Companies involved in the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL are making headlines today after President Donald Trump signed orders to push the projects forward.
As a result, Transcanada, Transfer Equity, and Transfer Partners stock prices rose on Tuesday. In fact, TransCanada stock rose by 3.54% today.
On Tuesday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump signed orders to to create a path for the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines. Oil companies in Canada and North Dakota are expected to benefit from Trump’s executive order by making it faster for the transportation of crude oil to southern refineries.
Federal disclosure firms showed President-elect Donald Trump held between $15,000 to $50,000 in Energy Transfer Partners stock, which suggested a potential conflict of interest for Trump. However, according to a Washington Post report, Trump sold off his shares in Energy Transfer Partners last summer.
What is DAPL and Keystone XL?
The Keystone Pipeline is an oil pipeline system in Canada that runs through the United States. Launched in 2010, it runs from Basins in Alberta, Canada to refineries in Illinois and Texas. The project was rejected by President Barack Obama in 2015. Environmental activists also protested the project.
The Dakota Access Pipeline is over a thousand mile long. The underground oil pipeline project will run from North Dakota and travel through South Dakota and end in Illinois. The $3.87 billion pipeline was announced three years ago but, sparked controversy over the impact it would have on the environment. Several Native American tribes living in the Dakotas objected to the pipeline.
This will mark a historical defeat for the Native American tribes who successfully blocked the projects through peaceful demonstrations late last year. The Standing Rock Sioux issued a statement on Twitter saying that they will fight back, “We are not opposed to energy independence. We are opposed to reckless and politically motivated development projects, like DAPL, that ignore our treaty rights and risk our water. Creating a second Flint does not make America Great Again,” David Archambault II, Chairmain of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said.
A new study has devised way to stop the spread of fake news. Researchers suggest pre-exposing readers to a small “dose” of misinformation can help stop people from believing fake news articles.
Published in the journal Global Challenges, Sander van der Linden and his team of researchers, studied how to stop the spread of climate change misinformation. Over 2,000 US residents were presented with two opposing claims about climate change. When presented at the same time, people were unable to delineate fake news from real news. However, when readers were given a warning about misinformation, fake news had less of an impact.
Cambridge University researchers found the spread of misinformation is similar to a virus. Social psychology scientists argue that by pre-exposing readers with information about misinformation, then it can help people identify fake news stories. As a result, readers become less persuaded by misinformation the next time they see it.
This new study is based on a theory developed over 50 years, by social psychologist William J. McGuire, called the Inoculation Theory. The Inoculation Theory is the process of supplying information before the communication process takes place; the goal of the process is to make the receiver become more resistant to being persuaded.
Since the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, Fake news is frequently discussed. During the last three months of the election, fake news stories were frequently shared on Facebook. The most shared fake news report was a story that claimed Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump for President; the story had nearly one million shares, just days before the Presidential election.
Many groups blamed Facebook for spreading false information. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg responded by saying, “The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. “We believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible.”
Facebook is working on preventing the spread of misinformation on the website. The social network has launched several projects to prevent the spread of misinformation including: partnering with third party fact checking groups, hiring CNN’s Campbell Brown to lead their news division, implement new initiatives to help journalists spread factual information, and educate Facebook users to spot fake news stories.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) suggests food should be cooked to a golden brown instead of brown to avoid the ingestion of a cancer causing chemical.
Acrylamide is a chemical that is produced when starchy foods such as bread and potatoes are cooked for a long period of time, at extremely high temperatures. The UK government agency recommends new guidelines to decrease acrylamide consumption. There are four major guidelines the UK government agency posted on their website. These include:
Cooking starchy foods until they are gold and not brown in color.
Follow the cooking instructions when cooking potatoes and fries to avoid cooking foods for too long and temperatures that are too high.
Avoid eating too many starchy carbohydrates by eating a well balanced diet.
Do not keep raw potatoes in the refrigerator.
“Our research indicates that the majority of people are not aware that acrylamide exists, or that they might be able to reduce their personal intake. We want our ‘Go for Gold’ campaign to highlight the issue so that consumers know how to make the small changes that may reduce their acrylamide consumption whilst still eating plenty of starchy carbohydrates and vegetables as recommended in government healthy eating advice,” Steve Wearne, Director of Policy at the Food Standards Agency said. Wearne added, “The FSA is continuing to work closely with the food industry to reduce acrylamide in the food you buy, including the development of practical tools like an industry toolkit and codes of practice which will be embedded throughout the food chain.”
What is acrylamide?
In 2002, Eden Tareke, discovered the chemical acrylamide. Tareke found the chemical in chips, french fries, and toasted bread. Acrylamide appears in foods heated for long periods of times, at a high temperature. Scientists are not sure why acrylamide appears in food, but some researchers believe acrylamide is created by the Maillard reaction – a chemical reaction that changes amino acids and sugars to give toasted foods a particular flavor. Most recently, acrylamide was found in black olives and coffee.
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a study in 2002 exploring the implications of acrylamide in food. In the study, the WHO concluded that Acrylamide could cause heritable damage. The WHO also could not determine the levels of carcinogenic acrylamide in food. However, the WHO reported large doses of acrylamide in animals changed their central nervous system while prolonged exposure resulted in nerve damage in the hands and feet.
Northwestern University researchers released a study claiming jet lag impairs the performance of major league baseball players. Scientists assert a trip across two or three time zones can negatively affect a player’s performance. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
“Jet lag does impair the performance of Major League Baseball players,” Dr. Ravi Allada, the lead researcher in the study, said. “The negative effects of jet lag we found are subtle, but they are detectable and significant. And they happen on both offense and defense and for both home and away teams, often in surprising ways.”
Dr. Allada studied over 20 years and thousands of baseball games. Dr. Allada’s team found a link between jet lag and team performance. Ultimately, a professional MLB player’s offensive performance is affected by jet lag.
Dr. Allada explained jet lag impaired baserunning, pitcher’s throwing performance, and essentially eliminated the home field advantage for a jet lagged team.
Surprisingly, jet lag affected teams who traveled east rather than traveling west. “This is a strong argument that the effect is due to the circadian clock, not the travel itself,” Allada said.
Allada reported jet lag may have had a key effect on the latest World Series. “For game 6, the teams had returned to Chicago from LA, and this time the Cubs scored five runs off of Kershaw, including two home runs,” Allada said. “While it’s speculation, our research would suggest that jet lag was a contributing factor in Kershaw’s performance.”
After reviewing the data Allada gave some advice to MLB managers. “If I were a baseball manager and my team was traveling across time zones — either to home or away — I would send my first starting pitcher a day or two ahead, so he could adjust his clock to the local environment,” Allada said.
What causes jet lag?
The medical term for jet lag is desynchronosis, also known as, circadian dysrhythmia. Jet lag is caused when an individual’s internal clock becomes impaired after traveling to a new destination, in a different time zone. Scientists refer to the internal clock as the body’s circadian rhythm.
Jet lag can cause sleep disorders. people can have trouble falling asleep after flying towards the east. Or, waking up too early after flying westward. Consequently, someone with jet lag can have problems concentrating or even experience headaches. Frequent movement can impact digestion. Digestion problems are also a symptom of jet lag as people. People who suffer from jet lag exhibit symptoms of indigestion and reduced interest in food.
Other researchers have studied jet lag and the impact it has on athletic performance in the past. In 2012, Sarah Forbes-Robertson and her team of researchers published a study on jet lag and athletic performance. “Circadian Disruption and Remedial Interventions” was published in the journal Sports Medicine. Researchers argued jet lag can affect performance. Therefore, Sarah Forbes-Robertson explained teams should use and chrono biotics such as melatonin to realign the human body’s circadian clock.
Snapchat has officially released a new design and user interface.
Initially, Snapchat tested the new user interface and user experience on a small group of Android users. On Monday, the company unleashed a behemoth of new features. Snapchat’s new UI/UX include a brand new universal search bar. The goal of the new search bar is to make it easier for Snapchat users to send messages to friends, watch Stories, chat with groups, and search other users.
The company also changed their animations, chat user interface, camera display, updated Stories features, and added Bitmoji to the Snapchat app; Bitmoji will allow for users to make customized avatars.
These were not the only new features Snapchat upgraded. The New York Times reports, Snapchat published new guidelines for their publishers using Discover. From now on, Snapchat will restrict publishers from using clickbait images or writing misleading headlines. Ultimately, Snapchat is attempting to position themselves as a serious news source by cutting down on clickbait stories on the popular social media app. The New York Times reports, Snapchat also plans to implement age-restrictions on certain news stories to prevent minors from seeing inappropriate content on the Discover section.
Rachel Racusen, a Snapchat representative spoke with the Times aboutthe new changes. Racusen states the new Discover section will “empower our editorial partners to do their part to keep Snapchat an informative, factual and safe environment for everyone,” said Rachel Racusen, a Snapchat representative.
Snapchat’s recent updates
Snapchat has been actively upgrading their platform. Earlier this month, Sony Pictures CEO, Michael Lynton, left Sony Pictures to join Snapchat. Michael Lynton will become the Chairman of the Board of Snap Inc. In a statement Lynton explained, “I have been involved with Evan and Snapchat since its early days, and given its growth since then, decided the time was right to transition and focus on my role as Chairman of the Board of Snap Inc.”
(NYCStock / Shutterstock, Inc.)
Outside of hiring new talent to help run the growing business. The social media company released a new product, Spectacles. For $129 dollars, users can purchase Spectacles via a Snapchat vending machine. After a pair of spectacles are purchased, the device is pairable with a smartphone; this feature allows users to record Snapchat videos. After recording a video, the video will appear under the memories tab within the Snapchat application.
After the company acquired Bit Strips, Bitmojis became extremely popular on the application. Bit Strips allow for users to create personalized emojis, also known as, Bitmojis. Bit Strips was founded 10 years ago. Bit Strips allowed for users to create personal digital comics. By 2014, the company reinvented itself by making digital cartoon avatars. Last March, Snapchat acquired Bitstrips. According to a Fortune report, Snapchat may have paid around $100 million in cash and stock.
Snapchat is consistently updating their social media app. Piper Jaffray, an investment firm, conducted a study in 2016; the study found millennials are spending more time on Snapchat than on Facebook. In fact, 80 percent of teens said they checked Snapchat at least once per month. While only 52 percent of teens said they used Facebook in the past month, which was a 15 percent drop from Jaffray’s previous survey.
On Monday, Sprint announced they will acquire 33% of Jay Z’s music streaming company, TIDAL. Sprint will make TIDAL available to Sprint’s 45 million customers. TIDAL will provide exclusive content to Sprint customers. The telecommunications company explains the new terms and conditions will help Sprint gain new business and “reward current customers”.
In a statement, Sprint reported their company purchased 33% of TIDAL. JAY Z and artists on TIDAL’s platform will continue to provide music content for their subscribers.
Sprint argues the partnership with TIDAL will help both companies to expand and gain new business.
Jay Z also commented on the deal, stating, “Sprint shares our view of revolutionizing the creative industry to allow artists to connect directly with their fans and reach their fullest, shared potential.”
“Jay saw not only a business need, but a cultural one, and put his heart and grit into building TIDAL into a world-class music streaming platform that is unrivaled in quality and content,” said Sprint’s CEO Marcelo Claure. “The passion and dedication that these artist-owners bring to fans will enable Sprint to offer new and existing customers access to exclusive content and entertainment experiences in a way no other service can.”
What is Tidal?
(BestStockFoto / Shutterstock, Inc.)
Tidal is a music subscription service similar to Spotify and Apple Music. The company features over 25 million songs and over 85,000 music videos. Tidal also pays the highest percentage of royalties to music artists.
Currently, there are two different subscriptions: Tidal Premium and Tidal HiFi. The difference between the subscription packages is a matter of streaming quality. For example, Tidal Premium features sound and quality is not exactly perfect. However, Tidal HiFi is the company’s high quality sound package featuring lossless CD quality.
Tidal was first launched three years ago by a Swedish company called Aspiro. The company was able to obtain distribution agreements with three of the major labels including several independent recording companies. JAY Z’s company, Project Panther Ltd., for $56.2 million in 2015.
In an interview with Billboard magazine, JAY Z explained he was interested in partnering with other groups to purchase TIDAL. However, he decided to take this venture alone. “We talked to every single service and we explored all the options,” Jay Z said, “But at the end of the day, we figured if we’re going to shape this thing the way we see it, then we need to have independence. And that became a better proposition for us, not an easier one, mind you,” he added.
Under the control of JAY Z, the company launched a media campaign to market and reintroduce the TIDAL streaming platform. Many recording artists changed their social media profiles to color blue and the hashtag #TIDALforALL quickly went viral. On March 30, 2015, several of the biggest pop recording artists, including JAY Z, Beyoncé, Madonna, Daft Punk, and many others, held a press conference announcing the new music platform.
But what makes JAY Z’s TIDAL different?
(JStone / Shutterstock, Inc.)
In a 2015 interview with the New York Times, JAY Z said the biggest difference between TIDAL and its competitors was the way the company treats their recording artists. “This is a platform that’s owned by artists,” JAY Z said. “We are treating these people that really care about the music with the utmost respect.”
TIDAL also offers exclusive content to their subscribers. TIDAL subscribers were able to see exclusive Beyoncé and Madonna music videos. Also, Rihanna fans were able to obtain exclusive access to new song and music video, “American Oxygen,” via the TIDAL service.
Early TIDAL problems
Debby Wong / Shutterstock, Inc.
Initially, JAY Z’s company needed to overcome challenges. By April 2015, reports surfaced the company fired the original Aspiro staff, including CEO Andy Chen. TIDAL then replaced Chen with Peter Tonstad. Less than a year later, TIDAL replaced Tonstad and hired Jeff Toig, as the new CEO of the company.
TIDAL faced major backlash and criticism. Recording artists, critics, and fans, criticized TIDAL for the inflated monthly subscription fee. Many artists argued the monthly fee will only promote piracy. For example, recording artist Lily Allen took to Twitter to voice her frustration with TIDAL. “I love Jay-Z so much, but Tidal is (so) expensive compared to other perfectly good streaming services, he’s taken the biggest artists… Made them exclusive to Tidal (am I right in thinking this?), people are going to swarm back to pirate sites in droves,” she said.
Lily Allen When Kanye West released his new album The Life of Pablo as a TIDAL streaming exclusive album. Kanye West’s album was downloaded illegally over 500,000 times, according to Torrent Freak. Subsequently, Kanye West released the album to other major streaming companies.
Earlier this week, Twitter’s CEO apologized after the social network forced users to follow Donald Trump’s (@POTUS) Twitter account. A new study found a hidden network of “Star Wars” bots on Twitter.
Researchers from the Department of Computer Science, at the University College London, revealed a secret bot network with over 350,000 Twitter bots.
The study reported the creator of the bots controlled thousands of bots. “Here we report our discovery of the Star Wars botnet with more than 350k bots. We show these bots were generated and centrally controlled by a botmaster,” Juan Echeverria and Shi Zhou, the lead researchers in the study explained.
Researchers explain a large percentage of Twitter users are actually bots. These bots have the ability to “spam, manipulate public opinion” and even alter research data uses Twitter’s API. In fact, one of the biggest problems with using Twitter as a data source is the fact it can be easily skewed by bots, Echeverria and Zhou reported in their study.
University College London scientists explain bots have the ability to manipulate people. For example, a large groups of bots, can spam, create fake trending topics, alter public opinions, and contaminate Twitter’s API.
Echeverria and Zhou explained the discovered “Star Wars” bots had key characteristics. One of the key features included tweeting random quotations from “Star Wars” books.
“Each tweet contains only one quotation, often with incomplete sentences or broken words at the beginning or at the end,” the researchers reported.
University College of London researchers argue, the ability to tweet quotations helped the bots to go unnoticed. Echeverria and Zhou explained by using quotes, the bots were able to communicate in the same way as a typical Twitter user. The Star Wars bots never included URLs within their tweets. Nor did they mention other users, or reply to anyone else. Ultimately, bots avoided detection by using these key features.
A large majority of the “Star Wars” Twitter bots never retweet or mention any other Twitter users. After registering, Twitter bots immediately started tweeting. The “Star Wars” Twitter bots tweeted up to 150,000 times per day. On July 14, 2013 all of the bots immediately stopped tweeting. Zhou and Echeverria argue this demonstrates someone controlled the large network of bots.
What does the ‘Star Wars’ botnet mean for cybersecurity?
Zhou and Echeverria’s study illustrates how people can manipulate and hide within the social network. Botnets can possibly control public opinion by affecting trending topics. Not to mention, the botnets are being sold on the black market as fake followers. Zhou and Echeverria explain this research should alert cybersecurity experts about the vulnerabilities within Twitter’s social network.
Researchers also revealed their research has led to another discovery; Zhou and Echeverria recently discovered over 500,000 bot network.
This is not the first time bots made headlines. Hackers used bots and stole $3,000,000 per day from video advertising companies by using bot farms. According to analysts, hackers used bots to watch as many as 300 million video ads per day on fake websites designed to look like a premium websites. This resulted in the biggest fraud operation against digital advertising in history.
Over the weekend, Twitter users noticed they were suddenly following the official Twitter account of the President of the United States, against their will. On Sunday, the social network’s CEO Jack Dorsey apologized.
Dorsey took to Twitter addressing the issue. He explained that a problem occurred after the social media platform was migrating users from the previous @POTUS account to the new one. Dorsey revealed over 500,000 accounts became affected following the migration.
Dorsey stated that the Obama administration worked on creating a transition plan for the 45th President of the United States. But, because @POTUS is not a personal account, the Obama administration felt that they should transition accounts with followers but have the new @Potus account have 0 tweets.
Jack Dorsey emphasized that the transition started at 12PM on January 20th. The plan was as follows, “If you were following @POTUS before 12p ET, by end of day, you’d be following *two* accounts: @POTUS44 (44th Admin) and @POTUS (45th Admin),” Dorsey explained.
But, two problems occurred. The first problem was that people who followed @POTUS44 were also set to follow @POTUS. People who unfollowed @POTUS in the past were now following @POTUS.
“We believe this affected about 560,000 people. This was a mistake, it wasn’t right, we own it, and we apologize. No excuses,” Dorsey said.
All: we investigated what happened here, and we made some mistakes (which have been corrected). Some context first. https://t.co/W1n3Xs6LaN
Launched was launched in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. The Twitter app gained in popularity and by 2012, the social network had more than 100 million users with over 340 million tweets a day. According to a New York Times report, Twitter was the biggest social media mover and shaker during election day 2016. In fact, there were more than 27,000 posts every minute by 11 a.m.
Despite Twitter’s extreme popularity during the election, Twitter has struggled to make a profit. Consequently, the company announced a plan to lay off 9% of their staff; this resulted in the end of Twitter’s social video app Vine, which officially shut down earlier this month.
Lavabit is back. On Inauguration Day, Lavabit relaunched their service.
On January 20th, Lavabit announced on their website, this day was a symbolic day for the company. Since January 20th was a symbolic day for Lavabit, Ladar Levision, the company’s owner and operator, decided to relaunch the company.
“In August 2013, I was forced to make a difficult decision: violate the rights of the American people and my global customers or shut down,” Levison said. “I chose Freedom. Much has changed since my decision, but unfortunately much has not in our post-Snowden world. Email continues to be the heart of our cyber-identities, but as evidenced by recent jaw-dropping headlines it remains insecure, unreliable, and easily readable by an attacker.”
“Today, we start a new freedom journey and inaugurate the next-generation of email privacy and security,” Levison added.
Lavabit plans to release DIME, also known as Dark Internet Mail Environment. DIME is a new type of encrypted email service. In addition to launching an encrypted email service, Lavabit will release Magma, an open source and free mail server. Together, Lavabit hopes to provide several layers of e-mail security. In addition, Levison calls the new product “radically different from any other encrypted platform, solving security problems others neglect.” The company also asserts that the new email encryption service is secure on both ends providing users a way to send encrypted emails.
At the moment, Lavabit is pre-registering new users and the products and services are 50% off. The standard package has 5 GB and costs $15 per year. The Premier package is 20 GB and costs $30 per year.
How does DIME work?
The company explains that DIME is a secure communications platform that uses PGP based encryption. “By encrypting all facets of an email transmission (body, metadata and transport layer), DIME guarantees the security of users and the least amount of information leakage possible.” In addition, there are several types of encrypted email service including Trustful, Cautious and Paranoid mode.
What is Lavabit?
Lavabit first launched in 2004. However, nine years later on August 8, 2013 the U.S. government ordered the company to turn over their private SSL keys in order to obtain Edward Snowden’s email account information.
The company first launched after the company’s owner reported privacy issues with Gmail, Google’s popular email service. At the time, Google was able to scan the content of a gmail user’s email in order to present targeted advertising. In order to increase privacy protection Lavabit offered encryption services. The company specifically used asymmetric encryption. A type of encryption that requires two different keys. One key encrypts a message and another key has the ability to decrypt the message. By August 2013, the company had over 400,000 users.
Lavabit’s association with Edward Snowden
Stock Photo: WASHINGTON – OCTOBER 26: Signs held by protesters during a rally against mass surveillance in Washington, DC on October 26, 2013. (Rena Schild / Shutterstock.com)
By July 2013 Lavabit was in the middle of a media circus. It was revealed that Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked confidential information to the public before escaping to Russia used Lavabit’s email service.
Edward Snowden made international headlines after leaking information revealing several surveillance programs that showed cooperation between telecommunication companies, European governments and the NSA.
The federal government would later charge Edward Snowden with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 along with theft of government property. Two days later, Snowden traveled to Moscow, Russia. Since then, Edward Snowden has lived in an undisclosed location in Russia after obtaining asylum.
However, it was after using the email address [email protected] Snowden was able to hold a press conference at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Russia. That is when Lavabit and the company’s owner Ladar Levison’s problems started.
Lavabit (temporary) Shutdown
In July 2013 the federal government obtained a search warrant demanding that Lavabit reveal the SSL keys used to encrypt the email service. By August 2013, Lavabit shut down their operations. Levison later explained he was under a gag order. In turn, he was unable to explain why the service had ended. According to an NBC news report, Levison explained that it was a “difficult decision” to shut down Lavabit. Levison argued that he did not want “to become complicit in crimes against the American people.”
Following the Edward Snowden controversy another email encryption company shut down. Silent Circle announced that they would also shut down after the company reported being able to “see the writing on the wall”.
In 2017, Lavabit explains that they suspended their service to protect their customers. Levison argued their decision to suspend their service came after the federal government ordered them to release their private keys. “We said NO to protect your digital privacy and freedom. We have and always will protect you.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have discovered a link between pet rats and a Seoul virus outbreak. After working with the Illinois and Wisconsin Department of Health Services, the CDC discovered virus infections in eight different people who worked at rat-breeding facilities.
This type of virus infection in the United States is not common. In fact, this is the first known outbreak linked to pet rats.
The investigation into the virus first started in December after a rat breeder was hospitalized after exhibiting a fever, headache and other symptoms. The CDC then tested the blood and confirmed that the infection was caused by the Seoul virus. A family member who worked with rats also tested positive for the virus. Fortunately, they have recovered.
The CDC points out that after an investigation “several rat breeders that supplied the initial patient’s rats revealed an additional six cases of Seoul virus at two Illinois rat breeding facilities,” the CDC said.
Health Departments will be working with the CDC to continue investigating the virus outbreak. Furthermore, the CDC will be reaching out to rat breeders to further investigate how people became exposed to the virus.
What is the Seoul virus?
Seoul virus spreads after someone comes into contact with infected blood, saliva or other infectious bodily fluids. Asia has a high rate of Seoul infections. Symptoms include fever, severe headaches, abdominal pain, blurred vision, or a rash. However, the recovery rate for this type of virus infections are high.
To prevent a Seoul virus infection, the CDC suggests for people to frequently wash their hands. The CDC also recommends rat owners to keep rodents secured in their cages, clean and disinfect rodent areas. In addition, rodent owners should avoid bites and scratches from rats.
