THE MQ UC SAN DIEGO
If you don’t like what you are seeing, look around less and imagine more. — Brian Williams
Five times more absorbent than the leading brand.
March 11, 2015
Gun Rights Activists Protest for Gun Suffrage
Volume XXI Issue V
IN THIS ISSUE PARENTS FEAR LAME SUN GOD
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NEW SPECIES DISCOVERED ON DISHES
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A LOOK AT NET NEUTRALITY
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR EASTER BUNNY SEES SHADOW
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NEWS IN BRIEF Police gave a statement of their support after discovering a large portion of their force is comprised of guns. BY ROBERT POND
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Staff Writer
un rights activists across the country are supporting the right for guns to attain full citizenship and representation in elections. Activists came in large numbers to the Florida State Courthouse during the hearing for Colt v. Florida, a case that would allow firearms the right to vote and be represented in the government, to support the recognition of
guns’ rights. Claiming that “they’re tired of the dejected state of their guns,” activists took to the streets of major cities across America, marching side by side with the firearms they believed should be treated as citizens. “I may not be a blood relative with her, but she is my own,” said Billy Little, a man who says he has had a 12-year relationship with his shotgun. “I love her more than anything, and I want the state to
recognize her basic rights as an American. And our passionate love.” The NRA and other guns’ rights groups have funded a media blitz in support of these “inalienable rights taken from defenders of freedom.” Polls in Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Florida support guns’ suffrage and 54 percent of Texas voters support gun marriage, “as long as it’s heterosexual.” Across the board, more Americans are
PHOTO BY SORA CHEE
calling the blaming of guns for mass shootings “travesties,” and saying the “persecution of guns by certain anti-gun media groups” must come to an end. Dozens of gun marriage supporters in Florida staged a protest outside of the Tallahassee State Court House, where they were married by pro-gun marriage ministers during a session debating the right for
See GUN VOTE, page 2
Anthem Company Increases Security Tenfold, Changes Password to 123450 BY ROHAN RANGRAY
In response to University of Massachusetts, Amherst’s decision to ban Iranian exchange students from studying in some of the school’s science programs, including chemistry, physics, and electrical and computer engineering, the Islamic Azad University of Gorgan in Iran will no longer allow American exchange students to study those same programs in their own university. UMass-Amherst cited the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, which states that visas shall be denied to any Iranian exchange student determined to be intending to obtain an education in the U.S. to prepare to
work in the Iranian energy sector. The university reportedly wanted to “play it safe,” given the unpredictability of what the U.S. government determines to be national safety risks. The university supported their statement by noting that bottles of liquids, craft scissors, and hard pretzel sticks are banned by TSA, saying they “just don’t know who or what the government will think is a threat next,” but overlooked the role of consistent and widespread racial profiling. Azad University of Gorgan cited in their decision the glut of historic empirical evidence that Americans are “willfully ignorant, racist warmongerers.”
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY TRIGGERS FIFTH WAVE “THEMINISM”
Staff Writer
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nthem Inc., a subsidiary of Blue Cross California, recently reported a breach of their servers, which resulted in about 80 million Social Security Numbers being stolen, including the SSNs of people who had stopped using Anthem as their health insurance provider. Amongst the victims were University of California students, staff, and faculty using Universityaffiliated healthcare plans. The first point of attack was when hackers sent a phishing email to one of the employees of the company, thus gaining access to the company’s private network. “This is one of the most common attacks for targeted hacks, the Computer Science Department tells me,” noted UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, adding that he “frequently” sends “useless emails” to all UCSD students to train them to not check their emails and avoid getting phished. Anthem has been revamping their security infrastructure in response to the attack. They claim to have strengthened the security of their servers by changing all the passwords to “123450” from the previous “12345.” “Hackers use a technique
EXCHANGE STUDENTS BANNED FROM STEM PROGRAMS
PHOTO BY JEN WINDSOR
A small group of invested individuals gathered to form what is being called a fifth wave of the feminist movement after viewing the extensive media campaigns surrounding International Women’s Day, which they claimed inspired them to take further action to support women. The group has identified their new movement as “theminism” in order to establish a genderneutral precedence, and disassociate themselves from previous feminist movements. They detailed this and their main ideology in a manifesto published on Monday. New-wave theminism
includes a shift in focus from demanding institutional or policy changes, to focusing only on publicity of the issue, as demonstrated by the effectiveness of the International Women’s Day internet campaign. Theminists claim that they aim to “bring attention to women, and then let social dynamics work out the rest.” Theminists have criticized past feminist movements because of their attempt to form prescribed solutions to problems with gender inequality, whereas they believe the truly effective way to cause change is simply to “raise awareness that women exist.”
Everyone said a four-handed person wouldn’t fit into the world of hacking, but they were wrong. where they try every combination of letters and numbers to see if something matches the password. Previously it only took them 12345 tries to find our password, but now they’ll have to get to 123450 before they break through,” said Anthem’s Chief Information Security Officer Roy R. Mellinger. “It’s a hard world out there and hackers will keep trying to attack our infrastructure, but as
long as there are more numbers we can keep increasing our security.” Mellinger appeared flustered and refused to comment when asked about the implications of publicly announcing their new passwords and potentially leaking them to malicious agencies. Anthem — in cahoots with the Health Information Trust Alliance — has now launched
a new program, Cyber Security in Universal Cyber Defense and International Cyber for the Cyber Community (CSUCDICCC), which aims to protect the cyber rights of individuals, corporations, and cyber groups alike. Company officials have “high hopes” for the success of the program, but noted that “the stationery is going to have to be totally reworked to fit that heading.”
AREA WOMAN’S KNITTING ADDICTION GOES TOO FAR
AREA MAN GOING TO JUST SIT THIS ONE OUT
New project begins to consume her
Claims he “forgot the right clothes”
BETTA FISH SENTENCED TO LIFE IN DORM A San Diego fish was sentenced to life in a college dormitory on March 9. Sparkles was handed the sentencing by the Mira Mesa Petco at four in the afternoon, where he was then escorted off the premises by Jenna Chu, 19, to be forcibly held in a college dormitory at the UC San Diego. Conditions of the holding facility have recently come under fire for its small size, isolation, and lack of sanitary conditions. In 2014, four fish were reported to have died there, the circumstances of which are still largely unknown. Numerous agencies and
friends have called for its shutdown, citing long periods without feeding or water cleaning. Sparkles joins three other fish currently awaiting their fates in the dormitory suite. On average, college students spend $180 per year on a single betta fish. The fish’s representative has called the ruling “cruel and unusual” and asserted that they would file for appeal. However, considering the “all-night rager” happening at Chu’s apartment on March 13, time may be limited.
See BRIEFS, page 11