Edward Snowden ARD TV Interview full video

Cryptome  has a compressed video file ( 82MB) of Edward Snowden's interview broadcast on German public broadcaster ARD TV on Sunday available here

WARNING: Your details are being logged by GCHQ 'Squeaky Dolphin' which gives British spies 'broad real-time monitoring' of Blogspot/Blogger Visits. Link

Fitch raises Egypt outlook, cites oppression benefits

“Significant financial assistance from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has eased the pressure on reserves, the exchange rate and the budget, and boosted business confidence,” Fitch said in a report today. “The political scene has been calmed through a tough crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and restrictions on protests.” Link

Egyptian security forces calming the political scene in Cairo

Egyptian protesters killed as state crackdown widens

Thirteen people were shot dead as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood clashed with police across Egypt on Friday, defying an ever-widening state crackdown on the movement that ruled the country until six months ago. Link

NSA: To Protect and Infect VIDEO

Jacob Applebaum explains some of the strategies and tactics employed in the war on internet freedom.  

Hollande and King Abdullah find common ground $$$

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah with Francois Hollande during their meeting in Riyadh, on December 29, 2013

Oh God, Vatican turns to Blair for advise on Syria

Like other aggressive atheists I have some respect and admiration for the reigning Pope. After all, he reached out to people like me. Some would say he grovelled, although I am too magnanimous for that. I fear our Pope has been receiving some seriously poor guidance from his managers concerning the forthcoming Vatican workshop on Syria.. Blair has already damaged its credibility by just appearing on the speaker list. Did anyone glance at the man's CV? A Vatican PR fuckup of the first order. Brainstorming is the very last thing we want from Blair.  The Vatican might not be the Crawford Ranch, and indeed the pope isn't the president of the United States for that matter, but Blair is a curse, like always. 

The Vatican will host a brainstorming workshop on Jan. 13 about how to achieve a cease-fire in Syria so humanitarian aid can be delivered and how to end persecution of Christians there.

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences has lined up experts from the United States, Russia and elsewhere. Speakers include Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian who is a former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Negotiations between the Damascus government and opposition representatives are scheduled to begin on Jan. 24 at the U.N.'s international headquarters in Geneva.

Pope Francis has said a military solution to the Syrian conflict would be "futile."

Syria's Christians fear they are being targeted by extremists seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. Link

TAO: NSA Hacking Unit Windows error report exploit

Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit

[...] Having Fun at Microsoft's Expense
One example of the sheer creativity with which the TAO spies approach their work can be seen in a hacking method they use that exploits the error-proneness of Microsoft's Windows. Every user of the operating system is familiar with the annoying window that occasionally pops up on screen when an internal problem is detected, an automatic message that prompts the user to report the bug to the manufacturer and to restart the program. These crash reports offer TAO specialists a welcome opportunity to spy on computers.

Don't send

When TAO selects a computer somewhere in the world as a target and enters its unique identifiers (an IP address, for example) into the corresponding database, intelligence agents are then automatically notified any time the operating system of that computer crashes and its user receives the prompt to report the problem to Microsoft. An internal presentation suggests it is NSA's powerful XKeyscore spying tool that is used to fish these crash reports out of the massive sea of Internet traffic. Link

Glenn Greenwald: The NSA Can

"Literally Watch Every Keystroke You

Make" Link to Pdf @ Cryptome