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JAIPUR: The image showing pacer Jasprit Bumrah conceding a no-ball in Champions trophy Finals against Pakistan used as traffic awareness may fetch accolades and appreciation to Jaipur traffic police, but pacer Bumrah was not happy. Following bowlers response the Jaipur police not only clarified that their intent was not to hurt the pacer's sentiments, but they had also removed all the sign boards erected at various points in the city on Saturday. Claiming that their intent was not to hurt the sentiments, the police on Saturday removed the posters showing Bumrah over-stepping the line during Champions trophy Final. This all started on Friday evening when the death overs bowling specialist voicing his disappointment tweeted, "Well done Jaipur traffic police this shows how much respect you get after giving your best for the country." He hurled another bouncer when he tweeted, "But don't worry I won't make fun of the mistakes which you guys make at your work .because I believe humans can make mistakes." Soon after these tweets senior police officers of Jaipur police commissionerate had a meeting and decided not to use the word "apology" but to respond to bowler's resentment in positive manner. After his tweet, Jaipur traffic police tweeted, "Dear Jasprit Bumrah, our intent was not to hurt your sentiments or the sentiments of millions of cricket fans. We only intended to create more awareness about traffic rules. You are a youth icon & an inspiration for all of us." This did not ended here as commissioner of police, Sanjay Agarwal asked his men to remove all the posters relating to the campaign on traffic awareness depicting Bumrah conceding a no-ball from the city. "Our intent was certainly not to disrespect the celebrated Indian cricket bowler. In the campaign the subject was crossing the line. We have clarified the same on Jaipur traffic police twitter handle. Yes the posters were removed."

Excerpt from:
Police ducks Bumrah's bouncers on social networking; remove no-ball poster - Times of India

Edward Snowden / Getty Images

BY: Natalie Johnson June 24, 2017 5:00 am

The National Security Agency did not know how manyofficials were authorized to download and transfer top secret data from its servers prior tothe high-profile leaks by former contractor Edward Snowden, according to a recently declassified government report.

The NSA was also unsuccessful in attempts to meaningfully cut the number of officials with "privileged" access to its most sensitive databases, the Department of Defense's inspector general determined in the 2016 investigation. The heavily redacted report was obtained by the New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The agency struggled to achieve the mandated reductions because it had no idea how many employees or contractors were designated data transfer agents or privileged access users prior to the leaks.

NSA officials told the inspector general they lost a "manually kept spreadsheet" that tracked the number of privileged users after receiving multiple requests from the inspector general to provide documents identifying the initial number. The lapse made it impossible for the agency to determine its baseline of privileged users from which reductions would be made.

The report said the NSA then "arbitrarily removed" privileged access from users, who were told to reapply for the authorization. While this enabled the agency to determine how many personnel were granted special access, the NSA still had no way of measuring how many privileged users had lost the clearance.

The inspector general said the NSA should have used this new baseline as a "starting point" to reduce privileged users instead of using the number to declare a reduction in those personnel.

In the case of data transfer agents, the NSA's "manually kept list" tracking the number of officials authorized to use removable devices, such as thumb drives, to transfer data to and from the agency's servers was "corrupted" in the months leading up to the Snowden leaks, the report said.

Without a baseline to measure potential reductions, the NSA then mandated data transfer agents to reapply for the authorization. Again, though this allowed the agency to determine how many personnel were given the authority, the NSA still had no way of gauging how many reductions were made, if any.

The threat proved ongoing earlier this month when former contractor Reality Winner was charged with removing classified information from NSA facilities regarding the Russian election hacks and leaking it to the press.

The initiatives to cut the number of people with access to classified data were part of a broader post-Snowden measure, called "Secure the Net," to strengthen protections of its sensitive surveillance and hacking methods.

The report determined that while the NSA made some progress in achieving reform, the agency "did not fully meet the intent of decreasing the risk of insider threats to its operations and the ability of insiders to exfiltrate data."

NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines acknowledged the report's conclusions in a statement issued to the New York Times last week.

"We welcome the observations and opportunities for improvement offered by the U.S. Defense Department's Inspector General," she said. "NSA has never stopped seeking and implementing ways to strengthen both security policies and internal controls."

It is unclear what steps the NSA has taken since the report was finalized in August 2016 to reduce the number of employees and contractors with access to its top-secret databases.

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Prior to Snowden, NSA Had No Clue How Many Were Approved to ... - Washington Free Beacon

PDF editors can be expensive, but most users can get by with a free alternative. We show you how you can edit PDFs for free with these useful tools.

By Roland Waddilove | 21 Jun 2017

PDFs should be one of the most straightforward document types in the world, but unfortunately they are not so simple when it comes to editing them. Paid-for PDF editors can do it all, but do you really want to pay for a tool to complete a quick and easy editing job? As we have learned from this round-up of free tools and services, you may not need to.

Adobe invented the PDF (Portable Document Format) to solve a problem that dogged people for years: how to view and print documents without requiring the original software that document was created in or the fonts it uses. It wasn't meant to be a replacement for a word processor -it was a layout format for precise alignment of text and images.

Many programs can save documents in PDF format, but few can edit them directly. But what if you receive a document in PDF form and need to change it? Or you might save a file as a PDF but lose the original (editable) document through a disk or human error? In all of these situations, you need a PDF editor.

However, here's the thing: free PDF editors generally do not allow you to edit text. What they offer is the ability to erase (or 'whiteout') text and replace it with new text. Matching the font, both size and colour, but it's all you'll be able to do if you can't get hold of the original file used to create the PDF.

Some free PDF editors let you annotate PDFs and add or remove pages. The original content cannot be changed, but you can insert notes and comments, use a highlighter pen, strikethrough text, delete pages, fill out forms and so on.

Here are some of your options:

AbleWord is the only free PDF editor we're aware of that can import a PDF and make it completely editable. It's best when importing PDF files that were created in Word, but will attempt to replicate all PDF files. The end result won't look identical to the original but will be close.

Foxit Reader is a lightweight alternative to Adobe Reader and many people prefer it. It's more than just a PDF reader though and it has a wide range of powerful tools. You cannot edit the contents, but text can be struck through with a line and replaced by a pop-up note.

PDF-XChange Viewer offers an almost identical set of features to Foxit Reader and it is useful for annotating in a similar manner.

As long as your editing demands aren't too heavy, PDF Candy may be the quickest solution. It can convert PDFs to other formats, rotate them, split them, protect them and add watermarks.

This new online service has but one limitation: any file you upload must be under 10MB. But that's it: there are no ads or any other restrictions.

LibreOffice, the free Office alternative, is worth considering if you want to edit the text in a PDF file. It loads PDFs and it can cope with very large documents with hundreds of pages. The only snag is that each line of text is text box, which makes it awkward to edit large amounts of text.

PDF Pro is an online tool that lets you upload three PDF files per month and edit them. The latest update includes a facility to convert PDF documents to Word (.doc) format, which not many free products can do.

FormSwift is another online PDF editor. You simply drag and drop files to upload them, and you can then edit them in your browser before downloading and printing or sharing.

You can edit text by deleting and replacing it, add images or signatures. It's relatively basic, but it's free and requires only an internet connection.

PDF to Word does exactly what the name says. You select a file on your PC, upload it to the site and it emails you the Word document a minute or two later. The advantage of this is that you can use Word or another word processor to edit the text and resave the document as a PDF.

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How to edit a PDF for free - Tech Advisor (registration)

As people around the globe marked World Refugee Day Tuesday the all too familiar news came that at least 120 people had drowned off the coast of Libya. Their deaths bring the total number of people who have died while attempting to cross the central Mediterranean to more than 1,800 since the start of the year.

Against this grim backdrop, European leaders are meeting Wednesday and Thursday in Brussels to discuss migration. Each leader will no doubt lament these latest deaths. But despite their hand-wringing rhetoric, the focus of their discussion will not be the importance of saving lives. Instead it will be how to reduce the number of people arriving in Europe in the first place, by reinforcing cooperation with African countries to stem irregular migration.

This strategy not only exacerbates the disparity between developed and developing countries in the number of refugees they are taking in, but it also undermines any claim by the European Union to be a standard bearer for human rights.

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Rather than offering refugees and migrants the chance to avoid irregular border crossings, by creating safe and legal routes for people to move to Europe and improving conditions in refugee camps, Europe has focused on increasing border controls and stepping up returns.

No matter how much money European governments invest in international aid projects purportedly intended to address the root causes of displacement, the reality is that EU leaders have so far largely favored projects that create barriers for migrationand they have used international aid as leverage to get African governments to cooperate in their implementation.

The currently preferred method for solving the migrant crisis seems to be externalization. This involves recruiting countries refugees and migrants come from or travel through to tighten border controls or to shift protection responsibilities to other countries.

So-called externalization policies increase the likelihood of human rights violations. This is particularly the case if measures to tighten border control are encouraged politically (including by leveraging aid) and facilitated technically (through training and equipment) in countries with problematic human rights records.

These policies can end up encouraging or supporting refoulement, collective expulsions, arbitrary detention, ill treatment and other serious human rights violations. Investing in such measures might not even achieve the desired result of reducing irregular arrivals. In the absence of alternatives, people fleeing conflict, persecution and poverty will still try to flee the only way they can, putting their lives in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers.

A shameful example of how this works in practice is Europes cooperation with Libya. European leaders have deepened cooperation with the Libyan coastguard, through training and even provision of boats, in the hope of stopping sea crossings, despite warnings that this would support and even fuel human rights violations. They are now looking at supporting Libyan border control capacity in the south of the country.

This is happening even though Libya does not have a concrete plan to improve human rights protection. Refugees and migrants are detained automatically and people in need of international protection have no prospect of claiming asylum, as Libya has no legal asylum framework.

By empowering the Libyan coastguard to intercept refugees and migrants at sea and take them back to Libya, EU policy is exposing thousands to unspeakable abuses in the detention centers where they are sent upon disembarkation; centers where they are detained indefinitely and subjected to torture, beatings, rape and exploitation by guards.

Also, as we have seen in multiple sea interceptions carried out over the past months, the Libyan coastguard disregards basic safety protocols and international standards, and has even opened fire during rescue operations at sea. Refugees and migrants are put at risk while the EU looks the other way. Meanwhile, the number of irregular crossings and deaths at sea continues to rise.

This might be the most troubling example of how cooperation may lead to unintended but foreseeable consequences, but it is by no means the only one. In the pursuit of quick fixes to reduce migration, European governments are further developing measuressuch as the labeling of certain countries as safe for returnsthat increase the risk of human rights violations. So desperate are they to achieve the goal of reducing arrivals that they are prepared to trample the rights of desperate men, women and children seeking safety in Europe.

EU leaders have an opportunity to revert this course of action. At the very minimum, they should refrain from any form of cooperation that might leave refugees and migrants stranded in countries where they are exposed to human rights violations. They must monitor and address the human rights risks that may arise from current externalization policies.

But radical change is needed. As they review their external migration policies, European leaders must end their focus on the short-term objective of reducing crossings. Instead, a bold plan is needed to support human rights protection in countries of origin and transit and to make safe routes available to refugees and would-be migrants.

Such measures would provide a safer and more orderly alternative to dangerous irregular crossings and in so doing, steer refugees and migrants away from criminal networks who leech off their desperation. Only then will the tragedy of lives lost at sea become a thing of the past and the rights of vulnerable men, women and children will be truly protected.

Matteo de Bellis is a researcher at Amnesty International.

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EU Refugee Crisis: Human Rights Violations and Migrant Deaths Are Being Ignored - Newsweek

Artwork by Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei is a striking reminder of the migrant crisis taking place on Europes shores.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark In the sun-soaked setting of Copenhagens Nyhavn harbor, there is a striking reminder of the migrant crisis taking place on Europes shores.

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has barricaded the windows of the Kunsthal Charlottenborg museum with more than 3,500 salvaged life jackets worn by migrants and collected on the Greek island of Lesbos.

The artwork is named Soleil Levant French for Sunrise and was inaugurated Tuesday, which was World Refugee Day.

Obviously, Ai Weiwei wants to put attention to the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe, or as he calls it, the human crisis, says Kunsthal Charlottenborg director Michael Thouber. The beautiful thing about this piece is that every one of these life jackets, 3,500 life jackets, represents a human story.

The title is a reference to French painter Claude Monets painting Impression, Soleil Levant from 1872, which depicted Le Havre harbor and captured the political and social reality of the time.

Ai previously used 14,000 discarded life vests collected from the beaches of Lesbos to wrap the columns of Berlins Konzerthaus, and they were used to create lotus blossoms floating in a pond in Viennas Belvedere Park. The latter is thework that made Thouber contact Ai and ask him to do something similar in Copenhagen.

It was absolutely heartbreaking and breathtaking, he says.

Last year, Ai withdrew his works from two Danish museums to protest a new law that allowed the countrys authorities to seize valuables from migrants.

Kunsthal Charlottenborg says the artwork will remain on its facade until Oct. 1.

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Migrant life jackets turned into artwork in Copenhagen - The Seattle Times