Not really big, but interesting.
http://www.databreaches.net/?p=18283
Oakland police shut down Bay Area-wide identity theft operation
May 16, 2011 by admin
Harry Harris reports:
Calling it the biggest they have seen, Oakland police said Monday that an identify theft operation that manufactured phony checks, IDs and credit cards has been shut down.
Officials said there are potentially thousands of victims all over the Bay Area and in other states.
The operation was run out of a Hayward apartment, where resident Mishel Caviness-Williams, 40, was arrested last week as she left the apartment… She has been charged with 20 counts of identity theft and check fraud-related counts. She is being held in lieu of $400,000 bail.
Read more in the Mercury News.
[From the article:
At the apartment, authorities seized card printers, other printers, eight laptop computers, thousands of pages of blank checks that had no bank name or account information on them, and more than 900 blank cards that could be used to manufacture fraudulent ATM, debit, and credit cards.
They also found phony driver's licenses with Caviness-Williams' picture on them but with different names; documents containing names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of thousands of individuals; and ID cards and credit cards from possible victims who live in other states. They also recovered two pages of blank Social Security cards.
Background?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=22903
The Secret Sharer
May 17, 2011 by Dissent
Jane Mayer writes:
On June 13th, a fifty-four-year-old former government employee named Thomas Drake is scheduled to appear in a courtroom in Baltimore, where he will face some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. A former senior executive at the National Security Agency, the government’s electronic-espionage service, he is accused, in essence, of being an enemy of the state.
Read more in the New Yorker. This case has all the elements of a made-for-TV movie: government spying on its own people, a whistleblower, leaks to the press, and the government’s attempt to cover up.
From Traffic and Red Light cameras to Calorie cameras…
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=22885
Cameras in U.S. schools to record calorie counts
May 16, 2011 by Dissent
Jim Forsyth reports:
The next time children in some elementary schools in the state of Texas try to sneak extra french fries onto their tray in the cafeteria line, the eye in the sky will be watching them.
Using a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the schools in San Antonio are installing sophisticated cameras in the cafeteria line and trash area that read food bar codes embedded in the food trays.
Read more on Reuters.
(Related) How to surveil your child.
California Bill To Give Parents Access To Kids’ Facebook Pages
California SB 242, proposed by Sen. Ellen Corbett, would force social networks like Facebook to allow parents access to their child’s account(s) and, more importantly, force all privacy settings to their maximum level by default. Parents can request that images or text be removed from any social network page “upon request … within 48 hours upon his or her request.”
Here’s the interesting part: any social network failing to perform these duties will get hit with a $10K fine per incident. Obviously this is a state-level law and does not apply nationally (yet) and it does smack of the nanny state. However, being able to access my own son’s Facebook page in the event of some tragedy real or imagined would give me peace of mind but be wildly invasive. This would also bump up against problems like children in divorced families and/or emancipated youngsters.
An update for my Ethical Hackers
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/027279.html
May 16, 2011
EFF: Documenting Tools for Beating Internet Censorship
"Because we believe that Internet censorship is not only against the basic purpose of the Internet, which is to let people communicate what the want to with the people they want to communicate with, but also fundamentally against the universal right to freedom of opinion and expression [which] includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers (UDHR, Article 19), we offer you here "How to bypass Internet Censorship". This book, How to bypass Internet Censorship. will not only help you find your way in the diversity of tools and techniques that allow you to defeat Internet censorship, but will also tell you more about how censorship works behind the curtains. You will also learn about the risks that may be linked to the use of such tools, and help you evaluate and mitigate them thanks to encryption or anonymization techniques."
(Related) Facebook is still fighting the “last war” – a fundamental Strategy flaw. Perhaps Facebook would have a few openings for Hackers?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20063434-245.html
Facebook, spammers are in 'arms race'
Within days of Facebook rolling out new security features designed to block spam, several new social-engineering attacks were spreading that somehow managed to get by the company's antispam defenses.
The spammers have modified their handiwork so it will get past Facebook's scam detection system, company spokesman Fred Wolens told CNET today.
"There are new methods they've picked up after we put out the protections on Thursday," he said. "It's an arms race. We put out new protections and they come up with new campaigns... When we announced the new security features, they were calibrated for all the self-XSS attacks we'd seen at the time."
“Political Logic” An oxymoron is still a moron.
GSM Association Slams Euro Call For Ban On Wireless In School
"The ongoing debate over the supposed dangers posed by mobile phone usage and wireless signals has exploded once again. An influential European committee has called for a ban on mobile phones and Wi-Fi networks in schools – the GSM Association has denounced the report as an 'unbalanced political assessment, not a scientific report.' The report made its recommendation to reduce mobile and wireless use in schools, despite admitting that there is a lack of clear scientific and clinical proof. However, it said the lack of proof was reason enough to restrict use, just in case, comparing mobile phone raditation to other things whose dangers were once sunknown, such as asbestos, leaded petrol and tobacco."
Reviving a resource!
Groklaw Torch Handed To Mark Webbink
"A month ago we read a Eulogy for Groklaw, but now PJ has announced that Groklaw will not be shutting down. Instead, it is now Mark Webbink's Groklaw 2.0. If you don't know who he is, Webbink is a member of the board of the SFLC and was General Counsel at Red Hat. Legal FOSS news will continue to flow."
A popular tool among my students
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=22900
Android handsets ‘leak’ personal data
May 17, 2011 by Dissent
More than 99% of Android phones are potentially leaking data that, if stolen, could be used to get the information they store online.
The data being leaked is typically used to get at web-based services such as Google Calendar.
The discovery was made by German security researchers looking at how Android phones handle identification information.
Google has yet to comment on the loophole uncovered by the researchers.
Read more on BBC.
My Business Algebra students hated the Tax section, but somehow I doubt this will make them feel better…
Can Computers Be Used To Optimize the US Tax Code?
"Science fiction author David Brin wonders whether the US tax code, described by President Obama as a '10,000-page monstrosity,' could be dramatically simplified. His idea is about using computers to shuffle the existing system: 'I know a simple way the sheer bulk of the tax code could be trimmed by perhaps 70% or more, without much political pain or obstructionism! ... it should be easy to create a program that will take the tax code and experiment with zeroing-out dozens, hundreds of provisions while sliding others upward and then showing how these simplifications would affect, say, one-hundred representative types of taxpayers... Let the program find the simplest version of a refined tax code that leaves all 100 taxpayer clades unhurt. If one group loses a favorite tax dodge, the system would seek a rebalancing of others to compensate. No mere human being could accomplish this, [Tax Lawyers take note! Bob] but I have been assured that a computer could do this in a snap.' With all the talk about Open Government, perhaps the computer code currently used in tax modelling could be released to the wider community, leading eventually to a Folding@Home type project."
What’s entertaining? Isn’t this the basis of all Drama?
Why People Watch StarCraft, Instead of Playing
"Researchers from the University of Washington have found a key reason why StarCraft is a popular spectator sport (PDF), especially in Korea. In a paper published last week, they theorize that StarCraft incorporates 'information asymmetry,' where the players and spectators each have different pieces of information, which transforms into entertainment. Sometimes spectators know something the players don't; they watch in suspense as players walk their armies into traps or a dropship sneaks behind the mineral line. Other times, players know something the spectators yearn to find out, such as 'cheese' (spectacular build orders that attempt to outplay an opponent early in the game). Rather than giving as much information as possible to spectators, it may be more crucial for game designers to decide which information to give to spectators, and when to reveal this information."
I can hear my Geeks giggling already…
Boot Linux In Your Browser
"Fabrice Bellard, the initiator of the QEMU emulator, wrote a PC emulator in JavaScript. You can now boot Linux in your browser, provided it is recent enough (Firefox 4 and Google Chrome 11 are reported to work)."
I would never suggest that my Ethical Hackers could earn EXTRA CREDIT by analyzing and documenting the code …
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201120/7165/Overview-Inside-the-Zeus-Trojan-s-source-code
Overview: Inside the Zeus Trojan’s source code
Earlier this week, it was revealed that the source code for the infamous Zeus Trojan was leaked to the public. Once sold for thousands of dollars, the code that powers the world’s most infamous family of Malware is now freely available to anyone who wants it, including criminals.
For the curious, here is an overview of the code keeping the security industry awake at night.
The Tech Herald sat down recently with Rapid 7’s Josh Abraham to examine Zeus’s source code. It’s a twisted, interconnected mix, consisting of one part basic design and one part mad scientist. To visualize this, examine a diagram for Zeus’ source [seen here], and look at just how connected the internals are.
… “The professionalism is scary. This is not just some random software on the Internet. This is a well funded organization spending both time and resources on development,” Abraham commented.
… Zeus’ documentation comes complete with details on what a criminal will need in their infrastructure in order to use the Malware properly.
The full list is here. [Think of these as electronic Burglar Tools Bob]
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