Inside WikiLeaks: Former Insider Spills Secrets About Assange And ‘World’s Most Dangerous Website’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/15/inside-wikileaks-former-i_n_823502.html?ir=World
Archive for 2011/02/15
Though the book takes a harsh look at Assange’s reign, Domscheit-Berg gives him a shout-out in the acknowledgments, thanking Assange for “manifesting an idea and bringing it into my life.”
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / AwarenessThe names of Hunton internal investigations partner John Woods and litigation partners David Lashway and Robert Quackenboss appear in e-mails between HBGary executives. The company appears to be brainstorming ways to land a $2 million contract from the Chamber of Commerce and develop plans to thwart the impact of potentially embarrassing disclosures by WikiLeaks.
More: http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2011/02/hunton-wikileaks.html
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Hunton, which brags it employs 1,000 lawyers in 18 offices on three continents, has worked for both the Chamber and Bank of America. The company is nervous because WikiLeaks is reportedly planning to release internal bank documents, and Bank of America apparently connected with Hunton to help respond to the crisis. What makes Hunton’s involvement in the anti-WikiLeaks scheming so striking is that the firm represents some of the biggest names in corporate America. Hunton’s website touts its representation of Wells Fargo, Altria (aka Phillip Morris), the telecom Cingular, and defense contractor General Dynamics, among many others.
More: http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/?story=/politics/war_room/2011/02/15/hunton_williams_wikileaks_chamber
Obama Seeks Big Boost in Cybersecurity Spending
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / Awareness, Public PolicyThe total spent on cybersecurity next year would increase 35 percent to $548 million if the president’s budget is passed
Experts: Press Freedom Under Threat in Age of Wikileaks
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / Awareness, Public PolicySpeaking at “Wikileaks and Internet Freedom II”, at New York University, veteran First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams warned that governments could use the recent release of thousands of confidential diplomatic cables as an excuse to crack down on journalists and publishers.
More: http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_7605.shtml
The personal blocklist extension will transmit to Google the patterns that you choose to block. When you choose to block or unblock a pattern, the extension will also transmit to Google the URL of the web page on which the blocked or unblocked search results are displayed. You agree that Google may freely use this information to improve our products and services
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Googlehttps://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef
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We’re launching an early, experimental Chrome extension so people can block sites from their web search results. If installed, the extension also sends blocked site information to Google, and we will study the resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results. You can download the extension and start blocking sites now.
More: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-chrome-extension-block-sites-from.html
HTTPS Support for YouTube Embeds
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / Awareness, Google, Privacy / Data ProtectionIt’s very important to note that this is just a first step in enabling HTTPS for the entire YouTube viewing experience. In particular, only the YouTube player code is accessible via HTTPS at this time. The actual video bitstream, and some additional content loaded by the YouTube player may still be accessed via standard HTTP connections when you use an HTTPS URL in your embed code. Also note that HTTPS remains optional for YouTube embeds; we have no plans to turn off support for the HTTP URLs.
More: http://apiblog.youtube.com/2011/02/https-support-for-youtube-embeds.html
KVG Bank Affected with Malicious JavaScript
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data ProtectionThe purpose of such attacks is to redirect the victims browser to pull content from a malicious site. Attackers have learned that it is far more effective to simply infect already popular websites, rather than set up a separate malicious site and social engineer victims into visiting it. In this particular instance, the De-obfuscated code opens a pop-up box depending on user’s browser version. The link used now points to a parked domain but likely previously hosted malicious code.
More: http://www.computersecurityarticles.info/zscaler/kvgbank-affected-with-malicious-javascript/
JC Penney Feels The Wrath Of Google For Using Spammy Techniques To Get To The Top
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Google, Online advertising, Tech EvolutionRetailing giant JC Penney apparently had a massive black hat search spam campaign going. The NY Times uncovered a lot of questionable behavior, and Google quickly responded by implementing some sort of “corrective behavior” that sank JC Penney listings
“The Internet isn’t the future; it’s the present and the way for hundreds of thousands of people to enjoy movies and culture. The Internet is the salvation of our cinema.”
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / AwarenessAs for treating people like criminals?
“Web surfers don’t like to be called that; they’re actually people, the public. The public that we have lost because they don’t go to the movies anymore because they spend their time sitting in front of a computer screen. Change is needed to come up with a new model for the film business. We have a moral responsibility to the public. We make movies because citizens allow us to make them and we owe them respect and our thank you.”
Homeland Security Seizes Another 18 Domain Names, With No Adversarial Hearings Or Due Process
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Blocking, Education / AwarenessThis time, it looks like the seizures were more focused on sites selling counterfeit physical goods, and the seizures were purposely timed to Valentine’s Day
The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee has passed a draft law to remove all child sex abuse images hosted in EU countries. The law says that if images are hosted outwith the EU they should be blocked by individual member states
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Legislation, Public PolicyThe Committee made some changes – the law previously made removal of images mandatory.
Now the law says that, if the material is hosted outside the community, countries “may take the necessary measures in accordance with national legislation to prevent access to such content in their territory”. Members of the European Parliament also said such blocks must use transparent procedures, inform users of the reason for the block and allow an appeals process.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/15/takedown_law_change/
Anyone who sells subscription-based content outside the App Store must also use Apple’s system, giving Apple a 30 percent cut. Hello in-app Netflix subscriptions?
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution“Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing,” CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. “All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app.”
Real damage from the HBGary leak may be yet to come, as sophisticated attackers mine the email trove for information on the company’s business contacts, including U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement organizations, that could be used later in targeted attacks
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data ProtectionAmong the more sensitive content are e-mail exchanges with active personnel within the CIA, FBI and NSA that include personal and business contact information. These include the names and e-mail addresses of personnel at DISA, the NSA, CIA, FBI, the Air Force and elite government contractors such as IBM
More: http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/hbgary-emails-sweet-valentine-social-engineers-021411
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“Nobody can say that they are totally safe”, said Eva Chen, chief executive of major security firm Trend Micro.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c55652b8-3891-11e0-959c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1E25Hgzqb
Palantir suspends employee involved in plan to attack WikiLeaks and Salon’s Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/14/palantir_wikileaks/index.html
A group of 26 major record labels have sued the owner of Canadian BitTorrent site isoHunt for allegedly facilitating copyright infringement on a massive scale
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing, LitigationThrough this lawsuit the labels hope to shut down the isoHunt website while receiving over 4 million dollars in punitive damages to compensate for their claimed losses
More: http://torrentfreak.com/record-labels-sue-isohunt-for-millions-of-dollars-110214/
This Thursday, February 17, is designated “Internet Strikes Back” day to “counter Congressional opposition to a fair and open Internet
Posted: 2011/02/15 in Education / Awareness, Net Neutrality, Public Policy, Tech EvolutionMake no mistake: this will be a decisive vote. This is the only time that Congress will vote “yes or no” on Net Neutrality, so it’s crucial that they vote the right way. Help us send a clear message to Congress: a vote for the repeal act is a vote against internet users.
In the coming days, we’ll be working to coordinate a national day of action on the 17th, when we’ll flood Congress with calls from Net Neutrality supporters.Here are three ways you can help:
1.) Sign up for PK Mobile Action Alerts: The easiest way to participate in our national day of action will be through the PK Mobile Action Alerts system. If you have a mobile phone capable of receiving text messages, go here to sign up for PK Mobile Action Alerts in advance of the 17th.* Then, on the 17th, you’ll receive a text message reminding you to call your representative. By simply replying to this message with “act,” you’ll be automatically connected with your member of Congress.
2.) Help spread the word: Help spread the word about our national day of action: use the embed code below to display our “Internet Strikes Back” badge on your blog or website:
<a href=”http://bit.ly/internetstrikesback”><img style=”vertical-align: middle; border: 0;” src=”http://media.publicknowledge.org/newsletters/images/ISB_200.jpg” alt=”The Internet Strikes Back” width=”200″ height=”177″ /></a>
Also, help us spread the word using Twitter: use the hashtag#InternetStrikesBack or click here to tweet your support for net neutrality.
3.) Call in to Congress on the 17th: If you’ve signed up for PK Mobile Action Alerts, keep your eyes peeled for a text message on the 17th that will contain further instructions on how to take action. Otherwise, check back here on the 17th for a guide to looking up your Congressperson’s phone number using your zip code.
More: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/48919 and http://www.publicknowledge.org/internet-strikes-back-tell-congress-stand-net-neut
