A bus arrived before sunrise the next morning to take the team to the Indianapolis airport.

We have four or five girls who had never flown before, but we coached them up and they all did a great job getting through the airport, Unruh said.

Getting off the runway would be another story.

The team had a change-over in Denver, boarding their flight smoothly only to find themselves sitting in place as the minutes rolled past.

We waited for about an hour for them to find a pilot, Cammie Unruh said.

The hiccup that no level of planning could solve.

After the brief delay, the plane touched down in Portland, and the team was picked up by a luxury tour bus for the 45-minute ride to the Alpenrose Dairy site for the World Series.

Its been a long day, but this is cool, assistant coach Chris Nolot said.

Its an older place. Theres a lot of tradition here, Travis Unruh said.

Shortly after arriving, the girls were fitted for their blue and orange uniforms as representatives of the Central Region, then it was off to the main field for a photo shoot. The day ended with a trip to Easton to get geared up with bats and bags for the Series before finally checking into the team hotel in downtown Portland.

The Easton Skills Competition is at 7 p.m. today with players competing in everything from base running and catcher throw downs to pitching through tires and a home run contest.

The round-robin phase of the Series begins Wednesday with Floyds Knobs opening against the Latin America champs from Puerto Rico at 7 p.m.

By game time, well have a party of 70 here. We should have those bleachers pretty packed, Cammie Unruh said.

Floyds Knobs is one a bye Thursday, often a chance for teams to explore the area sites. Plans were still up in the air Monday, but some were talking about a trip to the Northern Oregon coast.

We want to keep them grounded, Travis Unruh said. We remind them to be proud of what theyve done to this point but not to be satisfied.

LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES

At Portland, Ore. (all times Eastern)

POOL B

Central Champion Floyds Knobs

Asia-Pacific Champion Bacolod City (Philippines)

Latin America Champion Coamo (Puerto Rico)

Southwest Champion Waco (Texas)

Oregon Champion TBD

POOL A

East Champion Bear (Delaware)

European Champion Prague (Czech Republic)

Southeast Champion Salisbury (North Carolina)

West Champion Cedar City (Utah)

Canada Champion TBD

POOL B SCHEDULE

Wednesday, Aug. 9

Texas vs. Oregon, 4 p.m.

Floyds Knobsvs. Puerto Rico, 7 p.m.

Thursday, Aug. 10

Texas vs. Puerto Rico, 1 p.m.

Oregon vs. Philippines, 7 p.m.

Friday, Aug. 11

Floyds Knobsvs. Philippines, 1 p.m.

Oregon vs. Puerto Rico, 10 p.m.

Saturday, Aug. 12

Floyds Knobsvs. Oregon, 6 p.m.

Philippines vs. Texas, 10:30 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 13

Philippines vs. Puerto Rico, 3 p.m.

Floyds Knobsvs. Texas, 6 p.m.

ELIMINATION TOURNAMENT

QUARTERFINALS

Monday, Aug. 14

Game 21 Pool A No. 2 vs. Pool B No. 3, 1 p.m. (ESPN2)

Game 22 Pool A No. 4 vs. Pool B No. 1, 4 p.m.(ESPN2)

Game 23 Pool A No. 3 vs. Pool B No. 2, 7 p.m.(ESPN2)

Game 24 Pool A No. 1 vs. Pool B No. 4, 10 p.m.(ESPN2)

SEMIFINALS

Tuesday, Aug. 15

Game 21 winner vs. Game 22 winner, 6:30 p.m.(ESPN2)

Game 23 winner vs. Game 24 winner, 9 p.m.(ESPN2)

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Wednesday, Aug. 16

Semifinal winner, 9 p.m. (ESPN2)

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LITTLE LEAGUE SOFTBALL: Floyds Knobs in Portland for World Series after travel issues - Newsandtribune

New supercomputer seen as big boost for science, Wyoming – ABC News

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One of the world's fastest supercomputers is helping scientists better understand the sun's behavior and predict weather months in advance but also got touted Tuesday as an important tool for diversifying Wyoming's economy, which has seen better days.

The new supercomputer named Cheyenne, located at a National Center for Atmospheric Research facility on the outskirts of Wyoming's capital city, is the world's 22nd fastest. Put to work earlier this year, Cheyenne is three times faster yet three times more efficient than its predecessor, a machine called Yellowstone.

The NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center housing both machines is an important tool for recruiting tech businesses and keeping students interested in computers from leaving Wyoming to seek their fortunes elsewhere, Gov. Matt Mead said at a dedication for the new machine Tuesday.

The facility also is an important tool for research into hydrology, ways to trap carbon dioxide emitted by coal-fired power plants and other science important to Wyoming, he said.

"What it shows in Wyoming is that we're not only trying to broaden and diversify the economy, we care about the results," Mead said.

Wyoming produces about 40 percent of the nation's coal. In 2016, the U.S. coal industry had its worst year in four decades amid competition from cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas as utilities' preferred fuel for generating electricity. Meanwhile, renewables such as wind and solar are increasingly competitive.

The coal downturn has hit Wyoming's economy hard. But the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center completed five years ago has helped attract other types of business including a Microsoft data center just across the street, Mead said.

"For me, when we think about the economic benefits, they're tremendous. When we think about the pride in Wyoming citizens, it's tremendous," Mead said.

Early work on the new supercomputer includes modeling of space weather flares ejected by the sun that can affect satellites, communications and even the power grid. Scientists using the machine also are developing ways to better predict weather up to three months out, said University Corporation for Atmospheric Research President Antonio Busalacchi.

"This timescale is critical for businesses, agriculture and for our military, who need reliable forecasts of longer-term weather forecasts," Busalacchi said.

Cheyenne and Yellowstone will operate side-by-side until the National Center for Atmospheric Research retires Yellowstone later this year.

Follow Mead Gruver at https://twitter.com/meadgruver

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New supercomputer seen as big boost for science, Wyoming - ABC News

IBM Pushes Envelope in Deep Learning Scalability – TOP500 News

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This week IBM demonstrated software that was able to significantly boost the speed of training deep neural networks, while improving the accuracy of those networks. The software achieved this by dramatically increasing the scalability of these training applications across large number of GPUs.

Source: IBM Research

In a blog posted by IBM Fellow Hillery Hunter, director of the Accelerated Cognitive Infrastructure group at IBM Research, she outlined the motivation for the work:

For our part, my team in IBM Research has been focused on reducing these training times for large models with large data sets. Our objective is to reduce the wait-time associated with deep learning training from days or hours to minutes or seconds, and enable improved accuracy of these AI models. To achieve this, we are tackling grand-challenge scale issues in distributing deep learning across large numbers of servers and GPUs.

The technology they developed to accomplish this, encapsulated in their Distributed Deep Learning (DDL) software, delivered a record 95 percent scaling efficiency across 256 NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs using the Caffe deep learning framework for an image recognition application. That exceeds the previous high-water mark of 89 percent efficiency achieved by Facebook for training a similar network with those same GPUs on Caffe2.

Source: IBM Research

The quality of the training was also improved by the DDL software, which delivered an image recognition accuracy of 33.8 percent for a network trained with a ResNet-101 model on a 7.5-million image dataset (ImageNet-22k). The previous best result of 29.8 percent accuracy was achieved by Microsoft in 2014. But in the case of the IBM training, its level of accuracy was achieved in just 7 hours of training, while the Microsoft run took 10 days.

It should be noted that the Microsoft training was executed on a 120-node HP Proliant cluster, powered by 240 Intel Xeon E5-2450L CPUs, while the IBM training was executed on a 64-node Power8 cluster (Power Systems S822LC for HPC), equipped with 256 NVIDIA P100 GPUs. Inasmuch as those GPUs represent more than two petaflops of single precision floating point performance, the IBM system is about two orders of magnitude more powerful than the commodity cluster used by Microsoft.

That doesnt negate the importance of the IBM achievement. As was pointed out by Hunter in her blog, scaling a deep learning problem across more GPUs is made much more difficult as these processors get faster, since communication between them and the rest of the system struggles to keep pace as the computational power of the graphics chips increase. She describes the problem as follows:

[A]sGPUs get much faster, they learn much faster, and they have to share their learning with all of the other GPUs at a rate that isnt possible with conventional software. This puts stress on the system network and is a tough technical problem. Basically, smarter and faster learners (the GPUs) need a better means of communicating, or they get out of sync and spend the majority of time waiting for each others results. So, you get no speedupand potentially even degraded performancefrom using more, faster-learning GPUs.

IBM Fellow Hillery Hunter. Source IBM

At about 10 single precision teraflops per GPU, the NVIDIA P100 is one of the fastest GPUs available today. The NVIDIA V100 GPUs, which are just entering the market now, will offer 120 teraflops of mixed single/half precision performance, further challenging the ability of these deep learning applications to scale efficiently.

The IBM software is able to overcome the compute/communication imbalance to a great extent by employing a multi-dimensional ring algorithm. This allows communication to be optimized based on the bandwidth of each network link, the network topology, and the latency for each phase. This is accomplished by adjusting the number of dimensions and the size of each one. For server hardware with different types of communication links, the software is able to adjust its behavior to take advantage of the fastest links in order to avoid bottlenecks in the slower ones.

Even though this is still a research effort, the DDL software is going to be available to customers on a trial basis as part of IBMs PowerAI, the companys deep learning software suite aimed at enterprise users. DDL is available today in version 4 of PowerAI, and according to IBM, it contains implementations at various stages of development, for Caffe, Tensorflow, and Torch.

An API has been provided for developers to tap into DDLs core functions. The current implementation is based on MPI IBMs own Spectrum MPI, to be specific which provides optimizations for the companys Power/InfiniBand-based clusters. IBM says you can also use DDL without MPI underneath if desired, but presumably your performance will vary accordingly. IBM is hoping that third-party developers will start using this new capability and demonstrate its advantages across a wider array of deep learning applications.

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IBM Pushes Envelope in Deep Learning Scalability - TOP500 News

Stem-cell treatment may harm heart disease patients – ISRAEL21c

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For patients with severe and end-stage heart failure there are few treatment options left apart from transplants and stem-cell therapy. But a new Israeli study finds that stem-cell therapy may harm heart-disease patients.

The research, led by Prof. Jonathan Leor of Tel Aviv Universitys Sackler Faculty of Medicineand Sheba Medical Center and conducted by TAUs Dr. Nili Naftali-Shani, explores the current practice of using cells from the host patient to repair tissue and contends that this can prove toxic for patients.

We found that, contrary to popular belief, tissue stem cells derived from sick hearts do not contribute to heart healing after injury, said Leor. Furthermore, we found that these cells are affected by the inflammatory environment and develop inflammatory properties. The affected stem cells may even exacerbate damage to the already diseased heart muscle.

Tissue or adult stem cells blank cells that can act as a repair kit for the body by replacing damaged tissue encourage the regeneration of blood vessel cells and new heart muscle tissue. Faced with a worse survival rate than many cancers, many heart-failure patients have turned to stem-cell therapy as a last resort.

But our findings suggest that stem cells, like any drug, can have adverse effects, said Leor. We concluded that stem cells used in cardiac therapy should be drawn from healthy donors or be better genetically engineered for the patient.

The researchers, who published their study in the journal Circulation, also discovered the molecular pathway involved in the negative interaction between stem cells and the immune system as they isolated stem cells in mouse models of heart disease. Afterward, they focused on cardiac stem cells in patients with heart disease.

The results could help improve the use of autologous stem cells those drawn from the patients themselves in cardiac therapy, Leor said.

We showed that the deletion of the gene responsible for this pathway can restore the original therapeutic function of the cells, said Leor. Our findings determine the potential negative effects of inflammation on stem-cell function as theyre currently used. The use of autologous stem cells from patients with heart disease should be modified. Only stem cells from healthy donors or genetically engineered cells should be used in treating cardiac conditions.

The researchers are currently testing a gene editing technique (CRISPER) to inhibit the gene responsible for the negative inflammatory properties of the cardiac stem cells of heart disease patients. We hope our engineered stem cells will be resistant to the negative effects of the immune system, said Leor.

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Stem-cell treatment may harm heart disease patients - ISRAEL21c