The former head of the CIA’s legal division responsible for targeted killings gives a little insight into the practice of death sentences executed by drones

For years, U.S. Forces drove a drone war in the afghan-pakistan border war, tolerated by the pakistani government, to use targeted strikes to kill taliban or al-qaida fighters with hellfire missiles. The purpose of the drone war, which is legally controversial but is also covered by the other states participating in ISAF, such as germany, is to deny insurgents space to retreat and thus weaken them in afghanistan. The attacks are legally controversial because it is not clear whether they are legal military actions under international law in a war sanctioned by the united nations or extralegal executions that take place in a country with which the U.S. Is not at war (targeted killings with combat drones increasingly violate international law).

Under bush, the drone war began in 2004 with isolated attacks; it intensified with obama’s inauguration and troop surge. According to the new american foundation, which attempts to list drone strikes, since 2004 up to the end of january, as many as 2.189 people have been killed, of which between 1.097 and 1.754 to be militants and 32 suspected fighters.

Catalans achieve virtual independence

Thousands of people demonstrated in barcelona for the recognition of catalonia as a nation. In the virtual space, the catalans are already a decisive step further with their new stld…

Countless flags with the symbols of catalonia flooded the streets of barcelona on 18. February the center of barcelona. Under the slogan "som una nacio" (we are one nation) marched, according to the catalan interior ministry, around 125.000 demonstrators – the organizers spoke of a million – through the city. They criticized the draft of the new autonomy statute and demanded the recognition of catalonia as a "nation". At the head of the procession: josep lluis carod, head of the esquerra republicana (ERC), the only party that supported this manifestation. The weekend before, about 3.000 people at a demonstration organized by the "campana unitaria por la autodeterminacion", even called for independence from spain.

The corona restrictions have led to new year’s eve at a significantly coarse data volume in the domestic internet. How vodafone announced on request, rushed to the year between 8pm and 3 o’clock in the morning 16.000 terabyte data through its lines into the hauser – and thus almost 50 percent more than in the same period of the previous year.

Exercise

The data volume has been increasing for years, among other things for more expensive applications and high-ranking photos and videos. However, the increase in vodafone in previous years was only 20 to 30 percent – now the data growth was highly habitable. The pandemic has already taken care of for new records.

The reason for this were the information provided by the corona restrictions. "People were less traveling in the new year’s eve than usual", says vodafone technikhef gerhard mack. "Because most of us celebrated the start to the new year in a very small circle at home, there was a data firework, especially in the landline." many people had streamed films and virtually by video call from the domestic WLAN with relatives and friends to the new year.

A microsoft study shows that with the "digital lifestyle" the attention is impaired, but wants to offer optimistic for the advertisement

The brain changes in order to adapt to the environment. This is now banal. It naturally changes when techniques or media are used frequently. Their operation requires new cognitive abilities and, for interaction, new motor skills, such as moving the eyes across screens or using the fingers on a keyboard or touch screen. A study by microsoft has now attempted to examine how attention, the scarce and therefore contested resource of the information society, changes in response to new media with their information representations and interactions. Of course, we don’t want to do anything wrong with the digital transformation, but new technologies have emerged "cognitive performance" for the "digital lifestyle" the report states. In any case, it is clear that there is a competition between user and provider that can develop an enormous dynamic.

Cover of the microsoft study

A commentary to keyword "vatialeaks"

The omnipotent headquarters of the romische world church hides mental ignorance, visionlessness and incompetence on a whole line behind its facade. A little better than "vatialeaks" could not happen to the vatican. With this great thing you have the guarantee that the public debate remains on the scandal level of the superflat media formats and nothing substantial. There are intrigues. Egg, who had thought that. In the middle of the control center … Yes, the power.

With money that even kids. This will not let the system collapse. For this you drive straight to the opposite church course back to 19. Century so that worldly monetary machine and surrounding dentures do not stand each other in the way. You should look for the chilly automatic design not only in the signposted gambling.

When big brother rings twice

Intelligence agencies, police, hackers, trojan horses, backdoors, eavesdropping, eavesdropping … Complicated encryption and decision-making systems, and lots of people working to either get foreign information or protect their own systems. In the meantime big brother comes to the house almost every day anyway.

Early in the morning the doorbell rings. "Are you mr. Marek trenkler?", asks me a man in a gray work suit. I confirm, nevertheless, the visitor does not believe it immediately. No wonder: I just got up, still unshaven, I don’t look noble at all, and certainly not as noble as he might have expected me to be. "I have just installed a separate mailbox for you, here is the key", he finally grins.

The bureau of industry and security (up) of the US department of commerce has a total of seven chinese supercomputing companies and centers on a blacklist, the "entity list", set with whom US companies do not want to maintain any business relationships anymore. The chinese units are to be involved in the construction of supercomputers for military use, among other things, for the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Supercomputer for the gun development

Specifically, the chinese companies tianjin phytium information technology, shanghai high performance integrated circuit design center, sunway microelectronics and the national chinese supercomputing center jinan, shenzhen, wuxi and zhengzhou. The supercomputers developed and built with their help should be used according to the US commercial ministry for military purposes, including modernization military weapons systems "and / or to support weapons of mass destruction", how it is in a message of the up to thursday.

The supercomputing units should also serve technology developed and produced by US companies. The US commerce is a threat to the US national security interests. US companies therefore can not sell any parts and components to the chinese companies and centers.

Apple’s developer application, apple developer, has been available for download since this week in a new version. The overworked app comes to matching the 22. June launching developer conference WWDC 2020, which is completely virtually held this year. The application allows access to the sessions of the event offered as videos.

Finally for the mac

The main renewal of apple developer is the first-time disparagement of a macos version – this occurs next to the versions for iphone, ipad and apple TV and has long been expected. The app was apparently brought with the help of apple’s framework catalyst to the mac, with which ipados applications can be ordered comparatively easily – that is alone to determine that the application only from macos 10.15 alias catalina run, officially part of macos with the catalyst apps. The download of all variants of the application is possible in the app store. A free DEVELOPER account can be created directly in the app; most content but also without accessible.

Improved user guide

Apple continues to "discover"-TAB (DISCOVER) screwed, the user getting the most up-to-date developer messages, videos and background stories displayed – similar to how to know this from the apple music application. It is now also possible to provide interesting articles with a favorite marker to find them later – this also applies to videos and session content. The stobern tab (browse) was also adapted and allows search for existing sessions, videos, news and background articles. Furthermore, apple has prepared the WWDC tab for WWDC 2020 and entered first content.

Hungary still struggles to come to terms with its ignominious past – and future

In mid-february, hungary’s mundane network traffic suddenly came to life for a brief moment. A list of agents of the former communist regime was made public online; within a few minutes over 100,000 people accessed the document from the internet. This is no small feat in a country where internet penetration is still among the lowest within most of the developed world.

The list in question is a short document containing 19 names of those who already have publicly acknowledged that they were once in the service of, or recruited by, the former secret police. A much longer list containing some 97 names is still pending release. These lists have been put together by a group calling themselves political capital, a supposed "policy research and consulting institute". The group is presently looking into the legalities of making the longer list public.

Photo: lantus / CC BY-SA 3.0

Josef kraus argues that bavaria should use high school graduation grades from "undemanding federal states" no longer recognized

According to josef kraus, president of the german teachers’ association, good school grades are awarded all too easily in certain german states – he cites berlin as the main example. In berlin, the number of high school diplomas with an average grade of 1.0 has increased within ten years "fourteen times", he explained to the bild newspaper.