Ever tried loading websites full of selfies and filtered food images on a shabby connection? If your answer is yes, then you know it always leads to tears and frustration. Good thing Mozilla’s got your back — the non-profit behind Firefox just announced a project called mozjpeg, which aims to shrink JPEG file sizes for faster-loading web pages. To get the ball rolling, the group made a fork of an existing JPEG codec ( libjpeg-turbo ) and threw in a feature that crunches photos without affecting quality. That gave rise to mozjpeg software version 1.0, which successfully shrunk the file sizes of 1, 500 JPEG photos by an average of 10 percent during a test run. It even worked on PNG images, though it was a lot less effective and only managed to shave 2 to 6 percent off their sizes. Mozilla chose to improve JPEG compression instead of developing an alternative because the org believes the two-decade-old standard won’t be going away anytime soon. Also, unlike newer choices (such as Google’s WebP ) that promise better quality at smaller sizes, JPEG’s already compatible with most software and browsers. Sticking to JPEG means you won’t have to endure years of poor compatibility, and you can now get through a lot more cat pics on your coffee break. Filed under: Misc Comments Via: CNET Source: Mozilla Research
Continued here:
Mozilla to improve web page load times through image trickery
The CIA’s Inspector General has asked the Justice Department to consider criminally charging CIA agents who spied on a senate committee that was engaged in writing a report that was highly critical of the CIA’s use of torture. Senator Mark Udall, who sits on a CIA oversight committee and whose staff was spied on by the CIA alleges that the CIA surveilled overseeing senators and their staff with Obama’s knowledge and consent. In a recent hearing, Senator Ron Wyden asked the CIA director repeatedly whether the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, America’s major anti-hacking statute, applied to the CIA, and whether the CIA spied domestically. CIA director John Brennan replied “yes” and “no,” respectively. If Udall’s allegations are correct, this means that Brennan lied to Congress (in the second instance) and committed a felony (in the first instance). The report that caused some CIA agents to spy on their bosses was about how the CIA was wasting time, getting nowhere and doing something illegal and cruel when it kidnapped terror suspects and tortured the shit out of them. McClatchy and the New York Times reported Wednesday that the CIA had secretly monitored computers used by committee staffers preparing the inquiry report, which is said to be scathing not only about the brutality and ineffectiveness of the agency’s interrogation techniques but deception by the CIA to Congress and policymakers about it. The CIA sharply disputes the committee’s findings. Udall, a Colorado Democrat and one of the CIA’s leading pursuers on the committee, appeared to reference that surreptitious spying on Congress, which Udall said undermined democratic principles. “As you are aware, the CIA has recently taken unprecedented action against the committee in relation to the internal CIA review and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the Committee’s oversight powers and for our democracy,” Udall wrote to Obama on Tuesday. Obama knew CIA secretly monitored intelligence committee, senator claims [Spencer Ackerman/The Guardian] 
v3rgEz writes “Even as some police departments curtail their sue of license plate scanning technology over privacy concerns, private companies have been amassing a much larger, almost completely unregulated database that pulls in billions of scans a year, marking the exact time and location of millions of vehicles across America. The database, which is often offered to law enforcement for free, is collected by repo and towing companies eager to tap easy revenue, while the database companies then resell that data, often for as little as $25 for a plate’s complete recorded history.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
