Mobile-only social networking app Path laid off 13 staffers today, axing 20 percent of its workforce. Rumors of the layoffs have been percolating around the tech industry this afternoon and were first confirmed by Valleywag.
Path founder and CEO Dave Morin, who celebrated his 33rd birthday yesterday, has not responded to requests for comment.
In a phone call today, a Path spokesperson told TechCrunch that the layoffs represent a "realigning of the company" as it places a "huge focus on Path 4," the next version of its app. We're hearing that the layoffs affected primarily data and marketing operations, but Path would not confirm what departments were affected, saying only that "it was across the organization." Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gHLiZR9ofiU/ Tags: packersJake Lockerderek hough9newsbrandon jennings
According to the latest revelation by theWashingtonPost, the NSA isn't just tracking what you're doing on the internet. It's also cataloging who you know, at a scope so expansive that it can barely find a way to store it all.
The latest WP report, spurred by documents provided by Edward Snowden and corroborated by senior intelligence officials, is one of the most astonishing insights into NSA activities yet. Not only does the NSA collect the contact lists and email address books of internet users—including many Americans—it does so at a rate that boggles the mind. According to the report:
During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers...
And that's a typical day. Which comes out to about 250 million email address books every single year. Which is to say nothing of the 500,000 instant messaging contact lists the NSA culls daily.
How It Happens
The NSA manages to acquire such voluminous records by cutting secret deals with foreign telcos, although that doesn't mean that only non-US citizens are targeted. The Post puts the number of Americans caught in the sweeping action as high as in the tens of millions. The amount of data is enough, in total, that it "has occasionally threatened to overwhelm storage repositories," according to thePost.
The NSA also skirts its legal obligation to target only non-US targets by collecting contact lists in bulk from international internet access points. And because the agency isn't lifting the information directly from corporate servers, but instead intercepts it as it passes from one internet weigh station to the next, it doesn't need to ask for the company's permission. It's easier to rob a Brinks truck than it is to pry open a bank vault.
That also may explain why Yahoo has such a higher proportion of contacts being lifted; unlike most of the other services the NSA targets, the Post points out, Yahoo does not offer encrypted connections to its users by default.
Why It Matters
Contact lists might at first blush seem less intrusive than phone or email metadata. But in practice, you can potentially glean far more about a person from their network of acquaintances than you can from those.
Knowing with whom someone is in contact allows the NSA to chart their entire lives, and those of the people they know. Email address books aren't just Hotmail addresses. They're phone numbers, home addresses, family members, aliases. It's not just your information. It's the information of everyone you've ever known.
And even more disturbing than the fact of it might be the scope; the NSA's approach has always been quite openly to collect as much information as possible, but this new report gives new definition to those possibilities. At 250 million people per year, it would take the NSA less than a decade to capture the contact information of every single person on the internet. [Washington Post]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency has been sifting through millions of contact lists from personal email and instant messaging accounts around the world — including those of Americans — in its effort to find possible links to terrorism or other criminal activity, according to a published report.
The Washington Post reported late Monday that the spy agency intercepts hundreds of thousands of email address books every day from private accounts on Yahoo, Gmail, Facebook and Hotmail that move though global data links. The NSA also collects about a half million buddy lists from live chat services and email accounts.
The Post said it learned about the collection tactics from secret documents provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden and confirmed by senior intelligence officials. It was the latest revelation of the spy agency's practices to be disclosed by Snowden, the former NSA systems analyst who fled the U.S. and now resides in Russia.
The newspaper said the NSA analyzes the contacts to map relationships and connections among various foreign intelligence targets. During a typical day last year, the NSA's Special Source Operations branch collected more than 440,000 email address books, the Post said. That would correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.
A spokesman for the national intelligence director's office, which oversees the NSA, told the Post that the agency was seeking intelligence on valid targets and was not interested in personal information from ordinary Americans.
Spokesman Shawn Turner said the NSA was guided by rules that require the agency to "minimize the acquisition, use and dissemination" of information that identifies U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
While the collection was taking place overseas, the Post said it encompassed the contact lists of many American users. The spy agency obtains the contact lists through secret arrangements with foreign telecommunications companies or other services that control Internet traffic, the Post reported.
Earlier this year, Snowden gave documents to the Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper disclosing U.S. surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of phone records and online data in the name of foreign intelligence, often sweeping up information on American citizens.
The collection of contact lists in bulk would be illegal if done in the United States, but the Post said the agency can get around that restriction by intercepting lists from access points around the world.
The newspaper quoted a senior intelligence official as saying NSA analysts may not search or distribute information from the contacts database unless they can "make the case that something in there is a valid foreign intelligence target in and of itself."
Commenting on the Post story, Alex Abdo, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an emailed statement: "This revelation further confirms that the NSA has relied on the pretense of 'foreign intelligence gathering' to sweep up an extraordinary amount of information about everyday Americans. The NSA's indiscriminate collection of information about innocent people can't be justified on security grounds, and it presents a serious threat to civil liberties."
On-air challenge: Today's puzzle is an insider's test. Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase or name with the consecutive letters T-E-S-T. Specifically, the first word will end with -TE and the second word will start ST-. For example, given "sheer force," you would say "brute strength."
Last week's challenge from listener Ed Pegg Jr. of mathpuzzle.com: What familiar saying with seven words has seven consonants in a row? The answer is a common saying in ordinary English. Sometimes it's expressed in nine words rather than seven, but it's the same saying. And either way, in one spot it has seven consecutive consonants. What saying is it?
Answer: People (who live) in glass houses shouLDN'T THRow stones.
Winner: Richard Kerr of Tallahassee, Fla.
Next week's challenge: (Please note: this is a two-week challenge) Take a seven-by-seven square grid. Arrange the names of U.S. cities or towns in regular crossword fashion inside the grid so that the cities used have the highest possible total population, according to the 2010 Census. For example, if you put Chicago in the top row and Houston in the sixth row, both reading across, and then fit Atlanta, Oakland and Reno coming down, you'll form a mini-crossword. And the five cities used have a total population, according to the 2010 census, of 5,830,997. You can do better.
As in a regular crossword, the names must read across and down only. Every name must interlock with at least one other name. And no two letters can touch unless they are part of a name.
What is the highest population total you can achieve? And when you send in your answer, please include the names of the cities, in order, across and down.
If you know the answer to next week's challenge, submit it here. Listeners who submit correct answers win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.
The following is excerpted from Unscrolled: 54 Artists and Writers Wrestle With the Torah, edited by Roger Bennett and published by Workman. Learn more about it here.
“And He said, ‘Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights I will point out to you.’ ”—Genesis 22:2.
FOLLOWING IS TRANSCRIBED FROM RECORDING OF INITIAL OBSERVATION SESSION.
Yes, all right. Water ...
We don’t have any fancy bottled stuff. Tap okay?
Great. Good. We’ll get that for you. So ... you know why we brought you in?
And you’re sure you don’t want a lawyer? That’s your right.
Because you could say something that’ll get you into a lot of trouble. Trouble with who?
Heh ... that’s ... you’re joking, right?
Oh. OK. Well ... then I guess ... sure, I’ll answer your question. You’ll get yourself into trouble with the law.
“All right?” As in you understand?
Good. Because there’s something I don’t understand. And maybe you can help me understand it. Do you think you can do that?
Good. You try. And let’s start with this—and I apologize if I’m kinda just leaping in here ... My wife says I’m a little ... y’know, blunt? But here we go. I just want to know ... I want you to explain ... exactly why you tried to kill your son.
You didn’t ... well, crap. Crap, Abe ... I guess you’re right. That’s why I said you tried to. In fact, it says here ... it says that you were spotted tying him up—
OK. Wow. Sure. You were binding your kid ... and then—and if any of this sounds wrong to you, Abe, you just speak up—but then you were seen putting your son ...
Right. Isaac. You were seen putting Isaac on top of a pile of wood.
He was meant to be a burnt offering.
My son. I was told to make a burnt offering of him.
So ... God. He told you to ... light your son on fire?
After I had killed him, yes.
Sure ... because burning him alive ... that would be inhuman.
It’s what I was asked to do.
God tells you to kill a child ... your own child ... for what? Why? What do you get in exchange for your “offering”?
He had already given me ... given us ... something.
My wife—Sarah ... she was way past the point of being able to get pregnant. But He said He would give us a child. And He did.
This would be ... God again?
He gave you a son. So you could raise him. And love him. Then kill him.
And you just ... ? You didn’t ... question it?
Your wife ... Sarah ... what’d she have to say about this?
Of course you didn’t. And Isaac ... I’m guessing you didn’t tell him either. You just walked him up that mountain and he had no idea what you were gonna do.
So what changed your mind?
Nothing did. He stopped me.
He didn’t come Himself?
And this angel ... what’d he say?
That I didn’t need to kill Isaac.
Because now He knew that I feared Him.
No. God. He knew I feared God.
But that’s not what you told me.
You told me you were willing to kill your son just because He asked. Not because you were afraid of Him.
On the mountain. I only heard your voice. But now ... yes, I recognize it. You. You’re the angel. Calling to me a second time.
I’m an ... ? C’mon. You’re insane, Abe. You’ve lost your goddamned mind.
I’m not. And I haven’t.
And yet you think ... I’m an angel.
OK. Fine then. You got me. I’m an angel. And why is it ... I’m “calling to you”? A second time?
Because you want to make sure.
That I fear God. That’s why you asked me.
Ah ... so He’s testing you. Again. Because ... what? Getting you to stab your kid to death wasn’t proof enough?
But I didn’t stab my—
—Yeah, yeah. I got it, Abe.
He spoke to me, you know. Outside Sodom. Did He tell you that?
He was ready to destroy the whole city ... and I asked Him if He would spare them. If there were just 50 innocent people inside, wouldn’t it be worth letting the rest live? And He said He would. Then I said, What about 45? And He said yes, He’d spare the city then, too. We negotiated for a while. I was able to get Him down to 10—if there were just 10 innocent people, He agreed not to destroy it.
This is ... wow ... this is a great story.
But He did destroy it. He rained fire down on Sodom. Gomorrah, too. Burned them all. And when I learned of this, I thought to myself ... Maybe I should have pushed further ... Maybe I should have asked God to spare the cities if just one innocent person could be found. Do you know why I didn’t?
Because I knew. I knew He was going to destroy those cities no matter what I said.
SUBJECT BEGINS TO AUDIBLY CRY NOW ... THIS LASTS FOR ALMOST SIX MINUTES, FOLLOWED BY A PERIOD OF SILENCE. AFTER WHICH:
Yes, all right. Water ...
We don’t have any fancy bottled stuff. Tap okay?
Great. Good. We’ll get that for you. So ... you know why we brought you in?
SUBJECT WAS OBSERVED FOR A PERIOD OF 90 MINUTES UNDER WHICH THE ABOVE SEQUENCE WAS REPEATED 19 TIMES.
THE SEQUENCE WAS REPEATED VERBATIM.
SUBSEQUENT OBSERVATIONS DETERMINED SUBJECT SPEAKS ONLY THE WORDS TRANSCRIBED ABOVE AS IF ON A PERPETUAL LOOP.
THOUGH THE TRANSCRIPT SUGGESTS THERE ARE TWO PEOPLE PRESENT, THE SUBJECT WAS ALONE IN HIS CELL FOR THE DURATION OF THE RECORDING.
SLIGHT FLUCTUATIONS IN TONE AND ACCENT WOULD SUGGEST THE CREATION OF THE SECOND CHARACTER, PERHAPS AS A PROXY BY WHICH TO CONFESS AND/OR PROCESS SUBJECT’S ACTIONS.
10–15 mg. OLANZAPINE, twice daily. Limit interaction with family (particularly the victim), continue observation.
Mobile-only social networking app Path laid off 13 staffers today, axing 20 percent of its workforce. Rumors of the layoffs have been percolating around the tech industry this afternoon and were first confirmed by Valleywag.
Taking cues from the IoT playbook is Israeli startup 