#DataDump: Inception, Recognition, Space Sugar and more

Researchers Hack Brainwaves to Reveal PIN Numbers, Personal Data*
Inception helmet creates alternative reality*
Twitter Fights Back to Protect 'Occupy Wall Street' Protestor*
Russia’s Former Spooks Invest In Social Networking Propaganda Bots*
FBI to Share Facial Recognition Software with States*
Dotcom’s Frozen Funds Partially Thawed by New Zealand Court*
Wiper Malware That Hit Iran Left Possible Clues of Its Origins*
Toyota Contractor Accused of Sabotaging Company Network, Stealing Data*
Qatari Gas Company Hit with Virus in Wave of Attacks Targeting Energy Companies*
EFF Sues to Get Secret Court Rulings Showing Feds Violated Spy Law*
Storms spoil NASA second bid to launch satellites to Earth's radiation belts; next try Sunday*
UK Govt. Employee Arrested for Downloading Surveillance Footage of Couple Having Sex*
Topless UFO Enthusiasts Return to the White House Sunday*
Sugar Found In Space: A Sign of Life? ... floating in the gas around a star some 400 light-years away*

The Program (Stellar Wind)

from nytimes.com:National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney explains how the secretive agency run its pervasive domestic spying apparatus in a new piece by Laura Poitras.

Binney - one of the best mathematicians and code breakers in NSA history, worked for the Defense Department's foreign signals intelligence agency for 32 years before resigning in late 2001 because he "could not stay after the NSA began purposefully violating the Constitution."

In a short video called "The Program" Binney explains how the agency took part of one of the programs he built and started using it to spy on virtually every U.S. citizen without warrants under the code-name Stellar Wind.

Binney details how the top-secret surveillance program, the scope of which has never been made public, can track electronic activities—phone calls, emails, banking and travel records, social media and map them to collect "all the attributes that any individual has" in every type of activity and build a profile based on that data.

"So that now I can pull your entire life together from all those domains and map it out and show your entire life over time," Binney says.

The 8-minute video, adapted from an ongoing project by Poitras that is to be released in 2013, has footage of the construction of the NSA's $2 billion data storage facility in Bluffdale, Utah, which Binney says "has the capacity to store 100 years worth of the world's electronic communications."

The purpose of the program, according to Binney, is "to be able to monitor what people are doing" and who they are doing it with.

"The danger here is that we fall into a totalitarian state," Binney says. "This is something the KGB, the Stasi or the Gestapo would have loved to have had."

Poitras, who has been detained and questioned more than 40 times at U.S. airports, has been working on a trilogy of films about post-9/11 America.

Blue Moon on August 31

It's a Blue Moon on August 31st! What's a Blue Moon? It's a Blue Moon, according to Wikipedia, if it's "the third full moon in a season with four full moons, or the second full moon in a month. Most years have twelve full moons that occur approximately monthly. In addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains roughly eleven days more than the lunar year of 12 lunations. The extra days accumulate, so every two or three years (7 times in the 19-year Metonic cycle), there is an extra full moon." It's a Blue Moon tomorrow but you may appreciate the Elvis Presley rendition of "Blue Moon," even more than the science. It's Elvis taking you back to 1956 with Blue Moon! You can take in full science@NASA Blue Moon coverage below the fold.

Will.i.am's New Single Debuts On #Mars

Establishment Shill Rewarded for #Obamessiah, #ClimateControl Work*
from latimesblogs.latimes.com: For will.i.am, what started as a fascination with space turned into a history-making song that was transmitted earlier this week from the Mars rover Curiosity... Times Science Writer Amina Khan discussed how will.i.am came to write the song and how NASA came to use the music as part of the Mars mission. “There’s no words to explain how amazing this is,” the singer, of Black Eyed Peas fame, said to the gathered audience, standing on stage with NASA astronaut Leland Melvin, the agency’s associate administrator for education. The song, called “Reach for the Stars,” was beamed back to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where will.i.am took the stage to answer questions from students from Boyle Heights, where he grew up. The song features a 40-piece orchestra and isn’t your standard urban hip-hop anthem, the singer pointed out, because it’s meant to weather the test of time and be easily translated across cultures. “I know that Mars might be far, but baby it ain’t really that far / Let’s reach for the stars (reach for the stars),” will.i.am sings on the track.

Top Ten Reasons We Should Fear Singularity

Do you have a favorite among the Top Ten Reasons We Should Fear Singularity? The present writer wonders if movement Ray Kurzweil popularized with book, "The Singularity is Near," is just another cover for depriving you of freedom? Artificial Intelligence (AI) leaves mankind in dust and decision made to relinquish controls to machines with super artilects (artificial intellects).  This is topic of discussion in super geek program Singularity 1 on 1, an interview with Hugo de Garis. Program host Socrates discusses with guest de Garis, his  book, "The Artilect War." The discussion centers on what future of AI may look like and your prospects, if you choose to be a "Terran," where humans retain control or a "Cosmist," willing to venture into intellectual frontier of hybridization, transhumanism, etc.. De Garis believes Cosmists will prevail with Socrates less convinced! It's undeniably an interesting program in questionable territory!  The present writer finds "economic collapse" a favorite reason to fear Singularity - if only we could blame machines for lousy economy!  Thanks goes to stevequayle.com for the link!

Electronic Sutures Check For Infections, Help Wounds Heal

from popsci.com.au: Stitches deserve a makeover. We've been using them in some form for thousands of years. So while they've stood the test of time, a researcher from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is wrestling surgical sutures into the future by creating "smart" electronic versions. They can monitor sutured sites for infection, and even help in the healing process.

First reported in the journal Small, the sutures, invented by professor John Rogers, use ultrathin silicon sensors attached to polymer or silk strips. Those sensors, once the sutures have been threaded through the skin, can detect if the would site is above room temperature, an indication of infection. Even better, they can help with that infection by heating the site, which (maybe counterintuitively) has been shown to help heal infections. A silicon diode and platinum nanomembrane resistor are used as the heat sensors; simple gold filaments with a current run through them are the heaters.

To make the tiny sensors, researchers use chemicals to slice a tiny piece of silicon from a silicon wafer, then use a rubber stamp to transfer the nanomembranes to polymer or silk strips. Metal electrodes and wires are added to the top, and the device is covered in epoxy coating.

It's an impressive step forward for an old technology, sure, but it could go even further one day by releasing drugs into a site on command.

Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon?

Moon Landing Conspiracy Theories are a cottage industry. Are the theories credible? Bill Kaysing, author of 1974 book "We Never Went to the Moon: Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle," offers persuasive arguments in 2001 Fox Documentary, "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon." Kaysing summarizes observations of pictures and video taken on the Moon: no stars, no thrust crater underneath Apollo Lunar Module (LM) and no apparent thrust on return ascent back to the Command Module. The LM seems pulled up by a cable, adds Kaysing. It's, perhaps, the small details that betray a fake. Kaysing points out lack of any dust on LM's landing pads, although lunar dust observed to be very fine in videos! Astronauts remained healthy never suffering any adverse effects from radiation, despite passing through the Van Allen Radiation Belt. There are good arguments made in the Fox Special, but NASA reps seem detached never responding directly to evidence. NASA may feel more to lose than gain as upwards of 80 percent still believe we went to the Moon?. Physicist Michio Kaku does better job answering Moon hoax criticisms here. The present writer remains skeptical whether LM technically up to the task?   There's nothing to see here.  NASA faked pix and video, but we actually went - just technical difficulty - with pix and video as some argue?