Russian Hackers Steal Democratic National Committee's Opposition Research On Trump

[From article]
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.
The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC’s system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts.
The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
A Russian Embassy spokesman said he had no knowledge of such intrusions.
[. . .]



The intrusions are an example of Russia’s interest in the U.S. political system and its desire to understand the policies, strengths and weaknesses of a potential future president — much as American spies gather similar information on foreign candidates and leaders.
The depth of the penetration reflects the skill and determination of the United States’ top cyber adversary as Russia goes after strategic targets, from the White House and State Department to political campaign organizations.
[. . .]
“It’s the job of every foreign intelligence service to collect intelligence against their adversaries,” said Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm called in to handle the DNC breach and a former head of the FBI’s cyber division. He noted that it is extremely difficult for a civilian organization to protect itself from a skilled and determined state such as Russia.
“We’re perceived as an adversary of Russia,” he said. “Their job when they wake up every day is to gather intelligence against the policies, practices and strategies of the U.S. government. There are a variety of ways. [Hacking] is one of the more valuable because it gives you a treasure trove of information.”
[. . .]



Trump has not been a politician for very long, so foreign agencies are playing catch-up, analysts say.
“The purpose of such intelligence gathering is to understand the target’s proclivities,” said Robert Deitz, former senior councillor to the CIA director and a former general counsel at the National Security Agency. “Trump’s foreign investments, for example, would be relevant to understanding how he would deal with countries where he has those investments” should he be elected, Deitz said. “They may provide tips for understanding his style of negotiating. In short, this sort of intelligence could be used by Russia, for example, to indicate where it can get away with foreign adventurism.”
[. . .]
Within 24 hours, CrowdStrike had installed software on the DNC’s computers so that it could analyze data that could indicate who had gained access, when and how.
The firm identified two separate hacker groups, both working for the Russian government, that had infiltrated the network, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder and chief technology officer. The firm had analyzed other breaches by both groups over the past two years.
One group, which CrowdStrike had dubbed Cozy Bear, had gained access last summer and was monitoring the DNC’s email and chat communications, Alperovitch said.
The other, which the firm had named Fancy Bear, broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files, Henry said. And they had access to the computers of the entire research staff — an average of about several dozen on any given day.
The computers contained research going back years on Trump. “It’s a huge job” to dig into the dealings of somebody who has never run for office before, Dacey said.
CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC employees with “spearphishing” emails. These are communications that appear legitimate — often made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted — but that contain links or attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access to a computer. “But we don’t have hard evidence,” Alperovitch said.
The two groups did not appear to be working together, Alperovitch said. Fancy Bear is believed to work for the GRU, or Russia’s military intelligence service, he said. CrowdStrike is less sure of whom Cozy Bear works for but thinks it might be the Federal Security Service or FSB, the country’s powerful security agency, which was once headed by Putin.
[. . .]



The two groups have hacked government agencies, tech companies, defense contractors, energy and manufacturing firms, and universities in the United States, Canada and Europe as well as in Asia, he said.
Cozy Bear, for instance, compromised the unclassified email systems of the White House, State Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2014, Alperovitch said.
“This is a sophisticated foreign intelligence service with a lot of time, a lot of resources, and is interested in targeting the U.S. political system,” Henry said. He said the DNC was not engaged in a fair fight. “You’ve got ordinary citizens who are doing hand-to-hand combat with trained military officers,” he said. “And that’s an untenable situation.”
The firm has installed special software on every computer and server in the network to detect any efforts by the Russian cyberspies to break in again. “When they get kicked out of the system,” Henry predicted, “they’re going to try to come back in.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html

Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump
By Ellen Nakashima

June 14, 2016 at 11:30 AM

Science Graduate Student Sues Harvard University For Intellectual Property Rights, Royalties From His Work

This is not "extreme" arrogance. It is the usual arrogance of the richest, most prominent University in the United States. 

[From article]
Brian D. O’Reilly, who is representing Charest in the case, called the University’s position one of “extreme arrogance.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/3/23/charest-royalties-lawsuit-liability-relief-issues/

Years-Long Royalties Dispute Moves to Questions of Liability and Relief
By LUCA F. SCHROEDER,

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
March 23, 2016

MIT Researchers Find Wi-Fi Can Be Used For Through The Wall Surveillance

Using a wireless transmitter fitted behind a wall, computer scientists have developed a device that can map a nearby room in 3D while scanning for human bodies. Using the signals that reflect off these people, the device creates an accurate silhouette (pictured) and can even use this silhouette to identify who that person is.

[From article]
X-ray vision is a staple of sci-fi films and comic books and now researchers have turned this concept into a reality.
Using a wireless transmitter fitted behind a wall, computer scientists have developed a device that can map a nearby room in 3D while scanning for human bodies.
Using the signals that bounce and reflect off these people, the device creates an accurate silhouette and can even use this silhouette to identify who that person is.
[. . .]
With this in mind the researchers have been developing technologies that use wireless signals to track human motion since 2013.
As part of its latest research, the team has shown that these technologies can detect gestures and body movements as subtle as the rise and fall of a person's chest from the other side of a house.
[. . .]
The RF Capture device transmits wireless signals that travel through a wall and reflect off a person's body back to the device.
It begins by scanning the 3D space to capture wireless reflections of objects in the room, including any human bodies.
Since only a small number of body parts reflect the signal back at any given point in time, the device monitors how these reflections vary as someone moves and walks.
[. . .]
The researchers said the technology could have major implications for everything from gaming and film-making to emergency-response and elder-care.
[Yes, and it will enable assassins to target individuals though walls too. Seldom do these high minded research scientists consider the evil potential for their technology, which uniformly is used for unintended purposes.]


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3292246/Forget-X-rays-walls-using-WI-FI-Device-captures-silhouettes-identify-people-stood-CONCRETE.html

Forget X-rays, now you can see through walls using WI-FI: Device captures silhouettes and can even identify people when they're stood behind CONCRETE
The RF Capture device was developed by researchers at MIT
Wireless signals travel through the wall and reflect off the body behind it
This creates a silhouette from which body parts can be identified
Silhouettes can then be compared to a database of bodies to identify who they belong to - and it can even identify which hand their moving
By VICTORIA WOOLLASTON FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:06 EST, 28 October 2015 | UPDATED: 10:28 EST, 28 October 2015

Trust Us, Nothing To Fear From Computers Taking Over, Said The Spider To The Fly

Hehehe

[From article]
Computers keep getting smaller and faster. That’s been happening for decades. But almost all of them are programmed to do what humans want them to do, the way humans want them to do it, and nothing more.
Now computers are beginning to learn — on their own. Years of research into artificial intelligence are beginning to pay off.
So-called machine learners already are diagnosing diseases, winning on “Jeopardy” and helping make rich hedge fund investors even richer. Machine learning is behind Facebook’s ability to figure out who your friend is by recognizing a picture of her face. Siri and Google Voice Search voice recognition? Machine learning is behind those too. And driverless cars.
Machine learning appears to be poised for rapid proliferation, with enormous implications for the workplace, the economy, politics and human culture.
Pedro Domingos, computer science professor at the University of Washington, offers an overview of the current state of machine learning in his just-published book, “The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World.”
[. . .]
There’s much to embrace and fear in machine learning, and much that we can do to make the most of it. Machine learning lightens the information overload, helps us find jobs and dates, lets cars drive themselves and lets our smartphones understand what we say.
Machine learning will eliminate many jobs, but also create many new ones.
Perhaps the biggest danger is that machines will cause damage while trying to serve us because they take our wishes too literally, or because they lack common sense.
[. . .]
People worry that computers will get too smart and take over the world, but the real problem is that they're too stupid and they've already taken over the world.
[. . .]
Being intelligent and being human are two very different things. AI algorithms don't have a will of their own: They just search for solutions to the problems we apply them to, and the more powerful the computers they run on, the harder the problems they can solve.
Computers are just extensions of us. You don't worry that your left arm will slap your face, so why would you worry that a computer will magically turn evil?

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-your-future-boss-a-computer-algorithm-it-s-closer-than-you-think-20151005-story.html

Your next boss: A computer algorithm?
LOS ANGELES TIMES
An IBM Watson supercomputer.
BY RUSS MITCHELL
October 5, 2015, 8:50 p.m

You Can Run, But Our New Bullets Will Find You

US successfully tests self-steering bullets that can follow moving targets
Experienced testers have used the technology to hit targets that were actively evading the shot, and even novices that were using the system for the first time were able to hit moving targets. The project, which is known as Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance weapon, or Exacto, is being made for the American government’s military research agency, Darpa

Women Distract Men Researchers. Then There Was Madam Curie. Oh, Wait.

[From article]

Nobel prize winner Sir Tim Hunt has an issue with female scientists - they're too distracting romantically and they cry when criticised.
Hunt, 72, an English biochemist who admitted he has a reputation for being a 'chauvinist', reportedly told the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South Korea:
“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls … three things happen when they are in the lab … You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry.”
He added that he was "in favour of single-sex labs" but "doesn't want to stand in the way of women."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11664306/Nobel-chemist-Tim-Hunt-sexism-row-Female-scientists-are-distracting.html

Nobel scientist says women in science 'fall in love' and 'cry' in labs
British biochemist Sir Tim Hunt has been accused of 'sexism' after calling for segregated science labs
By Radhika Sanghani
9:52AM BST 10 Jun 2015

Documentary About Madam Marie Curie

Marie Curie (1867 – 1934)
Image from 1920

[English version video removed from BBC and YouTube due to copyright claims]
[Description]
Nearly 80 years after her death, Marie Curie remains by far the best known female scientist. In her lifetime, she became that rare thing: a celebrity scientist, attracting the attention of the news cameras and tabloid gossip. They were fascinated because she was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and is still the only person to have won two Nobels in two different sciences. But while the bare bones of her scientific life, the obstacles she had to overcome, the years of painstaking research, and the penalty she ultimately paid for her discovery of radium have become one of the iconic stories of scientific heroism, there is another side to Marie Curie: her human story.
This multi-layered film reveals the real Marie Curie, an extraordinary woman who fell in love three times, had to survive the pain of loss, and the public humiliation of a doomed love affair. It is a riveting portrait of a tenacious mother and scientist, who opened the door on a whole new realm of physics, which she discovered and named: radioactivity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s954d

The Genius of Marie Curie - The Woman Who Lit Up the World
WGBX-TV

PBS Boston, MA
May 28, 2015

* * *

[From article]
Initially, she was buried at a modest cemetery in Sceaux, a Parisian suburb. In 1995, she was exhumed and became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.
First, however, her body had to be tested for traces of radiation. One of the revelations in the superb documentary was that she was unlikely to have died of radiation poisoning, as folklore would have one believe. A radiology expert interviewed by the programme recalled that when he tested her remains by “rubbing the forehead and pelvis of Marie Curie with blotting paper”, he found that the levels were low. He speculates that Curie in fact died of X-Ray poisoning sustained during her service in mobile X-Ray units in the Great War (which, incidentally, were her idea).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10036675/The-Genius-of-Marie-Curie-the-Woman-Who-Lit-Up-the-World-BBC-Two-review.html

The Genius of Marie Curie - the Woman Who Lit Up the World, BBC Two, review
Jake Wallis Simons is entranced by this highly informative documentary on one our greatest scientists.
By Jake Wallis Simons
10:02PM BST 03 May 2013

Auburn University Lab Tech Charged With Selling Date Rape Drug

[From article]
A chemistry lab technician at Auburn University was arrested Friday after allegedly selling a large amount of date rape drug, police say.
[. . .]
Al.com, citing court documents, reports that Howard sold an undercover agent more than 20 ounces of a liquid substance known to incapacitate women. Another undercover agent was able to buy nearly a gallon of the same substance. Howard also showed the agent that he had a weapon, authorities say.
Lab tests would confirm that the liquid was a controlled substance called 1,4-butanediol.
When the substance is ingested, it is converted into Gamma Hydroxybutyric Acid (GHB), which is commonly known to be a date-rape drug, the US Attorney’s Office says.
An affidavit says Howard told an undercover agent that he “probably had five different girls pass out on him” while they were using the drug.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/27/college-lab-tech-arrested-for-selling-date-rape-drug/

College lab tech arrested for selling date-rape drug
By Fox News
New York Post
May 27, 2015 | 2:31pm

Former MIT Professor Charged With Bank Robbery, Claims It Was Art

Joseph Gibbons  
Photo: Steven Hirsch

[From article]
Joseph Gibbons, 61, a filmmaker and “visual artist’’ who taught for a decade at one of the world’s most prestigious universities, has gone rogue, robbing banks as part of his latest “art’’ project.
[. . .]
He entered the Manhattan bank on New Year’s Eve around 2 p.m., wielding a camcorder and politely handed the teller a note demanding a donation for his church, according to court documents.
Rhode Island police had also been hunting for Gibbons, who staged a similar stick-up there in mid-November and made off with $3,000 in cash, authorities said.
[. . .]
He was a visiting artist at Bard College in the ’90s and an instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2001-2010, according to his LinkedIn profile.

http://nypost.com/2015/01/10/bank-robber-appears-to-be-screwball-former-professor/

Former MIT professor ‘robs bank,’ films ‘heist’
By Ben Feuerherd and Beckie Strum
New York Post
January 10, 2015 | 4:00am

Swiss Scientists Release Research Data From Particle Collider

The first data to be released on the Open Data Portal will be from the LHC's Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, pictured here. The CMS team will release data three years after it has been collected, to give those on the team time to analyse the data before others get their hands on it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2843983/Could-solve-mysteries-universe-Cern-releases-data-Large-Hadron-Collider-public.html

Could YOU solve the mysteries of the universe? Cern releases data from Large Hadron Collider to the public
Cern in Geneva has begun releasing collision data from the LHC on their Open Data Portal website
The public are invited to use the information for research and education
Data will come from various experiments at the particle accelerator
Users will need Linux to download and use the software to view the data
It is the first time the collision data has been made openly available
By Jonathan O'Callaghan for MailOnline
Published: 07:36 EST, 21 November 2014 | Updated: 20:37 EST, 21 November 2014

Updated: Uber Exec Suggests Oppo Research On Journalists, Spins Privacy Concerns

Posted November 18, 2014 9:31 PM ET; Last updated November 19, 2014 4:29 PM ET




[From article]
remarks by Uber Senior Vice President Emil Michael on Friday night as he spoke of his desire to spend $1 million to dig up information on “your personal lives, your families,” referring to journalists who write critically about the company, according to a report published Monday night by Buzzfeed. The same story said a different Uber executive once had examined the private travel records of a Buzzfeed reporter during an e-mail exchange about an article without seeking permission to access the data.
That combination of vindictiveness and willingness to tap into user information provoked outrage Tuesday on social-media sites, spawning the hashtag “#ubergate” on Twitter. Critics recounted a series of Uber privacy missteps, including a 2012 blog post in which a company official analyzed anonymous ridership data in Washington and several other cities in an attempt to determine the frequency of overnight sexual liaisons by customers — which Uber dubbed “Rides of Glory.”
[. . .]
Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union said that while he was a graduate student — and before he worked for the ACLU — an official with a major technology company once threatened him while he was working to publicize a privacy problem with its service, which collected extensive personal information on users. “If you keep doing this stuff,” the official said, according to Soghoian, “they will dig up stuff on you and try to destroy you.”
[. . .]
Ron Linton, chairman of the D.C. Taxicab Commission, which has battled with Uber over a range of issues, says the company uses data to gain a competitive advantage over traditional cab drivers. “The greater part of their business plan is that they’re going to amass the greatest database of consumer habits that the world has ever seen,” he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/uber-executive-stirs-up-privacy-controversy/2014/11/18/d0607836-6f61-11e4-ad12-3734c461eab6_story.html

Uber executive stirs up privacy controversy
By Craig Timberg, Nancy Scola and Andrea Peterson
November 18, 2014 at 9:20 PM

* * *

[From article]
A senior executive at Uber suggested that the company should consider hiring a team of opposition researchers to dig up dirt on its critics in the media — and specifically to spread details of the personal life of a female journalist who has criticized the company.
The executive, Emil Michael, made the comments in a conversation he later said he believed was off the record. In a statement through Uber Monday evening, he said he regretted them and that they didn’t reflect his or the company’s views.
[. . .]
Over dinner, he outlined the notion of spending “a million dollars” to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. That team could, he said, help Uber fight back against the press — they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine.
[. . .]
Then he returned to the opposition research plan. Uber’s dirt-diggers, Michael said, could expose Lacy. They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life.
Michael at no point suggested that Uber has actually hired opposition researchers, or that it plans to. He cast it as something that would make sense, that the company would be justified in doing.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/uber-executive-suggests-digging-up-dirt-on-journalists

Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt On Journalists
Senior vice president Emil Michael floated making critics’ personal lives fair game. Michael apologized Monday for the remarks.
posted on Nov. 17, 2014, at 8:57 p.m.
Ben Smith

Connecticut High School Blocks Conservative Web Sites

[From article]
“Their website was blocked,” he told me. Andrew decided to try the Second Amendment Foundation’s website. That too, was blocked.
His curiosity got the best of him – so Andrew tried logging on to several pro-gun control websites. Imagine his surprise when he discovered the pro-gun control websites were not blocked.
“I became curious as to why one side was blocked and the other side was not,” he said.
Andrew decided to set aside his debate preparation and started researching other conservative websites. He soon discovered that he had unfettered access to liberal websites, but conservative websites were blocked.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/06/19/jesus-republicans-and-nra-banned-on-school-website/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

Jesus, Republicans and NRA banned on school website

By Todd Starnes

Published June 19, 2014

FoxNews.com

Wikipedia Unreliable Research Resource

[From article]
It’s easy to laugh off the Big Apple howlers. But millions take Wikipedia as gospel on more challenging subjects, from Kenya’s Mau Mau war to nuclear fission, which can’t be checked with a stroll around the block. What a travesty for journalism, for education and for what we once called “knowledge.”

http://nypost.com/2013/11/16/dont-trust-anything-on-wikipedia/

Don’t trust anything on Wikipedia
By Steve Cuozzo
November 16, 2013 | 8:30pm
New York Post

Million Dollar Gov't Bureaucrat

http://watchdog.org/62420/co-secret-energy-lab-spawns-million-dollar-govt-employee/

CO: Secret energy lab spawns million dollar govt employee
Watchdog.org
By Tori Richards
November 24, 2012

Learning to Exercise More Control Over Individuals

Has there ever been a discovery that has not been used to harm humans, in the name of good? Who will be the first political control freak to use whatever is learned about how the brain operates to control humans? Aren't there enough misguided psychiatrists and psychologists running loose using their knowledge to control and to manipulate humans? Obama typically says this is investing in "the best ideas" when it is an example of wasting taxpayer funds on the worst ideas. He is one of the most obsessed officials to use his position to increase government control over others by using deception. Francis S. Collins moderated a town hall meeting on sequestering taxpayer funds. He sounded like a shop steward for public sector unions. Not quite an inspiration for human freedom. Regarding getting more bang for the buck, in what way is that? In controlling humans? Will the future bring court ordered humans walking around with metal probes sticking out of their brains so that scientists can calculate how their neurons fire? Don't brain "observatories" already exist? Aren't they called mental hospitals?  

[From article]

Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University, tweeted: 'Baffled by the NIH Brain Activity Map Project. We don't understand the fly brain yet. How will this come to anything?'
Michael Eisen, a biologist at Berkeley, added: 'Someone has to go to congress and explain why basic research is so important, not pander to them with big science c**p.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280707/Obama-wants-map-human-brain-Administration-plans-huge-3BILLION-year-research-project.html

Obama wants to map the human brain: Administration plans huge $3BILLION ten-year research project
The Brain Activity Map could cost over $300 million a year for a decade
Advocates say it could help scientists understand mental illness
Critics say the study lacks clear goals
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 17:45 EST, 18 February 2013 | UPDATED: 02:56 EST, 19 February 2013


* * *
[From article]
In his State of the Union address, President Obama cited brain research as an example of how the government should “invest in the best ideas.”
[. . .]
Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, may have inadvertently confirmed the plan
[. . .]
George M. Church, a Harvard University molecular biologist who helped create that project and said he was helping to plan the Brain Activity Map project. “If you look at the total spending in neuroscience and nanoscience that might be relative to this today, we are already spending more than that. We probably won’t spend less money, but we will probably get a lot more bang for the buck.”
[. . .]
 the human brain is so complex that scientists have not yet found a way to record the activity of more than a small number of neurons at once, and in most cases that is done invasively with physical probes.
[. . .]
They also said that a series of national brain “observatories” should be created as part of the project, like astronomical observatories.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/science/project-seeks-to-build-map-of-human-brain.html?hp&_r=0

Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: February 17, 2013
New York Times

Military Created High Tech Devices for Porn, Harassment

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/books/war_what_is_it_good_for_VJYNQa0aK5KH2OUP8mKSzI

War: What is it good for?
Microwaves, Barbies and reality starlets!
By SUSANNAH CAHALAN
New York Post
Last Updated: 4:09 AM, January 1, 2012
Posted: 10:33 PM, December 31, 2011

Trust Us, We're Biotech!

Trust Us, We're Biotech!

Trust us we're biotech companies! How can the Cambridge Chronicle question
the methods and procedures of a biotech company? Are any reporters experts? Huh?
(Editorial, "We deserve to know GateHouse News Service, Aug 30, 2007) Biotech
companies improve the health and welfare of all persons. Biotech companies make
more food and more varieties available to poor people. Biotech companies cure
illnesses. Biotech companies employ only high-minded ethical researchers who
only do good. Biotech companies never harm humans or rodents.
What is wrong with the people at the Cambridge Chronicle questioning how a
concerned compassionate company stores its chemicals? There are no dangers, only
benefits from the way we store our chemicals. We support diversity, and equal
rights.
We are biotech companies and we want your money. Support Harvard's
Corporate lawyer and Governor, Deval "Cadillac" Patrick's $1 billion promise or
we will leave Cambridge. We want your money. We are biotech companies. If you
can't trust us who can you trust? We'll share your money with the politicians.
We're not greedy.

[See e.g.,

Drug co.: Pass biotech $$ plan or else
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Friday, August 31, 2007 - Updated: 03:30 AM EST

British pharmaceutical giant Shire PLC yesterday warned that plans for a major
drug manufacturing complex in Boston’s suburbs could be in jeopardy unless
Beacon Hill passes a trumpeted, $1 billion incentive package for the life
sciences industry.
...]

Roy Bercaw, Editor, ENOUGH ROOM

Editorial: We deserve to know
GateHouse News Service
Thu Aug 30, 2007, 06:08 AM EDT
Cambridge -
What’s really going on at Idenix Pharmaceuticals?

We couldn’t tell you because we don’t know. The company won’t tell neighbors,
either. Idenix, which develops drugs for viral and infectious diseases, wants to
increase its storage capacity of unknown solvents from 165 gallons to 2,000
gallons in its Hampshire Street facility. It’s a heck of an increase for any
chemical. The company says it isn’t required to make the information public; at
the same time, it’s seeking a license from the city to store 12 times the volume
of solvents it currently has. The reason? Homeland Security.

While we realize such sensitive information might be a risk to the public
safety, we think the risks of withholding that information would be even more
damaging. One unconfirmed chemical that neighbors have been tossing around as
one that could be in storage is dichloromethane, a known carcinogen commonly
used in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The company would neither confirm or deny
its existence at the site.
[...]