Monthly Archives: May 2017

Deer Creek Public Schools addressing First Amendment concerns … – KOKH FOX25

Posted: May 6, 2017 at 3:19 am

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH)

The administration of Deer Creek Public Schools reports they are working directly with the ACLU to address First Amendment concerns.

Deer Creek Public Schools released a statement May 5 reporting that they "strongly support" students' First Amendment rights.

"No students were disciplined for their expression of the First Amendment. We support all students within the context of maintaining safe and orderly schools, and have policy and procedures in place to help keep all students safe." the statement said.

On May 3, the ACLU of Oklahoma claimed that an African American student from Deer Creek High School was forced to remove a shirt with the phrase "Black Lives Matter" because it was a dress code violation.

In response to the alleged incident, students planned to wear black in support of the student which led to an email to parents from Deer Creek High School Principal Melissa Jordan. The email allegedly threatened any students participating to be shown disciplinary action.

Deer Creek administration says they want a student body that is "inclusive and not divided". The district reports that all employees have gone through harassment and bullying training. Students have also gone through assemblies hoping to "further their focus on tolerance, kindness and acceptance of all students during the 2016-2017 year."

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The Soul of the First Amendment – Philly.com

Posted: at 3:19 am

In his book Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution, Justice Stephen Breyer maintained that the primary purpose of the First Amendment goes beyond protecting the individual from government restrictions.

First and foremost, Breyer wrote, the First Amendment seeks to facilitate democratic self-government.

When it is correctly viewed, he maintained, one must understand the First Amendment as seeking primarily to encourage the exchange of information and ideas necessary for citizens themselves to shape that public opinion which is the final source of government in a democratic state.

In his dissenting opinion in the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission case, relating to limitations on the total amount of contributions a donor may make to candidates for Congress, in which he was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, Breyer argued similarly.

The First Amendment, he wrote, advances not only the individuals right to engage in political speech, but also the publics interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters. The First Amendment, he urged, must be understood as promoting a government where laws reflect the very thoughts, views, ideas, and sentiments, the expression of which the First Amendment protects.

These views offer a double-barreled First Amendment, one that addresses not only the risks of governmental control over speech but the desirability of a government truly responsive to the views of the public. But there is reason to doubt that the First Amendment can serve both ends.

First and foremost, after all, the First Amendment seeks to protect against the dangers of government overreaching into areas where government itself is especially dangerous freedom of religion, speech, and press. At its core, it is not about promoting collective speech but of avoiding the imposition of just such speech by the government.

One of the benefits of the First Amendment is that it generally leads to a better-informed public and ultimately a more representative government. But we surely would not allow particular speech to be suppressed because the government decided that it led the public to become ill-informed or less enamored of representative government.

That sort of censorship is the opposite of what the First Amendment is about.

The notion that First Amendment interests are served whenever laws genuinely reflect public opinion also seems to overlook the reality that the public too often seeks to suppress speech it disapproves of. Speech is sometimes ugly, outrageous, even dangerous. The understandable public response to such speech is often one of disgust, revulsion, and sometimes anger. And support for taking steps to ensure that the offending speech does not recur.

Floyd Abramsis the author of The Soul of the First Amendment(Yale University Press, 2017). He willdiscuss his book at noon Monday at the National Constitution Center. For information, visit constitutioncenter.org/debate or call 215-409-6700.

Published: May 5, 2017 3:01 AM EDT | Updated: May 5, 2017 3:13 PM EDT

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Caller-Times journalists recognized for First Amendment reporting – Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Posted: at 3:19 am

Reporters Krista Torralva and Natalia Contreras teamed up for a story about the days leading up to the death of Noemi Villarreal, a victim of domestic violence. The article earned them the First Amendment Award in the Defending the Disadvantaged category.(Photo: File photos)

Three Caller-Times journalists were recognized in April by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Reporters Krista Torralva and Natalia Contreras teamed up for a story about the days leading up to thedeath ofNoemi Villarreal, a victim of domestic violence. The articleearned them First Amendment Award in the Defending the Disadvantaged category. The category highlights stories that illustrate the problems of the powerless in society.

More:Six days after reporting domestic violence, Noemi Villarreal was dead

Six days after seeking help from Corpus Christi police after her boyfriend held her captive,Noemi Villarreal's naked body was foundstuffed in a trash can in a grassy field near Oso Bay.

Villarreal's income came from dancing at a strip club and a disability check. She became dependent on drugs and her boyfriend, Lance Taylor, provided her with sedatives and antidepressants, her sister,Nydia Villarreal, said to Contreras. Taylor was indicted in September for murder in her death.

Contreras saidNydia Villarreal's candid disclosure of Noemi Villarreal'ssocial blemishes epitomized a vulnerabilitythat can influence a victims' credibility, which Contreras said should never be the case.

"Your background doesn't matter," Contreras said. "You're supposed to be protected."

The Corpus Christi police Department's family violence unitclosed on the weekends when the story published. The articlehighlightedNoemi's chance of survival if that weren't the case.As of July 28, family violence detectives are rotated for weekends and after hours duty.

Caller-Times reporter Chris Ramirez was named a finalist in the award's Business News category for a story about the effects of the drop in oil prices in South Texas.(Photo: File photo)

Caller-Times reporter Chris Ramirez also was named a finalist in the award's Business News category for a story about the effects of the drop in oil prices inSouth Texas.

More:As oil jobs dry up, unemployment spikes in Coastal Bend

Using the voices ofresidents inAlice, coupled with oil price shifts and unemployment rates of area counties, the storypainted a clear picture of how South Texas townsonce economically supported by Eagle Ford Shale activity are now hurting.

Read or Share this story: http://callertim.es/2peHHrx

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Journalism Nonprofit CEO To Give First Amendment Talk In Hartford – Hartford Courant

Posted: at 3:19 am

The CEO of a nonprofit journalism foundation will be coming to Hartford later this month to host a conversation on the First Amendment.

Alberto Ibargen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, is speaking at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts on May 18 at an event hosted by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

Ibargen, a former Hartford Courant staff writer and Wesleyan University alumnus, will give an address titled "Democracy, Civic Engagement and the Role of the Free Press."

He will discuss "the Knight Foundation's current efforts to support free expression and excellence in journalism to promote informed communities that may better determine their own interests," the foundation said in a news release.

"Knight supports ideas, leaders and initiatives that are helping advance the practice of journalism, including the use of new technology," the foundation said. "Ibargen will also discuss Knight's efforts to support informed and engaged communities, the building blocks of a successful democracy, and to support efforts to make communities more equitable, inclusive and participatory."

Before he joined the Knight Foundation Ibargen was the publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. During his tenure The Miami Herald won three Pultizer Prizes and El Nuevo Herald won Spain's Ortega y Gasset Prize for excellence in journalism.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information visit http://www.hpfg.org/ibarguen or call 860-548-1888.

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Tor Browser – TechRadar

Posted: at 3:18 am

Tor (The Onion Router) Browser hides your activity and location online by routing all your browsing through multiple anonymous servers, thereby concealing where you are and making it hard (but not impossible) to identify whos doing what online. That means its a good way to access sites that repressive authorities dont want people to see, for whistleblowers to report corruption and illegal activity without getting fired or worse, and to access the deep web.

The deep web is an internet within the internet, not indexed by search engines, and sites ending with the .onion suffix and can only be accessed via Tor. As youd expect, some of those sites are secret for perfectly good reasons - theyre sharing information that someone, somewhere doesnt want shared - but others are secret because theyre fantastically illegal. Browse at your peril and remember that Tor Browser makes it hard to find you, but doesnt offer 100% unbreakable anonymity. In fact, just using Tor may flag you as a person worth watching, and it's banned on many public networks.

There are plenty of legitimate uses though, and not just if youre a political activist. Tor can give you internet access when your internet provider's DNS servers are kaput, and it can keep your browsing free from the advertising trackers that infest so many sites.

Tor Browser looks like Firefox and works like Firefox because it is Firefox. Its not as fast, though: onion routing makes all of your traffic move around much more than in a regular browser, which slows things down considerably.

Its important to realise that Tor cant protect you from risky behaviours, so for example if you run plugins in the browser they may affect Tors ability to protect your privacy. Its crucial that you dont submit information to sites that dont display a blue or green button in the browser address bar to indicate a secure https connection, for example.

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Study highlights growing significance of cryptocurrencies – Phys.Org

Posted: at 3:18 am

May 5, 2017 Credit: fdecomite

More than 3 million people (three times previous estimates) are estimated to be actively using cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, finds the first global cryptocurrency benchmarking study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.

While many members of the general public may have heard of "bitcoin", the first decentralised cryptocurrency launched in 2009, a new report from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) paints a broader picture of "cryptocurrencies".

The report shows that cryptocurrencies broadly defined as digital assets using cryptography to secure transactions between peers without the need for a central bank or other authority performing that role are increasingly being used, stored, transacted and mined around the globe.

The Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study gathered data from more than 100 cryptocurrency companies in 38 countries, capturing an estimated 75 per cent of the cryptocurrency industry.

Prior to this research, little hard data existed on how many people around the world actively use cryptocurrencies. The conventional wisdom has been that the number of people using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was around 1 million people; however, based on newly collected data, including the percentage of the estimated 35 million cryptocurrency "wallets" (software applications that store cryptocurrencies) that are in active use, the CCAF research team estimates that there at least 3 million people actively using cryptocurrency today.

While bitcoin remains the dominant cryptocurrency both in terms of market capitalisation and usage, it has conceded market cap share to other cryptocurrencies declining from 86 per cent to 72 per cent in the past two years.

The study by the CCAF at Cambridge Judge Business School breaks down the cryptocurrency industry into four key sectors exchanges, wallets, payments, and mining. Highlights of the findings are:

Exchanges

Cryptocurrency exchanges provide on-off ramps to cryptocurrency systems by offering services to users wishing to buy or sell cryptocurrency. This sector was the first to emerge in the cryptocurrency industry, and has the most operating entities and employs the most people. Currently, about 52 per cent of small exchanges hold a formal government license, compared to only 35 per cent of large exchanges.

Wallets

Wallets have evolved from simple software programs to sophisticated applications that offer a variety of technical features and services. As a result, the lines between wallets and exchanges are increasingly blurred, with 52 per cent of wallets providing an integrated currency exchange feature.

Payments

Cryptocurrency payment companies generally act as gateways between cryptocurrency users and the broader economy, bridging national currencies and cryptocurrencies. They can fit into two broad categories: firms that use cryptocurrency primarily as a "payment rail" for fast and efficient cross-border transactions, and firms that facilitate the use of cryptocurrency for both users and merchants. The study found that the size of the average business-to-business cryptocurrency payment ($1,878) dwarfs peer-to-peer and consumer-to-business cryptocurrency payments.

Mining

In the absence of a central authority, cryptocurrencies are created by a process called "mining" usually the performance of a large number of computations to solve a cryptographic "puzzle". The study shows how cryptocurrency mining has evolved from a hobby activity into a professional, capital-intensive industry in which bitcoin miners earned more than $2 billion in mining revenues since 2009. The cryptocurrency mining map indicates that a significant proportion of publicly known mining facilities are concentrated in certain Chinese provinces.

The study found that more than 1,800 people are now working full time in the cryptocurrency industry, as more companies are engaged across various cryptocurrency sectors.

"Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin have been seen by some as merely a passing fad or insignificant, but that view is increasingly at odds with the data we are observing," says Dr Garrick Hileman, Research Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at Cambridge Judge Business School, who co-authored the study with Michel Rauchs, Research Assistant at CCAF.

"Currently, the combined market value of all cryptocurrencies is nearly $40 billion, which represents a level of value creation on the order of Silicon Valley success stories like Airbnb," Dr Hileman says in a foreword to the study. "The advent of cryptocurrency has also sparked many new business platforms with sizable valuations of their own, along with new forms of peer-to-peer economic activity."

Explore further: Towards equal access to digital coins

More information: The report is available online: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternative-finance/publications/global-cryptocurrency/

Scientists at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) of the University of Luxembourg have developed an important mathematical algorithm called "Equihash." Equihash is a core component for the ...

Many of the world's poorest poor don't have access to a bank account and yet depend on being able to transfer money across borders. Could digital currency help, ask researchers at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.

Universities are facing a dilemma now that students have been discovered mining cryptocurrencies using campus facilities. Are these students displaying entrepreneurship or unacceptable behaviour?

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin has been in the news lately with a sudden surge in value followed by a spectacular crash not to mention the unfortunate tale of US$4 million in bitcoin on a hard drive that was accidentally ...

While cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are relatively new, there are still opportunities for new players to enter the scene and make good money. You may have seen the launch of Nyancoin, based upon the catchy cat meme, earlier ...

Bitcoin relies on the participation of people and organisations to act as the "bankers" of the system. Called Bitcoin miners, they effectively record each transaction on a ledger called the Blockchain and in return, they ...

Burger King pulled a pretty juicy marketing stunt last month that drew plenty of attentionnot just to the Whopper, but also to the intrinsic vulnerabilities of a new type of voice-activated gadget.

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The first solar plane aimed at reaching the stratosphere made an initial low-altitude test flight over Switzerland Friday.

More than 3 million people (three times previous estimates) are estimated to be actively using cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, finds the first global cryptocurrency benchmarking study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative ...

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Community detection is an important tool for scientists studying networks. It provides descriptions of the large-scale network by dividing its nodes into related communities. To test community detection algorithms, researchers ...

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I setup a bitcoin node just out of interest, ran it for a couple of weeks, decided to disable it (You can't de-register a node by the way), and two weeks later someone from China was trying to stack smash my router.

The current blockchain header and transaction mechanisms are poorly managed and have many flaws and vulnerabilities.

Ethercoin seems to be the latest fad, and speculators are raving about it, yet it isn't even designed to be a monetary exchange, it's about remote code execution.

IMO, it has suffered from hype and most people are riding the bandwagon without any real understanding of what's happening behind the scenes.

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CME Explores Cryptocurrency Derivatives Contracts in Patent Filing – CoinDesk

Posted: at 3:18 am

Derivatives giant CME has developed a system for delivering digital currencies tied to derivative contracts, patent documents show.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published CME's application on 4th May, entitled "System for Physically Delivering Virtual Currencies". At its heart, the concept envisions delivering cryptocurrency holdings tied to a particular contract without the clearing party actually taking possession.

The firm is already known to be looking, at least conceptually, at the idea of derivatives contracts for bitcoin miners. As previously reported by CoinDesk, the proposed derivatives would enable miners to more effectively hedge against the ever-increasing difficulty of mining (the energy-intensive process by which new transactions are added to the blockchain), as well as the declining value of their mining hardware.

The new application indicates that CME is looking at additional products tied to the tech, with the firm explaining:

"A clearing counter-party could facilitate physical delivery of virtual currency contracts by instructing the sellers of expiring contracts to transfer the virtual currencies directly to the clearing counter-party, and the clearing counter-party would then transfer the virtual currencies to the buyers."

That CME would be looking into this area is perhaps unsurprising. Last November, it launched a pair ofbitcoin price benchmarks, which would ostensibly serve as part of the infrastructure for any products it may facilitate.

Whats more, the firm'sexecutives have previouslydiscussed the prospects of financial products around digitized assets.

"In fact, some of the most exciting areas to explore are at the intersection of digital assets and tokenized fiat and tokenized commodities, CME executive director and digitization lead Sandra Ro said during an event last November.

Ro is one of three inventors listed on the patent application, along with digitization director and technology architect Ryan Pierce, and Mansoor Ahmed, who serves as director of clearing for the firm.

CME image via Shutterstock

Disclosure: CME Group is an investor in Digital Currency Group, of which CoinDesk is a subsidiary.

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Botnet Mines Over $1000 Worth Cryptocurrency Everyday – newsBTC

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The new Bondnet botnet infects over 15000 Windows servers, mines cryptocurrencies worth almost $1000 a day. Read more...

Cybersecurity at the time of cryptocurrencies must be taken seriously. The sheer processing power needed to mine cryptocurrencies and the increasing value of various digital currencies has got hackers and cybercriminals exploiting the processing power of unsecure IT infrastructure. A malware developer, allegedly based out of China was recently found to be operating a botnet going by the name Bondnet after compromising over 15,000 Windows servers.

According to reports, the malware creator Bond007.01 is using the botnet to mine various cryptocurrencies. The Bondnet botnet was discovered by security researchers at the GuardiCore cyber-security firm. Their reporton the newly found botnet states that the Bondnet has been operational since December 2016, earning a small fortune daily in the process.

Even though Bondnet has been actively mining a variety of cryptocurrencies, its focus seems to be on Monero a CryptoNote based digital currency known for its anonymity. The infected Windows Servers that are part of the botnet includes those belonging to various global companies, universities, local government bodies and even public institutions. It is estimated that the person(s) behind Bondnet have been earning about $1000 or upwards of $25000 a month by harnessing the processing power of compromised servers.

Bondnet makes use of a variety of known exploits, both old and new to install a Windows Management Interface trojan. The trojan acts a link between the Command and Control and the infected server, giving Bond007.01 complete control. However, the operator of Bondnet doesnt seem to be interested in the data as he/she hasnt attempted to hold it for ransom. GuardiCore believes that the exploit is purely financially motivated, where a sustained mining operation could yield more returns than one-time ransom demand.

The botnet network is constantly expanded with about 500 new servers being added to it daily. The attack has left many owners shortchanged due to increased power consumption, with bills going up by anywhere between $1000 $2000 per month.

In order to prevent such incidents, it is advisable for businesses and server owners to frequently monitor the performance of their IT infrastructure and keep the software updated to latest versions. whenever there is any discrepancy in the performance, they should conduct a thorough investigation to find the cause and take necessary steps to mitigate the issue.

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Market Boom: The 10 Largest Cryptocurrencies Are All Up Today – CoinDesk

Posted: at 3:18 am

They say a rising tide lifts all boats.

Even as bitcoin surged above $1,500 late last night and crossed the $1,600 on several exchanges this afternoon the rest of the top 10 cryptocurrencies as listed by market capitalizationhave seen price increases of at least 8% today.

Ripple's XRP token is emerging as the early winner, rising more than 40%, with an average price of about $0.079 across exchanges. Likewise, litecoin which has already seen significant price rises in recent days ahead of an expected adoption of the scaling solution SegWit is up about 22% on the day.

And ether, the cryptocurrency underlying the ethereum network, is up about 14%, at an average price of roughly $89 to reach an all-time high.

As reported by CoinDesk, the development comes amid a larger shift in the cryptocurrency markets that has seen an increasing diversificationaway from bitcoin. At press time, the Bitcoin Dominance Index, a measurement of the percent of the total market cap invested in bitcoin, had fallen below 60% for the first time in its history.

Still, analysts were largely short on comment when reached.

While some pointed to the technical benefits of various platforms, others were at a loss for words, responding with simple statements such as "WTF" or crediting the increases to "pumping and FOMO".

Industry entrepreneur and analystPaul Buitink perhaps summed up the events the best, however, adding simply:

"Everything is going up."

Elevator imagevia Shutterstock

Pete Rizzo contributed reporting.

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Cryptocurrency Prices Explode! Bitcoin at $1600, Ethereum at $100 – Finance Magnates

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Cryptocurrency prices appear to beunstoppable today, with the top four blockchain assets now worth over $1 billion each.

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It seems much of the surge is from new money pouring into the market. This is evident from the exceptionallyhigh trading volumes, reaching new record total for the entire ecosystem of over $2.2 billion a day. One likely reason for this is that the news of recent all time highs are drawing in more and more new traders attracted to the opportunity.

Bitcoin is now at a record high of $1600, raising 7% since yesterday, giving it a market cap of over $26 billion. Ethereum is now at a record high of $100, raising 16% since yesterday, giving it a market cap of over $9 billion.Ripples XRPis now at a record high of $0.09, raising 40% since yesterday, giving it a market cap of over $3.4billion.Litecoinis now at a record high of $25, raising 20% since yesterday, giving it a market cap of over $1.3 billion.

In fact, most of the other 700+ blockchainassets traded around the world are up significantly today. In total, the combined value of the entire market is now at a record $46 billion. While the speed at which we are seeing the value grow can cause fears of a bubble, the figure is not that unbelievable if we compare it to another online payments solution, Paypal (NASDAQ: PYPL) which has a market cap of $58 billion.

All this actually leads to some contradiction regarding the strength of bitcoin. While the original blockchain is the most valuable and keep setting new records, its cryptocurrency competitors are raising relativelyfaster and bitcoins dominance of the market has fallen to just 57%.

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