Some great reporting by Zack Whittaker the other day,
pretty much outing the members of New World Hackers:
How many hackers does it take to
bring down one of the world’s largest websites? Turns out, only three — and two of them are
still in college.
Several sources have told ZDNet
that despite claiming to have dozens of members across the world, the New World
Hackers’ consists of just three core members who carry out the bulk of the
group’s cyberattacks — the youngest of which is still a teenager.
“Ownz,” the founder of the group,
is a student in his early 20s with British and Russian parentage who studies
computing at a university in Colorado.
Read more on ZDNet.
Different world views, different conclusions.
FBI and CIA give differing accounts to lawmakers on Russia’s
motives in 2016 hacks
… The question the
Republicans and Democrats in attendance wanted answered was whether the bureau
concurred with the conclusions the CIA had just shared with senators that
Russia “quite” clearly intended to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat
Hillary Clinton and clinch the White House.
… The FBI
official’s remarks to the lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee were,
in comparison, “fuzzy” and “ambiguous,” suggesting to those in the room that
the bureau and the agency weren’t on the same page, the official said.
… “The FBI
briefers think in terms of criminal standards — can we prove this in court,”
one of the officials said. “The CIA
briefers weigh the preponderance of intelligence and then make judgment calls
to help policymakers make informed decisions. High confidence for them means ‘we’re pretty
damn sure.’ It doesn’t mean they can
prove it in court.”
If the phone had fallen out of the pocket of a fleeing
suspect, this would be different?
Seen on FourthAmendment.com:
Defendant juvenile left a cell
phone in a stolen car, and it was password protected. The password protection “clearly indicating an
intention to protect the privacy of all of the digital material on the cell
phone or able to be accessed by it” when out of the owners possession. State
v. K.C., 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 18084 (Fla. 4th DCA Dec. 7, 2016)
Read an excerpt from the opinion on FourthAmendment.com.
Question: Will I still be able to use the same technique to
buy one or two tickets for personal use? If not, why not? I would not be “scalping.” I argue that this is a “feature” of online
ticket sales sites, not a “failure.” If
it was a real problem, they would fix it.
Congress Moves to Curb Ticket Scalping, Banning Bots Used
Online
… The bill
accomplishes what advocates
like Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of “Hamilton,” have long pushed for.
It would make it illegal to circumvent the security measures of ticketing
websites, which bots often do, and would give enforcement authority to the
Federal Trade Commission.
… Ticketmaster has
estimated that bots have been used to buy 60
percent of the most desirable tickets to many shows.
… “There is only
one way to stop the scalping industry, and that’s to make it illegal,” said
Seth Hurwitz, an independent concert promoter and the owner of the 9:30 Club in
Washington. “Anything else is just
Whac-a-Mole, and grandstanding by politicians.”
[The law will not change the technology. Bob]
Will they be allowed to leave Trump Tower? Could be interesting.
Tim Cook, Larry Page, Sheryl Sandberg — and maybe even Jeff
Bezos — are going to Trump’s tech summit next week
… Amazon CEO and
founder Jeff Bezos was invited, said sources, and he is likely to attend.
Bezos’ presence would
be awkward, obviously, given how aggressive his Washington Post has been in
its reporting on Trump and how many times the reality show star turned
President-elect has attacked Amazon on a number of issues.
Trump has done the same to Apple, dinging it on
taxes and the making of its popular products outside of the U.S. He even called
for a boycott of Apple after it refused to unlock an iPhone used by one of the
San Bernardino shooters.
… Those close to
the process said that Thiel — who is on the Facebook board with Sandberg — and
others helping Trump reach out to the tech community had a hard time convincing
them to attend, largely due to his persistent public hostility to one of the
U.S. economy’s few bright and innovative arenas.
… But those
involved said that tech leaders had little choice in accepting the invitation,
even if they wanted to decline, opting to engage now even if they later oppose
Trump.
“Look, this is obviously a circus,” said one
person close to the situation. “Everyone
in tech just wants to be invisible right now when it comes to this
administration, but has to participate since we have done it before.”
It’s hard to convince my grad students that most companies
actually do a good job of governance.
New scandal involving Prudential and Wells Fargo
Prudential Financial Inc. is now involved in a serious
scandal as it has been accused of a fraudulent cover up of life policies to low
income customers through Wells Fargo and Co. This scandal has led to the departure of Wells
Fargo’s CEO, John Stumpf, and the company is struggling to get past the crisis.
Three employees from from the corporate
investigations division at the giant lender Prudential are now alleging that
executives ignored their reports of fake accounts in order to avoid alienating
Wells Fargo as a business partner.
They reported that 7 out of
ten MyTerm policies sold during 2014, lapsed. These policies were sold to clients with
predominantly Hispanic names, and sales spiked towards the end of the year. They also claim that, after reporting their
findings to top level executives, they were escorted from the building, placed
on administrative leave and are now under an imminent termination threat.
No comments:
Post a Comment