Interesting question.
Are
Terror Warnings Pointless?
Official warnings of imminent—or even
of not so imminent—al-Qaida attacks have (fortunately) had a
perfect record: They never seem to pan out.
… Regrettably, the Obama
administration has never subjected massive homeland security
expenditures to the kind of sober and systematic evaluation they so
richly deserve after a decade of drunken-sailor profligacy. And it
has continued to find threatening proto-al-Qaidas popping up
everywhere.
… And those raising the alarm have
a decided advantage: They can never be proved wrong. As Dan Gardner
points out in his superb book, Future
Babble, if there is an attack, they can claim prescience.
If there isn’t, they can insist that their warnings and
preparations prevented or deterred it while deftly classifying
information that might determine whether that is true or not.
… However, experience questions
whether such generalized warnings should be issued at all. If
intelligence has uncovered specifics of target and time of attack,
the sensible response, of course, is not to bloviate grandly, but to
work to secure the likely target or targets or to use policing
measure to disrupt the plot.
But if, as it appears thus far in the
present case, the warnings are vague and unspecific, issuing
proclamations of danger out of an “abundance
of caution” (as it has been put by the State Department)
scarcely helps the situation.
Rather than disclose classified
sources, lie?
John Shiffman and David Ingram report:
Details of a U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal
agents and then instructs them to alter the
investigative trail were published in a manual used by
agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.
The practice of
recreating the investigative trail, highly criticized by former
prosecutors and defense lawyers after Reuters reported it this week,
is now under review by the Justice Department. Two high-profile
Republicans have also raised questions about the procedure.
Read more on Reuters.
[From the article:
A 350-word
entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S.
tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA's
Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court
proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and
posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007.
…
Monday's Reuters report cited internal government documents that show
that law enforcement agents have been trained to conceal how such
investigations truly begin - to "recreate" the
investigative trail to effectively cover up the original source of
the information.
DEA
officials said the practice is legal and has been in near-daily use
since the 1990s. They have said that its purpose is to protect
sources and methods, not to withhold evidence.
Defense
attorneys and some former judges and prosecutors say that
systematically hiding potential evidence from defendants violates the
U.S. Constitution. According to documents and
interviews, agents use a procedure they call "parallel
construction" to recreate the investigative trail, stating in
affidavits or in court, for example, that an investigation began with
a traffic infraction rather than an SOD tip.
Is worse that what NSA does, and it was
an accident? (or is this another IRS lie?)
Bogdan Botezatu reports:
A massive numbers
of Prodigy subscribers in Mexico have had their email conversations
exposed overnight because of a security flaw in the company’s
mobile e-mail and web-based mail systems.
According to a
news report by El Economista, the flaw allowed search engines to
simply index private conversations and list them on the World Wide
Web in search results. At the moment, security specialist Ken
Westin, who discovered the flaw, estimates that several thousand
e-mail accounts registered on prodigy.net.mx and several other
domains have been exposed.
Read more on HotforSecurity.
Wouldn't DoJ view these folks as
“Co-conspiritors?”
Publishers
urge DOJ to rethink Apple e-book remedies
… Hachette, HarperCollins,
Holtzbrinck (also known as Macmillan), Penguin, and Simon &
Schuster filed an opposition to last week's proposed remedies against
Apple by the Justice Department, arguing that the plan would
"effectively eliminate the use of the agency model" for
e-book distribution for the next five years.
Under the guise of punishing Apple,
they effectively punish the Settling Defendants by prohibiting
agreements with Apple using an agency model," the publishers
wrote, adding that the move "directly conflicts" with the
settlements the publishers reached with the Justice Department before
the Apple case went to trial.
More jobs for my Computer Security
students.
Avik Roy reports:
In order for
Obamacare to work, the government will need to know a lot about your
financial, medical, and employment situation. Has the Obama
administration set up adequate safeguards to protect Americans’
privacy under the law? According to the Office of the Inspector
General of the Department of Health and Human Services, the answer is
no. Based on OIG’s analysis, Obamacare’s
exchanges may end up illegally exposing Americans’ private records
to hackers and criminals.
Read more on Forbes.
Perspective: For my Ethical Hackers.
If Willie Sutton (look him up) was alive today, he would say, “I
hack, because that's where the money is.”
Pew:
51% of U.S. Adults Bank Online
Susannah
Fox: “Fifty-one
percent of U.S. adults, or 61% of internet users, bank online.
Thirty-two percent of U.S. adults, or 35% of cell phone owners, bank
using their mobile phones. Both types of digital banking are on the
rise. In 2010, 46% of U.S. adults, or 58% of internet users, said
they bank online. In 2011, 18% of cell phone owners said they have
used their phone to check their balance or transact business with a
bank.”
For my serious hacker students
Want to build your own electronics, but
don’t know where to start? Then you’re certainly looked into the
Arduino, only to find yourself frustrated when you look for a
simple-language guide. We hope Getting Started With Arduino,
A Beginner’s Guide can help.
… Arduino is an open-source
electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to use
hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers,
hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or
environments.
PDF, EPUB, Amazon and online. No
password or registration required.
For the Swiss Army Folder...
When it comes to video editing, most
programs currently available are extremely dense and packed with
hundreds of options. … The downside is the huge inherent learning
curve of such complex programs. What if you want to edit videos on a
more basic level? I present to you: Avidemux.
Now, to be fair, there are a few basic
video editors available if you need a quick cut or splice – I’m
thinking Windows
Movie Maker and VirtualDub.
However, those programs come with limitations and difficulties that
may prove to be dealbreakers. On the other hand, Avidemux is new,
simple, powerful, and entirely free.
… Avidemux
is available on all of the major platforms – Windows, Mac, and
Linux … Not only is Avidemux free, but it’s also open source
in case you want to take a look at the inner workings of it.
Avidemux is so great that it’s part
of our Best
Portable Apps page.
I wish I didn't feel I had to tell
every woman I know with a Android smartphone about this App. Are
there similar Apps for other platforms?
SOS
Stay Safe! – is a discreet, personal safety app for women. It
empowers women against abuse and acts of violence. Users can send
SOS alerts to their friends and family on sensing danger, simply by
shaking their phone. Text and email messages are sent at regular
intervals to provide real time GPS tracking from your exact location.
The alerts are sent discreetly, without you having to even look at
your device.
No comments:
Post a Comment