Tag Archives: Technology

Israel Red Alert App Drives Some To Prayer; Drives Others Nuts

It’s an app that tells residents of Israel it’s time to take cover because a terrorist rocket is headed their way.

In other parts of the world, it’s an app that some people use to pray for the people of Israel…and for others, it’s a siren that’s driving them crazy.

Red Alert Israel has been downloaded over 780,000 times in the last week, with about half of the downloads happening outside of Israel.  The app was created in 2012 by software developer Ari Sprung and his partner Kobi Snir, who feared that some residents would not be able to hear the new “Red Color” emergency sirens in their homes.

“People were having a hard time,” said Sprung. “They couldn’t really sleep because they were too afraid they were going to miss the sirens. The app allows them to go to bed knowing the phone will wake them up in case of an emergency.”

The app gives a 15 to 90 second warning dependent on how close the resident lives to Gaza.

Some users, however, say the app is driving them crazy because of the amount of times it goes off during the recent terrorist assault.

“Every time a rocket was launched, my phone went haywire,” Dor Eldar, a 22-year-old dance instructor from Tel Aviv, told the Daily Beast. “I finally had to get rid of it. It was driving me nuts.”

In America and other western nations, users of the app have been seeing the app’s siren song as a call to prayer for the Jewish people.  William Koenig recently praised the app on the Jim Bakker Show.

“The beauty of this (almost a million people now have this app on their iPhone and I’ve been reading it very closely) is the prayer of support from Christians that go on. They can respond to these alerts and encourage people through prayers and comments. And it’s beautiful to see how many Christians right now have this on their iPhones so they can pray – so they can pray to God to cover and protect the state of Israel as these rockets fall,” Koenig said.

The app is available in the iPhone app store.

Israelis Using Smartphone To Track Rocket Attacks

Under attack from Hamas rockets?  There’s an app for that.

A new app has been made available for smartphones that allow Israelis to track the incoming rockets from Hamas and give themselves time to get to shelter.  Half a million people have already downloaded the app in just three days.

Many Israelis are seeing the app as vital because the traditional ways to inform citizens about incoming rockets was radio stations and television interrupting programming.  However, with the increased use of satellite radio, iPod and other electronic devices, many Israelis do not have a television or radio on 24 hours a day.

“It gives us a sense of control in a situation where there is no control,” writer and journalist Debra Kamim, who lives in Tel Aviv, told the Washington Post. “It’s especially useful at night because people are worried they won’t hear the sirens while they sleep, and this way they can have the phone next to their beds.”

The app includes a social element where users can post comments about attacks in their area, damage from any rockets that land and requests for help if necessary.

The app is available in English for users in the West to keep track of the rockets if they wish to pray for Israelis when a rocket is approaching them.  The app is available for iPhones, iPad and Android.

Facebook Page “Virgin Mary Should’ve Aborted” Removed

A Facebook page dedicated to attacking and slandering Christians featuring a picture of an aborted baby Jesus was been taken down after protests from pro-life groups.

The web page featured a photo of the Virgin Mary holding an aborted Jesus who was wearing a crown of thorns.  The Virgin Mary was smoking a marijuana cigar looking as if she was very satisfied with aborting God’s son.

A spokesman for the group Catholics & Protestants Against Facebook Religious Discrimination said that this wasn’t a case of shutting down someone’s First Amendment rights but rather a case of hate speech.

“It’s one thing to say we’re atheists and we’re proud of it,” Cary Bogue said in a statement, “It’s another to say that [Jesus’s] mother should have aborted him.”

Facebook’s policies say they encourage discussion and permit parody on their site but do have a line when it comes to hate speech.

“While we encourage you to challenge ideas, institutions, events, and practices, we do not permit individuals or groups to attack others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition,” Facebook’s Community Standards page states.

Experts Warn Country Not Ready For EMP Blackout

Experts say that the catastrophic destruction of an electromagnetic pulse attack on the nation could be prevented but that most non-military groups and citizens are not ready.

The executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security says that technology to avoid losing power and electronics from electromagnetic pulse exists and that it’s financially viable to upgrade the nation’s power grid for this protection.

“The problem is not the technology,” Peter Pry told Fox News. “We know how to protect against it. It’s not the money, it doesn’t cost that much. The problem is the politics. It always seems to be the politics that gets in the way.”

Pry said the total cost to upgrade the entire nation is less than what is given in foreign aid to Pakistan each year.

The worst case scenario estimated from a 2011 study on the impact of an EMP on the electric grid would be 500,000 dead within the first few minutes.

NSA Recording System Can Catch 100% Of Nation’s Phone Calls

The National Security Agency has a program that is so powerful it can record all the phone calls coming out of a nation and provide them the chance to play them back over the course of a month.

A manager for the NSA compared the program to a “time machine” and said that any individual recorded by the machine can be listened to without that person’s permission or a warrant from a court.

The program is called MYSTIC and started in 2009.  The program has a component called RETRO, which stands for “retrospective retrieval”, which allows the user to search and play back phone calls from the previous month.

The program was initially proposed as a one-off operation but according to last year’s intelligence budget, five countries have come under the MYSTIC program and a sixth country was scheduled to be put in place by the end of 2013.

The program was disclosed by the Washington Post who withheld the names of the country confirmed to be under surveillance at the request of the government who claimed national security issues.

Hackers Target Internet User’s Routers

A new report is showing that internet routers have significant security flaws that could allow a hacker to take control of your computer without ever putting a virus onto the actual computer.

Security officials have found “backdoors” in routers produced by NetGear and Linksys, two of the biggest selling router manufacturers.  The security flaws allow a hacker to take control of the router and guide your web browser to fake websites that could look like Google, Facebook or a host of other sites.

The hackers would then steal personal information that you enter into the spoofed websites.

Many internet service providers give a cable or DSL modem with a built-in router that could be compromised by hackers depending on the manufacturer.

Security officials recommend placing a password on your router with an unusually long string of letters and numbers to make it unlikely a causal hacker will take the time to try and crack the long code.

Nationwide Blackout Possible Using Only Nine Power Substations

A new report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shows that as little as nine terrorists could take out the United States’ electrical grid for as much as 18 months.

The report says that on a hot summer day, a coordinated attack on just nine of the nation’s 55,000 electric-transmission substations would cripple the system to the point it would cause a nationwide blackout.

“This would be an event of unprecedented proportions,” Ross Baldick, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas told the Wall Street Journal.

The article in the WSJ comes a day after a report from a New Jersey utility oversight committee showed a serious lack of security at key electrical substations.  The report also cited the April 2013 attack on a Pacific Gas & Electric transmission station that knocked out 17 transformers with shots from sniper rifles.

The memo from the FERC says the California attack shows “it does not require sophistication to do significant damage to the U.S. grid.”

Criminal Punches 8-Year-Old In Face For iPad

A grown man who wanted a youngster’s iPad punched an 8-year-old Minneapolis boy in the face.

The boy was following his aunt from a daycare building to the aunt’s car.  Aaron Stillday, 32, ran up to the child, punched him in the face, grabbed the iPad and ran up the street.

Stillday, who has been arrested 60 times, made the mistake of attacking the boy in front of Mohammad Armeli.

Armeli had been working at a nearby restaurant when he saw Stillday attack the child.  Armeli immediately began to chase the thief and followed him for a half a mile.

When Stillday was caught, he responded by smashing the iPad on the sidewalk before he could be subdued.

“This is the scum of the earth,” Armeli said of Stillday.  “You cannot hit a child like that.  Don’t hit him for his iPad, or for anything.”

The good news from the incident:  the Apple Store in Minneapolis, when they were informed of what happened to the boy, gave him a brand new iPad.

Florist In Detroit Delivering Flowers By Drone

A federal judge’s ruling that the FAA does not have jurisdiction over drone aircraft is already rippling across the United States.  In Detroit, a florist has announced they will begin delivery using drone aircraft. 

FlowerDeliveryExpress.com, the online unit of a Detroit area florist, originally began testing drone delivery just before Valentine’s Day before being ordered to stop by the FAA.

Federal administrative law judge Patrick Geraghty ruled last week that the FAA’s argument they control anything that flies through the air was so ridiculous that it means the agency could fine someone for throwing a paper airplane or using a balsa wood toy glider.

The government has been calling on the FAA to issue regulations regarding personal use of drones but the agency has been resisting for over three years.  Now, with the judge’s ruling, essentially it’s anything goes for personal drone users.

Berry Flowers said they would be testing mostly in the suburban Detroit area until they work the issues out of the drone delivery service before offering it city-wide.  The business also delivers flowers nationally through FedEx and other services, so nationwide delivery in the future is a possibility.

The court ruling doesn’t just benefit shop owners.  The court’s ruling would allow anyone to use drones to spy on neighbors, business competitors or strangers.  Drones could be flown outside someone’s bedroom windows and there would be no way to stop them.

Syrian Jets Threaten Israel

Israel scrambled their jets to the Syrian border after Syrian fighter jets and a helicopter were spotted rushing toward the border.

A report on Israeli TV said that the jets made it to a few hundred meters of the border before they turned back when the Israeli aircraft arrived on site.  There was no direct conflict between the two countries’ planes.

A source told Haaretz that while Syrian aircraft in the area is not uncommon, the massive amount of planes in a short time was unusual.  The call for the Israeli jets to scramble in response is considered “very rare.”

The report on TV station Channel 2 said that the scrambling of the jets also came because Syria did not notify Israel of increases in plane activity.  Syria claims that they need to bring their flights near the border as part of their fight against rebels attempting to overthrow the government.

The Israeli Defense Force said that they spotted terrorists at the Syrian border placing explosives on Friday.