What We Read Today 04 August 2014

Econintersect: Every day our editors collect the most interesting things they find from around the internet and present a summary “reading list” which will include very brief summaries (and sometimes longer ones) of why each item has gotten our attention. Suggestions from readers for “reading list” items are gratefully reviewed, although sometimes space limits the number included.

• Downpour Slows Rescue Work After China Earthquake Kills 381 (Zhang Dingmin, Bloomberg) A magnitude 6.5 earthquake killed at least 381 people in southwest China around the city of Zhaotong in the southwestern province of Yunnan. The quake injured about 1,800 and destroyed about 12,000 homes according to reports from the Xinhua news agency. Yunnan Province is a beautiful mountainous region of China. But as residents there and in neighboring Sichuan Province repeatedly learn there are dangers living in the eastern shadow of the Himalayas. Read an interesting note by Michael Palin about Yunnan.

• Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior (Dina Temple-Raston, the two-way, NPR) Just months after the Snowden documents were released, al-Qaida and associated organizations significantly improved their encryption programs.

• Ritalin Kid (Nick Dothee, The Fix) This is the author’s personal testimony about attention deficit disorder (ADD) and addiction (his self-identified topics) and depression and OCD (obsessive-compulsive behavior), this reader’s identified additional topics. It’s not a long article but the story should stay with you for a long time.

• Why the Security of USB Is Fundamentally Broken (Andy Greenberg, Wired) Next week security researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell plan to present malware they created, called BadUSB, which can be installed on a USB device to completely take over a PC, invisibly alter files installed from the memory stick, or even redirect the user’s internet traffic. The functions can remain hidden long after the contents of the device’s memory would appear to the average user to be deleted. The only way currently to avoid the risk of exposure is to “treat USB devices like hypodermic needles that can’t be shared among users.” And, of course, that negates many uses for USB devices. This may be a wise move until a new generation of USB device makers implement new security protocols.

There are 10 articles discussed today ‘behind the wall’, all of which cover details of the Fed’s new reverse repo program.

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