UK Police Will have Full Access To Health Records Without Warrant

Julian —  7. February 2014 — Leave a comment

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Police will have ‘backdoor’ access to health records despite opt-out, says MP

The database that will store all of England’s health records has a series of “backdoors” that will allow police and government bodies to access people’s medical data.

David Davis MP, a former shadow home secretary, told the Guardian he has established that police will be able to access the health records of patients when investigating serious crimes even if they had opted out of the new database, which will hold the entire population’s medical data in a single repository for the first time from May.

In the past, Davis said, police would need to track down the GP who held a suspect’s records and go to court for a disclosure order. Now, they would be able to simply approach the new arms-length NHS information centre, which will hold the records. “The idea that police will be able to request information from a central database without a warrant totally undermines a long-held belief in the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship,” he said.

(Image CC, via)

In 1984
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US State Department Warns About Surveillance In Sochi

Julian —  7. February 2014 — 4 Comments

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Russia planning ‘near-total surveillance’ of visitors, athletes at Sochi Winter Olympics (The Telegraph)

Security measures at the Sochi winter Olympics will include such extensive electronic eavesdropping and surveillance that the US State Department has advised Americans headed to Russia to leave smart phones and laptops at home, an investigation has revealed.

Hahaha, that is hilarious.

(Bild CC)

In 1984
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Fuck The EU

Julian —  7. February 2014 — 1 Comment

State Dept Official Caught on Tape: ‘Fuck the EU’ (Daily Beast)

In the wake of revelations the NSA spied on foreign officials, the State Department’s top official for Europe has been caught on tape planning a deal to end the Ukraine crisis and she had a message for her European counterparts – “Fuck the EU.”

A YouTube video uploaded by an anonymous user has publicly revealed a private conversation between Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. In the tape, the two officials discuss a plan to broker a deal between the Ukrainian government led by Viktor Yanukovich and the Ukrainian opposition, which is led in part by former boxer Vitali Klitschko.

In Misc
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How To Download Your Facebook Look Back Video

Julian —  4. February 2014 — 6 Comments

lookback

Facebook celebrates it’s 10th anniversary right now and they created a new feature called “A Look Back” that gives you a nice video of your activity on facebook in those 10 years. If you really like the video you can download it as an mp4 file in 5 very easy steps:

  1. Open Chrome browser and go to https://www.facebook.com/lookback
  2. Click the menu icon in upper right hand corner and select Tools > Javascript Console.
  3. Paste this code into the JavaScript Console and press “Enter” 
    var xLBD = {};
xLBD.c = function (){
xLBD.f = unescape(document.querySelector("[flashvars]").getAttribute("flashvars")).substring(7);
xLBD.f = JSON.parse(xLBD.f.substring(0, xLBD.f.lastIndexOf("}") + 1)).video_data[0].hd_src;
xLBD.a = "<div style='position:absolute;top:100px;height:300px;left:15%;background:#fff;border:10px solid #000;font-size:5em;padding:100px;'>Click <a download='lookback.mp4' href='"+xLBD.f+"'>here<\/a> to download your lookBack video.</div>";
document.body.innerHTML += xLBD.a;
}
if(document.readyState == "complete")
xLBD.c();
else window.onload = xLBD.c;
  4. Click the “click here” button in the pop up and the video will be loaded without the other page content
  5. Right click into the video and click “Save as” to download the video

Have fun.

(via, via)

In Vorsprung durch Technik
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Footage released of Guardian editors destroying Snowden hard drives

Julian —  2. February 2014 — 2 Comments



Footage released of Guardian editors destroying Snowden hard drives

(…) Heywood, sent personally by David Cameron, told the editor to stop publishing articles based on leaked material from American’s National Security Agency and GCHQ. At one point Heywood said: “We can do this nicely or we can go to law”. He added: “A lot of people in government think you should be closed down.” (…)

In 1984
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“You only have to do a very few things right in your life, so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”

Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett

 Posted by Julian  on1. February 2014 In Smarty-Pants
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HSBC UK Imposes Restrictions On Large Cash Withdrawals

Julian —  30. January 2014 — 2 Comments

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HSBC imposes restrictions on large cash withdrawals (BBC):

(…) Stephen Cotton went to his local HSBC branch this month to withdraw £7,000 from his instant access savings account to pay back a loan from his mother. A year before, he had withdrawn a larger sum in cash from HSBC without a problem.

But this time it was different, as he told Money Box: “When we presented them with the withdrawal slip, they declined to give us the money because we could not provide them with a satisfactory explanation for what the money was for. They wanted a letter from the person involved.” (…)

Interesting, that you need a letter of a 3rd person, when you want to withdraw your own money from your own account. Sounds very logical to me.

(Image CC)

In 1984, Money Makes The World Go Round
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Ausländerpolitik der CSU

Julian —  29. January 2014 — Leave a comment

  • Anteil der zugewanderten Bulgaren und Rumänen, die in die Sozialversicherung einzahlen: 80%
  • Anteil der CSU Abgeordneten, die in die Sozialversicherung einzahlen: 0%
In Misc
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(via Jim Boeven)

 Posted by Julian  on28. January 2014 In 1984
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An Interesting View On Inflation

Julian —  27. January 2014 — 5 Comments

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No inflation Friday: the dollar has lost 97% of its value against stamps

(…) Perhaps the even bigger lie is that of the actual inflation statistics. They tell us that there’s no inflation… or minimal inflation. And they tell us that the ‘target’ rate is 2%. Bear in mind that 2% annual inflation means your currency will lose over 75% of its value during the course of your lifetime. But these figures are massively understated. And you don’t have to look hard for proof.

US postage stamp rates, for example, are set to increase this weekend. They’ve been going up almost every year since 2006. This weekend, the rate for a one-ounce first class letter will rise to 49c from 46c, a 6.5% increase. And the price to send a postcard will rise from 33c to 34c, a 3.0% increase.

If you take a longer-term view, the price of a postcard back in 1951 was just one cent. This means that the dollar has lost over 97% of its value against postcard shipping rates in the last six decades.

Let’s look at this another way. According to the US Department of Labor, the average household income in 1950 was $4,237. This means that the average US household could afford to send 423,700 postcards back then. Today’s median household income is $51,017 (and that’s for a majority of dual-income households). This means the average family in the Land of the Free can now afford to send about 150,050 postcards.

It’s a huge difference. The standard of living denominated in postcards has declined by nearly two-thirds since the 1950s. (…)

(Bild CC)

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