Wednesday, March 07, 2012


A long release by (and for) the US Attorney in New York. (I've cut out quite a bit) I guess these guys have never heard of the prisoner's dilemma...
Members of LulzSec Charged for Crimes Affecting Over One Million Victims; “Sabu” Turned on Fellow Hackers
March 6, 2012 by admin
Press release:
Five computer hackers in the United States and abroad were charged today, and a sixth pled guilty, for computer hacking and other crimes. The six hackers identified themselves as aligned with the group Anonymous, which is a loose confederation of computer hackers and others, and/or offshoot groups related to Anonymous, including “Internet Feds,” “LulzSec,” and “AntiSec.”
… were charged in an indictment unsealed today in Manhattan federal court with computer hacking conspiracy involving the hacks of Fox Broadcasting Company, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and the Public Broadcasting Service (“PBS”).
HECTOR XAVIER MONSEGUR, a/k/a “Sabu,” … also pled guilty to the following charges: a substantive hacking charge initially filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of California related to the hacks of HBGary, Inc. and HBGary Federal LLC; a substantive hacking charge initially filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California related to the hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment and Fox Broadcasting Company; a substantive hacking charge initially filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia related to the hack of Infragard Members Alliance; and a substantive hacking charge initially filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia related to the hack of PBS, all of which were transferred to the Southern District of New York,...
Late yesterday, JEREMY HAMMOND, … was arrested in Chicago, Illinois and charged in a criminal complaint with crimes relating to the December 2011 hack of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (“Stratfor”), a global intelligence firm in Austin, Texas, which may have affected approximately 860,000 victims.
Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York

(Related) Told ya...
Anonymous Rocked By News That Top Hacker Snitched to Feds


Probably not true (since they rotate the image, don't they?) but amusing... However this does match other reports.
TheNextCorner points out a video that lays bare a glaring flaw in the TSA body scanners used in airports to detect weapons and explosives. In such scans, citizens are depicted in light colors, while metallic objects show as very dark. The problem comes when you consider that the images are taken with a dark background. From the transcript:
"Yes that’s right, if you have a metallic object on your side, it will be the same color as the background and therefore completely invisible to both visual and automated inspection. It can’t possibly be that easy to beat the TSA’s billion dollar fleet of nude body scanners, right? The TSA can’t be that stupid, can they? Unfortunately, they can, and they are. To put it to the test, I bought a sewing kit from the dollar store, broke out my 8th grade home ec skills, and sewed a pocket directly on the side of a shirt. Then I took a random metallic object, in this case a heavy metal carrying case that would easily alarm any of the “old” metal detectors, and walked through a backscatter x-ray at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. On video, of course. While I’m not about to win any videography awards for my hidden camera footage, you can watch as I walk through the security line with the metal object in my new side pocket."


Not sure what criteria is used for this...
March 06, 2012
United Nations E-Government Survey 2012
  • "According to the 2012 United Nations E-government Survey rankings, the Republic of Korea is the world leader (0.9283) followed by the Netherlands (0.9125), the United Kingdom (0.8960) and Denmark (0.8889), with the United States, Canada, France, Norway, Singapore and Sweden close behind. The steady improvement in all the indicators of the e-government development index has led to a world average of 0.4877 as compared to 0.4406 in 2010. This reflects that countries in general have improved their online service delivery to cater to citizens’ needs. On a regional level, Europe (0.7188) and Eastern Asia (0.6344) lead, followed by Northern America (0.8559), [Mistake or some evil secret agenda? Bob] South Asia (0.3464) and Africa (0.2762). Despite progress, there remains an imbalance in the digital divide between developed and the developing countries, especially in Africa. The latter region had a mean e-government development index of about 30 per cent of Northern America and about half of the world average. The digital divide is rooted in the lack of e-infrastructure, [a large part of which is a lack of ANY infrastructure Bob] which has hindered information-use and knowledge-creation. The tremendous difference of broadband width and subscriptions between the developing and the developed world proves that there are yet many milestones to be reached in order to close the gap of the digital divide."


Perspective
The first stat alone says it all – all the online information we consume on a daily basis can fill up 168 million DVD’s


I should be able to work this into my website class...
This afternoon the Google Docs and Sites team announced some very useful enhancements to both products. To me, the most exciting news in the announcement is that you can now use custom HTML and Javascript in your Google Sites pages. I have long be frustrated by how difficult, impossible actually without a lot of work arounds, it is to use many custom widgets like some of these survey tools in Google Sites. Now if you want to use custom HTML, Javascript, or CSS in Google Sites all you have to do is select the "HTML box" from the "insert menu" then paste your code. Read Google's directions here.
In the same announcement I learned that you can now search for, highlight, and copy text in the scanned PDFs that you have stored in your Google Docs account.
The comments feature in Google Docs is great for collaboration on documents and presentations. Now you can find all of the comments for a document or presentation in one column by clicking the new "discussions" button which is located just to the left of the "share" button on your documents and presentations.
Applications for Education
I am most excited about the custom html and Javascript option in Google Sites. That removes a major limitation to customizing the pages in websites built in Google Sites. Now you can add things like educational games, custom flashcard applications, survey tools and more to your Google Sites website.

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