Members of the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) have agreed to work towards implementing a standard for the Internet that would allow for eavesdropping on a worldwide scale.

At a conference in Dubai this week, the ITU members decided to adopt the Y.2770 standard for deep packet inspection, a top-secret proposal by way of China that will allow telecom companies across the world to more easily dig through data passed across the Web.

According to the UN, implementing deep-packet inspection, or DPI, on such a global scale will allow authorities to more easily detect the transferring and sharing of copyrighted materials and other protected files by finding a way for administrators to analyze the payload of online transmissions, not just the header data that is normally identified and interpreted.

“It is standard procedure to route packets based on their headers, after all it is the part of the packet that contains information on the packet’s intended destination,” writes The Inquirer’s Lawrence Lati,“but by inspecting the contents of each packet ISPs, governments and anyone else can look at sensitive data. While users can mitigate risks by encrypting data, given enough resources encryption can be foiled.”

Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist widely regarded as the ‘Father of the Internet,’ spoke out against proposed DPI implementation on such a grandiose scale during an address earlier this year at the World Wide Web Consortium.

“Somebody clamps a deep packet inspection thing on your cable which reads every packet and reassembles the web pages, cataloguing them against your name, address and telephone number either to be given to the government when they ask for it or to be sold to the highest bidder – that’s a really serious breach of privacy,” he said.

Blogger Arthur Herman writes this week for Fox News online that the goal of the delegates at the ITU “is to grab control of the World Wide Web away from the United States, and hand it to a UN body of bureaucrats.”

“It’ll be the biggest power grab in the UN’s history, as well as a perversion of its power,” he warns.

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Several guards have been injured after protesters broke through barbed wire around the presidential palace in Cairo. Tens of thousands have come to the palace to slam Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s bid for absolute power.

Friday again saw thousands marching towards the presidential palace in Cairo, while hundreds others rallied in the iconic Tahrir Square. The demonstrations were called by opposition forces, which include various leftist, liberal and democratic groups.

“We want to see the fall of the regime,” chanted the crowd venting their anger with President Morsi, the drafted constitution and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The palace has grown surrounded with barbed wire fences and concrete blocks. Police, national guard troops and military are guarding the place, including the tanks brought in Thursday.

The protesters rallied peacefully for several hours, but as night fell some began attempting to remove the barbed wire.

RT’s reporter Bel Trew watched the crowd remove the barricades and flood the streets around the presidential palace. There, the demonstratots climbed onto army tanks waving flags and chanting slogans against President Mors. Others tried to get over the gate or remove the barbed wire.

Protesters told Trew that the Republican Guards “just stepped aside and let people pass.” The guards are currently standing next to their tanks and other posts, but not getting involved with the protest.

“At the moment the mood here is more jubilant than violent. People are dancing and singing, there’s a lot of drum beats and football chants,” Trew says, adding that the protesters are set to spend the night rallying right in front of the palace.

At the same time, Muslim Brotherhood supporters are gathering in an area near the palace, Trew reports via Twitter. If the two camps meet, it could bring a repeat of Wednesday’s violence, when at least six were killed and hundreds injured after Brotherhood supporters drove out opposition crowds camped outside the palace.

On Wednesday, December 6, 2012, at approximately 0214 hours officers from the Desert Hot Springs Police Department responded to a car to car shooting near the intersection ofIndian Canyon Road and 20^th Avenue, Desert Hot Springs.

Once on scene police officers located a male victim suffering from a single gunshot wound to his upper body. The victim was transported to a local hospital where he is being treated for his injuries. Desert Hot Springs Police Department detectives are current following up on investigative leads. This investigation is ongoing.

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