Welcome to News from trif.com! First time readers, I am glad you're here! Returning readers, welcome back!

Greetings. Welcome to our Newsletter! We wanted to share the many photos we have taken of places, people and things throughout the country and beyond. Each month our headline photo will be something new and different. The caption will present a small explanation. We hope you enjoy. Keep in mind, we don't want to waste your time. Articles will contain generally less than 250 words. Please have a look and give us your feedback. By all means, forward to a friend using the link at the bottom of the Newsletter. Thanks. Questions? Send me an email!

A Peek at Pulp and Paper 

Decades ago, the Lower Merrimack Valley was a large producer of Paper products.  Today, Erving, Haverhill, Holyoke, Hyde Park, Lee and Turners Falls appear to be the last Paper and Pulp Mills in Massachusetts although many towns continue to have paper processing mills.  Much of the Paper manufacturing has moved to Canada. Pictured here is a truckload of Pulp being delivered to a Saint John Paper Manufacturer, Irving Paper, in 2013. The plant is near the Reversing Falls in Saint John.

A by-product of paper manufacturing is sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide (both responsible for acid rain) and carbon dioxide.  Sulphur dioxide causes breathing disorders. Looking at Asthma rates in Massachusetts, it is interesting if not catastrophic that the percentage of Asthma in children in communities with paper mills exceeds the national average by as much as 300%.

View 2007-2008 Massachusetts Asthma Rates  

It is also interesting to note that the CBC reported that Irving Paper in Saint John was cited 4 years in a row for exceeding the allowed emissions of 3,000 tons per year by almost 500 tons each year.

Also noteworthy is that conventional paper bleaching using chlorine produces dioxins which are highly toxic. Dioxins accumulate in the food chain in the fatty tissues of animals. 90% of human exposure is found in meat, dairy, fish and shellfish. It is because of this that in the 1990’s the use of chlorine in the bleaching process was strictly controlled.
If you would like information on guidelines for purchasing paper with the least impact on the environment, click here.

What is the NSA Up To?

According to CNet and The Intercept report that the NSA has crafted an automated system to hack millions of computers. The NSA operation named Turbine created implants which infect computers via fake Facebook web pages and spam emails. Once infected, the computers microphone could be commandeered to listen to conversations near the computer or take over the computers webcam and snap pictures. Although it was designed to attack system administrators at foreign internet service providers, it isn't clear how extensive a reach is actually taking place.

The NSA reports that the NSA does not use its technical capabilities to target global internet services without appropriate legal authority. It seems that over the past 10 years, the NSA has recruited new hackers and developed new malware tools extending its reach to tens of thousands of computers.

It is interesting to note that Symantec and McAfee are quiet about NSA malware. However Kaspersky, Panda and Trend Micro have confirmed detection of state sponsored malware. They also claim not to have received a request to not detect malware. If asked by a government agency, they advised they would not comply believing there is no such thing as harmless malware. All of this prompted Mark Zuckerberg to call President Obama to complain about the NSA.

The NSA is one of 15 "black" or classified agencies with a total annual budget of around $75 billion dollars. It is presumed the budget are discussed in secret session by the appropriations and intelligence committees of Congress.

Introducing Wickr

Provide a free and easy way for anyone to communicate securely while giving them the ability to Leave No Trace.

Wickr is a text messaging App with the addition of major encryption protocols, transport security and security key exchange. Once the message key is used, it is destroyed. Wickr's servers do not posses decryption keys, so they cannot access your messages and Wickr destroys all attachment metadata. So in the end, Wickr knows very little about you and your contacts and nothing about your messages. Private messages are extraordinarily difficult if not impossible for anyone to read except the intended recipient. This is not the case with standard text messaging (SMS). Standard text messages are stored on servers in clear text for anyone to read.

Some security experts have said that Wickr's proprietary algorithms used to store information on their servers is prone to error. Wickr takes exception to that and has offered $100,000 reward or "bug bounty" for those who find vulnerabilities that significantly impact users.

Businessweek calls the technology Mission Impossible self-destructing messaging. That is because message sent are not stored, never unencrypted while being transported and destroyed after read.

Wickr's mission statement? "Wickr us the World Post Office and will become the most trusted communication system in the world by giving power to the people. Wickr has experienced huge growth since it was revealed that the NSA surveillance program was leaked last year as well as receiving millions in funding. Wickr plans to add voice capabilities in the near future.