Have you ever wondered why those squad car dashcam videos you see on the nightly news are so often silent? Continue reading
Category Archives: Security
Networking Equipment Designated Weapon System
Reports are emerging that the United States Air Force has designated the computer networking equipment that separates its internal network from the rest of the internet a weapons system (archived). While various propaganda outlets parrot the Air Force's public relations friendly justification of the move as a merely a means to extract greater funding from legislators, this move to begin openly classifying mundane networking equipment as a form of weapons system is in concordance with United States President Hussein Bahamas' intensification of the war on computing.
Oregon Standoff Supplanted In US Media By Celebrity Drama
The stand off initiated by Federal forces to reclaim an outpost liberated by Militants has taken a violent turn with Lavoy Finicum becoming a martyr in a hail of Federal bullets and Ryan Bundy suffering a gunshot wound. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Oregon state police have begun a siege against the remaining militia's free outpost in Oregon, and an agent of the court proclaiming to speak for the captured Ammon Bundy is encouraging the remaining militia forces to surrender. Yet mainstream media outlets in the United States are trying to whip the population into a fervor over a different kind of stand off with far less at stake. Continue reading
Obamacare Firm Loses Personal Information
Obamacare firm Centene is reportedly searching for six missing hard drives which contain personal financial and health information on up to a million Americans (archived). Because of the peculiar way the fiat financial system does business without strong cryptographic certainty, the kind of personal information contained on these drives is likely of supreme interest to all manner of thieves.
Activists Targeted In Years Long Spear Phishing Campaign
Robert Falcone and Jen Miller-Osborn of Palo Alto Networks have published a write up on the Scarlet Mimic series of attacks carried out against various activist groups (archived). This campaign carried out over at least four years largely against Tibetian and Uyghur activists is another reminder of the serious danger presented by small scale social engineering efforts like spear phishing, which demand different mitigation and risk reduction strategies than macro scale social engineering attacks.
ISIS/Snowden PGP Comedy
A comical demonstration of PGP in a video bearing the watermark of ISIS has been lambasted (archived) by Snowden. The petrified paper pushers, afraid that actual strong cryptography might catch on among the cattle caste, have sent their favorite stooge to discredit the event. Continue reading
Mass Ransomware Strike Hits Millions Of Indian Computers
A massive malware strike affecting three Indian banks and a pharmaceutical company has at a ransom of 1 Bitcoin per machine incurred a total ransom equivalent to multiple millions of United States dollars at fiat/Bitcoin interface reported exchange rates (archived). Apparently only select machines operated by executives had their ransoms paid, but as the source article notes even with the files decrypted malware may remain allowing for easier insertion for future penetrators. Paying ransomware demands is the recovery method officially endorsed by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The particular piece of ransomware used in this strike goes by the name LeChiffre (archived). It does not propagate automatically and its windows executable needs to be initiated manually. These means that to be deployed on this scale the entire network infrastructure of these enterprises was thoroughly penetrated and brought to submit to the ransomers.
NACDL Amicus: Silk Road Warrant Unconstitutional According To 4th Amendment
As the build up to the Ross Ulbrict's appellate hearing continues, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has filed an amicus brief criticizing the unconstitutionality of the investigation which lead to the persecution of Ross Ulbricht. The move comes as militia operations motivated by other breaches of the United States constitution by the Federal government have resulted in the liberation of substantial portions of Oregon. Whether the appellate court follows Judge Katherine Forrest in rejecting sanity and constitutional limits remains to be seen. Continue reading
FBI Begins Negotiations With Oregon Liberators
Amanda Peacher and John Sepuvaldo are reporting on behalf of Oregon Public Broadcasting that the FBI has begun negotiating with Ammon Bundy of the heroic militia responsible for the liberation in Oregon (archived). Ammon made it clear to the Federal government's negotiator that: Continue reading