From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Sep 3 18:06:19 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 19:06:19 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Firefox, Opera allow crooks to hide an entire phish site in a link Message-ID: Firefox, Opera allow crooks to hide an entire phish site in a link By John Leyden Posted in Malware, 3rd September 2012 15:52 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/03/phishing_without_hosts_peril/ A shortcoming in browsers including Firefox and Opera allows crooks to easily hide an entire malicious web page in a clickable link - ideal for fooling victims into handing over passwords and other sensitive info. Usually, so-called "phishing attacks" rely on tricking marks into visiting websites designed by criminals to masquerade as banks and online stores, thus snaffling punters' credentials and bank account details when they try to use the bogus pages. However this requires finding somewhere to host the counterfeit sites, which are often quickly taken down by hosting companies and the authorities or blocked by filters. Instead, the malicious web pages can be stored in data URIs - uniform resource identifiers, not to be confused with URLs - which stuff the web code into a handy string that when clicked on, instructs the browser to unpack the payload and present it as a page. It negates the need to find somewhere to secrete your malicious page, and once shortened using a service such as TinyURL, the URI can be reduced to a small URL perfect for passing around social networks, online chats and email. Crooks would still need to set up a server to receive data from victims, however. It's a technique already documented by researchers Billy Rios and Nathan McFeters - but now Henning Klevjer, an information security student at the University of Oslo in Norway, has revisited the attack method in his paper, Phishing by data URI [PDF]. Typically an attacker would first create a standalone web page, probably using content scraped off the legitimate site it seeks to mimic before making an encoded page and embedding it into a data URI. URI-based attacks were previously documented by Rios and McFeters as part of an attack Microsoft?s Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Klevjer's research expands on this basic theme and gives it a modern twist. Google?s Chrome browser blocks redirection to data URIs, and other browsers have limits on the volume of data that can be packed into URIs. Klevjer created a 26KB attack page that failed to load in Internet Explorer, but worked on both Firefox and Opera. As well as getting around the need to find a home for malicious web pages, the data URI trick can sidestep traditional scam defences, such as web filtering. Data URIs may also contain a potentially malicious Java applet, a major concern following last week's Java-related security flap, a post on Sophos's Naked Security blog notes. ? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Sep 3 19:10:14 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 20:10:14 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Video_Shows_TSA=92s_Bizarre_New_?= =?windows-1252?q?Security_Policy?= Message-ID: Video Shows TSA?s Bizarre New Security Policy http://www.infowars.com/video-shows-tsas-bizarre-new-security-policy/ Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Monday, September 3, 2012 A video clip shot yesterday at Columbus Ohio Airport illustrates how the Transportation Security Administration has dreamed up a bizarre new way to waste time and taxpayer dollars ? by testing drinks purchased by travelers for explosives inside the airport long after they have already passed security. The footage shows TSA agents walking around a departure lounge asking to test passengers? drinks for explosive residue with a swab they hold over the liquid. ?Now remember that this is inside the terminal, well beyond the security check and purchased inside the terminal?just people waiting to get on the plane,? writes the You Tube user who uploaded the video. ?My wife and son came back from a coffee shop just around the corner, then we were approached. I asked them what they were doing. One of the TSA ladies said that they were checking for explosive chemicals (as we are drinking them). I said ?really ? inside the terminal? You have got to be kidding me.? I asked them if they wanted to swab us all. She responded with something like, ?yes sometimes we need to do that?. I then asked if she wanted a urine sample?nonetheless, the TSA is way out of control,? he adds, joking that the TSA?s next move could be to visit people?s homes before they even leave for the airport (they?re already in the parking lot demanding to search people who aren?t even flying!) As we have previously highlighted, the drinks policy was recently introduced with virtually no explanation from the TSA whatsoever. The much vaunted 2006 liquid bomb plot on which this nonsense is all based completely collapsed in court and was revealed to be farcical at best. Experts have savaged rules relating to liquids being carried through security as pointless and unnecessary and yet they still remain in place six years later, with ludicrous cases routinely popping up of mothers having to drink their own breast milk or even pump it into empty bottles. But this new rule applies to drinks purchased within the airport after travelers have already passed airport security, items that have presumably already had to pass some form of security check to be brought inside the airport in the first place. The drinks testing farce has been accompanied by other harebrained TSA schemes which have virtually nothing to do with genuine security and everything to do with subjecting the public to intimidation and obedience training. The federal agency recently brought in a similarly asinine new policy in which travelers are ordered to ?freeze? on command by TSA screeners while passing through security ? for no apparent reason other than to check they will obey orders without question. Perhaps the TSA should concentrate on real security threats and cleaning up the behavior of their own criminally-prone employees instead of harassing travelers who have already been through the ordeal of a grope down or a radiation body scan. Given the fact that TSA agents now festoon political events, highways and even prom nights, how long is it before we have blue-shirted goons in fast food restaurants checking whether or not our Diet Cokes are weapons of mass destruction? ********************* Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Sep 3 19:43:46 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 20:43:46 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Sci-Fi fans blow stacks at copybot attacks Message-ID: Sci-Fi fans blow stacks at copybot attacks By Richard Chirgwin http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/03/huge_hugo_streaming_snafu/ Posted in Music and Media, 3rd September 2012 23:35 GMT Ustream has rained on the science fiction world?s big event, with its copyright enforcement bots unplugging the Hugo awards for showing winners? clips. We?ll never know just how many award-winners planned to commit ?fair use? by accepting their awards in front of screenings of snippets of their work, because a brainless pre-programmed bot slapped down Worldcon?s glittering ceremony while Neil Gaiman was accepting his award for his Dr Who script, The Doctor?s Wife. io9 is particularly outraged, and for good reason: the Ustream feed was taken out before one of its contributors, Charlie Jane Anders, could accept a best novelette award. io9 also claims that complaints to Ustream have so far gone unanswered. The copybot attack wasn?t lifted at all for the event, even though the clips the bot blocked were provided by studios ? and even though the use of clips in this context probably fall under any normal definition of ?fair use? under US copyright law. As io9 puts it: ?In case anyone still believes that copyright rules can't stop free speech or snuff out a community, the automated censorship of the Hugo Awards is a case in point.? El Reg couldn?t agree more. ? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 4 07:09:51 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 08:09:51 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - AntiSec claims to have snatched 12M Apple device IDs from FBI Message-ID: <33A556FF-BEBC-4FF6-A6A3-873EB9B98D5B@infowarrior.org> (Another epic cyber-win by the FBI. Go team go! --rick) AntiSec claims to have snatched 12M Apple device IDs from FBI Hacking group posts 1 million of the identifiers to the Web after allegedly lifting the data from an agent's laptop. by Steven Musil September 3, 2012 10:45 PM PDT An online hacker group associated with Anonymous claims to have posted 1 million Apple Unique Device Identifiers (UDIDs) by breaching FBI security. A UDID is the unique string of numbers that identifies each iOS device, formerly used by developers to track their app installations across Apple's user base. In all, AntiSec claims to have obtained more than 12 million UDIDs, including user names, addresses, and notification tokens from a laptop used by an FBI agent. In a missive posted to Pastebin, the hacking group explains how it obtained the data from an FBI agent's laptop: < - SNIP - > http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57505330-83/antisec-claims-to-have-snatched-12m-apple-device-ids-from-fbi/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 4 07:15:53 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 08:15:53 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Reporters: We loathe 2012 campaign Message-ID: <9E0E79AA-5F58-4F87-93B9-ED5A690FB906@infowarrior.org> Reporters: We loathe 2012 campaign By: Dylan Byers September 3, 2012 05:01 PM EDT http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=8C836088-D953-46EB-9B4B-322D6A2CF339 Is that all there is? Presidential campaigns are supposed to be the greatest show in American politics ? infused with big ideas and historical import. Yet after 16 months enduring a Republican primary and then a two-man contest so far defined by gaffes, cynicism, knife-fights and rapid-fire news cycles, even the best political reporters want the whole thing over with. Yet another high-profile veteran campaign correspondent had his Howard Beale moment this week ? mad as hell (or rather, sad as hell) and not willing to take it anymore ? when Mark Leibovich lamented the devastating ?joylessness? of the 2012 grind and wondered what the hell he was doing with his life. ?How am I ever going to get through it?? the chief national correspondent of The New York Times Magazine asked. (PHOTOS: Top 10 moments from past conventions) But his cri de coeur is just the latest primal scream in a campaign that is sending a whole generation of journalists to the confessional. ?This is worse than normal, a lot less fun, and it feels impossible for us to change the conversation,? Walter Shapiro, who has covered nine presidential campaigns and now writes for Yahoo News and Columbia Journalism Review, told POLITICO. ?People are feeling grateful that it?s almost over,? added Maggie Haberman, who covered the 2008 election for the New York Post and is covering the 2012 election for POLITICO. ?There has been this ongoing lack of enthusiasm. Neither side seems to be enjoying this race ? not the Democrats or the Republicans, and not the reporters.? If there is one narrative to anchor what often feels like a plotless 2012 campaign, it is media disillusionment. Reporters feel like both campaigns have decided to run out the clock with limited press avails, distractions, and negative attacks, rather than run confident campaigns with bold policy platforms or lofty notions of hope and change ? leaving the media with little to do but grind along covering the latest shallow, sensational item of the day. ?Until the candidates restore joy, it?s impossible for us to be joyful,? NBC News senior White House correspondent Chuck Todd told POLITICO. ?The campaigns are trying so hard to manipulate us, to work the refs, to withhold access. If these candidates were comfortable, the campaign might be joyful to cover.? ?This is one big market-tested campaign, with no unknown candidate who could really blow it up, or be something different,? Leibovich said. ?If the last campaign was the change campaign, this is the no-change campaign.? When Haberman and her colleague, Alex Burns, wrote one of the first jeremiads in June, there was no shortage of self-criticism: ?The endless news cycle, infused with partisanship thanks to cable news and coupled with the Internet-age imperative to produce faster, more provocative copy, has amplified every cynical and self-indulgent impulse of the political press ? POLITICO included,? they wrote. But betweenJune and September, amid the insufferable heat and the dog days of August, self-criticism turned to self-loathing. Self-loathing because somehow, for all the space allowed by print, the airtime allowed by 24-hour cable news, and the limitless real estate of the Internet, the media could not find a way to elevate the discussion and focus on what the 2012 campaign is actually supposed to be about: jobs, the economy and so on. ?The fact is, we are under-covering the economy, we are under-covering ? but you cover the campaign that is in front of you,? Todd, who frequently voices his 2012 frustrations on his MSNBC show, ?Daily Rundown,? told conservative radio show host Laura Ingraham in August. ?The watercooler discussion begins with ?Can you believe that guy?,? not ?Will Romney or Obama give me a lower marginal tax rate in 2014?? So the campaigns and the ideological press keep churning it out for a hungry public,? Time magazine?s Michael Scherer wrote that same month. The Washington Post?s Dan Balz, The Wall Street Journal?s Peggy Noonan, and Shapiro all wrote their own versions of the ?Worst Campaign Ever? story. Shapiro?s actually bore that headline, verbatim. Leibovich?s piece brings the self-loathing to its apotheosis: ?The treadmill existence of having to file articles around the clock, tweet nonevents as they happen and listen to the same canned speeches and campaign conference calls day after day, waiting for something, anything, to bust up the script so that you can pretend there?s news here; this can be the definition of joylessness,? he wrote. Of course, Leibovich and other journalists could choose not to cover the gaffes and the attacks ? but because the campaigns have cordoned off the candidates and failed to launch a substantive discussion, attacks and gaffes seem to be the only newsworthy items of the cycle, which only reinforces the campaigns? desire to keep their candidate cordoned off. ?There?s no off-Broadway anymore,? CNN?s Gloria Borger, who has been covering politics for 35 years, told POLITICO. ?There is a sense among the candidates ? and their staffs ? that nothing is off the record. And while I think we can idealize the way it used to be in the good old days, this new, high-speed news cycle has had one result none of us likes: a constant barrage of scripted sound bites and talking points, just to make sure everyone is on message, all the time.? Because of the pace established by Twitter and the Internet, the latest ?gotcha? moment snowballs faster than ever. For a reporter pressed to be ahead of the cycle, assuming conscientious-objector status would be suicide. Once one credible journalist takes the bait, everyone takes the bait. ?We?re all part of the same stew, and you can see the glee in the press corps when they know they?ve found today?s ?Gotcha,? moment,? Leibovich said. ?The arms race should and has to end at some point.? But? how? Some reporters believe it is just a matter of waiting out 2012 in hopes that 2016 will see the return of 2008-level excitement. Four years from now brings promise of fresher faces like Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Martin O?Malley or Andrew Cuomo; some old favorite like Hillary Clinton; or some unknown who can restore a greater sense of enthusiasm. Others fear that with every election cycle, campaigns are further battening down the hatches, setting precedents of media control that ultimately render the media powerless to do anything but wait at the mercy of a scripted quote, like dogs waiting for scraps. John Harris, editor-in-chief of POLITICO, suggests another approach. ?It seems to me that one thing journalists need to remember is that they are people who command great respect within the profession. They have the authority to write what they?ve written, but they underestimate their ability to help elevate and infuse things with some purpose,? Harris told POLITICO. ?People want reporters to cover this like they?re doing something important with their lives.? ?Yes, we have to live in the moment. But we also want to finish a campaign and not just see an endless stack of clips, or tweets. We want to see our work and be able to say: ?that was good, that showed originality,?? he continued. ?And we shouldn?t be beating ourselves up, knocking the hell out of ourselves. We should have some fun.? In other words, if that?s all there is, keep dancing. Break out the booze. Have a ball. And report like you give a damn. ? 2012 POLITICO LLC --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 4 07:52:08 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 08:52:08 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - more on .... AntiSec claims to have snatched 12M Apple device IDs from FBI In-Reply-To: <33A556FF-BEBC-4FF6-A6A3-873EB9B98D5B@infowarrior.org> References: <33A556FF-BEBC-4FF6-A6A3-873EB9B98D5B@infowarrior.org> Message-ID: Just heard from a trusted source that this may be a hoax. I'm sure the details will come out soon, so take the report as you will. -- rick From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 4 10:00:00 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 11:00:00 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Democrat Platform and Internet Freedom Message-ID: Everyone who believes that who isn't part of the entertainment industry or another IP cartel, please stand up. ---rick http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform < - > Internet Freedom. The Obama administration has led the world to recognize and defend Internet freedom ? the freedom of expression, assembly, and association online for people everywhere ? through coalitions of countries and by empowering individuals with innovative technologies. The administration has built partnerships to support an Internet that is secure and reliable and that is respectful of U.S. intellectual property, free flow of information, and privacy. To preserve the Internet as a platform for commerce, debate, learning, and innovation in the 21st century, we successfully negotiated international Internet policymaking principles, support the current multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance, and oppose the extension of intergovernmental controls over the Internet. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 4 17:35:10 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 18:35:10 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?FBI_Says_Laptop_Wasn=92t_Hacked?= =?windows-1252?q?=3B_Never_Possessed_File_of_Apple_Device_IDs?= Message-ID: FBI Says Laptop Wasn?t Hacked; Never Possessed File of Apple Device IDs ? By Kim Zetter ? Email Author ? 09.04.12 4:46 PM http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/fbi-says-laptop-wasnt-hacked-never-possessed-file-of-apple-device-ids/ The Federal Bureau of Investigation is refuting a statement made by members of AntiSec this weekend that they hacked the laptop of an FBI special agent and stole a file containing 12 million Apple device IDs and associated personal information. The FBI also said it did not possess a file containing the data the hackers said they stole. In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, the FBI said, ?The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed. At this time there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data.? Over the weekend, the hacker group AntiSec released an encrypted file that containing 1 million Apple device IDs and device names that the group said was obtained from an FBI computer they hacked. The hackers said the original file contained 12 million IDs, including personal information, but they released only 1 million (leaving out the personal data) in an encrypted file published on torrent sites. In a lengthy post online, the hackers wrote that last March, they hacked a laptop belonging to an FBI agent named Christopher K. Stangl from the bureau?s Regional Cyber Action Team and the New York FBI office?s Evidence Response Team. The hackers say the IDs were stored in a file on Stangl?s desktop titled ?NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv.? The file, according to the hackers, contained a list of more than 12 million Apple iOS devices, including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, names of devices, types of devices, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, ZIP codes, cellphone numbers, and addresses. The hackers suggested in a tweet from the @AnonymousIRC account that the FBI was using the information to track users. But the FBI disputes this. The FBI did not say whether the NCFTA, which was allegedly referred to in the file name the hackers obtained, possessed the data. NCFTA refers to the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance. The NCFTA is a non-profit that was founded in 1997 by FBI agent Dan Larkin as a conduit between private industry and law enforcement agencies to help them exchange data and cooperate on cases. The organization?s members include financial institutions, telecommunications firms, ISPs, and other private industries. The NCFTA did not respond to a call seeking comment. Apple UDIDs are a 40-character alphanumeric string that is unique to each Apple device. The hackers say they released the Apple UDIDs so that people would know that the FBI may be tracking their devices and also because, they wrote in their online post, ?we think it?s the right moment to release this knowing that Apple is looking for alternatives for those UDID currently ? but well, in this case it?s too late for those concerned owners on the list.? Apple has been criticized for hard-coding the IDs in devices, since they can be misused by application developers and others to identify a user, when combined with other information, and track them. Last April, Apple began rejecting applications that track UDIDs. The Next Web has created a tool for users to check if their Apple UDID is among those that the hackers released. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 4 17:35:17 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 18:35:17 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - State of the Web: How Washington could ruin the Internet freedom debate Message-ID: <2B50880F-A3E1-4C8F-9B71-6E464DCBD511@infowarrior.org> State of the Web: How Washington could ruin the Internet freedom debate September 4, 2012 By Andrew Couts http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/state-of-the-web-dont-let-internet-freedom-become-democrats-vs-republicans/ Both Republicans and Democrats support "Internet freedom" in their own way. Great -- but we have to be careful not to let partisanship define the debate. With the 2012 election season now in full swing, the Republicans and Democrats have each released their official party platforms, those pandering documents that vaguely outline the parties? positions on everything from health care to foreign wars. But this year, both platforms included one topic that has never before made an appearance as a standalone provision: Internet freedom. The inclusion of Internet freedom as a primary point of concern for the two leading U.S. political parties follows a year of unprecedented activism on behalf of the Web. The famous Internet blackout on January 18 against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) kicked off a string of protests backed by millions of newly invigorated citizens. Intense battles against the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CIPSA), and the contentious U.S.-backed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) followed, as did backlash against various cybersecurity bills. And a fight over the increasingly hated Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is brewing hotter at this very moment. It is this activism that has pushed Internet freedom to the forefront of American politics ? a position that should encourage Washington politicians to place Internet-related issues even higher on their agendas, and citizens to stay informed and active in the process. In many ways, this is good for the Web, and for the people and businesses that rely upon it. Us vs. Them Unfortunately, the addition of ?Internet freedom? on the political platforms also has the ill effect of further politicizing the Internet, a transition that could lock Internet issues into the Us vs. Them impasse that plagues so many issues important to our country and the world. At the moment, here?s how this fight breaks down: Republicans define ?Internet freedom? as freedom from government control. (Surprise, surprise, I know?) Specifically, they oppose regulations like the Federal Communications Commission?s Net neutrality rules. Not only do they believe that Net neutrality infringes upon businesses? ability to innovate, some on the Right assert that Net neutrality ? which prohibits Internet companies from discriminating against certain Web content or access to content ? violates companies? First Amendment right to free speech. Verizon recently filed a brief in federal court asserting exactly this. In its brief, Verizon stated that the FCC?s Net neutrality rules are unconstitutional because ?broadband networks are the modern-day microphone by which their owners engage in First Amendment speech.? A number of right-wing advocacy groups, including The Free State Foundation, TechFreedom, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute, have filed an amicus brief in support of Verizon, with the goal of having FCC Net neutrality rules thrown out by the court. So that?s one side. In the other corner we have the Democrats, most of whom strongly support Net neutrality principles on the basis that they protect Web users and small businesses from the greedy wrath of corporate giants. Interestingly, the 2012 Democratic National Platform makes no direct mention of Net neutrality. Instead, it declares support for the things Net neutrality supporters believe the principles achieve. ?President Obama is strongly committed to protecting an open Internet that fosters investment, innovation, creativity, consumer choice, and free speech, unfettered by censorship or undue violations of privacy,? the platform reads. The Democrats also tout their commitment ?to preserve the Internet as a platform for commerce, debate, learning, and innovation in the 21st century.? In other words: Democrats support Net neutrality even if they don?t say so explicitly. That?s what ?protecting an open Internet that fosters investment, innovation, creativity, consumer choice, and free speech? means, after all. Fateful split Battles like the one over Net neutrality are entirely inevitable. But I fear that the dividing line over this issue will only lead to further partisanship over all aspects of Internet regulation (or deregulation) ? partisanship that could leak deep into the cracks of the American electorate, and divide Web users in the same way that issues like abortion and same-sex marriage divide us now. We cannot let this ideological split define the debate over the open Internet. The reason the protests against SOPA/PIPA were so monumentally successful is that we, the Web users, were firmly united in opposition to these poorly crafted pieces of legislation. (Not to mention the support added by companies like Google, which, incidentally, has a complicated relationship with Net neutrality.) But if we let the same petty bipartisanship rule over our senses when it comes to Internet issues, such uniformity will become increasingly unstable and eventually fall apart. Last word As it stands now, the debate over what ?Internet freedom? means remains fluid ? we are able to support or oppose each new piece of legislation or other government action based purely on merit, not on meaningless factors like which political party supports this or that bill. But this balance has already begun to shift towards a more partisan dynamic, one that makes clear-minded analysis nearly impossible. I am pleased with the inclusion of ?Internet freedom? on the party platforms for the sole reason that it means we are doing something right ? that we have Washington?s attention. I fear, however, that by getting its attention, we have ushered in the end of the ?the Internet? as a solid, pragmatic force against the creaky, entrenched powers-that-be. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 4 17:35:41 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 18:35:41 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Good Read.....Leave Your Cellphone at Home: Interview with Jacob Appelbaum Message-ID: <7E80FD8E-792E-4249-AD5F-A94DEC2FB3FC@infowarrior.org> VERY good reading! --rick Sarah Resnick Leave Your Cellphone at Home Interview with Jacob Appelbaum From OCCUPY Gazette 4, out May 1. http://nplusonemag.com/leave-your-cellphone-at-home Earlier this year in Wired, writer and intelligence expert James Bamford described the National Security Agency?s plans for the Utah Data Center. A nondescript name, but it has another: the First Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center. The $2 billion facility, scheduled to open in September 2013, will be used to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store the agency?s intercepted communications?everything from emails, cell phone calls, Google searches, and Tweets, to retail transactions. How will all this data be stored? Imagine, if you can, 100,000 square-feet filled with row upon row of servers, stacked neatly on racks. Bamford projects that its processing-capacity may aspire to yottabytes, or 1024 bytes, and for which no neologism of higher magnitude has yet been coined. To store the data, the NSA must first collect it, and here Bamford relies on a man named William Binney, a former NSA crypto-mathematician, as his main source. For the first time, since leaving the NSA in 2001, Binney went on the record to discuss Stellar Wind, which we all know by now as the warrantless wiretapping program, first approved by George Bush after the 2001 attacks on the twin towers. The program allowed the NSA to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in charge of authorizing eavesdropping on domestic targets, permitting the wholesale monitoring of millions of American phone calls and emails. In his thirty years at the NSA, Binney helped to engineer its automated system of networked data collection which, until 2001, was exclusively directed at foreign targets. Binney left when the organization started to use this same technology to spy on American citizens. He tells of secret electronic monitoring rooms in major US telecom facilities, controlled by the NSA, and powered by complex software programs examining Internet traffic as it passes through fiber-optic cables. (At a local event last week, Binney circulated a list of possible interception points, including 811 10th Avenue, between 53rd & 54th St., which houses the largest New York exchange of AT&T Long Lines.) He tells of software, created by a company called Narus, that parses US data sources: any communication arousing suspicion is automatically copied and sent to the NSA. Once a name enters the Narus database, all phone calls, emails and other communications are automatically routed to the NSA?s recorders. The NSA wasn?t the only intelligence-gathering agency to have its domestic surveillance powers expanded in the wake of September 11th. The USA PATRIOT Act, for instance, allows the FBI to spy on US citizens without demonstrating probable cause that its targets are engaged in criminal activities. Under Section 215 of the Act, the now infamous National Security Letters?which formerly required that the information being sought pertain to a foreign power or agent of a foreign power?can compel the disclosure of sensitive information held by banks, credit companies, telephone carrier, and Internet Service Providers, among many others, about US citizens. The recipient of an NSL is typically gagged from disclosing the fact or nature of the request. It?s no secret that, whereas the Fourth Amendment prevents against unreasonable search and seizure, concerns over ?national security? occasioned its disregard and the violation of privacy rights of even the most ordinary citizens. Activists have all the more reason to worry, repeatedly turning up as the subject of terrorist investigations. For instance, in 2006 the ACLU revealed that the Pentagon was secretly conducting surveillance of protest activities, antiwar organizations, and groups opposed to military recruitment policies, including Quakers and student organizations. Relying on sources from the Department of Homeland Security, local police departments, and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the Pentagon collected, stored, and shared this data through the Threat and Local Observation Database, or TALON, designed to track terrorist threats. Or take Scott Crow, a self-described anarchist and veteran organizer in the global justice movement, who, as the New York Times reported last year, is one of dozens of political activists across the country to have come under scrutiny from the FBI?s increased counterterrorism operation. The FBI set up a video camera outside his house, monitored guests as they came and went, tracked his emails and phone conversations, and picked through his trash to identify his bank and mortgage companies, presumably to send them subpoenas. Others to have been investigated included animal rights activists in Virginia and liberal Roman Catholics in Nebraska. When in 2008, President Obama took the reigns from George W. Bush, there was an expectation that much, or at least some, of this activity would be curbed. Yet, as Bamford?s article attests, the goverment?s monitoring and collection of our digital data remains steadfast. When the Occupy protests started in mid-September of last year, I relied on data-generating technologies increasingly, more so than I had ever before. Within a few weeks I had joined multiple OWS-related listservs; I?d started following Twitter with unprecedented commitment; I spent more hours on Facebook than I care to acknowledge. I doubt I am the only one. At the same time, there was a widespread sense of precaution?just because we were engaging in legal activities, covered by our First Amendment rights, no one, it seemed, should presume herself exempt from the possibility of surveillance. Sensitive conversations took place in loud bars, never over email. Text messages were presumed unsafe. In meetings, cell phone batteries were removed on occasion. Nevertheless, it was easy to feel unimportant (why would anyone watch me?) and equally easy to let standards relax?especially when it meant reclaiming conveniences that, once enjoyed, we?re difficult to give up. Leaving a trail of potentially incriminating digital data seemed inevitable. But how bad could it really be? And was there no way to use these same tools while safeguarding our privacy? In late April, I sat down with the independent security researcher, hacker, and privacy advocate Jacob Appelbaum, who knows a thing or two about the surveillance state. Appelbaum is one of the key members of the Tor project, which relies on a worldwide volunteer network of servers to reroute Internet traffic across a set of encrypted relays. Doing so conceals a user?s location, and protects her from a common form of networking surveillance known as traffic analysis, used to infer who is talking to whom over a public network. Tor is both free (as in freedom) and free of charge. Appelbaum is also the only known American member of the international not-for-profit WikiLeaks. Resnick: The recent article in Wired describes where and how the NSA plans to store its share of collected data. But as the article explains, the Utah facility will have another important function: cryptanalysis, or code-breaking, as much of the data cycling through will be heavily encrypted. It also suggests that the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), expected to remain durable for at least another decade, may be cracked by the NSA in a much shorter time if they?ve built a secret computer that is considerably faster than any of the machines we know about. But more to the point?is encryption safe? Appelbaum: Some of it is as safe as we think it can be, and some of it is not safe at all. The number one rule of ?signals intelligence? is to look for plain text, or signaling information?who is talking to whom. For instance, you and I have been emailing, and that information, that metadata, isn?t encrypted, even if the contents of our messages are. This ?social graph? information is worth more than the content. So, if you use SSL-encryption to talk to the OWS server for example, great, they don?t know what you?re saying. Maybe. Let?s assume the crypto is perfect. They see that you?re in a discussion on the site, they see that Bob is in a discussion, and they see that Emma is in a discussion. So what happens? They see an archive of the website, maybe they see that there were messages posted, and they see that the timing of the messages correlates to the time you were all browsing there. They don?t need to know to break a crypto to know what was said and who said it. Resnick: And this type of surveillance is called ?? Appelbaum: Traffic analysis. It?s as if they are sitting outside your house, watching you come and go, as well as the house of every activist you deal with. Except they?re doing it electronically. They watch you, they take notes, they infer information by the metadata of your life, which implies what it is that you?re doing. They can use it to figure out a cell of people, or a group of people, or whatever they call it in their parlance where activists become terrorists. And it?s through identification that they move into specific targeting, which is why it?s so important to keep this information safe first. For example, they see that we?re meeting. They know that I have really good operational security. I have no phone. I have no computer. It would be very hard to track me here unless they had me physically followed. But they can still get to me by way of you. They just have to own your phone, or steal your recorder on the way out. The key thing is that good operational security has to be integrated into all of our lives so that observation of what we?re doing is much harder. Of course it?s not perfect. They can still target us, for instance, by sending us an exploit in our email, or a link in a web browser that compromises each of our computers. But if they have to exploit us directly, that changes things a lot. For one, the NYPD is not going to be writing exploits. They might buy software to break into your computer, but if they make a mistake, we can catch them. But it?s impossible to catch them if they?re in a building somewhere reading our text messages as they flow by, as they go through the switching center, as they write them down. We want to raise the bar so much that they have to attack us directly, and then in theory the law protects us to some extent. Resnick: So if I were arrested, and the evidence presented came from a targeted attack on my computer, and I knew about the attack, I would have some kind of legal recourse? Appelbaum: Well, that?s an interesting question. What is the legal standard for breaking into someone?s computer because they were at a protest? Congratulations, take that to the Supreme Court, you might be able to make some really good law. I think the answer is that it?s a national newsworthy incident?nobody knows the cops break into people?s computers. The cops break into someone?s house, the Fourth Amendment is super clear about that?it can?t be done without a warrant. Resnick: In January of last year, it was reported that the records for your Twitter account? along with those of Julian Assange, Private Bradley Manning, Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrjp, and Icelandic lawmaker Brigatta Jonsdottir?were subpoenaed by the US government. What is perhaps most notable in this case is not that the accounts were subpoenaed, but that the orders, usually gagged and carried out in secret, became public knowledge. Twitter contested the secrecy order and won the right to notify you. Several months later, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Google and the Internet service provider Sonic.net, had received similar orders to turn over your data. Appelbaum: Twitter notified me. But as for Google and Sonic.net, I read about it in the Wall Street Journal like everybody else. So now I can talk about it because it was in a public newspaper. Those are ?2703(d) administrative subpoenas,? and they asked for IP addresses, and the email addresses of the people I communicated with, among other things. The government asserts that it has the right to get that metadata, that ?signaling? or relationship information, without a warrant. They get to gag the company, and the company can?t fight it, because it?s not their data, it?s my data, or it?s data about me, so they have no Constitutional standing. And the government asserts that I have no expectation of privacy because I willingly disclosed it to a third party. And in fact my Twitter data was given to the government?no one has really written about that yet. We are still appealing but we lost the stay, which means Twitter had to disclose the data to the government, and whether or not they can use it is pending appeal. Once they get the data, it?s not like it?s private or secret?and even if they can?t use it as evidence, they can still use it in their investigations. Resnick: In January of this year, the Twitter account of writer and OWS protester Malcolm Harris was subpoenaed by the Manhattan District Attorney?s Office. I think it?s safe to assume these incidents are not anomalies. In which case, is there a way to use social media sites like Twitter without putting our private data at risk? Because these sites can be very useful tools of course. Appelbaum: In the case of something like Twitter, you can use Tor on the Android phone?we have a version of Tor for Android called Orbot?and Twitter together and that?s essentially the best you?re going to do. And even that isn?t particularly great. Twitter keeps a list of IP addresses where you?ve logged in, but if you use Tor, it won?t know you are logging in from your phone. It?s powerful, but the main problem is that it?s kind of complicated to use. On your computer, you can use the Tor browser, and when you log into Twitter, you?re fine, no problem all?your IP address will trace back to Tor again. So now when the government asserts that you have no expectation of privacy, you can say all right, well I believe I have an expectation of privacy, which is why I use Tor. I signal that. And the private messaging capability of Twitter?don?t use it for sensitive stuff. Twitter keeps a copy of all its messages. Resnick: During the perceived wave of Internet activism throughout the 2009 Iranian election protests, a new proprietary software called Haystack received a lot of media attention. Haystack promised Iranian activists tightly encrypted messages, access to censored websites, and the ability to obfuscate Internet traffic. You later tested the software and demonstrated its claims to be false. For those of us who don?t have your technical skill set, how can we assess whether a particular tool is safe to use, especially if it?s new? Appelbaum: First, is the source code available? Second, if the claims are just too good to be true, they probably are. There?s a thing called snake oil crypto or snake oil software, where the product promises the moon and the sun. When a developer promises that a proprietary software is super secure and only used by important people, it?s sketchy. Third, are the people working on this part of the community that has a reputation for accomplishing these things? That?s a hard one, but ask someone you know and trust. How would you go on a date with someone? How would you do an action with someone? Transitive trust is just as important in these situations. Another thing to look at is whether it?s centralized or decentralized. For example Haystack was centralized, whereas Tor is decentralized. Also, how is it sustained? Will it inject ads into your web browser, like AnchorFree, the producer of the Hotspot Shield VPN? Or is it like Riseup.net, whose VPN service monetizes not through your traffic, but through donations and solidarity and mutual aid? And if they can inject ads, that means they can inject a back door. That?s super sketchy?if they do that, that?s bad news. So you want to be careful about that. Finally, remember: The truth is like a bullet that pierces through the armor of charlatans. Resnick: What should we know about cell phones? It?s hard to imagine going to a protest without one. But like all networked technologies, surely they are double-edged? Appelbaum: Cell phones are tracking devices that make phone calls. It?s sad, but it?s true. Which means software solutions don?t always matter. You can have a secure set of tools on your phone, but it doesn?t change the fact that your phone tracks everywhere you go. And the police can potentially push updates onto your phone that backdoor it and allow it to be turned into a microphone remotely, and do other stuff like that. The police can identify everybody at a protest by bringing in a device called an IMSI catcher. It?s a fake cell phone tower that can be built for 1500 bucks. And once nearby, everybody?s cell phones will automatically jump onto the tower, and if the phone?s unique identifier is exposed, all the police have to do is go to the phone company and ask for their information. Resnick: So phones are tracking devices. They can also be used for surreptitious recording. Would taking the battery out disable this capability? Appelbaum: Maybe. But iPhones, for instance, don?t have a removable battery; they power off via the power button. So if I wrote a backdoor for the iPhone, it would play an animation that looked just like a black screen. And then when you pressed the button to turn it back on it would pretend to boot. Just play two videos. Resnick: And how easy is it to create something like to that? Appelbaum: There are weaponized toolkits sold by companies like FinFisher that enable breaking into BlackBerries, Android phones, iPhones, Symbian devices and other platforms. And with a single click, say, the police can own a person, and take over her phone. Resnick: Right?in November of last year, the Wall Street Journal first reported on this new global market for off-the-shelf surveillance technology, and created ?Surveillance Catalog? on their website, which includes documents obtained from attendees of a secretive surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C. WikiLeaks has also released documents on these companies. The industry has grown from almost nothing to a retail market worth $5 billion per year. And whereas companies making and selling this gear say it is available only to governments and law enforcement and is intended to catch criminals, critics say the market represents a new sort of arms trade supplying Western governments and repressive nations alike. Appelbaum: It?s scary because [accessing these products is so] easy. But when a company builds a backdoor, and sells it, and says trust us, only good guys will use it? well, first of all, we don?t know how to secure computers, and anybody that says otherwise is full of shit. If Google can get owned, and Boeing can get owned, and Lockheed Martin can get owned, and engineering and communication documents from Marine One can show up on a filesharing network, is it realistic to assume that perfect security is possible? Knowing this is the case, the right thing is to not build any backdoors. Or assume these backdoors are all abused and bypass them so that the data acquired is very uninteresting. Like encrypted phone calls between two people?it?s true they can wiretap the data, but they?ll just get noise. When Hillary Clinton and the State Department say they want to help people abroad fight repressive governments, they paint Internet freedom as something they can enable with $25 million. Whereas in reality the FBI makes sure that our communications tech isn?t secure. This makes it impossible for people like me to help people abroad overthrow their governments because our government has ensured that all their technology is backdoor ready. And in theory, they try to legitimize state surveillance here, and there they try to make it illegitimate. They say, ?In over-there-a-stan, surveillance is oppressive. But over here, it?s okay, we have a lawful process.? (Which is not necessarily a judicial process. For example, Eric Holder and the drones . . . sounds like a band, right?) Resnick: Okay, so one thing I?ve heard more than once at meetings when security culture comes up is that . . . well, there?s a sense that too much precaution grows into (or comes out of) paranoia, and paranoia breeds mistrust?and all of it can be paralyzing and lead to a kind of inertia. How would you respond to something like that? Appelbaum: The people who that say that?if they?re not cops, they?re feeling unempowered. The first response people have is, whatever, I?m not important. And the second is, they?re not watching me, and even if they were, there?s nothing they could find because I?m not doing anything illegal. But the thing is, taking precautions with your communications is like safe sex in that you have a responsibility to other people to be safe?your transgressions can fuck other people over. The reality is that when you find out it will be too late. It?s not about doing a perfect job, it?s about recognizing you have a responsibility to do that job at all, and doing the best job you can manage, without it breaking down your ability to communicate, without it ruining your day, and understanding that sometimes it?s not safe to undertake an action, even if other times you would. That?s the education component. So security culture stuff sounds crazy, but the technological capabilities of the police, especially with these toolkits for sale, is vast. And to thwart that by taking all the phones at a party and putting them in a bag and putting them in the freezer and turning on music in the other room?true, someone in the meeting might be a snitch, but at least there?s no audio recording of you. Part of informed consent is understanding the risks you are taking as you decide whether to participate in something. That?s what makes us free?the freedom to question what we?re willing to do. And of course it?s fine to do that. But it?s not fine to say, I don?t believe there?s a risk, you?re being paranoid, I?m not a target. When people say that they don?t want to take precautions, we need to show them how easy it is to do it. And to insist that not doing it is irresponsible, and most of all, that these measures are effective to a degree, and worth doing for that reason. And it?s not about perfection, because perfection is the enemy of ?good enough.? I would encourage people to think about the activity they want to engage in, and then say, Hey, this is what I want to do. Work together collaboratively to figure out how to do that safely and securely, but also easily without needing to give someone a technical education. Because that?s a path of madness. And if people aren?t willing to change their behaviors a little bit, you just can?t work with them. I mean that?s really what it comes down to. If people pretend that they?re not being oppressed by the state when they are literally being physically beaten, and forced to give up retinal scans, that?s fucking ridiculous. We have to take drastic measures for some of these things. The FBI has this big fear that they?re going to ?go dark,? which means that all the ways they currently obtain information will disappear. Well, America started with law enforcement in the dark; once, we were perceived to be innocent until proven guilty. And just because the surveillance is expanding, and continues to expand, doesn?t mean we shouldn?t push back. If you haven?t committed a crime they should have no reason to get that information about you, especially without a warrant. Resnick: Are there any other tools or advice you would suggest to an activist, or anyone for that matter? Appelbaum: Well, it?s important to consider the whole picture of all the electronic devices that we have. First, you should use Tor and the Tor browser for web browsing. Know that your home internet connection is probably not safe, particularly if it?s tied to your name. If you use a Mac or Windows operating system, be especially careful. For instance, there?s a program called Evilgrade that makes it easy for attackers to install a backdoor on a computer by exploiting weaknesses in the auto-update feature of many software programs. So if you have Adobe?s PDF reader, and you?re downloading and installing the update from Adobe, well, maybe you?ll get a little extra thing, and you?re owned. And the cops have a different but better version of that software. Which is part of why I encourage people to use Ubontu or Debian or Linux instead of proprietary systems like a Mac or whatever. Because there are exploits for everything. If you?re in a particularly sensitive situation, use a live bootable CD called TAILS?it gives you a Linux desktop where everything routes over Tor with no configuration. Or, if you?re feeling multilingual, host stuff in another country. Open an email account in Sweden, and use TAILS to access it. Most important is to know your options. A notepad next to a fireplace is a lot more secure than a computer in some ways, especially a computer with no encryption. You can always throw the notepad in the fireplace and that?s that. For email, using Riseup.net is good news. The solutions they offer are integrated with Tor as much as possible. They?re badass. Because of the way they run the system, I?m pretty sure that the only data they have is encrypted. And I?d like to think that what little unencrypted data they do have, they will fight tooth and nail to protect. Whereas, yes, you can use Tor and Gmail together, but it?s not as integrated?when you sign in, Gmail doesn?t ask if you want to route this over Tor. But also, Google inspects your traffic as a method of monetization. I?d rather give Riseup fifty dollars a month for the equivalent service of Gmail, knowing their commitment to privacy. And also knowing that they would tell the cops to go fuck themselves. There?s a lot of value in that. For chatting, use software with off-the-record messaging (OTR)?not Google?s ?go off the record,? but the actual encryption software?which allows you to have an end-to-end encrypted conversation. And configure it to work with Tor. You can bootstrap a secure communication channel on top of an insecure one. On a Mac, use Adium?it comes with OTR, but you still have to turn it on. When you chat with people, click verify and read the fingerprint to each other over the telephone. You want to do this because there could be a ?man in the middle? relaying the messages, which means that you are both talking to a third party, and that third party is recording it all. As for your cell phone, consider it a tracking device and a monitoring device and treat it appropriately. Be very careful about using cell phones, but consider especially the patterns you make. If you pull the battery, you?ve generated an anomaly in your behavior, and perhaps that?s when they trigger people to go physically surveil you. Instead, maybe don?t turn it off, just leave it at home. Because, as I said earlier, in a world with lots of data retention, our data trails tell a story about us, and even if the story is made of truthful facts, it?s not necessarily the truth. On a cell phone, you can install stuff like OStel, which allows you to make encrypted voice-over-the-Internet calls, or PrivateGSM?it?s not free, but it?s available for BlackBerries, Android phones, iPhones and so on. Which means that if they want to intercept your communication, they have to break into your phone. It?s not perfect. Gibberbot for the Android allows you to use Tor and Jabber?which is like Google Chat?with OTR automatically configured. You type in your Jabber ID, it routes over Tor, and when you chat with other people, it encrypts the messages end-to-end so even the Jabber server can?t see what?s being said. And there are a lot of tools like that to choose from. Another thing to consider is the mode in which we meet. If we want to edit something collaboratively, there?s a program called Etherpad. And there?s a social networking application called Crabgrass, and hosted at we.riseup.net. It?s like a private Facebook. Riseup still has a lot of the data, but it?s private by default. So it?s secure, short of being hacked, which is possible, or short of some legal process. And if you use it in a Tor browser, and never reveal information about yourself, you?re in really good shape. Unlike Facebook, which is like the Stasi, but crowdsourced. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. I once had a Facebook account?it?s fun and a great way to meet people. But it is not safe for political organizing, especially when you?re part of the minority, or when you?re not part of the minority, but you are part of the disempowered majority. As a final thought, I?d say just to remember that a big part of this is social behavior and not technology per se. And a big part of it is accepting that while we may live in a dystopian society right now, we don?t always have to. That?s the tradeoff, right? Because what is OWS working toward? The answer is, something different. And if we want an end to social inequality, the surveillance state is part of what we have to change. If we make it worthless to surveil people, we will have done this. So, it needs to be the case that what we do doesn?t hang us for what we wish to create. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 5 07:32:24 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 08:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Copyright Killbots Strike Again: Official DNC Livestream Taken Down By Just About Every Copyright Holder Message-ID: <798CF92F-6E2E-4424-8050-43D6F4B97ED1@infowarrior.org> (What was that about Internet freedom and free flows of information in the Democratic platform, again?? ---rick) Copyright Killbots Strike Again: Official DNC Livestream Taken Down By Just About Every Copyright Holder from the yeah,-THIS-makes-everyone-respect-copyright-MORE dept http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120904/22172920275/copyright-killbots-strike-again-official-dnc-livestream-taken-down-just-about-every-copyright-holder.shtml Here we go again. Less than 24 hours ago, content-protection bots killed a livestream of the Hugo Awards, thanks to the brief appearance of fully approved clips from an episode of Dr. Who. The whole situation was completely absurd to anyone harboring the tiniest vestige of common sense, but IP-protection software isn't built on common sense: it's built on algorithms. This time, content protection via crawling bots have taken down another approved, perfectly legal stream. The victim this time? The Democratic National Convention's official stream, hosted at YouTube. As Wired reports, if you're looking to catch up on last night's activities, including a speech by Michelle Obama, don't bother: The video, posted by the official YouTube account for the convention, DemConvention2012, was blocked, according to YouTube, for ostensibly infringing on the copyright of one of many possible suspects: <-> This video contains content from WMG, SME, Associated Press (AP), UMG, Dow Jones, New York Times Digital, The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA), Warner Chappell, UMPG Publishing and EMI Music Publishing, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds. Sorry about that. When contacted by Wired for comment, Erica Sackin, an Obama campaign staffer who works on digital outreach, had no knowledge of the outage, asked this reporter for the url and then upon seeing the takedown, said, "I'll have to call you back." <-> The video has since been updated to state that "This video is private." There's probably quite a bit going on behind the scenes at the moment, but fortunately Wired snagged the complete list of claimants for future reference. Take a good, long look at that list. There's a few of the usual suspects in there, including AP, UMG and Warner, entities not known to be shy about claiming content that isn't theirs. Now, these entities aren't directly responsible for this takedown. This is more of an automated match situation, but it still doesn't change the fact that the inherent stupidity of the action, automated or not, does absolutely nothing to lock down stray, unmonetized content and absolutely everything to highlight the ridiculous nature of copyright protection in a digital age. If Google can work with copyright holders to produce content matching software, it seems like it might be possible to designate certain accounts or entities as "off limits" from the wandering killbots. If the stream is authorized by, I don't know, the party of the current President of the United States, maybe, just fucking maybe, everything's "above board." Sure, defining legitimate, pre-approved accounts may prove to be as difficult as determining which content is infringing and which isn't, but this should be the sort of thing that content holders should be working toward, rather than simply moving from disaster to disaster, smugly secure in the knowledge that filthy file sharers are getting content-blocked thousands of times a day. Nice going, huge list of content holders. Your boundless, maximalist enthusiasm is just another nail in the coffin containing what's left of copyright's reputation. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 5 07:33:05 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 08:33:05 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - New Research Sets The Stage For Next Round Of Cat-And-Mouse Between BitTorrent Users & Snoopers Message-ID: <165F48F8-8296-43DA-832D-8FEAD836087A@infowarrior.org> New Research Sets The Stage For Next Round Of Cat-And-Mouse Between BitTorrent Users & Snoopers from the don't-look-now,-you're-being-watched dept The BitTorrent protocol is an extremely efficient way of moving files around the Internet, especially big ones. That makes it highly popular with those seeking to download unauthorized copies of music and films, for example. But the clever approach that enables BitTorrent to do that, which involves downloading fragments of a file from a shifting swarm of fellow peers holding some or all of it, is also a weakness from these users' point of view: it means that downloads take place in public, rather than as a private transaction from a client to a server (as with cyber lockers.) Fascinating new research entitled "The Unbearable Lightness of Monitoring: Direct Monitoring in BitTorrent" (pdf), from researchers at the University of Birmingham, explores just how public. It seeks to quantify how many peers in a swarm are actually being run by companies monitoring unauthorized downloads, and how long it takes for them to detect such activity:..... <-> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120904/14433020269/new-research-sets-stage-next-round-cat-and-mouse-between-bittorrent-users-snoopers.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 5 08:33:41 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 09:33:41 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - For Dems, "Internet freedom" means "vigorously" protecting copyrights Message-ID: <84C92DE4-90F6-4CC4-902A-035991D3B476@infowarrior.org> For Dems, "Internet freedom" means "vigorously" protecting copyrights Both parties are in denial about the need for copyright and patent reforms. by Timothy B. Lee - Sept 4 2012, 7:15pm EDT http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/for-dems-internet-freedom-means-vigorously-protecting-copyrights/ Tech policy issues play a prominent role in the Democratic Party's 2012 platform, released this week for the party's national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. The document touts an active federal role in a wide variety of tech policy issues, from copyright enforcement to the expansion of broadband Internet access. Both major US party platforms endorse "Internet freedom"?but for both parties the phrase comes with important caveats. Last week, the Republicans called for "vigorous enforcement of current laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity," as well as the preservation of the ban on online gambling. The Democrats are silent on pornography and gambling, but they make the case for "vigorous" copyright enforcement efforts. Vigor! "The administration is vigorously protecting US intellectual property," the new Democratic platform declares, through "better enforcement and innovative approaches such as voluntary efforts by all parties to minimize infringement while supporting the free flow of information." That's a reference to things like the "graduated response" system in which ISPs would penalize their users if they were accused of copyright infringement six times. (The White House helped brokered the deal between major ISPs and Hollywood.) Another policy that fits the theme of "vigorous" enforcement (though it isn't named specifically) is Operation In Our Sites. Under that program, the federal government has seized hundreds of allegedly infringing domain names before the site owners had a chance to be heard. President Obama also has his party's backing on the use of trade negotiations as a lever to pressure other countries to adopt American-style copyright and patent laws. While it doesn't mention the controversial ACTA treaty, the Democratic platform promotes the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and praises "free trade" agreements with Panama and Colombia for "protecting labor rights, the environment, and intellectual property." Democrats also take credit for having "reformed the patent system to speed approval of investors? patents and provide alternatives to wasteful litigation." That's a reference to last year's America Invents Act, which?as we predicted?has not slowed down the surge in patent litigation. The platform contains no mention of the continued problems with the patent system or the need for more substantive reforms. The Republican platform, released last week, was largely silent on patent and copyright issues. These issues are mentioned only in the context of accusing foreign countries?especially China?of failing to protect Americans' copyright and patent rights. Defining freedom The Democrats' stance on these issues is especially frustrating because many advocates of copyright and patent reform hail from the political left. (Copyright reformer Larry Lessig was a strong supporter of the Obama campaign in 2008, for instance). Yet advocates of reforming the copyright and patent systems appear to have had modest impact on either Obama administration policies or on the 2012 Democratic platform. If anything, the Democrats appear to have adopted an even more Hollywood-friendly stance than the Republicans. Some public interest groups have gamely tried to spin the two platforms as a victory for Internet freedom. David Segal of Demand Progress, a group that played a key role in stopping the Stop Online Piracy Act earlier this year, called it a "huge victory for the Internet" that both the Democratic and Republican platforms formally endorse the concept. But specifics speak louder than generalities. Obviously, everyone is happy to endorse "Internet freedom" in the abstract. But the administration's actions over the last three years suggests that it places a premium on currying favor with Hollywood, just as the Republicans' nominal commitment to Internet freedom takes a back seat to conservatives' opposition to pornography and gambling. Or consider net neutrality, where supporters want to use government power to keep the Internet "free" for users, while opponents want to keep the Internet "free" from the application of such power. Both sides use the same words, but they're not talking about the same things. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 5 08:46:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 09:46:25 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - World Wide Wasteland Message-ID: World Wide Wasteland 09/05/2012 by Swizec | 7 Comments and 27 Reactions Nobody links to other websites anymore! Bloggers didn?t die, and neither did blogging. But somehow, it just stopped being a vast, interconnected blogosphere ? When did the blogroll die anyway? Didn?t bloggers used to have links to all the blogs they read? Didn?t they talk about each other?s posts? Didn?t they quote and even reblog each other? Gone. All of it, like a puff of smoke that was never really there. No, Tumblr doesn?t count. When was the last time somebody re-tumbled anything more substantial than a picture with two lines of text? And where have all the blog-spanning debates gone anyway? There used to be one almost every day, now I?m lucky if a story spans more than two blogs once every three months. All of this really means the death of discovery..... < -- > http://www.zemanta.com/blog/world-wide-wasteland/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 5 08:50:36 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 09:50:36 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - iPhone, uCopy, iSue Message-ID: <5CF8A3C9-C371-4C32-91EA-15FAC5F5D997@infowarrior.org> Apple v Samsung iPhone, uCopy, iSue Not every innovation deserves a patent. Not every copycat deserves a punishment Sep 1st 2012 | from the print edition http://www.economist.com/node/21561888/print WHEN Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007, he changed an industry. Apple?s brilliant new device was a huge advance on the mobile phones that had gone before: it looked different and it worked better. The iPhone represented innovation at its finest, making it the top-selling smartphone soon after it came out and helping to turn Apple into the world?s most valuable company, with a market capitalisation that now exceeds $630 billion. Apple?s achievement spawned a raft of imitators. Many smartphone manufacturers now boast touch-screens and colourful icons. Among them is Samsung, the world?s biggest technology manufacturer, whose gadgets are the iPhone?s nearest rivals and closest lookalikes. The competition and the similarities were close enough for Apple to sue Samsung for patent infringement in several countries, spurring the South Korean firm to counterclaim that it had been ripped off by Apple as well. On August 24th an American jury found that Samsung had infringed six patents and ordered it to pay Apple more than $1 billion in damages, one of the steepest awards yet seen in a patent case (see article). Some see thinly disguised protectionism in this decision. That does the jury a disservice: its members seem to have stuck to the job of working out whether patent infringements had occurred. The much bigger questions raised by this case are whether all Apple?s innovations should have been granted a patent in the first place; and the degree to which technology stalwarts and start-ups alike should be able to base their designs on the breakthroughs of others. It is useful to recall why patents exist. The system was established as a trade-off that provides a public benefit: the state agrees to grant a limited monopoly to an inventor in return for disclosing how the technology works. To qualify, an innovation must be novel, useful and non-obvious, which earns the inventor 20 years of exclusivity. ?Design patents?, which cover appearances and are granted after a simpler review process, are valid for 14 years. The dispute between Apple and Samsung is less over how the devices work and more over their look and feel. At issue are features like the ability to zoom into an image with a double finger tap, pinching gestures, and the visual ?rubber band? effect when you scroll to the end of a page. The case even extends to whether the device and its on-screen icons are allowed to have rounded corners. To be sure, some of these things were terrific improvements over what existed before the iPhone?s arrival, but to award a monopoly right to finger gestures and rounded rectangles is to stretch the definition of ?novel? and ?non-obvious? to breaking-point. A proliferation of patents harms the public in three ways. First, it means that technology companies will compete more at the courtroom than in the marketplace?precisely what seems to be happening. Second, it hampers follow-on improvements by firms that implement an existing technology but build upon it as well. Third, it fuels many of the American patent system?s broader problems, such as patent trolls (speculative lawsuits by patent-holders who have no intention of actually making anything); defensive patenting (acquiring patents mainly to pre-empt the risk of litigation, which raises business costs); and ?innovation gridlock? (the difficulty of combining multiple technologies to create a single new product because too many small patents are spread among too many players). Some basic reforms would alleviate many of the problems exemplified by the iPhone lawsuit. The existing criteria for a patent should be applied with greater vigour. Specialised courts for patent disputes should be established, with technically minded judges in charge: the inflated patent-damage awards of recent years are largely the result of jury trials. And if patents are infringed, judges should favour monetary penalties over injunctions that ban the sale of offending products and thereby reduce consumer choice. Pinch and bloom A world of fewer but more robust patents, combined with a more efficient method of settling disputes, would not just serve the interests of the public but also help innovators like Apple. The company is rumoured to be considering an iPad with a smaller screen, a format which Samsung already sells. What if its plans were blocked by a specious patent? Apple?s own early successes were founded on enhancing the best technologies that it saw, notably the graphical interface and mouse that were first invented at Xerox?s Palo Alto Research Centre. ?It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done?and then try to bring those things in to what you?re doing,? said Jobs in a television documentary, ?Triumph of the Nerds?, in 1996. ?And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 5 17:18:08 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 18:18:08 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - App finds D.C. one of the toughest for speed enforcement Message-ID: <7C12E20B-0535-4BCD-A560-558D7D1737EA@infowarrior.org> App finds D.C. one of the toughest for speed enforcement (VIDEO) Wednesday - 9/5/2012, 5:57pm ET http://www.wtop.com/41/3020840/App-finds-DC-one-of-the-toughest-for-speed-enforcement-VIDEO Editor's note:This article previously stated, "There are 349 separate traffic-enforcement cameras in Washington, both for speed and running red lights," according to Trapster. However the Metropolitan Police list a total of 178 speed and red light cameras. Trapster confirms this number. The original statement has been removed. Megan Cloherty, wtop.com WASHINGTON - The D.C. area is one of the worst for speed cameras, speed patrols and tickets. D.C. falls in the top 10 toughest cities for drivers in a list compiled by CNBC using the app Trapster. The survey didn't just look at police enforcement, but also took into consideration red-light and speed cameras, reports Car Insurance.org. While drivers may not know the city must post a list of speed cameras and red light cameras, those cameras catch drivers everyday. Top 10 worst driving cities: ? New York ? Los Angeles ? Houston ? Las Vegas ? Washington, D.C. ? St. Louis, Mo. ? Orlando, Fla. ? Chicago ? Colorado Springs, Colo. ? Austin CarInsurance.org Drivers tired of being surprised by red light cameras and speed enforcement are using Trapster, an app that warns drivers of nearby speed cameras and patrols using both WiFi and GPS technology. The company uses the data from its users to determine which cities are the best and worst for speed cameras and speed patrols. More than 16 million drivers have downloaded the app and listed 5 million speed cameras and patrols, according to Trapster. The free app works by monitoring the driver's current speed while it also tracks where the driver is and warns him of upcoming road closures, traffic, patrols, speed cameras, red light cameras or known enforcement points, as reported by other drivers. It also alerts drivers to upcoming construction and school zones where reduced speeds are enforced. The app covers the D.C. area. Pete Tenereillo develops and runs Trapster out of California. "One great thing about that is that it's hands-free," Tenereillo tells CNN. "You don't have to be looking at the phone or even be holding it to be notified of the speed trap - which, of course, is safer, because you don't have to take your eyes off the road to be notified of the trap," he says. Drivers can determine which alerts they want to get, so if they know of a speed camera they pass everyday, they can manage their alerts to skip that one. Users can also pick from a long list of voices and have the app speak to them so they don't have to look at their phone during the drive. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 5 17:24:17 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 18:24:17 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Feds_Say_Mobile-Phone_Location_D?= =?windows-1252?q?ata_Not_=91Constitutionally_Protected=92?= Message-ID: <7E69D3C4-3536-4392-A6C4-C8258254ACC2@infowarrior.org> Feds Say Mobile-Phone Location Data Not ?Constitutionally Protected? ? By David Kravets ? Email Author ? 09.05.12 3:10 PM http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/feds-say-mobile-phone-location-data-not-constitutionally-protected/ The Obama administration told a federal court Tuesday that the public has no ?reasonable expectation of privacy? in cellphone location data, and hence the authorities may obtain documents detailing a person?s movements from wireless carriers without a probable-cause warrant. The administration, citing a 1976 Supreme Court precedent, said such data, like banking records, are ?third-party records,? meaning customers have no right to keep it private. The government made the argument as it prepares for a re-trial of a previously convicted drug dealer whose conviction was reversed in January by the Supreme Court, which found that the government?s use of a GPS tracker on his vehicle was an illegal search. With the 28 days of vehicle tracking data thrown out of court, the feds now want to argue in a re-trial that it was legally in the clear to use Antoine Jones? phone location records without a warrant. The government wants to use the records to chronicle where Jones was when he made and received mobile phone calls in 2005. ?A customer?s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records that were never in the possession of the customer,? the administration said in a court filing Tuesday (.pdf). ?When a cell phone user transmits a signal to a cell tower for his call to be connected, he thereby assumes the risk that the cell phone provider will create its own internal record of which of the company?s towers handles the call. Thus, it makes no difference if some users have never thought about how their cell phones work; a cell phone user can have no expectation of privacy in cell-site information.? The government?s position comes as prosecutors are shifting their focus to warrantless cell-tower locational tracking of suspects in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling (.pdf) in Jones? case that law enforcement should acquire probable-cause warrants from judges to affix GPS devices to vehicles. Just after the Jones decision, the FBI pulled the plug on 3,000 GPS-tracking devices. Jones, as one might suspect, wants the court to find that the feds should get a probable cause warrant for phone records, too. ?In this case, the government seeks to do with cell site data what it cannot do with the suppressed GPS data,? Jones? attorney Eduardo Balarezo wrote (.pdf) U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle. The government does not agree. ?Defendant?s motion to suppress cell-site location records cannot succeed under any theory. To begin with, no reasonable expectation of privacy exists in the routine business records obtained from the wireless carrier in this case, both because they are third-party records and because in any event the cell-site location information obtained here is too imprecise to place a wireless phone inside a constitutionally protected space,? the administration wrote the federal judge presiding over the Jones re-trial. Just as the lower courts were mixed on whether the police could secretly affix a GPS device on a suspect?s car without a warrant, the same is now true about whether a probable-cause warrant is required to obtain so-called cell-site data. During the investigation, a lower court judge in the Jones case authorized the five months of the cell-site data without probable cause, based on government assertions that the data was ?relevant and material? to an investigation. ?Knowing the location of the trafficker when such telephone calls are made will assist law enforcement in discovering the location of the premises in which the trafficker maintains his supply narcotics, paraphernalia used in narcotics trafficking such as cutting and packaging materials, and other evident of illegal narcotics trafficking, including records and financial information,? the government wrote in 2005, when requesting Jones? cell-site data. That cell-site information was not introduced at trial, as the authorities used the GPS data instead. The Supreme Court tossed that GPS data, along with Jones? conviction and life term on Jan. 23 in one of the biggest cases in recent years combining technology and the Fourth Amendment. ?We hold that the government?s installation of a GPS device on a target?s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle?s movements, constitutes a ?search,?? Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the five-justice majority. That decision, the Obama administration claimed, is ?wholly inapplicable? when it comes to cell-site data. The administration noted that the high court said the physical act of affixing a GPS device to a vehicle amounts to a search and generally requires a warrant. ?But when the government merely compels a third-party service provider to produce routine business records in its custody,? the government wrote, ?no physical intrusion occurs, and the rule in Jones is therefore wholly inapplicable.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 5 18:25:12 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 19:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OpEd: Apple Should Reinstate Drone+ & Stop Censoring Apps Message-ID: Apple Should Reinstate Drone+ & Stop Censoring Apps John Paul Titlow? posted 11 hours ago http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apple-should-reinstate-drone-stop-censoring-apps.php I was hoping to wake up to different headlines this morning. Something along the line of "Apple Apologizes, Accepts Drone+ iPhone App" would have sufficed. Alas, last week's news remains a stubborn reality: Apple thinks that an app highlighting publicly available data about war is "objectionable" and refuses to allow it into the App Store. The event illustrates one of Apple's very worst tendencies. The app in question is Drone+, a project by NYU grad student Josh Begley that displays an interactive map of recent U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. After two prior rejections by Apple for reasons having to do with utility and design, the app was nixed a third time for containing "objectionable content." The decision was a bit of a head-scratcher, considering that a very similar feature was already included in the Guardian's iPhone app and that scattered information about U.S. drone strikes can be found throughout dozens of news apps that are readily available on the App Store. Quality Control vs. Censorship To be fair, this decision is not as troubling as it would be if Apple were a government or a publisher in the traditional sense. Still, it's a new kind of gatekeeper, and it holds the keys to a platform used by millions of people around the world. While not as horrifyingly Orwellian as it could be, the fact that the biggest company in U.S. history makes decisions about which content is too "objectionable" for its customers is unsettling. Apple has every right to maintain strict guidelines as to what can go into the App Store. This is what keeps the experience so smooth and beloved by consumers. If a developer submits an app with crummy functionality or a confusing UI, Apple should reject it. But if a developer submits an app with politically sensitive words or pictures, so long as it's not obscene (pornography in the Apple Store is a debate for another day), in violation of copyright law or libelous, the company should back off. This is a lesson Apple should have learned in 2010, when it rejected an app submitted by a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist because it ridiculed public figures. That, of course, is something newspapers have done freely for centuries, and the blatant disregard for free speech resulted in a PR headache for Apple. In that case, the company reversed its stance and accepted the app. It should do the same for Drone+. Then it should tweak its submission policies to get out of the business of censorship. 25 Billion Apps Later, Things Have Changed Things have changed since Apple launched the App Store in 2008. For one thing, the platform has become wildly successful and iOS device sales now make up a huge majority of Apple's record-breaking profits. More than 25 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store. Meanwhile, we've seen social media and mobile technology play a crucial role in political uprisings in the Arab world and beyond. Those events have been sparked by unrest due to economic and political conditions but, in case after case, networked communications have stoked the flames. Last year in Syria, antigovernment activists began using an iPhone app to disseminate news, maps, photos and videos about the conflict in a country that doesn't exactly rank highly for its press freedom. Mobile tech in the hands of Syrian dissidents proved enough of a nuisance that the government banned the iPhone in late 2011, presumably to quash content that the regime found, um, objectionable. This example raises a few questions. First, why are pins on a map more objectionable than photos and video clips from a war zone? Why does content that effectively agitates for one government to be overthrown make the cut, while content that may make another government look bad (depending on one's own perspective) doesn't? Is Apple taking sides in international conflicts? Perhaps more disturbing is the notion that, were Apple to apply these standards consistently, apps like the one used by Syrian dissidents - and perhaps some news apps - would be barred from the App Store as well. Apple Risks Losing Consumer Trust - For What? Censorship doesn't help consumers, but it doesn't do Apple any favors either. Apple is at the top of the food chain when it comes to tech companies. Its profits are soaring. Consumers' mouths are watering for the upcoming iPhone 5, iPad Mini and whatever other polished, connected gadget the company may launch in the foreseeable future. People will stand in line for those products whether or not Apple accepts or rejects any particular app. Even so, the company would be unwise to take the trust of its customers for granted. People get queasy when they perceive censorship, no matter where they stand politically. A series of news stories highlighting Apple's insensitivity to freedom of expression could eat away at public trust, even in a brand as bullet-proof as Apple's. Consumers' lives are increasingly connected, ever more deeply embedded in mobile devices and social networks. These are pretty radical changes, and they're happening more quickly than many people (not to mention industries and governments) can respond. Some consumers are already beginning to grow uncomfortable with Facebook's privacy policies, Google's targeted advertising, and other cases in which, whether justified or not, technology starts to feel a little creepy. Twitter takes protecting privacy and free speech very seriously, and even if most users don't notice or care yet, that stance will serve the company well as social media continues to part and parcel of our daily lives. Further, there's no business rationale for blocking apps like this. Does it really degrade the iPhone or iPad experience if people can download an app that shows them where U.S. drones are killing civilians in Pakistan? People who care about that information will download the app, and those who don't will continue playing Angry Birds and reading Flipboard. Apple is a stickler when it comes to design, user experience, legal concerns, and overall quality. It has a legitimate right to protect its brand by rejecting adult-oriented apps. But when it comes to news, commentary and hard data, Apple has more to lose than to gain from rejecting content it doesn't like. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 6 07:22:34 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 08:22:34 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Death to PowerPoint! Message-ID: <69CB7B6F-A548-4D4E-9C8B-A5978AFDC101@infowarrior.org> (I and others already made that observation & threat 10 years ago: http://www.infowarrior.org/powerpointless.html But nice to see the MSM is picking up on the idea anyway. lol ---rick) Death to PowerPoint! By Bob Parks on August 30, 2012 http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-30/death-to-powerpoint No matter what your line of work, it?s only getting harder to avoid death by PowerPoint. Since Microsoft (MSFT) launched the slide show program 22 years ago, it?s been installed on no fewer than 1 billion computers; an estimated 350 PowerPoint presentations are given each second across the globe; the software?s users continue to prove that no field of human endeavor can defy its facility for reducing complexity and nuance to bullet points and big ideas to tacky clip art. On June 18, the Iranian government made the case for its highly contested nuclear program to world leaders with a 47-slide deck. (Sample slide: ?In the Name of ALLAH, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful, Why Enrichment is an Inalienable and Chartered Right under the NPT??) A few weeks later, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced the momentous discovery of the Higgs boson, or ?God particle,? using 52 PowerPoint slides in the Comic Sans font that inspired more mockery than awe. Two years back, the New York Knicks tried to woo LeBron James with a PowerPoint pitch, which may explain why James won his first NBA championship in Miami. As with anything so ubiquitous and relied upon, PowerPoint has bred its share of contempt. Plug the name into Twitter and you?ll see workers bashing the soporific software in Korean, Arabic, Spanish, and English as each region starts its business day. Part of this venting may stem from a lack of credible competition: PowerPoint?s share of the presentation software market remains 95 percent, eclipsing relative newcomers Apple (AAPL) Keynote, Google (GOOG) Presentation, Prezi, and SlideRocket, according to Meinald Thielsch, whose study of PowerPoint appears in the May 2012 edition of the journal Technical Communication. Microsoft?s other ubiquitous products, such as Word and Excel, don?t draw the same widescale ire. As PowerPoint?s sole function?unlike word processing and arithmetic?is grounded in visual arts, its slides do more harm than good. They bore audiences with amateurish, antiquated animation and typefaces and distract speakers from focusing on the underlying structure of their creators? speeches. It?s a wonder that today?s groundswell of PowerPoint refuseniks has taken so long to emerge. ?The best speakers at any corporate level today grip an audience by telling a story and showing some slides to support that,? says Thielsch. The boldest among them do away with slides entirely. Photograph by James Duncan Davidson/TEDMental health activist Ruby Wax uses a whiteboard for a TED talk The problem, say communication experts, is that PowerPoint has gone from being an aid to a crutch. ?If you have a presentation due, you say to yourself, ?I?ll just do it like my boss,??? says Joel Ingersoll, a manager at Minneapolis database firm Lorton Data. ???I?ll start vomiting information I found on my hard drive until I hit, oh, about 20 slides, and then I?ll wing the talking-to-people part.??? Statistics support Ingersoll?s observations: Thielsch found that 36 percent of the preparation time for the average proposal was consumed by design and animation work by people without formal graphics training. ?People rely on the graphics and stilted effects [that come with] these programs because they think they plump out an otherwise poorly told story,? says Jonah Sachs, creative director of the communications firm Free Range Studios. For Sachs, author of Winning the Story Wars, storytelling isn?t about opening your talk with a funny anecdote about your uncle?s prizewinning sturgeon. It?s about building a message using a powerful story line with a conflict and a resolution. ?A story takes all the senseless data that the world provides and turns it into something meaningful,? he says. That advice is easier to apply to a high-profile, Steve Jobs?style keynote than to the types of presentations that move business forward in the trenches. But accountants need stories, too, argues Nancy Duarte, whose eponymous firm creates corporate slide decks: ?Even if you?re a middle manager delivering financials to your department in slides, you?re telling a story. A manager is constantly trying to persuade, contrasting where their team is today vs. where they want them to be.? Starting a presentation with a story in mind also implies that you?re working hard to keep the audience involved. ?Everyone is sick of the one-way diatribe,? says Duarte. ?Visual conversations are where things are headed.? She created the graphics for Al Gore?s presentations on climate change, featured in the Oscar-winning 2007 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and now works for the TED conference organizers to train its speakers. She describes her most recent corporate projects as ?immersive? and ?participatory.? In one, the senior managers of a major information technology firm watched visuals projected on the floor while they engaged in polls via hundreds of customized iPads. In another example, an executive came to her looking for a killer PowerPoint, but instead she trained him for days to tell his story using only a whiteboard. Many of the top presentation gurus advocate judiciously limiting the role of PowerPoint. ?Pin up butcher paper on the walls, draw a map of your thinking, and hand that out. There are endless techniques that are more appropriate than PowerPoint,? says Keith Yamashita, founder of communications firm SYPartners. If only by its novelty, ditching PowerPoint makes a strong impression, but that?s easier said than done. Advertising executive Amelia Torode of London-based firm Chime Communications describes her terror when, in early July, she spoke without slideware for the first time in her 15-year career. She had to step onstage unassisted. ?It felt unplugged?no guitar fuzz, no backup singers, just me,? says Torode. ?I felt naked up there.? Jason Jones, who presents to clients at least twice a day for network storage company EMC, knows the feeling. Though he?s never gone Full Monty, he?s learned to keep his slideware to a minimum. He changed his attitude on a roasting hot day in Boston in 2008 on a job for a former employer. The presentation had not started well. Jones had just flown up from Charlotte and was locked in a stuffy room with a dozen potential clients. According to former colleague and fellow sales engineer Dave Eagle, the group consisted of mostly buttoned-up ?New Englandy? types, and Jones?s Southern accent and physically outsized presence clashed with the tenor of the gathering. Jones was supposed to deliver a monster slide show of two hours. As Eagle fiddled with the digital projector, his colleague suddenly veered off script. ?All right, I got two presentations for y?all, one where I throw a bunch of crap on the wall, and one where I just tell y?all what I think y?oughta do.? Jones went on to give a radically shortened shtick and lead a conversation about the pros and cons of various products. In the end, he won the account. Today, Jones refuses to deliver the standard-issue PowerPoint developed by his current employer. ?I eat based on what gets sold,? he says. ?A business audience doesn?t care about the how, they care about the why.? Instead, Jones keeps his slide deck short, focused, and written for the specific client. He even hands out a small chrome bell in his opening gambit. If anyone gets bored during the talk, he tells them to ring the bell. ?Once in a while,? he says, ?People still ring it?yes they do!? From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 6 07:48:01 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 08:48:01 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Did The US & Sweden Team Up To Get Cambodia To Arrest The Pirate Bay Founder? Message-ID: <4DEA8566-0A48-4EFF-9986-4E888F0789FC@infowarrior.org> Did The US & Sweden Team Up To Get Cambodia To Arrest The Pirate Bay Founder... About Something Unrelated To TPB? from the wouldn't-put-it-past-them dept http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120905/23060920289/did-us-sweden-team-up-to-get-cambodia-to-arrest-pirate-bay-founder-about-something-unrelated-to-tpb.shtml Over the weekend, when the news broke that Gottfrid Svartholm, the founder of The Pirate Bay, had been arrested in Cambodia, I didn't think too much of it. It was well known that he was in that part of the world, and you had to figure that sooner or later he'd be tracked down. Despite claims that he was too ill to show up for the appeal of The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden, many questioned if he was just hiding out in southeast Asia to avoid any potential jail time. Over the past few days, some additional info has come out that is certainly raising eyebrows, even if the evidence is circumstantial. And the biggest bit of news may be that his arrest might not even be about The Pirate Bay. Either way, let's start with the basics. First, Cambodia has admitted that it will be deporting Svartholm, even though there's no extradition treaty between Cambodia and Sweden. Of course, deportation and extradition are not the same thing, and you don't need an extradition treaty to deport someone. But it is still notable. But then there are two bits of news that seem like quite the coincidence. First up: Ron Kirk, the US Trade Rep, and the main US government official responsible for ACTA and the TPP... just happened to be in Cambodia the very day that Svartholdm was arrested... and, the very next day, Sweden just happened to announce a $59 million "aid package" with Cambodia. Is it any wonder that some are asking if Sweden basically paid Cambodia to arrest Svartholm... and if the US had a helping hand in all of this? At this point, it certainly could all be a coincidence -- which is the direction I tend to lean for the time being -- but it is quite a coincidence. We already know that the US government has been heavily involved in getting Sweden to put The Pirate Bay on trial. In fact, the US's deep involvement in Swedish copyright laws and policies has been a source of friction with some Swedish officials. Furthermore, Ron Kirk's entire role is about negotiating agreements and treaties between countries -- so the fact that a Swedish/Cambodia deal came together just as he was in the country? It certainly wouldn't be shocking to find out that he had a hand in making the deal happen. But, let's add in one more bit of info. Svartholm's fellow TPB'er Peter Sunde is claiming that the arrest is not related to The Pirate Bay, though other reports claim otherwise. Some other friends are also insisting that it's not related to TPB, though I will admit to being skeptical. More surprising, perhaps, is Sunde's suggestion that the arrest may actually have more to do with Wikileaks, which Svartholm's company used to host, rather than The Pirate Bay... Of course, if that's the case, it doesn't discount the involvement of the US or Sweden (and might only reinforce it). Though it does add an element of... oddity to the whole situation. Of course, even if the arrest is about something else, if he does end up being shipped back to Sweden, the TPB issue won't just go away. And it's likely that whoever is involved -- whether it's these other two governments or not -- recognizes that as well. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 6 07:48:55 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 08:48:55 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - French anti-piracy agency Hadopi only sued 14 people in 20 months Message-ID: French anti-piracy agency Hadopi only sued 14 people in 20 months The anti-P2P authority sent out over 1.1 million warning letters, though. by Megan Geuss - Sept 5 2012, 11:30pm EDT http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/french-anti-piracy-agency-hadopi-only-sued-14-people-in-20-months/ In 2010, French authorities instated a group of bureaucrats whose purpose was to enforce copyright protection on the Internet in France. The group, called Hadopi, was in charge of enforcing the law of the same name, which would take requests from rights holders for take downs when someone with a French IP address tried to download a P2P file containing illegally procured media. On Wednesday, the President of the Commission for Rights Protection (part of the Hadopi agency), Mireille Imbert-Quaretta, released some numbers reflecting the efficacy of France's crackdown on piracy, and talked to the press about what she considers a successful almost-two-years. Of 3 million IP addresses "identified" by Hadopi, 1.15 million were found to be pirating content and sent a warning letter (the first phase). Of those 1.15 million, 102,854 were given a second warning, and of those, 340 received a third strike. If the third strike is ignored, Hadopi can take legal action, and as of July 1, only 14 offenders have had a case filed with a French court as a result of Hadopi, and none have yet been to trial. Imbert-Quaretta said on Wednesday that the numbers reflect success on the part of the agency. French blog Numerama wrote that she considered the law not as a way of punishing the user at any price but as a way of "making users understand that copyright is a constitutionally guaranteed right" and Hadopi merely wants to "change the behavior of users." The number of users that follow-up with Hadopi when they've been sent a warning letter also suggests that the system works?if the goal is only to educate users about copyright. Six percent of people who received an initial letter from Hadopi contacted the agency for more information or to discuss their case, but that number rises to 24 percent after the second contact is made, and increases to 75 percent for third-time offenders. If someone is convicted of illegal downloading of copyrighted materials they can face a fine of up to 300,000 Euros (about $378,000) and 3 years in prison. Still, the numbers don't have everyone convinced. France's new president has said he'd like to replace Hadopi with "something else" and upon taking office President Hollande appointed a new French Minister of Culture, Aur?lie Filippetti, who seemed to suggest that she'd push to shut the anti-piracy agency down. "In financial terms, [spending] ?12 million euros ($14.86 million) and 60 agents?that?s expensive [just] to send a million e-mails," Filippetti said in August. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 6 07:52:28 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 08:52:28 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cellphone Medical Test Wins NPR's 'Big Idea' Contest Message-ID: <3E7CD132-EA42-4058-99A7-90C1EA49C1CB@infowarrior.org> (c/o JC) Cellphone Medical Test Wins NPR's 'Big Idea' Contest by Joe Palca https://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/160542842/cellphone-medical-test-wins-nprs-big-idea-contest September 5, 2012 Most of us would like to make life better for people in developing countries. Most of us don't do anything about it. Catherine Wong is different. She's the winner of our Joe's Big Idea video contest. She not only came up with a big idea to improve health care for the poor but also built a prototype to test it. Wong, 17, invented an electrocardiogram that transmits real-time medical data through a cellphone. "Just the kind of technology that 'flattens the Earth' for better medical care," says Eric Topol, a cardiologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., who reviewed Wong's video for NPR. An electrocardiogram, which measures the heart's rhythm, is a basic and widely used medical test. Catherine set out to make an ECG for the 2 billion people in the world with no access to health care. She's a junior in high school in Morristown, N.J. Her device uses off-the-shelf electronic components to pick up the heart's electrical signals, then transmits them via cellphone to a health professional who can analyze them. "It is a leapfrog approach that bypasses standard pieces of medical equipment that are expensive and not readily available to these populations," says Elizabeth Nabel, president of Brigham and Women's and Faulkner Hospitals and a former director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health. Lots of people are trying to develop mobile health tools for the developing world, Nabel noted. But she praised Wong for building a working prototype. "I give her kudos for her embracing knowledge across multiple scientific fields, her creativity, her vivid and concise presentation and her enthusiasm. (She even got the cardiology right!)" The contest judges on NPR's Science Desk ? Rebecca Davis, Michaeleen Doucleff, Dick Knox, Joe Neel and I ? also liked the fact that Wong actually tested her idea. We chose her entry from the 10 contest semifinalists, who were selected by voting on YouTube, for its clear goal, scientific accuracy and feasibility. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 7 07:19:16 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 08:19:16 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Wikipedia could encrypt all connections to the UK Message-ID: <8CF7408E-789E-4A58-B7F2-9BC9FAF3E60E@infowarrior.org> Wikipedia?s Jimmy Wales Is Ready To Fight Snooper?s Charter Wikipedia could encrypt all connections to the UK On September 6, 2012 by Max Smolaks http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/jimmy-wales-snoopers-charter-communications-bill-91653 Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has spoken out against the Draft Communications Bill, the UK government plans to monitor and store all digital communications, dubbed the ?Snooper?s Charter?. In case Draft Communications Data Bill becomes the law, the US entrepreneur has promised to encrypt all connections between Wikipedia servers and the UK, effectively reducing the government?s ability to snoop on use of Wikipedia. Wales was speaking to a joint committee tasked with scrutinising the proposed Communications Bill before it is debated in the House of Commons. The bill proposes recording and storing all communications data, while ignoring content, so that police and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) can use information about who contacts whom over the Internet, without a warrant. Current regulations require law enforcement agencies to gain permission before getting hold of communications data. The Draft Bill has seen opposition from MPs, businesses, privacy groups and those concerned about the cost of implementing the proposed law in a recession. Home Office ministers and home secretary Theresa May have defended the Bill, saying it was designed to help protect UK citizens. But on Wednesday, Wales told the select committee which was scrutinising the Draft Bill, that the plans are ?technologically incompetent?, and explained that it would be very simple for Wikipedia to avoid monitoring through encryption. He had also warned that the plans to collect lists of all web pages visited by Internet users will result in more connections being encrypted. This, in turn, would force the government to employ hordes of hackers to break the encryption, in an escalating cycle of cyber-espionage. ?It is not the sort of thing I?d expect from a western democracy. It is the kind of thing I would expect from the Iranians or the Chinese and it would be detected immediately by the Internet industry,? Wales told MPs and peers, reports The Guardian. Communications Bill blasted Vodaphone and Virgin Media have also recently criticised the government plans, saying it would put UK companies at a competitive disadvantage. Adopting ?Snooper?s Charter? would result in huge quantities of user data stored by ISPs for at least 12 months. According to the London Internet Exchange (LINX), a non-profit organisation giving evidence to the joint committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill, this information could be used to create a dangerous ?profiling engine?. Such engine could provide the state with detailed information on all Internet users, while infringing on citizens? right to privacy. LINX says that if this kind of database would become a victim of a hacker attack, it would amount to ?a significant threat to national security?. While speaking at the launch of World Wide Web Index on Wednesday, the inventor of the Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said that it is important that ?everybody fights? if the governments decide to turn the Internet into a centralised and controlled system. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 7 07:32:14 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 08:32:14 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI vs. Google: The Legal Fight to Unlock Phones Message-ID: <16153EB9-C679-410B-9CFF-887E11637C1B@infowarrior.org> Updated September 6, 2012, 10:02 p.m. ET FBI vs. Google: The Legal Fight to Unlock Phones By JULIA ANGWIN http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303644004577524790015525450.html A legal battle is brewing between technology companies and the U.S. government over whether law-enforcement agents have the right to obtain passwords to crack into smartphones of suspects. Google Inc. GOOG +2.67% earlier this year refused to unlock an alleged pimp's cellphone powered by its Android software?even after the Federal Bureau of Investigation obtained a search warrant. Google's unusual and controversial challenge to the search warrant indicates how murky the legal standards are for new technologies such as smartphones. Under the Supreme Court's so-called Third Party Doctrine, government agents can often obtain data stored with third parties without obtaining a search warrant. But that standard doesn't take into account data as sensitive as a password?which can be the key to unlocking a larger trove of information such as emails, texts, calls and address lists. Asking a third party for a password "is awfully new and aggressive," said Paul Ohm, associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School and former federal prosecutor. "Generally, we don't like the FBI to have access to our keys even with a warrant." An FBI spokesman declined to comment about the agency's policies on cellphone unlocking. Law enforcement agents often use forensic equipment to simply download the contents of a phone's memory, without attempting to unlock the phone. But sometimes officers fail to break into a phone or the data they find is encrypted. In that case, they can send a grand jury subpoena to the cellphone owner asking them to turn over their password. Those requests are legally tricky because the Constitution's Fifth Amendment protects people from self-incrimination. As a result, passwords?and the data protected by those passwords?obtained by grand jury subpoena often cannot be used for prosecution, says Adam Gershowitz, professor of law at William & Mary Law School. Federal agents now appear to be turning to smartphone software makers such as Google and Apple Inc. AAPL +0.89% for help bypassing cellphone passwords. There is little public data about how many times such requests are made?but law enforcement documents recently obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests from the American Civil Liberties Union contained templates that officers can submit to Apple and Google for help in bypassing passwords. Neither Apple or Google would comment about the documents or the prevalence of such requests. And since most such requests are not publicly available, it's difficult to determine how often it happens. Google releases a list of total requests it receives each year from law enforcement?but it doesn't provide details about the type of requests. Apple doesn't release a similar list. "Right now, we cannot have a reasonable informed debate about this issue because we don't have any data," said Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. But it's clear that smartphone software makers are cautious about turning over smartphone passwords. An Apple spokeswoman said the company "won't release any personal information without a search warrant, and we never share anyone's passcode. If a court orders us to retrieve data from an iPhone, we do it ourselves. We never let anyone else unlock a customer's iPhone." Spokeswomen for Microsoft Corp. MSFT +3.05% and Research In Motion Ltd. RIM.T +2.16% say their companies don't collect or store passwords, and hence can't provide them to the government even in the case of a warrant. Marc Zwillinger, an attorney who practices Internet law, and has challenged governmental legal process on behalf of tech companies including Yahoo Inc. YHOO +0.13% and Myspace LLC, says that requests for account passwords are infrequent but that when companies get them, they should think carefully about whether to comply. "It creates a situation where a company could be viewed as helping law enforcement do an illegal wiretap if the device is in their possession and the account is still live," he says. If a company receives a search warrant it doesn't agree with, it can challenge it in court or negotiate directly with law enforcement to narrow the request, Mr. Zwillinger said. Google has a history of challenging government requests it views as over-reaching. In 2006, Google fought a subpoena from the Department of Justice that sought all the search queries it had received during a two-month period, and all the URLs that it had indexed at that time. Eventually, a judge ruled Google only had to turn over only 50,000 URLs and no search queries. In that case, U.S. District Judge James Ware wrote that possibility that Google might be forced to turn over search strings such as "[user name] third trimester abortion san jose]?gives this Court pause as to whether the search queries themselves may constitute potentially sensitive information." In the current Google case involving the alleged primp, FBI Special Agent Jonathan R. Cupina obtained a search warrant in March allowing him to request that Google provide "any and all means of gaining access, including login and password information, password reset, and/or manufacturer default code" for an Android phone?the Samsung Galaxy Exhibit? belonging to Dante Dears. According to Mr. Cupina's affidavit, Mr. Dears is the founding member of the "Pimpin' Hoes Daily (PhD)" gang, and is on parole. He wears a GPS electronic monitor and has signed a waiver agreeing that his person and property can be searched without a warrant. In May 2011, the FBI learned from a confidential source that Mr. Dears might be engaged in human trafficking activities. While conducting surveillance, the agents witnessed Mr. Dears "utilizing a cellular telephone frequently for a period of nearly six hours" despite having previously denied to his parole agent that he possessed a cellular phone. In his affidavit, Mr. Cupina states he suspected Mr. Dears had become something known as a "telephone pimp"?using cellular phones to arrange sexual services of prostitutes?because his electronic monitor limits his physical movements. In January, the parole agent visited Mr. Dears at his residence in Chula Vista, Calif., and obtained the cellular phone. But Mr. Dears refused to allow the agent to access the phone or to answer any further questions?allegedly in violation of the terms of his parole. On Feb. 13, Magistrate Judge William V. Gallo in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California issued a warrant to let agents search the phone. The next day, FBI agents worked with computer forensics technicians to attempt to gain access to the contents of the phone, but they were unable to do so. The agents say they were stumped by the "pattern lock" on the phone? which requires users to move their finger over the touch screen in a precise pattern. Magistrate Judge Nita L. Stormes approved a search warrant in March to be issued to Google seeking access to the cellphone. On March 26, the warrant was filed in court with a handwritten note from Mr. Cupina stating, "No property was obtained as Google Legal refused to provide the requested information." Google didn't reveal its legal reasoning in filings made earlier this year in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment, citing the need "to protect user privacy." A person familiar with the company's legal views said that whenever possible, it seeks to narrow legal requests that are overly broad or that don't adequately notify a user. A spokesman for the FBI in San Diego said the issue with Google has been resolved, but declined to elaborate citing the fact that aspects of the case were still pending. An attorney for Mr. Dears couldn't be located. Write to Julia Angwin at julia.angwin at wsj.com --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 7 13:33:17 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 14:33:17 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - White House drafting standards to guard U.S. against cyberattack, officials say Message-ID: <3B7133BA-5297-4E42-BB9C-E5132D168EA5@infowarrior.org> White House drafting standards to guard U.S. against cyberattack, officials say By Ellen Nakashima, Updated: Friday, September 7, 12:53 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/white-house-drafting-standards-to-guard-us-against-cyberattack-officials-say/2012/09/07/0fbb173e-f8fe-11e1-a073-78d05495927c_print.html The White House has drafted a preliminary executive order aimed at strengthening the nation?s computer systems against attack, an effort to begin to accomplish through fiat what could not be achieved through Congress. The draft order, whose contours are being debated, would create voluntary standards to guide companies in guarding themselves against cyberattacks, according to administration officials. It would also establish a special council made up of key government agencies to identify threats that could compromise critical sectors. White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the administration was not going to discuss details of internal deliberations, ?but an Executive Order is among the things we?re considering to fulfill the president?s direction to us to do absolutely everything we can to better protect our nation against today?s cyberthreats.? Compromise legislation to bolster the nation?s defenses against cyberattacks that could affect electric grids, communications networks and other critical infrastructure failed this summer in the face of strong opposition from the Chamber of Commerce and Republicans who decried even voluntary standards as a regulatory burden on business. Last month, John O. Brennan, President Obama?s top adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism, said an executive order was a good vehicle to make sure ?the nation is protected.? ?If the Congress is not going to act on something like this,? he said, ?then the president wants to make sure that we?re doing everything possible.? The four-page draft order, whose contents were described to The Washington Post by several officials this week, is in the early stages, and completion could take months, officials said. Under the draft, an interagency Cybersecurity Council would be led by the Department of Homeland Security. It would have representatives from the Commerce, Defense, Treasury, Energy and Justice departments as well as from the Director of National Intelligence?s Office. The council would take intelligence on cyberthreats and translate it into guidance that would be used to develop security standards. It might also prioritize the industry sectors that need the most attention, though no decision has been made on that issue. The standards, along with best practices, would be written by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an arm of the Commerce Department, in collaboration with the private sector. Companies would determine what technologies to use to improve cybersecurity. The creation of clear standards ? especially if there is widespread adoption ? may help create a market for cybersecurity insurance, officials said. Before insurance underwriters issue a policy, they would have to ensure that firms had met the standards. The voluntary approach, however, is not a panacea, said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. ?We still think it should be mandated,? he said. But ?it?s better than sitting around and waiting for legislation.? Independent agencies that are not subject to an executive order may still adopt the voluntary standards and apply them to sectors they regulate, officials said. In some sectors, the administration may already have the authority to impose mandatory cybersecurity standards. One issue being debated as part of the executive order is whether the administration should use that authority. Some national security experts said the voluntary approach misses an opportunity. If the administration does not mandate standards in some areas, ?they?re timid,? said Richard A. Clarke, a White House counterterrorism and cybersecurity adviser under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He said the president can require standards in sectors where executive branch agencies have authority to enforce them. The Transportation Security Administration, for instance, has authority to regulate pipeline security, he said. The Coast Guard can regulate the security of communications systems at ports. The Federal Railway Administration, he said, can regulate the security of freight and passenger railroad operations. ?If the president has authority to create mandatory standards in some industries and he doesn?t use those,? Clarke said, ?then the administration is not serious.? Clarke also questioned why any company would comply with voluntary standards. Indeed, some business advocates said even the establishment of voluntary standards is problematic. ?Any voluntary approach by this administration is intended to be mandatory,? said Jody Westby, a cybersecurity consultant, noting that officials have stated that that is their goal. ?It?s the camel?s nose under the tent. The next thing we know, it?s regulation. This has the potential to be incredibly costly to implement.? Nonetheless, ?a cyber executive order is the best possible option left on the table,? even if just for voluntary standards, said Eric Chapman, associate director of the University of Maryland Cybersecurity Center. ?Obstruction is high in Congress, and it?s not realistic that a bill will be acted upon by both bodies before February.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 7 20:40:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 21:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Anti-Piracy Outfits Think Megaupload, Demonoid & BTjunkie Are Still Alive Message-ID: <1C223B14-8B6B-4EDA-AE1C-1796D1672864@infowarrior.org> Anti-Piracy Outfits Think Megaupload, Demonoid & BTjunkie Are Still Alive ? enigmax ? September 7, 2012 http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-outfits-think-megaupload-demonoid-btjunkie-are-still-alive-120907 Almost nine months on from the raids that took down Megaupload and bizarrely some of the world?s biggest record labels still think that the site is hosting infringing content. In a clear sign that anti-piracy companies aren?t bothering to carry out even the most rudimentary checks before they send DMCA notices, Google is receiving daily takedown demands not only for Megaupload, but also Demonoid, BTjunkie, and other dead file-sharing services. During the past few years the world?s largest entertainment companies have regularly complained that Google isn?t doing enough to reduce accessibility of infringing content via its search service. In recent months Google has made a few overtures, such as doctoring its auto-complete feature to take out terms that could potentially direct users to infringing content. More recently the search giant changed its algorithm to push allegedly infringing sites down its rankings. But while all this is going on Google is being bombarded with requests from rightsholders to remove links from its search that point to allegedly infringing material hosted on other sites. The task has grown massively to the point where the company now produces its Transparency Report to show who asks for what content to be taken down. During the last few days we?ve been taking a look at the report from a new angle and have discovered that some of the world?s largest record labels and anti-piracy companies are not bothering to check if takedown notices they are sending are valid. Indeed, we have discovered dozens of takedown reports being sent demanding the removal of links to content that simply doesn?t exist. Unless you?ve been living on Mars during 2012 you?ll know that in January this year Megaupload was taken down by U.S. authorities. In the space of a few hours the entire site was completely wiped out and the news made dozens of headlines that continue to break to this day. But while seemingly everyone knows that Megaupload no longer exists, the likes of IFPI, BPI, Sony, Warner, Universal, EMI, The Publisher?s Association, Microsoft, and adult company Vivid (to name a few) are absolutely oblivious. To this very day these companies are sending takedown demands to Google ordering the company to remove links to content on Megaupload.com that hasn?t existed, at the least, for almost nine months. And what about Demonoid, the semi-private BitTorrent tracker that went down in a cloud of smoke and controversy during the first week of August? Well, according to EMI, the BPI, Microsoft and several other anti-piracy companies, the site is alive and well. Takedown requests are being filed with Google by companies such as these on a daily basis, all for content that isn?t online. Unbelievably the same holds for BTjunkie, the BitTorrent indexing site that closed its doors in February this year. Ever since the major record labels and anti-piracy companies have been ordering Google to remove links to a completely dead site. Sadly it doesn?t end there. In the first days of August the Oron cyberlocker disappeared after their legal fight with adult studio Liberty Media. But apparently The Publishers Association, the BPI, Universal, Sony, EMI ? the list goes on and on ? didn?t notice. Right up until today all of these companies have been ordering Google to take down links to content that doesn?t exist. While it would be unfair to complain too much about the takedown requests still being sent for the now-defunct FileSonic (it?s only been down for just over a week), sending DMCA takedowns for content on Megaupload nine months after its demise is just ridiculous. What this shows is that anti-piracy companies aren?t even bothering to check content anymore ? they?re simply searching Google, firing off notices without a second thought, and then expecting the search giant to clean up the mess. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 7 20:42:51 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 21:42:51 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Massive Abuse Of Administrative Subpoenas Message-ID: <5B0F0BBC-D0B5-460B-B62D-D7A161538A82@infowarrior.org> Unconstitutional Fishing Expeditions: The Massive Abuse Of Administrative Subpoenas By The Government http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120901/01010120237/unconstitutional-fishing-expeditions-massive-abuse-administrative-subpoenas-government.shtml For years, we've talked about how the Justice Department has massively abused the "National Security Letters" (NSLs) process that lets it seek information from third parties without judicial oversight. At least with FBI NSLs, the FBI is required to release some (though not all) info on how they're used, which is why we have some indication of how widely they're abused. However, as Dave Kravets recently detailed in a fantastic article at Wired.com, the use of "administrative subpoenas" (NSLs are a form of administrative subpoena) allowing government officials to issue mandatory subpoenas to third parties with no oversight at all has become quite widespread. Even worse: most government agencies don't seem to have any interest in revealing any data about them. In other words, if you thought the FBI was abusing NSLs, you should probably be even more concerned about some of these others administrative subpoenas. < - > It's worth reading Kravets' full article, even if it is depressing. What amazes me is that we let this kind of stuff continue unabated. We've seen increasing surveillance and abuse over the years, but it seems that any time people push back on these processes, they're brushed off because "OMG!Terrorists!" or something along those lines. It's sad that we, as a country, seem so accepting of the government taking away basic Constitutional rights if it just screams something about terrorists and crime. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Sep 8 08:06:46 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 09:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - No photos at protest? Police may block mobile devices via Apple Message-ID: <265BD78A-E000-48AB-A1A4-773AF058015D@infowarrior.org> (via BM) No shooting at protest? Police may block mobile devices via Apple Get short URL email story to a friend print version Published: 05 September, 2012, 14:12 http://rt.com/news/apple-patent-transmission-block-408/ Apple has patented a piece of technology which would allow government and police to block transmission of information, including video and photographs, from any public gathering or venue they deem ?sensitive?, and ?protected from externalities.? In other words, these powers will have control over what can and cannot be documented on wireless devices during any public event. And while the company says the affected sites are to be mostly cinemas, theaters, concert grounds and similar locations, Apple Inc. also says ?covert police or government operations may require complete ?blackout? conditions.? ?Additionally,? Apple says,? the wireless transmission of sensitive information to a remote source is one example of a threat to security. This sensitive information could be anything from classified government information to questions or answers to an examination administered in an academic setting.? The statement led many to believe that authorities and police could now use the patented feature during protests or rallies to block the transmission of video footage and photographs from the scene, including those of police brutality, which at times of major events immediately flood news networks and video websites. Apple patented the means to transmit an encoded signal to all wireless devices, commanding them to disable recording functions. Those policies would be activated by GPS, and WiFi or mobile base-stations, which would ring-fence ("geofence") around a building or a ?sensitive area? to prevent phone cameras from taking pictures or recording video. Apple may implement the technology, but it would not be Apple's decision to activate the ?feature? ? it would be down governments, businesses and network owners to set such policies, analyzes ZDNet technology website. Having invented one of the most sophisticated mobile devices, Apple now appears to be looking for ways to restrict its use. ?As wireless devices such as cellular telephones, pagers, personal media devices and smartphones become ubiquitous, more and more people are carrying these devices in various social and professional settings,? it explains in the patent. ?The result is that these wireless devices can often annoy, frustrate, and even threaten people in sensitive venues.? The company?s listed ?sensitive? venues so far include mostly meetings, the presentation of movies, religious ceremonies, weddings, funerals, academic lectures, and test-taking environments. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Sep 8 14:36:46 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 15:36:46 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI begins installation of $1 billion face recognition system across America Message-ID: FBI begins installation of $1 billion face recognition system across America Get short URL email story to a friend print version Published: 08 September, 2012, 00:38 http://rt.com/usa/news/fbi-recognition-system-ngi-640/ Birthmarks, be damned: the FBI has officially started rolling out a state-of-the-art face recognition project that will assist in their effort to accumulate and archive information about each and every American at a cost of a billion dollars. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reached a milestone in the development of their Next Generation Identification (NGI) program and is now implementing the intelligence database in unidentified locales across the country, New Scientist reports in an article this week. The FBI first outlined the project back in 2005, explaining to the Justice Department in an August 2006 document (.pdf) that their new system will eventually serve as an upgrade to the current Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) that keeps track of citizens with criminal records across America . ?The NGI Program is a compilation of initiatives that will either improve or expand existing biometric identification services,? its administrator explained to the Department of Justice at the time, adding that the project, ?will accommodate increased information processing and sharing demands in support of anti-terrorism.? ?The NGI Program Office mission is to reduce terrorist and criminal activities by improving and expanding biometric identification and criminal history information services through research, evaluation and implementation of advanced technology within the IAFIS environment.? The agency insists, ?As a result of the NGI initiatives, the FBI will be able to provide services to enhance interoperability between stakeholders at all levels of government, including local, state, federal, and international partners.? In doing as such, though, the government is now going ahead with linking a database of images and personally identifiable information of anyone in their records with departments around the world thanks to technology that makes fingerprint tracking seem like kids' stuff. According to their 2006 report, the NGI program utilizes ?specialized requirements in the Latent Services, Facial Recognition and Multi-modal Biometrics areas? that ?will allow the FnewBI to establish a terrorist fingerprint identification system that is compatible with other systems; increase the accessibility and number of the IAFIS terrorist fingerprint records; and provide latent palm print search capabilities.? Is that just all, though? During a 2010 presentation (.pdf) made by the FBI?s Biometric Center of Intelligence, the agency identified why facial recognition technology needs to be embraced. Specifically, the FBI said that the technology could be used for ?Identifying subjects in public datasets,? as well as ?conducting automated surveillance at lookout locations? and ?tracking subject movements,? meaning NGI is more than just a database of mug shots mixed up with fingerprints ? the FBI has admitted that this their intent with the technology surpasses just searching for criminals but includes spectacular surveillance capabilities. Together, it?s a system unheard of outside of science fiction. New Scientist reports that a 2010 study found technology used by NGI to be accurate in picking out suspects from a pool of 1.6 million mug shots 92 percent of the time. The system was tested on a trial basis in the state of Michigan earlier this year, and has already been cleared for pilot runs in Washington, Florida and North Carolina. Now according to this week?s New Scientist report, the full rollout of the program has begun and the FBI expects its intelligence infrastructure to be in place across the United States by 2014. In 2008, the FBI announced that it awarded Lockheed Martin Transportation and Security Solutions, one of the Defense Department?s most favored contractors, with the authorization to design, develop, test and deploy the NGI System. Thomas E. Bush III, the former FBI agent who helped develop the NGI's system requirements, tells NextGov.com, "The idea was to be able to plug and play with these identifiers and biometrics." With those items being collected without much oversight being admitted, though, putting the personal facts pertaining to millions of Americans into the hands of some playful Pentagon staffers only begins to open up civil liberties issues. Jim Harper, director of information policy at the Cato Institute, adds to NextGov that investigators pair facial recognition technology with publically available social networks in order to build bigger profiles. Facial recognition "is more accurate with a Google or a Facebook, because they will have anywhere from a half-dozen to a dozen pictures of an individual, whereas I imagine the FBI has one or two mug shots," he says. When these files are then fed to law enforcement agencies on local, federal and international levels, intelligence databases that include everything from close-ups of eyeballs and irises to online interests could be shared among offices. The FBI expects the NGI system to include as many as 14 million photographs by the time the project is in full swing in only two years, but the pace of technology and the new connections constantly created by law enforcement agencies could allow for a database that dwarfs that estimate. As RT reported earlier this week, the city of Los Angeles now considers photography in public space ?suspicious,? and authorizes LAPD officers to file reports if they have reason to believe a suspect is up to no good. Those reports, which may not necessarily involve any arrests, crimes, charges or even interviews with the suspect, can then be filed, analyzed, stored and shared with federal and local agencies connected across the country to massive data fusion centers. Similarly, live video transmissions from thousands of surveillance cameras across the country are believed to be sent to the same fusion centers as part of TrapWire, a global eye-in-the-sky endeavor that RT first exposed earlier this year. ?Facial recognition creates acute privacy concerns that fingerprints do not,? US Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) told the Senate Judiciary Committee?s subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law earlier this year. ?Once someone has your faceprint, they can get your name, they can find your social networking account and they can find and track you in the street, in the stores you visit, the government buildings you enter, and the photos your friends post online.? In his own testimony, Carnegie Mellon University Professor Alessandro Acquisti said to Sen. Franken, ?the convergence of face recognition, online social networks and data mining has made it possible to use publicly available data and inexpensive technologies to produce sensitive inferences merely starting from an anonymous face.? ?Face recognition, like other information technologies, can be source of both benefits and costs to society and its individual members,? Prof. Acquisti added. ?However, the combination of face recognition, social networks data and data mining can significant undermine our current notions and expectations of privacy and anonymity.? With the latest report suggesting the NGI program is now a reality in America, though, it might be too late to try and keep the FBI from interfering with seemingly every aspect of life in the US, both private and public. As of July 18, 2012, the FBI reports, ?The NGI program ? is on scope, on schedule, on cost, and 60 percent deployed.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Sep 8 14:40:39 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 15:40:39 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - We're not spying on you, DOD assures journos Message-ID: We're not spying on you, DOD assures journos By LEIGH MUNSIL 9/7/12 6:36 PM EDT http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/09/dod-says-it-wont-monitor-reporters-134910.html The Pentagon issues an official response to defense reporters? concerns that their phone calls and emails might be tapped in order to close leaks: ?The Department of Defense does not conduct electronic or physical surveillance of journalists,? Pentagon press secretary George Little wrote in a letter to the Pentagon Press Association, released Friday. The issue caused concern among some of the Pentagon press corps earlier this summer, when a closed House committee hearing about clamping down on DOD leaks led to a new Pentagon policy to monitor national media reporting for disclosures of classified information. The PPA sent a letter on July 20 asking that the DOD clarify what ?monitor? entailed. In his response, Little writes that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta directed the department to ?review media reports? to ensure that DOD employees aren?t disclosing classified information. ?The Secretary and Chairman both believe strongly in freedom of the press and encourage good relations between the Department and the press corps,? the letter says. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Sep 8 20:15:22 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 21:15:22 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Searching for a Speed Limit in High-Frequency Trading Message-ID: <4B919901-78D6-4149-A0D1-DC36157584AA@infowarrior.org> September 8, 2012 Searching for a Speed Limit in High-Frequency Trading By NATHANIEL POPPER CHATHAM, N.J. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/business/high-frequency-trading-of-stocks-is-two-critics-target.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print TICKER tape: it?s an enduring image of Wall Street. The paper is gone but the digital tape runs on, across computer and television screens. Those stock quotations scurrying by on CNBC are, for many, the pulse of American capitalism. But Sal L. Arnuk doesn?t really believe in the tape anymore ? at least not in the one most of us see. That tape, he says, doesn?t tell the whole truth. That might come as a surprise, given that Mr. Arnuk is a professional stockbroker. But suddenly, and improbably, he has emerged as a leading critic of the very market in which he works. He and his business partner, Joseph C. Saluzzi, have become the voice of those plucky souls who try to swim with Wall Street?s sharks without getting devoured. From workaday suburban offices here, across from a Gymboree, these two men are taking on one of the most powerful forces in finance today: high-frequency trading. H.F.T., as it?s known, is the biggest thing to hit Wall Street in years. On any given day, this lightning-quick, computer-driven form of trading accounts for upward of half of all of the business transacted on the nation?s stock markets. It?s a staggering development ? and one that Mr. Arnuk, 46, and Mr. Saluzzi, 45, say has contributed to the hair-raising flash crashes and computer hiccups that seem to roil the markets with alarming frequency. Many ordinary Americans have grown wary of the stock market, which they see as the playground of Google-esque algorithms, powerful banks and secretive, fast-money trading firms. To which Mr. Arnuk and Mr. Saluzzi say: enough. At their Lilliputian brokerage firm, they are tilting at the giants of high-frequency trading and warning ? loudly ? of the dangers they pose. Mr. Saluzzi was the only vocal critic of H.F.T. appointed to a 24-member federal panel that is studying the topic. Posts from the blog that the two men write have been packaged into a book, ?Broken Markets: How High Frequency Trading and Predatory Practices on Wall Street are Destroying Investor Confidence and Your Portfolio,? (FT Press, 2012) which was published in June. They are even getting fan mail. But they are also making enemies. Proponents of high-frequency trading call them embittered relics ? quixotic, old-school stockbrokers without the skills to compete in sophisticated, modern markets. And, in a sense, those critics are right: they are throwbacks. Both men say they wish Wall Street could go back to a calmer, simpler time, all the way back to, say, 2004 ? before the old exchange system splintered and murky private markets sprang up and computers could send the Dow into 1,000-point spasms. (The bottle of Tums Ultra 1000 and the back-pain medication on Mr. Arnuk?s desk here are a testament to their frustrations.) They have proposed solutions that might seem simple to the uninitiated but look radical to H.F.T. insiders. For instance, the two want to require H.F.T. firms to honor the prices they offer for a stock for at least 50 milliseconds ? less than a wink of an eye, but eons in high-frequency time. On the Friday before Labor Day weekend, Mr. Arnuk was sitting in the office of Themis Trading, the brokerage firm he founded with Mr. Saluzzi a decade ago. It is little more than a fluorescent-lit single room; the most notable decoration is a poster signed in gold ink by the cast of ?The Sopranos.? Above Mr. Arnuk, the tape scrolled by on the Bloomberg Television channel. But other numbers danced on four computer screens on his desk. Mr. Arnuk kept moving his cursor across those screens, punching in figures, trying to find the best price for a customer who wanted to buy a particular stock. His eyes scanned the stock?s going price on 13 stock exchanges across the nation. The investing public is now using so many exchanges because new regulation and technology have rewritten the old rules and let in new players. It?s not just the Big Board or the Nasdaq anymore. It?s also the likes of BATS and Direct Edge. Mr. Arnuk then eyed the stock?s price on dozens of other trading platforms ? private ones most people can?t see. Known as the dark pools, they help hedge funds and other big-money players trade in relative secrecy. Everywhere, different prices kept flickering on the screens. Computers at high-speed trading firms, Mr. Arnuk said, were issuing buy and sell orders and then canceling them almost as fast, testing the market. It can be hell on human brokers. On the tape, the stock?s price was unchanged, but beneath the tape, things were changing all the time. ?They will flicker to see who is not flickering,? Mr. Arnuk said of H.F.T. computers. ?The guy who is not flickering is the idiot ? the real investor.? From his desk a few feet away, Mr. Saluzzi chimed in: ?That?s how the game is played now.? ON the afternoon of May 6, 2010, shortly before 3 o?clock, the stock market plummeted. In just 15 minutes, the Dow tumbled 600 points ? bringing its loss for the day to nearly 1,000. Then, just as fast, and just as inexplicably, it sprang back nearly 600 points, like a bungee jumper. It was one of the most harrowing moments in Wall Street history. And for many people outside financial circles, it was the first clue as to just how much new technology was changing the nation?s financial markets. The flash crash, a federal report later concluded, ?portrayed a market so fragmented and fragile that a single large trade could send stocks into a sudden spiral.? It turned out that a big mutual fund firm had sold an unusually large number of futures contracts, setting off a feedback loop among computers at H.F.T. firms that sent the market into a free fall. Despite computers? many benefits ? faster, cheaper trades, and mind-boggling analytics ? they have been causing problems on Wall Street for years. Technology has fostered so-called hot money ? money that quickly shifts from one stock to another, or one market to another, always seeking higher returns. Computer-driven program trading was developed in the 1980s and was a contributing factor in the 1987 market crash, though it wasn?t the main culprit, as many initially thought. Since the 2010 flash crash, mini flash crashes have occurred with surprising regularity in a wide range of individual stocks. Last spring, a computer glitch scuttled the initial public offering of one of the nation?s largest electronic exchanges, BATS, and computer problems at the Nasdaq stock market dogged the I.P.O. of Facebook. And last month, Knight Capital, a brokerage firm at the center of the nation?s stock market for almost a decade, nearly collapsed after it ran up more than $400 million of losses in minutes, because of errant technology. It was just the latest high-profile case of Wall Street computers gone wild. High-frequency traders didn?t cause all of these problems. But these traders and their computers embody the escalating technological arms race raging across financial industry. The stock market establishment says the recent mishaps distract from the enormous benefits that technology has brought. The new trading outlets have democratized the system and made it possible to trade any time, anywhere. Competition has forced exchanges and trading firms to reduce the commissions they charge. George U. Sauter, chief investment officer at the mutual fund giant Vanguard, has said the shift saved hundreds of millions of dollars for Vanguard investors. James Angel, a professor at Georgetown University and a member of the board of Direct Edge, said Mr. Arnuk and Mr. Saluzzi were stoking irrational fears of a market that is providing good returns to investors. Mr. Angel compared them to people ?who gripe that their cellphone is too complicated, ignoring the fact that 20 years ago they didn?t even have a cellphone.? But Mr. Arnuk and Mr. Saluzzi say such assessments ignore the hidden costs of high-frequency trading, particularly the market instability it can create. They say firms that dominate the market often stop trading during times of crisis, when they are needed the most. They also contend that ordinary investors are paying more for their stocks, not less, because computerized traders pick up information about stock orders and push up prices before orders can be filled. Traders of all sorts have split orders into smaller and smaller blocks, making it harder for everyone to complete some types of basic trades. ?They took one of the most simple processes in the world, matching up supply and demand, and made it such a complicated labyrinth,? Mr. Arnuk said. He and Mr. Saluzzi trace the roots of the market?s current travails to a number of regulatory changes over the last two decades. But they give the starring role to a set of rules adopted in 2007 by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The rules are known as the Regulation National Market System, or Reg N.M.S. Before those rules, computerized trading had been steadily growing, but the market was still dominated by the human traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Reg N.M.S. broke the Big Board?s domination by requiring that orders be sent to the trading platform with the best price. This seemingly small change led to a proliferation of new platforms, like dark pools. It also put a premium on speed, giving an advantage to firms that could place orders first and take advantage of minuscule price differences among exchanges. At Themis, Mr. Arnuk and Mr. Saluzzi soon noticed they were having trouble completing what previously were easy orders. When they tried to buy stock at the price listed on an exchange, the price would disappear almost as soon as they entered their order. Then it would reappear ? at a penny or more higher. The two began by voicing complaints in morning notes to clients. Soon they moved on to industry publications like Traders Magazine, then to the mainstream news media. In July 2009, or 10 months before the flash crash, Mr. Saluzzi squared off on CNBC against Irene Aldridge, a prominent advocate of high-frequency trading. Mr. Saluzzi declared that high-frequency traders could get an early peek at buy and sell orders, giving them an edge over everyone else. The H.F.T. crowd could simply jump in front of ordinary investors, he said. ?There is nothing illegal about what you are doing,? Mr. Saluzzi told Ms. Aldridge. ?But, you know, it is not ethical.? Ms. Aldridge was incensed. ?How dare you accuse us of being unethical ? you?re unethical,? she shot back. ?We are cutting your margins ? of brokerages like yours ? because you cannot compete, because you do not have the proper skills.? As the host, Sue Herera, tried to cut to a commercial, the two shouted backed and forth. ?Yeah, hope your computer doesn?t blow up tomorrow, O.K.?? Mr. Saluzzi snarled at Ms. Aldridge. ?Make sure the fuses are O.K.? The line proved prophetic. SAL ARNUK and Joe Saluzzi are unlikely Wall Street gadflies. Mr. Arnuk grew up in modest surroundings in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, Mr. Saluzzi in Sheepshead Bay. They met after college in back-office jobs at Morgan Stanley and bonded over weekend softball games and commutes. Both soon realized they didn?t have the connections to move up at a white-shoe Wall Street firm. Talking to them now, it?s clear that both have a certain anti-establishment bent, at least as far as Wall Street is concerned. Mr. Arnuk says he filled the wall of his dorm room at what is now Binghamton University with rejection letters from financial firms. After business school, their scrappy attitudes led them to computerized trading, the upstart part of the industry in the 1990s. They spent nearly a decade at Instinet, one of the original off exchange trading platforms. When they struck out on their own and founded Themis in 2002, they intended to use their technological expertise to help clients navigate the markets. But soon enough, they say, the computers took over, with formulas pushing share prices up and down regardless of anything happening at the underlying company. Mr. Saluzzi acknowledges that computerized trading has hurt firms like Themis, which executes trades on behalf of clients. Many former Themis clients now trade via algorithms, or algos, with no human involvement. But both men say human brokers can often navigate complex markets better than computers. Last year, Themis?s revenue was up 10 percent, despite an overall decline in trading volume, they say. This year, revenue is holding steady. One Themis client, Derek Laub, director of trading at Jetstream Capital, a small investment firm just outside Nashville, says he turns to Themis because Mr. Arnuk and Mr. Saluzzi provide a human touch, and help him avoid falling prey to more sophisticated H.F.T. firms. Trading through Themis costs Mr. Laub a bit more ? about 1 cent a share, total ? but that?s still cheaper than the 3 cents or 4 cents charged by many big banks. More important, Mr. Laub says he likes Themis because it speaks for small investment firms that don?t have the time or wherewithal to examine every problem in the market structure or to take on the big trading firms. ?You feel like there is at least someone out there who is going to give the other side of the argument,? Mr. Laub said. The views of Mr. Arnuk and Mr. Saluzzi are gaining more traction with industry insiders. The head of the New York Stock Exchange said this summer that the pursuit of speed had gone too far. In debates with Mr. Saluzzi, some H.F.T. executives have agreed that the fragmentation of the markets is now doing more harm than good for investors. And after the breakdown at Knight Capital, the S.E.C. called for a round table on market technology; it will be held on Oct. 2. BUT Mr. Arnuk and Mr. Saluzzi do not think that big change is on the way. For their part, they don?t want to do away with computerized trading altogether ? just the frantic developments of the last few years. ?I don?t want to go back to 1987, but 2004 wouldn?t be so bad,? Mr. Arnuk says. Their message has won them a following among many ordinary Americans who, rightly or wrongly, have concluded that the Wall Street game is rigged. Before heading out for Labor Day weekend, Mr. Arnuk opened one more example of fan mail ? a letter from an Idaho man that also went to Senator Michael D. Crapo, an Idaho Republican. The man wrote that the financial markets had become ?treacherous waters? and suggested that the senator read ?Broken Markets,? which, he wrote, ?exposes our disgusting and corrupt market system today.? Mr. Arnuk smiled. ?That?s going up on the wall,? he said. ?I consider it a badge of honor.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 9 10:11:51 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 11:11:51 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Time to blow taps on football-as-war metaphors Message-ID: <39201190-033D-4BE3-8232-060321B7BDF7@infowarrior.org> Time to blow taps on football-as-war metaphors By Tracee Hamilton, Published: September 8 http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/time-to-blow-taps-on-football-as-war-metaphors/2012/09/08/6eb00924-f936-11e1-a073-78d05495927c_print.html It?s the first Sunday of the NFL season, and time to go to war! Except, of course, that it isn?t ? time to go to war, that is. However, it is certainly the time of year to talk about football as if it?s the same thing as going to war, which it?s not. Not by a long chalk. This is the fault of many in the media. Television should get the lion?s share of the blame, but that?s not to say that radio, print and online journalists aren?t at fault as well ? not all of them, but many. I?m sure I?ve let a war metaphor slip into a column in the past, although I try to be vigilant, just as I did as an editor, when I would rewrite the lead of any story that tried to frame a college game as a life-or-death battle. But I was editor-vigilant, not soldier-on-sentry-duty vigilant. I nearly drove my car into a tree the other day when someone on the radio, discussing the end of the Redskins? exhibition season, said, ?Now the real season begins, and they?ll be using live ammo.? Gosh, I hope that?s also Bullet-Proof Vest Day at FedEx. I also hope no one is firing ?bullets? over the middle, or rolling down the field ?like a tank battalion.? (These are things I?ve heard; I?m not making them up.) And I really hope no one is battling ?in the trenches.? Because if they dig a trench in the field at FedEx, Brandon Banks may be lost. I mean literally lost, not lost to injury or lost on the Beltway. And I don?t mean he will have gone AWOL. Coaches spout a lot of this war-speak, and the players spout what they hear their coach spout. That?s why you?ll get the postgame quotes such as, ?It was a war out there? or ?It was kill or be killed.? Commentators use it as well, and then it becomes part of the fans? vocabulary. New terminology is added to the football dictionary all the time. ?Red zone? used to be an area in which you could not park; now it has its own television channel. Certain ?war talk? is part of the football lexicon, such as ?blitzing? and ?bomb.? I?m not suggesting those be removed from the national discourse. I am suggesting we not add to the list. We should be better than that. Perhaps one reason for all this tough talk comes from the increased military presence at NFL games. Teams (and not just those in the NFL) give seats to veterans and honor them on the scoreboard. There are flyovers, and huge flags unfurled by members of all branches of the military. Heck, fans can buy camouflage gear adorned with the logo of their favorite sports team (and don?t tell me it?s for hunting; if you go in the woods around here in Cowboys cammo, you might not come out). This recognition of the sacrifices of our men and women in the military is wonderful, and I wouldn?t change any of it. I would, however, stop comparing what our soldiers do or did in Iraq and Afghanistan with what well-paid athletes do for one-third of a year. On Sundays. War is hell. Football is a game. It?s insulting to portray football as war, just as it?s insulting to portray war as a game. Let?s all try harder not to confuse the two. ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 9 12:40:04 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 13:40:04 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FCC backpedals from Internet tax Message-ID: <37CA47E7-750F-4A15-9D5D-1A641BEEE7F4@infowarrior.org> http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/248317-fcc-backpedals-from-internet-tax-proposal FCC backpedals from Internet tax By Brendan Sasso - 09/09/12 06:00 AM ET The Federal Communications Commission is rapidly backpedalling from a proposal to tax broadband Internet service after a public outcry over the issue. Democrats and Republicans at the agency are now blaming each other for pushing the idea in the first place. Neil Grace, a spokesman for Chairman Julius Genachowski, said the commission only made the proposal ?following the urging of Republican Commissioners and members of Congress." "The Chairman remains unconvinced that including broadband is the right approach,? he said. Robert McDowell, the only Republican on the commission when the proposal was floated earlier this year, flatly rejected that he ever supported the idea. "I have never suggested taxing broadband Internet access," he told The Hill. McDowell said he is skeptical that the FCC even has the legal authority to tax Internet service. Consumers already pay a fee on their landline and wireless phone bills to support the FCC's Universal Service Fund, which aims to provide phone service to everyone in the country, even if they live in remote areas. Last year, the FCC overhauled a $4.5 billion portion of the Universal Service Fund and converted it into a broadband Internet subsidy, called the Connect America Fund. The new fund aims to subsidize the construction of high-speed Internet networks to the estimated 19 million Americans who currently lack access. But the money for the new Internet subsidy is still coming from the fees on phone bills. And in recent years, with more people sending emails and text messages instead of making long-distance phone calls, the money flowing into the program has begun to dry up. The Universal Service fee has had to grow to a larger and larger portion of phone bills to compensate. In April, the FCC suggested a number of ideas for reforming the fund's contribution system, including adding a fee to broadband Internet service. The commission also sought comments on taxing text messages, as well as levying a flat fee on each phone line, instead of the current system, which is based on a portion of the revenue from interstate phone calls. A number of companies, including AT&T, Sprint and Google, expressed support for a broadband tax in comments filed with the FCC. But the potential broadband tax gained wider attention in recent weeks, and the proposal now appears to be off the table. One FCC official said an Internet tax is "politically toxic." McDowell and other Republicans haven't explicitly called for a broadband tax, but they have been more outspoken than Democrats that the FCC should reform the Universal Service Fund's contribution system. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC, also urged the commission to take up contribution reform when it overhauled the spending side of the fund last year. McDowell has argued that the FCC should "broaden the base" of contributions that flow into the fund. An FCC official argued that "broadening the base" means imposing fees on services that don't currently contribute to the system. He said that broadband is the biggest and most obvious option. McDowell insisted that he meant the FCC should consider broadening the base to include fees on each phone line or other revenue sources?but not the Internet. The FCC official said Chairman Genachowski was always skeptical about a broadband fee because he feared it would discourage people from adopting the technology. The official said that after reviewing comments from the public on the topic, the chairman is unpersuaded that a broadband fee would be a good policy. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Sep 10 20:49:48 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 21:49:48 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OpEd: Nationalism and Terrorism Message-ID: <93E873F1-1FC2-4C9D-9B26-5FF4E3E43D6D@infowarrior.org> Nationalism and Terrorism 10 September 2012 http://www.project-syndicate.org/print/nationalism-and-terrorism-by-liah-greenfeld BOSTON ? September 11, 2001, may ? at least at first ? seem like an inappropriate addition to the history of nationalism, given Al Qaeda?s explicitly stated global pretensions. In fact, now that the initial shock and confusion have given way to a more sober perspective, the terrorist attacks of that awful day are increasingly seen ? as they should be ? as one among numerous other nationalist milestones. From this perspective, the attacks no longer appear, as they did to so many immediately afterwards, to reflect an incomprehensible, irrational, and uncivilized mentality, or a different civilization altogether ? pre-modern, unenlightened, and fundamentally ?traditional? (in other words, undeveloped). It is in this unflattering sense that Islam, the dominant religion of an economically backward part of the world, was said to have motivated the attacks of September 11, 2001. And, because those who believed this (virtually everyone whose voices were heard) belatedly perceived its insulting connotation, discussing the matter has caused considerable anguish in the years since. There are no euphemisms that can inoffensively imply that one of the great world religions is a murderous, irrational ideology, unacceptable for modern, civilized human beings. And yet two different American administrations have implied ? and consistently acted upon ? this assumption. But, once we place the tragedy of September 11, 2001, and the broader political phenomenon of international terrorism, in the context of other historical tragedies in the past century, religion becomes an unlikely explanation. It is here where the influence of nationalism becomes obvious. Nationalism has been the major motive force in the West since the beginning of the modern period. Historians have noted its influence in Elizabethan England (which produced the spirit animating the Puritan Rebellion and migration to America), and increasingly recognize it as the motive force behind the French and the Russian Revolutions. Meanwhile, Chinese scholars are beginning to view it as the inspiration for Mao Zedong?s struggle against the Kuomintang (the openly self-named ?Nationalist Movement?) and the policies of the People?s Republic. And no historical acumen is needed to understand that nationalism was the source of Hitler?s National Socialism and, therefore, World War II. In fact, it would be puzzling if this were not the case, given that nationalism is the cultural foundation of modernity ? the framework of its social consciousness. And, precisely because nationalism shapes the way we think, its role in phenomena that do not trumpet their nationalist motivation ? like Al Qaeda?s attacks in 2001 ? can easily be overlooked. As a rule, most nationalists do not call themselves nationalists. Like the rest of us, they believe that their nationalism is natural and does not have to be emphasized. But a little self-examination should lead any thinking person to recognize that we all are nationalists ? we feel, think, and react to the world as nationalism prescribes. Nationalism is a temporal vision (and thus secular, even when using religion in its rhetoric) that divides people into sovereign communities of equal members. The equality of national membership (which, at the same time, may be exclusively defined) elevates every member?s status to that of the elite, making it dependent on the dignity of the nation as a whole. As a result, those who possess national consciousness become committed to and defensive of the dignity of the nation ? measured by its standing, or prestige, vis-?-vis other nations. That is why competition for national prestige has been the main motive in international politics since the beginning of the twentieth century. Specifically, the aggressor in many international conflicts in this period has been motivated by perceived injury to national dignity. Actual injury is not necessary: the perceived superiority of another nation is enough. In an advanced modern society, such as Germany, intellectuals have no difficulty using openly nationalist language to convince a nationally conscious populace of threats to national prestige. By contrast, in a society where national consciousness is limited to the better educated (for example, the Arab Middle East), they must resort to traditional means of mobilization. In the case of the Middle East, that traditional mobilizer is Islam, and so threats to national prestige are presented as threats to Islam. Some nations do not feel threatened by imaginary insults to national dignity ? for various historical reasons, they believe themselves to be superior to others. But, if their prestige is in fact at stake, the perception of a threat becomes decisive. Why else would citizens across the developed world be so preoccupied with their economic competitiveness? Is it not enough for us to be well off? Why do we need to be better off than others? Why, for example, do Americans feel so threatened by the peaceful economic rise of China (as they did by Japan?s economic success in the 1980?s)? To no longer be ?Number One? would offend America?s sense of dignity. There is no more to it than that. China is now also motivated by nationalism, and it will rise as high as a motivated population of 1.3 billion people can. The threat to America?s international standing is real; but, blinded by it, Americans believe that they are still in a position to condescend to China as they would to an inferior power. For the time being, the Chinese may be too preoccupied with their own backyard to pay attention to such insults, but it is foolish to offend them deliberately. Because Americans misunderstood the motives behind the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States fought two costly wars, which did not defeat its enemies and have left the Middle East more volatile than ever. Being blind to the connection between nationalism and dignity in China ? and in America?s own conduct when dealing with China ? may cost the US even more. Liah Greenfeld Liah Greenfeld, Professor of Political Science and Sociology and Director of the Institute for the Advancement of the Social Sciences at Boston University, is the author of Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity and The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Sep 10 20:53:31 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 21:53:31 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Big Banks Hide Risk Transforming Collateral for Traders Message-ID: <6FDFC058-46B6-4308-B4FE-115739699E22@infowarrior.org> Another magical scam to transform your wealth to the banks....yes they call it 'transformation' too --- guess it truly is more than meets the eye. --rick Big Banks Hide Risk Transforming Collateral for Traders By Bradley Keoun - Sep 10, 2012 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-09-10/big-banks-hide-risk-transforming-collateral-for-traders.html JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp. are helping clients find an extra $2.6 trillion to back derivatives trades amid signs that a shortage of quality collateral will erode efforts to safeguard the financial system. Starting next year, new rules designed to prevent another meltdown will force traders to post U.S. Treasury bonds or other top-rated holdings to guarantee more of their bets. The change takes effect as the $10.8 trillion market for Treasuries is already stretched thin by banks rebuilding balance sheets and investors seeking safety, leaving fewer bonds available to backstop the $648 trillion derivatives market. The solution: At least seven banks plan to let customers swap lower-rated securities that don?t meet standards in return for a loan of Treasuries or similar holdings that do qualify, a process dubbed ?collateral transformation.? That?s raising concerns among investors, bank executives and academics that measures intended to avert risk are hiding it instead. ?The dealers look after their own interests, and they won?t necessarily look after the systemic risks that are associated with this,? said Darrell Duffie, a finance professor at Stanford University who has studied the derivatives and securities-lending markets. ?Regulators are probably going to become aware of it once the practice gets big enough.? Adding to the concern is the reaction of central clearinghouses, which collect from losers on derivatives trades and pay off winners. Some have responded to the collateral shortage by lowering standards, with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange accepting bonds rated four levels above junk. Transformation Fees The potential reward for revenue-starved banks is an expanded securities-lending market that could generate billions of dollars in fees. JPMorgan and Bank of America, which have the biggest derivatives businesses among U.S. bank holding companies with a combined $140 trillion of the instruments, are already marketing their new collateral-transformation desks, people with knowledge of the operations said. The list also includes Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Barclays Plc (BARC), Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and State Street Corp. (STT), said the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren?t authorized to speak publicly. Derivatives allow buyers to bet on the direction of currencies, interest rates and markets to protect their holdings, insure against defaults on bonds or lock in a price on commodities. More than 90 percent of the trades are privately negotiated, according to the Bank for International Settlements. That exempts them from the rules of futures exchanges, which require an initial collateral posting as a good-faith deposit to ensure bets are covered. Traders have to post more collateral, usually in cash, when positions move against them. Central Clearinghouses The new rules are rooted in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, passed in reaction to the near-collapse of the financial system in 2008, caused in part because derivatives contracts weren?t backed by enough collateral. American International Group Inc. (AIG) needed a $182.3 billion bailout from the U.S. government after the New York-based insurer failed to make good on derivatives trades with some of the world?s largest banks, according to a 2011 report by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. In response, Congress required that most privately negotiated derivatives trades, known as over-the-counter, go through clearinghouses. These entities, run by firms such as Chicago-based CME Group Inc. and London-based LCH.Clearnet Group Ltd., make traders provide collateral, including government bonds, that can be seized and easily converted into cash to cover defaults. Extra Demand Estimates for how much extra collateral participants will need range from about $500 billion to $2.6 trillion, based on data compiled by Bloomberg. The top figure comes from Tabb Group LLC, which recently raised its forecast from $2 trillion to incorporate new reports on the size of the derivatives market, said Will Rhode, head of fixed income at the Westborough, Massachusetts-based consulting firm. Analysts at New York-based Morgan Stanley estimated the shift to clearinghouses would force traders to post about $481 billion of collateral, or about 0.4 percent of cleared trades. As much as 75 percent of the $462.2 trillion of interest-rate derivatives, the most common type, may be cleared once the rules take effect, up from about half currently, the analysts wrote in an Aug. 23 report. Under a worst-case scenario, traders may have to post $1.3 trillion, or 1.1 percent, they said. Either way, the amount is multiples of the collateral currently required, since most cleared trades now are between securities dealers, where the rate nets out to about 0.005 percent, the Morgan Stanley analysts estimated. Securities Shortage Adding to the pressure, new banking-safety rules will compel lenders to keep more cash and easy-to-liquidate investments on hand for emergencies. That may boost demand for high-grade assets by $2 trillion to $4 trillion, according to an April report from the International Monetary Fund. Top-rated countries, including the U.S., Japan and European sovereigns rated AAA or AA, had about $33 trillion of debt outstanding at the end of 2011, according to the IMF report. There was an additional $2.4 trillion of U.S. agency debt. Most government securities are already committed to other purposes, such as central banks buying them to influence benchmark interest rates or sovereign-wealth funds and other investors counting on the government bonds as a reliable store of wealth. Money managers, insurance companies and pension funds that use derivatives will be hardest hit by the change, said Josh Galper, managing principal of securities-lending consultant Finadium LLC in Concord, Massachusetts. Almost 40 percent of money managers and insurers in a July survey by State Street and Tabb Group said they?re worried about a collateral shortage once clearing becomes mandatory for more derivatives. BlackRock, Calpers BlackRock Inc. (BLK), MetLife Inc. (MET) and the California Public Employees? Retirement System, known as Calpers, probably will need more collateral to meet the new rules, according to regulatory documents, public statements by company officials and people with knowledge of the industry?s collateral needs. ?This is a client base that hasn?t had a need for securities financing,? Dave Olsen, New York-based JPMorgan?s head of over-the-counter clearing, said in an interview. ?You take a typical life insurance company or pension fund, and they might have anywhere from a single-digit percentage to over 10 percent of their derivatives portfolio now required to be pledged to a clearinghouse.? U.S. regulators implementing the rules haven?t said how the collateral demands for derivatives trades will be met. Nor have they run their own analyses of risks that might be created by the banks? bond-lending programs, people with knowledge of the matter said. Steve Adamske, a spokesman for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Barbara Hagenbaugh at the Federal Reserve declined to comment. ?Operational Risk? Banks could be squeezed if they have borrowed the Treasuries that they?re lending as collateral, and the original lender suddenly demanded them back, said Duffie, the Stanford finance professor. ?We just keep piling on lots of operational risk as we convert one form of collateral into another,? said Richie Prager, global head of trading at New York-based BlackRock, the world?s largest asset manager. Lenders also could suffer if a trader defaults and his collateral is seized. In that case, the bank loses its Treasuries and is left holding lower-grade bonds that the trader posted in the collateral transformation. Repo Market The process allows investors who don?t have assets that meet a clearinghouse?s standards to pledge corporate bonds or non-government-backed mortgage-backed securities to a bank in exchange for a loan of Treasuries. The investor then posts the Treasuries -- the transformed collateral -- to the clearinghouse. The bank earns fees plus interest, and the investor is obliged at some point to return the Treasuries. In effect, the collateral is being rented. The new business resembles the existing $5.5 trillion repurchase market, known as repo, where banks and investors can temporarily pledge their bonds to other lenders or mutual funds in exchange for cash loans. The sudden withdrawal of some participants from that market in 2008, partly because of concerns about the quality of collateral, contributed to the near-collapse of Bear Stearns Cos. and led the Fed to create a $148 billion emergency-lending program to backstop other Wall Street firms that depended on the financing. The demand for collateral could stoke Wall Street?s fee machine even as the industry faces shrinking profits from regulations that increase price reporting and competition in derivatives trading, according to consulting firm Oliver Wyman, a unit of New York-based Marsh & McLennan Cos. (MMC) Offsetting Losses While the $170 billion of annual revenue that securities dealers get from trading may fall by 20 percent to 40 percent once derivatives clearing becomes mandatory, ?new revenues in collateral and funding are likely to offset much of those lost? from executing trades, Oliver Wyman wrote in a March report. The firm declined to estimate how much the banks might reap. Lenders and Wall Street dealers generate a combined $11 billion from clearing trades and managing collateral for clients, identified in the report as an industry growth area. Bank of America has a return-on-equity target of 10 percent to 15 percent from its clearing business, where the collateral- transformation desk will be located, said Denis Manelski, head of short-term rates trading at the Charlotte, North Carolina- based company. The bank?s return on equity last year was 0.04 percent, after a loss in 2010. Capital Rules One constraint may be new capital rules that limit how much lending banks can do, according to Raymond Kahn, New York-based head of over-the-counter derivatives clearing for Barclays. ?We?re doing the best we can to factor in all costs and capital charges that are related to clearing, and we are building that into our pricing,? Kahn said. Executives at Bank of New York and Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank confirmed that their companies plan to offer collateral transformation. Tiffany Galvin, a spokeswoman at New York-based Goldman Sachs, declined to comment. Meanwhile, clearinghouses are lowering collateral standards. CME, owner of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, where U.S. interest-rate futures are traded, said in March it would accept as much as $3 billion of corporate bonds from each member firm, up from $300 million previously. The bonds must carry a credit rating of at least A-, four levels above junk. ?Systemic Bottlenecks? The exchange decided to accept the corporate bonds because Wall Street firms are under pressure to build capital and probably will face constraints on how much high-quality collateral they can lend, said Kim Taylor, president of the CME?s clearing business. ?We are trying to be aware of the needs of the market and help alleviate the systemic bottlenecks,? Taylor said. ?If it?s not something we can safely take, then no matter what the market wants us to do, we can?t take it, so we won?t.? LCH.Clearnet, which says it clears more than half of all interest-rate derivatives, announced in April it would accept mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Ginnie Mae (BGNMX), which in turn is backed by the U.S. government. The closely held company is owned by its members, which include representatives of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Barclays. Since regulators have mandated clearing, they should support ?some flexibility on collateral, where the clearinghouse can make a strong case that they can manage the risk,? said Andrew Howat, LCH.Clearnet?s head of collateral and liquidity management. ?You can?t have all this over-the-counter clearing without collateral, so something needs to give.? Life Insurance The life-insurance industry has pushed regulators to allow looser collateral guidelines. The American Council of Life Insurers said in an October presentation to staffs of the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission that ?high-quality corporate bonds? should be allowed as collateral on derivatives trades. The industry has 42 percent of total assets in corporate bonds, compared with 14 percent in government bonds, the presentation shows. Members of the trade group, including MetLife, Allstate Corp. (ALL), Nationwide Financial Services Inc., Prudential Financial Inc. (PRU) and Principal Financial Group Inc. (PFG), declined to discuss whether they would sign up for collateral transformation. ?This is a level of detail that we wouldn?t be doing interviews on,? said Maryellen Thielen, a spokeswoman for Northbrook, Illinois-based Allstate, the largest publicly traded U.S. auto and home insurer, which had $18.7 billion of derivatives as of June 30. Reducing Liquidity Calpers, the largest state pension fund in the U.S. with $226.6 billion under management, would use ?existing assets in the portfolio? to meet any extra collateral calls, senior portfolio manager Anne Simpson said in a voicemail message. The Sacramento-based fund has derivatives with a notional value of $30.4 billion. ?There?s discussion to be had around what would count as suitable quality, suitably liquid and unencumbered collateral for that purpose,? Simpson said. The added costs of posting collateral or borrowing it from banks may push some derivatives users to stop trading them altogether, reducing liquidity in the market, said Charley Cooper, a senior managing director at State Street in New York. He said other traders may shift to futures exchanges, which require less than half the collateral needed to clear over-the- counter derivatives, according to CME. Shuffling Risk The potential shortage of high-quality bonds to post as collateral is becoming its own risk, the IMF said in its April report. Investors , unable to obtain the Treasuries they need, may ?settle for assets that embed higher risks,? according to the report. ?Safe-asset scarcity could lead to more short-term volatility jumps, herding behavior and runs on sovereign debt,? the report said. The banks? new lending business ?smells like trouble,? said Anat Admati, a finance and economics professor at Stanford who studies markets and trading and advises bank regulators on systemically important firms. ?The point of the initiatives on derivatives was that derivatives can hide a lot of risk,? Admati said. ?Now they?re going to just shuffle the risk around.? To contact the reporters on this story: Bradley Keoun in New York at bkeoun at bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer at bloomberg.net --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 11 07:58:46 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:58:46 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Do You Have a Photo ID, Young Man? Message-ID: Do You Have a Photo ID, Young Man? Does stringent security make the Sept. 11 memorial safer?or a hassle to visit and an infringement on our civil liberties? By Mark Vanhoenacker|Posted Monday, Sept. 10, 2012, at 3:00 PM ET http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2012/09/sept_11_memorial_does_the_world_trade_center_site_really_need_so_much_security_.single.html The National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York is a profound, beautiful monument to the lives lost in the 1993 and 2001 terror attacks at the World Trade Center. But the iron curtain of security surrounding the site forms its own monument: to our successful adaptation to the realities of a post-9/11 world, and perhaps to choices that speak less well of us. Advance tickets are required to enter this public, outdoor memorial. To book them, you?re obliged to provide your home address, email address, and phone number, and the full names of everyone in your party. It is ?strongly recommended? that you print your tickets at home, which is where you must leave explosives, large bags, hand soap, glass bottles, rope, and bubbles. Also, ?personal wheeled vehicles? not limited to bicycles, skateboards, and scooters, and anything else deemed inappropriate. Anyone age 13 or older must carry photo ID, to be displayed ?when required and/or requested.? Once at the memorial you must go through a metal detector and your belongings must be X-rayed. Officers will inspect your ticket?that invulnerable document you nearly left on your printer?at least five times. One will draw a blue line on it; 40 yards (and around a dozen security cameras) later, another officer will shout at you if your ticket and its blue line are not visible. Eventually you?ll reach the memorial itself, where there are more officers and no bathrooms. You?re allowed to take photographs anywhere outside the security screening area?in theory if not always in practice. Eleven years after 9/11 and a year after the memorial opened, it?s time for a freedom-loving people to consider the purpose and impact of such security measures. Let?s ask the experts?and ourselves?three questions. Is enhanced security necessary at the memorial? Are the specific measures in place likely to be effective? And what is their cost to a free society? *** At first glance, the need for security at the Sept. 11 memorial seems self-evident. The memorial stands on some of the most sacred ground in America; a third attack there would be an unimaginable blow. But just because an incident would be tragic doesn?t mean it?s a serious possibility. Depending on who?s counting, either 14 or 16 people in America have been killed by Islamic extremists since 9/11?13 at Fort Hood, Texas. There have been other plots, of course, disrupted by law enforcement, though a recent study described about half of those as ?essentially created or facilitated in a major way by the authorities.? Meanwhile about 15,000 Americans are murdered annually. Tobacco claims the lives of around 440,000 Americans per year. In 2011, lightning killed 26. Counterterror experts I spoke with differed on the level of security required at the Sept. 11 memorial. But even among those who said they understood the enhanced security, nearly all couched that understanding in terms of the site?s iconic status, not actual risk to the memorial. Richard Barrett, coordinator for the U.N.?s al-Qaeda and Taliban monitoring team, described the likelihood of an attack on the memorial as ?incredibly small.? Max Abrahms, a counterterrorism fellow at Johns Hopkins University, said that although the memorial?s ?extra psychological importance? warrants heightened security, ?it's now clear that sleeper cells are not infesting our country ? al-Qaeda can hardly generate any violence at all.? In policy circles, al-Qaeda and the term ?strategic defeat? increasingly go together. Of course, even if there is little risk to the site, the security measures may have some emotional value. The best argument I heard for enhanced security is the comfort that it gives some 9/11 family members and survivors. A representative for the September 11th Families' Association told me they ?appreciate all measures taken to insure the safety of visitors.? The president of the World Trade Center Survivors? Network said much the same?though he also acknowledged a ?diversity of opinion? among members. But not everyone is comforted by heavy security. John Mueller, a counterterror expert at Ohio State University and the Cato Institute, says that ?visible security measures dealing with terrorism tend to make people more anxious about it.? He has research to back himself up. If the purpose of elaborate security is to protect raw nerves rather than to address an active threat, it?s reasonable to ask how long it will be in place. Some memorial documents refer to controlled access during an ?interim operating period? that runs through the end of 2013; others promise ?open access ? from all sides? only when the entire World Trade Center site (not just the main tower) is fully rebuilt. It?s unclear when that will be?2016? TBD? (It wasn?t any clearer to a spokesman for the memorial.) And if the security measures are a response to an active threat, wouldn?t it be ill-advised to dispense with them the day the WTC site is finished? *** For the sake of argument, let?s assume the memorial really is at risk. Are the current measures effective? It?s not giving anything away to point out that the memorial?s security measures?at least the visible measures to which visitors are subjected?will not prevent a well-planned attack. Many of the most onerous requirements, even if they were effective deterrents, are unevenly enforced. For example, the requirement to provide names, addresses, et cetera in advance is undermined by the occasional distribution of a few same-day, timed tickets at several downtown locations and by the controversial ticket allocations to tour operators. (If an additional goal of named, prebooked tickets is to prevent reselling and control capacity, then the memorial could simply get rid of all tickets and count visitors as they enter and exit.) Then there?s the photo-ID rule, without which the requirement to give your name is meaningless. It?s at once overly restrictive?how many 13-year-olds have photo ID??and largely unenforced (my ID was requested on only the first of my three visits). I talked to Bruce Schneier, a leading thinker on security and the man who coined the term ?security theater? to describe measures that are visible or intrusive but also pointless or ineffective. Schneier responded to a description of the memorial?s visible security with a pointed question: Is the memorial to the victims?or to our collective stupidity? The tactics, Schneier said, ?assume we can guess the plot. But as long as the terrorists can avoid them by making a minor change in their tactics or target, they're wastes of money.? What isn?t a waste of money? ?Investigation, intelligence, and emergency response?stuff that doesn?t require you to guess the plot.? The counterterror expert I spoke to who offered the most unequivocal support for enhanced security at the site was Kip Hawley, a former head of the Transportation Security Administration. Hawley saw both threat-based and emotional justifications for heightened security. But even he would not enter into a discussion on the effectiveness of the specific measures at the memorial. Neither would a Sept. 11 memorial representative, except to say that the security protocols are appropriate for the twice-targeted WTC site. *** Again, for the sake of argument, let?s assume there is a risk and that the Sept. 11 memorial?s security regime effectively lowers it. Then it?s worth it, right? Maybe not even then. I suggested to Schneier that although the security measures wouldn?t stop a coordinated attack by al-Qaeda, they might deter a lone actor. He agreed but noted that the security measures wouldn?t stop that lone unsophisticated actor?they?d only shift the location of his attack. In terms of lives lost, if not symbolism, an attack would be just as bad ?in a million places,? said Schneier. In many?a crowded mall or train?it might be much worse. But doesn?t the 9/11 site deserve special protection? That?s essentially the view of experts who supported enhanced security simply because the site is so iconic. Schneier calls that an emotional argument ?which will cost lives, rather than save them, if the money could be better spent elsewhere.? Schneier?s approach doesn?t account for the emotional weight of the 9/11 site. And who knows?presumably there?s plenty of ?smart? security, too, behind the scenes. But his point?that every dollar we spend on security theater is a dollar we don?t invest in smarter security?gets harder to ignore each time your memorial ticket is checked, scanned, or drawn on with the blue pen. *** Why else might the Sept. 11 memorial?s security not be worthwhile? Because it makes the site less open and accessible. Bizarrely, the Web page that lists the memorial?s limited hours (10:00 a.m. until 6:00 or 8:00 p.m., depending on the season) also describes the memorial as a place ?meant to be experienced at all times of the day.? I asked Barrett if he could think of any similarly restricted locations; he suggested hotels in Kabul and Islamabad. In terms of balancing America?s most cherished values, no other American memorial marking a terrorist act has struck anything like the ?balance? New York has. The Oklahoma City memorial, the Flight 93 memorial, even the Sept. 11 memorial at the Pentagon: None require advance names, photo ID, or airport-style security, let alone all three. The outdoor Oklahoma City memorial?open 24/7 year-round?seems more concerned with helping visitors find nearby doggie daycare than burdening them with byzantine rules and regulations. Abroad, access to highly urban memorials in freedom-loving countries better acquainted with terrorism?Spain, the United Kingdom?is unfettered. Neither the memorial to the London July 7, 2005, attacks nor the Madrid station bombing memorial require preregistration, ID, or security checks. *** The Sept. 11 memorial?s security is perfect in at least one inadvertent sense: There?s no better place to consider our national reaction to 9/11 than at the memorial, and its security regimen inspires us to do just that. Indeed, much of the memorial experience?the ID requirements, long lines, senselessly repetitive checks of home-printed documents, restrictions on personal belongings, agents snapping between diligence, boredom, and aggression?recalls nothing so much as post-9/11 air travel. That irony, however sad, is worth confronting. Was physical safety the only point of our breathtaking expenditure of lives, money, and goodwill after 9/11, or was the point also to defend our way of life? Have we remembered?in Barrett?s words??what we are fighting for ? as well as what we are fighting against?? Are we proud of becoming a country where we must show ID to buy a bus ticket?even when (as recently happened to me) you don?t buy the ticket until you?ve reached your destination? Ours is a government that has banned scissors from Liberty (as in, Statue of) Island?and we are, it seems, a people who don?t really mind. Then again, maybe we?re beginning to mind a bit. Some memorial visitors aren?t entirely happy with its resemblance to a Demilitarized Zone; others aren?t quite ready to accept that police there might delete pictures from your camera. You don?t need to be a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association to sympathize with the Tennessee nurse who faced possible felony charges for asking where she might check the gun she?d inadvertently brought to the memorial. Nationally, too, there are flickers of a renewed debate over how Americans balance security and freedom?whether it?s Tea Partiers protesting intrusive airport pat-downs or the New York Times? series about whether it?s time for the pendulum to swing back toward ?civil liberties and individual privacy.? The Sept. 11 memorial?s designers hoped the plaza would be ?a living part? of the city?integrated into its fabric and usable ?on a daily basis.? I thought that sounded nice, so I asked Schneier one last question. Let?s say we dismantled all the security and let the Sept. 11 memorial be a memorial like any other: a place where citizens and travelers could visit spontaneously, on their own contemplative terms, day or night, subject only to capacity limits until the site is complete. What single measure would most guarantee their safety? I was thinking about cameras and a high-tech control center, ?flower pot?-style vehicle barriers, maybe even snipers poised on nearby roofs. Schneier?s answer? Seat belts. On the drive to New York, or in your taxi downtown, buckle up, he warned. It?s dangerous out there. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 11 09:34:19 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:34:19 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Activision Blizzard Secretly Watermarking World of Warcraft Users Message-ID: <96669901-13F1-4F38-ABAF-91B4B256A0DC@infowarrior.org> Activision Blizzard Secretly Watermarking World of Warcraft Users Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 11, @10:10AM from the information-theory dept. First time accepted submitter kgkoutzis writes "A few days ago I noticed some weird artifacts covering the screenshots I captured using the WoW game client application. I sharpened the images and found a repeating pattern secretly embedded inside. I posted this information on the OwnedCore forum and after an amazing three-day cooperation marathon, we managed to prove that all our WoW screenshots, since at least 2008, contain a custom watermark. This watermark includes our user IDs, the time the screenshot was captured and the IP address of the server we were on at the time. It can be used to track down activities which are against Blizzard's Terms of Service, like hacking the game or running a private server. The users were never notified by the ToS that this watermarking was going on so, for four years now, we have all been publicly sharing our account and realm information for hackers to decode and exploit. You can find more information on how to access the watermark in the aforementioned forum post which is still quite active." http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/09/11/149228/activision-blizzard-secretly-watermarking-world-of-warcraft-users --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 11 15:08:28 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:08:28 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - What can we learn from this? Message-ID: <630873C7-3837-4FB5-995D-190AF4189C93@infowarrior.org> September 11 ? Eleven Years Later (Selected Statistics) http://acrossthestreetnet.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/september-11-eleven-years-later-selected-statistics/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 11 15:13:16 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:13:16 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - House To Vote On FISA Amendments Act, Despite Not Even Knowing How It's Being Interpreted Message-ID: <2AC9478F-F7ED-4328-A837-59DCB34972BB@infowarrior.org> House To Vote On FISA Amendments Act, Despite Not Even Knowing How It's Being Interpreted from the this-is-ridiculous dept This is getting more ridiculous by the day. We've been covering how the NSA refuses to admit how many Americans are being spied upon via a secret interpretation of the FISA Amendments Act -- and how Congress' response is to pretend that as long as they stick their head in the sand, the NSA couldn't possibly be abusing the law. Rep. Dan Lungren literally said that he sees no reason to be worried because he hasn't seen any evidence that it's being used to spy on Americans. But that's only true if you are being willfully blind. The NSA has refused basic requests to reveal non-confidential info, ridiculously claiming it would violate the privacy of Americans to admit how many Americans were being spied upon. Meanwhile, Julian Sanchez's attempt to reveal some info via a Freedom of Information Act request is being stonewalled by the feds. And yet Congress still wants to move forward. The House is planning to vote on extending the FISA Amendments Act in the next day or two, despite the fact that the vast majority of elected officials do not have the information on how the law is being interpreted and those who are in the know have hinted very, very, very strongly that it is being widely abused. Now, if Congress actually represented the public, it might try to stop this process and ask for some of the details. Instead, it seems to be focused on just re-upping support for this tool that has more or less enabled domestic spying on Americans. < - > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120911/02153120340/house-to-vote-fisa-amendments-act-despite-not-even-knowing-how-its-being-interpreted.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 11 21:00:16 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:00:16 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Do We Need to Relive 9/11 Every Year to Remember? Message-ID: <00BCD2AB-6128-4F21-961E-F3560F11378E@infowarrior.org> Do We Need to Relive 9/11 Every Year to Remember? September 11, 2012 at 11:36 AM http://www.theroot.com/blogs/september-11/do-we-need-tragedy-porn-remember (The Root)-- On the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, I find myself saying one thing and one thing only: Please stop telling me about Sept. 11. From mainstream news to social media, I'm being bashed with discussions of one of the nation's greatest tragedies. Never forget, I'm told with incredible fervor. And while I understand how some may find it cathartic to discuss this particular event, I personally do not. I would much prefer not to think of that day again. It's not as if that's even a real possibility. Every time I'm treated like a terror suspect when I fly on a plane because I forgot that there was a piece of tissue in my back pocket, I'm very much aware of the day that changed everything. As I take a stroll through New York City and I'm greeted by AK-47s and military-garbed men and women, I remember 9/11 just fine. So do I need MSNBC to rebroadcast the news from Sept. 11, 2001? Do I need to read a brand-new set of articles and posts all rehashing a day that many of my New York friends and family prefer not to really talk about? Never forget! Forget what? The horror in my mother's voice when she finally got in touch with me and told me what happened? The burnt metallic stench that we all knew was a mixture of ash and human remains that floated over downtown Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn for days after? The image of the towers collapsing that I swore I'd never watch again on Sept. 12, 2001? Don't worry. I won't. I also understand that not everyone was here in New York City. Not everyone has the same connection to the day. However, I'd still argue that the current method of marketing mainstream media's "We care and remember it too" isn't helpful for anyone. When it's not being shoved down our throats, it's being used to deflect and cloud discussions. Joe Scarborough of MSNBC's Morning Joe tried to dodge an argument on how Republicans obstructed the president by invoking "9/11" and "not wanting to fight today." Really? There are many ways to mourn the dead and praise the heroes of that tragic day. Forcing tragedy porn on many of us who'd prefer not to wallow in it doesn't seem like the best method. Elon James White is a writer and satirist and host of the award-winning video and radio series This Week in Blackness. Listen Monday to Thursday at TWIB.FM and subscribe on iTunes. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 11 21:05:45 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:05:45 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - 'Sneakers' Is a Masterpiece Message-ID: 20 years???? Now I *do* feel old!! :( --rick Sneakers Is a Masterpiece Entry 2: Why the movie inspires such bizarre devotion in its fans. From: Julia Turner |Posted Monday, Sept. 10, 2012, at 11:00 AM ET http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/features/2012/sneakers_20th_anniversary/sneakers_20th_anniversary_how_the_robert_redford_caper_inspired_a_generation_of_fervent_fans_.html To: John Swansburg I thought we agreed your anagrammatic codename was Shun Brawn Jogs! Here?s my confession for you, John, decrypted for your eyes only: I don?t think I?ve ever loved a movie as much as I love Sneakers. Sure, there are movies that are smarter, funnier, more suspenseful?hundreds of them. There are movies that are better in all kinds of ways. But Sneakers is just plain lovable, and I?d argue that it deserves a place alongside Back to the Future and Singin? in the Rain in the pantheon of purely enjoyable entertainments. This view is not widely shared?there are few critics who would put the film in such lofty company. But Sneakers generates strangely fervent devotees. Mentioning the film is like a secret handshake. Offer it to the wrong person, and you?ll get a blank stare. But every so often, you?ll find a fellow traveler: Someone who?s memorized Cosmo?s soliloquy on the rooftop. Someone who can perfectly mimic Stephen Tobolowsky?s delivery of the phrase ?My voice is my passport.? Someone who spent his teenage years dissecting the film?s score. Most often, these superfans are members of our generation, the group that falls squarely between X and Y?a little too young to have lived Reality Bites, a little too old to have worshipped Britney Spears. You and I were in our early teens when the film came out. I missed it on the big screen, so I first saw it when I rented it from Video-To-Go a few years later. I kept the tape for a week, watching it every night, making friends come over to see the gem I?d discovered. Why did we like it so much? The presence of River Phoenix?the heartthrob who died a year after the film came out?didn?t hurt; I still remember one friend rewinding the scene where his character Carl, presented with the opportunity to ask the NSA for anything he wants (money, sports cars, etc.), simply requests the phone number of ?the young lady with the Uzi? who is holding him hostage at that moment. Sigh! But for me the appeal had more to do with three things: the movie?s puzzles, its dark vision of the world, and its wry tone. Like any crack team engaged in a caper, Martin Bishop?s gang faces obstacles galore on its way to procuring, then losing, then retrieving that little black box. But they overcome those obstacles in ways that often feel particularly inventive. Sure, the movie borrows elements from Rififi and Ocean?s 11 and other heist films. But it continually adds its own twists, often in the person of Whistler, the preternaturally observant blind man whose keen ear so often comes in handy. When the gang is trying to locate where the box is hidden in a professor?s office, they replay footage of the professor typing at his computer again and again, hoping to discern his password. It?s Whistler, listening to the proceedings, who hears what the professor?s Czech girlfriend is saying (?I leave message here on service but you do not call ??) and deduces that if the professor has a message service, the answering machine on his desk must be a decoy, the box they are looking for. (Turns out one of the technologies this movie was prescient about was the rise of voicemail.) I also love the gag where, in order to beat a motion detector, Robert Redford must move with the deliberateness of a doped-up tortoise, slowing the ?action? in this movie down to a crawl. But the movie balances these gimmicks with a vivid portrait of the uncertainty of the years after the Cold War. Before one character, a Russian spy turned ?cultural attach?,? meets his maker, he warns Martin, ?You won?t know who to trust.? The line serves as a focal point for the film, which features Russians allied with Americans, pits the NSA against the FBI, and sets Cosmo?s band of weirdos at ?Playtronics??the toy company that is their front operation?against everyone else. (At one point, the Russian attach? shows Martin a look book of American spies the Russians have been keeping an eye on?the sort of collaboration that would have been unthinkable just years before.) The notion of having to sort out who your enemies really are, the notion that a corporation could be more dangerous than any state, these felt new?and newly unsettling?in 1992. The film doesn?t have anything particularly brilliant to say about the new world order, but the sophistication (and, at the time, novelty) of its perspective lent Sneakers some depth. What?s most remarkable to me, though, is how the movie balances its clever gags with its ominous evocation of the precarious state of the world. Throughout, our heroes are sardonic and unflappable. They?re not striving and sweating like Mission Impossible?s Ethan Hunt to prevent a nuclear detonation. They don?t hubristically feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. They?re just a bunch of scrappers who are in awe of the powerful device they?ve discovered, and what it might mean for the future of the planet. They can?t quite believe they?re in this fix, and they spend the movie trying to untangle themselves?and hopefully not hurt too many others in the process. For this we can thank the writers, who take an understated approach, often leaving things unsaid when a raised eyebrow from Redford will do. (One of my favorite moments in the film is when Phoenix?s Carl?gearing up for a mission in a slightly-too-gung-ho manner?blackens his face with soot. Crease and Bishop show up dressed like normal people. Their wordless appreciation of his ensemble still makes me laugh.) The direction helps, too?you?re right, John, that the movie is impeccably paced. But I think the reason the movie speaks to people our age may have something to do with the film?s vision of heroism. It offers a smart, sideways bunch of heroes?wary of all governments and all corporations (but no longer shocked by their malfeasance), reluctant to act in the face of so much uncertainty, but determined to keep tools of destruction out of the wrong hands. John, I?m curious to hear which characters you like best. I can?t profess to explain Liz?s profession (aren?t musicians generally supposed to have an aptitude for math?), but I admire her deadpan?she nabs many of the movie?s best lines. I also want to know what you make of Martin and Cosmo?s origins as countercultural ?60s superhackers. How do those politics affect your reading of the film? And just one more mystery for you to decode: How many syllables are there in Ben Kingsley?s pronunciation of the word ?disaster?? (I count four, and would render it phonetically thus: disayastuh. Perhaps he was trying to tell us something?) Yours, I Junta Ruler --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 12 14:35:01 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:35:01 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - U.S. spies press for renewal of broad electronic surveillance law Message-ID: U.S. spies press for renewal of broad electronic surveillance law Tue, Sep 11 2012 By Mark Hosenball http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USL1E8KBCW620120911 WASHINGTON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence officials made a public plea on Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, for quick congressional action to extend a sweeping but controversial U.S. electronic surveillance law. Robert Litt, chief lawyer for the Office of Director of National Intelligence, told reporters that winning congressional approval to extend the electronic spying law was the U.S. intelligence community's "top priority." If the law, which expires at the end of 2012, is not extended, Litt said, U.S. spy agencies would lose access to what he described as a "very, very important source of valuable intelligence information." Relevant committees of both the House of Representatives and the Senate have approved similar, though not identical, versions of bills that would extend the surveillance law, an updated version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The Senate Intelligence Committee's version would extend it until 2017. A Senate Judiciary Committee version would extend it only until 2015. Some congressional officials said the Obama administration was anxious to get an extension of the law approved by Congress in the next two weeks, since legislators adjourn for an election break later this month and considerable unfinished business already awaits them for a lame duck session after the Nov. 6 general election. But at least one congressional critic of the surveillance law says he is willing to use legislative tactics to stall the bill unless the administration and other legislators agree to include stronger provisions to protect Americans' civil liberties. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he had placed a "hold" on the bill that he would not lift until the Senate considers more stringent protections against warrantless spying on Americans. "My hold is on and it will stay on," he told Reuters. Wyden said that in correspondence with a group of senators, the Obama administration had admitted that some Americans' rights prohibiting warrantless surveillance had been violated by the spying program. He said that until loopholes in the law were plugged, he believed it should only be extended for a relatively short period. BILL CONTAINS LOOPHOLE In his conference call with reporters, Litt declined to discuss details of how U.S. agencies, most notably the ultra-secret National Security Agency, the electronic eavesdropping organization based at Fort Meade, Maryland, go about collecting information under the act's provisions. The law authorizes broad electronic intelligence collection by U.S. agencies targeting what a Senate report described as "persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States." Under its provisions, several officials said, U.S. agencies do not have to obtain a court warrant to monitor communications of suspected militants or other intelligence targets who are not located in the United States. Wyden and Democratic Senator Mark Udall alleged earlier this year that the bill contained a "loophole" that could be used "to circumvent traditional warrant protections and search for the communications of a potentially large number of Americans." Wyden and Udall proposed an amendment that would have ordered Inspectors General at the Justice Department and National Intelligence Director's office to produce a "rough estimate" of how many Americans' communications had been inadvertently collected under the law. On Tuesday, Litt maintained that because of the way the collection program worked, producing such an estimate would be impractical. People familiar with the program said that it involved sifting through masses of communications between foreigners that are transmitted via servers or telecommunications links that pass physically through the United States. One official familiar with the matter said that the only way to begin to estimate the extent to which the program might have inadvertently collected information on Americans is by looking more closely at messages that intelligence officials are not supposed to look at - because Americans are on one or both ends of the messages. One of the main points of the law authorizing the surveillance program is that officials are not supposed to be reading or listening to message traffic involving people located in the United States unless they have warrants to do so. Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists, said there ought to be a "middle ground" under which spy agencies could provide Congress with an estimate of the "magnitude" of inadvertent collection on Americans without compromising details of the system. "Are we talking about ten, or ten million, or ten billion" inadvertently collected messages involving U.S. people, Aftergood said. But such an estimate, he said, is "what the government is refusing to provide." --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 12 19:58:57 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:58:57 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?The_Neil_Armstrong_I_knew_=97_an?= =?windows-1252?q?d_flew_with?= Message-ID: The Neil Armstrong I knew ? and flew with By Michael Collins, Wednesday, September 12, 8:07 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-collins-the-neil-armstrong-i-knew--and-flew-with/2012/09/12/b3f7556c-fb7c-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_print.html Before manned space flights began, officials pondered what background they should seek in the crew for this bizarre new venture: Danger lover? Bullfighter? Mountain climber? Should they search for people who were self-aware and calm in extreme conditions? A deep-sea diver, perhaps? Finally, they settled on ? and President Dwight Eisenhower supported ? experimental test pilots, people who had already guided complex new flying machines. Thus the original seven astronauts were selected in 1959. In 1962 I was a budding test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in California ? our Mecca ? and much interested in joining NASA?s second crew selection. Pondering the competition, I wrote to my father on April 19 that ?Neil Armstrong will be on the list .?.?. because he has by far the best background.? Neil, a former Navy fighter pilot, was a combat veteran employed by NASA at Edwards. He was testing new Air Force and Navy aircraft, as well as rocket ships. His flights in the rocket-powered X-15 alone put him a stratosphere above the rest of us. It was no surprise that Neil advanced to make the first docking in space, as commander of Gemini 8, and then moved to Apollo, where Buzz Aldrin and I joined his crew. By then he had proven his technical competence many times over, but I didn?t really know the man behind the reputation. Neil, who will be memorialized Thursday at the National Cathedral, always seemed serious and businesslike, but you could make him laugh if you tried. It was real laughter, because Neil did not pretend. He was genuine through and through. He signaled displeasure with silence, never an outburst. He had high standards and stuck to them. The best way to get Neil talking was to start with airplanes. He knew more about planes than anyone I?ve ever met, real ones and children?s models. We both were model builders from an early age, and we always wanted them to go higher and faster. My solution? Another few turns on the rubber band. Neil?s? Build a wind tunnel. Wind tunnels are serious, high-tech business but one that Neil turned into fun. Before putting power to the tunnel he built in the basement, Neil invited his grandmother to stand in front of it. When he threw the switch, the wind blew her housecoat off. Neil was smart as hell ? and an encyclopedia of knowledge of things far beyond air and space. He trotted out tidbits on occasion. After the flight of Apollo 11, we went on a world tour. One evening we found ourselves in Yugoslavia at a formal dinner hosted by Marshal Tito and his wife, Madame Broz. The small talk got smaller and smaller, with madame doing a fine imitation of an Easter Island monolith: frozen, staring straight ahead. Neil bent over and started talking quietly to her, and when I strained to listen, I was astounded that he was talking about Nikola Tesla, the early electric genius and competitor of Thomas Edison. Had Neil lost his mind? No, Madame Broz lit up like a thousand-watt bulb, and from then on we were all buddies, including even the taciturn Tito. Later I asked Neil about his choice of topic. ?Oh,? he replied offhandedly, ?she is related to Tesla.? Once, while visiting a museum in Italy, Neil drew a crowd ? not because he was recognized as that man on the moon but because, standing with friends before a case of Leonardo da Vinci?s model machines, he explained their intricacies in such detail that passersby assumed he was an English-speaking tour director and stopped to listen. After the publicity of the Apollo flights died down, Neil?s quiet demeanor was criticized. Some faulted his reticence, wanting an advocate to get out and sell the space program. But by holding to his lifelong yardsticks of honesty, humility and grace, Neil did more than any salesman or huckster. Some called him a recluse, but I think they were wrong. He supported numerous causes, especially those sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering and the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, our professional society. When other Apollo flights were honored, Neil usually showed up, making the point that Apollo 11 had depended on their accomplishments. In recent years, he visited Iraq and Afghanistan. He even led cheers at a football game at his beloved alma mater, Purdue University. If this is a recluse, our nation needs more of them ? people who don?t seek the limelight but can live competently in its glare, people who are the antithesis of some of today?s empty-headed celebrities. Neil was the consummate decision-maker, which is what you look for in a mission commander. He made decisions slowly, pondering their outcome if time allowed but acting decisively when necessary. For his lunar landing he picked his spot carefully, bypassing boulder fields. When he finally set down, he had less than a minute of fuel remaining. Good decisions all the way. Age treated Neil well. As more accolades came his way, he took them in stride. He never showed a trace of arrogance, and he had plenty to be arrogant about. It was refreshing to see him as modest as ever. When my wife, Pat, and I had lunch with Neil and his wife, Carol, this spring, he seemed relaxed, cheerful, contented, happy. I like to remember him that way. He deserved all the good things that came his way. He was the best, and I will miss him terribly. ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 12 21:16:22 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 22:16:22 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Never Say 'Never Again' Message-ID: <25639457-FE54-44F7-915B-975282B3146D@infowarrior.org> Never Say 'Never Again' Our foolish obsession with stopping the next attack. BY JULIETTE KAYYEM | SEPTEMBER 11, 2012 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/10/never_say_never_again?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full There will be no politicians at the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. They are no longer invited. Organizers of the memorial have now decided that they want to make the solemn events more intimate. The decision also reflects the continuing struggle between New York City, New York state, and New Jersey over the memorial, the museum, control of the site, and, as a consequence, the memory of 9/11. Last year, on this same day, the political grandstanding got so outlandish that it led to a showdown between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg over the choice of readings. But, whatever the motivation, the United States may be ready for a change on how to remember 9/11 too. It is time to make it personal again, to make it less an event or even a call to action. The burden of tragedy is private, but the 9/11 families lost possession of a day that was ultimately theirs. So many of them -- embracing new lives, spouses, children, professions, but forever cognizant that it might have been so much different -- have, at long last, carried on. America needs to do the same. This last decade has been summed up by a series of mottos that captured its zeitgeist. The War on Terror. Mission Accomplished. With Us or Against Us. The Surge. Heck of a Job. One Percent Doctrine. Red (Orange, Yellow, Green, Purple, Hazy) Alert. The System Worked. Security Theater. Bin Laden Is Dead. But surely none has so animated the way we think about, and organize around, America's security than the two words uttered by President George W. Bush as early as Sept. 14, 2001, and repeated to defend policies as far ranging as the war in Iraq to the establishment of the NYPD's massive counterterrorism unit: Never Again. "Never again." It is as simplistic as it is absurd. It is as vague as it is damaging. No two words have provided so little meaning or context; no catchphrase has so warped policy discussions that it has permanently confused the public's understanding of homeland security. It convinced us that invulnerability was a possibility. The notion that policies should focus almost exclusively on preventing the next attack has also masked an ideological battle within homeland-security policy circles between "never again" and its antithesis, commonly referred to as "shit happens" but in polite company known as "resiliency." The debate isn't often discussed this way, and not simply because of the bad language. Time has not only eased the pain of that day, but there have also been no significant attacks. "Never again" has so infiltrated public discourse that to even acknowledge a trend away from prevention is considered risky, un-American. Americans don't do "Keep Calm and Carry On." But if they really want security, the kind of security that is sustainable and realistic, then they are going to have to. I have spent most of my career in counterterrorism and homeland security in both state and federal government. And though it may look thoughtless, even numbingly dumb at times, there is actually a theory behind it. Homeland security has rested on four key activities: prevention, protection, response, and recovery. And while the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- created in 2003 out of some 40 agencies -- is part of the national security apparatus, it is as much about the "homeland" as it is about "security." There is little acknowledgment of the almost impossible balance that homeland security seeks to maintain every day. A country like the United States -- a federal structure with 50 governors all kings unto themselves, hundreds of cities with transit systems that only function when on time, commercial activity across borders that makes Amazon.com so successful and gas so plentiful, respect (sometimes nodding) for civil rights and civil liberties, the flow of people and goods taken as a God-given right, and, oh yes, public money in an economic downturn that must be distributed to not only security efforts but schools, health care, transportation, and every other issue that people care about -- was never going to succeed at "never again." But somehow that's what Americans bought into. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the fear that animated so many decisions then made us forget this obvious fact: As a nation, we are built unsafe. But "never again" would hear none of it, though it soon became clear that doing "everything possible" to prevent another attack was a lot, probably too much, and very, very expensive. The die had been set; the way we talked about homeland security no longer was some attempt to balance security needs with everything else or to prepare the public for the inevitable harm and the need to be resilient. Instead, over the past 10 years, the United States has spent nearly $640 billion on homeland security throughout almost every federal agency. To give a sense of how far-reaching the apparatus is, consider a study by the National Priorities Project, which found that of the "$71.6 billion requested for homeland security in FY2010, only $37 billion is funded through DHS." The rest flowed mostly through the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Justice. But "never again" was not just fiscally outrageous; it was, somewhat ironically, myopic in its scope. "Never again" what, exactly? In 2005, Hurricane Katrina came barreling through New Orleans and the Gulf states and reminded us that a country too focused on one threat was surely going to miss the more common, and blameless, ones. Perhaps the worst legacy of this exclusive focus on prevention was that it bred a nearly unstoppable institutional inertia. It made changes, modifications, reassessments, even total abandonment almost impossible to discuss, let alone enforce. What should have been an easy example -- the vilified color-coded system that had been publicly rejected by former Secretaries of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge -- took DHS over a year to amend. The alert system had so infiltrated every aspect of public safety, down to the smallest of local police departments, which had planned and trained around it, that it wasn't so simple to say, "It's over." Ratcheting up is easy, ratcheting down not so much. For political leadership, the fear that the antiquated policy or unsuccessful program that is defunded or rejected ends up being the one policy or program that would have stopped the terrorists -- a fear that has sometimes been manipulated by local and state first responders during budget decisions -- has paralyzed the kind of analysis that is routine in other public policy arenas. Chertoff faced a backlash when he famously, and rightly, acknowledged in defense of the department's priorities that not every piece of critical infrastructure could be protected. As he remarked on the obvious, that the bridge near his suburban home was not as significant as the Golden Gate Bridge, he faced a barrage of criticism from, mostly, senators who lived near suburban bridges. I saw the phenomenon up close when I entered state government as Gov. Deval Patrick's homeland security advisor in 2007. At that time, 19 members of the National Guard, deployed in late 2001, were still sitting outside our only nuclear facility in Pilgrim, Massachusetts. The Pavlovian response triggered by 9/11, then re-enforced by Governor Mitt Romney during his tenure, persisted nearly six years later, even though the guardsmen had no real function in securing the perimeter or the interior of the structure. Removing those National Guard members was not operationally questionable -- if anything, their armed presence in a residential neighborhood was more troublesome -- but it was politically difficult. We had to convince the public that we weren't abandoning "never again," leaving them vulnerable to an attack, but instead balancing costs and benefits and acknowledging that other mechanisms -- like better lighting -- were more effective. I experienced that same sense of unease, that cautiousness, when I later served on President Barack Obama's transition team for DHS. As we heard about the multiple programs, assessments, and policies that the exiting regime had established, and were clamoring to protect, it became clear that "change" was going to be slow and methodical. Every piece of the homeland security pie had a constituency that believed that this one program (you name it, because there are plenty) was the reason why America had not been attacked again and that removing it would endanger the whole nation. It is not easy to prove them wrong. I wouldn't yet call the policies that seek to give more nuance to the homeland security effort a movement. But the limitations and delusions inherent in "never again" are surely taking a beating. This has been necessary because of how destructive that term has become to the very apparatus established to enforce it. "Never again" set a multibillion-dollar effort on a wayward course, a fool's errand. Throughout government, there are countervailing, and complementary, approaches to preventive security that suggest that the entire apparatus is beginning to acknowledge what couldn't be admitted 11 years ago: Bad things will happen, they most definitely will, and then, guess what, they will happen again. One such shift has been in the acceptance of an "all-hazards" approach to emergency management planning, with an emphasis on areas that pose the greatest risk. When DHS started to distribute funds to state and local governments, it was animated by the notion that terrorism anywhere, anytime had to be prevented. Everything had to be new and shiny, every gizmo purchased to stop another 9/11. While that may have led to nice new cars for a willing police department, often the approach had no coherent philosophy behind it. The Office of Management and Budget hated the program for that reason: what exactly were state and localities buying with this money? I had once been on the receiving end of this funding when in state government and could never quite understand the policies behind the department's directives; one year, it asked all states to spend 25 percent of their homeland security funding on preventing IED explosions, as if Boston were Baghdad. By 2008, though, and more aggressively since then, funding to states and local governments shifted from new gizmos and counterterrorism planning to approaches that would be relevant for any threat and any known response. By this year, the department had so modified what it was willing to fund that it explicitly focused its guidance on "mitigating and responding to the evolving threats," without a mention of preventing terrorism. The department had once, at its peak, considered nearly 100 cities -- ranging from New York City to Bakersfield, California -- as high-threat areas that would be granted additional funding. This year, the number is a much more realistic 31 high-density areas. In addition, the department no longer pretends it is something it is not. "Never again" was, of its many flaws, inherently paternalistic. It created a mythology that politicians and terrorism experts have been allowed to ride for over a decade: The government could actually achieve perfect protection. It gave the American people an easy out, absolving them of responsibility. The famous utterance by Secretary Janet Napolitano, my former boss, that the "system worked" in explaining how a passenger stopped the underwear bomber in December 2009 may have been criticized, but it was utterly honest. Why would we be offended by it unless we had handed government all our own responsibilities as citizens, as well as our expectations for perfect safety? There are 1.5 million people in the air, every day. Honestly, grow up. This concept, dare I say it, that it takes a village is described in the department's most recent planning as the "homeland security enterprise," defined as the broad scope of contributions to security from all federal agencies, levels of government, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, individuals, families, and communities. It is an admission by the agency formed to enforce "never again" that it is now delegating. "Never again" had not allowed for that, and the Department of Homeland Security -- a department known more for its public flaws than its unacknowledged successes -- will surely thrive in the next decade if it can model itself more on the Education Department than the Defense Department. When parents think about their children's education, they do not immediately think of a federal agency. They focus on their own children, their local schools, the options available to them, and the options they can afford. The Education Department sends money to state and local entities, sets standards, and enforces areas that are exclusively in the federal domain. But no one thinks the department owns education. The same could be true for homeland security. Phrases like "first 72 on you" (a motto emergency managers use to urge the public to plan for the possibility that services will not be restored after a disaster for at least three days, and so to have food, water, and resources available at home) or the more controversial "see something, say something" (which is self-descriptive and came into play when a car bomb started to smoke in Times Square in May 2010) are essential efforts to engage the public. It's a little bit of tough love. But the most significant shift has been in the institutionalization of resiliency as a core mission of homeland security and the department. Obama spoke of it in his speech for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, giving voice to a philosophy that had barely been mentioned. Resiliency isn't only about the capability to bounce back but how to actually do that. It isn't just a state of mind, though that surely helps, but also a set of policies and procedures that would help a community come back from the brink. The National Security Council has a resiliency directorate, and the DHS has explicitly reoriented its mission to make resiliency a fifth core function (beyond prevention, protection, response, and recovery). This may sound like bureaucratic lingo, but the reality is that much of what the federal government does is to help communities get back on their feet after a disaster. This includes providing quick access to funding, planning procedures to ensure adequate and inclusive local efforts, and ensuring that essential services are functioning so that communities can begin to rebuild. And after each disaster, levees are built stronger, sheltering facilities are made more livable, and access to emergency funds are made more efficient -- because there will always be a next time. I saw the same sentiment play out when I served on the leadership of the National Incident Command, the ad hoc entity established to deal with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It looked ugly, I know, but over two years later, at the fear of sounding like a BP ad campaign, the Gulf thrives. That's because the operational response was perfectly cognizant of one simple fact that seemed to catch both the media and the public off-guard: Oil would hit shore. Everyone working the spill knew that within weeks of the rig going down and the blowout preventer failing, there were going to be oiled pelicans. So, even as they tried almighty to keep the oil offshore, planners spent as much time preparing for when it inevitably did. If a port had to close due to oil, then the most important question was "How the heck do we reopen it?" If oil closed a fishing area, the planning focused on establishing standards so that the government would reopen it as quickly and safely as possible. Oil was going to hit shore -- stuff happens -- and the goal was to make sure as little of it came onto land as possible, but once it did to make sure its impact was felt for as little time as possible. All these efforts are moving us from resistance and revenge to resilience. And it is sort of amazing to see. I experienced this firsthand at the one-year anniversary of the Joplin, Missouri, tornado. How does a community that lost so many and suffered so much actually bounce back, which it surely had within a year? There, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had established a long-term recovery framework for the kind of planning that a very grassroots effort, and a devastated community, needed in areas such as housing, education, and mental services. The federal government didn't fill in the details; it merely had the resources and even objectivity to help launch a very local effort to find the answers. If resiliency is a state of mind, the government can do much to help those actually impacted to embrace it. The ideological debates within homeland security should be understood by the American public because acknowledgment is the first step toward acceptance. Prevention and resiliency are obviously complementary, but only one has been given voice. While the Bush administration embraced prevention as a unifying mantra, those still abusing it range in ideological and financial motivations. There is still a lot of money in the game, and it is simply much easier to galvanize support on Capitol Hill, win government contracts, and lure consulting fees with two quick words. How do you find a constituency in what is essentially a mood, a spirit of resiliency? In many respects, what is happening is that many of the disciplines that make up the homeland security enterprise have tired of the focus and funding going to law enforcement and police departments. Emergency managers, public health officials, and fire departments can make a pretty strong case that in a world of hurricanes, H1N1, and massive forest fires, and with a terrorist threat that has changed and waned so significantly, we ought to adapt as well. Sure, this doesn't explain the NYPD's attitude -- to this day, its motto hasn't changed. While they may have history to support them, it is jarring that every time they are criticized -- such as for extending an odd and quite likely ineffective "demographics" program to conduct surveillance of Muslim communities in New Jersey -- they retreat, literally word by word, to "never again" as a defense, rather than an explanation. But, they are more an aberration than the norm, purposefully conflating "never forget" with "never again." Just as the threat has changed, so has the homeland. There are 49 new governors since 9/11. (The only exception: Rick Perry from Texas.) My last role in government was to support the homeland security transition planning of 23 new governors who came in 2010, many of them without any government experience. They met at the Old Executive Office Building and with the president at Blair House. They were in a crisis, but it wasn't one made by al Qaeda. State budgets had created a new enemy. None had a "homeland security" platform to speak of. And, to be honest, that did not seem entirely objectionable. All these internal shifts and funding debates over priorities and planning are barely understood by the public. The ideological tensions will exist side by side, and perhaps it will take more years of relative calm interrupted by dramatic jolts (a virus, a spill, a hurricane, a loner with a bomb) for the public to realize that there has never been such a thing as peace in the homeland. But having traveled throughout most of the "homeland," I have some hope that resiliency is taking shape in more than theory. Maybe it is in the long lines for the H1N1 vaccine, lines that were not filled with angry parents but accepting citizens who understood that, given our interconnected world, germs will spread. Or the planning meetings in Joplin, with bean dip and potato chips, where citizens openly discuss what they want their community to look like. Or the design of major new bridges that are no longer built to withstand an earthquake, but to literally sway with the movement. Or in how we choose to remember today, if we choose to remember today, with less anger and quiet acceptance. And one day it will be acceptable, politically and publicly, to argue that while homeland security is about ensuring that fewer bad things happen, the real test is that when they inevitably do, they aren't as bad as they would have been absent the effort. Only our public and political response to another major terrorist attack will test whether there is room for both ideologies to thrive in a nation that was, any way you look at it, built to be vulnerable. Juliette Kayyem served as homeland security advisor to Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and, most recently, as assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs in the Obama administration. After over 11 years responding to a world where "stuff happens," she is now a columnist for the Boston Globe and teaches at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. You can follow her: @juliettekayyem. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 13 06:56:18 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 07:56:18 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - NDAA Indefinite Detention Permanent Injunction granted Message-ID: <8BD949D4-5691-43F8-8429-AC0C43FC9DCC@infowarrior.org> U.S. judge's rule protects reporters, activists in their Middle East work Basil Katz Reuters 5:27 p.m. CDT, September 12, 2012 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-security-lawsuitbre88b1le-20120912,0,4876185.story NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge made permanent on Wednesday her order blocking enforcement of a U.S. law's provision that authorizes military detention for people deemed to have "substantially supported" al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces." U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan had ruled in May in favor of non-profit groups and reporters whose work relates to conflicts in the Middle East and who said they feared being detained under a section of the law, signed by President Barack Obama in December. Wednesday's 112-page opinion turns the temporary injunction of May into a permanent injunction. The United States appealed on August 6. The permanent injunction prevents the U.S. government from enforcing a portion of Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act's "Homeland Battlefield" provisions. The opinion stems from a January lawsuit filed by former New York Times war correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges and others. The plaintiffs said they had no assurance that their writing and advocacy activities would not fall under the scope of the provision. Government attorneys argued that the executive branch is entitled to latitude when it comes to cases of national security and that the law is neither too broad nor overly vague. "This court does not disagree with the principle that the president has primacy in foreign affairs," the judge said, but that she was not convinced by government arguments. "The government has not stated that such conduct - which, by analogy, covers any writing, journalistic and associational activities that involve al Qaeda, the Taliban or whomever is deemed "associated forces" - does not fall within ?? 1021(b)(2)." A spokeswoman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office, which represents the government in this case, declined to comment on the ruling. The case is Hedges et al v. Obama et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-cv-331. (Reporting By Basil Katz, editing by Philip Barbara) --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 14 11:05:40 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:05:40 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - How Your Wireless Carrier Overcharges You Message-ID: <71EE8199-5FCF-4639-83CF-CD410B595577@infowarrior.org> How Your Wireless Carrier Overcharges You Bad coverage and streaming video can confuse carriers into making you pay for data you never receive. Tom Simonite Thursday, September 13, 2012 http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429181/how-your-wireless-carrier-overcharges-you/ When your wireless carrier charges you for the amount of data you used on your cell phone in a given month, how do you know the bill is accurate? It very well might not be, according to a new study. This question is more important to consumers than ever. Over the past year, the growth in the popularity of smartphones has led the largest U.S. mobile carriers to replace unlimited data plans with ones that place caps on data usage, and charge extra for exceeding those limits. Working with three colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, computer science PhD researcher Chunyi Peng probed the systems of two large U.S. cell-phone networks. She won't identify them but says that together they account for 50 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers. The researchers used a data-logging app on Android phones to check the data use that the carriers were recording. The carriers were found to usually count data correctly, but they tended to overcount?and hence potentially overcharge?when a person used applications that stream video or audio, and particularly when coverage was weak or unreliable. The researchers determined that even typical use of a phone could lead the data to be overcounted by 5 to 7 percent, Peng says. That could cost customers money. The two largest U.S. wireless networks, AT&T and Verizon, both charge a user $15 for straying into each new gigabyte of data over the data cap. The problem stems from the way networks count data use. They count data as it leaves the heart of a company's network and sets out on the journey to the mobile tower nearest a subscriber. That means data is counted whether a phone receives it or not. If a person on a bus is streaming video but enters a tunnel and loses her connection, for example, video that she never sees will already have been counted toward her plan. The problem affects video and audio streaming apps in particular because they use protocols that don't require the receiving device to acknowledge the receipt of every chunk of data, as Web browsers or many other apps do. That means a video app will keep sending data for some time, oblivious to the fact that a device can't receive it. Using a custom app made to demonstrate the flaw they had uncovered, the UCLA researchers racked up a charge for 450 megabytes of data they never received. "We wanted to explore how bad it could be, and stopped after that," says Peng. "There's apparently no limit." The researchers also found that data use can be hidden from the two cellular networks they tested. Cellular networks' data accounting ignores a type of data transfer known as a DNS request, used by Web browsers to translate Web addresses into the numerical address of the server hosting a website. A normal request for data can escape a network's data accounting when disguised as a DNS request, says Peng. An app developed to exploit that was able to use 200 megabytes of data without the carrier recording any of it, a tactic that mobile carriers would probably like to block. It should be relatively simple for mobile network operators to tweak how they measure the data transferred to their customers' devices, says Peng, by adding software to make the phones give some feedback to the central data loggers. She notes that carriers might argue that their current accounting is fair, since they incur the costs of transmitting data whether it successfully reaches a device or not. "From the perspective of a mobile user, I think it's not fair," she says, "because I didn't get to use it." The introduction of data caps has been controversial, with some customers and advocacy groups saying that mobile networks are trying to increase profits more than they are genuinely seeking to cut data use as smartphone users overwhelm their networks. A nonpartisan think tank, the New America Foundation, has raised concerns with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission about the lack of transparency in how carriers measure data usage and communicate it to customers. Benjamin Lennett, a technology policy director at the foundation, said that if the FCC is willing to allow usage-based prices, the agency should "ensure that consumers are being charged accurately." Peng presented her work at the MobiCom conference on mobile computing research last month in Istanbul, Turkey. The UCLA group is working with the carriers they investigated to explain their findings, and also developing an Android app to help smartphone users track their data use more accurately, to help them dispute erroneous charges. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 14 11:05:44 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:05:44 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - What you need to know about the new Copyright Alert System Message-ID: <2BA473D3-4AA7-4DD8-9AE6-A9C1B6D0CF09@infowarrior.org> What you need to know about the new Copyright Alert System http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/isps-preparing-to-embrace-copyright-alert-syste/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 14 12:42:24 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:42:24 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - House Approves Bill To Spy On Americans By Misrepresenting Or Lying About What's In The Bill Message-ID: <5FA2F237-6912-4B91-B178-A86370636A68@infowarrior.org> House Approves Bill To Spy On Americans By Misrepresenting Or Lying About What's In The Bill from the they're-just-lying dept http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120913/23182420380/house-approves-bill-to-spy-americans-misrepresenting-lying-about-whats-bill.shtml We recently talked about how the House voted to approve the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) by a pretty wide margin, and noted some of the more bizarre and inaccurate statements that Representatives made in support of the renewal. Julian Sanchez has put together a nice summary of some of the more outrageous claims. The key here is that many Reps. seemed to take the FISA Amendments Act at face value, that it would only be used to target foreigners in foreign lands -- in other words, those with no 4th Amendment protections. But, as Sanchez has pointed out repeatedly, former Deputy Attorney General, David Kris, more or less revealed the Act is interpreted to mean that as long as the information they get might be useful in targeting foreigners in foreign lands, it's fair game. That means -- contrary to the direct claims of many FAA supporters -- the law is used to spy on Americans. < - > So... if you're keeping track at home, the reasons the House approved this horrible bit of legislation with massive loopholes that allows the NSA to spy on us is because it can't be used to spy on us (even though it can), it bars the collection of domestic communication (except in nearly every case that it does not), it's barely been used on Americans (except that the NSA claims it's impossible to tell how many Americans it's been used on) and we need it to "connect the dots" on terrorism (even though it doesn't help connect the dots, but merely to provide even more dots, many of which will distract from the important dots). How do these people get elected? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 14 13:12:53 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:12:53 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - RIPE Begins to Allocate IPv4 Address Space From the Last /8 Message-ID: RIPE NCC Begins to Allocate IPv4 Address Space From the Last /8 14 Sep 2012 https://www.ripe.net/internet-coordination/news/ripe-ncc-begins-to-allocate-ipv4-address-space-from-the-last-8 On Friday 14 September, 2012, the RIPE NCC, the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, distributed the last blocks of IPv4 address space from the available pool. This means that we are now distributing IPv4 address space to Local Internet Registries (LIRs) from the last /8 according to section 5.6 of "IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region". This section states that an LIR may receive one /22 allocation (1,024 IPv4 addresses), even if they can justify a larger allocation. This /22 allocation will only be made to LIRs if they have already received an IPv6 allocation from an upstream LIR or the RIPE NCC. No new IPv4 Provider Independent (PI) space will be assigned. It is now imperative that all stakeholders deploy IPv6 on their networks to ensure the continuity of their online operations and the future growth of the Internet. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 14 14:22:13 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - TSA Checkpoint At Mitt Romney Political Event Message-ID: <79398E30-A31C-45D8-B450-BBF190317A89@infowarrior.org> (Why do I keep thinking of River Tam's jingle about "Two by two, hands of blue"?? ---rick) Photos: TSA Checkpoint At Mitt Romney Political Event Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Thursday, September 13, 2012 http://www.infowars.com/photos-tsa-checkpoint-at-mitt-romney-political-event/ Photos sent to us via email show TSA screeners rifling through personal possessions at a Mitt Romney political event, including one ludicrous image of a TSA officer checking inside a baseball cap, illustrating again how the federal agency has expanded not only outside of the airport but outside of transportation entirely. ?I was at a Romney event to specifically see if TSA would be there. Here are the pictures,? writes an Alex Jones Show listener. It?s unclear whether the attendees to the event were forced to undergo a pat down or take off their shoes, but hats were certainly liable for inspection. The female TSA officer is presumably checking to see if any miniature Al-Qaeda terrorists are lurking inside this suspicious looking red baseball cap. The TSA has been very busy in recent weeks, placing its agents at events and functions that have nothing whatsoever to do with transportation, emphasizing how the federal agency has stepped way beyond its mandate and become a literal occupying army of uniformed goons. The TSA inspected personal items and conducted pat downs at both the Republican National Convention in Tampa and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. Following the conclusion of the RNC, Ron Paul and his family were detained and interrogated by TSA agents as TSA officials ludicrously insinuated that Paul, his family and his campaign staff could be a threat to Mitt Romney, who ?might be nearby.? TSA workers were also present at a recent Paul Ryan political event in The Villages, Florida, where the screeners conducted invasive bag searches as well as pat downs. Last year, the TSA was responsible for over 9,000 checkpoints across the United States, a number set to increase thanks to the agency?s bloated budget and its expansion beyond anything vaguely related to transportation. Since its inception in the US after 9/11, the TSA has grown in size exponentially. The agency was slammed in a recent congressional report for wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on security theatre. The TSA also recently came under scrutiny for a bizarre new policy where screeners check travelers? drinks for explosives even though the drinks are purchased inside the airport after travelers have already passed through security. ********************* Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 14 14:52:36 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - BMG Demands $20 For Pirated Bruno Mars / Eminem Downloads Message-ID: <71C1C4AF-06E1-42B6-BE2B-CE72F83660CF@infowarrior.org> BMG Demands $20 For Pirated Bruno Mars / Eminem Downloads ? enigmax ? September 14, 2012 http://torrentfreak.com/bmg-demands-20-for-pirated-bruno-mars-eminem-downloads-120914/ With the so-called ?six strikes? scheme just around the corner in the United States, one could be forgiven for thinking that the major recording labels are satisfied with their anti-piracy progress. But one major management company appears to want to extract just that little bit more from alleged file-sharers. In emails being sent out to subscribers via their ISPs, account holders are being asked for settlements, not for many thousands of dollars, but just $20 cash. < - > ?By deliberately obscuring the distinction between the subscriber?s contract with the ISP and the subscriber?s liability under federal copyright law, BMG?s website attempts to trick innocent subscribers into settling copyright infringement cases when they in fact have no liability,? he concludes. < - > --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 14 19:10:38 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:10:38 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Key Disclosure Laws Can Be Used To Confiscate Bitcoin Assets Message-ID: <72F2DB88-A8ED-46FA-8AC1-5F94BFAD5598@infowarrior.org> (c/o dg) Key Disclosure Laws Can Be Used To Confiscate Bitcoin Assets http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/09/12/key-disclosure-laws-can-be-used-to-confiscate-bitcoin-assets/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Sep 17 18:15:07 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:15:07 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Gates, Mullen slam Congress, call on lawmakers to act like 'adults' Message-ID: <2DA35552-2BCF-45E5-84E4-8795918C8217@infowarrior.org> (c/o JH) Gates, Mullen slam Congress, call on lawmakers to act like 'adults' By Jeremy Herb - 09/17/12 04:48 PM ET http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/budget-appropriations/249917-gates-mullen-lash-out-at-congress-over-budget-impasse Two former top officials in the Pentagon slammed Washington on Monday for its inability to grapple with the budget and debt problems facing the country, calling on ?adults? to come back to Washington after the election in order to compromise. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen delivered a stinging indictment of Washington politics ? and in particular Congress ? during an event on national security and the debt Monday, hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Gates and Mullen echoed warnings from their successors in the Pentagon that the sequestration cuts to defense would be devastating and lead to a hollow force, as they pleaded for more compromise in a political atmosphere that has become hyper-partisan. ?The inability of so many political leaders today to step outside their ideological cocoons or offend their most partisan supporters has become the real threat to America?s future,? said Gates, who was speaking at the event via satellite. ?Too many politicians are concerned about winning elections and scoring ideological points than saving the country,? he said. ?My hope is following the presidential election, whatever adults remain in the two political parties will make the compromises necessary to put the country back in order.? Both Republicans and Democrats are opposed to the sequestration cuts, which would reduce the Pentagon budget as well as domestic spending by $55 billion in 2013 and nearly $500 billion in the next decade. But the two sides have been deadlocked since the supercommittee failed last year to find a solution to fix the problem, and there have not been any proposals that received bipartisan support. At the same time, both sides are using the cuts to attack one another in the election, including Mitt Romney and President Obama. The former Pentagon leaders did not exclude the administration from their criticisms, but their ire was primarily directed at Congress. Gates said that Congress had failed to rise above its ?parochial interests? and blamed gerrymandering, wave elections and the loss of deal-making committee chairmen as some of the biggest problems plaguing Washington. While American politics has always been ?a shrill and ugly business,? Gates said. ?we have now lost the ability to execute even the basic functions of government? due to polarizing trends. Gates lamented that nothing seemed to get done without a gun to lawmakers? heads, which was the purpose behind the across-the-board sequestration cuts in the first place. Mullen said that individual lawmakers want to get things done, but that collectively the ?leadership piece of this? in Congress has prevented things from being properly executed. He spoke of his inability for years to get Congress to agree to small health fee increases despite spiraling costs. Mullen also sounded a particularly pessimistic tone on the ability of Washington to avert the sequestration cuts. ?I?m not as hopeful as others that we won?t drive off this cliff,? Mullen said. ?I?m worried sick about it, quite frankly.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Sep 17 18:21:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:21:25 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Terrorism Delusion Message-ID: Terrorists suck "The Terrorism Delusion," a paper by John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart in this summer's issue of International Security, argues that terrorists basically suck at their jobs. They report that the best US intelligence puts the whole al Qaeda weapons of mass destruction R&D budget at US$4,000; that Americans who are "radicalized" and brought to terrorism training camps return disgusted and disillusioned and determined to put future recruits off (and then get arrested anyway); that Iraqis were so alienated from loony al Qaeda fighters that bin Laden proposed renaming the group; and that terrorists who are busted are basically dolts, fools, bumblers and delusional loonies. But, as Mueller and Stewart write, the counter-terror forced continue to present terrorism as a grave risk brought about by super-criminal masterminds who threaten the safety of all of us, every day. < - > http://boingboing.net/2012/09/17/terrorists-suck.html --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 18 07:06:22 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 08:06:22 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - All the TV News Since 2009, on One Web Site Message-ID: <7190AE11-95E6-43A2-8D8C-22544FC45741@infowarrior.org> All the TV News Since 2009, on One Web Site By BILL CARTER Published: September 17, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/business/media/internet-archive-amasses-all-tv-news-since-2009.html?_r=0 Inspired by a pillar of antiquity, the Library of Alexandria, Brewster Kahle has a grand vision for the Internet Archive, the giant aggregator and digitizer of data, which he founded and leads. ?We want to collect all the books, music and video that has ever been produced by humans,? Mr. Kahle said. As of Tuesday, the archive?s online collection will include every morsel of news produced in the last three years by 20 different channels, encompassing more than 1,000 news series that have generated more than 350,000 separate programs devoted to news. The latest ambitious effort by the archive, which has already digitized millions of books and tried to collect everything published on every Web page for the last 15 years (that adds up to more than 150 billion Web pages), is intended not only for researchers, Mr. Kahle said, but also for average citizens who make up some of the site?s estimated two million visitors each day. ?The focus is to help the American voter to better be able to examine candidates and issues,? Mr. Kahle said. ?If you want to know exactly what Mitt Romney said about health care in 2009, you?ll be able to find it.? Of course, if you want to discredit or satirize a politician based on a clip showing some reversal of a position, that will be made easier as well. Or, as Mr. Kahle put it, ?Let a thousand Jon Stewarts bloom.? Many conventional news outlets will be available, including CNN, Fox News, NBC News, PBS, and every purveyor of eyewitness news on local television stations. And Mr. Stewart?s program, ?The Daily Show? is one of those 1,000 series that is part of the new news archive. ?Absolutely,? Mr. Kahle said. ?We think of it as news.? The Internet Archive has been quietly recording the news material from all these outlets, which means, Mr. Kahle said, capturing not only every edition of ?60 Minutes? on CBS but also every minute of every day on CNN. All of this will be available, free, to those willing to dive into the archive starting Tuesday. Mr. Kahle said the method for the search for information would be the closed-captioned words that have accompanied the news programs. The user simply plugs in the words of the search, along with some kind of time frame, and matches of news clips will appear. Mr. Kahle predicted there would often be hundreds of matches, but he said the system had an interface that would make it easy to browse quickly through 30-second clips in search of the right one. If a researcher wants a copy of the entire program, a DVD will be sent on loan. The inspiration of the Library of Alexandria, the archive of the knowledge in ancient world in Egypt, was not frivolous. Mr. Kahle said that early effort to assemble the collected works of civilization was in his mind when he conceived the idea to use the almost infinite capacity of the Web to pursue the modern equivalent. ?You could turn all the books in the Library of Congress into a stack of disks that would fit in one shopping cart in Best Buy,? Mr. Kahle said. He estimates that the Internet Archive now contains about 9,000 terabytes of data; by contrast, the digital collection of the Library of Congress is a little more than 300 terabytes, according to an estimate earlier this year. Mr. Kahle calls himself a technologist and says he moved to the archive project after previously founding and selling off two data-mining companies, one to AOL, the other to Amazon. The television news project, like his other archive projects, is financed mainly through outside grants, though Mr. Kahle did put up some of his own money to start. He said grants from the National Archives, the Library of Congress and other government agencies and foundations made up the bulk of the financing for the project. He set the annual budget at $12 million, and said about 150 people were working on the project. The act of copying all this news material is protected under a federal copyright agreement signed in 1976. That was in reaction to a challenge to a news assembly project started by Vanderbilt University in 1968. The archive has no intention of replacing or competing with the Web outlets owned by the news organizations. Mr. Kahle said new material would not be added until 24 hours after it was first broadcast. ?We don?t expect this to replace CNN.com,? he said. As enormous as the news collection is, it is only the beginning, Mr. Kahle said. The plan is to ?go back? year by year, and slowly add news video going back to the start of television. That will require some new and perhaps more challenging methodology because the common use of closed-captioning only started around 2002. Mr. Kahle said some new technique, perhaps involving word recognition, would be necessary. ?We need some interface that is good enough and doesn?t interrupt commerce enough that they get upset with us.? But the goals for the news service remain as ambitious as all the other services the Internet Archive has embarked upon. ?Yes, we want eventually to be able to make coverage of, say, the 1956 political conventions available,? Mr. Kahle said. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: September 17, 2012 An earlier version of the headline with this article misstated the status of Internet Archive. It was founded in 1996 and is not a start-up. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 18 08:53:03 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 09:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Microsoft still thinks it's 2001 Message-ID: <4FACFED5-DD01-474C-9D3F-8661A130A328@infowarrior.org> Wow. Pricing model aside, Redmond thinks that Microsoft LookOut is worth $80? Rly? Srsly? ---rick Office 2013 pricing revealed posted by Thom Holwerda on Mon 17th Sep 2012 23:05 UTC Microsoft Office 2013 has received its pricetags. Home and Student - Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote - is $140, while Home and Business, which adds Outlook into the mix, is $220. Professional jumps to a whopping $400, but adds Access and Publisher. For $100 per year, you can get the subscription version, which can be installed on up to 5 PCs (both Windows and OS X PCs). In related news, Microsoft still thinks it's 2001. http://www.osnews.com/story/26382/Office_2013_pricing_revealed --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 18 12:36:50 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:36:50 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Obama wins right to indefinitely detain Americans under NDAA Message-ID: Obama wins right to indefinitely detain Americans under NDAA Published: 18 September, 2012, 19:55 Edited: 18 September, 2012, 20:48 http://rt.com/usa/news/obama-lohier-ndaa-stay-414/print/ A lone appeals judge bowed down to the Obama administration late Monday and reauthorized the White House?s ability to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or due process. Last week, a federal judge ruled that an temporary injunction on section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 must be made permanent, essentially barring the White House from ever enforcing a clause in the NDAA that can let them put any US citizen behind bars indefinitely over mere allegations of terrorist associations. On Monday, the US Justice Department asked for an emergency stay on that order, and hours later US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier agreed to intervene and place a hold on the injunction. The stay will remain in effect until at least September 28, when a three-judge appeals court panel is expected to begin addressing the issue. On December 31, 2011, US President Barack Obama signed the NDAA into law, even though he insisted on accompanying that authorization with a statement explaining his hesitance to essentially eliminate habeas corpus for the American people. ?The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it,? President Obama wrote. ?In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.? A lawsuit against the administration was filed shortly thereafter on behalf of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and others, and Judge Forrest agreed with them in district court last week after months of debate. With the stay issued on Monday night, however, that justice?s decision has been destroyed. With only Judge Lohier?s single ruling on Monday, the federal government has been once again granted the go ahead to imprison any person "who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners" until a poorly defined deadline described as merely ?the end of the hostilities.? The ruling comes despite Judge Forrest's earlier decision that the NDAA fails to ?pass constitutional muster? and that the legislation contained elements that had a "chilling impact on First Amendment rights? Because alleged terrorists are so broadly defined as to include anyone with simple associations with enemy forces, some members of the press have feared that simply speaking with adversaries of the state can land them behind bars. "First Amendment rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and cannot be legislated away," Judge Forrest wrote last week. "This Court rejects the Government's suggestion that American citizens can be placed in military detention indefinitely, for acts they could not predict might subject them to detention." Bruce Afran, a co-counsel representing the plaintiffs in the case Hedges v Obama, said Monday that he suspects the White House has been relentless in this case because they are already employing the NDAA to imprison Americans, or plan to shortly. ?A Department of Homeland Security bulletin was issued Friday claiming that the riots [in the Middle East] are likely to come to the US and saying that DHS is looking for the Islamic leaders of these likely riots,? Afran told Hedges for a blogpost published this week. ?It is my view that this is why the government wants to reopen the NDAA ? so it has a tool to round up would-be Islamic protesters before they can launch any protest, violent or otherwise. Right now there are no legal tools to arrest would-be protesters. The NDAA would give the government such power. Since the request to vacate the injunction only comes about on the day of the riots, and following the DHS bulletin, it seems to me that the two are connected. The government wants to reopen the NDAA injunction so that they can use it to block protests.? Within only hours of Afran?s statement being made public, demonstrators in New York City waged a day of protests in order to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Although it is not believed that the NDAA was used to justify any arrests, more than 180 political protesters were detained by the NYPD over the course of the day?s actions. One week earlier, the results of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union confirmed that the FBI has been monitoring Occupy protests in at least one instance, but the bureau would not give further details, citing that decision is "in the interest of national defense or foreign policy." Josh Gerstein, a reporter with Politico, reported on the stay late Monday and acknowledged that both Forrest and Lohier were appointed to the court by President Obama. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 18 12:39:04 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:39:04 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Free speech, religion clash over anti-Muslim film Message-ID: <9C4CCB4B-1FE4-42E6-9F29-81EC64C275A7@infowarrior.org> Free speech, religion clash over anti-Muslim film Tuesday - 9/18/2012, 5:15am ET By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press CERRITOS, Calif. (AP) - While the man behind an anti-Islam movie that ignited violence across the Middle East would likely face swift punishment in his native Egypt for making the film, in America the government is in the thorny position of protecting his free speech rights and looking out for his safety even while condemning his message. It's a paradox that makes little sense to those protesting and calling for blood. To them, the movie dialogue denigrating the Prophet Muhammad is all the evidence needed to pursue justice _ vigilante or otherwise _ against Nakoula Bassely Nakoula, an American citizen originally from Egypt. In America, there's nothing illegal about making a movie that disparages a religious figure. And that has the Obama administration walking a diplomatic tight rope less than two months before the election _ how to express outrage over the movie's treatment of Islam without compromising the most basic American freedom. "The thing that makes this particularly difficult for the United States is that ... we treat what most of us would refer to as hate speech as constitutionally protected speech and Americans don't appreciate, I think, how unusual this position seems in the rest of the world," said Lawrence Rosenthal, a professor at Chapman University's School of Law in Orange, Calif. The situation also raises vexing questions about how far the government can and should go to protect someone who exercises their First Amendment right. In the past, for example, police have stood guard to ensure Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan could march without being attacked for their views. But Nakoula's case invites scrutiny because the free speech he exercised with the film "Innocence of Muslims" has had such far-reaching and violent implications. If the government were to overtly protect Nakoula, it could be seen by some as tacit approval of the film, and further enflame protests. Leaving him to fend for himself could have deadly consequences. There are examples of violence against others who have written or spoken against Muhammad. So far, the government has acknowledged offering very limited assistance. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies escorted Nakoula to an interview with federal probation officials. They did so in the dead of night and allowed Nakoula to cover his face. And early Monday, deputies answered his family's request for help leaving the house where they'd been holed up for five days so they could reunite with the 55-year-old filmmaker. All remain in hiding. Department spokesman Steve Whitmore stressed the agency is not providing protective custody. He referred questions to federal authorities, who have declined to comment. Jody Armour, a professor at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, said it's "not unusual at all for the government to step in and give a citizen in distress or danger special protection, but it can't unlimited. They're going to have to strike a balance." A 14-minute trailer for the film posted on YouTube sparked violence in the Middle East, including an attack in Libya in which a U.S. ambassador was killed. Nakoula, a Coptic Christian and American citizen who served federal prison time for check fraud, told The Associated Press in a short interview last week that he was involved in management and logistics for the anti-Islamic film. Federal officials, however, told the AP they have concluded he was behind the movie. Furor over the film has been widespread. Bahrain protesters used Twitter to organize demonstrations that included burning American flags in the nation that hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Pakistan's conservative Islamist parties sent out text messages, mosque announcements and made phone calls to bring out protest crowds, including about 1,000 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday and hundreds who rushed the U.S. consulate in Karachi, sparking clashes with police in which one demonstrator was killed. "Yes, we understand the First Amendment and all of this stuff," wrote Khalid Amayreh, a prominent Islamist commentator and blogger in Hebron on the West Bank. "But you must also understand that the Prophet (for us) is a million times more sacred than the American Constitution." Were he in his native Egypt, Nakoula could be charged with "insulting religion," a crime punishable by up to three years in prison or could face the more serious charge of "upsetting national security," which carries a life sentence. < - > http://www.wtop.com/541/3042392/Free-speech-religion-clash-over-film From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 18 17:32:27 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:32:27 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - DHS Purchases 200 Million More Rounds of Ammunition Message-ID: DHS Purchases 200 Million More Rounds of Ammunition Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Tuesday, September 18, 2012 http://www.infowars.com/dhs-purchases-200-million-more-rounds-of-ammunition/ Following controversy over its purchase of around 1.2 billion bullets in the last six months alone, the Department of Homeland Security has put out a new solicitation for over 200 million more rounds of ammunition, some of which are designated to be used by snipers. A series of new solicitations posted on the FedBizOpps website show that the DHS is looking to purchase 200 million rounds of .223 rifle ammunition over the next four years, as well as 176,000 rounds of .308 caliber 168 grain hollow point boat tail (HPBT) rounds in addition to 25,000 rounds of blank .308 caliber bullets. As James Smith over at the Prepper Podcast website highlights, ?It is the type of ammunition and not necessarily the quantity that is troubling.? Smith points out that the DHS? acquisition of .308 rounds is of concern because they are set to be used by well-trained snipers. ?All of the sniper grade ammunition is being used by trained, or in-the-process-of-being-trained snipers,? writes Smith, noting that the math adds up to 135,384 potential kills for the snipers to make, using the 176,000 rounds of ammunition, basing the figures on the fact that United States Army and Marine Corps snipers in the Vietnam War expended 1.3 rounds of ammunition for each claimed and verified kill. As this police training website documents, .308 caliber 168 grain bullets are the ammunition of choice for experienced law enforcement snipers. The number of bullets purchased by the DHS now adds up to a staggering 1.4 billion over the last six months alone. Although all those bullets won?t be delivered at once, the DHS? commitment to purchasing such an arsenal of ammo is both worrying and ironic given that Americans are being harassed and treated with suspicion for buying a couple of boxes of ammo at their local gun store. Following a barrage of questions about why the federal agency has purchased so many bullets, the DHS has refused to respond and even gone to the lengths of censoring information relating to solicitations for ammunition. The DHS? decision back in March to purchase of 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage prompted questions as to why the federal agency required such powerful bullets and in such large quantities merely for training purposes. This was followed up by a more recent order for a further 750 million rounds of assorted ammunition, including bullets that can penetrate walls. The mainstream media responded to the controversy by focusing on a purchase of 174,000 bullets by the Social Security Administration while completely ignoring the fact that the DHS had purchased well over a billion rounds. Although the Associated Press and other media outlets dismissed concerns over the federal government purchasing large quantities of ammunition as paranoia, the fact that the DHS is preparing for civil unrest cannot be denied. Having recently acquired riot gear, the DHS also purchased a number of bullet-proof checkpoint booths that include ?stop and go? lights. Last year, Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano directed ICE to prepare for a mass influx of immigrants into the United States, calling for the plan to deal with the ?shelter? and ?processing? of large numbers of people. The U.S. Army has also been preparing for domestic disorder. A recently leaked US Army Military Police training manual for ?Civil Disturbance Operations? outlines how military assets are to be used domestically to quell riots, confiscate firearms and even kill Americans on U.S. soil during mass civil unrest. On page 20 of the manual, rules regarding the use of ?deadly force? in confronting ?dissidents? are made disturbingly clear with the directive that a, ?Warning shot will not be fired.? The manual includes lists of weapons to be used against ?rioters? or ?demonstrators,? including ?antiriot grenades.? It also advises troops to carry their guns in the ?safe port arms? stance, a psychological tactic aimed at ?making a show of force before rioters.? Non-lethal weapons and water cannons are also included. ********************* Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 18 17:35:52 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:35:52 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Historic USS Long Beach to be scrapped Message-ID: <167354A7-AB9F-4A03-A08D-EADDB2F1EE76@infowarrior.org> Historic nuclear cruiser headed to scrap heap By Marjorie Censer http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/navy-auctions-uss-long-beach-historic-nuclear-cruiser-off-for-scrap/2012/09/18/7dd244b8-dccf-11e1-9974-5c975ae4810f_print.html The USS Long Beach, the first nuclear-powered surface warship, went around the world in a 1964 tour designed to showcase the possibilities of nuclear propulsion. The sleek, one-of-a-kind cruiser made stops in Pakistan, New Zealand and Brazil over two months and didn?t need a single refueling. Now, the ship, which is docked in Bremerton, Wash., is saying its final goodbyes. But there won?t be a ceremonial sinking; instead, the Navy is sending the ship off for scrap. This summer, the cruiser was sold online by Government Liquidation, a Web site that allows buyers to bid for the Pentagon?s surplus and scrap assets. The winning bidder, Tacoma Metals, will now haul away millions of pounds of steel, aluminum and other raw materials. For some of the Long Beach?s former crew, it will be a sad farewell to the historic ship, which was built as the Navy was experimenting with nuclear propulsion. ?It was one of a kind,? said Wayne Berry, 71, a reactor operator who spent about a year and a half on the ship in the late 1960s. ?They?ve never built another one like it.? The Navy has an inactive ships program to manage vessels that have reached the end of their lives. The options include using the ships as targets for gunnery practice, selling them to allied navies, cutting them up into scrap or even turning them into reefs. However, nearly all nuclear-powered ships and submarines are turned into scrap, according to a Navy spokesman. In the Long Beach?s case, the superstructures and reactors were removed, along with any other radioactive elements. By the time it landed on Government Liquidation?s Web site, it was simply another hulk of steel, aluminum and copper. Although Tacoma Metals declined to say how much it paid for the Long Beach, an industry group, American Metal Market, estimated the value at between $885,000 and $895,000. About 25 percent of the auction price will go to Government Liquidation. The men who sailed in the Long Beach remember it as a lot more than a pile of scrap. Lowell H. Frauenholz was a ?plank owner? in 1961, meaning he was on board when the ship was put in commission. ?Something happens when you put a ship in commission,? he said, comparing it to building a first home. ?Turning it from a development into a beautiful operating machine just sticks with you.? During his time on the ship, Frauenholz said he kept a diary, which he still has. He recalled ?killer? games of poker and one instance in which another crew member smeared a common sitting area with grease to keep sailors off it. Frauenholz and a friend found the crew member?s jacket and used it to protect themselves from the grease, angering the thwarted crew member. The sprawling 721-foot ship, the last built on a traditional cruiser hull, was one of the last warships to be fitted with teak decks and was the first American cruiser to be constructed entirely new after World War II. It still saw plenty of combat. In 1968, while stationed at the Gulf of Tonkin, the Long Beach shot down a North Vietnamese aircraft from more than 70 miles away, marking the first time a surface-to-air missile had taken down an enemy aircraft, according to the Navy?s records. Four years later, the ship shot down nine North Vietnamese jet fighters and helped rescue 17 U.S. pilots or air crew members. In 1989, the cruiser went around the world again, stopping in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Brazil and Barbados, among other places. And in 1990, the Long Beach handled counternarcotics operations off Central America and Colombia and won a Coast Guard commendation for its work recovering cocaine. In its last operation, in 1993, the warship was stationed in the Caribbean for more anti-drug work. Frauenholz, now 75 and one of the dedicated Long Beach alumni who convene for reunions, said his time on the ship made a lasting mark. In 1994, he rode along on one of the Long Beach?s last trips, as it was about to be taken out of commission. He escaped with a belaying pin ? used to hold the cords of signal flags ? as a souvenir. Today, Frauenholz has a room in his Idaho home dedicated to the Long Beach. Above his desk is a picture of the ship, and on the desk sits a model of the cruiser that he built. ?We?re all old men now, of course,? Frauenholz said. ?When you get old, you get nostalgic, and you look back. .?.?. There were more good days than bad by far.? ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 18 19:00:17 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 20:00:17 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist Groups" including KEI, ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate, DailyKos Message-ID: Jamie says this was a contractor-implemented filter and was fixed late this afternoon. However, it's an interesting list of sites blocked. Moreso, it shows the need for better supervision of your lowest-bidder IT outsourcing contractors, especially when your agency's public reputation may be at-stake. . ---rick USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist Groups" including KEI, ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate, DailyKos http://keionline.org/node/1548 From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 18 19:53:49 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 20:53:49 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Dice swallows Slashdot, SourceForge, Freecode in $20m deal Message-ID: Dice swallows Slashdot, SourceForge, Freecode in $20m deal By Neil McAllister in San Francisco ? Get more from this author Posted in Business, 19th September 2012 00:37 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/19/dice_acquires_geeknet/ Dice Holdings, which runs a number of job-listing sites including Dice.com, has acquired open source code-hosting repository SourceForge, software-index site Freecode, and tech-news discussion site Slashdot from parent company Geeknet, in a deal valued at $20m. "The acquisition of these premier technology sites fits squarely into our strategy of providing content and services that are important to tech professionals in their everyday work lives," Dice Holdings president and CEO Scot Melland said in a statement. The deal caused some head-scratching from observers ? why would a recruiting site want to acquire media and code-hosting businesses? ? but according to Melland, adding the three Geeknet sites to Dice's portfolio will allow its employer-customers to reach more tech professionals on a regular basis. In addition to job listings, Dice already publishes its own news site that emphasizes tech topics. By acquiring the three former Geeknet properties, Dice not only gains new sources of tech content, but also adds three communities of engaged tech professionals, many of them programmers and IT admins. Of the three sites, GitHub-like code portal SourceForge is the biggest, drawing 40 million unique visitors each month. That could mean a significant traffic boost for Dice if it plays its cards right. Currently, Dice.com itself only gets about 2.3 million unique visitors per month. According to Melland, around 80 per cent of SourceForge users are based outside the US, which suggests Dice may be hoping to strengthen its presence in overseas markets. The quirky and cantankerous tech discussion community Slashdot brings in around 3.7 million unique users per month, who contribute some 5,300 comments to discussion threads per day. Slashdot discussions are typically started with a link to a story on another website, giving rise to the notorious, site-killing "Slashdot effect" as thousands of readers all click on the link at once. Freecode, by comparison, is a relatively minor site, netting a mere 500,000 unique visitors per month. A kind of "Yahoo! for code", it collects links to software packages grouped by category, most of them open source. Under Geeknet, the three sites have enjoyed modest success, with all three generating around $20m in combined revenues for 2011, Dice's statement said. The sale leaves Geeknet with just one property remaining: ThinkGeek, an online shop that sells tech culture?related gadgets and gifts. Geeknet chair Ken Langone said the ThinkGeek division would now get the company's full attention. Predictably, news of the deal has sparked a lively discussion on Slashdot itself, with many longtime members worrying that Dice would water down the community's hardcore geek content, or bombard it with ads. A Slashdot staffer with the handle "Soulskill" did his best to assuage any concerns, but even he had little information: Put simply: I haven't heard anything about changing Slashdot. I would guess (and this is only a guess) some links that already exist in the header and footer will change, and that some of our regular ads will be swapped out for Dice ads. (Which would have no effect on you if you ignore the ads anyway.) As far as I can tell, Dice is mainly just interested in owning a tech news community. Other commenters remarked that Slashdot has already strayed far from its roots as founder Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda's personal blog. Where once the site consisted solely of freewheeling, user-generated posts, under Geeknet it began adding "channels" of sponsored content with a much more canned feel. Malda himself has issued no comment on the sale, other than to note it on his Google+ page, but he likely has no stake in it. He quit Slashdot in 2011 to pursue other interests. ? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 20 07:58:53 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 08:58:53 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Wolfram|Alpha Personal Analytics for Facebook Message-ID: <1F56249B-633B-4C6D-90E7-99F9BE6A6C79@infowarrior.org> (Not a commercial, but perhaps something of itnerest to any FB users out there. Of course, this has nothing on the files Big Sis and/or othersl have on you, right? ;) --rick) Wolfram|Alpha - Personal Analytics for Facebook Gain insight on yourself and your social network Connect with Facebook, sign in for FREE, and get unique, personalized information and analysis on your social data?computed by Wolfram|Alpha. http://www.wolframalpha.com/facebook/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 20 08:15:37 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 09:15:37 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Book Publishers Latest War On Technology: How Dare You Share Your Kindle Highlights! Message-ID: <2D3C4BA7-E1A6-4427-B248-C3515A9442C2@infowarrior.org> Book Publishers Latest War On Technology: How Dare You Share Your Kindle Highlights! from the luddites-r-us dept http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120918/18165120420/book-publishers-latest-war-technology-how-dare-you-share-your-kindle-highlights.shtml It's really quite amazing how some folks who came up through the old publishing world seem to have a near allergic reaction to new technologies that are somehow "different." You may recall the previous freakouts over text to speech, library lending of ebooks and efforts to scan physical books into ebooks. The latest horror? Highlighting. Yes, be afraid, you modern techno-wizzes. The publishing gods are afraid of your ultra-hip and modern "highlights" via the Kindle, because (*gasp*) they might be... (ominous music)... shared! Yes... I said it: shared. A startup called Findings had been offering a neat little feature via the Kindle, that would allow people to sync and share the text that they highlight on the Kindle. You could see all sorts of ways that this could be interesting, informative and useful. But, all that the traditional book people saw was "ohmygosh! that could be used for piracy!" At least that appears to be what happened, leading Amazon to tell Findings that it was cutting off the service, and making it clear that this was due to publisher complaints. As that article notes, publishers can (and do!) already limit how much you highlight -- can't have you highlight too much, now -- so it's not like the concern was that you'd just highlight the whole thing and release that on the world. It just seems like a knee jerk reaction to a useful feature that is somehow too different. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 20 08:17:28 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 09:17:28 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Anyone Who Says Copyright Cannot Be Used For Censorship Has No Credibility Message-ID: <326C3282-A792-4E33-AF87-399E9E08BD6F@infowarrior.org> Anyone Who Says Copyright Cannot Be Used For Censorship Has No Credibility http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/00222620398/anyone-who-says-copyright-cannot-be-used-censorship-has-no-credibility.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 20 11:41:27 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:41:27 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Sophos AV flagging itself Message-ID: Some Sophos customers have reported detections today of Shh/Updater-B. Many of these reports involve detections of Sophos's own code, but there are a number of third-party applications which are also being identified. Sophos would like to reassure users that these are false positives and are not a malware outbreak, and apologises for any inconvenience. < - > http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/09/19/sshupdater-b-fsophos-anti-virus-products/ Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 20 11:42:17 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:42:17 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Tech Giants Form Internet-Freedom Lobby to Counter MPAA, RIAA Clout Message-ID: Tech Giants Form Internet-Freedom Lobby to Counter MPAA, RIAA Clout ? By David Kravets ? Email Author ? 09.19.12 4:04 PM http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/internet-freedom-lobby/ Another lobbying group hit Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. But think again before you start screaming that it?s just another lobby representing the 1%. The Internet Association, backed by behemoths Amazon, Google, Facebook and others ? 14 groups in all ? is focused on internet freedom ? something that?s easy in principle and hard when it comes to details. As a yardstick of what this group?s philosophy is, its president said that had the group been around earlier this year, it would have lobbied against the Stop Online Piracy Act. Among other things, the measure would have required ISPs to prevent Americans from visiting piracy blacklisted sites by altering the system known as DNS that turns site names like Google.com into IP addresses such as 174.35.23.56. Instead, for the blacklisted sites, ISPs would have to lie to their customers and tell their browsers that the site doesn?t exist. The SOPA legislation ? which was heavily backed by the Recording Industry Association of America and Hollywood?s lobbying arm, the Motion Picture Association of America ? was among the main reasons for the association?s founding. House hearings on the debate, meanwhile, pitted the MPAA against Google. Lawmakers appeared more concerned about Google linking to pirated material than they were about the ramifications of granting the government the power to remove that content. Giving the Justice Department the power to order internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T to block their users from visiting blacklisted sites would be unprecedented in the United States, though it?s a common tactic used in countries like Syria, Iran and China to clamp down on political dissent and adult content. The non-profit lobbying group, unveiled Wednesday, is ?absolutely? against SOPA, Michael Beckerman, the coalition?s president, said in a telephone interview. ?We?ll make sure Congress understands how [the bill] will censor the internet and greatly harm the infrastructure of the internet,? he said. He added: ?Our mission is to be the unified voice of the internet economy in the policy debates that arise.? Beckerman has 12 years experience on Capitol Hill, most recently as deputy staff director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee working for Republican Fred Upton, a vocal opponent of net neutrality. That issue is likely to rear its head again in D.C. when a federal court hears a challenge to the FCC?s new rules in the spring. He said the group also supports reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) is proposing sweeping digital privacy protections requiring the government, for the first time, to get a probable-cause warrant to obtain e-mail and other content stored in the cloud. That measure, which is an amendment to separate legislation, is to be heard Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee. ?That?s obviously important and an issue we care about,? he said. Another group of dozens of tech companies, called Digital Due Process, was formed for the express purpose of reforming ECPA, but so far has come up empty handed. The Internet Association is funded by some of the nation?s wealthiest internet companies. (Giants Apple, Microsoft and Oracle, an association spokeswoman said, are not a part of the group because it is composed largely of internet-focused companies.) The association?s members include: Amazon, AOL, eBay, Expedia, Facebook, Google, IAC, LinkedIn, Monster Worldwide, Rackspace, Salesforce.com, TripAdvisor, Yahoo and Zynga. Even rival lobbying groups welcomed the association. ?These companies have a crucial role to play in educating policymakers about how what happens in Washington affects online innovation and the ability of internet-based services to empower citizens and communities across the country,? Leslie Harris, the Center for Democracy and Technology president, said in a statement. Beckerman isn?t spilling details on budgets. ?We?ll have the resources at our disposal,? he said, ?to be effective and get the message out.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 20 12:08:47 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:08:47 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - MPAA & RIAA: If People Can Sell Foreign Purchased Content Without Paying Us Again, US Economy May Collapse Message-ID: <23A56BD5-5247-4F7C-BFB7-A60799DE58F7@infowarrior.org> MPAA & RIAA: If People Can Sell Foreign Purchased Content Without Paying Us Again, US Economy May Collapse http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120920/01565420443/mpaa-riaa-if-people-can-sell-foreign-purchased-content-without-paying-us-again-us-economy-may-collapse.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 20 13:14:48 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:14:48 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Declassification Declassified: PRC and the W88 Warhead Message-ID: <7543C56B-BAED-4595-964A-3D2BBF166A47@infowarrior.org> (You can NOT make this stuff up! --rick) Declassification Declassified: PRC and the W88 Warhead http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/?p=7713 In 2006, the Department of Energy formally declassified the already widely publicized fact ?That the People?s Republic of China obtained some Restricted Data information on the W88 [nuclear] warhead, and perhaps the complete W88 design.? Then, in a remarkable display of bureaucratic acrobatics, DOE classified the memo that authorized the declassification of that information. The declassification memo was found to merit classification at the Secret/Restricted Data level. Five years later, in 2011, the two-sentence memo was reviewed for declassification and DOE has now released it. As often seems to be the case, declassification here lags behind disclosure rather than leading it. For a convenient summary of issues surrounding China and the W88, see China: Suspected Acquisition of U.S. Nuclear Weapon Secrets, Congressional Research Service, updated February 1, 2006. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 20 13:59:50 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:59:50 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - New Apple maps app under fire from users Message-ID: <7DD82AA2-FBA1-4A73-9CEC-DBDB94E6F058@infowarrior.org> 20 September 2012 Last updated at 12:20 New Apple maps app under fire from users http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19659736?print=true In June Apple announced it would stop using Google Maps in favour of its own system, created using data from navigation firm TomTom and others. Apple is yet to comment on the complaints about the software, which comes already installed on the new iPhone. TomTom said it provided only data and was not responsible for how it worked. The software is packaged with iOS6, the latest version of Apple's operating system, which runs on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Previously, the system had an app running mapping software from Google. But users are now forced to use Apple's new maps once they upgrade or buy the latest iPhone - which goes on sale on Friday. There is not currently a Google Maps app available in Apple's App Store, although Google's system is still accessible via the phone's web browser. Museum in river Among the user complaints regarding Apple's maps sent to the BBC were: ? Some towns appear to be missing, such as Stratford-upon-Avon and Solihull. ? Others, like Uckfield in East Sussex, are in the wrong location. ? Satellite images of various locations, particularly in Scotland, are obscured by cloud. ? A search for Manchester United Football Club directs users to Sale United Football Club, a community team for ages five and above. ? Users also reported missing local places, such as schools, or strange locations. Another screenshot showed a furniture museum that was apparently located in a river. The Twitter account which posted the screenshot, @fake_iOS6maps, has since been suspended. TomTom, which also licenses data to a range of other mobile manufacturers, defended its involvement. A spokesman told the BBC that its maps provided only a "foundation" to the service. "The user experience is determined by adding additional features to the map application such as visual imagery," a spokesman said. "User experience fully depends on the choices these manufacturers make. "We are confident about our map quality, as selling 65 million portable navigation devices across the world and more than 1.4m TomTom apps for iPhone in the past two years reaffirms this quality." Prior to the release of iOS6, several developers had expressed concerns over the capability of the mapping app, in particular its ability to find businesses via search. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 20 14:02:10 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:02:10 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Iran preparing internal version of Internet Message-ID: <986C2626-768D-4264-B590-6691C7F9A12D@infowarrior.org> Iran preparing internal version of Internet By James Ball and Benjamin Gottlieb http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iran-preparing-internal-version-of-internet/2012/09/19/79458194-01c3-11e2-b260-32f4a8db9b7e_print.html The Iranian government, determined to limit Western influence and defend itself against cyberattacks, appears to have laid the technical foundations for a national online network that would be detached from the Internet and permit tighter control over the flow of information. The concept of a self-contained network has been reverberating within Iran for almost a decade and has often been treated with skepticism, given the significant investment in infrastructure and security that would be required. But Iranian officials and outside experts say that development of the network has accelerated following cyberattacks aimed at the country?s nuclear program. Last month, Iran?s communications and information technology minister unveiled a plan to take key government agencies and military outfits offline and onto the new network by the end of September. U.S. security researchers say they are for the first time seeing evidence of an operational network that is consistent with Iran?s publicly stated plans. The researchers, working under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania?s Center for Global Communications Studies, say in a report to be released this week that they have found functional versions of the sites of government ministries, universities and businesses on the network. They also found evidence of an already operational filtering capability. At the core of the network was high-end equipment manufactured by the Chinese firm Huawei that is capable of sophisticated online surveillance of traffic. The network is already ?internally consistent and widely reachable,? concluded the report, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post. The findings are likely to worry Internet freedom activists and the Obama administration, which has spent tens of millions of dollars on initiatives designed to ease access to the Internet in Iran and other countries with repressive governments. Officials had expressed concerns even before the release of the latest research. ?We have concerns from not only a human rights perspective, but about the integrity of the Internet,? David Baer, deputy assistant secretary for the State Department?s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said in an interview. ?When countries section off parts of the Web, not only do their citizens suffer, everyone does.? Experts say the Iranian government has a handful of reasons to establish a state-run alternative to the Internet. A protected Iran-only network could help officials counter U.S.-funded programs that allow Iranian activists to evade online surveillance. It could also help insulate Iranian computers from a covert campaign of cyberattacks that Iranian officials assert the United States and Israel continue to wage. The Iranian network is not expected to entirely replace the Internet. But for ordinary Iranians it could be a well-run alternative to the Internet, which in Iran is often still accessed through dial-up connections. Internet speeds in the country are intentionally suppressed to make certain Web activities, including the streaming of video, virtually impossible. Many Web sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, are blocked by the Iranian government. Having the infrastructure for a skeleton Iran-only internet in place would give the Iranian government greater power to shut off access to the Internet at times of civil unrest, such as the anti-government protests that swept Iran in 2009. During the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak?s regime tried to stall its spread by shutting off access to the Internet ? a move that largely backfired when it caused panic. Having a national network operational could help prevent a similar outcome in Iran. ?The main reason for this project is security,? said Moussavi Khoeini, a former Iranian reformer and parliament member now living in exile. ?They may say it?s to increase Internet speeds or protect against harmful content, but it?s always been security.? Not all experts are convinced that an Iranian network would be viable, especially given the need for access to the Internet for commercial purposes and international communication. ?Any attempt by a country to make an intranet is doomed to failure,? Cedric Leighton, a retired deputy director at the National Security Agency, said in an interview. But Leighton, who spent more than 25 years as an intelligence officer specializing in cybersecurity, said that Iran?s ?cyber army,? a network of government-supported hackers that has attacked Western targets in recent years, does stand to gain from the attempted creation of a national network. By ?laying down the fiber? and connecting thousands of servers inside Iran, the government would ?build on their knowledge of networks and how they operate,? he said, increasing their capabilities to both launch and repel cyberattacks. ?But no matter what you do, there will always be vulnerabilities in a network,? Leighton said. Both the Obama administration and Internet freedom experts have expressed concern that the launch of the Iranian network could set a precedent for repressive governments across the globe. Reza Taghipour, Iran?s communications and information technology minister, has lauded Iran as a ?pioneer? of the idea, hinting that other nations could follow his country?s lead. ?We don?t want governments to believe that it is now legitimate to take a country offline,? explained Brett Solomon, executive director of AccessNow.org, a global digital freedom initiative. ?If we look back to the Egyptian revolution, where the regime shut down the free flow of information, you can see how this act could give rise to the creation of a new international norm.? The researchers who uncovered the foundations of the new Iranian network said they found that it already hosted a number of Web sites ? typically government or academic sites ? meaning that the beginning of an Iranian internet is already in operation. E-mail and other providers are in place, and a scan of the network?s infrastructure by the researchers uncovered more than 10,000 devices connected to the system. Collin Anderson, a D.C.-based security researcher and the report?s lead author, said the study should prompt further work on the scope of the Iranian network, its filtering ability, its growth, and how many Web sites were available only there. ?Internet freedom is a cat-and-mouse game ? bad actors will always think of new ways to thwart the aspirations of the public,? Anderson said. ?People and organizations have to remain vigilant to the ever-changing environment in order to support those who want to fight back against isolation.? ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 21 06:58:21 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 07:58:21 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The WELL buys itself Message-ID: <95800EDE-E66A-46DA-A925-9D77564FC9D4@infowarrior.org> The WELL Is Under New Management! Salon Media Group and The Well Group, Inc. today jointly announced that the WELL now will be under the ownership of The Well Group, Inc., a private investment group composed of long-time WELL members. The purchase marks the first major online business taken private by users of the business itself. http://www.well.com/media.html --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 21 18:44:02 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 19:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Facebook: snitchgate! Message-ID: <8196307E-1F7F-4EFD-8390-0DE80EDF4CF4@infowarrior.org> Facebook: snitchgate! Posted: September 21, 2012 in Facebook, Nymwars, Privacy A story about Facebook went around twitter last night that provoked quite a reaction in privacy advocates like me: Facebook, it seems, is experimenting with getting people to ?snitch? on any of their friends who don?t use their real names. Take a look at this: < - > http://paulbernal.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/facebook-snitchgate/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Sep 22 23:00:19 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 00:00:19 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - US law enforcement to use Russian software to store millions of voices Message-ID: <7A886BA8-EF7F-468E-A20D-F64FD64EE4A9@infowarrior.org> Speak Up: US law enforcement to use Russian software to store millions of voices http://rt.com/usa/news/law-enforcement-voice-recognition-759/ Published: 23 September, 2012, 01:39 (Reuters / Robert Galbraith) TAGS: SciTech, USA, Katerina Azarova, Police, Security, FBI, DHS The US government has already proven its intent to see all evil, with the use of Orwellian programs like TrapWire. But it can now hear all evil too, as law enforcement agencies implement a tool able to store, analyze and identify voices in seconds. ?Voice Grid Nation? is a system that uses advanced algorithms to match identities to voices. Brought to the US by Russia?s Speech Technology Center, it claims to be capable of allowing police, federal agencies and other law enforcement personnel to build up a huge database containing up to several million voices. When authorities intercept a call they?ve deemed ?hinky?, the recording is entered into the VoiceGrid program, which (probably) buzzes and whirrs and spits out a match. In five seconds, the program can scan through 10,000 voices, and it only needs 3 seconds for speech analysis. All that, combined with 100 simultaneous searches and the storage capacity of 2 million samples, gives SpeechPro, as the company is known in the US, the right to claim a 90% success rate. According to Slate.com?s Ryan Gallagher, who spoke with SpeechPro president Aleksey Khitrov, the software is already being used in many different countries and for ?noble causes? only ? like in Mexico, where Voice Grid helped identify and apprehend kidnappers during a ransom call, thus saving their victim?s life. Both the FBI and the NSA have expressed interest in the program, which is also expected to be used at 911 call centers and police precincts. And sample lists would, of course, contain ?persons of interest? ? known criminals, terror suspects or people on a watch list. Or would it? The definition of ?suspect? has been known to be loosely interpreted by US law enforcement agencies in the past. What with the FBI branding people as ?terrorist suspects? for buying waterproof matches or flashlights, and the Department of Homeland Security urging hotel staff to notify authorities immediately if a person has tried to use cash and/or hung a ?do not disturb? sign on their door, it?s easy to see why many are spooked by the idea that not only can the government see you at all times, it can also hear you. In fact, combined with the capabilities of TrapWire, this would give law enforcement agencies an unprecedented ability to effectively dismiss both the country?s founding documents and any notion of privacy you may have had. An unsuspicious, law-abiding citizen would obviously have to read his private messages or broadcast his phone calls out loud to be considered above-board. If he's whispering into his handset, however, the DHS is relying on its ?citizen spies? to pounce and denounce the poor guy. So, law enforcement agencies now have TrapWire to ?all the better to see you with? and Voice Grid ?all the better to hear you with?. That plus the Patriot Act is effectively turning America into the land of the-no-longer-free-and the very agencies that set out to protect their people and their land into the big bad wolf. The Patriot Act is probably one of the most controversial pieces of legislature in American history, an acronym that, for all the old and new security bureaus, Provides Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism. But the tools included in the bill weren?t ? and still aren?t ?considered appropriate by many. Wiretaps and electronic surveillance were legalized. Arrests were made on a daily basis. When the number of those detained reached 1,200, officials stopped counting. Personal records no longer remained personal ? and that was only the domestic beginning. Officially, 1,200 special interest detainees were held and investigated under the Patriot Act. The Justice Department examined more than 700 of them and none were ever linked to any terrorist group or plot. Nevertheless, upon his resignation in 2004, former Attorney General John Ashcroft?s letter stated that ?The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.? This should have meant the end of the Patriot Act, for it included a ?sunset? provision, to expire in December 2005. Seven years later, it?s still in place and regularly being enforced?not necessarily for a war against terror. Statistics show that the so-called sneak-and-peak, a search warrant that can be executed without prior warning, is mostly used for drug-related crimes. Between 2006 and 2009, 1,618 delayed-search warrants were issued for drugs, 122 for fraud ? and only 15 for terrorism. The National Defense Authorization Act allows the indefinite detention of anyone deemed a terror suspect ? American citizen or not. And if you look at what makes a potential suspect, you can pretty much expect to be taken in every time you answer your phone. So bottom line:you can be heard making a hotel reservation and then seen trying to pay cash, for example, or looking stressed at breakfast and then detained as a suspect under the NDAA whilst police comb through your files using a warning-less warrant. But the good thing is: you?ll be totally safe. Katerina Azarova, RT --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 23 13:37:42 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 14:37:42 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Free Speech in the Age of YouTube Message-ID: September 22, 2012 Free Speech in the Age of YouTube By SOMINI SENGUPTA http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/sunday-review/free-speech-in-the-age-of-youtube.html COMPANIES are usually accountable to no one but their shareholders. Internet companies are a different breed. Because they traffic in speech ? rather than, say, corn syrup or warplanes ? they make decisions every day about what kind of expression is allowed where. And occasionally they come under pressure to explain how they decide, on whose laws and values they rely, and how they distinguish between toxic speech that must be taken down and that which can remain. The storm over an incendiary anti-Islamic video posted on YouTube has stirred fresh debate on these issues. Google, which owns YouTube, restricted access to the video in Egypt and Libya, after the killing of a United States ambassador and three other Americans. Then, it pulled the plug on the video in five other countries, where the content violated local laws. Some countries blocked YouTube altogether, though that didn?t stop the bloodshed: in Pakistan, where elections are to be scheduled soon, riots on Friday left a death toll of 19. The company pointed to its internal edicts to explain why it rebuffed calls to take down the video altogether. It did not meet its definition of hate speech, YouTube said, and so it allowed the video to stay up on the Web. It didn?t say very much more. That explanation revealed not only the challenges that confront companies like Google but also how opaque they can be in explaining their verdicts on what can be said on their platforms. Google, Facebook and Twitter receive hundreds of thousands of complaints about content every week. ?We are just awakening to the need for some scrutiny or oversight or public attention to the decisions of the most powerful private speech controllers,? said Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor who briefly advised the Obama administration on consumer protection regulations online. Google was right, Mr. Wu believes, to selectively restrict access to the crude anti-Islam video in light of the extraordinary violence that broke out. But he said the public deserved to know more about how private firms made those decisions in the first place, every day, all over the world. After all, he added, they are setting case law, just as courts do in sovereign countries. Mr. Wu offered some unsolicited advice: Why not set up an oversight board of regional experts or serious YouTube users from around the world to make the especially tough decisions? Google has not responded to his proposal, which he outlined in a blog post for The New Republic. Certainly, the scale and nature of YouTube makes this a daunting task. Any analysis requires combing through over a billion videos and overlaying that against the laws and mores of different countries. It?s unclear whether expert panels would allow for unpopular minority opinion anyway. The company said in a statement on Friday that, like newspapers, it, too, made ?nuanced? judgments about content: ?It?s why user-generated content sites typically have clear community guidelines and remove videos or posts that break them.? Privately, companies have been wrestling with these issues for some time. The Global Network Initiative, a conclave of executives, academics and advocates, has issued voluntary guidelines on how to respond to government requests to filter content. And the Anti-Defamation League has convened executives, government officials and advocates to discuss how to define hate speech and what to do about it. Hate speech is a pliable notion, and there will be arguments about whether it covers speech that is likely to lead to violence (think Rwanda) or demeans a group (think Holocaust denial), just as there will be calls for absolute free expression. Behind closed doors, Internet companies routinely make tough decisions on content. Apple and Google earlier this year yanked a mobile application produced by Hezbollah. In 2010, YouTube removed links to speeches by an American-born cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, in which he advocated terrorist violence; at the time, the company said it proscribed posts that could incite ?violent acts.? ON rare occasions, Google has taken steps to educate users about offensive content. For instance, the top results that come up when you search for the word ?Jew? include a link to a virulently anti-Jewish site, followed by a promoted link from Google, boxed in pink. It links to a page that lays out Google?s rationale: the company says it does not censor search results, despite complaints. Susan Benesch, who studies hate speech that incites violence, said it would be wise to have many more explanations like this, not least to promote debate. ?They certainly don?t have to,? said Ms. Benesch, director of the Dangerous Speech Project at the World Policy Institute. ?But we can encourage them to because of the enormous power they have.? The companies point out that they obey the laws of every country in which they do business. And their employees and algorithms vet content that may violate their user guidelines, which are public. YouTube prohibits hate speech, which it defines as that which ?attacks or demeans a group? based on its race, religion and so on; Facebook?s hate speech ban likewise covers ?content that attacks people? on the basis of identity. Google and Facebook prohibit hate speech; Twitter does not explicitly ban it. And anyway, legal scholars say, it is exceedingly difficult to devise a universal definition of hate speech. Shibley Telhami, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, said he hoped the violence over the video would encourage a nuanced conversation about how to safeguard free expression with other values, like public safety. ?It?s really about at what point does speech becomes action; that?s a boundary that becomes difficult to draw, and it?s a slippery slope,? Mr. Telhami said. He cautioned that some countries, like Russia, which threatened to block YouTube altogether, would be thrilled to have any excuse to squelch speech. ?Does Russia really care about this film?? Mr. Telhami asked. International law does not protect speech that is designed to cause violence. Several people have been convicted in international courts for incitement to genocide in Rwanda. One of the challenges of the digital age, as the YouTube case shows, is that speech articulated in one part of the world can spark mayhem in another. Can the companies that run those speech platforms predict what words and images might set off carnage elsewhere? Whoever builds that algorithm may end up saving lives. Somini Sengupta is a technology correspondent for The New York Times. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 23 17:11:33 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 18:11:33 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - 94 Million Exposed: The Government's Epic Fail on Privacy Message-ID: <9050A187-2D67-4A51-9796-A88842FCDBA4@infowarrior.org> (c/o JC) 94 Million Exposed: The Government's Epic Fail on Privacy Posted: 09/19/2012 1:37 pm http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-levin/government-data-security_b_1897229.html When you hear a number like "94 million" in the news, it's usually because somebody won the lottery. This time around, no such luck. This 94 million is the number of Americans' files in which personal information has been exposed, since 2009, to potential identity theft through data breaches at government agencies. Go ahead, count the zeroes: 94,000,000. That's like releasing the personal data of every man, woman and child in California, Texas, New York, and Ohio. Believe it or not, this number -- which was just revealed in the latest report from tech security firm Rapid7 -- is only the most conservative estimate. When you take into account the difference between reported data breaches, which is what this report measures, and actual incidents, you are talking about a much, much bigger number. As bad as the numbers are, it gets worse. Much worse. Indeed, the biggest threat doesn't come from smart hackers -- it comes from dumb politicians and bureaucrats. First, let's consider the scope: The newly released Rapid7 report is based on the list of data breaches compiled by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit privacy advocacy group (and remember, we're only talking about the last three years). According to Rapid7's analysis, government agencies at the local, state and federal level are becoming infinitely more proficient at exposing our personal data, putting more and more of it at risk with each passing year. Government agencies reported that they exposed 1.5 million records containing personally identifiable information (you know, the sensitive stuff: your name, your address, your phone number... ) in all of 2010. The following year that total more than doubled, to 4 million. (If you're worried that you're a victim, read this.) So far this year, government agencies have more than doubled their totals from last year, reaching 9.6 million in just the first five months of 2012. Who knows where we'll be by the end of the year -- or how many innocent people will be exposed to fraud and identity theft due to the negligence of government employees or third-party vendors? And remember, these are just the breaches we know about. In some states, government agencies are not legally required to publicly report data breaches, or to notify potential victims that their personal information has been exposed. To take one little-known example, local governments in California are exempted from that state's breach notification law -- "a big exception, in my opinion," as Clearinghouse founder and director Beth Givens told us, since local governments "compile a great deal of personal information." Furthermore, out of 268 breach incidents reported since 2009, the 67 of the public agencies responsible (and I use that term loosely) couldn't even figure out how many records were lost. That fact alone will tell anyone with basic math skills and a lick of common sense that this epidemic is much worse than we know. What's even more astonishing than the total number of personal records breached is how the databases were compromised in the first place. Despite what news reports, urban legend, and simple logic might lead you to believe, sophisticated, premeditated attacks by hackers accounted for only 40 breaches since 2009, a mere 15 percent of the total. Plain and simple stupidity and negligence caused most of the rest. In 78 of the breach incidents, government employees inadvertently disclosed citizens' private information by posting it on a public website or sending it to the wrong people. Loss of physical, paper documents -- not digital ones -- accounted for another 46 data breaches. In 51 of the cases, government bureaucrats lost our private data by losing track of a portable device such as a laptop, smartphone, hard drive or back-up tape. A few of the breaches took place after these rocket scientists left a device filled with our PII inside an unlocked car. Of the many screw-ups detailed in this report, that last one is the one that lights my fire. What Neanderthal (with all due respect to the GEICO cavemen) leaves a laptop sitting in the back of an unlocked car -- especially a laptop containing the private records of thousands of citizens? What form of bureaucratic insanity allows this to keep happening, over and over and over again? While the Rapid7 report phrases its description in less incendiary terms, the facts are still damning: "Government agencies are facing an increase in data breaches as a result of cyber attacks, weaknesses in federal information security controls, and poor best practices for protecting data on portable devices." "Poor best practices," indeed. Meanwhile, other branches of government are busy exacerbating the problem. Based on all the grandstanding by Republican officials about the need to rein in an unaccountable federal bureaucracy and get tough on national security, I expected GOP lawmakers to quickly pass the 2012 Cybersecurity bill, which would have required all organizations that run the nation's critical infrastructure (think nuclear power plants, water supply systems and roads) to meet certain basic standards that would help defend them against hacker attacks. But Republicans were so myopically focused on preventing President Obama from achieving even the slightest legislative victory in this do-or-die election year that they almost unanimously opposed the bill, even after the Democrats caved entirely by offering to make the bill's provisions voluntary. How are we ever going to convince government agencies to take information security seriously when their own bosses in Congress treat our data and our most valuable infrastructure like just another pawn in a never-ending chess match for power? Here's the bottom line. We hear a lot of genuine, well-grounded concern about the growing number and sophistication of hacker attacks. But based on the information contained in this report, while hackers are partially to blame, the sad truth is that our own government's security policies -- or lack thereof -- have put us all at risk. Too many bureaucrats are losing track of too much of our data, and their oops! moments are being magnified by civil servants who consistently fail to implement the necessary access controls, encryption, physical security, and performance audits required to comply with the law and keep citizens' private data private, according to a recent study by the Government Accountability Office. We've known for quite some time that government agencies have turned their horrible privacy practices into an art form. The GAO's report found that out of 24 major government agencies, 18 had inadequate information security controls. Of those, eight federal agencies got failing grades when it came to implementing the 2002 Federal Information Security Management Act. (Ah well, a decade is on par with Congressional Standard Time.) Those agencies included the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Health and Human Services, each of which have met just over 50 percent of the law's requirements. Terrified yet? As the agencies responsible for running some of the government's largest entitlement programs, the VA and Health and Human Services retain deeply private, unspeakably sensitive information on millions of Americans. The VA's terrible performance shows that so far it has failed to learn its lesson on privacy, since this is the agency responsible for one of the largest government data breaches in history -- a 2009 incident in which the VA lost a hard drive containing the names and Social Security numbers of tens of millions of veterans. Combine that with the fact that hacking is on the rise. Only four government data breaches were caused by hackers in 2009, according to the Rapid7 report. By 2011, the total had grown to 18, and there were another 11 breaches perpetrated by hackers in the first five months of 2012. Those numbers will continue to increase -- and why wouldn't they? The government's own metrics show that the "sophisticated" computer defenses of many federal agencies are on a par with the blundering army of archers defending the fictional European country in the 1959 Peter Sellers movie, "The Mouse That Roared." Judging by appearances, mining those computers for all the private data they hold is about as daunting to a professional hacker as a child's piggy bank would be to a professional safe cracker. Mailing a USB drive brimming with names and Social Security numbers to the wrong person, failing to delete data from discarded drives -- the list of governmental idiocies is long. And all of these unforced errors by incompetent or untrained pencil-pushers are like waving a red flag at a herd of very aggressive bulls -- in this case, a herd of hackers. The difference is, when those bulls charge, it's not the bureaucrats who get skewered. It's you and me: American taxpayers who have been forced to hand over to the government all of our private information -- names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers -- just to take care of the basics (pay our taxes, receive our Medicare benefits, even register to vote). Unfortunately, the bureaucrats seem to be unable to fix this mess. That means it's up to us. What should we do? First, let's put some teeth into the law. The Information Security Management Act is ridiculous. Agencies are reviewed regularly for compliance, but what happens when they fail to comply? They receive a very stern talking-to from the GAO. They might even get written up in a report using words like "vulnerable" and "weak." Give me a break. We need nationally mandated security protocols, backed by a law that imposes serious sanctions on offending agencies and the bureaucrats who run them. Low-level bureaucrats who leave unencrypted laptops in unlocked cars should be suspended without pay for meaningful periods of time. High-level bureaucrats who fail to improve their computer security safeguards in compliance with the law should at the very least be fired. In the case of actual data breaches, firing isn't enough. Depending on the level of negligence, it's not unreasonable that the bureaucrat should stand trial; if they are convicted of negligence and enabling fraud, they should arguably go to jail. Second, instead of simply playing defense on data security, we need government to aggressively play offense. The federal government already spends $13.3 billion a year to secure its computer systems and bring federal agencies into compliance with the 2002 Information Security Management Act, according to a report published in March by the Office of Management and Budget. That's 18 percent of everything those agencies spend on information technology. However, a security system is only as good as its weakest link -- people. Among a host of other initiatives, the government needs to better monitor the systems they have in place, develop effective breach response programs, and pro-actively train people to think security 24/7. Here's the point: It's not just about punishing bad behavior. We must incentivize good behavior and inculcate best practices. Many Federal agencies have good rules in place, unfortunately, not enough are striving to meet them and several could strive a whole lot harder. Finally, we, the people -- the ones government is supposed to protect -- need to get fired up and take action. While Federal agencies tend to ignore complaints from individual citizens, they do take complaints from members of Congress very seriously (since enough angry senators could cause an agency major tsouris when budget season comes around). If you are one of the millions of citizens whose information was improperly exposed, and received a notice from a federal agency to that effect, don't just stand there, do something about it. Letters to senators -- good old fashioned snail-mail, handwritten missives -- get noticed. Groups of seniors or veterans or Medicare patients showing up on a Congressman's office doorstep get noticed. Blog articles that help track identity-related fraud get noticed. Whatever your skill and whatever your interest, you have something to add to this fight. And if you're an American taxpayer, you probably have something to gain from it. Rapid7's report shows that federal bureaucrats still don't take seriously their responsibility to protect our privacy. It's high time for us to target the things they do take seriously: their budgets, their jobs, and their freedom. This article originally appeared on Credit.com. Follow Credit.com on Twitter @creditexperts. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 23 20:50:23 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 21:50:23 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Has Apple Peaked? Message-ID: September 21, 2012 Has Apple Peaked? By JOE NOCERA http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/opinion/nocera-has-apple-peaked.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print If Steve Jobs were still alive, would the new map application on the iPhone 5 be such an unmitigated disaster? Interesting question, isn?t it? As Apple?s chief executive, Jobs was a perfectionist. He had no tolerance for corner-cutting or mediocre products. The last time Apple released a truly substandard product ? MobileMe, in 2008 ? Jobs gathered the team into an auditorium, berated them mercilessly and then got rid of the team leader in front of everybody, according to Walter Isaacson?s biography of Jobs. The three devices that made Apple the most valuable company in America ? the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad ? were all genuine innovations that forced every other technology company to play catch-up. No doubt, the iPhone 5, which went on sale on Friday, will be another hit. Apple?s halo remains powerful. But there is nothing about it that is especially innovative. Plus, of course, it has that nasty glitch. In rolling out a new operating system for the iPhone 5, Apple replaced Google?s map application ? the mapping gold standard ? with its own, vastly inferior, application, which has infuriated its customers. With maps now such a critical feature of smartphones, it seems to be an inexplicable mistake. And maybe that?s all it is ? a mistake, soon to be fixed. But it is just as likely to turn out to be the canary in the coal mine. Though Apple will remain a highly profitable company for years to come, I would be surprised if it ever gives us another product as transformative as the iPhone or the iPad. Part of the reason is obvious: Jobs isn?t there anymore. It is rare that a company is so completely an extension of one man?s brain as Apple was an extension of Jobs. While he was alive, that was a strength; now it?s a weakness. Apple?s current executive team is no doubt trying to maintain the same demanding, innovative culture, but it?s just not the same without the man himself looking over everybody?s shoulder. If the map glitch tells us anything, it is that. But there is also a less obvious ? yet possibly more important ? reason that Apple?s best days may soon be behind it. When Jobs returned to the company in 1997, after 12 years in exile, Apple was in deep trouble. It could afford to take big risks and, indeed, to search for a new business model, because it had nothing to lose. Fifteen years later, Apple has a hugely profitable business model to defend ? and a lot to lose. Companies change when that happens. ?The business model becomes a gilded cage, and management won?t do anything to challenge it, while doing everything they can to protect it,? says Larry Keeley, an innovation strategist at Doblin, a consulting firm. It happens in every industry, but it is especially easy to see in technology because things move so quickly. It was less than 15 years ago that Microsoft appeared to be invincible. But once its Windows operating system and Office applications became giant moneymakers, Microsoft?s entire strategy became geared toward protecting its two cash cows. It ruthlessly used its Windows platform to promote its own products at the expense of rivals. (The Microsoft antitrust trial took dead aim at that behavior.) Although Microsoft still makes billions, its new products are mainly ?me-too? versions of innovations made by other companies. Now it is Apple?s turn to be king of the hill ? and, not surprisingly, it has begun to behave in a very similar fashion. You can see it in the patent litigation against Samsung, a costly and counterproductive exercise that has nothing to do with innovation and everything to do with protecting its turf. And you can see it in the decision to replace Google?s map application. Once an ally, Google is now a rival, and the thought of allowing Google to promote its maps on Apple?s platform had become anathema. More to the point, Apple wants to force its customers to use its own products, even when they are not as good as those from rivals. Once companies start acting that way, they become vulnerable to newer, nimbler competitors that are trying to create something new, instead of milking the old. Just ask BlackBerry, which once reigned supreme in the smartphone market but is now roadkill for Apple and Samsung. Even before Jobs died, Apple was becoming a company whose main goal was to defend its business model. Yes, he would never have allowed his minions to ship such an embarrassing application. But despite his genius, it is unlikely he could have kept Apple from eventually lapsing into the ordinary. It is the nature of capitalism that big companies become defensive, while newer rivals emerge with better, smarter ideas. ?Oh my god,? read one Twitter message I saw. ?Apple maps is the worst ever. It is like using MapQuest on a BlackBerry.? MapQuest and BlackBerry. Exactly. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Sep 24 07:08:30 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - New Zealand intelligence illegally spied on Kim Dotcom Message-ID: <882125DC-0007-4131-8766-E2EC1419E430@infowarrior.org> New Zealand intelligence illegally spied on Kim Dotcom NZ's equivalent of NSA eavesdropped on Dotcom to help find Megaupload suspects. by Sean Gallagher - Sept 24 2012, 0:01am EDT http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/new-zealand-intelligence-illegally-spied-on-kim-dotcom/ New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key announced on September 24 that he has requested an inquiry into illegal spying on Kim Dotcom and other employees of Megaupload by New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau, the country's counterpart to the US National Security Agency. The revelation is just the latest in a series of exposed missteps by New Zealand authorities in their eagerness to assist the US government in apprehending Dotcom and his colleagues, and throws even more uncertainty on the ongoing efforts by the New Zealand and US governments to extradite Dotcom to the US for prosecution. According to a government statement, Key was informed by GCSB Director Ian Fletcher on September 17 that the GCSB had "acted unlawfully" while assisting New Zealand's police in locating Kim Dotcom and the other three suspects for arrest. "The Bureau had acquired communications in some instances without statutory authority," the Prime Minister's office said in its statement. The GCSB is New Zealand's electronic intelligence-gathering agency, and part of ECHELON, the worldwide communication interception network that also includes the NSA and security agencies of the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. It operates two communications interception stations in New Zealand, as well as the government's Internet and network security operations. But the GCSB's role, like that of the NSA, is supposed to be focused on foreign intelligence?not spying on the country's own residents. ?I expect our intelligence agencies to operate always within the law," Key said in a prepared statement. "Their operations depend on public trust. I look forward to the Inspector-General?s inquiry getting to the heart of what took place and what can be done about it.? Because of the bearing of the investigation on the Megaupload case, he said he could not comment further. In response to the announcement by Key, Kim Dotcom tweeted, "I welcome the inquiry by @JohnKeyPM into unlawful acts by the GCSB. Please extend the inquiry to cover the entire Crown Law Mega case." Dotcom's extradition hearing, originally scheduled for August, had already been pushed back to March of 2013 after revelations of illegal and improper warrants and other missteps by police in the arrest of Dotcom. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Sep 24 13:30:35 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:30:35 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Clean_IT_=96_Leak_shows_plans_fo?= =?windows-1252?q?r_large-scale=2C_undemocratic_surveillance_of_all_commun?= =?windows-1252?q?ications?= Message-ID: <86D5DAD0-F29B-467C-BC93-98A412E3BFA6@infowarrior.org> Clean IT ? Leak shows plans for large-scale, undemocratic surveillance of all communications 21 September, 2012 Compulsory Identification | Internet Blocking | Notice & take-down | Privacy | Access to information | Freedom to publish | Freedom of speech | Wiretapping http://www.edri.org/cleanIT A leaked document from the CleanIT project shows just how far internal discussions in that initiative have drifted away from its publicly stated aims, as well as the most fundamental legal rules that underpin European democracy and the rule of law. The European Commission-funded CleanIT project claims that it wants to fight terrorism through voluntary self-regulatory measures that defends the rule of law. The initial meetings of the initiative, with their directionless and ill-informed discussions about doing ?something? to solve unidentified online ?terrorist? problems were mainly attended by filtering companies, who saw an interesting business opportunity. Their work has paid off, with numerous proposals for filtering by companies and governments, proposals for liability in case sufficiently intrusive filtering is not used, and calls for increased funding by governments of new filtering technologies. The leaked document contradicts a letter sent from CleanIT Coordinator But Klaasen to Dutch NGO Bits of Freedom in April of this year, which explained that the project would first identify problems before making policy proposals. The promise to defend the rule of law has been abandoned. There appears never to have been a plan to identify a specific problem to be solved ? instead the initiative has become little more than a protection racket (use filtering or be held liable for terrorist offences) for the online security industry. The proposals urge Internet companies to ban unwelcome activity through their terms of service, but advise that these ?should not be very detailed?. This already widespread approach results, for example, in Microsoft (as a wholly typical example of current industry practice) having terms of service that would ban pictures of the always trouserless Donald Duck as potential pornography (?depicts nudity of any sort ... in non-human forms such as cartoons?). The leaked paper also contradicts the assertion in the letter that the project ?does not aim to restrict behaviour that is not forbidden by law? - the whole point of prohibiting content in terms of service that is theoretically prohibited by law, is to permit extra-judicial vigilantism by private companies, otherwise the democratically justified law would be enough. Worse, the only way for a company to be sure of banning everything that is banned by law, is to use terms that are more broad, less well defined and less predictable than real law. Moving still further into the realm of the absurd, the leaked document proposes the use of terms of service to remove content ?which is fully legal?... although this is up to the ?ethical or business? priorities of the company in question what they remove. In other words, if Donald Duck is displeasing to the police, they would welcome, but don't explicitly demand, ISPs banning his behaviour in their terms of service. Cooperative ISPs would then be rewarded by being prioritised in state-funded calls for tender. CleanIT (terrorism), financed by DG Home Affairs of the European Commission is duplicating much of the work of the CEO Coalition (child protection), which is financed by DG Communications Networks of the European Commission. Both are, independently and without coordination, developing policies on issues such as reporting buttons and flagging of possibly illegal material. Both CleanIT and the CEO Coalition are duplicating each other's work on creating ?voluntary? rules for notification and removal of possibly illegal content and are jointly duplicating the evidence-based policy work being done by DG Internal Market of the European Commission, which recently completed a consultation on this subject. Both have also been discussing upload filtering, to monitor all content being put online by European citizens. CleanIT wants binding engagements from internet companies to carry out surveillance, to block and to filter (albeit only at ?end user? - meaning local network - level). It wants a network of trusted online informants and, contrary to everything that they have ever said, they also want new, stricter legislation from Member States. Unsurprisingly, in EDRi's discussions with both law enforcement agencies and industry about CleanIT, the word that appears with most frequency is ?incompetence?. The document linked below is distributed to participants on a ?need to know? basis ? we are sharing the document because citizens need to know what is being proposed. Key measures being proposed: ? Removal of any legislation preventing filtering/surveillance of employees' Internet connections ? Law enforcement authorities should be able to have content removed ?without following the more labour-intensive and formal procedures for 'notice and action'? ? ?Knowingly? providing links to ?terrorist content? (the draft does not refer to content which has been ruled to be illegal by a court, but undefined ?terrorist content? in general) will be an offence ?just like? the terrorist ? Legal underpinning of ?real name? rules to prevent anonymous use of online services ? ISPs to be held liable for not making ?reasonable? efforts to use technological surveillance to identify (undefined) ?terrorist? use of the Internet ? Companies providing end-user filtering systems and their customers should be liable for failing to report ?illegal? activity identified by the filter ? Customers should also be held liable for ?knowingly? sending a report of content which is not illegal ? Governments should use the helpfulness of ISPs as a criterion for awarding public contracts ? The proposal on blocking lists contradict each other, on the one hand providing comprehensive details for each piece of illegal content and judicial references, but then saying that the owner can appeal (although if there was already a judicial ruling, the legal process would already have been at an end) and that filtering such be based on the ?output? of the proposed content regulation body, the ?European Advisory Foundation? ? Blocking or ?warning? systems should be implemented by social media platforms ? somehow it will be both illegal to provide (undefined) ?Internet services? to ?terrorist persons? and legal to knowingly provide access to illegal content, while ?warning? the end-user that they are accessing illegal content ? The anonymity of individuals reporting (possibly) illegal content must be preserved... yet their IP address must be logged to permit them to be prosecuted if it is suspected that they are reporting legal content deliberately and to permit reliable informants' reports to be processed more quickly ? Companies should implement upload filters to monitor uploaded content to make sure that content that is removed ? or content that is similar to what is removed ? is not re-uploaded ? It proposes that content should not be removed in all cases but ?blocked? (i.e. make inaccessible by the hosting provider ? not ?blocked? in the access provider sense) and, in other cases, left available online but with the domain name removed. Leaked document: http://www.edri.org/files/cleanIT_sept2012.pdf CleanIT Project website: http://www.cleanitproject.eu/ Microsoft ?code of conduct?: http://windows.microsoft.com/is-IS/windows-live/code-of-conduct CleanIT's letter to Bits of Freedom about ?factual inaccuracies? and their unfulfilled promise to produce a problem definition: http://95.211.138.23/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/20120106-Reaction-blog... EDRigram article 29 August: http://edri.org/edrigram/number10.16/cleanit-safer-internet-for-terror... EDRigram article 20 June: http://edri.org/edrigram/number10.12/the-rise-of-the-european-upload-f... --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 25 07:35:03 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:35:03 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Wozniak_likes_NBN_so_much=2C_he?= =?windows-1252?q?=92s_applying_for_citizenship?= Message-ID: Wozniak likes NBN so much, he?s applying for citizenship PUBLISHED: 21 hours 45 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 9 hours 30 MINUTES AGO http://www.afr.com/p/technology/wozniak_likes_nbn_so_much_he_applying_lz4NGUtmpS2PvD55EJ4eoL Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has listed the rollout of a national broadband network as one of the reasons he wants to become an Australian. Mr Wozniak told The Australian Financial Review in Sydney that he had spoken to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and was in support of the federal government?s fibre rollout. ?I spoke to him and they plan to roll it out to everyone in the country,? Mr Wozniak said. ?I support it very much. It?s one of the reasons why I actually like this country and want to become a citizen. I live in a country where we don?t have any regulation of telecommunications.? In Australia for the launch of the Apple iPhone 5 last week, Wozniak told Brisbane?s 4BC breakfast radio that he was ?underway to become an Australian citizen?. ?It turns out I can keep my American citizenship. I intend to call myself an Australian and feel an Australian, and study the history and become as much of a real citizen here as I can.? Despite his status as a technology icon, Mr Wozniak said he was not connected to a broadband service in his home in California, classing the options available to him as a ?monopoly?. ?There?s only one set of wires to be on and I?m not going to pull strings to get them to do something special for me,? he said. ?When I worked at Hewlett-Packard we treated ourselves like a family and protecting each other and I believe in that. ?I?ve sat with our FCC [Federal Communications Commission] commissioner and told him that story in his office, but it?s not going to happen. We just don?t have the political idea to bring broadband to all the people who are 1 kilometre too far away.? Mr Wozniak was in Sydney to meet customers and partners of his employer, server-based flash manufacturer Fusion-io, a NYSE-listed technology company that speeds up traditional access to data. It boasts Facebook and Apple as large global clients and Woolworths and Westpac as local customers. ?I?m not an expert on banking but bankers have told us how important this technology is to them and it is one of our big customer areas,? he said. ?Some success in banking is all done in computers nowadays, not through humans, and milliseconds matter, the speed of transactions matter to them.? Mr Wozniak co-founded Apple ? the world?s most valuable company ? with Steve Jobs in 1976 and created the original Apple computer. A philanthropist and author, the tech guru has amassed a global fan base since leaving Apple in 1987. He said Silicon Valley was today abuzz with start-up activity, defying US economic woes. ?There?s a lot going on right now in Silicon Valley; the recession aspects just really don?t hit us at all.? He said he would help young start-ups, time permitting. ?I?m just meeting people when I can, really young entrepreneurs, just inspiring them. I?m incredibly busy just speaking around the world on many different topics,? he said. In a visit earlier this year he told the AFR he feared the torrent of intellectual property lawsuits being filed by companies such as Apple, Samsung, Google, HTC and Nokia because they could prevent future entrepreneurs from treading a path to technology fortune. ?I care so much about the young person that has some technical knowledge and want to start their own business,? he said. A true gadget enthusiast, Mr Wozniak lined up outside the Apple store in Chermside in suburban Brisbane on Friday to buy the iPhone 5 where he tweeted: ?In line for first iPhone 5?s in the world! (@ Apple Store w/ 2 others).? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 25 07:44:06 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:44:06 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - USTR: By Making People Testify About TPP Text They Cannot See... We're Being Transparent Message-ID: <904006F1-A720-4B50-A572-46B922FA53FA@infowarrior.org> USTR: By Making People Testify About TPP Text They Cannot See... We're Being Transparent from the say-it-with-me:-w-t-f? dept Jamie Love has provided the testimony he gave at a USTR hearing concerning Mexico and Canada's entrance into the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) agreement. As you hopefully recall, the agreement is being negotiated in secret... unless you happen to be a high level lobbyist. Then you get widespread access, which Love calls out: < -- > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120921/21294620467/ustr-making-people-testify-about-tpp-text-they-cannot-see-were-being-transparent.shtml --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 25 07:45:50 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:45:50 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Eric Schmidt: Ha ha, NO Google maps app for iPhone 5 Message-ID: <9C59C7A4-2822-4F40-A456-0FF426FC8DEC@infowarrior.org> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/25/google_maps_on_ios6/ Eric Schmidt: Ha ha, NO Google maps app for iPhone 5 'Apple should have kept ours. But what do I know?' By Anna Leach ? Get more from this author Posted in Mobile, 25th September 2012 11:42 GMT Google has not made a maps app for the iPhone 5, its chairman Eric Schmidt said this morning - and his company is not working on one. The search engine supremo's snub will come as a blow to fanbois who "upgraded" to the latest Apple smartphone, or installed the new iOS 6 operating system on their fruity gadgets, and found Google's maps app replaced by Apple's less-than-brilliant satnav-like alternative. Many punters have urged Google to produce a new replacement map app. "We have not done anything yet," Schmidt said, answering questions from journalists in Japan, according to Reuters. Schmidt revealed that execs at top tech companies chat among themselves a lot, but that obviously doesn't stop the power play that has seen Google's map service booted out of the iPhone. Apple and Google are locked in a battle for supremacy in the mobile tech arena: the search giant's Android operating system is at the heart of smartphones and tablets competing against Apple's iPhones and iPads. "We?ve been talking with [Apple] for a long time. We talk to them every day," he insisted. He was mellow on Apple's decision: We think it would have been better if they had kept ours. But what do I know? What were we going to do, force them not to change their mind? It?s their call. Schmidt's aside to a press pack is the only indication from Google so far about its plans for Google Maps on iOS 6, which also powers the new iPhone 5. There was speculation that Google was on the verge of putting out a replacement app available through iTunes. Schmidt took the opportunity to make a few more points about the iPhone: "Apple is the exception, and the Android system is the common model, which is why our market share is so much higher." Schmidt said that the success of Linux-powered Android smartphones has been overlooked by the media, which he said was "obsessed with Apple's marketing events and Apple's branding". "That's great for Apple, but the numbers are on our side," he said. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 25 08:01:04 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:01:04 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Samsung Galaxy S III remote data-wipe hack reportedly discovered [Updated] Message-ID: Samsung Galaxy S III remote data-wipe hack reportedly discovered [Updated] Chris Davies, Sep 25th 2012 Discuss [5] http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-remote-data-wipe-hack-discovered-25249061/ A single line of code can apparently trigger an unstoppable factory-reset of the Samsung Galaxy S III, security researchers have discovered, with the potential for malicious websites to wipe out users? phones. The hack was detailed by Ravi Borgaonkar at the Ekoparty security conference, with a simple USSD code ? that could be sent from a website, or pushed to the handset by NFC or triggered by a QR code ? that can reset the Galaxy S III or indeed other Samsung handsets. Although the phone user is able to see the process taking place, hitting back on the device will not stop the reset. For QR code readers that automatically load whatever website has been stored to each code, or indeed NFC readers that do the same with NFC tags, the user would have no warning ? and no hope of stopping ? their handset from running the malicious code. Only Samsung devices running TouchWiz appear to be affected, with basic Android only showing the code in the dialer screen but not running it automatically, Pau Oliva reports. Samsung?s default, though, is to dial the code automatically. Perhaps most concerning, it?s reportedly possible to double up on the attack, Borgaonkar says, including a USSD code that also kills the SIM card currently in the handset. That way, a single message could be used to wipe a Samsung phone and leave the user with a broken SIM too. It?s also possible to push Samsung handsets straight to a website running the bad code using a WAP-push SMS message. For the moment, the advice is to deactivate automatic site-loading in whatever QR and/or NFC reader software you use, and be careful about clicking links that you don?t implicitly trust. Update: The same code has been found to work on the Galaxy Beam, S Advance, Galaxy Ace, and Galaxy S II. However, the Samsung-made Galaxy Nexus, which runs stock Android, is not susceptible. Update 2: Other Samsung device owners are claiming that the hack does not work on their device. We?re running our own tests and will update when we know more. Update 3: Tweakers? Arnoud Wokke has filmed a demo of the hack in action on a Galaxy S II. We?ve reached out to Samsung for comment. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 25 08:14:52 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:14:52 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Little-known_company=92s_play_fo?= =?windows-1252?q?r_new_Web_domain_names_raises_fraud?= Message-ID: <19AAF0B0-A7E2-4AF0-99DF-3FB22E4441DD@infowarrior.org> Donuts Inc.?s major play for new Web domain names raises fears of fraud By Craig Timberg and James Ball http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/donuts-incs-major-play-for-new-web-domain-names-raises-eyebrows/2012/09/24/c8745362-f782-11e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_print.html A historic land rush is underway for vast new swaths of the Internet: Amazon has bid for control of all the Web addresses that end with ?.book.? Google wants ?.buy.? Allstate wants ?.carinsurance.? But the single most aggressive bidder for lucrative new Web domains is a little-known investment group with an intriguing name: Donuts Inc. Its $57 million play for 307 new domains ? more than Google, Amazon and Allstate combined ? has prompted alarm among industry groups and Internet watchdogs. They warn that Donuts has close ties to a company with a well-documented history of providing services to spammers and other perpetrators of Internet abuses. Should Donuts come to control hundreds of new domains, including ?.doctor,? ?.financial? and ?.school,? consumers could see a spike in online misbehavior, these critics warn. ?If the allegations concerning Donuts turn out to be true, these 300 top-level domains could be the Wild West for fraud and abuse,? said David E. Weslow, a D.C.-based lawyer who represents several major corporations. Law enforcement authorities in several nations have warned for years that rapid expansion of new domains could unleash a fresh wave of online crimes while making it harder to identify the culprits. The number of what are called ?top-level domains? is set to expand from the current 22, including ?.com? and ?.org,? to potentially more than 1,400 next year. Dismissing the concerns raised by industry groups, Donuts officials say they are well qualified to run the new domains responsibly. ?We and our very smart investors would not have spent almost $57 million if we had any concerns that we were not eligible,? said Jonathon Nevett, a Rockville-based lawyer who is one of four co-founders of Donuts. Federal officials declined to comment on particular applicants, but they have repeatedly urged more rigorous background checks and a more gradual expansion of Internet domains. They worry that a solicitation for medical products from a Web site ending with ?.health,? for example, might convey an air of authenticity no matter who the actual sender. ?I equate it with an apartment building, and the landlord lets drug dealers and rapists move in,? said FBI Supervisory Special Agent Bobby Flaim, who has tracked plans to create new Web domains for several years. ?They?re paying the rent, so where?s the problem?? Yet the power of U.S. officials, or that of any government, is limited. Overseeing the issuing of Web addresses is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit group ? the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN ? whose sharply growing revenue is tied to the continued expansion of domains. Its revenue grew from $5.7 million in 2002 to $68 million last year, according to federal tax documents. ICANN officials say that safeguards will prevent companies with a history of abuse from gaining control of new domains and that consumers will benefit from the greater range of choices in Web addresses. But they acknowledged uncertainty about whether such rules would block the applications by Donuts. Demand Media The complaints about Donuts stem from its relationship with Demand Media, a major player in Internet services that pioneered the creation of content linked to popular search terms, leading to a proliferation of Web pages on almost any imaginable subject (sometimes disparaged as ?content farms?). Demand Media also owns eNom, the second-largest Internet registrar , selling more Web addresses than any company other than Go Daddy. Industry watchdogs have long criticized Demand Media as a leading provider of services to spammers and a host to sites that commit ?cybersquatting.? The term refers to Web sites that seek to fool consumers who type in the wrong Internet address for a company into their browsers; instead of the intended site, they can end up on one that looks similar but that can be a gateway to fraud. Garth Bruen of the industry watchdog group KnujOn said Demand Media has not replied to any of the many spam complaints he has submitted to the company. ?They are looking the other way,? he said. ?I?ve sent them tons of information. They never respond. They have this one address, legal at enom.com, and you never get a person.? Kristen Moore, a Demand Media spokeswoman, said the company works with several groups to monitor spam but does not have records of complaints from KnujOn. ?Combatting rogue and illegal operators on the Internet is a challenge that we take very seriously,? Moore said in an e-mail. Two of Demand Media?s top executives, Paul Stahura and Richard Tindal, left the company in 2009. In 2010, they co-founded Donuts to compete for the new top-level domains being created by ICANN, raising more than $100 million for the effort, according to the company. Stahura and Tindal were joined by Nevett, who was chairman of the board for an eNom joint venture. Also joining Donuts, as chief financial officer, was Kevin Wilson, the former CFO for ICANN. Few had heard of Donuts, based in Bellevue, Wash., before ICANN announced in June that the company had made 307 bids for new domains. For nearly half of those ? including ?.attorney,? ?.mortgage? and ?.medical? ? Donuts was the sole applicant, putting it in position to emerge as the world?s biggest provider of new Web domains. The connections to Demand Media also became clearer when that company announced that it had shared rights to 107 of the domains for which Donuts has applied. (Demand Media has separately applied for 26 top-level domains, including ?.army,? ?.gay? and ?.republican.?) The two companies also have a deal for Demand Media to provide technical services to any of the new domains that Donuts wins. ?Bad faith? In July, Boston-based lawyer Jeffrey M. Stoler sent a letter to ICANN recounting numerous allegations of past abuses by Demand Media and detailing links between it and Donuts. The letter listed 39 cases in which Internet industry arbitration panels had ruled that Demand Media was responsible for cybersquatting or similar abuses. In 24 of those cases, the panels found ?bad faith,? meaning Demand Media knowingly participated in the cybersquatting. Among those accusing the company of abuse were American Airlines, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Texas Lottery Commission. Stoler, who declined to name a client in the letter or in a subsequent interview, has argued that both companies should be treated as a single entity for purposes of determining their worthiness for managing domains. ?It would make a mockery of ICANN rules,? he wrote, ?if Demand Media Group and its executives could absolve themselves of their record of adverse [panel] decisions merely by forming a new entity.? Officials with Donuts and Demand Media call criticisms of their applications unfair. Of Stoler?s letter, they say his unwillingness to name a client undermines its credibility. ?It?s full of misinformation, and there?s many false allegations,? said Dave Panos, Demand Media?s executive vice president for emerging markets. ?There?s many players out there who have an ax to grind.? Demand Media and Donuts officials say their companies are separate and should be judged individually. Both portray themselves as well suited to operating the new domains because of the experience their officers have in running domain registrars. Stahura, the Donuts chief executive, said in a statement, ?The fact is that Donuts and Demand Media are entirely separate organizations.? Their critics still have concerns. Major companies have expressed particular worry that they could be forced to spend tens of millions of dollars to protect their brands from cybersquatting and other abuses. ?We?re all watching and holding our breath,? said Daniel L. Jaffe, an executive vice president for the Association of National Advertisers. ?All we can say is there?s a lot at stake here.? Fraudulent pharmacies The allegations do not concern Demand Media creating or disseminating spam; instead they focus on the company?s supposed reluctance to shut down malicious sites ? even when the abuses are brought to the company?s attention. Among the most common scams are those run by rogue online pharmacies that profit by selling counterfeit drugs and other medical products to consumers looking for discounts, or for medicine without the hassle of getting a prescription. They often get fake drugs instead. Federal officials say that illnesses and deaths have resulted from such purchases. The Federal Trade Commission issued a letter in December calling on ICANN to slow the creation of new domains, suggesting that a pilot program would be a safer way to test whether existing protections are capable of heading off more crime. ?Some domains, such as those relating to financial services and those aimed at children, could be particularly susceptible to abuse,? FTC Commissioner Julie Brill said this month. ?Others, such as those referring to professionals like lawyers and doctors, could mislead consumers into thinking that they are dealing with appropriately licensed individuals.? ICANN officials counter that they have systems in place to block potential abuses. Kurt Pritz, chief of strategy at ICANN, said the new top-level domains will be safer than the old ones because of the checks into the backgrounds of applicants, now being conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The outcomes of those background checks remain uncertain. ?There will be judgment involved,? Pritz said. Julie Tate contributed to this report. ? The Washington Post Company --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 25 10:45:37 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Facebook announces that they are now recording every search made on Facebook (appearing in your 'Activity Log' Message-ID: <0803B87A-6894-4145-86FF-E9FBA52020ED@infowarrior.org> (c/o TL) Facebook announces that they are now recording every search made on Facebook (appearing in your 'Activity Log' http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/09/facebook-is-now-recording-everyone-you-stalk/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 25 13:37:47 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:37:47 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Data breach at IEEE.org: 100k plaintext passwords. Message-ID: (c/o RK) Data breach at IEEE.org: 100k plaintext passwords. Using the data to gain insights into the engineering and scientific community IEEE suffered a data breach which I discovered on September 18. For a few days I was uncertain what to do with the information and the data. Yesterday I let them know, and they fixed (at least partially) the problem. The usernames and passwords kept in plaintext were publicly available on their FTP server for at least one month prior to my discovery. Among the almost 100.000 compromised users are Apple, Google, IBM, Oracle and Samsung employees, as well as researchers from NASA, Stanford and many other places. I did not and will not make the raw data available to anyone else. http://ieeelog.com/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Sep 25 13:38:53 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:38:53 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - State Dept. admits passport form was illegal, but still wants it approved Message-ID: <18A93B78-F319-463D-A167-028F0430252D@infowarrior.org> State Dept. admits passport form was illegal, but still wants it approved The new U.S. passport application forms are back, worse than ever. Ignoring massive public opposition, and despite having recently admitted that it is already using the ?proposed? forms illegally without approval, the State Department is trying again to get approval for a pair of impossible-to-complete new passport application forms that would, in effect, allow the State Department to deny you a passport simply by choosing to send you either or both of the new ?long forms?. Early last year, the State Department proposed a new ?Biographical Questionnaire? for passport applicants, which would have required anyone selected to receive the new long-form DS-5513 to answer bizarre and intrusive personal trivia questions about everything from whether you were circumcised (and if so, with what accompanying religious rituals) to the dates of all of your mother?s pre- and post-natal medical appointments, your parents? addresses one year before you were born, every address at which you have ever resided, and your lifetime employment history including the names and phone numbers of each of your supervisors at every job you have ever held. Most people would be unable to complete the proposed new form no matter how much time and money they invested in research. Requiring someone to complete Form DS-5513 would amount to de facto denial of their application for a passport ? which, as we told the State Department, appeared to be the point of the form. The State Department?s notice of the proposal in the Federal Register didn?t include the form itself. After we published the proposed Form DS-5513, the story went viral and more than 3,000 public comments objecting to the proposal were filed with the State Department in the final 24 hours of the comment period. After that fiasco, the State Department went dark for several months, and claimed that they would ?revise? the form. But they didn?t give up, and apparently they didn?t listen to (or didn?t care) what they had been told by members of the public in our comments. The State Department is now seeking approval for a (slightly) revised Form DS-5513 as well as a new Form DS-5520, also for passport applicants, containing many of the same questions. < - > http://papersplease.org/wp/2012/09/24/state-dept-admits-passport-form-was-illegal-but-still-wants-it-approved/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 26 07:14:13 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 08:14:13 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - DISA charged with securing networks for all but two agencies Message-ID: <5C8C7FE5-A521-4F62-BD16-D991D87E7371@infowarrior.org> DISA charged with securing networks for all but two agencies By Bob Brewin September 25, 2012 0 Comments http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2012/09/disa-charged-securing-all-two-federal-networks/58354/ The Defense Information Systems Agency has been tapped to tighten up network security of all branches of the federal government except the State Department and the FBI, which have their own systems. The move is in response to the unauthorized release of hundreds of thousands of pages of Pentagon and State classified documents in 2010 and 2011 by the website WikiLeaks, the agency said. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on July 20 hinted at Pentagon assistance to other federal agencies to beef up security for their networks. DISA obliquely disclosed Monday in contract documents that it will function as the common service provider for the new public key infrastructure hardware tokens, certificates and services for federal classified and secret networks except those belonging to State and the FBI. DISA made clear that the fallout from WikiLeaks? disclosure of classified Defense Department documents and State cables is the reason for its broad new governmentwide network security role. ?In response to WikiLeaks, the Office of Management and Budget and the [21 agency] Committee for National Security Systems determined that all federal agencies that operate on the federal classified [or] Secret networks must implement a hardware-based PKI solution to protect their information and networks. The objective is to remove anonymity and improve the overall security of the federal Secret networks,? DISA said. The agency added, ?there is a sense of urgency to have all federal agencies using hardware tokens to access their networks and information as quickly as possible. Since DoD is already well on their way to implementing the DoD PKI SIPRNET [Secret Internet Protocol Router Network] token capability, it was decided that DoD would leverage its existing infrastructure to stand up a common service provider capability to all federal agencies except for Department of State and FBI, which already had their own systems. Because DISA is the operator of the DoD PKI, DISA will be the CSP for the federal agencies.? DISA buried this information in a sole source justification document appended to a contract award, obscurely titled DISA PEO-MA Common Service Provider, posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website Monday. The agency said it tapped Tangible Software Inc. of McLean VA, the Defense PKI contractor, to support PKI tokens and related security services governmentwide, as it is the only contractor with the requisite knowledge, experience and skills to accomplish the job. DISA awarded the company a contract valued at $8.9 million for one base year and two option years. In its new role as the common security for most federal departments and agencies, DISA said, ?token management capability and certificate authorities need to be significantly changed to reflect federal naming standards, add additional profiles and configurations for the other federal agencies, and provide the separation of the agencies within the registration and issuance process.? As federal network common services provider, DISA said it will be responsible for operating the infrastructure to provide certificate life-cycle management to participating agencies, registration authorities services to support certificate issuance, overall management for smaller agencies, training and help desk support. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 26 07:16:20 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 08:16:20 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Using Twitter to Track Disease Outbreaks Message-ID: <7D28C982-FE52-4766-B5D0-586592FEAB18@infowarrior.org> Published on Security Management (http://securitymanagement.com) Using Twitter to Track Disease Outbreaks By Carlton Purvis Created 09/21/2012 - 14:53 Twitter can provide indications of a potential disease outbreak faster than traditional disease surveillance activities. By the time public health alerts are issued and the media picks up the story, people have already been talking about an illness for weeks on social media, the Department of Health and Human services says. A new Web application, MappyHealth [1], uses Twitter to monitor and produce automatic reports on what illnesses people are talking about the most. It's latest weapon in the disease surveillance arsenal. Local public health operations recognized the potential social media could have in monitoring illness in communities [2], ?but lacked the time and resources to make it a useful data source,? said Diana Kushner, who managed the project for HHS?s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). ASPR held a contest for developers to build an app that could deliver a list of the top-five trending illnesses from a specified region in a 24-hour time period. Of 33 submissions, MappyHealth came out on top. ?Having real-time information available in the public domain through social media like Twitter could be revolutionary for health officials watching out for the first clues to new, emerging infectious diseases in our communities and for modernizing our public health system,? said Dr. Nicole Lurie, a rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service, in a press release [3]. Similar Web-based apps can examine a disease outbreak after the fact, but ASPR wanted something that could follow trends in real time. Both the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the Haiti cholera outbreak showed that social media trends can indicate disease outbreaks earlier than conventional surveillance methods, like emergency room reporting. Early identification can help minimize the spread of disease so the hope is that local and regional health officials use MappyHealth to cross reference Twitter data with conventional surveillance methods. MappyHealth won the challenge because of its relatively accurate filtering by keywords (based on a set taxonomy of terms to search that was based on common terms the public uses to refer to different illnesses) and its ability to filter tweets by location. ASPR announced the official launch of the app last Thursday. MappyHealth today shows that mentions of the common cold on Twitter are up 69 percent in the last 24 hours. Mentions of influenza are up 25 percent and there?s been a spike in talk about STD?s around Washington, D.C. [4] Last year, I talked to Jennifer Olsen, Fusion Cell Branch Chief at ASPR as the agency was taking its first look at the value of monitoring twitter. Back then, using Twitter to monitor public health was in its beginning stages. There wasn?t a set taxonomy of words people use to refer to their sicknesses and HHS was still trying to find the best combination of words that would capture ways people were talking about illnesses. ASPR was using mentions of the flu as a baseline. ?We have a list of terms that we?re pulling for Twitter and trying to evolve those,? Olsen said in an interview last October. Olsen said one of the biggest challenges was being able determine false spikes in mention of illnesses like flu on Twitter. False spikes occur when there is a large amount of mentions that don?t necessarily coincide with increased prevalence of an illness. ?Both Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus had the flu the same week in April and it really threw off everything as far as our numbers go,? she said. People are likely to tweet about the flu when they get the vaccine or when talking about a news article. These mentions contribute to false spikes. She also noted that people with gastrointestinal illnesses or illnesses related to food poisoning may be more likely to tweet about the food or the restaurant where they ate than the illness. ?This is an area that will continue to evolve for as long as Twitter is used as a data source,? Kushner said. ?Some ways to counteract the ?celebrity effect? and other false spikes is to use qualifier terms linked to the taxonomy, to eliminate retweets from your numbers, and other smart filtering techniques.? All of the competitors in the challenge did a good job of ?filtering through the noise to get to the heart of the data,? she said of the contest. The greatest successes of Twitter monitoring came during the H1N1 pandemic. ASPR used Twitter to identify school closures by verifying user reports with official sources. ?At a federal level, there is no way to see these school closures,? Olsen said in last year?s interview. ?What we have seen is that the stream may not always be useful for getting a spike in flu, but it would be useful in getting specific questions related to flu.? ASPR is looking for a way to combine streams of data from electronic health records, social media, and news to find consistency across all three during a disaster. ?That would give us some understanding of where we can have more confidence in each of those streams,? she said. photo by shawncampbell/flickr [5] Security Management is the award-winning publication of ASIS International, the preeminent international organization for security professionals, with more than 37,000 members worldwide. ASIS International, Inc. Worldwide Headquarters, 1625 Prince Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314-2818 U.S.A. 703-519-6200 | fax 703-519-6299 | www.asisonline.org ? 2012 Security Management This site is protected by copyright and trade mark laws under U.S. and International law. No part of this work may be reproduced without the written permission of Security Management. Powered by: Phase2 Technology Source URL: http://securitymanagement.com/news/using-twitter-track-disease-outbreaks-0010445 Links: [1] http://mappyhealth.com/ [2] http://www.securitymanagement.com/news/most-us-schools-missing-adequate-pandemic-response-plans-0010411 [3] http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2012pres/09/20120913a.html [4] http://mappyhealth.com/by_tweet_places/Washington,%20DC [5] http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecampbells/5042764163/sizes/l/in/photostream/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 26 13:09:12 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:09:12 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?DOD_issues_rules_on_how_to_discu?= =?windows-1252?q?ss_SEAL=92s_book?= Message-ID: <8FF5BAAE-B3BF-4243-95AC-8C504D50CBB3@infowarrior.org> Yaaaawwwwwwn. ---rick Pentagon issues rules on how to discuss SEAL?s book By Rowan Scarborough-The Washington TimesTuesday, September 25, 2012 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/25/pentagon-issues-rules-how-discuss-seals-book/print/ The Pentagon's top intelligence official has issued guidance on how to read and discuss "No Easy Day," a former Navy SEAL's unauthorized account of the raid that killed terrorist Osama bin Laden. Pentagon employees may buy "No Easy Day," but have to be guarded with whom they discuss the book?s contents. "On 04 September 2012, the assistant secretary defense for public affairs noted that the Department believes the recently published book 'No Easy Day' (NED) contains classified and sensitive unclassified information," begins the guidance, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Times. "As has been reported in the press, the author did not submit this book for pre-publication review that is required by non-disclosure agreements he signed." The Sept. 20 memo is titled "Official DoD Guidance Concerning the Book, 'No Easy Day.'" It is signed by Timothy A. Davis, director of security for the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Michael Vickers. The Pentagon has accused author Matt Bissonnette, one of the leaders of the May 2011 SEAL mission in Abbottabad, Pakistan, of divulging classified information. Some officials have threatened him with criminal prosecution. His lawyer denies the charge. The security memo sets out five guidelines. Employees may buy the book and do not have to store it in special containers for classified information. Workers "shall not discuss potentially classified and sensitive unclassified information with persons who do not have an official need to know and an appropriate security clearance." People with first-hand knowledge of the raid "shall not publicly speculate or discuss potentially classified or sensitive unclassified information outside official U.S. Government channels." And, finally, employees "are prohibited from using unclassified government computer systems to discuss potentially classified or sensitive contents of NED, and must not engage in online discussions via social networking or media sites regarding potentially classified or sensitive unclassified information that may be contained in NED." Supporters of Mr. Bissonnette say that, well before the book was published earlier this month, the Obama administration leaked rich details of the mission to reporters, book authors and at least one filmmaker. Mr. Obama has made bin Laden's killing a focal point of his re-election campaign. < - > --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 26 13:49:16 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Appeals Court Caves to TSA Over Nude Body Scanners Message-ID: Appeals Court Caves to TSA Over Nude Body Scanners ? By David KravetsEmail Author ? 09.25.12 ? 7:28 PM http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/appeals-court-caves/ A federal appeals court on Tuesday said it was giving the Transportation Security Administration until the end of March to comport with an already 14-month-old order to ?promptly? hold public hearings and take public comment concerning the so-called nude body scanners installed in U.S. airport security checkpoints. The public comments and the agency?s answers to them are reviewable by a court, which opens up a new avenue for a legal challenge to the agency?s decision to deploy the scanners. Critics maintain the scanners, which use radiation to peer through clothes, are threats to Americans? privacy and health, which the TSA denies. On July 15, 2011, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit set aside a constitutional challenge brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center trying to stop the government from using intrusive body scanners across U.S. airports. But the decision also ordered the TSA ?to act promptly? and hold public hearings and publicly adopt rules and regulations about the scanners? use, which it has not done, in violation of federal law. Then on Aug. 1 of this year, the court ordered (.pdf) the TSA to explain why it had not complied with its order. In response, the agency said it was expected to publish, by the end of February, a notice in the Federal Register opening up the Advanced Imaging Technology scanners to public comments and public hearings. That would be 19 months after the court order. On Tuesday, the court gave the TSA until the end of March, meaning the agency has 20 months to ?promptly? comply with the court?s order. EPIC was urging the appeals court to reverse the court?s blessing of the so-called nude body scanners because of the TSA?s lack of compliance with the court?s original order. The Transportation Security Administration has denied allegations from the Electronic Privacy Information Center that it was stonewalling the court?s order. (.pdf) The TSA said the agency was having staffing issues and was awaiting approval from the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget before it releases public documents associated with its 2009 decision to make the body scanners the ?primary? security apparatus at the nation?s airports. The three-judge appellate court, which is one stop from the Supreme Court, ruled last year that the TSA breached federal law when it formally adopted the Advanced Imaging Technology scanners as the primary method of screening. The judges ? while allowing the scanners to be used ? said the TSA violated the Administrative Procedures Act for failing to have a 90-day public comment period, and ordered the agency to undertake one. Under the Administrative Procedures Act, agency decisions like the TSA?s move toward body scanners must go through what is often termed a ?notice and comment? period if their new rules would substantially affect the rights of the public ? in this case, air passengers. But the court?s decision last year did not penalize the TSA for its shortcomings. The TSA argued to the court that a public comment period would thwart the government?s ability to respond to ?ever-evolving threats.? Concerns about the machines include the graphicness of the human images, the potential health risks and the scanners? effectiveness. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Sep 26 16:39:57 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 17:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Beyond Wall St., Curbs on High-Speed Trades Proceed Message-ID: <29F01D22-6E96-4394-81D1-80925F67E060@infowarrior.org> September 26, 2012 Beyond Wall St., Curbs on High-Speed Trades Proceed By NATHANIEL POPPER http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/business/beyond-wall-st-curbs-on-high-speed-trading-advance.html After years of emulating the flashy United States stock markets, countries around the globe are now using America as a model for what they don?t want to look like. Industry leaders and regulators in several countries including Canada, Australia and Germany have adopted or proposed a wide range of limits on high-speed trading and other technological developments that have come to define United States markets. The flurry of international activity is particularly striking because regulators have been slow to act in the United States, where trading firms and investors have been hardest hit by a series of market disruptions, including the flash crash of 2010 and the runaway trading in August by Knight Capital that cost it $440 million in just hours. While the Securities and Exchange Commission is hosting a round table on the topic on Tuesday, the agency has not proposed any major new rules this year. In contrast, the German government on Wednesday advanced legislation that would, among other things, force high-speed trading firms to register with the government and limit their ability to rapidly place and cancel orders, one of the central strategies used by the firms to take advantage of small changes in the price of stocks. A few hours later, a European Union committee agreed on similar but broader rules that would apply to the entire Continent if they win approval from the union?s governing bodies. In Australia, the top securities regulator recently stated its intention of bringing computer-driven trading firms under stricter supervision and forcing them to conduct stress testing, to protect the country?s markets ?against the type of disruption we have seen recently in other markets.? The broadest and fastest reforms have come out of Canada, where this spring regulators began increasing the fees charged to firms that flood the market with orders. The research and trading firm ITG found that the change had already made trading more efficient by reducing the crush of data burdening the market?s computer systems. Now Canadian trading desks are preparing for rules that will come into effect on Oct. 15 and curtail the growth of the sophisticated trading venues known as dark pools that have proliferated in the United States. While the regulation has been hotly debated, many Canadian bankers and investors have said they don?t want to go any further down the road that has taken the United States from having one major exchange a decade ago to having 13 official exchanges and dozens of dark pools today. ?We don?t want to look like the U.S., but we have to do it better than we are now,? said Greg Mills, the head of stock trading at the nation?s largest bank, Royal Bank of Canada. Canadian executives traveled to Washington last week to speak about what the United States may soon be able to learn from Canada about how to rein in the new high-speed markets. ?Because the U.S. had moved ahead so fast, we had the opportunity to watch and decide in some cases that there were extremes we didn?t want to go to,? Kevan Cowan, the president of the Toronto Stock Exchange, said at last week?s conference. American regulators have faced a growing demand at home for some sort of market reform from traders and exchange executives. At a Senate hearing on computerized trading last Thursday, one market analyst called for a moratorium on the new trading venues that have popped up in recent years, while traders on the panel recommended mandatory kill switches that could be flipped in case of technology malfunctions. The senator who called the hearing, Jack Reed, Democrat from Rhode Island, said ?our marketplace has been evolving very quickly and it is not clear that our rules have kept up.? There are many explanations for the slower pace of reform in the United States, including the crush of work the S.E.C. has had to deal with in completing regulations under the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law. In addition, many of the largest American market participants, including the big banks, have built high-speed trading desks and dark pools and as a result have a vested interest in protecting them against new regulations. The soft-touch approach of American regulators has won praise from many industry participants around the world who say that the rush elsewhere to impose new rules could jeopardize the lower trading costs that have come with the automation of the American markets. Michael Aitken, the chief scientist at the Capital Markets Cooperative Research Center in Australia, said the push for regulation in Australia and much of the rest of the world has been driven by ?hysteria? rather than ?evidence based policy.? Last year an international operator of exchanges, Chi-X, opened the first competitor to the Australian Securities Exchange. Australia?s two exchanges are still a long way from the 13 public exchanges in the United States, but Chi-X has already attracted over 7 percent of all Australian trading, largely by catering to high-speed firms. In total, those high-speed trading now accounts for 30 percent of all trading in Australia stocks, compared with 65 percent in the United States, according to the consulting firm Celent. A coalition of Australian pension funds and investment firms, the Industry Super Network, wrote to the country?s top securities regulator last week supporting recent reform efforts and calling for a wholesale moratorium on new high-speed trading. ?Structural advantages (largely derived through technology) can unfairly redistribute profits from traditional long-term investors to? high-speed trading firms, the group wrote. The European Parliament has been drafting new trading regulations for nearly a year, but the committee doing the work has significantly broadened the proposals since the Knight Capital fiasco. One new rule would require high-speed firms to honor the quotes they submit for at least 500 thousandths of a second, an eternity for firms that are used to submitting and withdrawing quotes in millionths of a second. Kay Swinburne, one of six members of the committee that drew up the rules, said that there was ?a general feeling that the U.S. markets are still learning from their mistakes.? The committee?s draft was approved Wednesday, but it still faces a long process before coming into law. But Ms. Swinburne, a former banker, said she worries that her fellow committee members may go too far and end up choking off trading, making buying and selling stocks more expensive for more traditional investors. In Canada, because of rules that were already in place, the flash crash of 2010 was less severe, taking broad stock indexes down only 4 percent, while they fell over 9 percent in the United States. Canadian regulators recently finished the first stage of an extensive study of the behavior of high-speed trading firms, and earlier this year they instituted the charges-based data traffic, with firms charged for all the orders they cancel, not just the trades they execute. About a quarter of all stock trading in Canada is done by high-speed firms. Additional rules coming into force in Canada are expected to cut the amount of trades going to dark pools, which do not publicly release information about the trading they host. Dark pools began in the United States as places where large investors could go to execute trades without revealing their positions. Today any order can go to one as long as the price is better than on the public exchange, even if only by a thousandth of a penny. Close to 15 percent of all American stock trading now occurs in dark pools. Dark pools have been growing quickly in Canada, but starting on Oct. 15 the pools will be allowed to take orders only if they offer a significantly better price than the public exchange. Susan Wolburgh Jenah, the chief executive of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, said that her agency was increasingly going its own way rather than just following the American approach to regulating new forms of trading. ?With all this new technology comes responsibility for ensuring that market integrity is not adversely impacted,? she said. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 27 06:57:32 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 07:57:32 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cyberwarfare Emerges From Shadows For Public Discussion By U.S. Officials Message-ID: <5524B816-784B-4F60-A55C-4B113CA7F57A@infowarrior.org> New York Times September 27, 2012 Cyberwarfare Emerges From Shadows For Public Discussion By U.S. Officials By Scott Shane http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/us/us-officials-opening-up-on-cyberwarfare.html?_r=0 WASHINGTON ? For years, even as the United States carried out sophisticated cyberattacks on Iran?s nuclear program and the Pentagon created a Cyber Command, officials have been hesitant to discuss American offensive cyberwarfare programs openly. Since June, in fact, F.B.I. agents have been investigating leaks to The New York Times about the computer attacks on Tehran. But the reticence is giving way. The chorus of official voices speaking publicly about American cyberattack strategy and capabilities is steadily growing, and some experts say greater openness will allow the United States to stake out legal and ethical rules in the uncharted territory of computer combat. Others fear that talking too boldly about American plans could fuel a global computer arms race. Next month the Pentagon?s research arm will host contractors who want to propose ?revolutionary technologies for understanding, planning and managing cyberwarfare.? It is an ambitious program that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, calls Plan X, and the public description talks about ?understanding the cyber battlespace,? quantifying ?battle damage? and working in Darpa?s ?cyberwar laboratory.? James A. Lewis, who studies cybersecurity at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says he sees the Plan X public announcement as ?a turning point? in a long debate over secrecy about cyberwarfare. He said it was timely, given that public documents suggest that at least 12 of the world?s 15 largest militaries are building cyberwarfare programs. ?I see Plan X as operationalizing and routinizing cyberattack capabilities,? Mr. Lewis said. ?If we talk openly about offensive nuclear capabilities and every other kind, why not cyber?? Yet like drone aircraft, which similarly can be used for both spying and combat, American cyberattack tools now are passing through a zone of semisecrecy, no longer denied but not fully discussed. President Obama has spoken publicly twice about drones; he has yet to speak publicly on American cyberattacks. Last week, at a public Cyber Command legal conference, the State Department?s top lawyer, Harold H. Koh ? who gave the Obama administration?s first public speech on targeted killing of terrorists in 2010 ? stated the administration?s position that the law of war, including such principles as minimizing harm to civilians, applies to cyberattacks. In August, the Air Force raised eyebrows with a bluntly worded solicitation for papers advising it on ?cyberspace warfare attack capabilities,? including weapons ?to destroy, deny, degrade, disrupt, deceive, corrupt or usurp? an enemy?s computer networks and other high-tech targets. And a few weeks earlier, a top Marine commander recounted at a public conference how he had used ?cyber operations against my adversary? in Afghanistan in 2010. ?I was able to get inside his nets, infect his command-and-control, and in fact defend myself against his almost constant incursions to get inside my wire,? said Lt. Gen. Richard P. Mills, now deputy commandant of the Marine Corps. Cyberwarfare was discussed quite openly in the 1990s, though technological capabilities and targets were far more limited than they are today, said Jason Healey, who heads the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council in Washington. ?Our current silence dates back 8 or 10 years, and N.S.A. is a big reason,? said Mr. Healey, who is working on a history of cyberwarfare. The National Security Agency, which plays a central role in Cyber Command, traditionally breaks foreign codes and eavesdrops on foreign communications; it is among the most secretive agencies in government. Years ago it pioneered the field of cyberespionage: breaking into foreign computer systems in order to collect intelligence. The same skills and reflexive secrecy of spies carried over to cyberwarfare, Mr. Healey said. American officials have long preferred to talk cyberdefense, leaving the attack side in the shadows. The increased candor recently about cyberoffense results not from a policy change, officials say, but from an inevitable acceptance of attacks on computer networks as a standard part of military and intelligence capabilities. The fact that dozens of Beltway contractors see cyberwarfare as one of the few parts of the defense budget that are likely to grow is also a factor. When Darpa announced a ?proposers? day workshop? for its Plan X program, the ?overwhelming response from industry and academia? led the defense research agency to expand the event to an extra day, the agency said in a statement. (A Darpa spokesman declined to comment further on Plan X.) Just as drone-fired missiles have never been a secret to those on the ground, so cyberattacks have consequences that cannot be hidden, even if their origin may be initially uncertain. The computer worm called Stuxnet, devised by the United States and Israel to destroy Iran?s nuclear centrifuges, was quickly detected by computer security experts when it infected networks around the world in 2010 ? but remains highly classified. Hence the Cyber Command legal conference, which avoided specific cases while dwelling on principles. Mr. Koh, of the State Department, told the conference that the United States carries out ?at least two stages of legal review? on cyberwarfare operations ? considering whether the law of war prohibits the use of ?new weapons? altogether and, if not, how the law governs their use in ?each particular operation.? Matthew Waxman, a law professor at Columbia and former Defense Department official, said speaking openly about cyberwarfare policy was important because it allowed the United States to make clear its intentions on a novel and fast-emerging form of conflict. Because both the Bush and Obama administrations were slow to speak publicly about their use of armed drones, Mr. Waxman said, ?they ceded a lot of ground to critics to shape the narrative and portray U.S. practices as lawless.? As a result, he said, ?the U.S. is trying to play catch-up, giving speech after speech, saying ?We abide by the law.? ? Now, Mr. Waxman said, because the United States ?occupies a position of advantage on offensive cyber capabilities, it should seize the opportunity to lay out a set of rules for itself and others.? That is a worthy goal, said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. But he said that came with a hazard: more talk about the United States? cyberwarfare capabilities might prompt other countries to step up their own programs at a time when the world is ?on the cusp of a cyber arms race,? he said. Mr. Kimball said Darpa?s sweeping public statement about the goals of its Plan X for cyberwarfare might be a case in point. ?It makes it sound like the U.S. is preparing to be able to wage a full-out cyberwar,? Mr. Kimball said. ?Those kinds of statements could come back to haunt the U.S. down the road.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 27 14:13:50 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:13:50 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cyber Security, an Air Force Punchline? Message-ID: DefenseTech.org September 26, 2012 Cyber Security, an Air Force Punchline? by MIKE HOFFMAN http://defensetech.org/2012/09/26/cyber-security-an-air-force-punchline/ Many U.S. generals will openly admit to knowing little about one of the threats they all agree is one that is most dangerous to U.S. national security ? cyber security. Yet, those same generals have used their lack of knowledge on the subject often as a punchline. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh stood up at the Air Force Association?s annual conference September 18 and admitted he didn?t know what an IP address was. The comment drew plenty of laughter form the crowd of airmen and defense industry officials. The Air Force?s top officer said he twitches when he says the word ?cyber.? He explained that ?we have a lot of people in this discussion who don?t really know what they?re talking about? when it comes to cyber issues. ?I know because they?re all like me,? Welsh said to more laughter from the crowd. He didn?t question whether the Air Force needed to take cyber security seriously. He sees it as a priority. Welsh called it the future ? ?no doubt in my mind.? ?Everything we do can be affected either by or through [cyber],? Welsh said. ?In either a good or a bad way.? However, the Defense Department already receives about 10 million cyber attacks everyday. Cyber analysts suspect potential enemies are already establishing cyber war plans in case of a military engagement with the U.S. Welsh pleaded with cyber experts to dumb down the way they explain threats to Air Force leaders. ?When you come to educate us, don?t come in using cyber talk,? Welsh said. The Air Force four-star said he worried the investments made in cyber could be disappearing into a ?black hole.? Welsh will wait until he understands the cyber topic better, he said. ?So you just need to know I?m going to be going a little slow on the operational side of cyber until I really understand what we?re doing,? he said. ?I?ll be the one you?re dragging, Willy. I?ll warn you now.? An Air Force officer, who asked not to be named, said as he walked out of the speech that he was surprised to hear the Air Force chief of staff plead ignorance. ?Can you imagine if he said something like that about aircraft or weapons or nuclear weapons?? the Air Force major said. ?It would never happen. They?d run him out of the Pentagon.? Welsh told the crowd the Air Force might have to wait awhile before they have the leaders in place with the appropriate cyber background to make decisions on the subject. ?In 30 years you?ll have experts making these decisions,? Welsh said. ?Right now you?ve got idiots helping make these decisions. So common sense, plain English will really help us.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Sep 27 14:37:11 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:37:11 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - US calls Assange 'enemy of state' Message-ID: <832CE0CB-6B51-4894-B950-E753B52D9DED@infowarrior.org> US calls Assange 'enemy of state' Date September 27, 2012 http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-calls-assange-enemy-of-state-20120927-26m7s.html THE US military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States - the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency. Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death. The documents, some originally classified "Secret/NoForn" - not releasable to non-US nationals - record a probe by the air force's Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst based in Britain who allegedly expressed support for WikiLeaks and attended pro-Assange demonstrations in London. The counter-intelligence investigation focused on whether the analyst, who had a top-secret security clearance and access to the US military's Secret Internet Protocol Router network, had disclosed classified or sensitive information to WikiLeaks supporters, described as an "anti-US and/or anti-military group". The suspected offence was "communicating with the enemy, 104-D", an article in the US Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibits military personnel from "communicating, corresponding or holding intercourse with the enemy". The analyst's access to classified information was suspended. However, the investigators closed the case without laying charges. The analyst denied leaking information. Mr Assange remains holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London. He was granted diplomatic asylum on the grounds that if extradited to Sweden to be questioned about sexual assault allegations, he would be at risk of extradition to the US to face espionage or conspiracy charges arising from the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic reports. US Vice-President Joe Biden labelled Mr Assange a "high-tech terrorist" in December 2010 and US congressional leaders have called for him to be charged with espionage. Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee - both once involved in presidential campaigns - have both urged that Mr Assange be "hunted down". Mr Assange's US attorney, Michael Ratner, said the designation of WikiLeaks as an "enemy" had serious implications for the WikiLeaks publisher if he were to be extradited to the US, including possible military detention. US Army private Bradley Manning faces a court martial charged with aiding the enemy - identified as al-Qaeda - by transmitting information that, published by WikiLeaks, became available to the enemy. Mr Ratner said that under US law it would most likely have been considered criminal for the US Air Force analyst to communicate classified material to journalists and publishers, but those journalists and publishers would not have been considered the enemy or prosecuted. "However, in the FOI documents there is no allegation of any actual communication for publication that would aid an enemy of the United States such as al-Qaeda, nor are there allegations that WikiLeaks published such information," he said. "Almost the entire set of documents is concerned with the analyst's communications with people close to and supporters of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, with the worry that she would disclose classified documents to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. "It appears that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are the 'enemy'. An enemy is dealt with under the laws of war, which could include killing, capturing, detaining without trial, etc." The Australian government has repeatedly denied knowledge of any US intention to charge Mr Assange or seek his extradition. However, Australian diplomatic cables released to Fairfax Media under freedom-of-information laws over the past 18 months have confirmed the continuation of an "unprecedented" US Justice Department espionage investigation targeting Mr Assange and WikiLeaks. The Australian diplomatic reports canvassed the possibility that the US may eventually seek Mr Assange's extradition on conspiracy or information-theft-related offences to avoid extradition problems arising from the nature of espionage as a political offence and the free-speech protections in the US constitution. Mr Assange is scheduled this morning to speak by video link to a meeting on his asylum case on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting will be attended by Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino. In a separate FOI decision yesterday, the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the release of Australian diplomatic cables about WikiLeaks and Mr Assange had been the subject of extensive consultation with the US. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Sep 28 14:32:10 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Steve Jobs rolls in his grave.... Message-ID: <5829B4E5-294F-4025-8095-6038D2E7AF5B@infowarrior.org> September 28, 2012, 9:16 am Tim Cook Apologizes for Apple?s Maps By BRIAN X. CHEN After more than a week of complaints and jokes about Apple?s new mapping service, the company?s chief executive apologized to customers on Friday for the frustration it has caused. In a letter posted on Apple?s Web site, Timothy D. Cook said he was ?extremely sorry? for the anguish caused when the company replaced Google?s maps with its own, acknowledging that the company?s new Maps app did not live up to its standards. He said that 100 million people were already using the maps, and that the more who used it, the better the service would get. In the meantime, while Apple fixes its maps, he suggested that customers try alternatives available for download in the App Store or on the Web ? including Google?s. < - > http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/tim-cook-maps/?hpw --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Sep 29 09:26:46 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:26:46 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Luddite atop U.S. cybersecurity Message-ID: <63F0292A-024E-4CC4-8D15-CFA18A264755@infowarrior.org> (c/o AJR) The Luddite atop U.S. cybersecurity http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/28/the-luddite-atop-us-cybersecurity/?hpt=hp_t3 Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano acknowledged Friday her Luddite-like ways, despite the fact her position puts her in a critical leadership role when it comes to defending the nation's infrastructure from cyberattacks. Napolitano said she does not use email "at all." "For a whole host of reasons. So, I don't have any of my own accounts and that, you know, I'm very secure," Napolitano noted at a Washington conference about cyber security. "Some would call me a Luddite but you know. But that's my own personal choice and I'm very unique in that regard I suspect," Napolitano added. The Obama administration has been pushing Congress to revisit legislation that would have given DHS authority to enforce security standards. Legislation faltered earlier this year over concerns that it was too intrusive in requiring business to share data about intrusions, rather than it being voluntary. In the meantime, an executive order is being drafted by the Obama administration that would help clarify security standards, Napolitano said. She said President Barack Obama has not reviewed it yet. Napolitano said legislation would not dictate to companies how to run their security but rather would be a public-private partnerships to defend critical infrastructure. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Sep 29 15:00:01 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Here=92s_the_Chip_Apple_Is_Using?= =?windows-1252?q?_to_Stop_You_from_Buying_Cheap_Cables?= Message-ID: Here?s the Chip Apple Is Using to Stop You from Buying Cheap Cables Eric Limer If you bought yourself an iPhone 5, and are looking for a cheap, third-party lightning adapter to save a couple of bucks, you might want to hold off. There's an authenticator chip in the official adapters, and third-party adapters probably won't work without it. Peter from Double Helix Cables found the obnoxious little chip while dissecting one of the new, official Lighting cables. Positioned between the cord's USB contact and the power pin on the Lightning plug, the chip seems to be the key to keeping Lighting cables and adapters proprietary. These kind of authentication chips aren't uncommon in more sophisticated accessories, but this is the first time one has shown up in something as basic as a charging cable, smack in the middle of the power line. According the Peter, the chip doesn't block the data lines, but you need data and power to connect by USB. That could mean any number of things. < - > http://gizmodo.com/5945889/some-third+party-adapters-might-not-work-with-your-new-iphone --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 30 10:38:27 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:38:27 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Mark Cuban: What Business is Wall Street In? Message-ID: What Business is Wall Street In ? Sep 21st 2012 8:02AM http://blogmaverick.com/2012/09/21/what-business-is-wall-street-in-3/ Wall Street doesn?t know what business it is in. Regulators don?t know what the business of Wall Street is. Investor/shareholders don?t know what business Wall Street is in. The only people who know what business Wall Street is in are the high frequency and automated traders. They know what business Wall Street is in better than everyone else. To traders, whether day traders or high frequency or somewhere in between, Wall Street has nothing to do with creating capital for businesses, its original goal. Wall Street is a platform. It?s a platform to be exploited by every technological and intellectual means possible. The best analogy for traders ? They are hackers. Just as hackers search for and exploit operating system and application shortcomings, high frequency traders do the same thing. A hacker wants to jump in front of your shopping cart and grab your credit card and then sell it. A high frequency trader wants to jump in front of your trade and then sell that stock to you. A hacker will tell you that they are serving a purpose by identifying the weak links in your system. A trader will tell you they deserve the pennies they are making on the trade or the rebate they are getting from the exchange because they provide liquidity to the market. I recognize that one is illegal, the other is not. That isn?t the important issue. The important issue is recognizing that Wall Street is no longer serving the purpose what it was designed to . Wall Street was designed to be a market to which companies provide securities (stocks/bonds), from which they received capital that would help them start/grow/sell businesses. Investors made their money by recognizing value where others did not, or by simply committing to a company and growing with it as a shareholder, receiving dividends or appreciation in their holdings. What percentage of the market is driven by investors these days ? I started actively trading stocks in 1992. I traded a lot. Over the years I?ve written quite a bit about the market. I have always thought I had a good handle on the market. Until recently. Over just the past 5 years, the market has changed. It is getting increasingly difficult to just invest in companies you believe in. Discussion in the market place is not about the performance of specific companies and their returns. Discussion is about macro issues that impact all stocks. And those macro issues impact automated trading decisions, which impact any and every stock that is part of any and every index or ETF. Combine that with the leverage of derivatives tracking companies, indexes and other packages or the leveraged ETFs, and individual stocks become pawns in a much bigger game than I feel increasingly less comfortable playing. It is a game fraught with ever increasing risk. So back to the original question. What business is Wall Street in ? Its primary business is no longer creating capital for business. Creating capital for business has to be less than 1pct of the volume on Wall Street in any given period. (I would be curious if anyone out there knows what percentage of transactions actually return money to a company for any reason). It wouldn?t shock me that even in this environment that more money flows from companies to the market in the form of buybacks (which i think are always a mistake), than flows into companies in the form of equity. My 2 cents is that it is important for this country to push Wall Street back to the business of creating capital for business. Whether its through a use of taxes on trades(hit every trade on a stock held less than 1 hour with a 10c tax and all these problems go away), or changing the capital gains tax structure so that there is no capital gains tax on any shares of stock (private or public company) held for 1 year or more, and no tax on dividends paid to shareholders who have held stock in the company for more than 5 years. However we need to do it, we need to get the smart money on Wall Street back to thinking about ways to use their capital to help start and grow companies. That is what will create jobs. That is where we will find the next big thing that will accelerate the world economy. It won?t come from traders trying to hack the financial system for a few pennies per trade. And solutions won?t come from bureaucrats trying to prevent the traders from hacking the system. The only certainty when bureaucrats step in is that the law of unintended consequences will smack us all in the head and the trader/hackers will find new ways to exploit the system that makes them big money and even more money for the big institutions that develop products for the other institutions that are desperate to play the game. Regulators have got to start to recognize that traders are not investors and vice versa and treat them differently. Different regulations. Different tax structure. Different oversight. Individual investors and the funds that just invest in stocks and bonds are not going to crash the market. Big traders who are always leveraging up and maximizing the number of trades/hacks they make will always put the system at risk. We need to recognize that they do not serve much of a purpose other than to add substantial risk to the global economy. That their stated value add of liquidity does not compensate the US and World Economy nearly enough for the risk of collapse they introduce into the system. Wall Street as a whole needs to be in the business of creating capital for companies and selling shares to investors who believe they are shareholders. The Government needs to create simple and obvious incentives for this business and extract compensation from the traders/hackers for the systemic failure risk they introduce. There will be another flash crash, and probably a crash far worse than the May 2010 flash crash simply because there are too many players looking for the trillion dollar score. They can?t all win, yet how many do you think wouldn?t risk everything, even what is not theirs, for that remote chance to score big ? Put another way, there is zero recognition of the moral hazard attached to every trade. So why wouldn?t traders take the biggest risk possible ? There is value to trading automation. It is here to stay. There is absolutely NO VALUE to High Frequency Trading. None. We need to bring our markets back to their original goals of creating capital for business. It?s impossible to guess how many small to medium size companies have been held back from growing and creating jobs and wealth because of lack of access to capital from the stock market. It?s not impossible to know that our economy has suffered because Wall Street equity markets are no longer a source of equity for helping companies grow, it is not a platform for hackers and that needs to change. Quickly. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 30 11:49:51 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:49:51 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Star Wars meets Rushmore meets Breakfast Club: Jedi High Message-ID: Amusing and subtly snarky mashup. -rick Vincent sez, "A hard-working group of film students from Oak Park High in Winnipeg, Manitoba made this intergalactic cinematic mashup, which is an homage not only to Star Wars, but also The Breakfast Club and Rushmore." http://boingboing.net/2012/09/30/star-wars-meets-rushmore-meets.html --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 30 13:14:34 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 14:14:34 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?windows-1252?q?Terms_=26_Conditions=3A_Skype=92?= =?windows-1252?q?s_limits_on_=91unlimited=2C=92_blocked_countries=2C_forb?= =?windows-1252?q?idden_uses_and_more?= Message-ID: Terms & Conditions: Skype?s limits on ?unlimited,? blocked countries, forbidden uses and more http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/terms-conditions-skype/ --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 30 20:41:34 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 21:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - White House Hack Attack? Message-ID: <34191C7B-2B36-4F63-9E6E-7A66FD568189@infowarrior.org> White House Hack Attack Chinese hackers break in to White House military office network in charge of the president?s nuclear football http://freebeacon.com/white-house-hack-attack BY: Bill Gertz September 30, 2012 8:33 pm Hackers linked to China?s government broke into one of the U.S. government?s most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident. One official said the cyber breach was one of Beijing?s most brazen cyber attacks against the United States and highlights a failure of the Obama administration to press China on its persistent cyber attacks. Disclosure of the cyber attack also comes amid heightened tensions in Asia, as the Pentagon moved two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups and Marine amphibious units near waters by Japan?s Senkaku islands. China and Japan?the United States? closest ally in Asia and a defense treaty partner?are locked in a heated maritime dispute over the Senkakus, which China claims as its territory. U.S. officials familiar with reports of the White House hacking incident said it took place earlier this month and involved unidentified hackers, believed to have used computer servers in China, who accessed the computer network used by the White House Military Office (WHMO), the president?s military office in charge of some of the government?s most sensitive communications, including strategic nuclear commands. The office also arranges presidential communications and travel, and inter-government teleconferences involving senior policy and intelligence officials. ?This is the most sensitive office in the U.S. government,? said a former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the work of the office. ?A compromise there would cause grave strategic damage to the United States.? Security officials are investigating the breach and have not yet determined the damage that may have been caused by the hacking incident, the officials said. One defense official said there is fairly solid intelligence linking the penetration of the WHMO network to China, and there are indications that the attackers were able to breach the classified network. Details of the cyber attack and the potential damage it may have caused remain closely held within the U.S. government. However, because the military office handles strategic nuclear and presidential communications, officials said the attack was likely the work of Chinese military cyber warfare specialists under the direction of a unit called the 4th Department of General Staff of the People?s Liberation Army, or 4PLA. It is not clear how such a high-security network could be penetrated. Such classified computer systems are protected by multiple levels of security and are among the most ?hardened? systems against digital attack. However, classified computer systems were compromised in the past using several methods. They include the insertion of malicious code through a contaminated compact flash drive; a breach by a trusted insider, as in the case of the thousands of classified documents leaked to the anti-secrecy web site Wikileaks; and through compromised security encryption used for remote access to secured networks, as occurred with the recent compromise involving the security firm RSA and several major defense contractors. According to the former official, the secrets held within the WHMO include data on the so-called ?nuclear football,? the nuclear command and control suitcase used by the president to be in constant communication with strategic nuclear forces commanders for launching nuclear missiles or bombers. The office also is in charge of sensitive continuity-of-government operations in wartime or crises. The former official said if China were to obtain details of this sensitive information, it could use it during a future conflict to intercept presidential communications, locate the president for targeting purposes, or disrupt strategic command and control by the president to U.S. forces in both the United States and abroad. White House spokesmen had no immediate comment on the cyber attack, or on whether President Obama was notified of the incident. Former McAffee cyber threat researcher Dmitri Alperovitch said he was unaware of the incident, but noted: ?I can tell you that the Chinese have an aggressive goal to infiltrate all levels of U.S. government and private sector networks.? ?The White House network would be the crown jewel of that campaign so it is hardly surprising that they would try their hardest to compromise it,? said Alperovictch, now with the firm Crowdstrike. Last week the senior intelligence officer for the U.S. Cyber Command said Chinese cyber attacks and cyber-espionage against Pentagon computers are a constant security problem. ?Their level of effort against the Department of Defense is constant? and efforts to steal economic secrets are increasing, Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, Cyber Command director of intelligence, told Reuters after a security conference. ?It?s continuing apace,? Cox said of Chinese cyber-espionage. ?In fact, I?d say it?s still accelerating.? Asked if classified networks were penetrated by the Chinese cyber warriors, Cox told the news agency: ?I can?t really get into that.? The WHMO arranges the president?s travel and also provides medical support and emergency medical services, according to the White House?s website. ?The office oversees policy related to WHMO functions and Department of Defense assets and ensures that White House requirements are met with the highest standards of quality,? the website states. ?The WHMO director oversees all military operations aboard Air Force One on presidential missions worldwide. The deputy director of the White House Military Office focuses primarily on the day-to-day support of the WHMO.? The office is also in charge of the White House Communications Agency, which handles all presidential telephone, radio, and digital communications, as well as airlift operations through both fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft. It also operates the presidential retreat at Camp David and the White House Transportation Agency. ?To assure proper coordination and integration, the WHMO also includes support elements such as operations; policy, plans, and requirements; administration, information resource management; financial management and comptroller; WHMO counsel; and security,? the website states. ?Together, WHMO entities provide essential service to the president and help maintain the continuity of the presidency.? Asked for comment on the White House military office cyber attack, a Cyber Command spokesman referred questions to the White House. Regarding U.S. naval deployments near China, the carrier strike groups led by the USS George Washington and the USS Stennis, along with a Marine Corps air-ground task force, are now operating in the western Pacific near the Senkakus, according to Navy officials. China recently moved maritime patrol boats into waters near the Senkakus, prompting calls by Japanese coast guard ships for the vessels to leave. Chinese officials have issued threatening pronouncements to Japan that Tokyo must back down from the recent government purchase of three of the islands from private Japanese owners. Tokyo officials have said Japan is adamant the islands are Japanese territory. Officials said the Washington is deployed in the East China Sea and the Stennis is in the South China Sea. About 2,200 Marines are deployed in the Philippine Sea on the USS Bonhomme Richard and two escorts. The U.S. Pacific Command said the deployments are for training missions and carriers are not necessarily related to the Senkaku tensions. ?These operations are not tied to any specific event,? said Capt. Darryn James, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command in Honolulu, according to Time magazine. ?As part of the U.S. commitment to regional security, two of the Navy?s 11 global force carrier strike groups are operating in the Western Pacific to help safeguard stability and peace.? As a measure of the tensions, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Chinese military leaders during his recent visit to China that the U.S. military will abide by its defense commitments to Japan despite remaining publicly neutral in the maritime dispute. ?It?s well known that the United States and Japan have a mutual defense treaty,? a defense official said of Panetta?s exchange in Beijing. ?Panetta noted the treaty but strongly emphasized that the United States takes no position on this territorial dispute and encouraged the parties to resolve the dispute peacefully. This shouldn?t have to get to the point where people start invoking treaties.? A report by the defense contractor Northrop Grumman made public by the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in March stated that China?s military has made targeting of U.S. command and control networks in cyber warfare a priority. ?Chinese capabilities in computer network operations have advanced sufficiently to pose genuine risk to U.S. military operations in the event of a conflict,? the report said. ?PLA analysts consistently identify logistics and C4ISR infrastructure as U.S. strategic centers of gravity suggesting that PLA commanders will almost certainly attempt to target these system with both electronic countermeasures weapons and network attack and exploitation tools, likely in advance of actual combat to delay U.S. entry or degrade capabilities in a conflict,? the report said. C4ISR is military jargon for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Little is known within the U.S. intelligence community about Chinese strategic cyber warfare programs. However, recent military writings have disclosed some aspects of the program, which is believed to be one of Beijing?s most closely guarded military secrets, along with satellite weapons, laser arms, and other high-technology military capabilities, such as the DF-21 ballistic missile modified to attack aircraft carriers at sea. A Chinese military paper from March stated that China is seeking ?cyber dominance? as part of its efforts to build up revolutionary military capabilities. ?In peacetime, the cyber combat elements may remain in a ?dormant? state; in wartime, they may be activated to harass and attack the network command, management, communications, and intelligence systems of the other countries? armed forces,? wrote Liu Wangxin in the official newspaper of the Chinese military on March 6. ?While great importance is attached continuously to wartime actions, it is also necessary to pay special attention to non-wartime actions,? he said. ?For example, demonstrate the presence of the cyber military power through cyber reconnaissance, cyber deployment, and cyber protection activities.? --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Sep 30 20:54:25 2012 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 21:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Japan introduces piracy penalties for illegal downloads Message-ID: 30 September 2012 Last updated at 23:26 GMT Japan introduces piracy penalties for illegal downloads http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19767970?print=true Japan-based internet users who download copyright infringing files face up to two years in prison or fines of up to two million yen ($25,700; ?15,900) after a change to the law. Such activity has been illegal since 2010, but until now had not invoked the penalties. It follows a lobbying campaign by country's music industry. But critics said that efforts should have remained focused on stopping users making such material available. In Japan illegal uploads of copyright infringing music and videos carry a maximum 10 year prison sentence and a 10 million yen fine. Sales figures suggest the country is the world's second-largest music market after the US. Piracy problem In theory the new download punishments can be enforced if a user is found to have copied a single pirated file. The Recording Industry Association of Japan had pushed for the move, suggesting that illegal media downloads outnumbered legal ones by about a factor of 10. The figure is based on a 2010 study which suggested that people in the country downloaded about 4.36 billion illegally pirated music and video files and 440 million purchased ones that year. It added that the disparity was likely to have increased over the following months. "This revision will reduce the spread of copyright infringement activities on the internet," said the body's chairman Naoki Kitagawa, who is also chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment Japan, earlier this year. Politicians voted through the change in June. Shortly afterwards the website of the government's finance ministry was defaced and the sites of the Supreme Court, the DPJ and LDP political parties, and the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers were briefly taken offline after cyber attacks. The following month a group of masked activists associated wearing masks associated with the Anonymous hacktivist movement staged a protest in Tokyo. About 80 participants picked up rubbish from the ground in the city's Shibuya shopping district for an hour to publicise their opposition to the plan. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations, a group representing legal professionals, also issued a statement saying the offence should have remained a civil, rather than criminal, matter. "Treating personal activities with criminal punishments must be done very cautiously, and the property damage caused by individual illegal downloads by private individuals is highly insignificant," it said. However, the efforts did not sway the politicians. International efforts Japan's action is part of a wider international crackdown on online piracy. Over recent months the US has taken the digital locker service Megaupload offline; Ukraine has shut down the BitTorrent site Demonoid; the UK has jailed the owner of the Surfthechannel video link provider; and several countries have restricted access to The Pirate Bay torrent service - the founder of which was recently deported from Cambodia to Sweden to face tax charges. France also recently fined one of its citizens for the first time under its "three strikes" rule which allows it to impose a fine if a suspected pirate ignores three warnings about their activity. However, attempts to introduce new laws have run into problems elsewhere. The US put off votes on Sopa (Stop Online Piracy Act) and Pipa (Protect IP Act) in January after Wikipedia and thousands of other sites staged blackouts in protest. The European Parliament also voted to reject Acta (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) in July after opposition across the continent. --- Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.