The Pro Dumpster Diver Who’s Making Thousands Off America’s Biggest Retailers →

Matt Malone doesn’t mind being called a professional dumpster diver. He tells me this a little after 2 am on the morning of July 7 as we cruise the trash receptacles behind the stores of a shopping center just off the Capital of Texas Highway in Austin. Given the image that conjures, though, it’s worth pointing out that Malone has a pretty good day job, earning a six-figure salary as a security specialist for Slait Consulting. He is also founder of Assero Security, a startup that he says has recently been offered seed money by not one but two separate investors. Nevertheless, the 37-year-old Malone does spend a good many of his off-hours digging through the trash. And the fact is, he earns a sizable amount of money from this activity—more per hour than he makes at his Slait job.
...

...If he were to dedicate himself to the activity as a full-time job, he says, finding various discarded treasures, refurbishing and selling them off, he’s confident he could pull in at least $250,000 a year—there is that much stuff simply tossed into dumpsters in the Austin area...

THE GREAT SIM HEIST →

AMERICAN AND BRITISH spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data.

A Look Behind the Headlines on China’s Coal Trends →

To Cohen, the persistent China coal push points to the importance of intensifying work on cutting the costs of systems for capturing smokestack carbon dioxide and sequestering it underground...
...

...Unfortunately, I don’t share Cohen’s optimism about prospects for the deployment of such systems at a scale the climate would notice, mainly because there’s no incentive for China to pay the additional cost, no sign (unless you can identify one?) that developed countries will be willing to cover the difference and little evidence that the world is serious about a much more ambitious push on large-scale demonstration of integrated systems for capturing and storing CO2.

...

...The issue isn’t technology or geology (finding safe storage sites for huge volumes) nearly so much as cost. And remember, this isn’t about the affordability of the technology in the United States or Europe. It’s about the cost of deployment at large scale in the coal-boom countries, China and India.

Deposed Egyptian president Mursi to face military court →

Egypt's deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi has been referred to a military court for the first time, the state news agency said on Tuesday, part of a sustained crackdown against Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

Mursi was ousted by then army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after mass protests against his rule in 2013.

Mursi, who has been incarcerated in an Egyptian jail, is facing trial in several cases in civilian courts...

Five myths about violent extremism →

Citing the “tragic attacks in Ottawa, Sydney, and Paris,” the White House on Wednesday is convening a summit on violent extremism. Its goal is admirable and ambitious: neutralizing terrorism’s root causes by stopping people from radicalizing in the first place. Yet the causes of violent extremism are poorly understood, and programs are often targeted at the wrong audiences. So to help the world leaders at the summit do more good than harm, let’s dispel some of the biggest myths.

1. We understand radicalization...

FAA rules might allow thousands of business drones →

Thousands of businesses could receive clearance to fly drones two years from now under proposed rules that the Federal Aviation Administrationunveiled Sunday, a landmark step that will make automated flight more commonplace in the nation’s skies.

Meanwhile, the White House on Sunday issued presidential directive that will require federal agencies for the first time to publicly disclose where they fly drones in the United States and what they do with the torrents of data collected from aerial surveillance.

...

The FAA’s draft rules would make it relatively simple for real estate agents, aerial photographers, police departments, farmers and anyone else to fly small drones for work purposes. Operators would need to pass a written proficiency test, register the drone and pay about $200 in fees — but would not have to obtain a regular pilot’s license or demonstrate their flying skills.

Federal judge in Texas blocks Obama immigration orders →

A federal judge in Texas last night temporarily blocked the Obama administration’s executive actions on immigration. The judge, responding to a suit filed by 26 Republican-run states, did not rule on the legality of immigration orders but said there was sufficient merit to the challenge to warrant a suspension while the case goes forward.
...

The Obama orders would offer a legal reprieve to the undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have resided in the country for at least five years. This would remove the constant threat of deportation. Many could also receive work permits.

They would also expand the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that allows certain young people who arrived in the United States illegally as children to apply for two-year work permits and exemptions from deportation.

Some 4 million to 5 million undocumented immigrants were said to be potentially eligible to benefit from the executive actions.

Someone (probably the NSA) has been hiding viruses in hard drive firmware →

The NSA may be hiding payloads in the firmware of consumer hard drives, according to a new report from Kaspersky Lab...
If true, the program would give the NSA unprecedented access to the world's computers, even when disconnected from the larger web. Viruses stored on a hard drive's firmware are typically activated as soon as a device is plugged in, with no further action required. They're also usually undetectable and survive reformatting, making them difficult to detect and remove. In July, independent researchers discovered a similar exploit targeting USB firmware — dubbed BadUSB — but there was no indication of the bugs being developed and deployed at this scale.
It also raises real questions about device manufacturers' complicity in the program...