Oldest extant printed pages are Hebrew liturgical poems from the mid-15th century

As reported by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz of Israel365 News, August 17, 2022 (link, photos in original):

Hebrew piyutim printed in 1444 (Photo courtesy of Moshe Rosenfeld)

In March 2015, a Jerusalem book merchant took apart the cover of an old book and found inside it two old printed sheets in excellent condition. According to the merchant’s testimony, while he was drying the pages, an expert in ancient books entered his house and offered a large sum of money for the pages. The merchant did not agree and decided to pass the pages to the experts of the National Library of Israel for examination. He gave the pages to Yitzhak Yudlov, Institute for Hebrew Bibliography, located at the Jewish and National University Library in Jerusalem and a recognized expert.

The Jewish and National University Library kept possession of the pages for about a month and a half for the purposes of carrying out a thorough inspection. At the end of that period of time, Yudlov called the owner, who was abroad at the time. Yudlov told him that the pages were authentic and an especially rare find. The merchant arrived at the Jewish and National University Library, and Yitzhak Yudlov informed him that he thought these were sheets printed in Avignon, France in 1444-6, when an attempt was made to print a Hebrew book there. According to Yudlov, there are two documents located in the district archives in Avignon that relate details of this attempt at printing a Hebrew book.

On one of the sheets, a watermark depicting three hills inside two circles can be found. It is a very rare watermark, identified by Yudlov and Ephraim West as a being created in the first half of the 15th century.

In April 2015, Yitzhak Yudlov wrote his scholarly attestation regarding the sheets on a letterhead of the Institute for Hebrew Bibliography. In the attestation, he referred to the endeavor of printing a Hebrew book in 1444 that predated the printing of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455.

“In our opinion, these pages are remnants of that printing,” Yudlov wrote.

The merchant thought it would be good if Dr. Benjamin Richler, the Emeritus Director of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts (IMHM) in the Jewish and National University Library, would also write his opinion and translated the words of Yitzhak Yudlov. Yudlov had shown him the pages and even consulted with him on the matter. Dr. Benjamin Richler agreed to attach his description in English. Below is Dr. Richler’s letter:

(Photo courtesy Moshe Rosenfeld)

(Photo courtesy Moshe Rosenfeld)

It is worth noting that Prof. Malachi Beit Aryeh was also one of the people with whom Yudlov consulted. Prof. Malachi, who was a former director of the Jewish and National University Library, recommended performing a beta-radiography of the watermark which allows getting a picture of the watermark unobscured by the printed text. He put the merchant in touch with Mr. Hominer, the operator of the machine. The merchant paid for the service, and after the merchant took two copies of the beta-radiography of the watermarks, Prof. Malachi Beit Aryeh was given an additional copy.

Prof. Beit Aryeh also asked the merchant to leave the sheets for him for several days, and he agreed, though the professor did not return the sheets for several weeks.

Later research discovered other examples of the watermark described as “three hills in two circles” in two manuscripts in the National Library in Vienna. The Three Hills watermark was used by a family of paper makers in Fabriano Italy. The other examples of the watermark were dated to 1418 and 1439. It is important to note that no examples of this watermark have been found to have been used anywhere after 1439. Other examples were found in Perpignan in the south of France from 1418, recorded by Briquet, as well as in Palermo in Sicily. Another example of the watermark was found at the Ambrosiana Library in Milan on a manuscript dating from 1431.

On August 6, 2018, the antique book dealer, Moshe Rossenfeld published an article signed by the late Yeshayahu Vinograd, concluding that according to all of the experts, the pages were from the oldest known mechanical printing press, produced in 1444-6.

The pages were subsequently sold and the buyer, who is the current owner, tried to sell it in the United States. He encountered difficulties as some people made anonymous claims that the pages were not authentic.

The pages were taken to the Forensic Institute in Jerusalem, under the management of Avner Rosengarten, a world-renowned expert in the field of forgery, and a former senior official in the Police Forensic Identification Laboratory. Rosengarten inspected the pages and determined that they were not forged.

Further research from archives dating to 1444 revealed that one Procopius Waldvogel, a silversmith by trade, arrived in Avignon at that period and borrowed money based on his invention of a mechanical printing press. His claim predates that of Johannes Gutenberg from Mainz, Germany who began printing on a mechanical press using movable type in 1450. It is widely recognized by historians that Gutenberg was not the first to do so and did not invent the process but he was, until now, believed to be the first European to do so.

According to the notarial archives in Avignon, Waldvogel and his partners produced “27 Hebrew letters from iron and steel” and also letters in Latin for the purposes of printing a Hebrew book. It is believed that the effort was unsuccessful for reasons that remain unclear but that some samples were produced. The book was to have been a collection of “piyutim”; Jewish liturgical poems sung during selichot, penitential prayers.

A document from the central archive in Avignon recorded the agreement between the partners leading to the preparation of metal moving Hebrew letters.

“This is neither a small affair nor a personal one,” Moshe Rosenfeld told Israel365. “Before us is a discovery that establishes a connection between Hebrew and the invention of the printing press.”

Agreement to print Hebrew piyutim 1444 (Photo courtesy Moshe Rosenfeld)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggests microchipping children

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Revelation 13:16-17

Reading Biblical prophecies about the end times helped bring me to Christ in 1975; the prophecies seemed to be describing many things that were true at the time, and there was a lot of preaching and writing about the end times. In those days and the years immediately following, I tried to imagine how the prophecies would be fulfilled. It's one thing to imagine how prophecies will be fulfilled in the future, and it's another to live long enough to see them being fulfilled in the present. End times prophecies are more true now than they were in 1975, yet there's a lot less preaching on these scriptures than there was then, despite the fact that the prophecies are increasingly being fulfilled before our eyes--no doubt because it doesn't fit the Church Growth Movement paradigm of Peter Drucker, Rick Warren and company.

It would be ironic if the mark of the Beast were to originate in Israel. With everything else going on these days, you might have missed this item from a few weeks ago, as reported by Leon Sverdlov in The Jerusalem Post, May 8, 2020 (link in original):

Cyber experts slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his proposal to "microchip" children who return to schools and kindergartens as the coronavirus lockdown is lifted, Ynet reported on Friday.

While speaking at a press conference on Monday, Netanyahu suggested the Health Ministry use new technology to help Israel adjust to its new routine as the state is lifting the coronavirus lockdown. "That is, technology that has not been used before and is allowed under the legislation we shall enact," he clarified.

"I spoke with our heads of technology in order to find measures Israel is good at, such as sensors. For instance, every person, every kid – I want it on kids first – would have a sensor that would sound an alarm when you get too close, like the ones on cars," the prime minister said.

"It will be hard to do it to more than a million schoolchildren who return to their educational institutions in order to ensure one student sits at the distance of two meters from another. It is fictional and dangerous," cyber resilience expert Einat Meron told Ynet.

"Theoretically, I get the idea behind it," she said. "But although such distance-sensitive microchips exist in vehicles, it is different in humans." According to Meron, "a beeping sound telling me I got close to someone is not enough. Who says it will change anything? I would have gotten closer either way."

The expert added that "the actual issue is the enforcement, and here everything changes." Meron told Ynet that "microchipping children will not pass any test – both practically and legally." Similar to Meron's notion that notifying citizens on their distance will not affect their actions, many fear the state would make use of the information available from the sensors.

"If the information with the kids' location is uploaded to the internet, a pedophile with some cyber knowledge may invade the system and stalk them outside their schools, follow them and distribute the information on other platforms," Meron said. "Can the state take responsibility for that?"

The Prime Minister's Office responded to the report, telling Ynet Netanyahu's suggestion "is not to be implemented through databases, but through simple technology notifying [the citizens] about their distance. It is a voluntary option that is designed to help children keep their distance, like Mobileye with vehicles."

The office added that the prime minister's suggestion is "an idea that may help maintain social distancing, and there will not be any violation of privacy."

On Wednesday, Walla reported the movements of all vehicles in Israel were tracked by police and stored in an unregulated database named Eagle Eye. A source cited by the media site said the information "may be kept for years on end."

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) reportedly submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act that police disclose the extent of the operations of Eagle Eye, as well as the time the information on citizens' movements is stored in the system.

Israel Police responded to ACRI, saying the system's activity was not standardized internally despite several years of operations. "Either way, once finalized, the procedure will not be disclosed to the public," police added.

In late March, Yediot Aharonot reported a classified Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) database stored information on all Israeli citizens and most Palestinians from the West Bank. The data tracked by the security agency included movements, phone calls and text messages.

Backlog: Schoolchildren are increasingly being prepared to receive the mark of the beast

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Revelation 13:16-17

When I was in kindergarten in Edmonton in 1966-67, I didn't go to a bus stop. A station wagon with a "School Bus" sign on top, driven by a nice, attractive brunette (who must be in her late 70s now, if she's still alive), stopped at the house of each child, and took us all downtown, where we had kindergarten in the basement of the Seven Seas restaurant, and then took us home afterward. I'll take that over the surveillance technology of the 21st century.

The following article, six years old but still relevant (maybe now just for historical purposes), illustrates that surveillance technology can have positive aspects. No parents want their children to be on the wrong bus or in the wrong school, or who-knows-where. However, it's only a matter of time before an electronically-scanned card today becomes a mark in the right hand or forehead tomorrow. As reported by Andrea Sands in the Edmonton Journal, September 20, 2013:

When five-year-old Jack Rattray gets on his school bus to leave Wes Hosford Elementary School in Sherwood Park, a swipe of his electronic bus pass tells school district authorities he's aboard.

Jack swipes the card again when he gets off the bus at a busy transfer centre at Salisbury Composite High School, where he boards a second bus to his day home with another swipe. On days his mom isn't working, Jack takes a different bus from school straight home.

Jack's mom, Sydney Rattray, can log in at work using an application called My Stop and see on a map where Jack's bus is located and its estimated arrival time.

"If he got confused one day and thought he was supposed to go to the day home, I could find him," said Rattray, a pharmacy technician who does shift work at the University of Alberta.

"It feels safe. You can monitor without being there, without hovering...It does give me peace of mind."

Elk Island Public Schools was the first school district in Canada to use student-scanning bus passes and GPS on all its buses, said transportation director Lisa Weder.

Now, Edmonton Public Schools and Edmonton Catholic Schools are testing similar on-board GPS systems that will let parents locate their child's bus pass on a map.

Elk Island Public Schools started rolling out the technology last year, Weder said.

More than 8,000 of Elk Island Public Schools' 16,500 students travel on about 165 buses running 591 routes across Sherwood Park, Fort Saskatchewan, Vegreville and Strathcona County, she said.

The student-scan and GPS technology, plus an automated system called Checkmate that ensures no child is accidentally left on the bus, are now fully installed at a cost of $275,000, Weder said.

"Because we run so many transfers and we transport kindergarten to Grade 12 students on all the same buses, it really helps us if a student boards an incorrect bus," Weder said.

Last week, a four-year-old boy in Winnipeg was dropped off at the wrong school, where he spent his entire first day of kindergarten before someone noticed the error. Also last week, an Edmonton boy got off his bus at the wrong school when he took the bus for the first time to kindergarten, Global News reported.

A school bus driver with the Northern Lights School District was suspended in January 2012 after a young boy was left alone on a bus for an entire school day.

Mix-ups are most common with new students, and more frequent at the beginning of the school year, said Weder.

"There's a significant number of students boarding incorrect buses. In the first two weeks of school, we probably had, I would say, at least four to five cases a day where students were boarding incorrect buses."

The scanned bus passes allow school authorities to monitor which bus each student boards and leaves and at what time. The data also shows transportation planners exactly how many students are taking the bus each day so they can plan most efficiently, Weder added.

"You could have 70 students registered to a 72-passenger bus, but who's actually riding that bus?"

On-board GPS systems also send data about what the bus is doing to school district staff, Weder said. That means employees can see if a bus is speeding, if it stops completely at railway crossings, if it follows the designated route, if it stops on time and in the proper spots to pick up or drop off children, she said.

Edmonton Public Schools started testing on-board GPS at six schools this fall, said district spokeswoman Jane Sterling.

Silicon Valley billionaires search for immortality in this life

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3:4-5

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. Luke 12:15-21

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: Hebrews 9:27

One of the reasons I believe the account given in Genesis 3 to be true is that the lies spoken by the serpent are the same lies that are so widely believed today. In contrast to the millennials mentioned in the post below, who are spending on themselves now because they have no hope for a prosperous future financially or otherwise, those who are doing very well financially are seeking ways to prolong their lives in order to continue enjoyment of their riches.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to reproduce the relevant article Money can't buy you love, but how about eternal life? by Chris Stokel-Walker in the London Daily Telegraph, October 14, 2019. However, if you have premium access to the paper, you can read it here. Otherwise, you can read it free here.

To see the sites of events and organizations and events mentioned in the article, click on the links:

RAAD Festival

The Church of Perpetual Life

SENS Research Foundation

It's interesting to note that The Church of Perpetual Life, while rejecting an eternal and heavenly perspective, refers to itself as a church:

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. II Timothy 3:5

See also my post "Immortalist" Robert Ettinger, "Father of Cryonics," falls a little short of immortality in this life (July 27, 2011)

An increasing presence of Augmented Reality is predicted

As reported by The Trend Letter, September 12, 2019 (bold in original):

Innovation and imagination often go hand in hand to bring new technologies into being and into the mainstream. Augmented Reality (AR) is one technology that is on the cusp of dramatically expanding its mainstream presence. Many of us remember how AR burst into the mainstream with Nintendo’s Smartphone game, Pokémon Go. This “activity” game showed us all how AR can integrate digital images with reality, but can AR go beyond entertainment, can it be put to use in other ways to enhance and improve the human condition? Here are some of the latest ideas and projects that aim to do just that, in a wide range of fields:

Medicine: There are many imaging technologies that provide information for medical practitioners, such as X-Ray, MRI, CT scan, Mammography, and Ultrasound. As digital images, they can be fed into an AR system to display in the real setting, such as in the Operating Room, hovering just above the patient undergoing surgery. The surgeon, wearing AR lens technology, can view these helpful images without taking his/her eyes off the surgical site – no need to look away at a nearby screen. Not looking away during critical moments is seen as one of the key benefits of many AR technology applications. Other healthcare applications in use or development include:

--showing nearby defibrillators on your Smartphone (more critical than Pokémon)

--showing phlebotomists and nurses the image of exact vein locations right on the patient’s arm

--showing patients what their medical condition would look like if left untreated, such as the consequences of cataracts

Military Defense: The safety of soldiers on a field of battle can be enhanced with the use of AR technology. “Radio Silence” is a lifesaver on the battlefield because modern scanning technologies can find and locate all radio frequency (RF) transmissions. The saying goes that” If you’re transmitting, you can be found”, so ensuring that you are NOT transmitting can be a lifesaver. The US Navy is testing a prototype AR system that can detect and display any RF transmission. This allows the user to detect and turn off transmitting sources located on themselves, as well as detecting all other RF transmission sources. The system uses a specially designed AR heads-up display, which superimposes RF waves over heavy sunglasses in the real-world environment. This replaces older, bulky portable tablet type devices that located RF signal sources. This hands-free display allows the user to keep his eyes on the battlefield at all times, a critical need in dangerous situations. The system responds to voice commands or hand gestures to navigate through various bits of information about the detected RF signals, helping to locate and deactivate the transmission source.

Sports Training: Amateurs and professionals in various sports are always looking for more and better ways to train and get motivated, with the goal of enhancing performance. One of the interesting and somewhat amusing AR applications for sport and fitness is a game called ZOMBIES, RUN. This game plays on the knowledge that fear can motivate, and that turning a boring activity like running into a game can make it seem like fun. The game runs on your phone and provides various ZOMBIE Missions, with scary audio sounds and narrations (use your earphones), as well as visuals on your phone screen if you have the nerve or time to look at your phone while running from Zombies. Other sports could have other motivators, such as being presented with the Stanley Cup or an Olympic medal. With AR technology all kinds of visual and audio elements can be added to your surrounding reality, such as bicycle riding with Tour de France competitors nipping at your rear wheel or passing you by. The possibilities are many and varied – just use some imagination.

Technology can be empowering and beneficial in many other facets of our life, helping us to unwind, decompress, relax, and enjoy life. AR gaming and entertainment is making huge advances, and Virtual Reality (VR) gaming is already a big industry.

Chinese government issues 17,000 smart watches to track movements of schoolchildren

With each passing day, conditions are increasingly resembling those prophesied in Revelation 13:11-18. What's "voluntary" today will be compulsory tomorrow. As reported by Sophia Yan of the London Daily Telegraph, July 17, 2019 (links in original):

Beijing -- A local government in southern China has handed out smart watches to nearly 17,000 primary school pupils, capable of pinging their real-time locations and emergency alerts to their parents.

The watches, distributed to students in 60 schools, are equipped with chips powered by BeiDou, China’s own version of GPS, according to the Guangzhou Daily, a Chinese state media outlet. GPS is a system developed and owned by the US government.

“With this watch, Mom and Dad can know where I am, and I can call and voice message them immediately after class,” one enthusiastic fourth-grader told state media.

The smart watch-tracking government program is entirely voluntary and about half of the devices distributed have already come online. Plans are in place to issue another 13,000 smart watches to students, and the authorities will soon begin handing them out to elderly people.

User information will be uploaded to a database maintained by China’s ministry of public security and the ministry of industry and information technology, according to state media.

Cities in China have been getting creative in finding new ways to monitor students and curb truancy with the latest technologies.

In December, more than ten schools in Guizhou and Guangxi provinces began requiring students to wear “intelligent uniforms” embedded with computer chips to track their movements and trigger an alarm if they skip class, according to state media.

Two chips, sown into the shoulders of school jackets, can sustain around 500 wash cycles and temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius.

Facial recognition scanners at school gates match the chips with the correct students, meaning anyone who tries to swap jackets in order to play truant will be caught. Alarms will also sound if a pupil falls asleep in class.

Last May, a high school in Hangzhou installed facial recognition technology to check how attentive pupils were in class.

Movements of students are watched by three cameras positioned above the blackboard, and can pick up seven different emotions, including neutral, happy, sad, disappointed, angry, scared and surprised. If the technology concludes a student is distracted in class, it will send a notification to the teacher to take action.

BeiDou was originally developed by the Chinese military to reduce reliance on the US-owned GPS system, but its positioning accuracy is to within 10 metres while GPS can track down to 30 centimetres.

In efforts to speed up adoption of the system, Chinese authorities have ordered taxis, buses and other vehicles to install BeiDou, and many domestic phone brands including Huawei and Xiaomi are now also compatible with the system.

There are only a handful of other global satellite navigation systems, including Russia’s Glonass and Europe’s Galileo, which has suffered an outage over the last two weeks.

The UK has been involved in developing Galileo, sinking £1.2 billion in the project, but now intends to build its own as part of Brexit fallout.

When futuristic technologies collide...

...the result can be amusing, as reported by Ben Hooper of United Press International, January 10, 2019:

A Russian robotics company said one of its autonomous Promobots was taken out by a self-driving Tesla on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Promobot shared a video recorded outside of the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino showing one of its namesake machines at the side of a driveway at the facility.

Multiple cars easily pass by the autonomous robot, but a self-driving Tesla Model S collides with the robot and drives away.

The Promobot, which is knocked off its wheels, was destroyed, the company said.

The collision took place about half a mile from CES, the technology trade show that began Tuesday.

Seven members of Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo are hanged for 1995 Tokyo subway murders

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Matthew 24:24

I missed this item when it was reported a few weeks ago. The reader will notice the influence of the Hindu god Shiva--known as "The Destroyer"--as well as yoga and Eastern meditation. As reported by Daniel Oberhaus in Motherboard, July 6, 2018 (bold, links in original):

On March 20, 1995, two physicists, an artificial intelligence researcher, an engineer, and a heart doctor entered the Tokyo subway system at the peak of morning rush hour. Each of the men carried two small plastic bags wrapped in newspaper and an umbrella with a sharpened tip. After boarding five different trains, the scientists dropped the plastic bags at preordained stations and punctured them with the tips of their umbrellas before exiting the subway to rendezvous with their getaway drivers. As these scientists were whisked away to a hideout, the deadly sarin gas contained in their packages began to permeate the air in the subway tunnels.

By the time the air had cleared, 12 subway commuters were dead and over 1,000 others were injured through exposure to the potent nerve gas. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in Japanese history.

On Friday, seven leaders of Aum Shinrikyo, the doomsday cult formed in the late 80s that was responsible for the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attack were executed by hanging. Among the seven were Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum cult, Yoshihiro Inoue, the mastermind of the subway attack, Seiichi Endo, the cult’s lead scientist, and Masami Tsuchiya, the group’s chief chemist. The actual perpetrators of the chemical attack are still on death row in Japan.

Although human rights groups like Amnesty International condemned the executions, which are carried out without advance warning in Japan, some attack victims only wish they had been notified about the executions ahead of time.

“When I think of those who died because of them, it was a pity (my husband’s) parents and my parents could not hear the news of this execution,” Shizue Takahashi, the widow of a Tokyo Metro employee who died in the 1995 attacks told CNN. “I wanted (cult members) to confess more about the incident, so it’s a pity that we cannot hear their account anymore.”

Aum Shinrikyo was a religious cult for the internet age. Its members blended yoga, terrorism, murder, chemical weapon production, arms manufacturing, and software development to create a multinational LSD-fueled monster. This is the story of Aum’s creation, the role of science in its terrorist activities, and why the cult’s vision never really died.

Bioterrorists and Software Developers

Formed in 1984 by the pharmacist Chizuo Matumoto, who would later assume the name Shoko Asahara, Aum Shinrikyo was originally dedicated to yoga and meditation. Shortly after its founding, however, Asahara believed he had been selected by the Hindu god Shiva to create a utopian society and set about trying to elect members of his ascetic cult to the Japanese government. When Aum members only managed to secure a few hundred votes in the 1990 elections, Ashara told his reclusive followers that the group should instead focus on the violent overthrow of the Japanese government.

Ashara’s plan began with an attempt to create large reserves of botulinum, a neurotoxic chemical produced by bacteria. To produce the neurotoxin, Seiichi Endo collected soil from the Ishikari River and allowed the bacteria to ferment in large containers at a compound run by the group. Endo managed to produce nearly 50,000 liters of fermented sludge, but since the sludge hadn’t been purified, initial tests showed it induced no toxic effects. Nevertheless, in April 1990 members of Aum loaded the sludge into three spray trucks. They drove by two US naval bases, Narita airport, a Japanese government building and the Imperial Palace while spraying the sludge from the trucks, but the ‘attack’ didn’t induce any negative effects in the people near those areas.

The early years of Aum Shinrikyo were defined by failed chemical attacks. In 1992, Ashara, who now believed he was Jesus, and some of his followers traveled to Zaire in an attempt to acquire Ebola samples, but returned empty handed. The following year, the group again tried to launch an botulinum attack at Prince Naruhito’s wedding using a spray truck, but like the first attack attempt the neurotoxin hadn’t been activated. Shortly thereafter, Aum members tried to launch an anthrax attack by spraying the bacteria from the roof of its headquarters using a fan and in drive-by attacks with spray vehicles. In both instances, the attacks failed due to using unusable strains of the anthrax bacteria.

At the same time, however, Aum carried out a string of murders against those it considered to be enemies or members of the cult that tried to defect. Although the mysterious circumstances of these murders brought increasing public scrutiny to the group, police couldn’t tie the murders to Aum and the negative attention didn’t dampen its popularity. By 1992, Aum Shinrikyo had a net worth of more than $1 billion raised from charging exorbitant fees from its roughly 20,000 members in several countries, including the US, Australia and Russia.

Many of these members were highly educated students and wealthy businessmen. According to a 1996 Wired feature on Aum, many of the cult's recruits were “the otaku—Japan's version of computer nerds—technofreaks who spent their free time logged on to electronic networks and amassing data of every type.” As such, Aum relied heavily on science fiction imagery and grandeur to pedal its vision of nuclear armageddon and techno-redemption to attract new members.Indeed, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy served as a sort of “bible” for the sect, which also aspired to build a utopian community of scientists.

In 1994, Aum orchestrated its first successful bioterrorism attack by releasing clouds of sarin gas near the homes of judges who were presiding over a real estate lawsuit brought against the cult in Matsumoto. These attacks resulted in eight deaths and injured several hundred others. After years of failures, the chemists working at the cult’s Ministry of Science and Technology demonstrated they could produce large quantities of active nerve agents. As it would turn out, however, this was just the beginning.

Shortly after the Matsumoto attack, Aum’s chief chemist Masami Tsuchiya produced around 200 grams of VX gas, a militarized nerve agent that is more potent than sarin—exposure to only a few dozen milligrams is enough to kill a human adult. In September of 1994, the initial batch of VX created by Tsuchiya was used to kill 20 Aum members that had left the cult as an experiment to demonstrate that the VX gas had been successfully synthesized. In the months leading up to the Tokyo subway attack, Aum stepped up its VX attacks, spreading it on car door handles, injecting it into keyholes and spraying it from syringes onto lawyers, members of Aum victims groups, rival religious leaders and other dissident cult members.

As the members of Aum Shinrikyo made preparations for a large-scale subway attack using sarin gas it had manufactured at a massive facility at the base of Mt. Fuji, Japanese police were building a case against the religious group and preparing for a raid. When word of the impending raid reached Asahara, he ordered the Tokyo attack to be carried out ahead of schedule on March 20. Two days after the attack, Japanese police arrested Ashara and hundreds of Aum cult members and raided the cult’s headquarters at the base of Mt. Fuji. There police found the entrance to a massive sarin production facility hidden behind an alter, a stockpile of sarin precursors that could produce enough of the neurotoxin to kill 4 million people, a Russian military helicopter, explosives, labs equipped to manufacture LSD and meth, millions of dollars in US cash and gold, and several prisoners being held in cells.

The Future of Aum

By 2004, 13 members of Aum Shinrikyo had been sentenced to death and five members given life sentences for their roles in the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway and various individual murders perpetrated by the group. 80 other members of the cult were given prison sentences of varying lengths. Asahara’s execution was postponed in 2012 after two wanted members of Aum were apprehended in Japan. After years of delays due to repeated appeals for re-trials, on Friday morning, seven of the senior members of Aum were executed by hanging with no advance notice given to the public.

Despite the sordid legacy of the Aum Shinrikyo, the group continues to exist, albeit in a nominally different form. Since 2000, the organization has gone by the name Aleph and renounced the violent program of Aum. Still, in 1999, the Japanese government authorized the Public Security Investigation Agency to carry out investigations of the group’s activities across the country as it saw fit. Despite the scrutiny and public protest, however, Aleph members still follow Asahara’s teachings and appear to have deep ties in the Japanese science and technology sectors.

In 2000, it was revealed that Aum-affiliated computer companies had developed software for at least 10 Japanese government agencies and over 80 major Japanese corporations. According to the New York Times, this raised concerns that Aleph may have had access to sensitive government information and computer systems. Following the report, many Japanese companies immediately suspended use of software developed by Aum-affiliated companies out of fear that it would be used for cyberterrorism. In 2002, The Guardian reported that Aum also “enjoys a huge following within Japan's nuclear establishment, which is riddled with believers from millennialist sects.”

Today, Aleph is seen as less of a threat than Aum once was, but it is still an active religious organization that has seen a resurgence of interest in Japan and Russia. In 2016, authorities in Montenegro broke up a conference organized by Aleph in the country after the hotel that was hosting them reported that some of the attendees, most of whom were Russian, showed “signs of ritualistic injury.” In Japan, the organization continues to recruit young people through yoga sessions. Last year, Aleph was raided by Japanese police over illegal recruiting practices, including taking thousands of dollars in membership fees without requiring members to fill out requisite paperwork and failing to disclose the organization’s links to Aum.

In the lead up to Friday’s execution of top Aum members, Japanese police searched 16 facilities related to Aum, including some run by Aleph. Following the execution, a “senior official” at Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department said the agency was stepping up security at some locations out of fear that some of Asahara’s followers may try to retaliate for his death.

The story of Aum is as strange as it is tragic, but it serves as an important reminder about the ambiguity of scientific advancement and the democratization of high technology. Although scientists pride themselves on their objectivity and ability to stick to evidence, Asahara demonstrated that they are just as susceptible to being lead astray as anyone else. Moreover, as the cost of sophisticated technologies continues to decrease, it becomes easier for bad actors to get their hands on these same technologies and use them for destructive ends. In the age of deep fakes, gun-toting drones, and freely available militarized malware, the next incarnation of Aum might not be so easy to stop.

Radio frequency may replace X-rays in security devices

As reported by Joshua Philipp of The Epoch Times, June 7, 2018 (link in original):

A new device that fits on a cellphone could soon replace X-ray machines in airports and security checkpoints, while being affordable enough for schools and nightclubs.

Rather than using X-rays, which often require heavy equipment, the new device, SWORD, uses radio frequency. The technology can achieve effects similar to X-rays, but in a noninvasive way, and with no more radiation than what a cellphone already emits.

The SWORD platform would help move options for preventing terrorist attacks and mass shootings from being reactive to proactive, according to Barry Oberholzer, CEO of Royal Holdings, which created the system.

“If you look at all the mass shooter and terror attacks that have been happening, we believe this product we develop is proactive and can save lives,” he said. “It’s not reactive like many people are currently pushing.”

Oberholzer said the system was an answer to threats he has witnessed in his work as an intelligence contractor. He has worked with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Belgium Customs Intelligence Agency, and others to counter criminal operations, including narco-terrorism and smuggling networks.

SWORD works through a specialized smartphone case with an internal processor and antennae that emit radio frequency waves. These waves can scan people and bags, and transmit data back to the phone. It then runs the data through an app on the phone itself, which connects to an AI-driven threat database. It can then give alerts on whether people are carrying guns or explosives, and can do facial recognition to detect if an individual is banned from a location or wanted by authorities.

Oberholzer said the new system would give even security guards at locations such as airports and metro stations the ability to scan individuals and unattended bags for threats, rather than having to call in police, K-9 units, or bomb squads, which can often take hours.

U.K. Bible Society fined £100,000 for cyber hack of over 400,000 supporters

It seems as though no one is safe from the perils of modern technology; as reported by Robert Mendick of the London Daily Telegraph, June 8, 2018 (link in original):

The Bible Society has been fined £100,000 over computer security failings that allowed hackers to access the personal details of more than 400,000 mainly Christian backers.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said the details of supporters - including home addresses, telephone numbers and bank accounts - were compromised by cyber attackers who guessed the “weak password” of one the charity’s databases.

The password was the same as the username on the account, set up in 2009 but not hacked until November 2016. The account contained details of 417,000 Bible Society supporters.

The ICO complained, in issuing the large fine, that the cyber attack caused “distress” because the “religious belief of the 417,000 supporters could be inferred”.

The fine is particularly embarrassing for the Bible Society which is one most distinguished charities in the UK. It has been operating for more than 200 years, distributing and promoting the bible in the UK and overseas while its patron is Her Majesty the Queen.

But a source close to the charity complained that the ICO had issued an arbitrarily large fine in punishment and had wrongly concluded that the Christian beliefs of its supporters was something they would wish to remain private.

But Steve Eckersley, the ICO’s head of enforcement, said: “The Bible Society failed to protect a significant amount of personal data, and exposed its supporters to possible financial or identity fraud.

“Our investigation determined that it is likely that the religious belief of the 417,000 supporters could be inferred, and the distress this kind of breach can cause cannot be underestimated.

“Cyber-attacks will happen, that’s just a fact, and we fully accept that they are a criminal act. But organisations need to have strong security measures in place to make it as difficult as possible for intruders.”

According to the ICO, “one or more attackers exploited the vulnerability by using brute force” to guess the weak password. Then on December 1 2016, the attackers deployed ransomware that encrypted one million shared files held on the Bible Society’s open network. Ransomware allows hackers to hold organisations to ransom by offering to unlock the encrypted data in exchange for money.

The files included 1,020 payment card details that included card numbers and start and end dates; 27,800 bank details with sort code and account numbers; and contact details of more than 400,000 supporters.

The ransomware also had the capability of stealing files from the Bible Society computer network.

The ICO, the authority which prosecutes data breaches, concluded that the cyber attack was likely to cause “substantial damage or substantial distress” and that the hackers had likely deliberately targeted the charity in an attempt to hold it to ransom.

The Bible Society said in a statement it was the victim of a criminal ransomware attack and that “the incident occurred because of a vulnerability in a single isolated account which had been overlooked”.

It went on: “No other Bible Society account was – or could have been – compromised by the attack as robust cyber security measures were – and remain – in place across the organisation. At no point did this breach involve or affect our website (biblesociety.org.uk) or associated online Bible Society accounts.”

The society said it had “acknowledged, from the outset, the significance of the data security incident and we have taken it very seriously”.

But it also pointed out that it had not received a single report of a breach any supporters’ accounts while “there is no evidence of any material effect on supporters”.

The Bible Society has already paid the fine, receiving a 20 per cent discount for early payment. It insisted that no donations were used to pay the discounted £80,000 fine.

Israeli Knesset Finance Committee approves a bill calling for microchipping of camels

Even camels aren't safe from intrusive technology; as usual, the measure is justified on the basis of safety. As reported by Jewish News Syndicate, May 22, 2018:

The legislation dictates that camel owners bear criminal responsibility for accidents and damages caused by their animals. Camels will also be required to have a subcutaneous digital microchip with owners’ details.

The Knesset Finance Committee approved the Camel Law on Tuesday, initiated by Regavim and Knesset member Bezalel Smotrich, for its second and third readings in the Knesset plenum. Regulations requiring identification and registration of camels by subcutaneous microchip were approved, as well as criminal responsibility for camel owners.

The law, which is scheduled for its final Knesset plenum hearing (“second and third reading”) next week, was drafted jointly by Regavim, Smotrich (a resident of the Negev community Retamim) and other Knesset members.

Under the new legislation, camel owners will bear criminal responsibility for accidents and damages caused by their animals. Camels will be required to have a subcutaneous digital microchip recording the owner’s details—similar to the microchips with which dogs and other pets are currently registered. Additionally, the new Camel Law will require owners to officially register the sale or transfer of ownership of all camels in a Ministry of Agriculture database.

Meir Deutsch, director of policy and parliamentary affairs at Regavim, explains that the law began to take shape almost three years ago, after the death of David Cohen of Retamim in a collision with a camel near the entrance to his home town.

“Since the legislative process began, three more people lost their lives in tragic, but avoidable, camel accidents,” said Deutsch. “After the most recent accident, in which 13-year old Liel Almakias was killed, Knesset Finance Committee Chairman MK Eitan Cabel took up the cause and expedited the legislation’s progress. We hope these new regulations will reduce the problem of wandering camels and help save lives.”

Said Smotrich: “We approved an important piece of legislation today, after intensive efforts. Residents of the Negev deserve to be protected by the state, and those who should be held responsible will be forced to take responsibility. With God’s help, the danger to life and limb and the fatal collisions caused by wandering camels will soon be a thing of the past. Today, we took an important step towards this goal—better late than never.”

New technology enables discovery of hidden script in Dead Sea Scrolls

Praise ye the LORD: Psalms 147:1a

Conservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Antiquities Authority’s lab.

A fragment of Deuteronomy (11Q3) after IR imaging at the scroll lab of the Israel Antiquity Authority.

The Great Psalms Scroll (11Q5) together with the new fragment containing Psalm 147:1.

As reported by JNI Media, May 2, 2018 (link in original):

New discovery: advanced imaging technology – developed especially for the Dead Sea Scrolls and located at the Scrolls’ conservation labs of the Israel Antiquities Authority – revealed script that could not be seen until now.

During the 1950s, tens of thousands parchment and papyrus fragments written 2000 years ago and belonging to approximately 1,000 different manuscripts were discovered in the caves near Qumran. Due to their small size and precarious physical state, some of these fragments were placed in boxes without being sorted or deciphered.

Recently, as part of the Scrolls’ digitization project sample examinations were conducted among these boxes. These examinations revealed that although no script can be seen with the naked eye, the new imaging technology (originally developed for NASA) used in the digitization project can identify script on some fragments. The identification of new letters and words provides new data for the study of the scrolls. One of the fragments may even indicate the existence of a hitherto unknown manuscript.

The fragments were presented Tuesday evening as part of the international conference, “The Dead Sea Scrolls at Seventy: Clear a Path in the Wilderness,” provide new information on one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.

The digitization project is being conducted by the Dead Sea Scrolls Unit of the IAA. As part of the project each of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls is imaged in order to monitor its physical condition and make the best possible images available to the public.

The new script was discovered by Oren Ableman – a scroll researcher at the Dead Sea Scrolls Unit of the IAA and a PhD student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – when he examined a few dozen fragments that were discovered in “Cave 11” near Qumran. He was exited to discover traces of ink on many fragments that appeared blank to the naked eye. After a detailed study – that is being made public today – Oren successfully deciphered the script on many of the fragments and even identified the manuscripts some of the new fragments probably belonged to.

Although only a few letters survived in these small fragments, sometimes this was enough to reconstruct the text. Still, due to the fragmentary nature of the evidence these reconstructions are not certain, but are highly likely.

New fragments were discovered and identified from the Books of Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Jubilees belonging to scrolls that scholars were already familiar with.

Fragments of particular interest that provide new insights for the research of the Dead Sea Scrolls include the following:

A fragment belonging to the Temple Scroll, a text dealing with directions for conducting the services in the ideal Temple. In current scholarship there is a debate if there are two or three copies of the Temple Scroll found in Cave 11 near Qumran. The identification of the new fragment strengthens the theory that a manuscript given the number 11Q21 is indeed a third copy of this text from Cave 11.

In addition, a fragment has been identified as belonging to the Great Psalms Scroll (11Q5). The new fragment preserves part of the beginning of Psalm 147:1.

The end of the same verse is preserved in a large fragment that was purchased and originally published by Yigal Yadin. The new fragment indicates that the text of Psalm 147:1 in this manuscript was slightly shorter than the Hebrew text commonly used nowadays.

Another fragment contains letters written in the ancient Hebrew script (paleo-Hebrew). This fragment could not be attributed to any one of the known manuscripts. This raises the possibility that it belonged to a still unknown manuscript.

Backlog: Big law firm uses fingerprint-scanning to track employees

As reported by Niamh Scallan of The Toronto Star, November 1, 2012:

The days of sneaking out for three-hour lunch breaks will soon be over at a Bay Street law firm after it decided to install fingerprint-scanning technology to monitor its employees’ whereabouts.

Last month, McCague Borlack LLP announced plans for a revamped security system that will require staff (except lawyers who spend much of their time with clients) to clock in and out of the office with a finger swipe, keeping track of morning late-comers or those who try to jump-start their weekends by slipping out early on a Friday.

“Some people were abusing the system,” said founding partner Howard Borlack, 58. “We had people taking two to three hours for lunch and we had no way of knowing. . . . Some people were complaining.”

Other Toronto firms use security passes and honour systems to keep track of time worked. McCague Borlack, which focuses mostly on insurance law and employs about 200 people, has gone a step further with a system that not only provides office access via fingerprint, but also records employees as they enter and leave.

Come mid-November, when the system is expected to go live, the office will be equipped with finger-scanning machines supplied by Utah-based Qqest, Inc. that will keep a rolling record of the time spent in the office.

It’s mostly about improved building security, said Borlack, a way to keep track of people coming in and out of the office and streamlining administrative tasks. But with concern within the firm that some people are working less than 40 hours a week, the monitoring feature is “a huge bonus.”

“I know we have people who probably work less than 35 hours a week and if I listen to all the griping about certain people, I’m sure it’s well less than that,” Borlack said.

A boon for productivity-conscious managers, the plan has drawn outrage among a group of bloggers who identify themselves as McCague Borlack secretaries.

On their “Finger Campaign” website, the group has accused the firm of singling out secretaries and copy-room staff (by exempting some lawyers from the program), and called the system an “insult to our human dignity” that has had a “very chilling effect on the secretaries’ psyche.”

“The indignant fingerprinting program does not seek to address any security concerns at all,” one post read. “It’s for the ‘mark ’em and track ’em’ purpose exclusively.”

Borlack admitted he “knew it would be uncomfortable” for some employees, but said he was careful to ensure the fingerprint technology would not violate privacy issues. He denounced the “Finger Campaign” as false, noting the new measure was intended mostly for security purposes and most staff seemed to be on board.

Rosa DeFrenza, a receptionist at the firm for five years, said she had not yet seen the “Finger Campaign” website, but said she thought the program could help to standardize work hours among her colleagues.

She added that diligent workers, herself included, had no reason to be concerned about the program. “No one should be working more than anyone else, no one should be working less than anyone else,” DeFrenza said.

But where to draw the line?

Carleton University law professor Michael MacNeil, who specializes in legal issues surrounding privacy and surveillance, said the fingerprinting system is just one example of the way workplaces are using technology to monitor and maximize productivity.

But legislation has lagged behind the trend, he said, leaving more questions than answers over what constitutes an invasion of privacy in the workplace.

“There’s a lot of it going on,” he said. “It’s an area where the law is underdeveloped.”

If a religious group used methods such as those described above, it would be considered evidence of the group's cultic character. Indeed, that comparison has already been made. Mary Otvos, a young woman who was quitting the practice of law after 10 years wrote an article titled Why I'm Leaving Law, which appeared on pages 12-17 of the February 1992 issue of Canadian Lawyer. Unfortunately, the magazine's online archives don't go back that far, and that article doesn't seem to be available online. One of the observations that Ms. Otvos made was that big law firms are like religious cults in their efforts to control their people. That article appeared 20 years before McCague Borlack began using fingerprint technology to monitor their employees' whereabouts; the use of surveillance technology has enabled the cult leaders to be even more controlling.

Self-driving Uber car runs down and kills pedestrian in Arizona

As Paul Harvey used to say, "If you don't have enough to worry about..." As reported by Gabrielle Olivera and Ryan Randazzo of the Arizona Republic, March 19, 2018 (links in original):

In what is believed to be the nation's first pedestrian death involving an autonomous vehicle, a 49-year-old woman was hit and killed by a self-driving Volvo operated by Uber while crossing a street in Tempe on Sunday night.

The woman was crossing Mill Avenue outside the crosswalk near the Marque Theatre at about 10 p.m. when she was hit, police said.

Sgt. Ronald Elcock, a Tempe police spokesman, said the car was on autonomous mode with a driver behind the wheel when it hit the pedestrian.

The woman, identified as Elaine Herzberg of Mesa, died at a hospital.

Uber said that its operations of self-driving cars have been "paused." The company did not dispute the police report of the vehicle operating in autonomous mode.

Uber has been carrying customers in the self-driving cars in limited parts of Tempe and Scottsdale.

"Our hearts go out to the victim’s family," Uber said. "We’re fully cooperating with local authorities as they investigate this incident."

The Phoenix area is among several sites where Uber, Waymo and other companies are testing autonomous vehicles. Nearly every accident involving autonomous cars so far has been the fault of other drivers. Sunday's fatality was the first.

In 2016, a man driving a Tesla car with partial automation was killed in Florida when he hit a truck. However, that vehicle was not intended to operate without an attentive driver, in contrast with the Uber and Waymo vehicles.

Uber and Waymo have drivers in their test cars in the Phoenix area to take control only when the cars encounter a traffic situation they can't negotiate, or if they are driving outside of areas the companies have mapped sufficiently enough to allow the cars to run on their own. Waymo has even taken operators out of the driver seat for some tests.

As of Monday afternoon, police were investigating what caused the collision and said that Uber was assisting.

Hollywood predicted this decades ago:





HT: Vox Popoli

Backlog: Plastinated fetuses for sale in China

This item is very bizarre, and I can't verify its truth, but as reported by Lu Chen and Matthew Robertson of The Epoch Times, October 16, 2013 (bold, links in original):

A screenshot from the website of the Beijing Overseas Star Science & Technology Development Co. shows a variety of plastinated fetus specimens for order.

In the annals of all strange things to emerge from China, the wares for sale — but not really for sale — on the website of the Beijing Overseas Star Science & Technology Development Co. must rank among the strangest.

That is, plastinated fetuses. Or more simply: dead unborn babies that have been pumped full of plastic, which preserves them for medical research.

They’re available for sale from between $10,000 and $12,000, according to an English-language advertisement on Alibaba.com, the equivalent of Ebay in China. The company can supply 5,000 of them per year, the ad says.

According to Chen Guoxin, the director of the company reached by telephone, the plastic babies are not actually for sale. On his own website, the price next to them is 0 yuan. This is because, he said, “it’s illegal to traffic human bodies in China.”

‘Donations’
Instead, Chen said, “We donate the fetus to medical institutes for research, and they can donate money to us in return. We can negotiate a price for compensation or support to us to avoid legal risk.”

When asked by a reporter how much would be expected as donation, he said “around $10,000.”

Multiple strands of very China-specific developments were required to make way for this possibility. These include an abundance of aborted, dead fetuses as a result of the one-child policy, and secondly, the technical ability to plastinate human specimens, brought to China in the 1990s by the German impresario Gunther von Hagens, who built a multimillion dollar empire by charging people to view his works.

Fetuses are available in sets of 5, from 12 to 20 weeks old; those who need to can also purchase an embryo set (running from 4 to 8 weeks of gestation) complete with placenta and umbilical cord.

Fetus Source
Mr. Chen was coy on the conditions of how the fetuses are obtained. He said they came from hospitals, but could not explain why so many were available, and repeatedly cautioned that no money changed hands. Buying and selling fetuses would be illegal in China, he said several times.

He said that his company works with a third party — whose name he would not disclose — that performs the plastination and works with the hospital to obtain fetuses.

Aside from Mr. Chen’s cautions, the rate of abortions and forced abortions in China is known to be extremely high, due to the Chinese Communist Party’s birth control policies, which typically restrict families to one child. The result is a documented, enormous number of abortions, forced and otherwise: an average of 7 million a year, according to official data.

Hospitals have been known to drown or strangle babies in front of their parents, and in one case that stirred public outrage in 2012, a killed fetus at seven months of development was simply placed on a hospital bed next to its distraught mother. It is likely that fetuses of this sort make their way into the ranks of the plastinated.

A Legal Question
Mr. Chen was adamant in his discussion with a reporter that the company followed all applicable laws in its processing of plastinated fetuses and other human specimens. He did not explain why they were advertised for sale on Alibaba, where that was supposed to be illegal, however.

The company lists an impressive number of registration certificates and licenses on its website, but phone calls to several of the groups referred to did not clarify matters.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ), and the China Quality Certification Centre, both of whom are listed on Beijing Overseas Star Science & Technology’s website, said that human specimens are not in their bailiwick.

GAQSIQ recommended a reporter call the Ministry of Health’s consultation hotline. A staff member there, after being apprised of the situation, was surprised and said: “A medical device company like that shouldn’t have the qualification to do research on human specimens. Of course it’s illegal.”

She added: “Doing research on human specimens needs to go through organ donation institutes via legal procedures. A medical device company has nothing to do with human specimens.”

Plastination and its Abuses
The technique of plastination has a checkered history in China. It was pioneered by Gunther von Hagens, who found that China — the city of Dalian, in particular, when it was the stomping ground of disgraced Chinese official Bo Xilai in the 1990s — was particularly accommodating to his line of work.

Von Hagens and, later, a former employee who took von Hagen’s techniques to establish his own plastination empire, were able to obtain bodies with relative ease. Von Hagen’s former partner, Sui Hongjin, is suspected of having used executed prisoners, including the bodies of killed Falun Gong practitioners, among his plastinations, given that the area in which he operated was a key center for the persecution of the practice and the suspected organ harvesting of adherents.

Chen Guoxin’s company sells adult specimens, too — not just babies. One can purchase plastinated thymuses, bisected brains, urinary tracts, and even sliced-open faces.

A whole specimen of the human body is around $30,000 to $40,000 — donated, not purchased, of course, Chen said. He assured the reporter proudly: “The quality won’t change in 1,000 years.”

Church of England court rules that closed circuit television cameras must be turned off during services to protect privacy of prayer

Another sign of the times, as reported by Olivia Rudgard of the London Daily Telegraph, February 23, 2018:

Churches must switch off CCTV cameras during services because prayer is private, a Church of England court has ruled.

The consistory court ruling is believed to be the first made on the ethics of CCTV in church and was made in response to a Canterbury vicar who applied to install two cameras so his church could be left open during the day.

The Reverend Philip Brown, and churchwardens Robin Slowe and Robert Allen, want to install the camera system to deter vandals from damaging the church and to catch the actions of any wrongdoers.

St Mary's Chartham is a Grade I listed medieval building, most of which was built between 1285 and 1305.

Morag Ellis QC, commissary general of the Diocese of Canterbury, said that the cameras should be switched off during services, including regular Sunday worship and events such as weddings.

"Funerals and baptisms, in particular, are examples of occasions on which people are likely to be very sensitive," she said.

Cameras should also be kept away from secluded areas designed for prayer, she added.

"Areas set aside for private devotions seem to me to fall within the especially sensitive category where one would not expect to be filmed while praying.

"Similarly, in any churches where sacramental Confession or other ministries of individual pastoral support, such as healing, are practised, there should be no filming in the part or parts of the church set aside for such purposes," she said.

Church of England churches are encouraged to keep their doors open, with experts advising that such a policy means vandalism is less likely than if the doors are locked.

Ms Ellis, an ecclesiastical law expert who is also married to a Church of England priest, added that the footage should be kept for a maximum of four weeks "because damage and theft in the church, where recordings could be of evidential value, will not always be spotted immediately".

Churches should follow Government guidance which says a CCTV camera's operators must "take into account its effect on individuals and their privacy".

She said the 700-year-old church would not be damaged by the introduction of the cameras as they would be fixed "discreetly" to roof timbers.

A national funding scheme for places of worship was announced in 2016 which allows churches, mosques, gurdwaras and other religious buildings which are vulnerable to hate crime with funding for measures such as CCTV cameras.

Antennas to be installed in English church steeples to improve broadband access

As reported by Edward Malnick of the London Daily Telegraph, February 18, 2018:

Mobile providers are preparing to install antennas in church spires across the country, after ministers and bishops signed an agreement aimed at using the Church of England's buildings to help obliterate blackspots.

A new "accord" between the Government and the Church sets out a joint plan to improve "connectivity" in rural areas by making use of spires and towers, following the successful use of the structures to improve access to high-speed broadband in two dioceses.

The new agreement, signed by Matt Hancock, the Digital Secretary, and Dr David Walker, the Bishop of Manchester, following a summit in December, states that the Government and Church will work with both "mobile and broadband providers" to "help deliver improved connectivity".

It includes a pledge to work with operators to draw up a standard contract that that could be used for churches hosting mobile and and broadband equipment.

Currently more than 100 churches are used to boost broadband signal in local areas, after the dioceses of Norwich and Chelmsford pioneered schemes to encourage the use of their buildings to help improve the reach of high-speed internet.

Only a handful currently contain equipment boosting mobile signal. The agreement is intended to lead to far more of the Church's 16,000 church buildings housing mobile and broadband equipment, which currently includes wireless transmitters, aerials and satellite dishes.

Mobile UK, the industry body representing EE, O2, Three and Vodafone, welcomed the announcement, stating that where spires and towners could be used to boost signal, the operators would "extend their use of churches to increase mobile coverage and capacity while respecting thechurch environment.”

The announcement of the accord comes after Ofcom, the communications regulator, disclosed that 82 per cent of properties in rural areas do not receive a 4G signal from all of the major phone networks, compared to 36 per cent in urban areas - meaning that many people are unable to access high-speed internet on their mobiles.

The disclosure, in December, led to claims that families and small businesses in rural areas were being "left behind".

The agreement between the Church and Government, which has also been signed by Lord Gardiner, the rural affairs minister, and William Nye, secretary general of the Archbishops' Council, states: "By working together with mobile and broadband providers, we believe that we can help deliver improved connectivity, particularly in rural areas, and thereby bring about important practical benefits to congregations, local communities, local businesses and visitors alike."

Mr Hancock said: “This agreement with the Church of England will mean that even a 15th century building can help make Britain fit for the future improving people’s lives by boosting connectivity in some of our hardest-to-reach areas.

The Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Chelmsford, told The Sunday Telegraph that, in a "digital world", he regarded the deprivation of signal in some areas as "a very serious impoverishment of peoples' lives.

"In rural communities this is a very real issue which people in towns and cities often don't fully appreciate. "In that spirit we want to do what we can to help make this as accessible as possible."

He added: "We've got an awful lot of buildings with towers and spires so it seemed a very practical way in which we could be serving our communities."

Officials said that "clear guidance" by the Church and Historic England "ensures that any telecoms infrastructure deployed does not impact on the character and architectural or historic significance of churches."

The agreement notes that "improvements in digital connectivity can have a wide range of benefits" including "improved social interaction with family and friends" and supporting access to skills and training.

"The ability to communicate with others is a prerequisite for many aspects of the Church's mission," it adds.

This story seemed familiar to this blogger; see my post Your church steeple may actually be a cell phone tower in disguise (December 3, 2011).

Noah called to his son on his cell phone, according to Turkish professor

And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation...
...And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood...
...In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; Genesis 7:1, 7, 13

So the Ark floated with them on the waves (towering) like mountains, and Noah called out to his son, who had separated himself (from the rest): "O my son! embark with us, and be not with the unbelievers!"
The son replied: "I will betake myself to some mountain: it will save me from the water." Noah said: "This day nothing can save, from the command of Allah, any but those on whom He hath mercy! "And the waves came between them, and the son was among those overwhelmed in the Flood. Qur'an (Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation), Surah 11:42-43

The reader will note from the passages above that the Biblical account of the flood differs considerably from the Qur'anic version. The Genesis account clearly states that all of Noah's family, including all his sons, were in the ark. The following item, submitted for your approval, sounds like the sort of idea that Southwest Radio Church might promote, but it comes from Islam. As they used to say in Get Smart, "I find that very hard to believe." As reported by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz of Breaking Israel News, January 11, 2018:

A Turkish professor has come up with an amazing theory about Biblical Noah based on his understanding of the story as related in the Koran: during the storm, conversation was impossible due to the thunder and lightning so Noah kept in touch with his sons via cellular phone. The professor reveals even more surprising details but the story is no joke and has become the focus of religious debate between secular and Islamic Turks.

Yavuz Ornek, a lecturer at the Marine Sciences Faculty of Istanbul University, was invited to speak on Turkish state-owned TRT television channel last Saturday on the subject of the flood story, which has an entire chapter of the Koran dedicated to it. In most respects, it is identical to the story as it appears in the Bible, but Ornek’s take on the story differed greatly from both versions.

Ornek was discussing the section of the Koran’s version of the flood story in which one of Noah’s sons, who was a disbeliever, refused to come aboard the Ark. The son climbed a mountain but as the floodwaters rose, he spoke to his father and repented.

“The Koran says the waves were as high as mountains, so if Noah spoke with his son, his son must be sitting on the top of another mountain,” Ornek said in the televised interview. “The Koran says they spoke, but to talk between two mountains with hundreds of kilometers apart, they must have had mobile phones, and Noah’s son must have boarded an aerial vehicle to reach his father.”

Ornek explained his theory, saying that technologies were much more advanced 10,000 years ago than most people realize. Noah, referred to as Nûḥ ibn Lamech ibn Methuselah in the Koran, also used advanced technology to build an ark out of steel that was powered by nuclear energy. Ornek also claimed that instead of bringing live animals onto the ark, Noah stocked it with one male and one female egg from every living species.

“I am a scientist, I speak for science” Ornek added, giving his theories his academic seal of approval.

As bizarre as Professor Ornek’s claims may sound to Western ears, they were taken seriously by the Turkish public and became the focus of a fierce religious debate. Dr. Efrat Aviv, a specialist in Turkey for the Begin- Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a lecturer in the department of Middle Eastern Studies at Bar Ilan University, was sure Ornek was serious about his theories, as were the listeners.

“To say something insulting about the Koran, even as a joke, could cost this man his life, so it is unlikely he meant it as anything other than serious commentary on the text.” Dr. Aviv told Breaking Israel News. “I watched the interview. He sounded very convincing and clearly believed in his theories. The professor went into great depth and detail, making fine distinctions in the text.”

Dr. Aviv reported fierce debates on Turkish social media over the Ornek’s comments.

“His theories were extreme by any standards, Dr. Aviv said. “Most of the Turkish people who reacted on social media had strong opinions, mostly rejecting his theories, but some people were very supportive and defended him.”

Dr. Aviv described one anti-religious Turkish twitter comment that used Ornek’s theories to strike at religion.

“If you can believe in such a story as a crazy as the flood then it should be no problem to believe that Noah spoke on a cell-phone,” the tweet read.

“There is a religious conflict going on in Turkey,” Dr. Aviv said. “Even though this professor did not intend for his statements to be anti-Islamic, the furor that is the result of the interview is becoming the expression of this conflict.”

The story of the ark is especially provocative in Turkey. The flood story is common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but anthropologists believe it has much more ancient roots in stories like the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic. Noah is considered an important prophet in Islam as one of the first sent to mankind. For Muslim Turks, this story takes on a much more important aspect since they believe the Biblical Mount Ararat, the final resting place of the ark, is actually Mount Nemrut in Turkey.

“This is a Muslim debate in Turkey but it is actually common to all religions,” Dr. Aviv said, summing up the conflict in universal terms. “This is the conflict between religion and science, and the question of what are the boundaries of belief.”

If your favourite performing artist is dead, you can still catch him "live" on tour by hologram

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. Revelation 13:11-15

Roy Orbison has long been one of this blogger's favourite singers; I was fortunate to see him in concert in 1981, and was Crying when I heard of his death in December 1988. I thought the only way to see him perform live again would be In Dreams, but if I want to Ride Away or be Borne on the Wind, I can join The Crowd and catch the Big O on tour in the United Kingdom,

continental Europe, and Australia in April-May 2018.

The fact that an artist who's been dead for almost 30 years can perform concerts by means of a hologram (the accompanying orchestra is presumably real) shows how far the technology has advanced that can create (or recreate) the impression of a live performance, and gives further indication of how the image of the beast will come about, and how people will be deceived into worshipping the image. It's Too Soon to Know how successful the hologram technology will work on Roy Orbison's 2018 tour (there's always the chance of a Communication Breakdown before It's Over), but readers who are Running Scared and asking Where is Tomorrow should waste no time in believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, and receiving the salvation He has provided, lest they find themselves Falling or Drifting Away. The prophecies concerning the Beast, his mark, and image, were given 2,000 years ago, and are in the process of being fulfilled, right on schedule. The return of the Lord Jesus Christ is one of the most important and frequent subjects of New Testament prophecy; that too, will occur right on schedule, and the stage is being set.

HT: M.P.

And now--robot priests

Robot clergy might be acceptable for a religion that consists of empty ritual, but not for a true faith in the living God. As reported by Samuel Gibbs in the British newspaper The Guardian, August 23, 2017 (links in original):

In Japan robots can serve as companions, helpers for the elderly, entertainment bots and even sexual partners, but now SoftBank’s humanoid robot Pepper has put itself up for hire as a Buddhist priest for funerals.

Taking the German blessing bot’s idea and running with it, Pepper’s new code will let it chant sutras in a computerised voice while tapping a drum, providing a cheaper alternative to a human priest to see your loved ones off into the eternal sleep.

The robot was on display on Wednesday at a funeral industry fair, the Life Ending Industry Expo, in Tokyo, shown off by plastic molding maker Nissei Eco.

With the average cost of a funeral in Japan reaching in excess of £20,000, according to data from Japan’s Consumer Association in 2008, and human priests costing £1,700, Nissei Eco is looking to undercut the market with Pepper available for just £350 per funeral.

With Japan’s population ageing and shrinking, many Buddhist priests receive less financial support from their communities, prompting some to find part-time work outside their temple duties, said Michio Inamura, Nissei’s executive adviser, who suggested Pepper could step in when a human wasn’t available.

Would-be funeral arrangers have the option to deck Pepper out in the robe of a Buddhist monk and can even live-stream the ceremony to those who can’t attend the funeral in person.

Buddhist priest Tetsugi Matsuo said he came to the expo to see if Pepper could “impart the ‘heart’ aspect to a machine because I believe that the ‘heart’ is the foundation of religion”.

Pepper has yet to be hired to conduct a funeral, but with robots slowly creeping into most facets of life it seem inevitable they will be involved in its end in one form or another.

A related earlier item, as reported by Harriet Sherwood in The Guardian, May 30, 2017 (links in original):

Five hundred years after revolutionary printing presses spread news of Martin Luther’s radical call for church reform across Europe, technology is again challenging religious tradition in the small German town of Wittenberg.

A robot priest that delivers blessings in five languages and beams light from its hands has been unveiled as part of an exhibition to mark the anniversary of the start of the Reformation, a Europe-wide religious, political and cultural upheaval sparked when Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door in the town.

Half a millennium later, the robot, called BlessU-2, is intended to trigger debate about the future of the church and the potential of artificial intelligence.

“We wanted people to consider if it is possible to be blessed by a machine, or if a human being is needed,” Stephan Krebs of the Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau, which is behind the initiative, told the Guardian.

The robot has a touchscreen chest, two arms and a head. For the past 10 days it has offered blessings in a choice of German, English, French, Spanish or Polish. Worshippers can choose between a male or female voice.

The robot raises its arms, flashes lights, recites a biblical verse and says: “God bless and protect you.” If requested, it will provide a printout of its words. A backup robot is available in case of breakdown.

“The idea is to provoke debate,” said Krebs. “People from the street are curious, amused and interested. They are really taken with it, and are very positive. But inside the church some people think we want to replace human pastors with machines. Those that are church-oriented are more critical.”

Krebs and his colleagues are collecting responses for further analysis but he did not anticipate robots presenting a solution to a Europe-wide shortage of priests. A robot “could never substitute for pastoral care”, he said. “We don’t want to robotise our church work, but see if we can bring a theological perspective to a machine.”

The Wittenberg exhibition commemorates the anniversary of political and religious convulsions across Europe in the 16th century, resulting in the greatest schism in western Christianity and a string of religious wars.

Luther’s theses, written in Latin, fundamentally challenged the authority and elitism of the Roman Catholic church.

BlessU-2 is not the first robot to penetrate the world of faith. Last year, a Buddhist temple on the edge of Beijing developed a robot monk that could chant mantras and and explain basic tenets of the religion.