Big and long-running. I hope we see more details.
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20081213173956657
Za: Cops reel in greedy hackers
Saturday, December 13 2008 @ 05:39 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A syndicate of Internet thieves has stolen more than R400-million [CORRECTION: approximately $39.7 million -- Dissent] from government departments, including the Presidency.
Two computer identity-theft hackers, believed to be the masterminds of the cyber gang, were nabbed by the police this week.
These follow the earlier arrests of 13 people involved in stealing millions of rands from government departments and employees across the country.
Source - The Mercury
[From the article:
The syndicate, the members of which have been arrested over the past month, was bust during an operation conducted by the South African Police Service's Covert Intelligence Collective Directorate and the Commercial Crime Unit.
... She said the information showed that since 2006 the suspects had allegedly stolen more than R5-million from the Office of the Presidency's budget.
... "In some cases, government officials within IT departments used remote access software available on the commercial market to gain unauthorised access and modify the banking details of registered suppliers," she explained.
Golding said the syndicate also targeted bank officials for recruitment and facilitation of fraudulent transactions.
Not all Identity Theft is for money. Here's a pure “anti-Reputation” play...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2008121313223924
Ex-NYC man admits posing as ex-wife online -- again
Saturday, December 13 2008 @ 01:22 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
Queens prosecutors say a man has admitted posing as his ex-wife to start racy online conversations and posting nude photos of her on the Web -- while on probation for the same crime.
The Queens District Attorney's office says Thomas Gillen pleaded guilty Thursday to identity theft and criminal contempt. The 46-year-old faces up to five years in prison at his sentencing, set for Feb. 2.
Source - Associated Press Comments - Chronicles of Dissent: Cyberstalking and identity theft
Yes, I'm back on that dead horse again. I suspect the only reason we haven't heard of more election problems was because the election wasn't close enough to bother.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F14%2F0251214&from=rss
Open Source Program Reveals Diebold Bug
Posted by timothy on Sunday December 14, @07:23AM from the rabble-rousin'-ne'er-do-well dept. Government Bug United States Politics
Mitch Trachtenberg writes
"Ballot Browser, an open source Python program developed by Mitch Trachtenberg (yours truly) as part of the all-volunteer Humboldt County Election Transparency Project, was instrumental in revealing that Diebold counting software had dropped 197 ballots from Humboldt County, California's official election results. Despite a top-to-bottom review by the California Secretary of State's office, it appears that Diebold had not informed that office of the four-year-old bug. The Transparency Project has sites at humetp.org and http://www.humtp.com."
Trachtenberg also points to his blog for the Transparency Project, and his own essay about the discovery and the process that led to it.
Related This from a country that has direct/recent experience with cyber attacks?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10122656-94.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Estonia votes to vote by phone
Posted by Jennifer Guevin December 13, 2008 5:28 PM PST
Citizens in Estonia can now vote with their cell phones.
Parliament in Estonia voted on Thursday in favor of a measure that would allow citizens to vote via mobile phone in the next Parliamentary election (in 2011), according to the Associated Press.
Estonia has a history of being tech-forward. In 2005, it became the first country to offer online voting for a national election--although only about 1 percent of the votes cast that year were made online. In that election, people were required to insert their nationally-mandated ID cards into readers attached to their computers so their identity could be verified.
In order to vote by phone, Estonians will have to get a special chip for their handsets from the SK Certification Centre, which issues ID certificates and provides the mobile payment and ticketing system used on publish transportation. The chip will verify the voter's identity and authorize them to vote.
Ethics. Are we the policemen of the world? If not, who is?
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/020062.html
December 13, 2008
Genocide Prevention Task Force Delivers Blueprint for U.S. Government to Prevent Genocide and Mass Atrocities
"The Genocide Prevention Task Force was launched on November 13, 2007 and released its report to the public on December 8, 2008. It was jointly convened by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, The American Academy of Diplomacy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. It was funded by private foundations. Its goals were: (1) To spotlight genocide prevention as a national priority; and; (2) To develop practical policy recommendations to enhance the capacity of the U.S. government to respond to emerging threats of genocide and mass atrocities."
Who is getting bribed? Sometimes it's obvious.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F13%2F179226&from=rss
20-Year Copyright Extensions Coming To Europe
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday December 13, @01:23PM from the hoarding-acorns-for-the-long-winter dept. Music Politics
unlametheweak points out a story at Ars Technica which begins:
"After a UK government-led commission said that the current 50-year term for musical copyrights was fine, and the government last year publicly agreed that there was no need to extend the term, culture minister Andy Burnham yesterday made the logical follow-up announcement that yes, the government would now push for a 20-year extension on copyright. Turns out, it's the moral thing to do. Actually, by framing the issue as a 'moral case,' Burnham gets to sidestep the entire issue of logic. Critics have already begun to charge that he is ignoring actual evidence and the well-regarded conclusions of the Gowers Report (PDF), not to mention previous government policy. But when the issue becomes a moral one and the livelihood of aging performers is at stake, it's suddenly easier to avoid cost/benefit analysis."
I got thinking about how this worked the last time...
http://www.heritage.org/research/regulation/bg276.cfm
The Chrysler Bail-Out Bust
by Hickel, James K. Backgrounder #276 July 13, 1983
... If it all seems too good to be true, it is because it isn't true. The popular version of the Chrysler bail-out is simply a fairy tale. The bail-out is a bust. Closer scrutiny of it reveals that the "great success" rests on a bedrock of myths and half truths.
An interesting and often asked question. Is storage growing fast enough to keep up with the data you create? The first IBM PC had no hard disk, only floppy drives – 320k floppies at that!
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F13%2F1434216&from=rss
Long-Term Personal Data Storage?
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday December 13, @10:19AM from the dead-trees-no-longer-suffice dept. Data Storage
BeanBagKing writes
"Yesterday I set out in search of a way to store my documents, videos, and pictures for a long time without worrying about them. This is stuff that I may not care about for years, I don't care where it is, or if it's immediately available, so long as when I do decide to get it, it's there. What did I come up with? Nothing. Hard Drives can fail or degrade. CD's and DVD's I've read have the same problem over long periods of time. I'd rather not pay yearly rent on a server or backup/storage solution. I could start my own server, but that goes back to the issue of hard drives failing, not to mention cost. Tape backups aren't common for personal backups, making far-future retrieval possibly difficult, not to mention the low storage capacity of tape drives. I've thought about buying a bunch of 4GB thumb drives; I've had some of those for years and even sent a few through washers and driers and had the data survive. Do you have any suggestions? My requirements are simple: It must be stable, lasting for decades if possible, and must be as inexpensive as possible. I'm not looking to start my own national archive; I have less than 500GBs and only save things important to me."
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