So is this the Cyberwar equivalent of moving
troops to the boarder or something more sinister?
The Trump administration accused Russia on
Thursday of engineering a series of cyberattacks that targeted
American and European nuclear power plants and water and electric
systems, and could have sabotaged or shut power plants off at will.
United States officials and private security firms
saw the attacks as a signal by Moscow that it could disrupt the
West’s critical facilities in the event of a conflict.
… according to a Department
of Homeland Security report issued on Thursday, Russian hackers
made their way to machines with access to critical control systems at
power plants that were not identified. The hackers never went so far
as to sabotage or shut down the computer systems that guide the
operations of the plants.
Still, new
computer screenshots released by the Department of Homeland Security
on Thursday made clear that Russian state hackers had the foothold
they would have needed to manipulate or shut down power plants.
(Related) Why not name names? Because they don’t
know who did it?
Hackers
Tried to Cause Saudi Petrochemical Plant Blast: NYT
Cyber-attackers
tried to trigger a deadly explosion at a petrochemical plant in Saudi
Arabia in August and failed only because of a code glitch, The
New York Times
reported.
Investigators
declined to identify the suspected attackers, but people interviewed
by the newspaper unanimously said that it most likely aimed to cause
a blast that would have guaranteed casualties. A bug in the
attackers' code accidentally shut down the system instead, according
to the report.
The
cyber-attack -- which could signal plans for other attacks around the
world – was likely the work of hackers supported by a government,
according to multiple insiders interviewed by the newspaper.
All
sources declined to name the company operating the plant as well as
the countries suspected to have backed the hackers,
The
New York Times
said.
Did everyone involved understand that this was a
Beta test or was there an assumption that this was foolproof?
New Orleans
ends its Palantir predictive policing program
Two
weeks ago, The Verge reported the existence of a
six-year predictive policing collaboration between the New Orleans
Police Department and Palantir Technologies, a data mining giant
co-founded by Peter Thiel. The nature of the partnership, which used
Palantir’s network-analysis software to identify potential
aggressors and victims of violence, was unknown to the public and key
members of the city council prior to publication of The Verge’s
findings.
Yesterday, outgoing New
Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s press office told the Times-Picayune
that his office would not renew its pro bono contract with
Palantir, which has been extended three times since 2012. The
remarks were the first from Landrieu’s office concerning Palantir’s
work with the NOPD. The mayor did not respond to repeated requests
for comment from The Verge for the February 28th article,
done in partnership with Investigative
Fund, or from local media since news of the partnership broke.
There is also potential legal
fallout from the revelation of New Orleans’ partnership with
Palantir. Several defense attorneys interviewed by The Verge,
including lawyers who represented people accused of membership
in gangs that, according to documents and interviews, were identified
at least in part through the use of Palantir software, said they had
never heard of the partnership nor seen any discovery evidence
referencing Palantir’s use by the NOPD.
(Related) If it was good policing, they would be
bragging about it.
C.J. Ciaramella reports:
In 2004, Ascension Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend were stopped at a traffic light in Oregon when their car was rear-ended by a drunk driver. The police arrived and arrested the drunk, but while Alverez-Tejeda was outside dealing with the situation, a thief jumped in his car and tore off down the road.
Police recovered the car and, after obtaining a search warrant from a judge, found in it cocaine and methamphetamine that Alverez-Tejeda was trafficking from California to Washington.
It looked like a case of very bad luck for Alverez-Tejeda. The truth didn’t come out until the trial: The whole thing had been staged. The only ones who weren’t in on the plot were Alverez-Tejeda, his girlfriend, and the judge who signed the warrant.
Read more on Reason.
[From
the article:
The cops then constructed an elaborate ruse to
gain probable cause to search his car.
Is a ‘feature,’ but not without risk.
You can store the following information in your
Medical ID, which is viewable by anyone who knows
how to access it:
-
Your name, Apple ID picture, and date of birth.
-
Known medical conditions (for example, asthma).
-
Relevant medical notes relating to conditions (for example, any metal pins from past surgery).
-
Known allergies and reactions.
-
Any medication you are currently taking.
-
Your blood type and organ donor status.
-
Your weight and height.
-
An emergency contact of your choosing.
Keep in mind that there’s no way of limiting
this information to strictly emergency personnel. Anyone with
physical
access to your iPhone can find your Medical ID if they’re
looking for it. This does raise
some potential privacy concerns, but it’s a trade you’ll have
to make if you want to use the feature.
For my Ethical hacking students’ toolkit.
Why the answers are obvious! Wrong, but obvious!
Orin Kerr writes:
I recently posted a draft of a new article, Cross-Enforcement of the Fourth Amendment, forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review. Here’s the opening:
Imagine you are a state police officer in a state that has decriminalized marijuana possession. You pull over a car for speeding, and you smell marijuana coming from inside the car. Marijuana possession is legal under state law but remains a federal offense. Can you search the car for evidence of the federal crime even though you are a state officer?
Next imagine you are a federal immigration agent driving on a state highway. You spot a van that you have a hunch contains undocumented immigrants. You lack sufficient cause to stop the van to investigate an immigration offense, but you notice that the van is speeding in violation of state traffic law. Can you pull over the van for speeding even though you are a federal agent?
Read more on The
Volokh Conspiracy.
An end to confusion? If your accountants
understand it, the Board of Directors can relax, maybe.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP plans to unveil a new
offering to audit companies’ use of the blockchain—making sure
companies are implementing and using it properly, and allowing people
within a company to continuously monitor its blockchain transactions.
Perspective. This is why we are so easily slotted
into categories.
Americans
Are Partisan About Everything — Even Sex Scandals
Poll of the week
Views about President Trump’s relationship
(or lack thereof) with adult film actress Stormy Daniels are
split along partisan lines, according to a Huffington
Post/YouGov survey released this week. Seventy percent of
Democrats found credible Daniels’ account of an extramarital affair
with Trump in 2006, while just 11 percent of Republicans said the
same. And if Trump did have an affair with Daniels, 82
percent of Democrats said it would have been immoral, compared with
54 percent of Republicans.
Perhaps because Daniels is in the news, along with
other
alleged affairs by Trump, just 26 percent of Democrats (vs. 67
percent of Republicans) agreed that “an elected official who has
committed an immoral act in their personal life can still behave
ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional
life.”
Perspective.
In a landmark 2016 study
Johns Hopkins researchers estimated that more than 250,000 Americans
die each year from treatment-related mistakes, making medical error
the third-leading cause of death in the United States.
… . Due to the progressive digitization of the
cockpit and pilot decision support, flying by and trusting
instruments is now essential for avoiding accidents. The U.S.
Department of Defense’s new F-35 aircraft is so advanced that the
pilot interacts continuously through a “heads-up” digital display
projected on the helmet, providing total situational awareness.
Pilots who aren’t adept
at working with computer interfaces and don’t trust algorithms to
help fly the aircraft will not just perform poorly, they’ll crash
on takeoff.
… to realize the full potential of AI and
other digital technologies we will need to overhaul medical education
for future physicians and nurses and rethink professional development
for current caregivers.
Handy notes for website builders.
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