http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/fbi-beware-of-software-updates-on-hotel-connections/12025
Archive for 2012/05/09
The UK government has banned self-defense expert and former US Navy Seal Tim Larkin from entering the country after Larkin planned to hold seminars instructing people how to protect themselves against rioters and criminals
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Stats / reportshttp://www.infowars.com/uk-bans-self-defense-expert-from-entering-country/
See also:
Some 200 suspected war criminals are roaming the streets of Britain, and of those, just three have been removed from the country over the past 18 months
http://rt.com/news/war-criminals-uk-suspected-859/
The Internet’s primary governing body ICANN is struggling to get its act together. Has already received about $350 million in fees
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionThe global organization has again pushed back the deadline for taking applications for new top-level domains — a process that was put on hold last month after ICANN “received a report of unusual behavior” with the system’s software.
This latest wrinkle comes as ICANN is in the midst of its biggest effort ever to expand the domain name landscape to potentially thousands of alternatives beyond .com, .net, and the many other suffixes already available. The new names also have the potential to change the way companies brand themselves on the Web (Nike, for example, could start branding itself as JustDoIt.Nike.)
ICANN had intended to reopen the process yesterday and finalize it during the middle of next week, when it would begin the arduous process of sorting out who gets what URL extensions and which would potentially go to auction.
Now, ICANN says that it’s aiming to reopen the application process on May 22, giving people until May 30 to submit their applications.
While most applicants are not yet known, ICANN last week said it had received 2,091 applications at the time the system was taken offline. One applicant can submit up to 50 applications for specific top-level domains, at a cost of $185,000 each. ICANN has said it had already received about $350 million in fees.
“Frankly, there will be huge questions for ICANN about what it’s doing with the money,” said Adelman, a former member of the ICANN Affirmation of Commitments Accountability and Transparency Review team.
More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57431082-93/icann-extends-net-domain-application-date-again/
Paralyzed woman completes London Marathon in robot suit
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionA ReWalk robotic exoskeleton allows a paraplegic woman to start and finish the London Marathon, covering the 26.2-mile course over 17 days
The US National Association of Broadcasters has asked the courts to dismiss its own appeal against the FCC’s decision to permit the exploitation of radio White Spaces
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports, Tech EvolutionThe appeal was lodged in 2009, when the use of White Space was fiercely debated, but these days there are White Space devices being legitimately deployed around the US and the unabated continuation of TV broadcasts rather undermines the NAB position that such devices would leave screens dark.
The NAB reckons that’s thanks to the limits imposed by the FCC, which resulted from its campaign, but really it’s the dynamic nature of White Space radio which has rendered the appeal unnecessary.
More:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/09/white_spaces_nab/
Building a virtual network is like building a system that sends voice over IP – like Skype
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution“It’s like when you had voice running over traditional PBXs and then some said, ‘Let’s move that to IP’ and we got Skype,” he says. In his mind, using VXLAN and NVGRE today is still “hacks,” whereas Nicira has done “the proper job” in building a complete network controller. Nicira has built the equivalent of Skype, he says, whereas the efforts are still short of this.
“Skype has a way of taking your Skype handle and turning it into your IP address, so I can call you, and you need something similar with VXLAN, NVGRE, and STT,” he says. “The others have just emulated Ethernet over IP, but Nicira has done the proper job with a central controller. It’s like the Skype directory service.”
Much more:
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/what-is-a-virtual-network/
A spokesperson for the Argentinian Pirate Party told TorrentFreak that Cuevana.tv provides an important alternative distribution platform for local independents competing against Hollywood domination
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, Litigation, Stats / reportsThe Pirate Bay Partners With Academic Researchers to Counter Entertainment Industry Propaganda
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, Legislation, Stats / reports“Our research has shown that tougher legislation actually does have an effect on the amount that people file share copyright protected media. However, this legislation has no effect on the social norms of society”
Among other things, the first study revealed that Pirate Bay users show a great interest in VPN services and other anonymizers. With this second survey the Cybernorms group wants to see how the findings of the first study developed over time.
“We are very curious of how the use of anonymity services has developed during the last year. A survey conducted earlier this year in Sweden indicated a growing use among file sharers of VPN services for anonymization. We think that we have reason to believe that intensified enforcement strategies will accelerate this development,” Svensson said.
In addition, the survey also give the researchers the opportunity to delve deeper in people’s responses to recent Pirate Bay blockades, such as the one that was ordered in the UK last week.
Previously:
The Disadvantages Of Using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) For Illegal Purposes
http://vrritti.com/2012/05/01/the-disadvantages-of-using-virtual-private-networks-vpns-for-illegal-purposes/
Queens Speech Confirms Expansion of UK CCDP Internet Snooping Law
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Public PolicyAs expected the UK government has used today’s Queens Speech (State Opening of Parliament) to outline the revival of a £2bn plan to expand the reach of existing ISP based internet snooping laws (data retention) to log a much bigger slice of your online activity (e.g. Skype and Facebook access); regardless of whether or not you ever committed a crime.
It’s critical to point out that the current Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and EU Data Retention Directive already requires ISPs to maintain a log of your internet website and email accesses (times, dates and IP addresses [sender / recipient]) for 12 months, which is only accessible via an interception warrant. But this does NOT include the actual content of your communication.
The Queen Said:
“My government intends to bring forward measures to maintain the ability of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access vital communications data under strict safeguards to protect the public, subject to scrutiny of draft clauses.”
The Pirate Bay has issued a statement condemning the attack on Virgin Media’s website
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Blocking, Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Network Security, Stats / reportsThe Pirate Bay Statement
“Seems like some random Anonymous groups have run a DDOS campaign against Virgin media and some other sites. We’d like to be clear about our view on this.
We do NOT encourage these actions. We believe in the open and free internets, where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us. So don’t fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship.”
Blast From The Past:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040201224502/www.anakata.hack.se/coding/
Dutch State Wants 8.7 Million EUR From Certificate Authority DigiNotar For Damages Caused By Security Breach
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Public Policy, Stats / reportsDutch language news article:
http://www.nu.nl/internet/2806618/staat-eist-87-miljoen-van-diginotar.html
Previously:
http://vrritti.com/?s=diginotar
The website of the Russian Federal Security Service, fsb.ru, has also had performance problems throughout the day, although there is no information on whether it has anything to do with Anonymous.
“Russian Anonymous” had warned they would attack Russian governmental sites on Monday to show solidarity with the opposition demos.
The websites gov.ru and government.ru also faced hacker attacks on the same day, but did not go down.
More:
http://rt.com/news/anonymous-hacked-kremlin-website-834/
A top Pentagon official is trying to stop congressional opposition to a deal that provides Russian helicopters to the Afghan military – even as the same official Russian arms exporter also supplies Syrian dictator Bashar Assad with weapons used to massacre dissidents
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Stats / reportsJames Miller, the Pentagon’s new policy chief, wrote a letter to legislators defending the lucrative deal with Rosoboronexport, a firm that until 2010 was barred from doing business with the government because of its tendency to sell arms to rogue states Syria and Iran. “The [helicopter] acquisition effort is critical to building the capacity of Afghanistan security forces and supports the president’s continuing efforts to build improved relations with Russia,” Miller wrote on March 30, reports Bloomberg’s Tony Capaccio.
Miller didn’t deny that Rosoboronexport is also deeply engaged in the ongoing Syrian slaughter. In fact, he conceded it in his letter to Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who’s trying to stop the deal: “I share your concern that Rosoboronexport continues to supply weapons and ammunition to the Assad regime and acknowledge there is evidence that some of these arms are being used by Syrian forces against Syria’s civilian population.”
More:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/pentagon-rosoboronexport/
Pirates Beware: DVD Anti-Piracy Warning Now Twice as Fierce
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File SharingThe new warnings now have three scary logos intended to deter those who might violate copyright law by making a back-up copy, ripping a movie to a tablet-friendly file, uploading it to a peer-to-peer network or make illegal copies to send to military service members in Iraq.
The original logo has been included since 2004 on the Motion Picture Association of America members’ movies, with the now-famous FBI tough-talking “anti-piracy warning label” which cautions customers who legitimately purchased a movie about the criminal penalties for copyright infringement.
Added alongside the FBI’s logo in the new version, however, is a Homeland Security Investigations “special agent” badge. That reflects the agency’s new power, handed down in 2008, to seize web domains engaged in infringing activity under the same forfeiture laws used to seize property like houses, cars and boats allegedly tied to illegal activity such as drug running or gambling.
What’s more, as an added bonus that’s even better than a James Cameron director commentary, movie fans will be treated with a second annoying screen (above) touting the National Intellectual Property Center.
That screen, like the others, presumably will be made unskippable during viewing. The warning says, “Piracy is not a victimless crime. For more information on how digital theft harms the economy, please visit http://www.iprcenter.gov.” The center’s logo is tough, too, with a hawk clenching a banner that reads “Protection Is Our Trademark”.
Oddly, such warnings are rarely included in versions uploaded and downloaded via P2P networks.
More:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/anti-piracy-warning-updated/
Activision Trailer: “I have a nightmare scenario that a hacker breaks into our system that controls satellites, UAVs, even the launch of missiles”
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Stats / reportsConsider what it would be like to have friendly fire from U.S. weapons overhead. I don’t worry about a guy that wants to hijack a plane. I worry about a guy who wants to hijack all the planes.
Anonymous is now responding and stating that they’re not terrorists. Which is a tough claim when you’re a “loosely knit collective”.
Regardless, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg has now been doxed by Anonymous. At least one Anonymous member decided to hit back with a counter video. In it, Anonymous supposedly threatens to hack Activision, deface the company’s website, and disrupt its online servers.
ZDnet is arguing: In short, Anonymous is mildly amused but overall not happy with Activision’s marketing move. That being said, the group has not yet collectively agreed to target the game company, although it has made public some of Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg’s personal information. Collectively agreed?
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/anonymous-we-are-not-terrorists-video/12002
Anonymous DDoS Attack Knocks the Virgin Media UK Site Offline. Anonymous Defending Interests Of The Pirate Bay
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Blocking, Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Illegal File Sharing, Stats / reportsThe website of UK cable operator Virgin Media looks to have been targeted by the Anonymous activist group, which has launched a serious Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack against the provider. The move is believed to be in retaliation after the ISP responded to a court order (here) that required it to block broadband customers from accessing The Pirate Bay piracy site.
See also:
Anonymous, CCC, Cypherpunk, DDoS, Hacker, Hadopi, MegaUpload, Parti Pirate, WikiLeaks, 4Chan, 5e Pouvoir
http://vrritti.com/2012/02/11/anonymous-ccc-cypherpunk-ddos-hacker-hadopi-megaupload-parti-pirate-wikileaks-4chan-5e-pouvoir/
and:
Despite blanket media coverage of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, there has been little discussion of the fact that Assange is merely one leader within a large and complicated social movement. The better analyses have found it interesting that the Swedish Pirate Party are aiding Wikileaks; some note links to the German Chaos Computer Club. But only “geeks” and “hackers” (technology workers) are aware that all of these organisations are members of the same movement.
http://vrritti.com/2011/01/12/despite-blanket-media-coverage-of-wikileaks-and-julian-assange-there-has-been-little-discussion-of-the-fact-that-assange-is-merely-one-leader-within-a-large-and-complicated-social-movement-wikileaks/
FBI Raids “Domestic Terrorist” Camp in Florida
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Public Policy, Stats / reportsThe group was involved in paramilitary training that included weapons like AK-47′s and they also trained in hand-to-hand combat for a coming race war
http://www.infowars.com/fbi-raids-domestic-terrorist-camp-in-florida/
The larger players can afford to buy patents to deter the trolls, but the smaller players – the innovative startups – can’t
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, Litigation, Stats / reportsInstead, they have to settle out of court. Patent trolls take advantage of this weakness.
Obama’s DOJ And Wall Street: Too Big For Jail?
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Public PolicyBomber in Plot on U.S. Airliner Is Said to Be a Double Agent
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / AwarenessGet ready for the hype: The Sean-Shawn duo behind Napster – Parker and Fanning – will unveil details of a new startup in early June
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech EvolutionThe boys who brought Napster to the world — Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning — are getting ready to reveal details of their next, still stealthy startup.
It’s called Airtime, although a year ago the project apparently was going by the name Supyo, and it has to do with live video. And, naturally, social media — a familiar world for Parker, who was Facebook’s founding president and is currently a backer and board member of Spotify.
China’s restrictive rare earth mineral policy draws global ire
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / AwarenessCloud Savvy Pedophiles Rejoice. New York Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick: “Merely viewing Web images of child pornography does not, absent other proof, constitute either possession or procurement”
Posted: 2012/05/09 in Education / Awareness, Jurisprudence, Legislation, Stats / reports“Caching” apparently not “storing”. New business opportunities for cloud providers.
Viewing child pornography online isn’t a crime, the New York Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday in the case of a college professor whose work computer was found to have stored more than a hundred illegal images in its Web cache.
The decision rests on whether accessing and viewing something on the Internet is the same as possessing it, and whether possessing it means you had to procure it. In essence, the court said no to the first question and yes to the second.
“Merely viewing Web images of child pornography does not, absent other proof, constitute either possession or procurement within the meaning of our Penal Law,” Senior Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick wrote for a majority of four of the six judges.
“Rather, some affirmative act is required (printing, saving, downloading, etc.) to show that defendant in fact exercised dominion and control over the images that were on his screen,” Ciparick wrote. “To hold otherwise, would extend the reach of (state law) to conduct — viewing — that our Legislature has not deemed criminal.”
Read the full appeals court ruling (.pdf)
In other words, “the purposeful viewing of child pornography on the internet is now legal in New York,” Judge Victoria A. Graffeo wrote in one of two concurring opinions that agreed with the result but not with the majority’s reasoning.
All of the judges agreed that child pornography is an abomination, but they disagreed whether it was necessary to “criminalize all use of child pornography to the maximum extent possible,” as Ciparick wrote in the majority opinion. The majority said that was up to the Legislature, not the courts, to decide.
The court dismissed one of the two counts of promoting a sexual performance of a child and one of the dozens of counts of possession of child pornography on which James D. Kent was convicted. The court upheld the other counts against Kent, an assistant professor of public administration at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Kent’s convictions on the other counts rested on other evidence, including a folder on his machine that stored about 13,000 saved images of girls whom investigators estimated to be 8 or 9 years old and four messages to an unidentified third party discussing a research project into the regulation of child pornography.
“I don’t even think I can mail the disk to you, or anyone else, without committing a separate crime. So I’ll probably just go ahead and wipe them,” one of the messages said.
