How “anonymous” is Anonymous?
In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters
It turns out there’s a method behind the FBI’s raids of suspected Anonymous members around the country. The bureau is working from a list, provided by PayPal, of the 1,000 internet IP addresses responsible for the most protest traffic during Anonymous’ DDoS attacks against PayPal last December.
FBI agents served 40 search warrants in January on people suspected of hosing down PayPal during ”Operation Payback” — Anonymous’ retaliatory attack against companies who blacklisted WikiLeaks. On July 19, the feds charged the first 14 defendants under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and raided an additional 35 suspects for evidence.
An FBI affidavit first published Tuesday by an NBC affiliate in Dallas lays out how the FBI decided on its targets, and suggests the bureau may have plenty more.
According to the affidavit, by FBI agent Chris Thompson, PayPal security officials were in close contact with the bureau beginning on December 6, two days after PayPal froze WikiLeaks’ donation account and the first day it began receiving serious denial-of-service traffic. FBI agents began monitoring Anonymous press releases and Twitter postings about Operation Payback, while PayPal collected traffic logs on a Radware intrusion prevention system installed on its network.
On December 15, the company turned over a USB thumb drive containing the Radware reports, which documented “approximately 1,000 IP addresses that sent malicious network packets to PayPal during the DDoS attacks.” The list represented the “IP addresses that sent the largest number of packets.”
If OnStar can do it, why can't Script Kiddies?
Expert hacks car system, says problems reach to SCADA systems
Researcher Don A. Bailey will be showing at the Black Hat security conference next week how easy it is to open and even start a car remotely by hacking the cellular network-based security system. Even more disturbing is the message that demonstration brings, that cars aren't the only things at risk.
"We are seeing more GSM [Global System for Mobile Communications]-enabled systems popping up in consumer culture and industrial control systems. They're not just in Zoombak [Global Positioning System] location devices and personal security control systems, but also in sensors deployed for waste treatment facilities, SCADA [Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition] and call-back systems, physical security systems, industrial control systems," Bailey, a senior security consultant at iSec Partners, said today. "These GSM modules open up that world to attacks in a whole new way."
...but it is Okay to search everyone equally?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=23837
Can school personnel search your child’s bra without individualized suspicion?
Can your teenage daughter’s school personnel lift or search her bra if the whole school is going through a search for drugs? Not if there’s no individualized reasonable suspicion of her, according to a North Carolina decision.
Via FourthAmendment.com, from In re T.A.S., 2011 N.C. App. LEXIS 1472 (July 19, 2011):
Where the blanket search of the entire school lacked any individualized suspicion as to which students were responsible for the alleged infraction or any particularized reason to believe the contraband sought presented an imminent threat to school safety, the search of T.A.S.’s bra was constitutionally unreasonable and we reverse the trial court’s order denying her suppression motion.
“I'm shocked... Shocked!”
Chief NSA Lawyer Hints That NSA May Be Tracking US Citizens
"Responding to questions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday, Matthew Olsen, the NSA's general counsel, said that the NSA 'may', under 'certain circumstances' have the authority to track U.S. citizens by intercepting location data from cell phones, but it's 'very complicated.' 'There's no need to panic, or start shopping for aluminum-foil headwear,' says blogger Kevin Fogarty, but clearly the NSA has been thinking about it enough 'that the agency's chief lawyer was able to speak intelligently about it off the cuff while interviewing for a different job.'"
No Privacy implications here... Move along...
Digital Tattoo Gets Under Your Skin to Monitor Blood
Instead of the dye used for tribal arm bands and Chinese characters, these tattoos will contain nanosensors that read the wearer’s blood levels of sodium, glucose and even alcohol with the help of an iPhone 4 camera.
Dr. Heather Clark, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Northeastern University, is leading the research on the subdermal sensors. She said she was reminded of the benefits of real-time, wearable health monitoring when she entered a marathon in Vermont: If they become mass-produced and affordable for the consumer market, wireless devices worn on the body could tell you exactly what medication you need whenever you need it.
“I had no idea how much to drink, or when,” said Clark, reflecting on her marathon run. “Or if I should have Gatorade instead.”
Clark’s technology could spell out the eventual demise of the painful finger pricks required for blood tests — assuming users have an iPhone, which Northeastern bioengineering grad student Matt Dubach has customized to read light from the tiny sensors to collect and output data.
For my Computer Security and Computer Forensic students.
How to Stop Cybercrooks: Take Their Pals to Court
The best way to stop the tide of global cybercrime may be to sue the pants off of the hosting companies and Internet Service Providers Online that are backing the crooks.
That’s the central conclusion of my policy paper, out today from the Brookings Institution. (You can find avery condensed version in Sunday’s Washington Post.)
No one knows exactly how big the cybercrime underground is. But it is huge. According to the British government, online thieves, scammers, and industrial spies cost U.K. businesses an estimated $43.5 billion in the last year alone. Crooks-for-hire will infect a thousand computers for seven dollars – that’s how simple it’s become. 60,000 new malicious software variants are detected every day, thanks in part to a new breed of crimeware that makes stealing passwords about as hard as setting up a web page. Even the Pentagon’s specialists are worried, noting in their new cybersecurity strategy that “the tools and techniques developed by cyber criminals are increasing in sophistication at an incredible rate.”
“Oh lookie. Thousands of angry Netflix customers. Let's offer them an alternative!”
Wal-Mart Jumps Into Video Streaming
"Today Wal-Mart has added streaming video to their website. What better time to compete with Netflix, now that they have raised their prices? On Wal-Mart's website, the movies will be available the same day the DVDs go on sale in stores. Walmart.com general manager Steve Nave said the retailer is following its customers as they increasingly embrace digital movie rentals and purchases. 'We know customers are starting to shift their behavior, in terms of how they consume their media,' Nave said, adding, 'As as customers make that change, we don't want to lose that customer as they shift to digital.' Wal-Mart, long the nation's leading seller of DVDs, signaled its intent to double down on digital movie distribution in February 2010, when it spent a reported $100 million to acquire Vudu, a Silicon Valley start-up that was gradually being added to home entertainment devices."
(Related) Actually, the market is even larger...
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/027868.html
July 26, 2011
Pew: 71% of online adults now use video-sharing sites
Video, Web 2.0 - 71% of online adults now use video-sharing sites by Kathleen Moore, July 26, 2011
"Fully 71% of online Americans use video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, up from 66% a year earlier. The use of video-sharing sites on any given day also jumped five percentage points, from 23% of online Americans in May 2010 to 28% in May 2011. Rural internet users are now just as likely as users in urban and suburban areas to have used these sites, and online African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely than internet-using whites to visit video-sharing sites."
This is what happens when you think of technology as a tool...
7 Ways Google+ Users Are Getting More Out of Their Circles
Organizing your circles in Google+ can be the most confusing part of the new social network. Yet people are learning to embrace and even optimize their circles for better productivity, filtering and privacy.
We spoke with some Google+ mavericks about how they’ve corralled their circles to be more effective. Below, they share their clever tricks and best practices so you can learn from both their mistakes and their successes.
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