Archive for 2012/03/10

Dutch Blog VKMag Exposes Dutch Hacker Scene. Calls On Dutch Government To Start Taking Some Action

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Public Policy, Stats / reports

VKMag Blogger Reckless states:

  1. There are approximately 50 skilled hackers in The Netherlands and they all know each other http://tkkrlab.nl/wiki/Brenno_de_Winter#Who and talk to each other using encrypted chatrooms. There they can talk freely.
  2. The Black Hat hackers are only in it for the money. They will sell their talents on Russian online fora and will install viruses on your computer.
  3. White Hat hackers are the “good hackers” but have one thing in common with the black hats: they all fight for freedom on the internet. Unregulated and unmoderated internet traffic. That’s their ideology. And they all choose the side of “the underdog.”
  4. Both groups of hackers will find themselves on the wrong side of cyber attacks such as the ones aimed at Syria, Israel, Visa, MasterCard and the Vatican. They’re always looking for a cause and the disclosure of misconduct.
  5. They’ll all join digital ‘sit-ins’. Some are working for corporations, do not suffer from Asperger’s and do have girlfriends. Other’s are students or artists. They’re all coders. They no longer answer to stereotypes, but they all risk a visit of law enforcement officers nonetheless. “The Hague, do something! And hire a hacker”.

Much more. Dutch language news article:
http://www.vkmag.com/magazine/hackers_zijn_een_bont_gezelschap/

Previously:
http://vrritti.com/?s=hacker+netherlands

FBI may have had an inside track on discussions between Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and Anonymous, another hacking group, about the leaking of thousands of confidential emails and documents

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy

http://www.americablog.com/2012/03/fbi-mole-and-fbi-equipment-facilitated.html

Google Can Now Index Your Comments Made Through Facebook

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Google, Privacy / Data Protection

Eternal life in Google’s Cache

http://www.infomag.nl/nieuws_item/2012/03/09/google-can-now-index-your-comments-made-through-facebook/

Rogers’ “Cybersecurity” Bill Is Broad Enough to Use Against WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Legislation, Public Policy

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/03/rogers-cybersecurity-bill-broad-enough-use-against-wikileaks-and-pirate-bay

Smith & Wesson Reports Surging Gun Purchases On Back of Fears Over Obama Re-Election

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Stats / reports

When chaos is opportunity

Prolonged economic uncertainty is not proving too much of a challenge for firearms makers like Smith & Wesson, whose shares today soared 18 per cent after the company announced a 60 per cent surge in backlog orders, demand driven by a prevailing belief that Barack Obama will launch a crackdown on the second amendment if he wins a second term in the White House.

http://www.infowars.com/smith-wesson-reports-surging-gun-purchases-on-back-of-fears-over-obama-re-election/

NSA whistle-blower: Obama “worse than Bush”

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy

Thomas Drake on life inside the National Security Agency and the price of truth telling.

Thomas Drake, the whistle-blower whom the Obama administration tried and failed to prosecute for leaking information about waste, fraud and abuse at the National Security Agency, now works at an Apple store in Maryland. In an interview with Salon, Drake laughed about the time he confronted Attorney General Eric Holder at his store while Holder perused the gadgetry on display with his security detail around him. When Drake started asking Holder questions about his case, America’s chief law enforcement officer turned and fled the store.

Would you still blow the whistle if you knew what you know now?

Yes. There are a few things I would have done differently, though. I would not have spoken to the FBI. Another regret: I would have gone public before indictment. Remember, once they indict you’re already in a severely negative place. But the last place I would have shared any information with is WikiLeaks, and yet it is a viable internationally based alternative for getting the truth out. This is partly why [Bradley] Manning is in the hot water because he’s not going through, allegedly, an American citizen; he’s going somewhere else. And it’s not the enemy, let’s get that straight right off the bat, but he’s going to an organization that’s non-U.S.-based, non-U.S. citizen. And I never would have gone to NSA as a senior executive. I would have stayed a contractor. I would have just made money.

More:

http://www.salon.com/2012/03/07/nsa_whistle_blower_obama_worse_than_bush/singleton/

There are more than 500 words you shouldn’t say on Twitter or Facebook unless you want to be flagged by the Department of Homeland Security

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/09/opinion/obeidallah-social-media/index.html

Google files a complaint over the GooglePlay.com domain name

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Google

http://fusible.com/2012/03/google-files-a-complaint-over-the-googleplay-com-domain-name/

Leveson Inquiry into media ethics has requested and received a dossier from Wikileaks on corruption in the British press

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy

Government and WikiLeaks/Anonymous soon to be best friends

Hopefully this represents another step towards governments recognizing that Wikileaks isn’t pure evil, even if there are questionable things about the operation.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120308/12004618039/transparency-double-standard-uk-public-inquiry-requests-info-wikileaks.shtml

Here’s How Much Google Is Paying Apple To Be The Search Engine On iPhone, iPad, And Elsewhere

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Google, Stats / reports

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-google-pays-apple-for-search-on-the-iphone-2012-3

Dutch Liberal Party VVD Wanted To Prevent One Of Its Senators From Publishing Book About Coalition Partner Freedom Party PVV

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Public Policy

VVD Senator Sybe Schaaphas written the following statement in his upcoming book “The Vengeful Poison“:

“The vengeful anger of today causes dangerous effects now that it has become ‘politicized’ and is conquering the public space. The Freedom Party (PVV) is using a formula that is very similar to the one used in the 1930s. Hostile images are being created, images that have to explain the extent to which society is being threatened. The enemy is not only peeking in from the outside, it also has accomplices within one’s own domesticity. And there’s a plethora of external enemies: the European Union, foreign workers, foreigners, but above all: Islam and those who represent it.”

Dutch language news article:

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2012/03/10/vvd-probeerde-publicatie-boek-senator-over-pvv-te-verhinderen/

Dutch Prosecutor Van Zwieten: Remote Investigations Are Illegal, But Inevitable. Laws Need To Be Modernized

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Public Policy, Stats / reports

The Dutch police is already taking a peek in computer systems abroad.

Prosecutor Lodewijk van Zwieten says: “While we have to ask permission to foreign institutions, a cyber criminal finds himself on the other side of the world with the touch of one button.”

The digital world knows no borders but most laws only cover individual States.

Van Zwieten also notes that judges are relatively unfamiliar with cyber crimes. “In relation to cyber criminals they oftentimes seem to think: it’s just a 16-year-old ‘zit face’ who has been tinkering with computers. But meanwhile that ‘zit face’ is making more money than the CEO of a national bank.”

The prosecutor finishes with arguing that criminals are increasingly using anonymous online distribution channels for trading child abuse images.

That doesn’t merely increase the commercial distribution of the images themselves, but also the actual abuse of children, Wilbert Paulissen, Head of the Dutch National Crime Squad is arguing.

Dutch language news article:

http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2694/Internet-Media/article/detail/3223087/2012/03/10/Justitie-kijkt-illegaal-in-buitenlandse-computers.dhtml

Previously:

Judges Facing New Types Of Crimes, New Types (And Levels) Of Damage, New Types Of Suspects? (MegaUpload)
http://vrritti.com/2012/02/18/judges-facing-new-types-of-crimes-new-types-and-levels-of-damage-new-types-of-suspects/

US Soldiers Are Giving Away Their Positions with Geotagged Photos

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection

http://gizmodo.com/5892054/us-soldiers-are-giving-away-their-positions-with-geotagged-photos

Comcast: No Netflix for You! Come Back, Never! So Much For Net Neutrality

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution

Comcast has issued a strongly-worded statement clarifying its position in those discussions Netflix was rumored to be engaging in earlier this week: not us, not our devices, not ever.

In Tuesday’s reports, Netflix hinted that at least one provider was willing to trial it by year’s end. Comcast would like everybody know that it isn’t them. “We have no plans to offer access to Netflix to our customers through our Xfinity TV service, no matter what device,” Comcast spokeswoman Alana Davis told FierceCable.

http://gizmodo.com/5892105/comcast-no-netflix-for-you-come-back-never

If found guilty, LulzSec’s Darren Martyn would hardly be the first hacker to do good things by day and bad things by night

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement

Martyn was named in the same indictment as Jake Davis, accused of being Topiary, and Ryan Ackroyd, accused of being Kayla – both online handles made famous in the hacking world after their group chats were leaked last year.

Martyn was known online as Pwnsauce and Networkkitten, according to the indictment that was unsealed alongside the guilty plea by Lulz Security leader Sabu, exposed as Hector Monsegur of New York.

People drawn to computer security often gravitate to it at a young age – the indictment says Martyn is 25 but local Irish newspapers say he is 5 or 6 years younger than that – and they test their theories by breaking into places they shouldn’t. Many respected professionals were once offensive hackers as teens but stopped before they ran into real trouble.

Others didn’t make the switch in time and continued to ply both ends. Consultant Max Butler was a significant contributor to open-source security software before being revealed in 2007 as “Iceman,” proprietor of the largest U.S.-based underground market for selling stolen credit cards and other hacked data.

Even many of those who went straight, or always were, have an ambivalent sympathy for Anonymous, the much larger cyber-activist group that gave rise to Lulz Security, or LulzSec.

Some share core political tenets including distrust of governments and a passionate belief that computers and the Internet are tools for individual empowerment that need to be defended.

Perhaps as significant, many in the trade are tired of not being listened to. They have warned corporate leaders for years about the need to spend in order to plug obvious holes in their security, but little has been done.

With spectacular hacks of well-known companies, Anonymous and Lulz Security have finally made company boardrooms give more than lip service to cyber security, corporate consultants and police investigators say privately.

Outside investigators working with the FBI have told Reuters that some employees of major security companies have been active in Anonymous, though it is unknown if any played a role as large as the one Martyn is accused of playing.

Charged Lulzsec Hackers are
Ryan Ackroyd a.k.a. Kayla, lol, lolsoon
Jake Davis a.k.a. topiary, atopiary
Darren Martyn a.k.a. pwnsauce, raepsauce, networkkitten
Donncha O’Cearrbhail a.k.a. palladium
Hector Xavier Monsegur a.k.a. Sabu, Xavier DeLeon, Leon
Jeremy Hammond a.k.a. Anarchaos, sup_g, burn, yohoho, POW, tylerknowsthis, crediblethreat

More:

“Great personal danger”: Inside hacker Sabu’s guilty plea hearing

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/great-personal-danger-inside-hacker-sabus-guilty-plea-hearing.ars

You Can Now Stream Many of Your DVDs From iTunes in the Cloud

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution

http://gizmodo.com/5891995/you-can-now-stream-non+itunes-movies-from-itunes-in-the-cloud

See also:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/03/your-digital-movies-can-now-be-served-up-by-icloud.ars

Teenager hacks Google Chrome with three 0day vulnerabilities

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Google

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/teenager-hacks-google-chrome-with-three-0day-vulnerabilities/10649

How to download your Facebook account

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/how-to-download-your-facebook-account/10034

Facebook details how it built the Location API

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-details-how-it-built-the-location-api/10278

Ofcom has widened a regulatory investigation scrutinising BSkyB

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/09/ofcom_bskyb_fit_and_proper_test_widened/

How to Get Windows on the iPad (With Microsoft’s Blessing)

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/nivio-onlive-microsoft/

Law Firm Golden Eye Tests Broadband ISP Piracy Evidence in UK Court vs O2

Posted: 2012/03/10 in Education / Awareness, Litigation

At best an IP can only identify the connection owner, whom may or may not be the guilty party (e.g. shared public WiFi networks, hotel internet, business networks, libraries etc.). At worst an IP can be faked, hijacked, redirected or the ISPs log files might be slightly out of sync with the law firms and would thus return details for the wrong customers. Worryingly this is exactly the sort of data that the UK governments related Digital Economy Act (DEAct) will use when it comes into force at some point in the near future.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/03/law-firm-golden-eye-tests-broadband-isp-piracy-evidence-in-uk-court-vs-o2/