Donald Trump est le pantin de Vladimir Poutine

Chères amies, chers amis, Cela peut paraître choquant, mais il est désormais clair que Donald Trump est le pantin de Vladimir Poutine. Nous devons faire comprendre au monde entier pourquoi, avant qu’il ne soit trop tard… Dans les années 1990, les entreprises de Trump ont fait si souvent faillite que de nombreuses grandes banques ne voulaient plus lui accorder de prêts. Il s’est alors tourné vers de douteux oligarques russes -- pour financer ses projets, et a blanchi leur argent sale. Cela a été et continue d’être une grande partie de son activité. Trump blanchit de l’argent russe. "Nous n’avons pas besoin de banques américaines. Nous avons tous les financements nécessaires venant de Russie." Donald Trump JR, 2014 Ce n’est ni une hypothèse, ni une exagération. Il y a énormément de preuves. Paul Manafort, l’ancien directeur de campagne de Trump, entretient des liens étroits avec les oligarques russes et est actuellement en prison en attendant son jugement portant, entre autres chefs d’accusation, sur du blanchiment d’argent! Voici 5 faits supplémentaires que tout le monde devrait connaître à propos de la collusion de longue date qu’entretient Trump avec des criminels organisés russes. Faites circuler ce message et partagez-le sur Facebook -- nous avons tous droit à la vérité: Partagez sur Facebook 1 Le principal bailleur de fonds de la Trump Tower de Toronto était un milliardaire russo-canadien qui a financé cet investissement grâce à la vente d’une gigantesque aciérie en Ukraine pour près d'un milliard de dollars. De cette somme, 100 millions ont été versés à un intermédiaire soutenu par le Kremlin: vraisemblablement un pot-de-vin pour de TRÈS hauts responsables russes. Le Président du Conseil d’administration de la banque qui avait financé l’opération? Vladimir Poutine. 2 Trump a acheté sa propriété de Palm Beach pour 41 millions de dollars. Quelques années plus tard, et sans réelle augmentation de sa valeur immobilière, il l’a vendue pour 95 millions -- la propriété la plus chère des États-Unis au moment de l’opération! Pourquoi? Elle a été rachetée par un oligarque russe de premier plan -- nous ne savons pas encore pourquoi dans les faits, cet homme a “donné” 54 millions de dollars à Donald Trump. Mais c’est une pratique courante pour blanchir de l’argent. 3 Les opérations immobilières de Trump ont souvent été financées par de l’argent russe, et typiquement réalisées à travers d’opaques compagnies écrans. 77% des appartements de l’hôtel Trump Soho à New York ont été achetés en liquide par de telles entreprises mystérieuses. Au moins 13 personnes en lien avec des oligarques ou des gangsters russes ont habité dans les propriétés de Trump, dont un des plus grands gangsters de Russie. L’un d’eux tenait même un cercle de jeu illégal et très lucratif dans l’appartement situé juste en dessous de celui de Trump! "On retrouve des Russes dans une partie assez disproportionnée de tous nos biens" Donald Trump JR, 2008 4 Pendant plusieurs années, l’intermédiaire financier et “conseiller senior” de Trump était un criminel russe dénommé Felix Sater, célèbre pour être une figure de la mafia ayant un jour poignardé quelqu’un dans la figure avec un verre de margarita cassé, lui valant 100 points de suture. Sater a plus tard aidé à monter des compagnies écrans et organisé le financement des projets de Trump, dont les plans pour la Trump Tower de Moscou. Il fait aussi partie du premier cercle de Poutine. Voici un email qu’il a un jour écrit à Michael Cohen, l’avocat de Trump, en novembre 2015: "Michael, je me suis arrangé pour qu’Ivanka puisse s’asseoir sur le fauteuil privé de Poutine dans son bureau du Kremlin. Je vais faire en sorte que Poutine fasse partie du programme et nous allons faire élire Donald. Nous savons tous les deux que personne d’autre ne peut le faire sans être gêné par la bêtise ou l’appât du gain. Moi je sais comment le faire et nous le ferons. Mon gars, notre bonhomme peut devenir Président des États-Unis et nous pouvons nous en assurer. Je vais vendre ça à toutes les équipes de Poutine, je vais le faire." New York Times, 27 août 2017 5 L’autre principale activité de Trump, ce sont les casinos -- un grand classique du blanchiment d’argent. Il est établi qu’un des casinos de Trump a violé à 100 reprises les lois fédérales sur la protection contre le blanchiment d’argent et payé la plus grande amende de l’Histoire jamais reçue par un casino pour avoir “violé en toute connaissance de cause” les règles de prévention du blanchiment d’argent. Trump est soumis à l’obligation légale de “diligence raisonnable” pour toutes ses entreprises afin d’éviter de blanchir de l’argent sale. Sur ce point, un haut responsable d’une entreprise de Trump a déclaré: “Donald ne fait pas de diligence raisonnable”. Le contexte Vladimir Poutine est un ancien officier du KGB qui a utilisé des armes chimiques, assassiné des gens dans d’autres pays, envahi l’Ukraine, occupé la Crimée, abattu l’avion de ligne MH17 avec presque 300 passagers à son bord, soutenu un régime meurtrier en Syrie, cautionné violences et torture contre les homosexuels, volé jusqu'à 200 milliards de dollars, interféré dans des élections étrangères et déclenché ce que l’OTAN appelle la plus grande campagne de guerre hybride de l’Histoire pour saper les démocraties libérales occidentales. Il est également communément accusé d'avoir ordonné le meurtre de journalistes et d’opposants russes, et placé des bombes ayant entraîné la mort de centaines de civils russes pour simuler de fausses attaques terroristes et justifier la guerre en Tchétchénie. Et pourtant, lorsque la question lui a été posée en conférence de presse, Donald Trump a répondu n’en avoir aucune critique à formuler sur Poutine, avant de tourner en ridicule les services juridiques des États-Unis pour leur enquête sur les offensives russes contre la démocratie américaine! Pourquoi? Trump travaille pour des proches corrompus de Vladimir Poutine depuis près de 20 ans. Et c’est ce même groupe de personnes qui promet d’assurer sa fortune pour les 20 prochaines années (il a refusé de céder ses entreprises en prenant ses fonctions de Président des États-Unis, en violation de toute règle éthique). Trump est *peut-être* un agent de renseignement à la solde des russes, il a *peut-être* conspiré avec Poutine pour saboter les élections américaines. Mais ce qui est sûr, c’est qu’il est corrompu, blanchit de l’argent russe, et que Vladimir Poutine, un dictateur du KGB, l’a à la bonne. Le monde entier doit être au courant, et se rassembler pour empêcher le désastre que cette alliance laisse présager. Partagez cet email tout autour de vous… Partagez sur Facebook Avec espoir, Ricken, Emma, Rewan, Joseph, Morgan, Spyro, Flora et toute l’équipe d’Avaaz et toute l’équipe d’Avaaz PS -- Jetez donc un coup d’oeil ci-dessous pour découvrir des TONNES de sources crédibles, dignes de foi et vérifiées pour tous les faits présentés dans cet email. Toutes nos excuses pour le fait qu'elles soient surtout en anglais! Avaaz n’est pas un média absurde diffusant des mensonges à la ronde pour faire de l’argent -- nous sommes une organisation sans but lucratif et chaque fois que nous faisons une erreur, nous publions une correction sur notre page d’engagement à l’exactitude, accessible sur la page d'accueil de notre site. PPS -- Si vous trouvez qu’accuser Trump de “blanchiment de capitaux pour le crime organisé” est exagéré, considérez que c’est juste la partie visible de l’iceberg de ce qui est connu de la corruption de Donald Trump: Sa “fondation caritative” est probablement sur le point de fermer pour de nombreux cas de fraude. Son “université” a trompé de nombreux jeunes vulnérables en leur soutirant de l’argent. Il a eu une liaison avec une actrice de films pornographiques et l’a payée en échange de son silence -- elle a déclaré avoir également été menacée de violences physiques. Dans des documents produits devant un tribunal, son ex-femme a révélé qu’il l’a brutalement violée en lui arrachant les cheveux parce qu’il n’aimait pas le spécialiste capillaire qu’elle lui recommandait. Il s’est vanté devant les caméras d’avoir agressé sexuellement plusieurs femmes. Des centaines d’employés de Trump ont témoigné qu’il décidait parfois de ne pas les payer. Plongeurs dans des restaurants, peintres ou serveurs, certains travaillaient pour le salaire minimum. Il a été attaqué en justice et obligé de payer des compensations, à plus de cent reprises. Trump n’est pas le diable -- il est un être humain, et comme tout un chacun a des qualités et des opinions légitimes. Mais quiconque nierait qu’il est profondément corrompu choisit tout bonnement d’ignorer les faits exposés ci-dessus. Pour comprendre Trump et protéger notre monde de son influence, nous devons comprendre sa corruption. POUR PLUS D’INFORMATIONS Donald Trump, le pantin de Poutine (Slate.fr) http://www.slate.fr/story/120823/trump-pantin-poutine Ces oligarques russes qui font les bonnes affaires de Trump (L’Obs) https://www.nouvelobs.com/monde/l-amerique-selon-trump/20170330.OBS7305/ces-oligarques-russes-qui-font-les-bonnes-affaires-de-trump.html USA: Deutsche Bank sommée de faire la lumière sur des liens Trump-Russie (Le Parisien) http://www.leparisien.fr/flash-actualite-economie/usa-deutsche-bank-sommee-de-faire-la-lumiere-sur-des-liens-trump-russie-24-05-2017-6981021.php Comment Trump a été sauvé de la faillite par Rybolovlev, l’oligarque russe de Monaco (Le Journal du Dimanche) https://www.lejdd.fr/societe/monaco-rybolovlev-loligarque-russe-qui-a-sauve-trump-de-la-faillite-3577355 Villa luxueuse, jet privé et Poutine(?)... Trump-Rybolovlev, le tandem qui affole les États-Unis (20 minutes) https://www.20minutes.fr/sport/2030351-20170314-villa-luxueuse-jet-prive-poutine-trump-rybolovlev-tandem-affole-etats-unis Le groupe Trump négociait un projet immobilier à Moscou durant la campagne (La Presse) http://www.lapresse.ca/international/etats-unis/201708/28/01-5128347-le-groupe-trump-negociait-un-projet-immobilier-a-moscou-durant-la-campagne.php États-Unis: un juge rend une partie du dossier "Trump University" public (RFI) http://www.rfi.fr/ameriques/20160602-etats-unis-universite-trump-escroquerie-justice-revelation-documents L’actrice de films pornographiques Stormy Daniels avait "peur" de dévoiler sa relation avec Trump (Le Monde) https://www.lemonde.fr/donald-trump/article/2018/03/26/l-actrice-porno-stormy-daniels-avait-peur-de-devoiler-sa-relation-avec-trump_5276250_4853715.html Les propos obscènes de Donald Trump envers les femmes dans une vidéo de 2005 (L’Express) https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/amerique-nord/les-propos-obscenes-de-donald-trump-envers-les-femmes-dans-une-video-de-2005_1839120.html Trump aurait utilisé sa fondation caritative à des fins personnelles (La Presse) http://www.lapresse.ca/international/dossiers/maison-blanche-2016/201609/20/01-5022441-trump-aurait-utilise-sa-fondation-caritative-a-des-fins-personnelles.php Que s’est-il vraiment passé entre Ivana et Donald Trump? (Marie Claire) https://www.marieclaire.fr/,que-s-est-il-vraiment-passe-entre-ivana-et-donald-trump,842929.asp PLUS D’INFORMATIONS EN ANGLAIS Le lavomatic russe de Trump (The New Republic) https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate Tout ce que nous savons à propos de la Russie et du Président Trump (Committee to Investigate Russia) https://investigaterussia.org/timelines/everything-we-know-about-russia-and-president-trump Les connexions russes de Trump (Financial Times) https://ig.ft.com/sites/trumps-russian-connections/ Argent sale: Trump et la connexion Kazakh (Financial Times) https://www.ft.com/content/33285dfa-9231-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923 Il y a une dizaine d’années, le fils aîné de Trump déclarait qu’une grande partie de la fortune familiale venait de Russie (Business Insider) http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-said-money-pouring-in-from-russia-2018-2 Des ventes de propriétés appartenant à Trump suggèrent des opérations de blanchiment d’argent (Reuters) https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trump-russia-fusion/sales-of-trump-properties-suggestive-of-money-laundering-researcher-idUKKBN1F8058 La Tour des secrets: l’argent russe derrière un gratte-ciel de Donald Trump (Financial Times) https://www.ft.com/trumptoronto La Trump Tower de Toronto était “un projet d’investissement et une conspiration”: procès (Huffington Post) https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/11/07/trump-tower-toronto-lawsuit_n_12849150.html?guccounter=1 Si Trump blanchit de l’argent russe, voilà comment cela se passe (Wired) https://www.wired.com/story/if-trump-is-laundering-russian-money-heres-how-it-works/ Le casino de Trump éveillait des soupçons de blanchiment d’argent peu après son ouverture (CNN) https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/trump-taj-mahal/index.html Donald Trump et la villa que personne ne voulait. Et puis, un magnat russe des engrais est arrivé (Miami Herald) https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article135187364.html Tout ce que vous avez toujours voulu savoir au sujet des banqueroutes de Donald Trump (CNN) https://money.cnn.com/2015/08/31/news/companies/donald-trump-bankruptcy/ La Haute Cour du Canada maintient son jugement selon lequel Donald Trump a trompé des investisseurs (The Independent) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-lawsuit-canada-court-approves-legal-case-against-us-president-a7623566.html L’élite russe a investi près de 100 millions de dollars dans les projets immobiliers de Trump (Reuters) https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-property/ Pourquoi un russe a-t-il payé 95 millions de dollars pour la villa de Trump à Palm Beach? (The Seattle Times) https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/why-did-a-russian-pay-95m-to-buy-trumps-palm-beach-mansion/ L’enquête russe et Donald Trump: toutes les étapes, selon des sources officielles (mis à jour) (Politifact) http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jul/16/russia-investigation-donald-trump-timeline-updated/ Voici 10 opposants à Vladimir Poutine morts de mort violente ou de manière suspicieuse (Washington Post) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8507f77dfcb1 Une brève histoire des tentatives d’empoisonnement russes (Foreign Policy) https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/09/a-brief-history-of-attempted-russian-assassinations-by-poison/ Cour pénale internationale: l’invasion de l’Ukraine par la Russie est un “crime”, pas une “guerre civile” (Forbes) https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/11/20/international-criminal-court-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-is-a-crime-not-a-civil-war/#1cf1ce247ddb La pire affaire de Donald Trump: le Président a participé à la construction d’un hôtel en Azerbaïdjan qui semble être une opération menée par des oligarques liés aux Gardes révolutionnaires iraniens (The New Yorker) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal Le business de la corruption de Trump (The New Yorker) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/trumps-business-of-corruption L’avocat de Trump a été “payé par l’Ukraine” pour des prises de parole à la Maison Blanche (BBC) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44215656 Après être devenu Président, Trump a passé des contrats secrets pour vendre des propriétés pour des millions de dollars (Newsweek) https://www.newsweek.com/trump-real-estate-secret-buyers-777276 Quels étaient les liens de Donald Trump avec la mafia? (Politico) https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910 Un avocat russe ayant participé à la fameuse réunion de la Trump Tower admet être un informateur pour le Kremlin (CNBC) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/emails-show-new-ties-between-trump-tower-russian-and-kremlin-nbc.html

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Somewhere in Reunion Island

The Campus Crusaders - NYTimes.com

The Campus Crusaders

Every generation has an opportunity to change the world. Right now, college campuses around the country are home to a moral movement that seeks to reverse centuries of historic wrongs.

This movement is led by students forced to live with the legacy of sexism, with the threat, and sometimes the experience, of sexual assault. It is led by students whose lives have been marred by racism and bigotry. It is led by people who want to secure equal rights for gays, lesbians and other historically marginalized groups.

These students are driven by noble impulses to do justice and identify oppression. They want to not only crack down on exploitation and discrimination, but also eradicate the cultural environment that tolerates these things. They want to police social norms so that hurtful comments are no longer tolerated and so that real bigotry is given no tacit support. Of course, at some level, they are right. Callous statements in the mainstream can lead to hostile behavior on the edge. That’s why we don’t tolerate Holocaust denial.

But when you witness how this movement is actually being felt on campus, you can’t help noticing that it sometimes slides into a form of zealotry. If you read the website of the group FIRE, which defends free speech on campus, if you read Kirsten Powers’s book, “The Silencing,” if you read Judith Shulevitz’s essay “In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas” that was published in The Times in Sunday Review on March 22, you come across tales of professors whose lives are ruined because they made innocent remarks; you see speech codes that inhibit free expression; you see reputations unfairly scarred by charges of racism and sexism.

The problem is that the campus activists have moral fervor, but don’t always have settled philosophies to restrain the fervor of their emotions. Settled philosophies are meant to (but obviously don’t always) instill a limiting sense of humility, a deference to the complexity and multifaceted nature of reality. But many of today’s activists are forced to rely on a relatively simple social theory.

According to this theory, the dividing lines between good and evil are starkly clear. The essential conflict is between the traumatized purity of the victim and the verbal violence of the oppressor.

According to this theory, the ultimate source of authority is not some hard-to-understand truth. It is everybody’s personal feelings. A crime occurs when someone feels a hurt triggered, or when someone feels disagreed with or “unsafe.” In the Shulevitz piece, a Brown student retreats from a campus debate to a safe room because she “was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against” her dearly and closely held beliefs.

Today’s campus activists are not only going after actual acts of discrimination — which is admirable. They are also going after incorrect thought — impiety and blasphemy. They are going after people for simply failing to show sufficient deference to and respect for the etiquette they hold dear. They sometimes conflate ideas with actions and regard controversial ideas as forms of violence.

Some of their targets have been deliberately impious. Laura Kipnis is a feminist film professor at Northwestern University who wrote a provocative piece on sexual mores on campus that was published in February. She was hit with two Title IX charges on the grounds, without evidence, that her words might have a “chilling effect” on those who might need to report sexual assaults.

Other targets of this crusade had no idea what they were getting into. A student at George Washington wrote an essay on the pre-Nazi history of the swastika. A professor at Brandeis mentioned a historic slur against Hispanics in order to criticize it. The scholar Wendy Kaminer mentioned the N-word at a Smith College alumni event in a clearly nonracist discussion of euphemism and free speech.

All of these people were targeted for purging merely for bringing unacceptable words into the public square. As Powers describes it in “The Silencing,” Kaminer was accused of racial violence and hate speech. The university president was pilloried for tolerating an environment that had been made “hostile” and “unsafe.”

We’re now in a position in which the students and the professors and peers they target are talking past each other. The students feeling others don’t understand the trauma they’ve survived; the professors feeling as though they are victims in a modern Salem witch trial. Everybody walks on egg shells.

There will always be moral fervor on campus. Right now that moral fervor is structured by those who seek the innocent purity of the vulnerable victim. Another and more mature moral fervor would be structured by the classic ideal of the worldly philosopher, by the desire to confront not hide from what you fear, but to engage the complexity of the world, and to know that sometimes the way to wisdom involves hurt feelings, tolerating difference and facing hard truths.

The Campus Crusaders - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/opinion/david-brooks-the-campus-crusaders.html?emc=edit_th_20150602&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=63020495

Le point de vue d’OVH.com sur la loi renseignement

Le point de vue d’OVH.com sur la loi renseignement

Hier mardi 5 mai, les députés ont voté l’adoption de la loi renseignement par 438 voix pour et 86 contre. En attendant la suite du processus législatif, Octave Klaba, fondateur et Chairman d’OVH, revient en détail sur les conséquences réelles de cette loi, pour les hébergeurs, les FAI et leurs clients.

OVH a menacé de s’exiler hors de France, si la loi renseignement était adoptée. La loi vient d’être votée par l’Assemblée nationale. Qu’allez-vous faire maintenant ?

Je souhaite d’abord m’exprimer sur la loi elle-même. Cette loi n’est pas bonne pour notre pays. Pourquoi ?

Parce qu’elle va changer nos comportements, notre manière de vivre au quotidien, notamment lorsqu’on utilise les téléphones et l’Internet. Nous allons avoir le sentiment d’être sur écoute constamment et cela va créer une psychose dans la population. Manuel Valls le Premier ministre disait « Nous sommes en guerre », et effectivement avec la loi renseignement, le stress vient d’être transmis à l’ensemble du pays. En bref, si le gouvernement voulait que la population se sente menacée, c’est réussi. Très rapidement et automatiquement, nous allons intégrer les mécanismes de l’autocensure.

Je pense qu’au contraire, le rôle du gouvernement est de gérer le pays et ses problématiques sans que cela ait un impact sur la population, sans provoquer un changement de nos comportements, sans modifier les habitudes, sans modifier nos libertés acquises ou notre manière de vivre au quotidien. Le gouvernement a décidé de nous lier tous à cet état d’urgence terroriste. C’est un fait. C’est un choix. Personne ne peut plus dire « moi dans mon village je me moque du terrorisme ».

63 % des Français pensent pourtant que cette loi n’est pas dérangeante parce qu’être écouté n’est pas grave quand on n’a rien à se reprocher. Quelles réflexions cela vous inspire-t-il ?

Nous vivons en démocratie. Le plus grand nombre décide pour le pays, les lois sont votées de manière démocratique par des personnes qui ont été élues et auxquelles nous avons décidé de donner le pouvoir. C’est dans ce type de système que nous avons choisi de vivre, il faut le respecter. Ceux qui ne sont pas contents, ceux qui veulent changer le système peuvent s’engager, créer de nouveaux partis politiques, participer à la vie publique et faire en sorte que ce genre de loi ne passe pas. C’est comme ça. Voilà.

Quelles sont les conséquences de cette loi pour les hébergeurs et les datacentres en France ?

OVH avec d’autres hébergeurs (AFHADS, Gandi, IDS, Ikoula, Lomaco, Online) ont alerté le gouvernement que si la loi renseignement passait telle quelle, elle serait extrêmement néfaste pour l’activité économique des datacentres en France. En effet, nous avons des clients qui ne sont pas uniquement français. Aussi notre activité se base sur la confiance que nos clients nous accordent en hébergeant leurs données dans nos datacentres.

Nous avons été invités par le gouvernement à discuter de la loi pendant deux jours. La première journée, il nous a été dit que les intérêts économiques ne primaient pas sur les problématiques antiterroristes. Le gouvernement ne voulait rien changer du tout.

Les choses ont évolué le lendemain et nous avons pu rédiger l’amendement pour l’activité d’hébergement. C’est a minima, c’est-à-dire que la loi n’allait pas être retirée et nous n’avons pas pu y inclure tout ce que nous voulions.

Mais la modification de la loi que nous avons obtenue nous permet aujourd’hui de dire que la loi est compatible avec les datacentres et l’activité d’hébergement.

Pourquoi la loi n’affecte-elle plus votre activité d’hébergeur en France ?

Habituellement c’est le juge qui demande de faire les écoutes. Il envoie une réquisition sur une cible précise et dans le cadre d’une enquête judiciaire. La loi renseignement permet d’effectuer les écoutes hors cadre juridique. Pour l’activité d’hébergeur, nous avons pu encadrer les conditions d’application de cette loi et réduire son champ d’action.

1) La loi s’applique uniquement dans le cadre de la lutte antiterroriste. Elle ne peut pas être appliquée pour d’autres cas, par exemple l’activisme politique. Uniquement pour les problématiques liées au terrorisme.

2) Les demandes doivent être ciblées et précises, comme dans le cadre d’une enquête judiciaire classique. On ne parle donc plus de boîtes noires installées au cœur des datacentres pour écouter toutes les communications, mais on parle d’une demande ciblée et limitée. Par exemple, on doit nous préciser l’IP ou l’e-mail qui doit être écouté. L’écoute est limitée dans le temps à 4 mois, renouvelables.

3) La demande ne peut porter que sur les métadonnées c’est à dire qui communique avec qui. Et donc la demande ne peut pas porter sur le contenu des communications elles-mêmes. Si la demande concerne une IP, les métadonnées consistent en une liste des IP qui se sont connectées sur l’IP écoutée. Si la demande est une boîte d’e-mail, les métadonnées sont une liste des adresses e-mails qui ont communiqué avec la boîte e-mail écoutée.

4) Comme dans le cadre d’une enquête judiciaire, la récupération des métadonnées doit être assurée par l’hébergeur lui-même. Il n’y a donc ni intervention d’une personne extérieure ni installation de boîtes noires au sein de datacentres.

5) L’exécution de la demande ne relève plus du cadre de l’urgence, c’est-à-dire qu’elle doit passer par une commission de contrôle qui doit donner son avis au préalable. Cela veut dire aussi que l’ensemble des documents partagés, les métadonnées, suivent des procédures strictes : tout est écrit et archivé, avec une traçabilité. L’ensemble de ces documents relève du secret Défense.

Donc, il n’y a pas de boîtes noires chez les hébergeurs ?

Non, chez les hébergeurs, il n’y a pas de boîtes noires. Précisons : lorsqu’on parle de boîtes noires, on parle d’écoute massive, permanente et totale. Ce n’est pas du tout le cas pour les hébergeurs.

Nous estimons que l’amendement que nous avons demandé ne règle pas l’ensemble des problèmes. Mais le champ d’application a été bien réduit.

Qu’en est-il pour les fournisseurs d’accès à Internet (FAI) ?

En plus d’être un hébergeur, OVH est aussi un fournisseur d’accès. Les deux activités utilisent deux réseaux séparés et isolés. Pour notre activité de fournisseur d’accès, nous sommes effectivement soumis à l’ensemble de la loi. C’est-à-dire qu’en tant que FAI, on pourra nous demander d’installer des boîtes noires sur notre réseau de FAI. La loi va, en effet, permettre de capter l’ensemble des échanges que la population effectue via les téléphones mobiles et Internet vers l’extérieur : vers les hébergeurs, vers Google, vers Facebook, vers tout.

Le FAI OVH a-t-il des boîtes noires ?

Non, nous n’en avons pas. Pas en tant qu’hébergeur, pas non plus en tant que FAI.

Par contre, techniquement parlant, lorsqu’on crée un réseau Internet, ce réseau passe par des NRA, par des bâtiments, par des villes et il est interconnecté à d’autres réseaux. Parfois, on utilise les réseaux tiers pour connecter nos équipements. Il est possible par exemple d’installer un coupleur sur une fibre optique et de copier, sans être vu, l’ensemble des informations qui passent par cette fibre. Techniquement parlant, on peut donc installer une boîte noire, en secret et à l’insu des fournisseurs d’accès.

Pour se prémunir il faut chiffrer les informations qui circulent entre les équipements avec par exemple la technologie MACsec. Ainsi, même si quelqu’un installe une boîte noire en secret, il ne pourra pas voir le contenu des échanges.

Il faut savoir aussi que, dans le cadre de la loi renseignement, si jamais les communications sont chiffrées par le gestionnaire du réseau, celui-ci pourra être obligé de fournir les clés de chiffrement aux équipes du Renseignement. En d’autres termes, le chiffrement permet d’éviter uniquement l’écoute passive à l’insu des FAI.

Le réseau FAI d’OVH est-il chiffré ?

Oui, mais pas en totalité. Aujourd’hui nous chiffrons une partie du réseau et progressivement nous allons installer le chiffrement sur l’ensemble de notre réseau, entre tous les routeurs et les switches pour éviter l’écoute passive à notre insu.

Finalement, que conseillez-vous à vos clients ?

D’abord, pour nos clients hébergement français et étrangers, il n’y a pas de changements, sauf si le client a une activité terroriste. En dehors de ce cas de figure, l’hébergement en France n’est pas impacté par la loi renseignement et tout continue comme avant.

Héberger les serveurs en dehors de la France n’évitera pas les écoutes chez les FAI français. Les visiteurs français de sites web passeront obligatoirement par ces FAI qui eux sont soumis à la loi renseignement. On peut bien sûr utiliser un VPN pour administrer son serveur mais on ne peut pas obliger 100% des visiteurs de sites web à utiliser un VPN juste pour consulter un site web.

C’est pourquoi OVH ne va pas arrêter ou réduire l’activité de ses datacentres en France. Nous allons poursuivre nos investissements prévus. Ceci dit, OVH a également un plan d’investissements pour la création de datacentres hors de France dans les 12 mois à venir : 3 nouveaux datacentres en Europe et 3 en dehors de l’Europe. L’annonce des pays et des lieux précis sera faite à l’OVH Summit.

Pour notre activité de FAI, nous travaillons sur notre box qui cache quelques bonnes surprises … je vous invite à suivre les annonces du Summit le 24 septembre prochain.

Deux sociologues piègent une revue pour dénoncer la « junk science »

L’arme du crime est une revue, la scène, Internet. Dans le premier numéro de l’année de la revue de sociologie Sociétés, Manuel Quinon et Arnaud Saint-Martin publient, sous le pseudonyme Jean-Pierre Tremblay, un article consacré à l’Autolib’, le service parisien de voitures en libre-service. Ce texte, fondé sur « une enquête de terrain approfondie, elle-même couplée à une phénoménologie herméneutique consistante », entend montrer que la voiture de Bolloré est « un indicateur privilégié d’une dynamique macrosociale sous-jacente : soit le passage d’une épistémê “moderne” à une épistémê “postmoderne” ». La formulation est savante. Il n’empêche : l’article est un faux grossier. Un canular.

Lire aussi : L’Autolib’, révélatrice de la sociologie postmoderne

C’est aussi une bombe atomique lâchée sur un bout de territoire de la sociologie. Dans un texte posté sur Internet le 7 mars, après que Sociétés est sortie, les deux farceurs vendent la mèche. Leur but est de « secouer la sociologie de sa torpeur », en démontant de l’intérieur « la fumisterie de ce que nous appellerons le “maffesolisme”….

En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/education/article/2015/03/10/la-revue-societes-piegee-par-deux-sociologues_4590914_1473685.html#GBe4g81pEE5DMR3V.99

We Can’t Trust Uber - NYTimes.com

 

We Can’t Trust Uber

UBER, the popular car-service app that allows you to hail a cab from your smartphone, shows your assigned car as a moving dot on a map as it makes its way toward you. It’s reassuring, especially as you wait on a rainy street corner.

Less reassuring, though, was the apparent threat from a senior vice president of Uber to spend “a million dollars” looking into the personal lives of journalists who wrote critically about Uber. The problem wasn’t just that a representative of a powerful corporation was contemplating opposition research on reporters; the problem was that Uber already had sensitive data on journalists who used it for rides.

Buzzfeed reported that one of Uber’s executives had already looked up without permission rides taken by one of its own journalists. And according to The Washington Post, the company was so lax about such sensitive data that it even allowed a job applicant to view people’s rides, including those of a family member of a prominent politician. (The app is popular with members of Congress, among others.)

After the Uber executive’s statements, many took note of a 2012 post on the company’s blog that boasted of how Uber had tracked the rides of users who went somewhere other than home on Friday or Saturday nights, and left from the same address the next morning. It identified these “rides of glory” as potential one-night stands. (The blog post was later removed.)

Uber had just told all its users that if they were having an affair, it knew about it. Rides to Planned Parenthood? Regular rides to a cancer hospital? Interviews at a rival company? Uber knows about them, too.

Uber isn’t alone. Numerous companies, from social media sites like Facebook to dating sites like OKCupid, make it their business to track what we do, whom we know and what our typical behaviors and preferences are. OKCupid unashamedly announced that it experimented on its users, sometimes matching them with incompatible dates, just to see what happened.

The data collection gets more extensive at every turn. Facebook is updating its terms of service as of Jan. 1. They state in clearer terms that Facebook will be tracking your location (unless you disable it), vacuuming up data that other people provide about you and even contacts from your phone’s address book (if you sync it to your account) — important provisions many of Facebook’s 1.35 billion users may not even notice when they click “accept.”

We use these apps and websites because of their benefits. We discover new music, restaurants and movies; we meet new friends and reconnect with old ones; we trade goods and services. The paradox of this situation is that while we gain from digital connectivity, the accompanying invasion into our private lives makes our personal data ripe for abuse — revealing things we thought we had not even disclosed.

The retailer Target, for example, started sending coupons for baby gear to customers who, sales data told them, were likely to be pregnant. Researchers in Cambridge, England, found that merely knowing a Facebook user’s likes was enough to predict attributes such as gender, race, sexual orientation, political party, potential drug use and personality traits — even if the user had shared none of that information.

Facebook says that it conducts not one but “over a thousand experiments each day,” and a former Facebook data scientist recently revealed that “experiments are run on every user at some point.”….

Read the whole article here We Can’t Trust Uber - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/opinion/we-cant-trust-uber.html?emc=edit_th_20141208&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=63020495

Every day, a small Ant arrives at work ...

Every day, a small Ant arrives at work very early and starts work immediately.

She produces a lot and she was happy.

The Chief, a Tiger, was surprised to see that the Ant was working without supervision.

He thought if the Ant can produce so much without supervision, wouldn’t she produce even more if she had a supervisor!

So he recruited a Bee who had extensive experience as supervisor and who was famous for writing excellent reports.

The Bee’s first decision was to set up a clocking in attendance system.

He also needed a secretary to help him write and type his reports and he recruited a Rabbit , who managed the archives and monitored all phone calls.

The Tiger was delighted with the Bee's reports and asked him to produce graphs to describe production rates and to analyse trends, so that he could use them for presentations at Board‘s meetings.

So the Bee had to buy a new computer and a Laser printer and recruited a Cat to manage the IT department.

The Ant, who had once been so productive and relaxed, hated this new plethora of paperwork and meetings which used up most of her time…!

The Tiger came to the conclusion that it was high time to nominate a person in charge of the department where the Ant worked.

The position was given to the Monkey, whose first decision was to buy an Air Conditioner and an ergonomic chair for his office.

The new person in charge, the Monkey, also needed a computer and a personal assistant , who he brought from his previous department, to help him prepare a Work and 'Budget Control Strategic Optimisation Plan' …

The Department where the Ant works is now a sad place, where nobody laughs anymore and everybody has become upset...

It was at that time that the Bee convinced the boss, the Tiger; of the absolute necessity to start a climatic study of the environment .

Having reviewed the charges for running the Ant’s department , the Tiger found out that the Production was much less than before.

So he recruited the Owl, a prestigious and renowned consultant to carry out an audit and suggest solutions.

The Owl spent three months in the department and came up with an enormous report, in several volumes, that concluded...

.

.

.

.

“ The Department is overstaffed ...”

.

.

.

.

Guess who the Tiger fires first?

.

.

.

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Of course, the Ant.........,

 

 

 

"....because she showed lack of motivation and had a negative attitude. "

***********

"The Characters in this fable are fictitious; any resemblance to real people or facts within your Corporation is pure coincidence only…"

 

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141013141231-20259771-a-corporate-story?trk=eml-b2_content_ecosystem_digest-recommended_articles-95-null&midToken=AQGhCA3LtvJQjg&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=0gX-VWrERJv6s1

GMOs: Why no labeling in the United States?

http://www.emagazine.com/blog/gmos-why-no-labeling-in-the-united-states1

By Victoria Vonancken
Conceivably, you would think you know what you are eating everyday. You had some cereal, a Subway sandwich, and then pizza for dinner. But nowadays food is so much more than you would think. What are you actually putting into your body? With the use of genetically modified organisms there could be all sorts of different things deep inside your food that you would never think could be there. The worst part is that in the United States, we are not able to identify if our food has been modified because GMO labeling is not mandated.

Technically, genetically modified organisms or “GMOs” are organisms that are injected with foreign DNA from different animals, bacteria, viruses and plants. The genetic material of these species is completely altered. It is an unnatural process, which is why places like the European Union, Japan, and Australia have already adopted policies mandating the labeling of genetically modified organisms, unlike the United States.

The effects of these GMO foods are questionable. There have been allegations that they are toxic, degrading to the environment and even can increase a person’s risk for cancer.

Possibly Toxic:  “Twelve dairy cows died on a farm in Hesse Germany, after being fed a diet with significant amounts of the GM corn variety, Bt 176.” Other cows in the herd developed a mysterious illness and had to be killed.

Risk for Cancer: Research conducted by Dr. Pusztai revealed information showing graphic pictures of rats with deforming tumors from the genetically modified potatoes they were given with the hormone rBGH. Due to this study, the government of Canada banned rBGH in 1999. In the United States, rBGH is still injected into ten percent of all dairy cows. Europe has banned it since 1994.

Food allergies: Have you been hearing more and more talk recently about gluten? I am sure that you know at least one person with the allergy. Recently, it’s become so common that it’s almost as trendy as Brooklyn itself. Well, this increased allergy among people could possibly be because of GMOs. The Bt toxin in genetically modified foods can pass through human digestion but has been found that it can puncture holes in our cell walls, just as it does to the insects they are trying to weed away. This in turn can cause intestinal problems in humans, possibly exacerbating the gluten allergy. The trend of gluten allergies and intolerance increasing along with the increased use of GMOs may not be a coincidence.

At least 21 countries and the European Union have established some form of mandatory labeling. In Europe, if any ingredient in a food has .9% or higher of genetically modified organisms, it must be labeled. This gives the people of Europe a choice on whether or not to take part in genetically modified food. The U.S still has no labeling policy.

As the years go on, more information seems to be sneaking out about the truth of genetically engineered foods and their possible adverse effects. Genetically modified organisms are still relatively new and even with these small doses of evidence, there is still so much unknown about GMOS.

For more info:

Just Label It Campaign

Everything you need to know about GMOs

Shock Findings in New GMO Study: Rats Fed Lifetime of GM Corn Grow Horrifying Tumors, 70% of Females Die Early

Should Use Of Genetically Modified Organisms Be Labeled?

Genetically Modified Crops Have Led To Pesticide Increase, Study Finds

Rendez-vous familial annuel au Bost

Juillet 2014

1.  

Pesticides : l'étude qui révèle leur impact sur les animaux | France info

Pesticides : l'étude qui révèle leur impact sur les animaux

par Anne-Laure Barral mardi 24 juin 2014

Ségolène Royal, ministre de l'Ecologie, s'est rendue dans une école où l'on abandonne les pesticides © maxppp C’est une étude qui ne va pas plaire aux agriculteurs français qui manifestent aujourd’hui contre la réglementation sur les pesticides. Un groupe international d’une cinquantaine de scientifiques indépendants s’est penché pendant 5 ans sur les effets des phytosanitaires sur la faune. Escargots, grenouilles, puces d’eau, papillons, serpents, fourmis, poissons, oiseaux...Tous sont exposés à ces substances appelées néonicotinoïdes que ce soit par le sol ou par l’eau. Leurs effets mortels sur les abeilles domestiques ont été plusieurs fois analysés à la demande des apiculteurs mais les scientifiques indépendants comme Noa Simon-Delso vétérinaire à l’université de Louvain en Belgique voulaient montrer que toute une biodiversité en est également victime. Des espèces qui ont aussi un rôle dans la croissance des plantes, le stockage du carbone dans le sol et donc un rôle utile pour l’agriculture notamment. Utilisation préventive des pesticides Pour Jean-Marc Bonmatin, du CNRS et membre du groupe, l’usage systémique de ces produits et leur mauvaise évaluation depuis 20 ans entraine déclin brutal de ces espèces: "On n'est pas opposé à l'utilisation de ces pesticides mais le fait de les utiliser de manière préventive nous semble exagérée"Certains produits, ont été encadrés voir interdit comme le fipronil depuis l’an dernier dans l’Union Européenne mais pour les scientifiques, ce n’est pas encore suffisant. Ils devraient reprendre leur recherche pour un prochain rapport cette fois sur les effets de ces substances chez l’homme. Pesticides : l'étude qui révèle leur impact sur les animaux | France info http://www.franceinfo.fr/actu/societe/article/pesticides-l-etude-qui-revele-leur-impact-sur-les-animaux-514363

2014- May - [Robert and William Nordhaus] Brothers Battle Climate Change on Two Fronts - NYTimes.com

Brothers Battle Climate Change on Two Fronts

Photo

William Nordhaus an economist at Yale, came up with the idea of a carbon tax and developed a model for determining the price tag of climate change. Credit Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — In the New Mexico of the 1950s, the two brothers grew up steeped in the beauty of the landscape, the economics of energy and the power of science. They skied, fly-fished, explored on the family’s 50,000-acre sheep ranch, watched oil towns go boom and bust, and talked of the nuclear weapons up the road at Los Alamos.

Today the work of Robert and William Nordhaus is profoundly shaping how the United States and other nations take on global warming.

Bill Nordhaus, 72, a Yale economist who is seen as a leading contender for a Nobel Prize, came up with the idea of a carbon tax and effectively invented the economics of climate change. Bob, 77, a prominent Washington energy lawyer, wrote an obscure provision in the Clean Air Act of 1970 that is now the legal basis for a landmark climate change regulation, to be unveiled by the White House next month, that could close hundreds of coal-fired power plants and define President Obama’s environmental legacy.

Called the Manning brothers of climate change, the mild-mannered, dry-witted Nordhauses are scions of a New Mexico family long rooted in the land, which powerfully shaped who the brothers became. But for the Nordhaus brothers, protecting the earth depends far more on dispassionate thinking and intellectual rigor than on showy protests outside the White House.

Photo

Robert Nordhaus wrote a provision of the Clean Air Act that is now the legal basis for a landmark climate change regulation. Credit Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times

They have neatly divided their world — Bill is the academic theorist, Bob the legal mind and political pragmatist — but their work is intertwined.

“I tend to have lots of crazy ideas, and I run them by Bob first,” Bill said by phone from the Acela train between Boston and New Haven, Conn. He described himself as “an academic economist” who has stayed out of policy debates, although his ideas have not.

Bob agreed. “Bill’s work is about what needs to be done and how soon, using the tools of economic analysis,” he said over a recent lunch in Washington. “My work is: How do you convert that into a legal and regulatory policy?”

The two have a friendly rivalry, but both believe that cutting carbon pollution is crucial to protecting the environment and the economy from the risks posed by climate change. They also agree on the best way to do it: A Bill-style carbon tax, they say, would be far more effective and efficient than a Bob-style regulation.

Their story starts in Albuquerque, where their father, the grandson of a wealthy Santa Fe merchant, started the ski resort at the top of Albuquerque’s Sandia Peak and with a partner built the city’s iconic tram up the granite cliffs to get there. A specialist in energy and Native American law, Robert Nordhaus Sr. won a Supreme Court case giving Apache tribes the authority to levy fees on the oil companies that drilled on their native land.

Like him, both brothers went east to Yale, where in 1963 Bob graduated from the law school and Bill from Yale College. From there Bob headed to Washington for a job as a staff lawyer in the House legislative counsel’s office.

He was still there in 1970, working on the bill that would become the Clean Air Act, when his bosses came to him with an unusual assignment: The legislation already included language to regulate known pollutants, such as mercury and smog, but could he write a provision giving the federal government the authority to regulate as-yet-unknown pollutants of the future?

Bob wrote the provision — it became Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act — at a time when carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, was not considered harmful. It was not until 2009 that the Environmental Protection Agency defined carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant because of its contribution to global warming. Thus it falls into the category of an unknown “pollutant of the future.” Section 111(d), after languishing in obscurity for decades, is now the legal rationale for the Obama administration’s plan to regulate carbon emissions without a law passed by Congress.

While Bob began his career in Washington, Bill received a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and began teaching at Yale. By the late 1970s, when an increasing number of scientists were raising the threat of global warming, Bill wrote a paper proposing a tax on industries and businesses based on the amount of carbon they emitted into the air. The idea was revolutionary at the time, but economists, scientists and many world leaders now say it will have a powerful market effect and is the best way to stave off the catastrophic impacts of a warming world. Already, more than 30 countries have passed carbon-pricing laws.

In the ensuing decades at Yale, Bill developed an economic model that put a price tag on the effects of climate change, like more droughts, flooding and crop failures and stronger hurricanes. He called it the Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model, or DICE.

“The name was both descriptive (representing a dynamic integrated model of climate and the economy) but also consciously aimed to suggest that we are gambling with the future of our planet,” Bill wrote in an email.

DICE profoundly changed climate policy. Although the chief political argument against curbing carbon emissions from cars and coal plants has long been that doing so would harm the economy, the DICE models show that, depending on various scenarios, one ton of carbon pollution can inflict $20 to $30 in economic damage — a major cost, given that the global economy emits about 36 billion tons of carbon a year.

Bill’s work “was seminal,” said Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.

But it is, for the time being, politically untenable in the United States. The conservative Heritage Foundation has called the DICE model “flawed beyond use for policy making” and warned that it should not be used to justify “trillions of dollars of government policies and burdensome regulations.”

Here the work of Bob comes in: Mr. Obama tried but failed to push a carbon-pricing bill through Congress in his first term, which is why he has turned to Bob’s section of the Clean Air Act as the legal underpinning for the regulation due out in June.

Bob, who was an energy adviser to President Jimmy Carter and general counsel at the Department of Energy under President Bill Clinton, now says that because he was not writing the provision with climate change in mind, the new regulation is an imperfect and perhaps legally vulnerable solution to regulating carbon pollution. Environmental lawyers note that it has almost never been used.

“I call it the 40-year-old virgin,” said David Doniger, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group.

But one way the E.P.A. will justify the new regulation is with an analysis showing that the economic benefits of the climate change rule would outweigh the costs.

A core component of that analysis? The DICE model.

Back in New Mexico, Bob recalled, he and Bill — the oldest and youngest brothers among four siblings — could not help noticing the changing world of energy around them. In the 1950s, he said, as the Los Alamos weapons program expanded, the state changed “from a pastoral economy, split between ranching, irrigated farming and extractive industries, to defense-related work, which was a whole different world.”

They also paid close attention to the climate changes, and periodic droughts, that affected the family ski business and their lives outdoors.

“Growing up in New Mexico,” he said, “you’re aware of the very fragile ecosystem.”

Brothers Battle Climate Change on Two Fronts - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/us/brothers-work-different-angles-in-taking-on-climate-change.html?emc=edit_th_20140511&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=63020495&_r=0

How computer-generated fake papers are flooding academia | Science | The Guardian

How computer-generated fake papers are flooding academia

Like all the best hoaxes, there was a serious point to be made. Three MIT graduate students wanted to expose how dodgy scientific conferences pestered researchers for papers, and accepted any old rubbish sent in, knowing that academics would stump up the hefty, till-ringing registration fees.

It took only a handful of days. The students wrote a simple computer program that churned out gobbledegook and presented it as an academic paper. They put their names on one of the papers, sent it to a conference, and promptly had it accepted. The sting, in 2005, revealed a farce that lay at the heart of science.

But this is the hoax that keeps on giving. The creators of the automatic nonsense generator, Jeremy Stribling, Dan Aguayo and Maxwell Krohn, have made the SCIgen program free to download. And scientists have been using it in their droves. This week, Nature reported, French researcher Cyril Labbé revealed that 16 gobbledegook papers created by SCIgen had been used by German academic publisher Springer. More than 100 more fake SCIgen papers were published by the US Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Both organisations have now taken steps to remove the papers.

Hoaxes in academia are nothing new. In 1996, mathematician Alan Sokal riled postmodernists by publishing a nonsense paper in the leading US journal, Social Text. It was laden with meaningless phrases but, as Sokal said, it sounded good to them. Other fields have not been immune. In 1964, critics of modern art were wowed by the work of Pierre Brassau, who turned out to be a four-year-old chimpanzee. In a more convoluted case, Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of France's best-known philosophers, was left to ponder his own expertise after quoting the lectures of Jean-Baptiste Botul as evidence that Kant was a fake, only to find out that Botul was the fake, an invention of a French reporter.

Just as the students wrote a quick and dirty program to churn out nonsense papers, so Labbé has written one to spot the papers. He has made it freely available, so publishers and conference organisers have no excuse for accepting nonsense work in future.

Krohn, who has now founded a startup called Keybase.io in New York that provides encryption to programmers, said Labbé's detective work revealed how deep the problem ran. Academics are under intense pressure to publish, conferences and journals want to turn their papers into profits, and universities want them published. "This ought to be a shock to people," Krohn said. "There's this whole academic underground where everyone seems to benefit, but they are wasting time and money and adding nothing to science. The institutions are being ripped off, because they pay publishers huge subscriptions for this stuff."

Krohn sees an arms race brewing, in which computers churn out ever more convincing papers, while other programs are designed to sniff them out. Does he regret the beast he helped unleash, or is he proud that it is still exposing weaknesses in the world of science? "I'm psyched, it's so great. These papers are so funny, you read them and can't help but laugh. They are total bullshit. And I don't see this going away."

• This article was amended on 27 February 2014, to cite Nature as the source of the story

How computer-generated fake papers are flooding academia | Science | The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2014/feb/26/how-computer-generated-fake-papers-flooding-academia/print

We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer - NYTimes.com

We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer Ben Jones DESPITE great strides in prevention and treatment, cancer rates remain stubbornly high and may soon surpass heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States. Increasingly, we and many other experts believe that an important culprit may be our own medical practices: We are silently irradiating ourselves to death. The use of medical imaging with high-dose radiation — CT scans in particular — has soared in the last 20 years. Our resulting exposure to medical radiation has increased more than sixfold between the 1980s and 2006, according to the National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements. The radiation doses of CT scans (a series of X-ray images from multiple angles) are 100 to 1,000 times higher than conventional X-rays. Of course, early diagnosis thanks to medical imaging can be lifesaving. But there is distressingly little evidence of better health outcomes associated with the current high rate of scans. There is, however, evidence of its harms. The relationship between radiation and the development of cancer is well understood: A single CT scan exposes a patient to the amount of radiation that epidemiologic evidence shows can be cancer-causing. The risks have been demonstrated directly in two large clinical studies in Britain and Australia. In the British study, children exposed to multiple CT scans were found to be three times more likely to develop leukemia and brain cancer. In a 2011 report sponsored by Susan G. Komen, the Institute of Medicine concluded that radiation from medical imaging, and hormone therapy, the use of which has substantially declined in the last decade, were the leading environmental causes of breast cancer, and advised that women reduce their exposure to unnecessary CT scans. CTs, once rare, are now routine. One in 10 Americans undergo a CT scan every year, and many of them get more than one. This growth is a result of multiple factors, including a desire for early diagnoses, higher quality imaging technology, direct-to-consumer advertising and the financial interests of doctors and imaging centers. CT scanners cost millions of dollars; having made that investment, purchasers are strongly incentivized to use them. While it is difficult to know how many cancers will result from medical imaging, a 2009 study from the National Cancer Institute estimates that CT scans conducted in 2007 will cause a projected 29,000 excess cancer cases and 14,500 excess deaths over the lifetime of those exposed. Given the many scans performed over the last several years, a reasonable estimate of excess lifetime cancers would be in the hundreds of thousands. According to our calculations, unless we change our current practices, 3 percent to 5 percent of all future cancers may result from exposure to medical imaging. We know that these tests are overused. But even when they are appropriately used, they are not always done in the safest ways possible. The rule is that doses for medical imaging should be as low as reasonably achievable. But there are no specific guidelines for what these doses are, and thus there is considerable variation within and between institutions. The dose at one hospital can be as much as 50 times stronger than at another. A recent study at one New York hospital found that nearly a third of its patients undergoing multiple cardiac imaging tests were getting a cumulative effective dose of more than 100 millisieverts of radiation — equivalent to 5,000 chest X-rays. And last year, a survey of nuclear cardiologists found that only 7 percent of stress tests were done using a “stress first” protocol (examining an image of the heart after exercise before deciding whether it was necessary to take one of it at rest), which can decrease radiation exposure by up to 75 percent. In recent years, the medical profession has made some progress on these issues. The American College of Radiology and the American College of Cardiology have issued “appropriateness criteria” to help doctors consider the risks and benefits before ordering a test. And the insurance industry has started using radiology benefit managers, who investigate whether an imaging test is necessary before authorizing payment for it. Some studies have shown that the use of medical imaging has begun to slow. But we still have a long way to go. Fortunately, we can reduce the rate of medical imaging by simply avoiding unnecessary scans and minimizing the radiation from appropriate ones. For example, emergency room physicians routinely order multiple CT scans even before meeting a patient. Such practices, for which there is little or no evidence of benefit, should be eliminated. Better monitoring and guidelines would also help. The Food and Drug Administration oversees the approval of scanners, but does not have regulatory oversight for how they are used. We need clear standards, published by professional radiology societies or organizations like the Joint Commission or the F.D.A. In order to be accredited for CT scans, hospitals and imaging clinics should be required to track the doses they use and ensure that they are truly as low as possible by comparing them to published guidelines. Patients have a part to play as well. Consumers can go to the Choosing Wisely website to learn about the most commonly overused tests. Before agreeing to a CT scan, they should ask: Will it lead to a better treatment and outcome? Would they get that therapy without the test? Are there alternatives that don’t involve radiation, like ultrasound or M.R.I.? When a CT scan is necessary, how can radiation exposure be minimized? Neither doctors nor patients want to return to the days before CT scans. But we need to find ways to use them without killing people in the process. We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/opinion/we-are-giving-ourselves-cancer.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140131&_r=0

Where Is the Love?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/opinion/kristof-where-is-the-love.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

John Rawls, the brilliant 20th-century philosopher, argued for a society that seems fair if we consider it from behind a “veil of ignorance” — meaning we don’t know whether we’ll be born to an investment banker or a teenage mom, in a leafy suburb or a gang-ridden inner city, healthy or disabled, smart or struggling, privileged or disadvantaged. That’s a shrewd analytical tool — and who among us would argue for food stamp cuts if we thought we might be among the hungry children?

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, let’s remember that the difference between being surrounded by a loving family or being homeless on the street is determined not just by our own level of virtue or self-discipline, but also by an inextricable mix of luck, biography, brain chemistry and genetics.

For those who are well-off, it may be easier to castigate the irresponsibility of the poor than to recognize that success in life is a reflection not only of enterprise and willpower, but also of random chance and early upbringing.

Low-income Americans, who actually encounter the needy in daily life, understand this complexity and respond with empathy. Researchers say that’s why the poorest 20 percent of Americans donate more to charity, as a fraction of their incomes, than the richest 20 percent. Meet those who need help, especially children, and you become less judgmental and more compassionate.

And compassion isn’t a sign of weakness, but a mark of civilization.

Under Strain, France Examine.textClipping

Under Strain, France Examines Its Safety Net ST.-ÉTIENNE, France — Patrick Jouve, the owner of a game store on the Rue Louis Braille here, assails the government regulations that limit the size of the bright chess set and bouncing balls he has painted on his storefront. If the painting covers more than 36 feet, it constitutes advertising and he has to pay a fee of $1,350. At 57, Mr. Jouve, is, however, looking forward to the generous government pension that will help pay for his planned retirement in the countryside at 62. Down the street, Virginie Chargros, a baker’s wife, depends on the $404 monthly “family subsidy” she gets from the government to help raise the couple’s three children. She and her husband work six days a week and bring in about $2,200 a month, but without the subsidy, they would have trouble providing the family with “small pleasures,” she said. The pervasive presence of government in French life, from workplace rules to health and education benefits, is now the subject of a great debate as the nation grapples with whether it can sustain the post-World War II model of social democracy. The spiraling costs of cradle-to-grave social welfare programs have all but exhausted the French government’s ability to raise the taxes necessary to pay for it all, creating growing political problems for President François Hollande, a Socialist. The nation’s capability to innovate and compete globally is being called into question, and investors are shying away from the layers of government regulation and high taxes. But on the streets of this midsize city 325 miles southeast of Paris, the discussion is not abstract or even overtly political. Conversations here bring to life how many people, almost unconsciously, tailor their education, work habits and aspirations to benefits they see as intrinsic elements of their lives. “You cannot take away guns from Americans, and in the same way you cannot take away social benefits from French people,” said Louis Paris, the 25-year-old son of a couple who live on the Rue Louis Braille, a typical neighborhood in St.-Étienne, which has deep working-class roots and historically has leaned Socialist. “They won’t stand for it,” said Mr. Paris, who is unemployed and has been searching since leaving college for a full-time job that offers benefits. This reality on the Rue Louis Braille, named for the Frenchman who invented the system of raised lettering for the blind, helps explain why successive French leaders have made only modest changes in social benefits. One of the largest buildings on the relatively prosperous-looking first block of the street is the local office for state-financed health benefits. The second block has eight empty storefronts, testimony to the last four years of economic downturn. The median household income in the city is $25,000, about half the national figure for the United States and slightly lower than the average for France. But that figure does not capture how many things the government pays for here. In France, most child care and higher education are paid for by the government, and are universally available, as is health care, three of the most costly elements in the budgets of most American families. The cost of health care in France is embedded in the taxes imposed on workers and employers; workers make mandatory contributions worth about 10 percent of their paycheck to cover health insurance and a total of about 22 percent to pay for all their benefits. The payroll tax for employers can amount to as much as 48 percent, meaning that for an employee paid $1,000 a month, the cost to the employer would be $1,480, according to French government figures. For that, the employee gets up to two years of government-paid unemployment insurance. Parents get a monthly payment for each child after the first, starting at $176 for their second child, and most salaried workers are required to take five weeks of vacation, although professionals and those who own businesses, as do many on the Rue Louis Braille, take far less. The political opposition to even modest cuts in social programs has been intense. Mr. Hollande’s predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative, reduced some social security payments, narrowed the criteria for obtaining unemployment and minimum income benefits and made other proposals he was unable to implement in the face of protests that sometimes drew hundreds of thousands of people into the streets. Mr. Hollande is facing stiff opposition for a proposal that would require people to work 18 months longer before qualifying for retirement benefits. The tension between the pressure for budget cuts and the deeply embedded nature of government programs is playing out in individual lives. Sarah Revet, 31, who lives on Rue Louis Braille, was able to go back to work in a local government office after having children because of a public program that allowed her get a degree that she could use to work in local government. She also had government-subsidized preschool for her 3-year-old and received the government’s family payments, which helped her to afford a babysitter for her 1-year-old. But when she was laid off because of budget cuts, she did not qualify for unemployment benefits because her job had been part time and temporary. Yet, she still believes in a government system that ensures that the poor, especially, have an ample safety net. “I would absolutely make the choice to continue this,” Ms. Revet said. Just down the street, Mr. Jouve, the owner of the game store Tapis Vert, or Green Carpet, believes that the reason the government is in such dire straits is that there are too many civil servants. Government spending accounts for about 56 percent of France’s gross domestic product, in contrast to 44 percent in Germany and 40 percent in the United States, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics arm. “There are too many government functionaries,” Mr. Jouve said as he demonstrated magic tricks to a customer. Referring to the city officials who come to measure the dimensions of his storefront painting, he said, “They make up jobs for themselves.” The mayor, Maurice Vincent, said that there were only 3,500 city employees, but acknowledged that the number did not include the police, the hospital staff, the university’s professors and staff members, and the civil servants who work for the greater metropolitan area. Add those, and the government-paid workers top 25,000. Mr. Vincent’s office also has several thousand workers on “temporary” contracts of less than three years; the positions were created when unemployment in St.-Étienne reached 17 percent, he said. Yet small business owners here, along with many employers large and small across the country, say they cannot afford to hire more workers because of the mandatory 48 percent in payroll taxes on top of wages. Mireille Rogers, who lives on the Rue Louis Braille, runs the Babet Center, a nonprofit social service organization supported by the government that serves one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Since most of the center’s clients live in an area where at least one in four young people are jobless, they see government aid as a necessity. “I would be glad to pay more in payroll taxes so that there would be more for others,” Ms. Rogers said. Some people at the center receive an income supplement from the government to ensure that they have a minimum amount to live on. In September, that was $1,664 for a single person and about $3,100 for a family of four with children over the age of 3. Some people also qualify for a housing subsidy and other benefits. “The state has put in place a system,” said Salvatore Garaffa-Botta, a butcher and the deputy secretary of the largest union in St.-Étienne, the C.G.T. “But we are also slaves to this system.” <img src="http://meter-svc.nytimes.com/meter.gif"/> Maïa de la Baume contributed reporting.