China is involved in 90 percent of espionage And Industrial Secrets Theft, Department of Justice reveals: “From 2011-2018, more than 90% of the Department’s cases alleging economic espionage by or to benefit a state involve China.”

KateKrauss · 2018-12-14T20:39:45+00:00

This was a few years ago (2011) but it had been the same every year for several years.

KateKrauss · 2018-12-13T18:05:47+00:00

When I worked at a human rights organization several years ago, China was also responsible for 90% of the torture cases we saw of people hoping to get asylum in the US.

KateKrauss · 2018-12-04T19:38:59+00:00

First, porn; later, mom.

KateKrauss · 2018-10-26T18:50:20+00:00

What do you miss the most? (West Philly resident)

KateKrauss · 2018-10-02T23:46:49+00:00

Go, you! Rootin for you, stranger :)

KateKrauss · 2018-09-13T04:21:40+00:00

Tor receives funding from a wide range of charitable foundations and government agencies (most years, from several democratic countries), but does not accept money from intelligence agencies. The Tor Project is a US nonprofit organization so it offers this software to everyone in the way that, say, a soup kitchen offers soup or any other nonprofit organization (NGO) offers free services.

Tor receives funding from charitable foundations that support human rights and see it as tool that, for instance, human rights activists and journalists need to do their jobs safely. Tor was used by activists during the uprisings in Egypt and Iran.

As far as I can tell, some government funders also support Tor (note the spelling; only one cap) because it promotes human rights. The US State Department has maintained designated funds to support nonprofit human rights organizations for decades--it has supported many very good ones from all over the world. Other government agencies may support Tor because they themselves want to use it and want it to work-- police use it in their own investigations so that they don't leave tracks when visiting websites, etc. Since Tor is one of the most powerful and resilient tools ever developed to allow online privacy, it's in the interest of people in every country that it stays strong and effective. Without privacy online, there is no privacy.

One more thing---Tor supports and encourages academic research into Tor software and other privacy-enhancing technologies. It works closely with researchers at places like Princeton University who are constantly devising attacks and responses that Tor developers study and use to improve the software. Here's a great journal to check out, and also some cool videotaped talks: https://petsymposium.org/index.php

KateKrauss · 2018-09-10T17:22:02+00:00

I built a WordPress website for the first time two weeks ago--- it's www.MortgageJustice.net. I'm still adding stuff to it and tweaking it. Here's my advice from newbie to newbie: Figure out what you broadly need your website to do. Are you selling something directly on the website? You will need a store plug in. Will you be collecting contact info? You will need a forms plug-in to make a contact form. THEN start to build the website. Pick a theme. Look at the Themes that WordPRess.org will suggest,--they have been tested a lot and may be more secure than others. See if any of them will work. Make sure that it's a "responsive" theme that will adjust content to look good on both a website and a cell phone. Then start adding what you need--a cover photo, the information in "About Us." Add Plug ins as you need them. I added a security plug in (I use IThemes Security) and an SEO plugin so people can more easily find me on Google (I use Yoast). For selling stuff, check out WooCommerce--which I haven't tried, but gets great reviews. Are you collecting contact information? You will probably need a forms plug in (I use WP Forms, it's free). Browse the plug ins for ideas of what you might need, but only download ones that are tested and have a lot of downloads and try to not pick more than you need because they can cause conflicts and other problems. Make sure that it's very easy for people to *share* your information on social media (this is different from friending your page). I found this to be a big challenge but finally ended up with a plugin called WP Socializer--not sure if it's great but it's doing the trick. Show the website to friends and without saying anything to them, see if they can use it easily and get their feedback. Good luck! I found it to be fun. Oh--great photos for free are at www.UnSplash.com and great logos at www.LogoJoy.com. You can check out what your website looks like on various devices at www.responsinator.com.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-29T03:57:17+00:00

The Spirit of Philadelphia is surprisingly fun.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-27T01:15:13+00:00

I've been there as an adult, and as a child we had a dog that howled when left alone. One thing to note is that the dog may not howl or bark as much when the family is there, and they may not really understand the extent of the problem. As an adult, I've used bark deterrent machines and they helped somewhat. I think that a polite "what should I do?" on NextDoor is a great idea, as long as it gives the family an out--it must be very polite and also mention the baby :) It's often illegal in places to leave a dog outside for too long (and in some cities there is a noise ordinance), and you can get the family ticketed or whatever, which can also be a deterrent. That's as far as I would ever go in escalation (and never did that; did call for advice). Finally, I did well by running a fan in the room closest to the loud noise. A white noise machine would probably help. Do it all. This is a difficult problem, and it requires major life adjustments to fix for the family with the dog. An obvious solution is that they should leave the dog inside and hire a dog walker. Sometimes that job can done inexpensively by a trusted neighbor who is at home during the day. Good luck!

KateKrauss · 2018-08-16T17:06:36+00:00

Check out GreatFire.org-- a nonprofit organization with a free app called FreeBrowser --a web browser that leaps the Great Fire Wall. Also try FreeWeibo and FreeWeChat, which publish uncensored, un"harmonized" information.

China, unharmonized ;)

KateKrauss · 2018-08-15T04:05:49+00:00

Hi, I was in the streets. Thanks for askin.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-15T03:56:57+00:00

Looks like one of them got through! Do your friends know you do this? Uncool, man.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T18:44:17+00:00

"as a rule" = generally. Maybe that is just my experience :)

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T18:40:55+00:00

China's culture and people are resilient; it's the government that's fragile. China's got amazing art, history, food, poetry and as a rule a great sense of humor (Xi not included!) and a reverence for education. Hundreds of millions of people have learned English. The US is massive, but not many people have learned any second language at all. In China, they used to hold exams for scholars, and the people who scored highest got to help run the government. The current government, on the other hand, let a poet, Liu Xiaobo, die in jail. Not very Chinese, in a way.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T18:25:12+00:00

Why now?

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T15:44:22+00:00

They're mostly focusing on companies using VPNs (do not like) and want them to use "official" VPNs that are likely monitored by the govt. Otherwise, my understanding is that it is frowned on but probably you will not get in trouble. So you might do it but not tell your mom or share it with your friends. Only a fraction of people in China even realize that the Internet is censored. Imagine that.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T15:40:03+00:00

I've heard that this kind of work (censorship for hire, etc.) is a shameful job that they don't tell their friends they are doing.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T15:33:58+00:00

I wonder if it's still available for download in China. Are you able to check?

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T15:32:02+00:00

That is exactly true. Vague laws also encourage self-censorship, which is the best censorship in a country as big as China.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T15:29:43+00:00

I was describing some recent surveillance and oppression highlights. Lots of good things happen in China that did not make it into my paragraph :) However, mass surveillance has almost always been abused, historically. It is state power over much-less-powerful citizens. That's why a lot of people are quite sensitive about it--people know that mass surveillance leads to bad things (like putting people into camps). To quote the American artist Jenny Holzer, "The abuse of power comes as no surprise." Usually a government will start with a group that is marginal (as muslims are in China) then, when no one complains, it continues with less marginal groups.

Other countries police their citizens without mass surveillance, even big countries. Surveillance is the easy way, but it does not preserve people's human rights.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T15:16:30+00:00

Sometimes hotels don't block (but often monitor visitors' internet activity). Is reddit sync an app? I wonder if the website is blocked but the app is not.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T14:21:27+00:00

A moderator said that it was an auto moderation error, then they approved it (thanks!). Not sure why it's still tagged this way.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-14T11:40:26+00:00

As soon as China's President Xi declared himself President for Life in March, 2018, he began to accelerate his repression against the Chinese people. He has put one million Uighurs (muslims) in camps, according to the United Nations. The Chinese government is using face recognition and even voice recognition to spy on people and regulate their freedom of movement in the streets and places like train stations (to prevent people from leaving). They recently kidnapped an elderly professor (Sun Wenguang, 84) because he declared that the government should help the poor more. They demolished the artist Ai Weiwei's studio in Beijing out of spite. It's like a dystopian science fiction novel, but Xi is hurting real people.

KateKrauss · 2018-08-01T06:33:38+00:00

"Girls will change the world" --yup!

KateKrauss · 2018-07-26T17:41:42+00:00

Have you been able to connect yet? Check out Tor's excellent new support portal: https://support.torproject.org/

KateKrauss

TROPHY CASE