From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 25 22:05:25 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2017 03:05:25 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - POTUS' flagrant Friday night news dump Message-ID: President Trump?s flagrant Friday night news dump By Amber Phillips August 25 at 10:27 PM https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/25/president-trumps-flagrant-friday-night-news-dump/ It's Friday night. A Category 4 hurricane is about to slam the Texas coastline, and President Trump just directed the Pentagon to ban transgender people from joining the military and pardoned a politically radioactive convicted former sheriff. News also broke that one of his more controversial advisers, Sebastian Gorka, is leaving the White House. This isn't your average sleepy Friday news dump ? a trick newsmakers use to bury unpopular news by releasing it when most people aren't reading news. This is a flagrant attempt to hide a series of politically fraught (but base-pleasing) moves under the cover of an August Friday night hurricane. In other words, it's transparent that Trump is doing controversial things he knows are controversial, and he and the White House would prefer the public and the media not focus on it. Of course, the irony for Trump is that the exact opposite is happening. In so obviously trying to downplay this news, he's framing it in neon flashing signs. < - > This hurricane-Friday-night news dump is bold, even for Trump. And if he hoped to keep backlash to a minimum, his plan is already backfiring. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 25 22:24:26 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2017 03:24:26 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - good riddance: Gorka Is Forced Out of WH Message-ID: <6835FBAB-A7CB-49CA-BC96-41962350AE51@infowarrior.org> Sebastian Gorka Is Forced Out as White House Adviser, Officials Say By MAGGIE HABERMAN and MATT STEVENSAUG. 25, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/us/politics/sebastian-gorka-leaves-white-house.html?_r=0 Sebastian Gorka, an outspoken adviser to President Trump and lightning rod for controversy, has been forced out of his position at the White House, two administration officials said on Friday. One of the officials said that the president?s chief of staff, John F. Kelly, had telegraphed his lack of interest in keeping Mr. Gorka during internal discussions over the last week. Mr. Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president, had been on vacation for at least the last two weeks, that official said. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about personnel issues. The Federalist, a conservative website, published portions of what it called a resignation letter written by Mr. Gorka. It quoted him as saying that given which ?forces? were on the rise in the White House, the best way for him to support the president was from outside it. The White House, seeking to blunt Mr. Gorka?s claim that he had resigned, put out an unattributed statement saying that he no longer works in the administration, but that he did not resign. His departure is the latest in a string of them since Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine general, took over as the White House chief of staff last month. Mr. Gorka criticized Rex W. Tillerson, the secretary of state, in a public show of disrespect that chafed Mr. Kelly?s sense of order, according to one senior administration official. Mr. Gorka also said that in fighting terrorism, white supremacists should not be a concern. He made the remarks shortly before the racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va., in which a man who was said to admire Adolf Hitler rammed his car into counterprotesters and left a woman dead. Mr. Gorka, who described himself as a national security adviser to the president but who existed outside the National Security Council and had no clear duties, was a divisive figure while in the White House. He memorably declared that ?the alpha males are back? as an assertion of the distance between the Obama administration and the current one. He has also been a vocal defender of the Trump administration?s efforts to temporarily ban travel from some predominantly Muslim countries; he has said violence is a fundamental part of Islam and emanates from the language of the Quran. His hard-line views on Islam have prompted his critics to accuse him of Islamophobia. Mr. Gorka, 46, has also been accused of having links to far-right groups in Europe. He is a former editor at Breitbart News, a right-wing website, and a friend of Stephen K. Bannon. Mr. Bannon, who was until last week Mr. Trump?s chief strategist, has since returned to Breitbart News as executive chairman. An American citizen who was born in Britain to Hungarian parents, Mr. Gorka made a habit of assailing the news media for its coverage of Mr. Trump, insisting that reports of turmoil in the White House had ?almost no resemblance to reality.? Mr. Gorka earned a Ph.D. in political science from Corvinus University of Budapest and had made his living as a national security expert with a focus on Islamist extremism. He wrote a best-selling book, published last year, called ?Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War.? Mr. Gorka was not particularly well known to Washington policy makers before his appointment in January. But he has been connected with the Trump campaign since at least 2015. Federal election commission filings indicate that the Trump campaign paid $8,000 to Mr. Gorka for policy consulting that year. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 29 08:20:11 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:20:11 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Uber to kill feature that tracks users after rides Message-ID: <801F761F-B455-4419-80FC-7C91F5E33620@infowarrior.org> Uber to kill feature that tracks users after rides By Ali Breland - 08/29/17 08:14 AM EDT 0 http://thehill.com/policy/technology/348367-uber-to-kill-feature-that-tracks-users-after-rides Uber is ending its controversial practice of tracking riders for up to five minutes after they?ve ended a trip on the app, reports Reuters. A new update of the app, that the company says is expected to be announced Tuesday, will revert back to allowing riders to share "location only" data solely for when they are actively using the app. The update will initially only be available to iPhone users, but the company says it intends to later include Android phones as well. Uber did not immediately respond to The Hill?s request for comment. The company introduced the tracking feature in November, giving riders either the option to let Uber track them after rides or turn off location services completely, which forced users to manually input pickup locations. Some customers and privacy advocates railed against the policy at the time. Uber defended it, saying that the extra data would help them give more accurate ETAs and suggest better pickup and drop-off locations. Uber?s chief security officer Joe Sullivan told Reuters that the company had made a mistake by introducing the tracking feature without better explaining how it would help riders. He told the outlet that if the company sought to track riders like this in the future, they would explain the value of doing so and allow riders to opt in. Sullivan noted that Uber had endured a ?lack of expertise? in regard to privacy. Uber?s decision to change its policy comes two weeks after it settled with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over claims that it made deceptive privacy and data security claims. Uber will now be independently audited every two years for the next 20 years in compliance with the FTC settlement. The move also comes as the company takes steps to improve its embattled reputation which has taken a hit after a series of issues that led to former CEO Travis Kalanick stepping down. Uber, on Sunday, picked Expedia chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi to take over for Kalanick as CEO, reports indicate. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 29 08:20:30 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:20:30 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?OT=3A_=E2=80=98The_President_Speaks_For?= =?utf-8?b?IEhpbXNlbGbigJk=?= Message-ID: ?The President Speaks For Himself? By THE EDITORIAL BOARDAUG. 29, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/opinion/american-values-arpaio-pardon.html It should be among the easier tasks of a cabinet member to affirm, without hesitation, that the president he or she serves represents the values of the American people. But that was more than Secretary of State Rex Tillerson could muster during an interview on ?Fox News Sunday.? Asked by Chris Wallace whether President Trump?s morally vacuous response to the racist march and deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va., made his job harder, Mr. Tillerson said, ?I don?t believe anyone doubts the American people?s values or the commitment of the American government or the government?s agencies to advancing those values and defending those values.? ?And the president?s values?? Mr. Wallace asked. Mr. Tillerson replied, ?The president speaks for himself, Chris.? Coming from the man the president picked to represent the nation around the world, it was a stunning admission, devastating in its simplicity and painful in its accuracy. Mr. Trump, we are reminded every day in ways we would not have imagined the day before, speaks and acts in the interests of himself and no one else. To most people with any awareness of Arizona politics, Mr. Arpaio is an abomination to the rule of law, the principle of equal justice and plain decency. He spent a good part of his near-quarter-century in office terrorizing the Latinos of southern Arizona, locking them up for the crime of having brown skin, abusing and humiliating them, refusing to stop even after a federal judge told him to, and arresting journalists for reporting on it all. Yet to President Trump, Mr. Arpaio is a role model: a man for whom the ?rule of law? means that he can do what he wants when he wants, who humiliates those weaker than him and mocks those who try to constrain him, who evades scrutiny and accountability ? in short, a perfect little tyrant. The president can pardon virtually anyone he wants, which makes it more telling that he chose to wield the power for the first time in favor of Mr. Arpaio, an officer of the law who defied a court order. It shows not only contempt for the judiciary?s sole means of enforcing the law, but suggests that Mr. Trump may be just as eager to pardon friends, family and allies caught up in the Russia investigation. The Arpaio pardon is not only morally reprehensible on its own, it is also in line with Mr. Trump?s broader attitude toward law enforcement. Consider his affection for the Milwaukee County sheriff, David Clarke, an Arpaio in waiting who has called activists in the Black Lives Matter movement ?terrorists? and who runs a county jail where inmates have a tendency to die under suspicious circumstances. (On Sunday morning, as Hurricane Harvey raged across Texas, Mr. Trump tweeted out a plug for Mr. Clarke?s new book and called him a ?great guy.?) The pattern goes back much further, as The Times?s Maggie Haberman wrote on Monday. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump endorsed the use of torture on terrorism suspects, encouraged supporters at his rallies to assault protesters and made racially tinged comments about a judge overseeing a case involving Trump University. In his seven months as president, Mr. Trump has attacked federal judges who ruled against the administration?s travel ban; tried to impede investigations into his allies, including Mr. Arpaio; and exhorted police officers to treat suspects roughly ? which earned a quick rebuke from his own Justice Department and police officials around the country. Rebukes, from his advisers and members of Congress, grow more frequent. Gary Cohn, director of the White House Economic Council, nearly resigned after Mr. Trump?s Charlottesville remarks. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he opposed the Arpaio pardon, and Senator John McCain said it undermined Mr. Trump?s ?claim for the respect of rule of law.? But this is Donald Trump?s rule of law ? a display of personal dominance disconnected from concerns about law and order, equality or the Constitution. That distorted understanding of justice is cleaving the nation between the majority who support the principles of American democracy and those who support only him. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 29 08:20:49 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:20:49 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - ICE Plans to Start Destroying Records of Immigrant Abuse Message-ID: <399A20F1-D6CE-480A-B93B-EAFA261A31DB@infowarrior.org> (c/o CJ) ICE Plans to Start Destroying Records of Immigrant Abuse, Including Sexual Assault and Deaths in Custody By Victoria Lopez, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Prison Project August 28, 2017 | 4:00 PM https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/ice-and-border-patrol-abuses/ice-plans-start-destroying-records-immigrant Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently asked the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), which instructs federal agencies on how to maintain records, to approve its timetable for retaining or destroying records related to its detention operations. This may seem like a run-of-the-mill government request for record-keeping efficiency. It isn?t. An entire paper trail for a system rife with human rights and constitutional abuses is at stake. ICE has asked for permission to begin routinely destroying 11 kinds of records, including those related to sexual assaults, solitary confinement and even deaths of people in its custody. Other records subject to destruction include alternatives to detention programs; regular detention monitoring reports, logs about the people detained in ICE facilities and communications from the public reporting detention abuses. ICE proposed various timelines for the destruction of these records ranging from 20 years for sexual assault and death records to three years for reports about solitary confinement. For years, advocates and communities across the country have denounced human rights abuses in the detention system. Many of the records that ICE proposes for destruction offer proof of the mistreatment endured by people in detention. Given the Trump administration?s plans to increase the size and scope of the system substantially, it is all the more disturbing that the agency wants to reduce transparency and accountability. NARA has provisionally approved ICE?s proposal and its explanations for doing so are troubling. In cases of sexual assault and death, for example, NARA states that these records ?do not document significant actions of Federal officials.? It?s hard to believe that the actions of a federal official are not significant in the death or sexual assault of an individual who is in federal immigration custody. NARA also posited that in cases of sexual assault, that the ?information is highly sensitive and does not warrant retention.? Keeping these documents available is necessary for the public to understand and fully evaluate the operation of a system that is notorious for inhumane and unconstitutional conditions affecting hundreds of thousands of people every year. Even 20 years is far too short for keeping the record of a death or sexual assault of an individual in government custody. Recent reports by advocacy groups document sexual assaults in detention without adequate investigation or remedy, sub-standard medical care, the overuse of solitary confinement as well as threats and physical assault by custody staff. Since October 2016, there have been 10 deaths in immigration detention. Many of the records used in these reports and analyses would not have been made available without sustained public pressure to force ICE to maintain and divulge this information. The impacts of detention are devastating on immigrants, their families and communities. For an individual who has been sexually assaulted in detention or for a family member whose loved one died in detention, having a full and thorough record of ICE?s actions, its policies and investigation can be an important step toward vindicating their rights. If the Trump administration has its way, the number of immigrants in detention will increase, detention conditions will deteriorate further and more people will be subjected to life-threatening circumstances and denied their most basic rights. ICE shouldn?t be allowed to purge important records and keep its operations out of the public eye. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 29 15:35:05 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2017 20:35:05 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Tillerson moves to close State cyber office Message-ID: Tillerson moves to close State cyber office By Morgan Chalfant - 08/29/17 03:39 PM EDT 21 http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/348438-tillerson-moves-to-close-state-cyber-office Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has outlined a reorganization plan that would involve closing the State Department office charged with promoting U.S. cybersecurity interests abroad, according to a letter obtained Tuesday. In a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Tillerson confirmed his proposal to eliminate the position of cybersecurity coordinator and fold the functions of the cyber office into a bureau in charge of business and economic affairs. The proposed change, reports of which surfaced in July, is part of a broader effort by Tillerson to reorganize and streamline the State Department's functions. Tillerson is seeking feedback from Congress on the proposed changes, according to the letter circulated this week and obtained by The Hill. The proposal also includes eliminating or downgrading special envoy positions at the State Department. ?I believe that the Department will be able to better execute its mission by integrating certain envoys and special representative offices within the regional and functional bureaus, and eliminating those that have accomplished or outlived their original purpose,? Tillerson wrote. ?In some cases, the State Department would leave in place several positions and offices, while in other cases, positions and offices would be either consolidated or integrated with the most appropriate bureau,? he added. The cyber role, known formally as the coordinator for cyber issues, is currently vacant following the abrupt departure of Chris Painter at the end of July. Painter served in the role for more than six years and was charged with engaging with foreign counterparts on cyber issues as well as serving as the State Department?s liaison to the White House and other departments and agencies on cyber, among other responsibilities. The cyber coordinator role is one of a handful that Tillerson has proposed cutting, including the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy and the senior coordinator for international information technology diplomacy. The functions of both positions would be moved under the bureau overseeing economic and business affairs. Some have taken issue with the idea of closing the cyber office, saying that it could be viewed as downgrading the authority of the cyber coordinator and the mission of the office. ?If it?s a downgrade and a move to the economic bureau, [the international community is] going to say the U.S. isn?t serious anymore,? James Lewis, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Hill in July. According to Tillerson?s letter, the functions of the cybersecurity coordinator?s office as well as its 23 staff members and support costs would be folded into the Office of the Secretary to the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. Part of the bureau?s mission is engaging with international partners on telecommunications and Internet policy. Democrats in Congress have taken issue with the expected move. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) introduced an amendment to appropriations legislation earlier this month that would block Tillerson from using allocated funds to close the office. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 29 20:20:44 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 01:20:44 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Experts found an undocumented Kill Switch in Intel Management Engine Message-ID: <60030BCC-D8B8-43A5-8B0D-0731D8983162@infowarrior.org> (c/o DM) Experts found an undocumented Kill Switch in Intel Management Engine August 29, 2017 By Pierluigi Paganini https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/62470/hacking/intel-management-engine-kill-switch.html Security researchers at Positive Technologies have discovered an undocumented configuration setting that disables the Intel Management Engine. Security researchers at Positive Technologies have discovered an undocumented configuration setting that disables the CPU control mechanism Intel Management Engine 11. The Intel Management Engine consists of a microcontroller that works with the Platform Controller Hub chip, in conjunction with integrated peripherals, it is a critical component that handles data exchanged between the processor and peripherals. For this reason, security experts warned in the past of the risks for Intel Management Engine vulnerabilities. An attacker can exploit a flaw in the Intel ME to establish a backdoor on the affected system and gain full control over it. In May, security experts discovered a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-5689, in the remote management features implemented on computers shipped with Intel Chipset in past 9 years. The vulnerability affects the Intel Management Engine (ME) technologies such as Active Management Technology (AMT), Small Business Technology (SBT), and Intel Standard Manageability (ISM) and could be exploited by hackers to remotely take over the vulnerable systems. An unofficial workaround dubbed ME Cleaner can bypass Intel ME, but it is not able to turn off it. ?Intel ME is a coprocessor integrated in all post-2006 Intel boards, for which this Libreboot page has an excellent description. The main component of Intel ME is Intel AMT, and I suggest you to read this Wikipedia page for more information about it. In short, Intel ME is an irremovable environment with an obscure signed proprietary firmware, with full network and memory access, which poses a serious security threat. Even when disabled from the BIOS settings, Intel ME is active: the only way to be sure it is disabled is to remove its firmware from the flash chip.? reads the project description. Now the experts from Positive Technologies (Dmitry Sklyarov, Mark Ermolov, and Maxim Goryachy) discovered a way to disable the Intel Management Engine 11 via an undocumented mode. The researchers discovered that it is possible to turn off the Intel ME by setting the undocumented high assurance platform (HAP) bit to 1 in a configuration file. The experts discovered that the security framework was developed by the US National Security Agency ? yes the NSA! ?One of the fields, called ?reserve_hap?, drew our attention because there was a comment next to it: ?High Assurance Platform (HAP) enable.? continues the analysis. ?Googling did not take long. The second search result said that the name belongs to a trusted platform program linked to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). A graphics-rich presentation describing the program can be found here.? Below the statement released by Intel in response to a request for comment. ?In response to requests from customers with specialized requirements we sometimes explore the modification or disabling of certain features,? Intel?s spokesperson said. ?In this case, the modifications were made at the request of equipment manufacturers in support of their customer?s evaluation of the US government?s ?High Assurance Platform? program. These modifications underwent a limited validation cycle and are not an officially supported configuration.? Positive Technologies also noted that the HAP affect on Boot Guard, Intel?s boot process verification system, is still undocumented. ?We also found some code in BUP that, when HAP mode is enabled, sets an additional bit in Boot Guard policies. Unfortunately, we have not succeeded in finding out what this bit controls.? concluded the experts. Pierluigi Paganini From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 30 05:58:58 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 10:58:58 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - 711 million email addresses ensnared in "largest" spambot Message-ID: <986F3B6F-2449-4D38-A5BA-372B81503CCA@infowarrior.org> 711 million email addresses ensnared in "largest" spambot The spambot has collected millions of email credentials and server login information in order to send spam through "legitimate" servers, defeating many spam filters. By Zack Whittaker for Zero Day | August 29, 2017 -- 19:30 GMT (12:30 PDT) | Topic: Security http://www.zdnet.com/article/onliner-spambot-largest-ever-malware-campaign-millions/ A huge spambot ensnaring 711 million email accounts has been uncovered. A Paris-based security researcher, who goes by the pseudonymous handle Benkow, discovered an open and accessible web server hosted in the Netherlands, which stores dozens of text files containing a huge batch of email addresses, passwords, and email servers used to send spam. Those credentials are crucial for the spammer's large-scale malware operation to bypass spam filters by sending email through legitimate email servers. The spambot, dubbed "Onliner," is used to deliver the Ursnif banking malware into inboxes all over the world. To date, it's resulted in more than 100,000 unique infections across the world, Benkow told ZDNet. Troy Hunt, who runs breach notification site Have I Been Pwned, said it was a "mind-boggling amount of data." Hunt, who analyzed the data and details his findings in a blog post, called it the "largest" batch of data to enter the breach notification site in its history. Benkow, who also wrote up his findings in a blog post, has spent months digging into the Ursnif malware, a data-stealing trojan used to grab personal information such as login details, passwords, and credit card data, researchers have said. Typically, a spammer would send a "dropper" file as a normal-looking email attachment. When the attachment is opened, the malware downloads from a server and infects the machine. But while spamming is still an effective malware delivery method, email filters are getting smarter and many domains found to have sent spam have been blacklisted. The spammer's Onliner campaign, however, uses a sophisticated setup to bypass those spam filters. "To send spam, the attacker needs a huge list of SMTP credentials," said Benkow in his blog post. Those credentials authenticate the spammer in order to send what appears to be legitimate email. "The more SMTP servers he can find, the more he can distribute the campaign," he said. Those credentials, he explained, have been scraped and collated from other data breaches, such as the LinkedIn hack and the Badoo hack, as well also other unknown sources. The list has about 80 million accounts, he said, with each line containing the email address and password, along with the SMTP server and the port used to send the email. The spammer tests each entry by connecting to the server to ensure that the credentials are valid and that spam can be sent. The accounts that don't work are ignored. These 80 million email servers are then used to send the remaining 630 million targets emails, designed to scope out the victim, or so-called "fingerprinting" emails. These emails appear innocuous enough, but they contain a hidden pixel-sized image. When the email is open, the pixel image sends back the IP address and user-agent information, used to identify the type of computer, operating system, and other device information. That helps the attacker know who to target with the Ursnif malware, by specifically targeting Windows computers, rather than sending malicious files to iPhone or Android users, which aren't affected by the malware. Benkow said that narrowing down of would-be victims is key to ensuring the success of the malware campaign. "There is a risk that the campaign can become too noisy, like Dridex, for example," he told ZDNet. "If your campaign is too noisy, law enforcement will look for you." Benkow explained that the attacker can send out a million "fingerprinting" spam emails and get a fraction of emails back, but still have enough responses to send out a second batch of a few thousand targeted emails with malware. Those emails often come days or even weeks later, masquerading as invoices from delivery services, hotels, or insurance companies, with a malicious JavaScript file attached. "It's pretty smart," Benkow admitted. According to Hunt, who processed the data, 27 percent of email addresses in the data are already in Have I Been Pwned. But he noted a caveat: Because the data has been scraped from the web, some of the data is malformed. He said that while the 711 million figure is "technically accurate," the number of humans involved will be somewhat less. Hunt has made the data now searchable in Have I Been Pwned. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 30 05:59:00 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 10:59:00 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Report: 'Anti-protester' bills gain traction in state legislatures Message-ID: Report: 'Anti-protester' bills gain traction in state legislatures Heidi M. Przybyla, USA TODAY Published 6:00 a.m. ET Aug. 29, 2017 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/29/report-anti-protester-bills-gain-traction-state-legislatures/608609001/ WASHINGTON ? Republican legislators in 20 U.S. statehouses have proposed ? and six legislatures approved ? new restrictions on the right to assemble and protest so far this year, according to a new report by the Democrat-aligned State Innovation Exchange. ?These bills would create a new set of crimes, significantly harsher penalties, and costly fines that could apply broadly to anyone ? whether they are supporters of the president, members of the Tea Party, or just concerned parents speaking out at a school board meeting,? according to an advance copy of the report. SiX works to advance progressive policies at the state level and calls the wave of bills a ?new and disturbing trend.? ?Given this passage rate, there is every reason to think we will see more of these efforts in 2018,? said the report. Among the states approving what SiX calls ?anti-protester? legislation were Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Georgia and South Dakota. Arkansas, for instance, has passed a new ?anti-loitering? bill that makes it an offense if a person ?lingers, remains or prowls in a public place or the premises of another without apparent reason and under circumstances that warrant alarm or concern for the safety of persons or property in the vicinity.? In Oklahoma, where there have been protests against major oil and gas pipelines, "trespassing on property containing a critical infrastructure facility without permission" can now be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months imprisonment. If the damage is "willful," punishment increases to up to 10 years in jail. Other efforts have stalled, particularly in states with Democratic governors. After protests in the wake of the 2016 police killing of 32-year-old Philando Castile, Minnesota conservatives proposed several pieces of legislation. Castile was shot and killed during a traffic stop with his girlfriend and 4-year-old daughter in the car. Supporters say the large-scale protests that followed his death cost police and other agencies $2.4 million over 18 months. One bill would have allowed local police departments to charge protesters convicted of a crime for the costs associated with demonstrations. The bills either failed to advance or were vetoed by Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat. The legislation comes amid rising tensions over civil liberties across the U.S., including police shootings of black men, white supremacist rallies planned in several cities and numerous other demonstrations against President Trump's policies, as well as clashes between police and so-called "anti-facist" or "antifa" protesters. While critics say the efforts mark a dangerous trend threatening to silence dissent, supporters say demonstrations that disrupt or damage public infrastructure and risk public safety go too far. Rep. Nick Zerwas, a Republican sponsor of a Minnesota proposal that did not pass, said he simply wants to stiffen penalties for behavior that is already subject to fines, including blocking access to freeways and airports. ?It was very narrow in scope and aimed to increase criminal penalties for a few specific violations,? said Zerwas. ?What we?ve seen is a pattern of behavior in which individuals are closing down airports or blocking freeways in violation of existing law,? he said. Others would have increased penalties for protesting on an interstate highway from a gross misdemeanor to a felony, said Minnesota state Rep. Rena Moran. ?The GOP continued to bury anti-protester provisions in successive versions of larger omnibus public safety bills,? she said. ?There?s no indication that Republicans won?t continue to try to pass these bills next year,? said Moran. In ?an incredibly disturbing development,? according to the report, some failed proposals would have even reduced penalties for motorists who strike protesters with their vehicles. Earlier this month in Charlottesville, Va., Heather Heyer was killed when a man allegedly supportive of a white supremacist rally plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Earlier this year, several similar bills were introduced and failed, including in Tennessee and Florida. In North Dakota, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's months-long protests against the Dakota Access pipeline blocked roads and caused other disruptions. A bill proposed in the legislature would have eliminated liability for "a driver of a motor vehicle who, while exercising reasonable care, causes injury or death to an individual who is intentionally obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway." The bill garnered 41 "yes" votes in the state legislature after legislators tweaked language from absolving a driver who ?negligently causes injury or death? to one who exercises ?reasonable care? before hitting protesters. Supporters say their legislation would not exempt people who intentionally target protesters, yet critics say motorists could argue their actions were accidental. Fifty legislators voted against it and the bill failed. While SiX hopes to advance more progressive policy, its challenges are significant, beginning with the numbers. The Democratic Party holds only 16 governorships and lost more than 900 state legislative seats during the Obama presidency. Republicans now control the governor?s mansion and both legislative chambers in 25 states, while Democrats control all branches in five. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 30 05:59:03 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 10:59:03 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - WSU professor says IRS is breaking privacy laws by mining social media Message-ID: <0E8D22B8-6FB5-4CB8-8431-A319314BFFD6@infowarrior.org> WSU professor says IRS is breaking privacy laws by mining social media UPDATED: Fri., Aug. 25, 2017, 10:39 a.m. By Becky Kramer beckyk at spokesman.com(509) 459-5466 http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/aug/25/wsu-professor-says-irs-is-breaking-privacy-laws-by/ Those Facebook posts from your vacation on a white sand beach, or that purchase of a fancy new vehicle, could be attracting views from the federal government. As its staff shrinks, the Internal Revenue Service has turned to mining social media and large data sets in search of taxpayers to audit, a Washington State University professor says in a recent report in the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law. People should be aware ?that what they say and do online? could be used against them by the IRS, said Kimberly Houser, an associate professor of business law in WSU?s Carson College of Business. Her 55-page report is studded with examples of how the IRS has turned to social media and data analytics for enforcement, including a 2013 fraud case in which a Florida woman was convicted after bragging about being the ?Queen of Tax Fraud? on Facebook. Tax evasion cost the U.S. government an estimated $3 trillion in lost revenue between 2000 and 2009, the report said. With its budgets and staff in decline, the IRS created a new ?Office of Compliance Analytics? division in 2011 to make use of big data and predictive algorithms for finding tax scofflaws, Houser said. But some of the practices used by the IRS violate federal laws related to privacy and fair information gathering, she said. While the burden is on taxpayers to provide supporting documents for their tax returns, the IRS does not have unlimited power to obtain any information it wants, the report said. In a 2010 case, United States v. Warshak, a federal appeals court affirmed that citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their emails and the government needs a search warrant to read them. However, ?many of these (privacy) statutes were written before the internet was widely used, and certainly before social media,? Houser said. ?My instinct is that because the law is not worded as broadly as it could be to cover these situations, the IRS has just taken the stance of ?Let?s just do what we can until someone tells us we can?t.? ? The IRS is mostly mum on how the agency targets taxpayers through analytics, according to Houser, who cites examples culled from outside reports, including other universities? freedom of information requests. Houser said the agency uses data analytics to decide which taxpayers to audit, based on ?private, highly detailed profiles? of taxpayers created from sources other than tax returns or third-party reports, such as W-2 wage information. Her report says the IRS mines commercial and public data, including social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The information is added to IRS databases and algorithms are used to identify potential tax evaders, the report said. ?The collection and use of this data without proper oversight and the increasing reliance on machine-generated decisions may result in harm? ? such as targeting or discrimination of particular groups, Houser said in the report. Social media, for instance, is full of errors and exaggerations, she said. The agency should be transparent about what types of information it collects and give taxpayers a chance to review and correct errors, Houser said federal law states. The IRS?s media office in Washington, D.C., did not respond to an interview request. But Houser?s report is creating a buzz among privacy and data experts. ?It wouldn?t surprise me, that in an effort to save money, the IRS has created an algorithm to verify information on your tax return,? said Angie Raymond, associate professor in the business and ethics department of Indiana University?s Kelley School of Business. ?It?s an almost elegant use of an algorithm,? said Raymond, who wasn?t involved in the research. But she said there are ?significant legal implications? for an agency using information mined from social media or other online activity for government use, such as an IRS audit. The same privacy protections in federal law should apply, regardless of whether the records are paper or electronic, she said. ?People are going to be surprised that it is happening,? Raymond said. ?We just feel sort of creepy that we?re monitored in this way.? Jody Blanke teaches courses on the law and ethics of big data at Mercer University in Atlanta, where he is a law and computer science professor. ?I consider myself a privacy advocate,? Blanke said. ?Quite frankly, whenever you read a law journal article like this about big data and privacy, they are often quite terrifying. ?You read these papers and say, ?Wow, I didn?t know you could do that.? ? In his classes, Blanke asks students whether they?re more concerned about businesses gathering information about them or government agencies. The class is usually split, he said. ?The federal government is among the leaders in trying to have better controls and safeguards for personal information,? Blanke said. ?I would imagine the IRS takes security and privacy quite seriously.? However, Houser?s report points out potential areas for misuse, , said Blanke, who wasn?t involved in the research. The IRS has a long history of using audits for political purposes, Houser said. One of the more recent examples is when the IRS was accused of targeting conservative organizations affiliated with the tea party. The IRS also has had major data breaches, she said. ?The IRS is not the entity I want maintaining these records,? Houser said. Hauser said she?d like to see an oversight office ?watching what the IRS is doing with data.? ?We have laws in place to prevent the government from doing certain things with our data,? she said, ?and it doesn?t seem like the IRS is complying.? This story was updated to correct the Mercer University campus where Blanke teaches. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 30 09:44:30 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 14:44:30 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?b?4oCYU2VhIEhlcm8gUXVlc3TigJkgaGlkZXMg?= =?utf-8?q?dementia_research_inside_a_VR_game?= Message-ID: <8BF4F370-9AED-4520-ABBD-AA405472A680@infowarrior.org> ?Sea Hero Quest? hides dementia research inside a VR game Jamie Rigg, @jmerigg 10m ago in Medicine On the face of it, Sea Hero Quest could be just another mobile game. Cheerful, colorful and with plenty of bite-sized levels intended to test memory and spatial awareness. But while you're captaining your little boat along snaking channels towards checkpoints, the game is watching you. It's scoring your spatial navigation skill, one of the first innate abilities dementia sufferers experience a deterioration in. The data gathered is contributing towards a better understanding of what 'normal' looks like -- the benchmark for navigation skill across different demographics of people. The organizations behind the game are now back with a VR sequel, and the goal of advancing dementia research even further with their gamified approach. The data from all the playthroughs of the Sea Hero Quest mobile game is already revealing some interesting preliminary insights. Analysis shows differences in basic spatial navigation skill begins to show at around 19 years of age, suggesting that deterioration can begin earlier than expected, long before other hallmark symptoms of dementia start presenting themselves. Men and women also tend to employ different strategies to solve puzzles -- choosing certain routes over others to complete a level, for example -- and people from Nordic countries seem to be better than average at the game. These kind of observations are already telling scientists that different demographic and socioeconomic factors produce different results. Sea Hero Quest VR has been created not only to renew momentum behind the citizen science project, but to also nourish a much richer dataset. The mobile game records changes in orientation as you wind your way through channels with a 22.5-degree buffer, partly because slightly erratic movement might simply be a product of finicky touchscreen controls. When you are guiding the direction of the boat with your eyes, however, control is more natural and so changes in direction are registered every 1.5 degrees. By monitoring much subtler changes in navigation, researchers will have a more detailed picture of how you went about completing a level. < - > https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/30/sea-hero-quest-vr/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 31 05:43:04 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 10:43:04 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Militarization of the Hamptons Message-ID: <78F369A9-7C2E-498C-A36B-2D076B2AC5AF@infowarrior.org> (More security chic, more security theater, more of the post-911 fetish. -- rick) The Militarization of the Hamptons Why is a heavily armed counterterrorism force patrolling the parties of the rich and famous? by Joe Nocera August 30, 2017, 3:33 PM EDT https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-30/the-militarization-of-the-hamptons A few weeks ago, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival held one of its occasional outdoor concerts at a nearby Long Island winery. It was well attended -- 400 concertgoers came to sip wine and listen to the music of Bach and Django Reinhardt -- but that wasn?t a surprise: Now in its 34th year, the music festival is one of the mainstays of the Hamptons summer season. Here?s what was surprising, according to my friend and former New York Times colleague Susan Lehman, who was there: ?Driving in,? she emailed me the other day, ?it was impossible not to notice two figures with the word POLICE emblazoned in white on their spruce black costumes, and very noticeable automatic weapons in their hands.? She added that while the musicians were on stage, ?two armed guards milled around in the open space in the front of the tent where the concert was being held.? Afterward, when someone inquired about the presence of these heavily armed police, he was told that the Southampton 1 police department required the extra protection. Yes, it?s true, the town of Southampton, New York, with its 55,000 year-round residents -- and its deserved reputation as a summer playground for the rich and famous -- now has its very own counterterrorism squad. Its members were first sighted in April, when cops wearing bulletproof vests and carrying fully loaded AR-15s showed up at the Bridgehampton Half Marathon, where they spent most of their time milling around the finish line. They?ve since ?protected? several dozen high-end Hamptons galas and events, including a big benefit for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, a fundraiser for the James Beard Foundation, the annual Hope in the Hamptons event put on by St. Jude Children?s Research Hospital, and even a family fair that took place at the Children?s Museum of the East End. The children?s museum! Less weaponry was flashed at Hillary Clinton?s Hamptons fundraisers last year than has been seen at various galas around Southampton this summer. But why? It?s not as if Southampton has ever suffered a terrorist attack. Indeed, Southampton?s police chief, Steven Skrynecki, has repeatedly told the local media that there hasn?t been so much as a hint of a threat. But with so many events attracting wealthy celebrities -- and with terrorist incidents on the rise in many Western countries -- he felt that it was necessary to increase security. ?Many of the people at Southampton events are symbols of American affluence and success and capitalism,? Skrynecki told me. ?At the same time, there is an abundance of freedom of expression and morals and dress. The attendees? beliefs might be contrary to the known ideology of terrorist groups.? He also mentioned the possibility that someone on the ?ultra right? could try to commit an act of terrorism at a fundraiser attended by wealthy liberals. Well, yes, I suppose something like that could happen in the Hamptons -- just as it could happen anywhere, at any time. The randomness of a bomb going off in a packed arena, a gunman killing children in a school, a truck barreling into a crowded sidewalk -- that?s the very definition of terrorism. We know that there will be terror attacks; that?s the world we live in. We just don?t know when or where. And the notion that there is a higher likelihood of an attack on a chamber music concert or a family fair than, say, an overcrowded Hamptons train depot on Labor Day weekend (which the police don?t patrol) seems a stretch, to say the least. There?s another, more plausible reason Southampton has a 15-person counterterrorism squad. Skrynecki, it would seem, has caught militarization fever, a disease that too many of his fellow police chiefs have also come down with. It is disease that will soon spread further, now that President Donald Trump has agreed to give local police forces renewed access to surplus military equipment, something Barack Obama?s administration had restricted after the clashes between police and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. Police officers are being transformed into soldiers. The militarization of local police forces, of course, is a trend that began after the Sept. 11 attacks, when many departments added ?fighting terror? to their mission statements, and when the federal government began to make money available to local police to buy military-style equipment, including automatic weapons, night vision goggles and other paraphernalia. As the security expert Bruce Schneier points out, ?when they get this stuff, they want to trot it out. So now it is being used.? Counterterrorism is as good an excuse as any. There are certainly places where police are justified in having officers hold highly visible AR-15s -- Fifth Avenue in New York City, in front of Trump Tower, is a pretty good example. In his previous post, as police chief of Nassau County, Skrynecki oversaw the huge security effort at last year?s presidential debate at Hofstra University. In the Hamptons, a visiting cabinet secretary like Wilbur Ross or Steven Mnuchin probably needs to have extra layers of visible security. But the experts I spoke to thought that most of the time, such measures were counterproductive. It meant that the 15 members of the Southampton counterterrorism unit weren?t doing more productive policing. With both their hands needing to be on the gun, it was far more cumbersome to respond to less extreme situations that might arise. Most real terrorism prevention takes place before ?the moment of contact? -- when the intelligence community scopes out a planned attack and stops it before it begins. There were, after all, Capitol police guarding the congressional baseball game in June, but they couldn?t prevent James Hodgkinson from nearly killing House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. You could even make the case that the presence of the Southampton police at high-end galas increases the likelihood of an attack by drawing attention to the events. ?If you do the math,? says Schneier, ?the odds of a terrorist attack at one of these events is infinitesimal. You would do more good screening for drunk drivers. But that isn?t sexy.? When I questioned Skrynecki about the utility of his new counterterrorism force, he took quick umbrage. He talked about lone wolves and the dark web, where bad guys could communicate without being observed by intelligence agents. He spoke not just about the truck attack on a crowd in Nice, France, but also shootings at the Bataclan in Paris and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando as well as the most recent attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman was killed when a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protesters. ?There are crowds just as large in Southampton,? he said. And that?s true. But they?re not just at celebrity galas. And I?m hard-pressed to think of a single example where terrorists sought to kill the rich and famous, as opposed to all of us, innocently going about our lives. Any terrorist attack akin to the ones Skrynecki listed would simply not have been stopped by his counterterrorism program. Michael Price of the Brennan Center for Justice, who writes often about security and local policing, described what Skrynecki is doing as ?security chic.? That sounds about right. I went to one Hamptons fundraiser this summer. It was thrown by the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons. There were lots of rich people at the event, including several billionaires. But there wasn?t a single automatic weapon in sight. That?s because the event took place in East Hampton, one town over. Thankfully, East Hampton doesn?t have a counterterrorism unit. At least not yet. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. ? The village of Bridgehampton resides within the much larger town of Southampton. To contact the author of this story: Joe Nocera at jnocera3 at bloomberg.net From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 31 09:47:40 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 14:47:40 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Wells Fargo: Nearly twice as many potentially fake accounts than originally thought Message-ID: <0ADB6912-2FDD-4C54-9EF7-E7B61B1418FB@infowarrior.org> Wells Fargo: Nearly twice as many potentially fake accounts than originally thought By Sylvan Lane - 08/31/17 10:07 AM EDT 60 http://thehill.com/policy/finance/348685-wells-fargo-there-were-nearly-twice-as-many-potentially-fake-accounts-opened Wells Fargo said Tuesday it opened almost twice as many unauthorized banking and credit card accounts than was originally revealed, according to an independent review of the bank?s sales practices. Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said during a Tuesday conference call that an outside investigation into the bank?s sales tactics found more than 1.1 million more accounts opened without customer consent, according to CNBC. That brings the total number of unauthorized accounts Wells Fargo branches opened for customers to roughly 3.5 million. Sloan said that the independent review of 165 million accounts opened between January 2009 and September 2016 found 70 percent more unauthorized accounts than the 2016 revelations that plunged the bank into scandal. He said the bank is committed to making things right with customers. "To rebuild trust and to build a better Wells Fargo, our first priority is to make things right for our customers, and the completion of this expanded third-party analysis is an important milestone," Sloan said. The San Francisco bank has been ridden with scandal since September 2016, when federal and state regulators penalized Wells Fargo for charging customers fees for accounts they never asked to open. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau slapped a record $185 million fine on the bank, and the scandal led to then-CEO John Stumpf?s early retirement. Wells Fargo has made efforts to apologize and rehabilitate its image, but the depth and extent of the scandal continues to grow. The bank insisted in November that customers who paid fees on unauthorized accounts must follow forced arbitration clauses written into those accounts? contracts. Those clauses ban customers from seeking damages by joining class-action suits. Wells Fargo also reportedly opened Prudential life insurance policies for customers without their consent, and charged auto loan customers for insurance they never purchased. House Financial Services Committee members from both parties are investigating the bank, as are multiple federal regulators. Top congressional Democrats and progressive leaders, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) have called on the Federal Reserve to remove Wells Fargo?s board of directors. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 31 15:01:52 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 20:01:52 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - EFF, ACLU Win Court Ruling That Police Can't Keep License Plate Data Secret Message-ID: Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACLU Win Court Ruling That Police Can't Keep License Plate Data Secret Press Release August 31, 2017 Police Have Collected Data on Millions of Law-Abiding Drivers Via License Readers https://www.eff.org/press/releases/electronic-frontier-foundation-aclu-win-court-ruling-police-cant-keep-license-plate San Francisco, California?The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU won a decision by the California Supreme Court that the license plate data of millions of law-abiding drivers, collected indiscriminately by police across the state, are not ?investigative records? that law enforcement can keep secret. California?s highest court ruled that the collection of license plate data isn?t targeted at any particular crime, so the records couldn?t be considered part of a police investigation. ?This is a big win for transparency in California.? attorney Peter Bibring, director of police practices at the ACLU of Southern California, which joined EFF in a lawsuit over the records. ?The Supreme Court recognized that California?s sweeping public records exemption for police investigations doesn?t cover mass collection of data by police, like the automated scanning of license plates in this case. The Court also recognized that mere speculation by police on the harms that might result from releasing information can?t defeat the public?s strong interest in understanding how police surveillance impacts privacy." The ruling sets a precedent that mass, indiscriminate data collection by the police can?t be withheld just because the information may contain some criminal data. This is important because police are increasingly using technology tools to surveil and collect data on citizens, whether it?s via body cameras, facial recognition cameras, or license plate readers. The panel sent the case back to the trial court to determine whether the data can be made public in a redacted or anonymized form so drivers? privacy is protected. ?The court recognized the huge privacy implications of this data collection,? said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch. ?Location data like this, that?s collected on innocent drivers, reveals sensitive information about where they have been and when, whether that?s their home, their doctor?s office, or their house of worship.? Automated License Plate Readers or ALPRs are high-speed cameras mounted on light poles and police cars that continuously scan the plates of every passing car. They collect not only the license plate number but also the time, date, and location of each plate scanned, along with a photograph of the vehicle and sometimes its occupants. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) collect, on average, three million plate scans every week and have amassed a database of half a billion records. EFF filed public records requests for a week?s worth of ALPR data from the agencies and, along with American Civil Liberties Union-SoCal, sued after both agencies refused to release the records. EFF and ACLU SoCal asked the state supreme court to overturn a lower court ruling in the case that said all license plate data?collected indiscriminately and without suspicion that the vehicle or driver was involved in a crime?could be withheld from disclosure as ?records of law enforcement investigations.? EFF and the ACLU SoCal argued the ruling was tantamount to saying all drivers in Los Angeles are under criminal investigation at all times. The ruling would also have set a dangerous precedent, allowing law enforcement agencies to withhold from the public all kinds of information gathered on innocent Californians merely by claiming it was collected for investigative purposes. EFF and ACLU SoCal will continue fighting for transparency and privacy as the trial court considers how to provide public access to the records so this highly intrusive data collection can be scrutinized and better understood. Contact: Jennifer Lynch David Colker From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 18:52:44 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 23:52:44 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Perhaps more important than the PDB these days...? Message-ID: (PSA: Rest assured I am not passing along *everything* crossing my inbox or that get submitted to me about how the current clowncar operates ... just things that I deem relevant or particularly noteworthy. -- rick) Trump gets a folder full of positive news about himself twice a day It?s known as the ?propaganda document? By Alex Thompson Aug 8, 2017 https://news.vice.com/story/trump-folder-positive-news-white-house Twice a day since the beginning of the Trump administration, a special folder is prepared for the president. The first document is prepared around 9:30 a.m. and the follow-up, around 4:30 p.m. Former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and former Press Secretary Sean Spicer both wanted the privilege of delivering the 20-to-25-page packet to President Trump personally, White House sources say. These sensitive papers, described to VICE News by three current and former White House officials, don?t contain top-secret intelligence or updates on legislative initiatives. Instead, the folders are filled with screenshots of positive cable news chyrons (those lower-third headlines and crawls), admiring tweets, transcripts of fawning TV interviews, praise-filled news stories, and sometimes just pictures of Trump on TV looking powerful. One White House official said the only feedback the White House communications shop, which prepares the folder, has ever gotten in all these months is: ?It needs to be more fucking positive.? That?s why some in the White House ruefully refer to the packet as ?the propaganda document.? The process of assembling the folder begins at the Republican National Committee?s ?war room,? which has expanded from 4 to 10 people since the GOP won the White House. A war room ? both parties have one regardless of who?s in the White House ? is often tasked with monitoring local and national news, cable television, social media, digital media, and print media to see how the party, its candidates or their opponents are being perceived. Beginning at 6 a.m. every weekday ? the early start is a longtime war room tradition ? three staffers arrive at the RNC to begin monitoring the morning shows on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News as they scour the internet and newspapers. Every 30 minutes or so, the staffers send the White House Communications Office an email with chyron screenshots, tweets, news stories, and interview transcripts. White House staffers then cull the information, send out clips to other officials, and push favorable headlines to a list of journalists. But they also pick out the most positive bits to give to the president. On days when there aren?t enough positive chyrons, communications staffers will ask the RNC staffers for flattering photos of the president. ?Maybe it?s good for the country that the president is in a good mood in the morning,? one former RNC official said. Contacted by VICE News, Spicer disputed the nature of the folder. ?While I won?t comment on materials we share with the president, this is not accurate on several levels,? he said in an email. Asked what about the story was inaccurate, Spicer did not respond. Of course, every White House monitors media coverage to see how they?re being covered, and the RNC may have decided more staff was needed after the party won the White House. As the political media environment has become faster-moving and more frenzied, the efforts to follow it have also become more robust. The Obama White House usually had at least one very caffeinated point person and two others dedicated to watching Twitter, online publications, print media, and cable news, and then compile relevant clips and send them around to White House aides. But the production of a folder with just positive news ? and the use of the RNC to help produce it ? seemed abnormal to former White House officials. ?If we had prepared such a digest for Obama, he would have roared with laughter,? said David Axelrod, the senior adviser to Barack Obama during his first two years in the White House. ?His was a reality-based presidency.? ?The RNC is always going to work to defend the White House, the administration, and its members of Congress, and our war room?s efforts help capture and drive how our team can echo that defense,? said RNC spokeswoman Lindsay Jancek. Another current White House official said that the idea for the twice-daily ego boost came from Priebus and Spicer, who competed to deliver the folder and be the bearer of the good news. ?Priebus and Spicer weren?t in a good position, and they wanted to show they could provide positive coverage,? the official said. ?It was self-preservation.? In the two-plus weeks following the departure of both Spicer and Priebus, White House officials say, the document has been produced less frequently and more typically after public events, such as Trump?s recent speech at the National Boy Scouts Jamboree in West Virginia. It?s unclear what will change, if anything, once a new White House communications director is appointed to replace the briefly tenured Anthony Scaramucci. ?It needs to be more fucking positive.? It?s not the first recorded instance of Trump welcoming excessive flattery. He frequently cites or thanks cable television hosts like Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and the hosts of ?Fox & Friends? who cover his presidency more favorably. Thank you to @LOUDOBBS for giving the first six months of the Trump Administration an A+. S.C.,reg cutting,Stock M, jobs,border etc. = TRUE! ? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017 And at a broadcasted Cabinet meeting in June, Trump listened contentedly as the vice president, his chief of staff, and nearly all of the 15 Cabinet secretaries heaped praise on him. Priebus took that opportunity to tell Trump: ?On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Mr. President, we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing that you?ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 18:54:23 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 23:54:23 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Disney ending film distribution agreement with Netflix Message-ID: <4BD225FD-9544-48BC-B7EC-81790C2D2499@infowarrior.org> Disney is ending its film distribution agreement with Netflix, will launch a stand-alone platform Daniel Miller http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-disney-earnings-20170808-story.html Walt Disney Co. is ending its film distribution agreement with Netflix for new releases in one of the boldest moves a traditional studio has taken against the leading digital platform. The Burbank company instead will launch a new Disney-branded direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2019. The decision represents a major shift in strategy for Disney, which for years has worked with Netflix to distribute its content ? including hit films and original television shows. Disney said Tuesday that it would end the Netflix distribution agreement beginning with the 2019 calendar year theatrical slate. Original television shows such as Marvel Studios? ?Jessica Jones? and other existing programming would not be removed from the service, according to Disney. Disney also is paying $1.58 billion for a 42% stake in Bamtech, the streaming video company that is developing both the Disney-branded stand-alone streaming service and a similar offering for ESPN. The latter service will debut in early 2018. Disney already owned a piece of Bamtech: It had acquired a 33% stake in the company, which was created by Major League Baseball, in August 2016. Disney shares closed up about a half-percent to $106.98 on Tuesday. But the stock dropped more than 3% at one point after the closing bell. The Netflix decision comes as major studios and networks have expressed growing concern over the rising clout of the Los Gatos-based company, which has siphoned viewers from linear television, changed consumers? viewing habits and threatened studios? traditional business model. Shares of Netflix lost more than 3.5% at one point in after-hours trading on Tuesday. In regular trading, the stock had dropped more than 1.5% to close at $178.36. ?U.S. Netflix members will have access to Disney films on the service through the end of 2019, including all new films that are shown theatrically through the end of 2018,? a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement. ?We continue to do business with the Walt Disney Co. globally on many fronts, including our ongoing relationship with Marvel TV.? The company has been riding a wave of enthusiastic investor sentiment after it posted strong growth for the second quarter that ended in June, surpassing 100 million subscribers worldwide during the period. Netflix has attributed robust subscriber growth to its strong content slate, which includes new seasons of popular series including ?House of Cards,? ?Orange Is the New Black? and ?Master of None.? This week, it acquired comic book publisher Millarworld and signed a deal to do a six-episode talk show with David Letterman. Despite Netflix?s increased emphasis on self-produced shows like ?Stranger Things,? the majority of content viewed by its subscribers remains programming that Netflix licenses from other studios, including Disney. Netflix is expected to spend at least $6 billion this year on content, up from $5 billion last year. That includes money it pays other studios to license shows and movies. Also on Tuesday, Disney reported a third-quarter profit of $2.4 billion, down 9% from a year earlier. It delivered earnings per share of $1.51, and revenue of $14.2 billion, which was essentially flat compared to a year ago. The company failed to deliver on analysts? expectations, who?d predicted earnings per share of $1.55 on revenue of $14.5 billion, according to Factset (adjusting for a one-time charge related to a legal settlement, Disney earned $1.58 per share). Disney?s media networks unit, which houses ESPN and ABC, had a tough quarter, reporting segment operating income of $1.84 billion, which was down 22% compared to last year. The unit?s operating income declined on a year-over-year basis for the fifth quarter in a row. Within the cable networks group, which includes ESPN, segment operating income was down 23% to $1.46 billion. Disney attributed the drop-off in part to higher programming costs and lower advertising revenue at ESPN. Those issues exemplify the tough spot Disney finds itself in with ESPN. ESPN needs to grow its revenue base to keep up with the escalation of sports rights costs at a time when a traditional revenue source ? cable affiliate fees ? is under threat by so-called cord cutters and the move to smaller TV packages offered by providers. ESPN has lost more than 10 million subscribers since 2010, according to Nielsen data. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 18:56:41 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 23:56:41 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Guy Who Invented Those Annoying Password Rules Now Regrets Wasting Your Time Message-ID: The Guy Who Invented Those Annoying Password Rules Now Regrets Wasting Your Time Adam Clark Estes Today 2:45pm http://gizmodo.com/the-guy-who-invented-those-annoying-password-rules-now-1797643987 We?ve all been forced to do it: create a password with at least so many characters, so many numbers, so many special characters, and maybe an uppercase letter. Guess what? The guy who invented these standards nearly 15 years ago now admits that they?re basically useless. He is also very sorry. The man in question is Bill Burr, a former manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In 2003, Burr drafted an eight-page guide on how to create secure passwords creatively called the ?NIST Special Publication 800-63. Appendix A.? This became the document that would go on to more or less dictate password requirements on everything from email accounts to login pages to your online banking portal. All those rules about using uppercase letters and special characters and numbers?those are all because of Bill. The only problem is that Bill Burr didn?t really know much about how passwords worked back in 2003, when he wrote the manual. He certainly wasn?t a security expert. And now the retired 72-year-old bureaucrat wants to apologize. ?Much of what I did I now regret,? Bill Burr told The Wall Street Journal recently, admitting that his research into passwords mostly came from a white paper written in the 1980s, well before the web was even invented. ?In the end, [the list of guidelines] was probably too complicated for a lot of folks to understand very well, and the truth is, it was barking up the wrong tree.? Bill is not wrong. Simple math shows that a shorter password with wacky characters is much easier to crack than a long string of easy-to-remember words. This classic XKCD comic shows how four simple words create a passphrase that would take a computer 550 years to guess, while a nonsensical string of random characters would take approximately three days: Image: XKCD (published under a Creative Commons 2.5 license) This is why the latest set of NIST guidelines recommends that people create long passphrases rather than gobbledygook words like the ones Bill thought were secure. (Pro tip: Use this guide to create a super secure passcode using a pair of dice.) Inevitably, you have to wonder if Bill not only feels regretful but also a little embarrassed. It?s not entirely his fault either. Fifteen years ago, there was very little research into passwords and information security, while researchers can now draw on millions upon millions of examples. Bill also wasn?t the only one to come up with some regrettable ideas in the early days of the web, either. Remember pop-ads, the scourge of the mid-aughts internet? The inventor of those is super sorry as well. Oh, and the confusing, unnecessary double slash in web addresses? The inventor of that idea (and the web itself) Tim Berners-Lee is also sorry. Technology is often an exercise of trial and error. If you get something right, like Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg have done, the rewards are sweet. If you screw up and waste years of unsuspecting internet users? time in the process, like Bill did, you get to apologize years later. We forgive you, Bill. At least some of us do. [Wall Street Journal] From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 9 06:13:27 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 11:13:27 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: Why POTUS Is Wholly Unsuited to the North Korea Crisis References: <1101787625.265746.1502277034637@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Mark > > Why Trump Is Wholly Unsuited to the North Korea Crisis > By David A. Graham > August 8, 2017 > http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/08/trump-north-korea/140114/ > For months, worried observers of the Trump administration have wondered what would happen when the president first faced a bona fide, urgent international crisis out of his own control. > This week, the world seems terrifyingly close to getting an answer. > On Monday, the United Nations Security Council approved new sanctions on North Korea. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the North Korean regime has for the first time produced a miniaturized warhead that can be attached to a nuclear missile . And later on Tuesday, speaking at a briefing on the opioid crisis, President Trump offered an unusually warlike, blunt statement. > ?North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,? he said. ?They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal statement, and as I said they will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.? > At a moment of nuclear brinksmanship like this, any citizen of the United States wants a few things from a leader. You want someone who they can trust to tell the truth, and who foreign leaders view as credible, so that threats and statements alike are taken seriously. You want someone who is known to be able to carefully sift through a lot of evidence and assess upsides from downsides. You want someone who has a team of expert advisers whose judgment he trusts and takes seriously. And you want someone who is able to take bad news. > The problem is that Trump has none of these characteristics. He has shown himself to be prolifically dishonest . The president has lied to the public about matters great and small, from the petty (the size of his inauguration crowd) to the serious (accusations of wiretapping, his own position on major matters) to the absurd (outright denying things he said publicly). As a result, Americans are in no position to trust the things he might tell them in a crisis, whether those remarks are delivered from behind the Resolute desk or via tweet. > As if that were not bad enough, foreign leaders can?t trust what he says either. An adversary has no idea whether to take threats from Trump seriously (to say nothing of literally ). He?s a man who has made empty threats throughout his career, repeatedly threatening to sue people who say and do things he doesn?t like. In many cases, he has not followed through on those threats. If you?re North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, why should you believe that his threats of force are any more real? Trump?s strategy with North Korea has been compared to Nixon?s ?madman theory,? in which he wanted enemies to believe he was capable of anything, because he was insane. An equally, or more, likely outcome is that North Korea will conclude that Trump is capable of nothing, based on past results. > The dangers are higher since Trump?s counterpart is Kim, himself an untrustworthy and unpredictable interlocutor prone to empty threats. ?When two leaders each habitually bluster and exaggerate, there?s a higher likelihood of making a catastrophic mistake based on a bad guess,? Kathy Gilsinan wrote in April . > But it?s a problem for allies, too, since the U.S. would want friends in a hot war or in a diplomatic crisis. They also have no reason to trust any assurances that the president makes. As my colleague Jeffrey Goldberg warned on the eve of the election, ?Nuclear crises call for, among other things, the most exacting possible calibration of language. This is not a skill Donald Trump would bring to government service.? > Trump?s promises of ?fire and fury? do not instill new confidence. His literally inflammatory threat is particularly baffling because of the parameters he laid out: The president warned not that North Korea would be punished fiercely for firing a missile at the U.S., or for conducting a missile test, but indeed for issuing a threat. But that?s inevitable. Threats are North Korea?s major export product. Trump, who ridiculed Barack Obama for allowing Syria to cross his ?red line? of chemical-weapons use, is establishing a red line that will almost certainly be crossed?perhaps very soon, if Kim is in a sporting mood. > But even setting aside the public-messaging side of the ledger, should citizens have faith in Trump?s decision-making process? Throughout his life, he has bragged about his reliance on his gut instincts rather than on careful study of the details of a case. His four corporate bankruptcies demonstrate the limitations of that gut. He has a tendency to believe outrageously fake stories , and his staff is reportedly wary of giving him unflattering and unhappy news because he reacts volcanically to it. When told he cannot do something, his impulse is often to insist on doing it. > Those impulses do not serve the nation well in a nuclear standoff?a situation where, as Mark Bowden laid out in the July/August?Atlantic , there are no good solutions, but only least-worst solutions. As Defense Secretary James Mattis has put it , ?A conflict in North Korea ? would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people's lifetimes.? While some optimistic reports have suggested that new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly can and already has imposed better discipline and information-circulation systems in the White House, the public has little material evidence of changes (really, only Anthony Scaramucci?s firing) and plenty of signs that Trump remains Trump, from his weird Twitter assault on Senator Richard Blumenthal to his remarks Tuesday. > The reasoning behind Trump?s threat is difficult to grasp. Senator Lindsey Graham argued last week that the benefit of a war would be to keep North Korea from acquiring a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile. But if it has already happened, it?s too late for a preventive war, and the only advantage is to be the first to strike. Military experts are dubious that the U.S. could knock out the entire North Korean nuclear capability in one, quick assault. > Perhaps the best hope for the world is that Trump, who is easily distracted and has a short attention span, will in this case once more be distracted. That would at least allow the immediate tension to dissipate, though the longer-term problem of a nuclear North Korea would remain. Of course, dropping the promise of American retaliation would only increase Trump?s credibility problem, offering adversaries another example of an empty threat. > A situation like this was easily foreseeable, and in fact foreseen. Since successive presidents have failed to effectively curtail North Korea?s nuclear program, it was practically inevitable that the 45th president would face this very dilemma. Senator Marco Rubio, a rival of Trump?s in the GOP primary, said he could not be trusted with nuclear weapons. Hillary Clinton ran an ad focused on the danger that Trump would start a nuclear war. Trump is in a box of his own creation, and the American people, by virtue of their choices at the ballot box, are in it with him. > By David A. Graham // David Graham is a senior associate editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees the Politics Channel. He previously reported for Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and The National. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 9 06:49:33 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 11:49:33 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cyber threats prompt return of radio for ship navigation Message-ID: (BTW the US Naval Academy recently resumed teaching navigation using sextant and stars, in response to this very real concern. -- rick) Cyber threats prompt return of radio for ship navigation Jonathan Saul https://www.reuters.com/article/us-shipping-gps-cyber-idUSKBN1AN0HT LONDON (Reuters) - The risk of cyber attacks targeting ships' satellite navigation is pushing nations to delve back through history and develop back-up systems with roots in World War Two radio technology. Ships use GPS (Global Positioning System) and other similar devices that rely on sending and receiving satellite signals, which many experts say are vulnerable to jamming by hackers. About 90 percent of world trade is transported by sea and the stakes are high in increasingly crowded shipping lanes. Unlike aircraft, ships lack a back-up navigation system and if their GPS ceases to function, they risk running aground or colliding with other vessels. South Korea is developing an alternative system using an earth-based navigation technology known as eLoran, while the United States is planning to follow suit. Britain and Russia have also explored adopting versions of the technology, which works on radio signals. The drive follows a series of disruptions to shipping navigation systems in recent months and years. It was not clear if they involved deliberate attacks; navigation specialists say solar weather effects can also lead to satellite signal loss. Last year, South Korea said hundreds of fishing vessels had returned early to port after their GPS signals were jammed by hackers from North Korea, which denied responsibility. In June this year, a ship in the Black Sea reported to the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center that its GPS system had been disrupted and that over 20 ships in the same area had been similarly affected. U.S. Coast Guard officials also said interference with ships' GPS disrupted operations at a port for several hours in 2014 and at another terminal in 2015. It did not name the ports. A cyber attack that hit A.P. Moller-Maersk's IT systems in June 2017 and made global headlines did not involve navigation but underscored the threat hackers pose to the technology dependent and inter-connected shipping industry. It disrupted port operations across the world. The eLoran push is being led by governments who see it as a means of protecting their national security. Significant investments would be needed to build a network of transmitter stations to give signal coverage, or to upgrade existing ones dating back decades when radio navigation was standard. U.S. engineer Brad Parkinson, known as the "father of GPS" and its chief developer, is among those who have supported the deployment of eLoran as a back-up. "ELoran is only two-dimensional, regional, and not as accurate, but it offers a powerful signal at an entirely different frequency," Parkinson told Reuters. "It is a deterrent to deliberate jamming or spoofing (giving wrong positions), since such hostile activities can be rendered ineffective," said Parkinson, a retired U.S. airforce colonel. KOREAN STATIONS Cyber specialists say the problem with GPS and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is their weak signals, which are transmitted from 12,500 miles above the Earth and can be disrupted with cheap jamming devices that are widely available. Developers of eLoran - the descendant of the loran (long-range navigation) system created during World War II - say it is difficult to jam as the average signal is an estimated 1.3 million times stronger than a GPS signal. To do so would require a powerful transmitter, large antenna and lots of power, which would be easy to detect, they add. Shipping and security officials say the cyber threat has grown steadily over the past decade as vessels have switched increasingly to satellite systems and paper charts have largely disappeared due to a loss of traditional skills among seafarers. "My own view, and it is only my view, is we are too dependent on GNSS/GPS position fixing systems," said Grant Laversuch, head of safety management at P&O Ferries. "Good navigation is about cross-checking navigation systems, and what better way than having two independent electronic systems." Lee Byeong-gon, an official at South Korea's Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said the government was working on establishing three sites for eLoran test operations by 2019 with further ones to follow after that. But he said South Korea was contending with concerns from local residents at Gangwha Island, off the west coast. FILE PHOTO: Cargo ships are seen as they sail across the English Channel with the French coast on the horizon, from Dover in Britain, January 9, 2016.Toby Melville/File Photo "The government needs to secure a 40,000 pyeong (132,200 square-meter) site for a transmitting station, but the residents on the island are strongly opposed to having the 122 to 137 meter-high antenna," Lee told Reuters. In July, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill which included provisions for the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to establish an eLoran system. "This bill will now go over to the Senate and we hope it will be written into law," said Dana Goward, president of the U.S. non-profit Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, which supports the deployment of eLoran. "We don't see any problems with the President (Donald Trump) signing off on this provision." The previous administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both pledged to establish eLoran but never followed through. However, this time there is more momentum. In May, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats told a Senate committee the global threat of electronic warfare attacks against space systems would rise in coming years. "Development will very likely focus on jamming capabilities against ... Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS)," he said. SPOOFING DANGERS Russia has looked to establish a version of eLoran called eChayka, aimed at the Arctic region as sea lanes open up there, but the project has stalled for now. "It is obvious that we need such a system," said Vasily Redkozubov, deputy director general of Russia's Internavigation Research and Technical Centre. "But there are other challenges apart from eChayka, and (Russia has) not so many financial opportunities at the moment." Cost is a big issue for many countries. Some European officials also say their own satellite system Galileo is more resistant to jamming than other receivers. But many navigation technology experts say the system is hackable. "Galileo can help, particularly with spoofing, but it is also a very weak signal at similar frequencies," said Parkinson. The reluctance of many countries to commit to a back-up means there is little chance of unified radio coverage globally for many years at least, and instead disparate areas of cover including across some national territories and shared waterways. The General Lighthouse Authorities of the UK and Ireland had conducted trials of eLoran but the initiative was pulled after failing to garner interest from European countries whose transmitters were needed to create a signal network. France, Denmark, Norway and Germany have all decided to turn off or dismantle their old radio transmitter stations. Britain is maintaining a single eLoran transmitter in northern England. Taviga, a British-U.S. company, is looking to commercially operate an eLoran network, which would provide positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). "There would need to be at least one other transmitter probably on the UK mainland for a timing service," said co-founder Charles Curry, adding that the firm would need the British government to commit to using the technology. Andy Proctor, innovation lead for satellite navigation and PNT with Innovate UK, the government's innovation agency, said: "We would consider supporting a commercially run and operated service, which we may or may not buy into as a customer." Current government policy was "not to run large operational pieces of infrastructure like an eLoran system", he added. Additional reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen, Yuna Park in Seoul, Gleb Stolyarov in Moscow, Sophie Louet in Paris, Madeline Chambers in Berlin and Mark Hosenball in London; Editing by Pravin Char From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 9 06:50:25 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 11:50:25 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Company Storing Families' Personal Data Blocks Users/Researchers Informing It Of A Security Flaw Message-ID: <4410D23C-8CE5-417B-9DB7-A4C1F681DE5D@infowarrior.org> Company Storing Families' Personal Data Blocks Users/Researchers Informing It Of A Security Flaw https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170806/11364237944/company-storing-families-personal-data-blocks-users-researchers-informing-it-security-flaw.shtml From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 9 12:15:08 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 17:15:08 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Mozilla launches new effort to counter fake news Message-ID: Mozilla launches new effort to counter fake news By Joe Uchill - 08/09/17 12:50 PM EDT 10 http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/345906-mozilla-launches-new-program-to-counter-misinformation Mozilla, the creators of the popular Firefox web browser, are launching a new program to counter fake news stories. Fabricated news, made to mislead or turn a profit, is a growing problem in online communities. The U.S. intelligence community assessed that Russia used social media to propagate misinformation campaigns throughout the 2016 presidential race. "Misinformation devalues the open web," said Katharina Borchert, Mozilla chief innovation officer, on Wednesday, announcing their new initiative. "We see this as a threat to the fabric of our society." The Mozilla Information Trust Initiative (MITI) will increase funding for research on misinformation, the first findings to be released later this year. The company hopes to leverage Firefox's size and reach to get data about news browsing habits. MITI will also tailor products to amplify actual news over fake news, expand an effort to increase digital news literacy and fund designers to work on software to provide on-the-fly visualizations of the problem. "There will not be a quick technical fix," said Borchert, who emphasized the importance of tackling the issue from multiple fronts. Fake news is more than just an issue of influencing mass numbers of people. After the election, some producers of predominantly right-wing viral news stories acknowledged their work as hoaxes designed to attract advertising revenue. Mozilla is dedicating staff to MITI, including a new senior fellow and a research team under Borchert's purview. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 9 15:33:08 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 20:33:08 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Australian Public Servants Warned Against Liking Social Media Posts That Are Critical Of Government Policies Message-ID: <85C03F7B-159C-4BA8-86F5-67D11787668D@infowarrior.org> Australian Public Servants Warned Against Liking Social Media Posts That Are Critical Of Government Policies https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170808/01445037954/australian-public-servants-warned-against-liking-social-media-posts-that-are-critical-government-policies.shtml From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 9 19:28:56 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 00:28:56 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Salesforce fires red team staffers who gave Defcon talk Message-ID: <7B235A73-0971-4C27-B189-B6B74358395D@infowarrior.org> (x-posted) Salesforce fires red team staffers who gave Defcon talk "As soon as they got off the stage, they were fired." By Zack Whittaker for Zero Day | August 9, 2017 -- 19:58 GMT (12:58 PDT) | Topic: Security http://www.zdnet.com/article/salesforce-fires-red-team-staffers-who-gave-defcon-talk/ The creators of MEATPISTOL said they are working to get the tool open sourced. (Image: file photo) Salesforce has fired its director of offensive security and another senior staff member after they gave talk at the Defcon security conference talk in Las Vegas last month. Josh Schwartz, director of offensive security based in San Francisco, and John Cramb, senior offensive security engineer in Sydney, Australia, worked on the cloud giant's security "red team," which launches offensive attacks against the company from within to test its cyber posture and defenses. But the two were fired "as soon as they got off stage" by a senior Salesforce executive, according to one of several people who witnessed the firing and offered their accounts. The unnamed Salesforce executive is said to have sent a text message to the duo half an hour before they were expected on stage to not to give the talk, but the message wasn't seen until after the talk had ended. The talk was to reveal MEATPISTOL, a modular malware framework for implant creation, infrastructure automation, and shell interaction, aimed at reducing the time and energy spent on reconfiguration and rewriting malware. The tool -- an anagram of a similar tool, Metasploit -- doesn't launch attacks or exploit systems, but it allows red teamers to control the system once access has been granted. MEATPISTOL was pitched as taking "the boring work" out of pen-testing to make red teams, including at Salesforce, more efficient and effective. The talk had been months in the making. Salesforce executives were first made aware of the project in a February meeting, and they had signed off on the project, according to one person with knowledge of the meeting. (The meeting was held under Chatham House rules.) The tool was expected to be released later as an open-source project, allowing other red teams to use the project in their own companies. But in another text message seen by Schwartz and Cramb an hour before their talk, the same Salesforce executive told the speakers that they should not announce the public release of the code, despite a publicized and widely anticipated release. Later, on stage, Schwartz told attendees that he would fight to get the tool published. Cramb also said in a tweet after the firing that they both "care deeply about MEATPISTOL being open sourced and are currently working to achieve this" without being "legaled to death." News of the firing broke when Schwartz tweeted several hours after the talk, by which point it was already well known throughout the conference. He later deleted the tweet at the company's request citing "due process," and he set his Twitter account to private. Schwartz and Cramb are now being represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The specific reason for the firing is unknown. When reached, Schwartz and Cramb declined to comment. A Salesforce spokesperson declined to comment on an "employee matter." The duo's talk was well received, according to those who attended. Several prominent security researchers criticized Salesforce following the firing. Khalil Sehnaoui, a security researcher who was at the conference, said in a tweet: "If you're going to start a rebellion amongst all your red-teamers, don't do it at Defcon." The community has since forwarded the duo a number of job offers. Schwartz and Cramb are due to speak at DerbyCon and BruCon later this year. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 10 05:59:13 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 10:59:13 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Google_reveals_sites_with_=E2=80=98fail?= =?utf-8?q?ing=E2=80=99_ads=2C_including_Forbes=2C_LA_Tim?= Message-ID: <004AFF55-1B10-41A0-9BD3-AE2067C069C9@infowarrior.org> (Glad to see that ad-infested malware distribution site Forbes.Com is top of the list. --rick) Google reveals sites with ?failing? ads, including Forbes, LA Times August 8, 2017 by Lucia Moses https://digiday.com/media/google-reveals-sites-failing-ads-including-forbes-la-times/ Publishers that have fretted about Google?s plans to unleash an ad-blocking version of Chrome in 2018 can now see if their own sites? ads will be blocked by the tech giant. On June 1, Google rolled out its Ad Experience Report, a tool it?s using to evaluate and score websites based on their ad creative and design. It provides screenshots and videos of ads that have been identified as annoying to users, such as pop-ups and autoplaying video ads with sound, and ?prestitial? ads with countdown timers. So far, Google has identified about 700 sites as warranting corrective action out of around 100,000 sites it?s reviewed so far. Half of the roughly 700 got a ?failing? status and the other half a ?warning.? Pop-ups were the most common problem Google found, accounting for 96 percent of violations on desktop and 54 percent on mobile. Most of these sites are out of the mainstream, such as entertainment sites checkthesevideos.com and full-serie.biz. But a couple dozen are a who?s who of traditional media. Those listed as failing include Forbes; Tronc-owned Orlando Sentinel, Sun-Sentinel and Los Angeles Times; Bauer Xcel Media?s Life & Style and In Touch Weekly; The Wrap; Chicago Sun-Times; Tribune Broadcasting?s Fox 13 Now; and Sporting News. A similar number of mainstream sites got warnings. They included Kiplinger, Gizmodo Media Group?s Lifehacker, The Jerusalem Post, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Cox Media Group?s WSB-TV in Atlanta, Tronc?s Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, the U.K. Independent, The Daily Caller, Reader?s Digest, All You, Smithsonian, New York Daily News, Salt Lake Tribune and CBS News. Google underscored that it hasn?t hashed out all the enforcement details yet. One aspect of the plan that may raise alarms with publishers is that Google hasn?t ruled out filtering all of a failing site?s ads ? not just the offending ads. Google also didn?t specify what exactly would lead a site to be labeled ?failing.? It said ?warning? would apply to publishers with ?two or more violations? but that these sites wouldn?t be blocked. Once the new version of Chrome with the ad filter launches next year, Google said it would pull ads from failing publishers? sites if they don?t fix the violations within 30 days. Google is using the Better Ads Standards set by the Coalition for Better Ads, an alliance of heavy-hitters in advertising and media such as Unilever, GroupM and The Washington Post that was formed to clean up digital advertising. Google is a founding member of the coalition. The tool is meant to give publishers a way to fix their sites well before Google launches its Chrome ad blocker and to give advertisers and their representatives a way to avoid having their ads run on sites that have a poor user experience. Google also said publishers can use the tool to request a new review after they fix their sites and report if they think they were unfairly identified as having violations. Along with Google?s ad blocker news, Apple recently said it would update its Safari browser to block video ads that autoplay and stop ad tracking. The platform giants? moves are seen as a response to users and a way to ward off ad blocking, but publishers see them as a way to solidify control over the platforms? own digital ad market share, which has grown at the expense of publishers. Critics also say Google shouldn?t be the arbiter of how publishers monetize their sites (while protecting its own revenue by leaving alone its ads on YouTube and by paying the popular ad blocker AdBlock Plus to make sure its own ads aren?t blocked). No one would argue that users enjoy autoplay video, but the concern is that clamping down on it has a disproportionate impact on independent publishers. It?s worth noting that many of the flagged sites belong to single-title companies or are legacy publishers that are struggling to modernize. Tronc?s digital ad revenue has been dwindling. The Daily News is said to be losing millions a year. So far, publishers would seem to have little choice but to do what Google wants, though. Ben Gerst, Tronc?s svp of product development, said the company was focused on a better experience for users and advertisers and that it was working with Google and implementing changes to meet the Coalition?s standards. Grant Whitmore, evp of digital at the Daily News, said the paper?s warning status was related to an ad tech partner and in-image ad that was supposed to meet industry ad standards but was somehow getting flagged, and that the publisher was working with Google to resolve it. A spokesman for Lifehacker, meanwhile, raised the specter of misidentification, however, saying: ?Our Kinja publishing platform has always taken a very audience-centric approach to how we integrate advertising and we believe that practice will ultimately benefit our sites ahead of any upcoming changes in the market, including the new version of Chrome. We don?t believe Lifehacker.com is currently out of step with existing U.S. better ad standards.? All publishers are embracing the user experience mantra, but getting there is another matter. Paul Likins, vp of revenue operations at American Media Inc., whose Men?s Fitness and National Enquirer sites were cited for violations, said it?s not always clear from Google?s tool what the violation is, making it confusing for publishers trying to fix them. And fixing them means replacing the revenue generated by offending ads, which isn?t easily done. Google?s approach feels ?heavy-handed,? but publishers have to comply, lest they risk not just repercussions from Google but advertisers, who used to clamor for ?disruptive? ads, he said. ?We?re all trying to fix this, but we?re moving from a vendor-based business model,? he said. ?It takes time, money and resources.? Paul Vincent is founder of Neuranet, a tech company that helps publishers comply with Interactive Advertising Bureau specs for fast-loading, non-invasive ads. He said an unintended consequence of a company like Google being the arbiter of the web is that small publishers may just throw up their hands and hand over more of their tech needs to Google, thinking that?ll at least ensure their sites won?t be blocked. ?It?s gotten too much power over what?s acceptable,? he said of Google. ?When it makes these releases, it can have a massive effect across the industry and sometimes contributes to its dominance because of the confusion.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 10 06:05:11 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:05:11 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Internet Archive Blocked in 2, 650 Site Anti-Piracy Sweep Message-ID: <6F068FCC-C548-4F06-ABFD-52F07CE5C790@infowarrior.org> Internet Archive Blocked in 2,650 Site Anti-Piracy Sweep ? By Andy ? on August 10, 2017 https://torrentfreak.com/internet-archive-blocked-in-2650-site-anti-piracy-sweep-170810/ The Internet Archive became unavailable to millions of users in India this week. A government agency, which passed a copy of a court order to the BBC, has now confirmed a piracy-related blockade. The injunction, which lists 2,650 sites, was issued following an application from Bollywood. In addition to Archive.org, it contains several domains that should not be there, including website hosting service Weebly. Reports of sites becoming mysteriously inaccessible in India have been a regular occurance over the past several years. In many cases, sites simply stop functioning, leaving users wondering whether sites are actually down or whether there?s a technical issue. Due to their increasing prevalence, fingers are often pointed at so-called ?John Doe? orders, which are handed down by the court to prevent Internet piracy. Often sweeping in nature (and in some cases pre-emptive rather than preventative), these injunctions have been known to block access to both file-sharing platforms and innocent bystanders. Earlier this week (and again for no apparent reason), the world renowned Internet Archive was rendered inaccessible to millions of users in India. The platform, which is considered by many to be one of the Internet?s most valued resources, hosts more than 15 petabytes of data, a figure which grows on a daily basis. Yet despite numerous requests for information, none was forthcoming from authorities. The ?blocked? message seen by users accessing Archive.org Quoted by local news outlet Medianama, Chris Butler, Office Manager at the Internet Archive, said that their attempts to contact the Indian Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) had proven fruitless. Noting that site had previously been blocked in India, Butler said they were no clearer on the reasons why the same kind of action had seemingly been taken this week. ?We have no information about why a block would have been implemented,? he said. ?Obviously, we are disappointed and concerned by this situation and are very eager to understand why it?s happening and see full access restored to archive.org.? Now, however, the mystery has been solved. The BBC says a local government agency provided a copy of a court order obtained by two Bollywood production companies who are attempting to slow down piracy of their films in India. Issued by a local judge, the sweeping order compels local ISPs to block access to 2,650 mainly file-sharing websites, including The Pirate Bay, RARBG, the revived KickassTorrents, and hundreds of other ?usual suspects?. However, it also includes the URL for the Internet Archive, hence the problems with accessibility this week. The injunction, which appears to be another John Doe order as previously suspected, was granted by the High Court of the Judicature at Madras on August 2, 2017. Two film productions companies ? Prakash Jah Productions and Red Chillies Entertainment ? obtained the order to protect their films Lipstick Under My Burkha and Jab Harry Met Sejal. While India-based visitors to blocked resources are often greeted with a message saying that domains have been blocked at the orders of the Department of Telecommunications, these pages never give a reason why. This always leads to confusion, with news outlets having to pressure local government agencies to discover the reason behind the blockades. In the interests of transparency, providing a link to a copy of a relevant court order would probably benefit all involved. A few hours ago, the Internet Archive published a statement questioning the process undertaken before the court order was handed down. ?Is the Court aware of and did it consider the fact that the Internet Archive has a well-established and standard procedure for rights holders to submit take down requests and processes them expeditiously?? the platform said. ?We find several instances of take down requests submitted for one of the plaintiffs, Red Chillies Entertainments, throughout the past year, each of which were processed and responded to promptly. ?After a preliminary review, we find no instance of our having been contacted by anyone at all about these films. Is there a specific claim that someone posted these films to archive.org? If so, we?d be eager to address it directly with the claimant.? But while the Internet Archive appears to be the highest profile collateral damage following the ISP blocks, it isn?t the only victim. Now that the court orders have become available (1,2), it?s clear that other non-pirate entities have also been affected including news site WN.com, website hosting service Weebly, and French ISP Free.fr. Also, in a sign that sites aren?t being checked to see if they host the movies in question, one of the orders demands that former torrent index BitSnoop is blocked. The site shut down earlier this year. The same is true for Shaanig.org. This is not the first time that the Internet Archive has been blocked in India. In 2014/2015, Archive.org was rendered inaccessible after it was accused of hosting extremist material. In common with Google, the site copies and stores huge amounts of data, much of it in automated processes. This can leave it exposed to these kinds of accusations. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 10 06:41:43 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:41:43 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Adblocking EasyList caves to 'functionalclam' DMCA takedown Message-ID: <9AF4DDD4-B567-4FD9-9756-D393125628B3@infowarrior.org> Details still quite sketchy ... as is I'm sure the DMCA takedown request itself if not also possibly the firm behind it.... Removed due to DMCA takedown request https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commit/a4d380ad1a3b33a0fab679a1a8c5a791321622b3 From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 10 09:16:10 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 14:16:10 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - China uses a quantum satellite to transmit potentially unhackable data Message-ID: <01AD90FE-9C43-47D8-839E-BF3629CAA001@infowarrior.org> China uses a quantum satellite to transmit potentially unhackable data Arjun Kharpal | @ArjunKharpal 5 Hours Ago CNBC.com https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/10/china-uses-quantum-satellite-to-transmit-potentially-unhackable-data.html China has demonstrated a world first by sending data over long distances using satellites which is potentially unhackable, laying the basis for next generation encryption based on so-called "quantum cryptography. Last August, China launched a quantum satellite into space, a move which was called a "notable advance" by the Pentagon. Using this satellite, Chinese researchers at the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) project, were able to transmit secret messages from space to Earth at a further distance than ever before. The technology is called quantum key distribution (QKD). Typical encryption relies on traditional mathematics and while for now it is more or less adequate and safe from hacking, the development of quantum computing threatens that. Quantum computing refers to a new era of faster and more powerful computers, and the theory goes that they would be able to break current levels of encryption. That's why China is looking to use quantum cryptography for encryption. QKD works by using photons ? the particles which transmit light ? to transfer data. "QKD allows two distant users, who do not share a long secret key initially, to produce a common, random string of secret bits, called a secret key," the researchers explained in a paper published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. "Using the one-time pad encryption this key is proven to be secure ? to encrypt (and decrypt) a message, which can then be transmitted over a standard communication channel." State news agency Xinhua called the encryption "unbreakable" and that's mainly because of the way data is carried via the photon. A photon cannot be perfectly copied and any attempt to measure it will disturb it. This means that a person trying to intercept the data will leave a trace. "Any eavesdropper on the quantum channel attempting to gain information of the key will inevitably introduce disturbance to the system, and can be detected by the communicating users," the researchers said. The implications could be huge for cybersecurity, making businesses safer, but also making it more difficult for governments to hack into communication. China successfully sent the data over a distance of 1,200 kilometers from space to Earth, which is up to 20 orders of magnitudes more efficient than that expected using an optical fiber of the same length, the researchers claimed. It's also further than the current limits of a few hundred kilometers. "That, for instance, can meet the demand of making an absolute safe phone call or transmitting a large amount of bank data," Pan Jianwei, lead scientist of QUESS, told Xinhua. The Chinese government has made the development of the space sector a key priority. For example, it has laid out plans to get to Mars by 2020 and become a major space power by 2030. And China has global ambitions for its QKD. It sees its satellite system interacting with ground-based QKD networks to create a global secure network. "We can thus envision a space-ground integrated quantum network, enabling quantum cryptography ? most likely the first commercial application of quantum information ? useful at a global scale," the researchers said. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 10 12:24:40 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 17:24:40 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Sebastian Gorka, the West Wing's Phony Foreign-Policy Guru Message-ID: <6ACEED9A-A362-4982-AC04-0B4CB24F558F@infowarrior.org> Sebastian Gorka, the West Wing's Phony Foreign-Policy Guru Gorka's a former Breitbart editor with Islamophobic views and ties to neo-Nazi extremists ? and he has the ear of the president http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/sebastian-gorka-the-west-wings-phony-foreign-policy-guru-w496912 From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 10 12:25:48 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 17:25:48 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Kaspersky drops Microsoft antitrust complaint thanks to new Windows 10 changes Message-ID: <89D40569-7270-4545-A2AB-A98DB0418994@infowarrior.org> Kaspersky drops Microsoft antitrust complaint thanks to new Windows 10 changes https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/10/16121726/microsoft-kaspersky-anti-trust-complaint-dropped From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 10 12:27:14 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 17:27:14 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Coinbase raises $100 million, hits $1 billion valuation Message-ID: <55A26375-4366-4C96-9076-0DF6E995200D@infowarrior.org> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-coinbase-funding-idUSKBN1AQ21L August 10, 2017 / 4:25 PM / an hour ago Digital currency exchange Coinbase raises $100 million, hits $1 billion valuation Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss 2 Min Read NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency exchange Coinbase announced on its blog on Thursday that it has raised $100 million in so-called "Series D" funding led by U.S. venture capital firm IVP, making it the first bitcoin start-up to achieve a valuation of at least $1 billion. Start-ups with a $1 billion valuation are part of what is called a "unicorn" club in the venture capital industry. The $1 billion valuation was estimated by data and research provider Pitchbook. Series D is generally the fifth stage of funding, following a seed investment, and series A through C rounds. With the new investment, Coinbase has raised $217 million since it launched in 2012. It raised $75 million more than two years ago and then secured an additional $10.5 million in July 2016, Pitchbook data showed. The other participants in Coinbase's Series D funding were Spark Capital, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Section 32 and Draper Associates. Draper Associates was an investor in a previous financing round, Coinbase said. The funds will be used to finance the company's expansion, Brian Armstrong, chief executive officer and founder of Coinbase, said on the company's blog. Specifically, Coinbase wants to increase the size of its engineering and customer support teams and open an office in New York for GDAX, the company's trading platform for institutional investors. Coinbase, which operates in 32 countries, said it also wants to grow its investment in Toshi, a browser for the Ethereum network. Ethereum is blockchain, similar to that of bitcoin. Armstrong said Coinbase is beginning to transition into the third phase of its expansion and wants to build digital currency applications for consumers. "The key feature of this application will be that it dramatically lowers the hurdle for new digital currency applications to be developed and used by ordinary people," Armstrong said. Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Dan Grebler From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 11 06:24:35 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 11:24:35 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Court_testimony=3A_accuracy_of_Shotspot?= =?utf-8?q?ter_gunshot_sensors_a_=E2=80=98marketing=E2=80=99_ploy?= Message-ID: <494CC0EC-E64A-428F-B29C-EF90811C09F6@infowarrior.org> (yes, a month old, just got it. --rick) Courtroom testimony reveals accuracy of SF gunshot sensors a ?marketing? ploy By Jonah Owen Lamb on July 11, 2017 1:00 am http://www.sfexaminer.com/courtroom-testimony-reveals-accuracy-sf-gunshot-sensors-marketing-ploy/ The accuracy of gunshot detection technology used by San Francisco police has been called into question as part of an attempted murder trial of a man accused of shooting at a car full of people in 2016. While the trial of Michael Reed in connection with a shooting on Aug. 13, 2016 specifically focuses on ShotSpotter sensors in the Western Addition, it raises questions about issues with gunshot detection sensors elsewhere in The City. Since 2008, the gunshot detection technology has recorded all loud noises and reported the ones thought to be gunshots to San Francisco police, so they can quickly respond. Paul Greene, a forensic analyst with ShotSpotter and an expert witness in Reed?s trial, testified on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court about the technology?s accuracy. Manufactured by the company SST in Newark, Calif., ShotSpotter guarantees accuracy 80 percent of the time. In Reed?s case, ShotSpotter failed to pinpoint the exact location of Reed?s alleged crime near Turk and Buchanan streets, according to Greene?s testimony. In fact, additional analysis conducted after the shooting, at the behest of police, determined the location was about a block away from where it was first reported. ?The computer was wrong?? asked Deputy Public Defender Michelle Tong, who is representing Reed. ?Yes,? Greene replied. In a broader sense, Greene said the gunshot detection system used by the San Francisco Police Department has not been recalibrated in almost a decade and that ShotSpotter?s guarantee of accuracy was invented by the company?s sales and marketing team. ?Our guarantee was put together by our sales and marketing department, not our engineers,? Greene said. ?We need to give them [customers] a number,? Greene continued. ?We have to tell them something. ? It?s not perfect. The dot on the map is simply a starting point.? The accuracy of the system is significant in Reed?s case because police found nine shell casings at the scene, while ShotSpotter recorded 11 shots. Tong contended that Reed fired in self-defense at someone who first fired at him, hence the extra shots. However, prosecutor Christopher Ulrich said video and the ShotSpotter recordings showed Reed firing most of the gunshots, while the extra shots were fired by a co-defendant, not an enemy. Despite the testimony, SST?s CEO Ralph Clark said the technology is better than the guarantee, and SFPD officials were positive about the technology. The public typically under report gunshots and have little idea where they come from, according to police. ?This technology pinpoints where [gunfire] is,? Deputy Chief Mikail Ali said. ?If you?re only relying upon the public, we are significantly under reporting.? Police spokesperson Robert Rueca said officers respond to all ShotSpotter calls. Still, Rueca would not say how many gunshots are reported each year or if the department verifies their location accuracy. ?It points in the direction to where we might want to go and investigate,? Rueca said. ShotSpotter, which the manufacturer claims helps reduce gun violence, can pinpoint ?precise locations for first responders aiding victims, searching for evidence and interviewing witnesses,? according to SST?s website, which also noted the technology can report the number of shooters and shots fired. The company?s technology is used by about 90 law enforcement agencies across the country, but some departments have decided to axe the service in recent years. In 2016, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina did not renew its annual contract with ShotSpotter because it failed to help them make arrests or identify victims. In 2012, the Detroit Police Department canceled its ShotSpotter contract because the city had other priorities and not enough officers to respond to reported gunfire. And in 2014, the Oakland Police Department considered ending their contract for the same reason, but they still use it today. ShotSpotter was placed in three San Francisco neighborhoods with high crime rates ? Western Addition, Bayview and Mission ? in 2008. In 2010, a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice for $1 million paid to expand use of the gunshot technology from 3.3 square miles to 4 square miles, and included new neighborhoods such as Visitacion Valley. It expanded again in 2014 in the Bayview, Western Addition and Mission. Since fiscal year 2012-13, The City has spent $1.6 million on the ShotSpotter annual contract. Neither SST nor police would divulge how many sensors are in San Francisco, but Clark said there are about 25 per square mile in the outfitted neighborhoods. For example, during a two-month period in 2009, ShotSpotter recorded 244 gunshots across The City. In 2010, the technology recorded 177 in the same two months. The system records all loud noises, Greene said. The computer uses at least three microphones to locate the gunshot within a 25-meter radius. Then, at SST?s location in Newark, staff reviews each report to make sure the computer flags only gunshots. The two-decade-old company went public June 7 and raised $30 million in NASDAQ share purchases and had previously raised $67.9 million from 12 venture capitalists. But the technology?s accuracy depends on everything from topography, temperature, humidity and wind speed, as well as the trained ears of employees, according to Greene. Clark acknowledged the accuracy of the technology is not perfect, nor is their guarantee, but he did say it works. ?The 80 percent is basically our subscription warranty, as you will. That doesn?t really indicate what someone will experience,? he said, adding that it is usually far better. Despite changes in topography in the Western Addition, from new buildings to taller trees, the 46 sensors there have not been retested since they were first put in, Greene testified last week. But Clark said the company uses other tools to perfect its system, like customers who notify them of gunshots that were not reported, which they call ?missed gunshots.? They also keep track of possibly faulty sensors. Finally, there are false positives, in which there is a gunshot reported with no evidence of any gunshot. ?We do have a team that analyzes this on a regular basis,? Clark said. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 11 10:33:42 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 15:33:42 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?oped=3A_Don=E2=80=99t_ruin_streaming_by?= =?utf-8?q?_turning_it_into_cable?= Message-ID: Don?t ruin streaming by turning it into cable Posted 40 minutes ago by Brian Heater (@bheater) https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/11/dont-ruin-streaming-by-turning-it-into-cable/?ncid=rss Technology was going to free us from cable. It?s right there in the phrase ?cord cutting? ? a liberation from the bonds of traditional television. This is supposed to be the era of on-demand entertainment, when we don?t have to subscribe to some bloated cable package in order to get the content we want. But the golden age of television has yet to meet its streaming counterpart. And if the news this week from companies like Disney is any indication, we?re steadily moving in the wrong direction. A few days ago, the entertainment giant released a few bombshells on the media world, announcing the imminent launch of its ESPN streaming service, and noting that it was set to pull its content from Netflix in favor of its own proprietary offering. The news also left open the very real possibility that the company would launch additional services for its Marvel and Star Wars properties. Earlier this week, FX launched its own premium service, FX+ ? and back in March, the company pulled a significant number of titles from Netflix. Publishers have noted the popularity of a given third-party streaming service and pulled their content. They?re emboldened by their viewership on Netflix and Amazon, and assume customers will follow them to their own first-party services. It?s a growing trend toward fragmentation of streaming services that will ultimately work against the best interests of consumers. A world in which every film studio and television station has its own proprietary offering sounds like a bit of a nightmare ? worse even than the most convoluted of cable plans. It?s a sort of death by a thousand cuts, each studio and TV station emptying viewers? bank accounts, $5 or $10 at a time. Record labels attempted something similar in the post-Napster land rush, each launching proprietary music services. But most consumers don?t have loyalties to record labels, they have loyalty to bands ? or even more likely, songs. For the most part, the same thing goes for movie studios. There?s a reason, after all, that networks had trouble finding success with a streaming solution before joining forces to create Hulu. A catchall service like Netflix or Amazon is the ideal solution for most users. Neither will ever offer all of the content most users want, but a single destination with a broad selection is what people are looking for in a streaming solution. Content providers taking their ball and going home is a good way to drive users away from video streaming ? or even more likely, driving them toward illegal solutions. Time and again, studies have shown that streaming experiences like Netflix and Spotify help curb piracy. Give users a friendly content experience, and they?ll be willing to pay for it. But there?s a law of diminishing returns at play here, as well. The rush to fragment the video streaming landscape is being driven by studios that can?t wait to shoot themselves in the foot, in hopes of creating a walled content garden. It?s a shame really, because services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon have proven that users will pay for access to content, as long as it?s part of a simple solution. A thousand different companies with a thousand different services is anything but. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 11 13:16:17 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 18:16:17 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Stavridis: A plan for North Korea, before this spirals out of control Message-ID: <50B2B0F1-A260-4868-9499-6582A3C3CAFA@infowarrior.org> A plan for North Korea, before this spirals out of control By James Stavridis August 09, 2017 Admiral James Stavridis was the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, and is dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His latest book is ?Sea Power.? https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/08/09/plan-for-north-korea-before-this-spirals-out-control/Q23bbp1BbDPlTxdvYxv3LK/story.html Think of it as two streams of danger approaching each other ? one is the ability to launch long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles; the other is miniaturizing and hardening a nuclear warhead to ride aboard. As in the movie ?Ghostbusters,? you really don?t want the streams to cross. Unfortunately, they may have just done so, at least according to US intelligence reports leaked this week. While this moment was long predicted, most analysts thought it was 18 to 24 months away. The stunning acceleration in the nuclear weapons program of North Korea has caught the United States off guard and seemingly without a coherent strategic approach for the growing threat posed by Kim Jong Un. Just as North Korea has accelerated its nuclear program, we need to accelerate our thinking. What should we do? Dial down the rhetoric. Countering a young mercurial leader with a bad haircut sputtering about turning our ally South Korea into a ?sea of fire? with an old mercurial president sputtering about ?fire and fury the like the world has never seen? isn?t helping anything. President Trump sounded vaguely like the Dragon Queen Daenerys of ?Game of Thrones? talking about her brood of dragons igniting Westeros. We need to model ourselves less on General George Patton and more on ?Cool Hand Luke? while not sinking to the level of Kim Jung Un?s bombast. Dial up the intelligence and surveillance. Globally, we have a lot of crises to watch, and a limited number of intelligence assets ? Syria, Iraq, Islamic State, al-Shabab, Boko Haram, Ukraine, and many other trouble spots compete with North Korea for the overhead sensors (satellites and long-dwell unmanned aircraft) as well as human intelligence, artificial intelligence/big data, and cyber espionage. Given Kim?s rhetoric and apparently increasing offensive capability, we need to focus even more attention on the Korean peninsula. Increase our missile defenses. Both here in the United States (including, of course, our Pacific territories, like Guam) and on the Korean Peninsula (with 200,000 US citizens), we need strong ballistic missile defense. This comes from the sea-based AEGIS guided missile destroyers and cruisers; land-based Patriots and Theater High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD); and local point defense systems. Focus on cyber options. Without delving into a highly classified conversation, suffice to say we have significant cyber options. These include three components: cyber espionage to understand fully the capabilities of Kim?s systems; defensive measures that could undermine his testing programs; and offensive means to attack his command and control and force posture. All three should be increased, tested, and deployed as necessary. Take counsel with our South Korean allies. After all, they are the ?front-line state? in every sense. We need to be deeply respectful of their views, intelligence-gathering capability, and theories about how to deal with the North. We spend too much time talking about the North Koreans and too little time paying attention to what our South Korean allies believe. Build a regional approach. We are blessed with strong and capable allies in Asia beyond the Korean Peninsula itself: above all Japan, but also Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines (notwithstanding recent strains emanating from President Duterte). In addition to those treaty allies, we have close friends and partners in Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, and others. Every nation in Asia has a vested interest in avoiding a major war ? we should leverage the region. Train for and exercise the military options. While a military response would have significant downside, it would be irresponsible not to prepare for one. Our Combatant Commander for the Pacific, Admiral Harry Harris, is a brilliant strategic and operational thinker, and his team in Honolulu will be presenting all options to the secretary of defense and the president. We then need to be fully prepared to execute them, and that requires training and exercising, especially at sea. These will run the spectrum from a massive preemptive strike to a precision decapitation ? none are appealing, but they must be on the table. Pressure China to ?walk the walk.? Of late, the Chinese have talked a good game, including signing up for the new sanctions passed by the UN Security Council. But given their control of some 90 percent of the North Korean economy, they have yet to truly compress North Korea?s financial resources. In the end, all roads to Pyongyang lead through Beijing, and we need China to squeeze the young dictator. This may require highly targeted ?secondary sanctions? on Chinese businesses doing commerce with North Korea. Take a sensible negotiating position. We are never going to get China on our side without making clear we do not intend to change the regime or unify the Korean Peninsula. Its vested interest is in the status quo ? a divided (and therefore vastly weaker) Korea and a stable standoff without refugee flows. Consider four-party talks with the United States, China, North Korea, and South Korea at the table, and work to convince Kim that his life and regime are not in danger ? the examples of Moammar Khadafy and Saddam Hussein (who were destroyed after giving up weapons of mass destruction) are very much in his mind. Make this an international issue. Using the UN Security Council even more fully is crucial, and kudos to UN Ambassador Nikki Haley for the resolution against North Korea. We need to continue to make this about the entire global community against North Korea, not a stand-off between the United States and Kim Jong Un. What about an international flotilla conducting a true blockade of the North, for example? This is the first significant international crisis for the Trump administration, and we will learn a lot about our president and his team over the coming weeks. While the miniaturization is a surprising development, it should not be a deep shock given that it has been long predicted. We have two decades of experience dealing with North Korea and need to put together a coherent, thoughtful plan going forward. In that masterpiece of leadership literature, Mario Puzo?s ?The Godfather,? Don Corleone tells us not to make the mistake of hating our enemies with blind emotion ? it clouds your judgment. Let?s get to work strategically, calmly, methodically, and coherently before this spirals out of control. Admiral James Stavridis was the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, and is dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His latest book is ?Sea Power.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Aug 13 17:24:45 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2017 22:24:45 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyberweapon Message-ID: <3D63D686-B260-46EA-99E0-B0F9D1775737@infowarrior.org> Daily news 10 August 2017 Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyberweapon By David Hambling https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143499-ships-fooled-in-gps-spoofing-attack-suggest-russian-cyberweapon/ Reports of satellite navigation problems in the Black Sea suggest that Russia may be testing a new system for spoofing GPS, New Scientist has learned. This could be the first hint of a new form of electronic warfare available to everyone from rogue nation states to petty criminals. On 22 June, the US Maritime Administration filed a seemingly bland incident report. The master of a ship off the Russian port of Novorossiysk had discovered his GPS put him in the wrong spot ? more than 32 kilometres inland, at Gelendzhik Airport. After checking the navigation equipment was working properly, the captain contacted other nearby ships. Their AIS traces ? signals from the automatic identification system used to track vessels ? placed them all at the same airport. At least 20 ships were affected. While the incident is not yet confirmed, experts think this is the first documented use of GPS misdirection ? a spoofing attack that has long been warned of but never been seen in the wild. Until now, the biggest worry for GPS has been it can be jammed by masking the GPS satellite signal with noise. While this can cause chaos, it is also easy to detect. GPS receivers sound an alarm when they lose the signal due to jamming. Spoofing is more insidious: a false signal from a ground station simply confuses a satellite receiver. ?Jamming just causes the receiver to die, spoofing causes the receiver to lie,? says consultant David Last, former president of the UK?s Royal Institute of Navigation. Todd Humphreys, of the University of Texas at Austin, has been warning of the coming danger of GPS spoofing for many years. In 2013, he showed how a superyacht with state-of-the-art navigation could be lured off-course by GPS spoofing. ?The receiver?s behaviour in the Black Sea incident was much like during the controlled attacks my team conducted,? says Humphreys. Humphreys thinks this is Russia experimenting with a new form of electronic warfare. Over the past year, GPS spoofing has been causing chaos for the receivers on phone apps in central Moscow to misbehave. The scale of the problem did not become apparent until people began trying to play Pokemon Go. The fake signal, which seems to centre on the Kremlin, relocates anyone nearby to Vnukovo Airport, 32 km away. This is probably for defensive reasons; many NATO guided bombs, missiles and drones rely on GPS navigation, and successful spoofing would make it impossible for them to hit their targets. But now the geolocation interference is being used far away from the Kremlin. Some worry that this means that spoofing is getting easier. GPS spoofing previously required considerable technical expertise. Humphreys had to build his first spoofer from scratch in 2008, but notes that it can now be done with commercial hardware and software downloaded from the Internet. Nor does it require much power. Satellite signals are very weak ? about 20 watts from 20,000 miles away ? so a one-watt transmitter on a hilltop, plane or drone is enough to spoof everything out to the horizon. If the hardware and software are becoming more accessible, nation states soon won?t be the only ones using the technology. This is within the scope of any competent hacker. There have not yet been any authenticated reports of criminal spoofing, but it should not be difficult for criminals to use it to divert a driverless vehicle or drone delivery, or to hijack an autonomous ship. Spoofing will give everyone affected the same location, so a hijacker would just need a short-ranged system to affect one vehicle. But Humphreys believes that spoofing by a state operator is the more serious threat. ?It affects safety-of-life operations over a large area,? he says. ?In congested waters with poor weather, such as the English Channel, it would likely cause great confusion, and probably collisions.? Last says that the Black Sea incident suggests a new device capable of causing widespread disruption, for example, if used in the ongoing dispute with Ukraine. ?My gut feeling is that this is a test of a system which will be used in anger at some other time.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Aug 14 05:50:06 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2017 10:50:06 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer to lose domain name Message-ID: <8A3C7042-045F-46BD-AB7F-E3691EE04A89@infowarrior.org> Neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer to lose domain name GoDaddy told the white supremacist site it has 24 hours to find a new domain provider. by Daniel Van Boom August 14, 2017 1:19 AM PDT @dvanboom by Claire Reilly August 14, 2017 1:19 AM PDT @reillystyley https://www.cnet.com/news/neo-nazi-website-daily-stormer-to-lose-domain-name The Daily Stormer has been called the "top hate site in America." Soon it's going to be without domain. The site, which was involved in organising the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, has been told by GoDaddy to move its domain or have it cancelled. GoDaddy is the website's domain provider, directing internet users and search engines to its URL. GoDaddy doesn't, however, host The Daily Stormer's content. "We informed The Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service," the company said in a tweet, adding in an emailed statement, "If no action is taken after 24 hours, we will cancel the service." The tweet followed a hate-filled post on The Daily Stormer, which focused on the woman killed during anti-fascist protests over the weekend. The victim, Heather Heyer, was killed when a car drove at speed into a crowd of people protesting the alt-right demonstrations. "Given this latest article comes on the immediate heels of a violent act, we believe this type of article could incite additional violence, which violates our terms of service," said a company spokesperson in an emailed statement. GoDaddy's decision was part of a tumultuous day for the Daily Stormer, which was the subject of a CNET profile last month. Hours after the statement, a post on The Stormer said it had been taken over by hacktivist group Anonymous. "WE HAVE TAKEN THIS SITE IN THE NAME OF HEATHER HEYER," the post read, adding she was "A VICTIM OF WHITE SUPREMACIST TERRORISM." Anonymous acknowledged the post through a Twitter account but didn't confirm it was involved. Instead, the hacking collective suggested it might be an elaborate stunt by The Daily Stormer and its publisher, Andrew Anglin. Anglin didn't respond to a request for comment. The Daily Stormer takes its name from Der St?rmer, a Nazi tabloid. It's unclear what sort of traffic the site receives but it attracts a fringe readership. Readers have included Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in a 2015 mass shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and the man who last year killed Jo Cox, a British member of Parliament. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Aug 14 14:08:59 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2017 19:08:59 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Google to ban white supremacist website that was forced out by GoDaddy Message-ID: <5519D515-EC08-42F0-9461-CCCAFB192D5A@infowarrior.org> Google to ban white supremacist website that was forced out by GoDaddy By Robin Eberhardt - 08/14/17 02:48 PM EDT 0 http://thehill.com/policy/technology/346505-google-to-ban-white-supremacist-site-that-was-forced-out-by-godaddy A white supremacist website that had its domain name under GoDaddy canceled for attacking the Charlottesville, Va., white supremacist rally victim will now also be forced to move its content out of a Google domain name, according to Business Insider. The Daily Stormer, deemed one of the most hateful websites by the Southern Poverty Law Center, was forced to move its content by GoDaddy after the website published a story about the woman who died after a car driven by a man tied to white supremacy groups rammed into a crowd, injuring others in the process as well. The website reportedly switched to a Google domain name, only to see its registration canceled by Google for the same reason. ?We are cancelling Daily Stormer?s registration with Google Domains for violating our terms of service,? Google said, according to a report in Business Insider on Monday. The Daily Stormer published an article that attacked Heather Heyer, 32, for her physical appearance and made disparaging comments about the deceased woman without evidence. GoDaddy confirmed that the Daily Stormer will not be allowed to keep its content on its platform on Sunday evening. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Aug 14 16:17:31 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2017 21:17:31 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - DOJ demanding information on visitors to an anti-Trump website Message-ID: <5CD4FC05-B2FC-40B4-B8D7-2608162BCEC3@infowarrior.org> The Justice Department is demanding information on visitors to an anti-Trump website by Colin Lecher at colinlecher Aug 14, 2017, 4:42pm EDT https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/14/16145812/justice-department-disruptj20-trump-website-warrant In a blog post today, online web hosting provider DreamHost disclosed that it has been involved in a months-long legal battle with the Justice Department over records on visitors to an anti-Trump website. The dispute focuses on the website disruptj20.org The dispute focuses on a Justice Department demand for information on data related to disruptj20.org, which describes itself as a group of activists ?building the framework needed for mass protests to shut down the inauguration of Donald Trump and planning widespread direct actions to make that happen.? DreamHost is taking issue with a warrant issued by the department for "all files" related to the website, which DreamHost says would compel them to turn over electronic data like visitor logs. That would include IP addresses and other information that could be used to identify anyone who visited the site. ?The request from the DOJ demands that DreamHost hand over 1.3 million visitor IP addresses ? in addition to contact information, email content, and photos of thousands of people ? in an effort to determine who simply visited the website,? the company said in its blog post. The warrant, DreamHost argues, would also require it to hand over any communications that are even tangentially related to the website. DreamHost says the warrant ?aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration? ?In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website,? the company said in a legal filing arguing against the warrant. A hearing on the situation is set for Friday in Washington, DC Superior Court. Although the allegations that the Justice Department may be investigating aren?t clear, more than 200 protestors were arrested during Trump?s inauguration, allegedly in connection to vandalism and other incidents. The warrant has already drawn condemnation from some legal commentators. ?The government has made no effort whatsoever to limit the warrant to actual evidence of any particular crime,? PopeHat blogger Ken White writes. ?If you visited the site, if you left a message, they want to know who and where you are ? whether or not you did anything but watch TV on inauguration day.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Aug 14 17:41:40 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2017 22:41:40 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: Carl Sagan in 1995 References: <20170814223908.GA20571@gsp.org> Message-ID: <0E19C0CC-EE9F-44D5-BF43-C31C76DDE95A@infowarrior.org> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Rich Kulawiec > Subject: Carl Sagan in 1995 > Date: August 14, 2017 at 6:39:08 PM EDT > To: Lauren Weinstein , Richard Forno , Dave Farber > > > I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or > grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service > and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing > industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome > technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no > one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; > when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas > or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching > our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our > critical faculties decline, unable to distinguish between what > feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, > back into superstition and darkness. The dumb down of America > is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the > enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down > to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, > credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, > but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. > > --- Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a > Candle in the Dark", 1995 > > > ---rsk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 15 06:12:39 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2017 11:12:39 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - DOJ Goes Way Overboard: Demands All Info On Visitors Of Anti-Trump Site Message-ID: <86E0F854-E3E4-4817-B48A-C42215310DFC@infowarrior.org> DOJ Goes Way Overboard: Demands All Info On Visitors Of Anti-Trump Site https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170814/18093937998/doj-goes-way-overboard-demands-all-info-visitors-anti-trump-site.shtml Not all search warrants are bad. Indeed, most of them are perfectly legitimate, and meet the qualifications under the 4th Amendment that there is probable cause of a crime being committed, and the warrant is narrowly tailored to seek out evidence to support that. But... not always. As Ken "Popehat" White explains in a recent blog post, the Justice Department has somehow obtained the mother-of-all bad search warrants while trying to track down people who were involved in protests of Donald Trump's inauguration back in January. The government has brought felony charges against a bunch of protestors from the inauguration, and now it appears the DOJ is going on a big fishing expedition. As Ken notes, it's quite likely that some protestors committed crimes, for which they can be charged, but prosecutors in the case have decided to go ridiculously overbroad in trying to get any info they can find on protestors. They got a search warrant for the well known hosting company DreamHost, who hosts the site disruptj20.org (as an aside, the fact that a site like that doesn't default to HTTPS for all connections is really, really unfortunate, especially given the rest of this article). The warrant basically demands everything that DreamHost could possibly have on anyone who did anything on disruptj20, including just visiting. As White notes in his post, it's not that unreasonable that the DOJ sought to find out who ran the site, but now they're requesting basically everything, which likely includes the IP addresses of all visitors: < - > As Ken White points out, this fishing expedition by the DOJ should concern us all: The Department of Justice isn't just seeking communications by the defendants in its case. It's seeking the records of every single contact with the site ? the IP address and other details of every American opposed enough to Trump to visit the site and explore political activism. It seeks the communications with and through the site of everyone who visited and commented, whether or not that communication is part of a crime or just political expression about the President of the United States. The government has made no effort whatsoever to limit the warrant to actual evidence of any particular crime. If you visited the site, if you left a message, they want to know who and where you are ? whether or not you did anything but watch TV on inauguration day. This is chilling, particularly when it comes from an administration that has expressed so much overt hostility to protesters, so relentlessly conflated all protesters with those who break the law, and so deliberately framed America as being at war with the administration's domestic enemies. < - > From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 15 06:54:27 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2017 11:54:27 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - oped: The POTUSian threat to freedom of the press Message-ID: OPINION | The Trumpian threat to freedom of the press By Marvin Kalb, opinion contributor - 08/15/17 07:40 AM EDT 0 http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/346492-the-trumpian-threat-to-freedom-of-the-press Enough time has passed to reach a very reluctant conclusion. Donald Trump, from his first day in the White House, has been ruling, wittingly or not, in a commandeering style unlike any in American history. Experts in politics, diplomacy and journalism have shaken their heads in dismay and bewilderment, unable to come up with a parallel. His style of governance could be called creeping authoritarianism. Perhaps it is no accident that the president gets on best with Russia?s Vladimir Putin and Turkey?s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Nowhere is this new style more dramatically at play than in President Trump?s bizarre, running war with the media. It is a war he will ultimately lose, in my judgment, but it is a war he is fighting to win. Every day he sends his tweeting troops into battle. The press, he fumes, is a ?disgrace.? Reporters are ?very dishonest people.? Their coverage he describes as an ?outrage.? The New York Times is a ?failing newspaper,? even though its subscription rate has zoomed into uncharted territory. CNN is ?terrible,? and Buzzfeed he dismisses as ?garbage.? When news stories are critical of him, he calls them ?fake news?; when public opinion polls produce numbers that violate his rosy image of himself, they are described as ?fake polls.? For Stephen Bannon, the president?s Darth Vader shadow, the press is the ?opposition party.? If for a moment you entertained a doubt or two about President Trump?s true judgment of the media, you had only to read and ponder his explosive tweet of Feb. 17. ?The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCnews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy,? he pronounced; ?it is the enemy of the American People.? Though the president might not have known it at the time, it was a judgment he shared with three 20th century dictators ? Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler. They believed that the media had only one purpose; that was to serve the interests of the state, as interpreted by the leader of the state. If it served any other purpose, it was instantly categorized as an ?enemy of the people.? This was a concept so foreign to the spirit of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, noted in part for its hailing of ?freedom of speech, and of the press,? that every other president, except perhaps Richard Nixon, rejected it. Why, then, would President Trump launch this unprecedented fusillade on the press? Is he really so sensitive to criticism, so narcissistic, so obsessed with cable news, that he cannot recognize the essential, underlying importance of a free press? Has he not read the Bill of Rights? Arizona?s ailing GOP senator, John McCain, no fan of Trump, has read it, and he concluded that a ?free press? was ?vital? to American democracy. Without one, ?we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time.? Because the president is arguably the most powerful politician in the country, perhaps in the world, his decision to wage nonstop war against the press has been a matter of more than passing interest. It has truly aroused concern and endangered American democracy. Let us be clear that when Trump belittles and humiliates the press, he is doing more than playing to his gallery of supporters ? his base, as it is called. He is seeking to tame, weaken and ultimately emasculate the ?fourth branch of government? and rob it of the legitimacy it once enjoyed among many Americans. And why would a president do this? Surely, not simply to score a point in his never-ending battle for better ratings. There is a larger, more sinister purpose, one more consistent with his tilt toward a form of populist authoritarianism. If Trump can, at the end of the day, persuade enough people that what they read in their newspapers, or watch on television or their iPhones, or listen to on radio is all ?fake news,? all lies propagated by his critics and enemies, then he can govern, more or less, as he wishes, without any institutional red lights flashing in his eyes ? without a judiciary raising legal questions, without a legislature debating the wisdom of his policies, without a media coming up with embarrassing scoops. Trump sees enemies everywhere. If facts get in his way, he is perfectly prepared to create his own ?alternative facts.? He lies so often that truth is hard to discern in his vocabulary. He governs, as if his executive branch already stood triumphant over the rule of law. Power, former President George W. Bush once warned, can become ?addictive? and ?corrosive,? and it can be ?abused.? Trump?s war on the press happens to coincide with a period of financial and technological instability in the world of journalism. Social media and the internet have transformed the industry. In many cases, network and newspaper budgets have shrunk, and staffs have been cut, while opportunities for many new web adventures have expanded enormously. It?s an unsettled environment, in which ethical and professional standards have slipped, and, as a result, many Americans have lost confidence in the media?s accuracy and honesty?a perfect storm for Trump to enjoy and exploit. And yet, in the end, he will almost certainly lose his war on the media. This president, unlike many of the others, seems to need the media more than the media needs him. In fact, the media is his oxygen, his ultimate source of energy. But Trump will lose power, either by being defeated in 2020 or impeached earlier. The press, though still troubled, retains its power by sticking to its fundamental function covering the news without fear or favor. This was written into the US Constitution, and it contains no time limits. Marvin Kalb is a senior adviser to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting; founder and director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy; host of The Kalb Report, National Press Club, 1994-present; senior fellow, 2010-present, The Brookings Institution. His soon-to-be-published memoir, is titled ?The Year I Was Peter The Great?1956: Khrushchev, Stalin?s Ghost and a Young American in Russia." From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 15 06:56:17 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2017 11:56:17 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Microsoft ordered to let third parties scrape LinkedIn data Message-ID: <4742C43E-51E2-4EDE-83F3-6EF192FDFDC4@infowarrior.org> Microsoft ordered to let third parties scrape LinkedIn data by Tom Warren at tomwarren Aug 15, 2017, 5:44am EDT https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16148250/microsoft-linkedin-third-party-data-access-judge-ruling A judge has ruled that Microsoft?s LinkedIn network must allow a third-party company to scrape data publicly posted by LinkedIn users. The Wall Street Journal reports that the ruling is part of a lawsuit brought by hiQ Labs, a startup that analyzes LinkedIn data to estimate whether workers are likely to leave their jobs. LinkedIn previously ordered hiQ Labs to stop scraping its data, and the startup fired back with a lawsuit. A US District Judge has granted hiQ Labs with a preliminary injunction that provides access to LinkedIn data. LinkedIn tried to argue that hiQ Labs violated the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by scraping data. The judge raised concerns around LinkedIn ?unfairly leveraging its power in the professional networking market for an anticompetitive purpose,? and compared LinkedIn?s argument to allowing website owners to ?block access by individuals or groups on the basis of race or gender discrimination.? LinkedIn says it?s ?disappointed in the court?s ruling,? in a statement. ?This case is not over. We will continue to fight to protect our members? ability to control the information they make available on LinkedIn.? LinkedIn?s data is a key part of the site, and one of the main reasons why Microsoft acquired the social networking site for $26 billion last year. LinkedIn has more than 400 million members and around 2 million paid subscribers, making it a rich trove of data for Microsoft and other companies to access. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 15 17:20:57 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2017 22:20:57 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI and DHS Warned of Growing Threat From White Supremacists Months Ago Message-ID: <6C0B9C06-7CA5-4E1A-8CA6-85253356C1F3@infowarrior.org> FBI and DHS Warned of Growing Threat From White Supremacists Months Ago Trump doesn't want to call out white supremacists. The FBI already did. ? By Jana Winter ? August 14, 2017 http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/14/fbi-and-dhs-warned-of-growing-threat-from-white-supremacists-months-ago/ The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in May warned that white supremacist groups had already carried out more attacks than any other domestic extremist group over the past 16 years and were likely to carry out more attacks over the next year, according to an intelligence bulletin obtained by Foreign Policy. Even as President Donald Trump continues to resist calling out white supremacists for violence, federal law enforcement has made clear that it sees these types of domestic extremists as a severe threat. The report, dated May 10, says the FBI and DHS believe that members of the white supremacist movement ?likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year.? The ?Unite the Right? rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which attracted hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other members of the so-called alt-right, sparked violent clashes over the weekend. A woman, Heather Heyer, was killed by a car that drove into a crowd of people protesting the rally. James Alex Fields Jr., the driver of the vehicle that struck Heyer, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. Since the outbreak of violence over the weekend, President Trump has been heavily criticized for not condemning racist groups. ?We must remember this truth: No matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are ALL AMERICANS FIRST,? he tweeted. The FBI, on the other hand, has already concluded that white supremacists, including neo-Nazi supporters and members of the Ku Klux Klan, are in fact responsible for the lion?s share of violent attacks among domestic extremist groups. White supremacists ?were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 ? more than any other domestic extremist movement,? reads the joint intelligence bulletin. The report, titled ?White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence,? was prepared by the FBI and DHS. The bulletin?s numbers appear to correspond with outside estimates. An independent database compiled by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute found that between 2008 and 2016, far-right plots and attacks outnumbered Islamist incidents by almost 2 to 1. The cases cited in the intelligence report include an 18-year-old Chinese student in Nashville, Indiana, who was attacked by a white supremacist with a hatchet; the murder of an African-American man in Fort Wayne, Indiana; and the stabbing of Klansman in East Yanceyville, North Carolina, by other KKK members, who believed the victim was Jewish and secretly working for law enforcement. An FBI spokesperson said it was bureau policy not to comment on specific intelligence products but added that as ?part of the continuous dialogue with our law enforcement partners, the FBI routinely shares information about potential threats to better enable law enforcement to protect the communities they serve.? DHS did not respond to a request for comment on the document, but provided a general statement on recent events. ?DHS personnel have been in contact with Virginia state and local law enforcement to offer any assistance necessary to deal with [Saturday?s] horrible violent incident in Charlottesville,? wrote a DHS spokesperson. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 15 17:49:39 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2017 22:49:39 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?OT=3A_I=E2=80=99m_35_and_I_may_suddenly?= =?utf-8?q?_have_lost_the_rest_of_my_life=2E_I=E2=80=99m_panicking=2C_just?= =?utf-8?q?_a_bit=2E?= Message-ID: <80137964-0EF4-4EB2-BEC9-620667E22DD9@infowarrior.org> Off-topic and perhaps depressing, but there are some good pieces of advice in here. I wish him well during his treatment and commend him for putting this piece out to us. -- rick I?m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life. I?m panicking, just a bit. https://medium.com/@sgriddle/im-35-and-i-may-suddenly-have-lost-the-rest-of-my-life-i-m-panicking-just-a-bit-35d6a28dcbc From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 16 18:38:00 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2017 23:38:00 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?F=2EB=2EI=2E_Agents_Supported_Comey=2C_?= =?utf-8?q?Surveys_Show=2C_Weakening_POTUS=E2=80=99s_Claim_of_Turmoil?= Message-ID: F.B.I. Agents Supported Comey, Surveys Show, Weakening Trump?s Claim of Turmoil By MATT APUZZOAUG. 16, 2017 WASHINGTON ? As F.B.I. director, James B. Comey had widespread support from his agents, according to internal survey data released Wednesday that contradicts President Trump?s claim that he fired Mr. Comey in part because agents had lost confidence in him. Mr. Comey?s firing is among many topics now under investigation by the Justice Department special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. Trump and his aides have offered changing explanations for why he fired Mr. Comey, who was overseeing the investigation into Mr. Trump?s associates and possible links to Russia?s election interference. The F.B.I. released the results of three years of internal questionnaires in response to a public records request by The New York Times. The surveys revealed that agents around the country gave the F.B.I. leadership high marks ? 4.01 on a scale of 5 ? in this year?s survey. The F.B.I. considers scores over 3.81 an indication of success. Mr. Trump has repeatedly cast Mr. Comey in a negative light. ?He?s a showboat, he?s a grandstander, the F.B.I. has been in turmoil,? Mr. Trump said of Mr. Comey in an NBC interview in May. ?You know that. I know that. Everybody knows that. You take a look at the F.B.I. a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil, less than a year ago. It hasn?t recovered from that.? The F.B.I. surveys show no support for that claim. They scored him above 4 as both an inspiring leader and someone more interested in leading than being liked. His direct subordinates rated him 4.48 on the question of whether they would work with him again. While Mr. Comey?s marks fell slightly in some categories over his three-year tenure, his scores were consistently high in each year and in nearly every area. Nationwide, agents gave higher marks to Mr. Comey?s leadership team in 2017 than they gave to Mr. Mueller, who preceded him as director and whose tenure is widely respected. < - > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/us/politics/comey-fbi-agents-confidence-survey.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 17 12:58:10 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2017 17:58:10 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - New feature in iOS 11 quickly and temporarily disables Touch ID Message-ID: <42BF8172-DD15-4D01-9433-9B450AA24000@infowarrior.org> New feature in iOS 11 quickly and temporarily disables Touch ID Apple is slated to release iOS 11 to all users this fall, but with the public beta available for anyone to try, some previously unannounced features have been discovered. According to a report from The Verge, a feature in the updated operating system allows users to easily change settings so your fingers can't unlock your iPhone using Touch ID. Pressing the power button on an iPhone rapidly five times will bring up an emergency screen, allowing you to either call 911 services or enter a passcode to enable Touch ID. Until you enter that passcode, Touch ID won't unlock your device. This appears to be an easy way to disable Touch ID on the fly or when you're in a situation in which you may be forced to unlock your smartphone. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding border control agents searching electronic devices, often without an explanation. In February 2017, reportedly 5,000 devices were searched by Customs and Border Patrol, more than the number of devices searched in all of 2016. < - > https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/new-feature-in-ios-11-quickly-and-temporarily-disables-touch-id/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 18 09:57:58 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 14:57:58 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Elevation of Cyber Command Message-ID: The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release August 18, 2017 Statement by Donald J. Trump on the Elevation of Cyber Command I have directed that United States Cyber Command be elevated to the status of a Unified Combatant Command focused on cyberspace operations. This new Unified Combatant Command will strengthen our cyberspace operations and create more opportunities to improve our Nation?s defense. The elevation of United States Cyber Command demonstrates our increased resolve against cyberspace threats and will help reassure our allies and partners and deter our adversaries. United States Cyber Command?s elevation will also help streamline command and control of time-sensitive cyberspace operations by consolidating them under a single commander with authorities commensurate with the importance of such operations. Elevation will also ensure that critical cyberspace operations are adequately funded. In connection with this elevation, the Secretary of Defense is examining the possibility of separating United States Cyber Command from the National Security Agency. He will announce recommendations on this matter at a later date. Through United States Cyber Command, we will tackle our cyberspace challenges in coordination with like-minded allies and partners as we strive to respond rapidly to evolving cyberspace security threats and opportunities globally. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Aug 19 11:49:50 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2017 16:49:50 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Federal court finds online agreements are binding Message-ID: <3158A9A2-62D5-4CBB-92A9-5A305F1755FC@infowarrior.org> Uber Wins Ruling on ?Terms of Service? Agreements Federal court finds online agreements are binding, regardless of whether customers read or understand them Greg Bensinger Aug. 17, 2017 4:03 p.m. ET https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-wins-ruling-on-terms-of-service-agreements-1503000236?mod=e2twd A federal court Thursday ruled that the often lengthy online agreements customers face when registering for sites and apps are binding, even if customers don?t fully understand or take the time to read them, giving a boost to companies seeking to avoid class-action lawsuits. The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals found that Uber Technologies Inc. customers sign over their rights to sue in court when they click to agree to the ride-hailing company?s terms of service, which include a provision requiring arbitration. The case had been closely watched by technology companies, which favor such agreements as a way to keep customers from taking them to court, where sensitive business practices and unfavorable rulings could become public. Arbitration typically allows businesses to reach settlements privately and may not require them to make broad changes to their practices?a possible outcome in class-action suits. The case strikes at a fact of everyday life for users of websites and mobile phones, who come across these agreements before being allowed to use a site or app for the first time. There typically is no means for customers to strike out certain provisions or reject the terms outright and still hope to use the service. Circuit Judge Denny Chin overturned a district-court ruling that found Uber?s terms of service were difficult for customers to access, and therefore couldn?t be enforced because customers didn?t always know what they were agreeing to. New Uber customers agree to terms that include resolving disputes through arbitration when they click to register for the mobile app?even though the full list of provisions is only available on a separate Uber website. ?The district court erred in concluding that the notice of the Terms of Service was not reasonably conspicuous,? Judge Chin wrote. ?While it may be the case that many users will not bother reading the additional terms, that is the choice the user makes.? < - > From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Aug 19 16:42:35 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2017 21:42:35 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Wreckage of USS Indianapolis found Message-ID: <0AACC6E5-7448-4F2A-9D0E-56412762FCC0@infowarrior.org> http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/19/world-war-ii-cruiser-found-uss-indianapolis-241827 Wreckage of USS Indianapolis unearthed by civilian researchers By BRENT D. GRIFFITHS 08/19/2017 02:45 PM EDT A team of civilian researchers said Saturday they have found the wreckage of the USS Indianapolis, the legendary World War II cruiser that was torpedoed and sunk during the final days of the war and until now was lost at sea. ?To be able to honor the brave men of the USS Indianapolis and their families through the discovery of a ship that played such a significant role during World War II is truly humbling," said Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, who owns the research vessel that found the wreckage, in a statement released by the Naval History and Heritage Command. Attacked by a Japanese submarine in the early morning of July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis sank in just 12 minutes. According to the release, only 317 sailors and marines on board survived out of a crew of over 1,000. Shortly before it sank, the Indianapolis completed a secret mission and delivered components for the first ever atomic bomb to be deployed, Little Boy. The 16-person crew that discovered the wreckage will continue work in the coming weeks to survey the cruiser, now located 5,500 meters below the surface, resting on the floor of the North Pacific Ocean. The research crew said it remains in close contact with U.S. Navy officials, including on how to honor the 22 crew members that are still alive today and families of the deceased. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Aug 20 08:39:49 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2017 13:39:49 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - NameCheap CEO: Inciting Violence vs Freedom of Speech Message-ID: <9644E59A-25B5-4190-985F-EC6795A76DF9@infowarrior.org> (I agree this can potentially be a sticky situation for tech companies, but this is a decent explanation from a registrar that normally tends to come down strongly in support of digital rights, free speech, etc. -- rick) Inciting Violence vs Freedom of Speech News Aug 20 2017 Richard Kirkendall https://blog.namecheap.com/inciting-violence-vs-freedom-speech/ At Namecheap, we see both sides of the free speech consideration. On the one hand, we cannot be the ones censoring content, unpopular though it may be. On the other hand, and without question, the content appearing on the DailyStormer.lol is highly offensive, even more so in light of the recent events in Charlottesville, VA. We find ourselves in a difficult situation, where we must balance the repugnant nature of the content against our principles, beliefs and ongoing support of free speech. This has been particularly challenging given that the fallout from our decision will be in the public eye and subject to public scrutiny, no matter what path we may take. So, the question, as I see it, is whether deletion of these domains contradicts our core principle of advocacy of free speech? In this particular case, I state that the answer is ?No.? I?ve examined the website carefully. It purports to disclaim violence. But, these words are profoundly hollow as the actual text supports both viewpoints as well as groups that specifically promote violence. As an example: ?It doesn?t take a Ph.D. in mathematics to understand that White men + pride + organization = Jews being stuffed into ovens.? This statement clearly incites violence and endorses wholesale eradication of Jews through genocide championed by the Nazis. Daily Stormer in all its content advocates that proud white men organize themselves. It also presents the inevitable consequence of the organization of white men and their pride: ?jews being stuffed into ovens.? This alone is a drastic departure from traditional freedom of speech principles and endorsement of a very violent eventuality. Based on this statement alone, the site should be legitimately shut down as the speech constitutes an incitement of violence. This point is reinforced by the very tagline of the site: Daily Stormer: ?Summer of Hate Edition.? The site spends considerable effort demonizing Asians, Blacks, Mexicans, etc. I have considered this from a Constitutional perspective and sought a legal perspective. I believe that hate speech and incitement of violence provides ample legal support for a proper termination of the domains. Our commitment to free speech is well-documented, including through our support of EFF.org, but there is a line where free speech ends and incitement begins. It may be an elusive one but, as United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart stated in his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio: ?I know it when I see it.? So it is here: the quality and context of the material, paired with the support for violent groups and causes passes from protected free speech into incitement. We have, and always will continue to uphold our principles in support of privacy, freedom of speech and Internet freedom. Sincerely, Richard Kirkendall CEO, Namecheap From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Aug 21 06:32:14 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2017 11:32:14 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: PSA - You can't always believe what you see on TV Message-ID: Worth passing along, especially given the current regime's excessive infatuation with self-"optics" as it careerns from one optical crisis to another, entirely through its own doing. (The Craigslist ad has been taken down already) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHrya42VwAEAZiA.jpg From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Aug 21 06:34:03 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2017 11:34:03 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Galloway & Damodaran: A Primer on Cryptocurrency Message-ID: Galloway & Damodaran: A Primer on Cryptocurrency August 21, 2017 6:30am by Barry Ritholtz By popular demand, Scott and Aswath Damodaran discuss topics in cryptocurrency, from why it?s impossible to value to why people choose Bitcoin over gold. http://ritholtz.com/2017/08/primer-on-cryptocurrency/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 22 08:55:56 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2017 13:55:56 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Sonos says users must accept new privacy policy or devices may "cease to function" Message-ID: Sonos says users must accept new privacy policy or devices may "cease to function" The sound system maker will not allow existing customers to opt-out of the new privacy policy. By Zack Whittaker for Zero Day | August 21, 2017 -- 23:00 GMT (16:00 PDT) | Topic: Security Sonos has confirmed that existing customers will not be given an option to opt out of its new privacy policy, leaving customers with sound systems that may eventually "cease to function". It comes as the home sound system maker prepares to begin collecting audio settings, error data, and other account data before the launch of its smart speaker integration in the near future. < - > http://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-policy-speakers-cease-to-function/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 22 14:32:15 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2017 19:32:15 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Unable to get a domain, racist Daily Stormer retreats to the Dark Web Message-ID: Unable to get a domain, racist Daily Stormer retreats to the Dark Web ?We can?t keep trying random registrars,? site?s admin writes. Timothy B. Lee - 8/22/2017, 2:40 PM https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/unable-to-get-a-domain-racist-daily-stormer-retreats-to-the-dark-web/ Ever since Charlottesville, the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer has been struggling to stay on the Internet. The site's editor, Andrew Anglin, wrote a vulgar post disparaging Heather Heyer after she was killed in the Charlottesville car attack. Activists pressured technology companies to drop the site, and one by one they complied. The site cycled through a sequence of different domains: dailystormer.com, dailystormer.wang, dailystormer.ru, and finally dailystormer.lol. In each case, registrars canceled the domains within a day or two of their registration. The last registrar the Daily Stormer tried was Namecheap, and its CEO, Richard Kirkendall, explained his decision to refuse service to the Daily Stormer in a recent blog post. "This was the right decision for the human race but it was also an existential threat for our company. While I feel I made the right decision, I also thought about what this meant for us as a business," Kirkendall wrote. "I thought about our 1100 team members that directly depend on this company for their livelihood and our millions of customers that depend on us for stability and peace of mind that we are keeping their domains safe." "Could I have made any other decision here? I don't think I could have, and therein lies the problem." Any company that accepted the Daily Stormer's business was guaranteed to face a wave of social media criticism, and it could have faced cancellations from other customers upset about the decision. In addition, many countries have laws explicitly banning hate speech. That means countries like Sweden and Switzerland that have been hospitable to sites like Wikileaks and the Pirate Bay are not an option for the Daily Stormer. Now the Daily Stormer's CTO, notorious Internet troll Andrew "weev" Auernheimer, is acknowledging that the site might have run out of options for getting a conventional domain name. "We can't keep trying random registrars," Auernheimer wrote on Gab, a right-wing Twitter competitor, this morning. "We need one that will give us written assurance they will hold the line." Auernheimer has concluded that's not likely to happen. So the Daily Stormer has retreated to the Dark Web, operating as a Tor hidden service. A Tor hidden service uses the Tor network to camouflage the location of a Web server, making it practically impossible for anyone to figure out where the server is physically located. Because no one will be able to identify who is providing the Daily Stormer with its hosting service, activists won't be able to organize a boycott to get the service shut down. Accessing a Tor hidden service isn't difficult, but it's significantly more work than going to a conventional website. Users typically download the Tor Browser, a variant of Firefox configured to access websites via Tor's anonymity network. The switch to a Tor hidden service will undoubtedly limit a site's reach, but its hardcore fans will be able to continue reading it. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 22 17:16:38 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2017 22:16:38 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Members resign from White House council on infrastructure security Message-ID: Members resign from White House council on infrastructure security By Melanie Zanona - 08/22/17 06:10 PM EDT http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/347563-members-resign-from-white-house-council-on-infrastructure-security Several members of yet another White House advisory council have decided to quit under President Trump, the White House confirmed Tuesday. A number of members sitting on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC), who were appointed under the previous administration, submitted their resignations on Monday evening ? one day before the panel was scheduled to hold its quarterly business meeting. The panel is tasked with advising the president and the Homeland Security Department on the security of critical U.S. infrastructure and information systems. The council, which was created by former President George W. Bush, can have up to 30 members, who are appointed by the president from the private sector, academia and state and local government. ?We can confirm that a number of members of the NIAC who had been appointed under the previous administration have submitted their resignation,? a White House official said in a statement to The Hill. ?The NIAC met today as planned with the majority of its members, who remain committed to the important work of protecting our Nation?s critical infrastructure.? The latest resignations come one week after Trump's dissolution of two major business councils, whose members began to resign en masse over the president's response to the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va. The White House also decided last week to abandon plans to form a council of outside advisers on rebuilding the country?s infrastructure. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 22 17:20:13 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2017 22:20:13 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - DOJ walks back demand for information on anti-Trump website Message-ID: <5B841C67-3E10-4DBD-B400-A6F731A262C9@infowarrior.org> Justice Department walks back demand for information on anti-Trump website Colin Lecher https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/22/16186474/justice-department-trump-ip-addresses-requests After controversy over a broad search warrant that could have identified visitors to an anti-Trump website, the Justice Department says it?s scaling back a demand for information from hosting service DreamHost. The Justice Department says it will carve out exceptions to the request Last week, DreamHost disclosed that it was involved in a legal dispute with the department over access to records on the website ?disruptj20.org,? which organized protests tied to Donald Trump?s inauguration. The warrant issued by the department was so broad, DreamHost said, that it was effectively requesting information that could identify lawful protestors ? including information on more than 1.3 million IP addresses from visitors to the site. The warrant immediately drew condemnation from some privacy law experts. In a legal filing today, the Justice Department argues that the warrant was proper, but also says DreamHost has since brought up information that was previously ?unknown.? In light of that, it has offered to carve out information demanded in the warrant, specifically pledging to not request information like HTTP logs tied to IP addresses. The department says it is only looking for information related to criminal activity on the site, and says that ?the government is focused on the use of the Website to organize, to plan, and to effect a criminal act ? that is, a riot.? Peaceful protestors, the government argues, are not the targets of the warrant. The filing asks the court to proceed with the new, less burdensome request, which, apart from the carved-out sections, still requests ?all records or other information, pertaining to the Account, including all files, databases, and database records stored by DreamHost in relation to that Account.? It?s unclear if DreamHost will continue to fight the new demand. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 25 09:01:48 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2017 14:01:48 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - POTUS' Latest Nonsensical Announcement About Censoring The Internet Message-ID: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170823/15234838073/trumps-latest-nonsensical-announcement-about-censoring-internet.shtml Trump's Latest Nonsensical Announcement About Censoring The Internet from the want-to-try-that-again? dept While many of President Trump's strongest supporters still insist that he's "bringing free speech back," the truth is that Trump has been advocating for censoring the internet since very early in his campaign for the Presidency. Of course, his position on this has never been entirely coherent -- and he sometimes swings wildly around with his emotional ideas of what he likes, often with little basis into legal, political or technical realities. His latest is a bit like that as well. In a speech in Reno he suddenly burst out with a barely comprehensible policy position on keeping ISIS off the internet: "I will tell you, we are going to start working very hard on the Internet because they are using the Internet at a level that they should not be allowed to use the Internet," Trump said during a bill-signing event with the American Legion in Reno, Nev. "They're recruiting from the Internet and we are going to work under my administration very hard so that doesn't happen." Now, it's one thing to argue for working on ways to disrupt ISIS recruitment online. I'm all for doing counter-programing, education and the like around that. But that's a far cry from "they should not be allowed to use the internet." That statement packs quite a wallop. And it's easy to chalk it up to "Trump being Trump" and saying things without understanding the impact of what he's saying (and without him really understanding the details behind these issues), but considering the attacks on free speech and on the ability to use the internet these days, we should be pretty vigilant about this stuff. And, somewhat ironically, you'd think that some of Trump's most vocal supporters would be against him on this. After all, they're the ones who keep getting kicked off various online platforms and complaining about how that shouldn't be allowed. But if Trump actually comes up with a plan that says ISIS people can't use the internet, that's a clear recipe for excluding anyone you dislike from using the internet at all. And, of course, all of this is a lot more complicated than people seem to think. Just in the last week, we've had two separate stories showing how YouTube's attempts to stop terrorists and Nazis from using its platforms, both backfired badly -- with the company actually taking down people calling out terrorists and Nazis. There's a larger point here beyond our President being unwilling or unable to deal with the nuances of his proclamations on who should and shouldn't be able to use the internet: and it's that these things are a slippery slope that involve a lot of tricky problems and many, many serious unintended consequences, even when done with care and thoughtfulness. Rushing into internet censorship because "terrorists bad" is going to be a hell of a lot more destructive to the free speech and free association rights of the public than it would be for actual ISIS members. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 1 11:31:35 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2017 16:31:35 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Court says health insurance company can be sued for data breach Message-ID: <5E6E24D0-2CF3-462B-9933-F8F9158D4E97@infowarrior.org> Court says health insurance company can be sued for data breach By Lydia Wheeler - 08/01/17 11:55 AM EDT 1 http://thehill.com/regulation/healthcare/344763-court-says-health-insurance-company-can-be-sued-for-data-breach The nation?s second most powerful court ruled Tuesday that a health insurance company's customers can sue the provider for a 2014 cyberattack in which their personal information was stolen. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court?s decision dismissing the class action suit that seven customers brought against CareFirst, which serves 1 million customers in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The customers attributed the breach to the company's carelessness and argued that they suffered an increased risk of identity theft as a result. But the lower court said the customers lacked standing because they failed to show a present injury or a likelihood of being injured in the future. Delivering the opinion of the appeals court on Tuesday, Judge Thomas Griffith said the district court gave the complaint an unduly narrow reading. ?The District Court concluded that the plaintiffs had ?not demonstrated a sufficiently substantial risk of future harm stemming from the breach to establish standing,? in part because they had ?not suggested, let alone demonstrated, how the CareFirst hackers could steal their identities without access to their Social Security or credit card numbers,?? Griffith said. ?But that conclusion rested on an incorrect premise: that the complaint did not allege the theft of Social Security or credit card numbers in the data breach," he added. "In fact, the complaint did.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 1 16:09:26 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2017 21:09:26 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - UK home secretary Amber Rudd says 'real people' don't need end-to-end encryption Message-ID: <5FF9A4DC-5D45-4D81-9272-65C5ABC88E13@infowarrior.org> Witholding comment. -- rick UK home secretary Amber Rudd says 'real people' don't need end-to-end encryption http://www.businessinsider.com/home-secretary-amber-rudd-real-people-dont-need-end-to-end-encryption-terrorists-2017-8?IR=T From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 1 17:18:45 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2017 22:18:45 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Senate confirms Wray as next FBI director Message-ID: <9B4B54CC-4792-40B5-AD9E-C5F94BC2CBF4@infowarrior.org> Senate confirms Wray as next FBI director By Karoun Demirjian August 1 at 6:06 PM The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to confirm Christopher A. Wray as the next FBI director, filling the critical post that has remained vacant since President Trump fired James B. Comey in May. Trump?s firing of Comey immediately led to accusations that he was trying to impede the bureau?s Russia investigation and ultimately led to the appointment of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Comey later testified that Trump asked him for a ?loyalty? oath and to drop a probe of former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn?s contacts with Russian officials. Wray, a former senior Justice Department official known for his low-key demeanor, told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing that he would never pledge loyalty to the president and that if Trump ever pressured him to drop an investigation, he would push back or resign. This pledge appeared to gain him the confidence of Senate Judiciary Committee lawmakers, who unanimously approved his nomination and urged their colleagues to vote in favor of his confirmation. The vote was 92 to 5 with five Democrats voting against his nomination. ?He told the committee that he won?t condone tampering with investigations, and that he would resign rather than be unduly influenced in any manner. Mr. Wray?s record of service, and his reputation, give us no reason to doubt him,? committee chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday. ?He made no loyalty pledges then, and I expect him never to make such a pledge moving forward.? < - > https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-confirms-christopher-a-wray-as-next-fbi-director/2017/08/01/63ce5998-76f4-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 2 08:31:01 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2017 13:31:01 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. Message-ID: <9DEEC0CA-67B0-4D71-BFEC-B608EBD45C9B@infowarrior.org> Interesting reading, though I don't necessarily agree w/all the analogies presented. -- rick Don?t Be Evil. The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. Will Chang Cofounder of PartingPro.com Jul 31 https://medium.com/wills-newsletter/wills-newsletter-2-don-t-be-evil-3918b91fcf82?2 From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 2 10:49:40 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2017 15:49:40 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - book: Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare Message-ID: Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare Open Access book by Scott Timcke Part of the Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies series edited by Christian Fuchs University of Westminster Press Free download, affordable paperback: http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book6/ The United States presents the greatest source of global geo-political violence and instability. Guided by the radical political economy tradition, this book offers an analysis of the USA?s historical impulse to weaponize communication technologies. Scott Timcke explores the foundations of this impulse and how the militarization of digital society creates structural injustices and social inequalities. He analyses how new digital communication technologies support American paramountcy and conditions for worldwide capital accumulation. Identifying selected features of contemporary American society, Capital, State, Empire undertakes a materialist critique of this digital society and of the New American Way of War. At the same time it demonstrates how the American security state represses activists?such as Black Lives Matter?who resist this emerging security leviathan. The book also critiques the digital positivism behind the algorithmic regulation used to control labour and further diminish prospects for human flourishing for the ?99%?. Capital, State, Empire contributes to a broader understanding of the dynamics of global capitalism and political power in the early 21st century. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 2 10:50:45 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2017 15:50:45 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Painter: The Case for Diplomacy in Cyberspace Message-ID: <472A6911-4CD7-440E-9816-9DBB1DF44B62@infowarrior.org> Chris Painter Cyber guy for 27 yrs, tech, wine, film, Pynchon & indie music fan. Aug 1 The Case for Diplomacy in Cyberspace https://medium.com/@C_Painter/the-case-for-diplomacy-in-cyberspace-8ca1ca8c97b3 For the last six and a half amazing years I have had the honor to serve as the first Coordinator for Cyber Issues in the Secretary?s Office at the State Department. I am tremendously proud of what we have accomplished during my time as America?s top cyber diplomat, and prouder still of one of the most talented, creative and dedicated teams in government???or for that matter anywhere. My office literally created and advanced a whole new area of foreign policy focus that simply didn?t exist before. As both cyber threats and opportunities have continued to grow, so too have the range of cyber issues???including everything from Internet Freedom and Governance to combatting cybercrime, fostering cybersecurity and advancing international security and stability in cyberspace. These important matters have evolved from being seen as largely niche or technical issues, to core issues of national security, economic security, human rights and, ultimately, core issues of foreign policy. When then Secretary Clinton created our office, we were the first of our kind in the world. Today, there are over twenty such offices, and growing, in foreign ministries around the globe???a testament to the growing importance of these issues as a foreign policy imperative. We?ve also established other precedents for the international community. For example, we pioneered ?whole of government? dialogues with global partners to ensure that we were leveraging all of the capabilities of our governments on these cross-cutting issues, that now are the model for engagement between many countries. More importantly, we made concrete progress, working with other countries and partners, to ensure we maintain an open, interoperable, reliable and secure cyberspace for the future, while responding to growing threats posed by nation states, criminal groups, terrorists and others. We worked with like-minded governments to cooperate and use diplomatic tools to address world-wide cyber threats. We reached a landmark agreement with China that made clear that no state should use cyber means to steal the intellectual property and trade secrets of another to benefit its commercial sector that has been widely adopted by other countries. We led the international discussion and provided the thought leadership in promoting a framework of cyber stability to address the growing threats in cyberspace particularly as states develop new cyber capabilities. As part of that framework, we achieved a historic consensus that international law that applies in the physical world also applies in cyberspace; we articulated and advanced a number of norms of state behavior (voluntary rules of the road), and promoted cyber confidence building and transparency measures to avoid miscalculation and conflict escalation. This framework is the foundation of a more robust deterrence strategy in cyberspace that we are now developing and advancing. That strategy looks to builds a flexible coalition of likeminded countries who can respond to bad actors, using all the tools in our tool kit and some we haven?t even thought of yet. Inevitably, whether in the physical or cyber world, bad actors will violate norms and international law, but acceptance of those basic precepts allow the good guys to act together to ensure a safe and secure global Internet. We simply need to be more agile and timely in addressing and responding to the significant threats we face or we risk setting the norm that these pernicious actions are acceptable. We joined with our human rights colleagues at State to help advance and protect Internet Freedom and make sure that promotion of these values were woven into our security work and engagements with other countries. We worked with our Department of Justice colleagues to get more countries to adopt the Budapest cyber crime convention and increase international cooperation and capacity among law enforcement professionals. We labored with our colleagues in the Department of Homeland Security and others to create and implement an ambitious capacity building initiative so that countries have the strategies and ability to help protect themselves and, given the global nature of cyber threats, cooperate to protect us. And, we worked with colleagues across the government, the private sector and civil society, to thwart continued attempts by repressive regimes to impose state control over the Internet and undermine its multi-stakeholder foundation. While we have accomplished much, we are still at the beginning of this journey and there is a long road ahead. Indeed, I believe we are at an inflection point, where the work we do now and the choices we make will determine whether we can all continue to benefit from this amazing technology, or whether both growing policy and technical threats will undermine its incredible potential. Achieving the future we want will require continued high-level attention and a significant and sustained effort. Diplomacy has and must continue to play a pivotal role???shaping the environment, building cooperation, and working to build coalitions to respond to shared threats, and we must continue to lead the international community. This is not some legacy Cold War issue but the quintessential 21st century issue of our national security???involving aspects of human rights, security and economic policy???requiring high- level leadership and a matrixed 21st century response that leverages all of our capabilities. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 2 18:15:25 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2017 23:15:25 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan' back on the big screen Message-ID: <2F1ADD2E-8C03-4085-B3C2-F07815285531@infowarrior.org> Paramount Pictures Presents Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 35th Anniversary The Director?s Cut In Theaters Sep 10, Sep 13 One of the most celebrated and essential chapters in Star Trek lore, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is now presented in this spectacular Director?s Cut from legendary filmmaker Nicholas Meyer. On routine training maneuvers, Admiral James T. Kirk seems resigned that this may be the last space mission of his career. But Khan is back, with a vengeance. Aided by his exiled band of genetic supermen, Khan (Ricardo Montalban)-brilliant renegade of 20th century Earth-has raided Space Station Regula One, stolen the top-secret device called Project Genesis, wrested control of another Federation starship, and now schemes to set a most deadly trap for his old enemy Kirk?with the threat of a universal Armageddon! Fans won?t want to miss this special 35th anniversary screening that includes an exclusive introduction from William Shatner. https://www.fathomevents.com/events/star-trek-ii From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 2 18:19:41 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2017 23:19:41 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?_New_Web_tool_tracks_Russian_=E2=80=9Ci?= =?utf-8?q?nfluence_ops=E2=80=9D_on_Twitter?= Message-ID: <8F293851-A10C-4B81-9916-823BE81B63B8@infowarrior.org> New Web tool tracks Russian ?influence ops? on Twitter Hamilton 68 tracks Russian state news and Twitter trolls, shows propaganda trends. Sean Gallagher - 8/2/2017, 6:10 PM https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/new-web-tool-tracks-russian-influence-ops-on-twitter/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 2 20:00:42 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2017 01:00:42 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - POTUS, ignored by his own people Message-ID: <75B23D4E-48F4-48EB-8A58-E18E38D940F3@infowarrior.org> (how many 'r's are there in surreal? -- rick) As the lies and contradictions mount, federal officials are deciding to simply ignore Trump John Harwood | @johnjharwood https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/02/as-lies-contradictions-mount-federal-officials-deciding-to-ignore-trump.html Increasingly, federal officials are deciding to simply ignore President Donald Trump. As stunning as that sounds, fresh evidence arrives every day of the government treating the man elected to lead it as someone talking mostly to himself. On Tuesday alone, the commandant of the Coast Guard announced he will "not break faith" with transgender service members despite Trump's statement that they could no longer serve. Fellow Republicans in the Senate moved ahead with other business despite the president's insistence that they return to repealing Obamacare. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, "we certainly don't blame the Chinese" for North Korea's nuclear program after Trump claimed, "China could easily solve this problem." And Vice President Mike Pence said the president and Congress speak in a "unified voice" on a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill Trump has signed, but not publicly embraced. "What is most remarkable is the extent to which his senior officials act as if Trump were not the chief executive," Jack Goldsmith, a top Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, wrote last weekend on lawfareblog.com. "Never has a president been so regularly ignored or contradicted by his own officials," Goldsmith added. "The president is a figurehead who barks out positions and desires, but his senior subordinates carry on with different commitments." Federal officials aren't the only ones. Police chiefs distanced themselves from Trump's public call for rougher treatment of criminal suspects; the White House said the president was joking. The Boy Scouts apologized for Trump's odd, politically charged remarks to the group. After Trump claimed in an interview that the Boy Scouts chief had called to declare it "the greatest speech ever made to them," the Scouts organization disclaimed any such call. The disconnect between Trump's words and the government's actions has been apparent for months. In January, after Defense Secretary James Mattis contradicted Trump on the use of torture, the president said he would acquiesce to Mattis' view. The next month, after Trump pronounced himself open to something other than a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley corrected him and said the U.S. remains committed to a two-state solution. But the phenomenon has grown more pronounced as Trump keeps struggling to govern amid special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Trump keeps casting doubt on Russia's culpability for cyberattacks on the 2016 election campaign. His own national security officials, including Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, said last month they have no doubts. Trump has repeatedly expressed a lack of confidence in Attorney General Jeff Sessions over Sessions' recusal from oversight of the Russia investigation. Sessions has ignored the hint that he resign. Part of the disconnect flows from Trump's inattention to, and weak grasp of, complex policy issues. On raising the debt limit ? vital to preserving U.S. creditworthiness ? the president has left Cabinet members to publicly disagree. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wants a "clean" debt limit increase while budget director Mick Mulvaney wants it coupled with negotiated spending cuts. In an interview last week with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said his State Department had done "the wrong thing" in concluding that Iran has complied with a deal curbing its nuclear program. "If it was up to me, I would have had them noncompliant 180 days ago," he said. The president displayed greater familiarity with Jordan Spieth's winning final round at golf's British Open than the health-care plan he blasted Congress for not passing, referring to it as "the replace." On Tuesday, the Senate shrugged off Trump's threat to withhold Obamacare subsidies to insurers and took initial steps to assure them. Acknowledgment of official steps to block Trump and not follow his lead has come from the highest levels of his own staff. "There are people inside the administration who think it is their job to save America from this president," Anthony Scaramucci said during his brief tenure as White House communications director. Those people may even include his new chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly. Ten days after Trump installed Scaramucci with the rare status of reporting directly to the president, Kelly fired him Monday in his own first day on the job. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 2 20:02:57 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2017 01:02:57 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - HBO data breach included thousands of internal documents Message-ID: <22AD60AD-562D-46D3-8623-011BB4F5AFBC@infowarrior.org> HBO data breach included thousands of internal documents https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/02/hbo-data-breach-thousands-internal-docs/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Aug 2 20:04:07 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2017 01:04:07 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - CBOE plans to launch bitcoin futures Message-ID: <8B66B085-06F6-414E-B836-37091EBF799D@infowarrior.org> CBOE plans to launch bitcoin futures, announces agreement with Winklevoss brothers' digital currency exchange ? CBOE Holdings and Gemini Trust announced an agreement Tuesday for subsidiary CBOE and its affiliates to use Gemini's bitcoin market data to create bitcoin trading products. ? CBOE plans to offer cash-settled bitcoin futures as early as the fourth quarter of 2017, pending regulatory approval. ? The news follows the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's approval in late July for a U.S. firm to offer bitcoin options. < - > https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/02/cboe-bitcoin-futures-winklevoss-brothers-digital-currency-exchange.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 3 06:15:27 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2017 11:15:27 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - If you only read one Amicus Brief this year... Message-ID: If you only read one Amicus Brief this year... You only need to read the Table of Contents to know the ACLU of West Virginia's Amicus Brief on the case where coal company CEO Robert Murray, of Murray Energy, is suing John Oliver for defamation is gonna be special. I am especially looking forward to section III. http://boingboing.net/2017/08/02/if-you-only-read-one-amicus-br.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 3 06:47:13 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2017 11:47:13 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - If the FBI Has Your Biometrics, It Doesn't Have to Tell You Message-ID: <8A0AEAA4-A2B4-4997-99DA-C35960CAE43D@infowarrior.org> If the FBI Has Your Biometrics, It Doesn't Have to Tell You By Mohana Ravindranath August 2, 2017 http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2017/08/if-fbi-has-your-biometrics-it-doesnt-have-tell-you/139952/ The FBI?s Next Generation Identification system stores the biometric records of people who have undergone background checks for jobs, volunteer positions and military service, as well as of those who have criminal records. Effective Aug. 31, that database will be exempt from certain parts of the Privacy Act, a law that allows people whose records are held by the federal government to request more information about which records those are. The exemption means the FBI doesn't have to acknowledge if it is storing the biometric records of an individual in that database; the bureau has argued that notifying people that they were in the database could compromise investigations. The FBI published the final rule this week. Under the rule, individuals won't be able to find out what types of records the FBI may have of because it could ?specifically reveal investigative interest by the FBI or agencies that are recipients of the disclosures.? Most of the criminal records in that database are obtained from state and local agencies at the time of arrest, so the FBI cannot always collect information directly from the individual or notify them that their records are being included. "It is not feasible," the final rule said. The FBI posted a draft of that rule last year. In that draft, the bureau argued that some records it keeps might seem irrelevant to ongoing investigations, but could eventually end up being necessary for ?authorized law enforcement purposes." The Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group in Washington, has tried to persuade the FBI to reduce its data collection and the exemptions from the Privacy Act. After suing the FBI for information about the information stored in the Next Generation Identification System, EPIC concluded that the database has an up to 20 percent error rate for facial recognition searches. Though it?s not clear exactly how many records are in the system, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, another advocacy group, estimated in 2014 that it could contain up to 52 million facial images by 2015. One of the most troubling consequences of the final rule is that people in the database might become the subject of investigation without being notified, Jeramie Scott, EPIC?s Domestic Surveillance Project director, told Nextgov. A person whose image is erroneously called up in a search for a different individual might also find themselves being investigated, he explained. The FBI is ?now in a position as the determiner of when the exemption applies,? he said. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 3 13:02:41 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2017 18:02:41 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI arrests WannaCry hero Marcus Hutchins in Las Vegas Message-ID: FBI arrests WannaCry hero Marcus Hutchins in Las Vegas http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/08/03/fbi-arrests-wannacry-hero-marcus-hutchins-las-vegas-reports/ 3 August 2017 ? 5:51pm The FBI has arrested Marcus Hutchins, the 23-year-old security expert who saved the NHS from cyber criminals earlier this year. Hutchins was at a hacking conference in Las Vegas when he was arrested as part of an FBI investigation. UK law enforcement and security agencies confirmed a British citizen has been arrested. The young cyber expert was hailed as a saviour back in May for finding a kill switch for the WannaCry ransomware, which spread to more than 300,000 computers across 150 countries. Among the victims were dozens of NHS Trusts, which were forced to delay operations and turn people away. Hutchins, who stopped the attack from his bedroom in his parents' house under the pseudonym MalwareTech, has been working with GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre since the incident. The Centre said it was aware of the situation and that it was "inappropriate" to comment further on law enforcement matters. Janet, his mother, told the Telegraph she was trying to find out exactly what had happened to her son but said she had not yet managed to get anything confirmed. "I think I'm going to be rather busy tonight," she added. It is not clear why Hutchins has been arrested or if he will face charges in the US. The US Marshals office confirmed it was the FBI who arrested Hutchins. "My colleague in Las Vegas said this was an FBI arrest. Mr Hutchins is not in US Marshals custody," a spokesman for the office told Motherboard. I can confirm @MalwareTechBlog was detained yesterday and FBI/US Marshalls won't tell me where he is. https://t.co/lV5SxZjsRi ? Andrew Mabbitt (@MabbsSec) August 3, 2017 After his arrest Hutchins was taken to Henderson Detention Center in Nevada before being moved to another facility, according to Motherboard. A security expert who was at the DefCon hacking conference with Hutchins told the Telegraph: "I finally located him but they moved him 10 minutes before visiting hours and now he's in the wind again." They said they spent most of the conference with Hutchins and were sharing accommodation with until he disappeared for around 20 hours. Hutchins' parents confirmed to the expert that he had been arrested. The UK's National Crime Agency said: "We are aware a UK national has been arrested but it's a matter for the authorities in the US," it said. WannaCry ransomware map - locations of infection From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Aug 3 13:08:31 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2017 18:08:31 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Strategic incoherence is a recipe for war Message-ID: <88A9738C-16FF-48E4-BAFF-E001429133FD@infowarrior.org> OPINION | Trump's strategic incoherence is a recipe for war http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/345154-opinion-trumps-strategic-incoherence-is-a-recipe-for-war From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 4 13:54:54 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2017 18:54:54 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - 'Pharma bro' Martin Shkreli found guilty of 3 of 8 charges, including securities fraud Message-ID: <833EAD55-14F5-4F30-982D-F10AEB1381DF@infowarrior.org> 'Pharma bro' Martin Shkreli found guilty of 3 of 8 charges, including securities fraud ? Martin Shkreli was accused of duping hedge-fund investors. ? He also was charged with ripping off the drug company he founded to repay investors. ? Shkreli faces years in prison when sentenced. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/04/pharma-bro-martin-shkreli-convicted-in-federal-fraud-case.html Martin Shkreli verdict: Guilty on two counts of securities fraud, one count of conspiracy 17 Mins Ago | 03:22 A federal jury found notorious "Pharma bro" Martin Shkreli guilty of multiple criminal charges Friday. Shkreli, 34, was convicted of some of the eight criminal counts that he had faced, which had included securities fraud and conspiracy to commit both securities fraud and wire fraud, after a more-than-month-long trial in Brooklyn, New York, federal court. Of the eight counts, Shkreli was found guilty of three. Those included conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and two counts of securities fraud. He was found not guilty of five counts, including those related to wire fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced. Prosecutors said a mountain of testimony and evidence at trial showed that Shkreli duped multiple investors into putting millions of dollars into two hedge funds he ran, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare, by falsely claiming to have an excellent record of running such funds, and by falsely stating his investment strategy had a low level of risk. After getting their money, prosecutor said, Shkreli quickly lost much of it, and also used some of it to capitalize his infant pharmaceuticals company, Retrophin, even as he continued sending out financial statements to investors claiming positive returns. And when investors asked for their money to be redeemed to them in cash, Shkreli brushed them off for months or more, inventing excuses and suggesting alternative ways to pay them back, according to the prosecution's case. Prosecutors said that he then looted the stock of Retrophin and cash from the young firm to pay off the hedge-fund investors who he had ripped off. The charges were unrelated to Shkreli's first claim to public notoriety: raising the price of an anti-parasite drug called Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent in 2015, while heading another company, Turing Pharmaceuticals. However, Shkreli was indicted in the federal case several months after that price increase came to light, and after he reveled in the widespread scorn that followed. This is a breaking news story. Please check back for further updates. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 4 13:57:10 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2017 18:57:10 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - good legal analysis: The Kronos indictment: Is it a crime to create and sell malware? Message-ID: The Kronos indictment: Is it a crime to create and sell malware? By Orin Kerr August 3 at 10:52 PM https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/03/the-kronos-indictment-it-a-crime-to-create-and-sell-malware/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Aug 4 14:23:31 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2017 19:23:31 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - DOJ warns the media could be targeted in crackdown on leaks Message-ID: DOJ warns the media could be targeted in crackdown on leaks By Jonathan Easley - 08/04/17 11:32 AM EDT http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/345316-justice-to-review-media-subpoenas-policy-in-crackdown-on-leaks Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday announced a government-wide crackdown on leakers, which will include a review of the Justice Department?s policies on subpoenas for media outlets that publish sensitive information. At a press conference with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Sessions announced that the Justice Department, FBI and government intelligence agencies will direct more resources into the investigations of government leaks and would prioritize prosecuting those that pass sensitive information along to the press or foreign officials. Sessions said he had empowered his deputy director Rod Rosenstein and incoming FBI director Christopher Wray to oversee the classified leaks investigations and to monitor the progress of each case. The national security division of the Justice Department will prioritize cases involving unauthorized disclosures, Sessions said, and the departments ?will not hesitate to bring lawful and appropriate criminal charges against those who abuse the public trust.? Sessions said his Justice Department has already tripled the number of active leak investigations over the previous administration, and that the FBI would create a new counterintelligence unit to manage the cases. In addition, Sessions said that after meeting with FBI and intelligence investigators, the Justice Department would review its policies affecting media subpoenas. ?We respect the important role the press plays and we?ll give them respect, but it?s not unlimited,? Sessions said. ?They cannot place lives at risk with impunity. We must balance the press? role with protecting our national security and the lives of those who serve in the intelligence community, the Armed Forces and all law-abiding Americans.? President Trump has been pushing Sessions to be more aggressive in prosecuting illegal government leaks, which have bedeviled the administration from the start. There have been a torrent of government leaks since Trump took office, leading to accusations from the right that rogue ?deep state? actors are conducting a silent ?coup? against the president. Sessions said there had been ?dramatic growth? in the number of unauthorized disclosures since Trump had taken office and that his office had seen an ?explosion? of referrals for potential investigations. The attorney general would not give details about specific investigations, but said four individuals had already been charged with the unlawful release of sensitive government information. ?I have this message for our friends in the intelligence community: The Justice Department is open for business,? Sessions said. ?And I have this warning for potential leakers: Don?t do it.? Coats, the director of national intelligence, sent a direct message to leakers, would-be leakers and the media outlets that have printed sensitive information. ?If you improperly disclose classified information, we will find you, we will investigate you and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law,? Coats said. ?You will not be happy with the result.? The details of the myriad probes into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, currently underway in the House, Senate, at the FBI and through the special counsel, have consistently found their way into the press through anonymous sources. The flow of leaks has frustrated the White House, which has been dealing with the cloud of investigation since before the president?s inauguration. Coats noted that not all of the leaks originate from the intelligence community, saying that they also come from the Executive Branch and Congress and that his office would not discriminate in its pursuit of those that break the law. ?Any disclosure outside of authorized channels is a criminal offense and we will simply not tolerate the illegal release of classified information,? Coats said. Some of the leaked stories have proven to be untrue, giving the Trump administration political ammunition in its attacks against the press. Many of the stories have been attributed to former administration officials, which has raised suspicions on the right that they are coming from holdovers from former President Obama?s government. Earlier this year, Trump fired his national security adviser Michael Flynn after his name was unmasked in a surveillance report that detailed his conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Trump?s feud with former FBI director James Comey also spilled into the press after Comey passed personal memos detailing his encounters with Trump along to a friend. Comey later testified that he orchestrated the leaks to ensure that a special investigator was put in charge of the Russia investigation. In the eyes of many on the right, those actions have tainted special counselor Robert Mueller?s investigation into Russian election meddling. And details of Trump?s Oval Office conversations with world leaders have also made their way into the press. That came to a head this week when the full transcripts of Trump?s phone calls with foreign leaders were leaked to The Washington Post. Many in the media and on the left have celebrated the leaks, which have consistently embarrassed the president or caused new political problems for him. But the printed Oval Office transcripts went too far for some Democrats, who warned that the release of the president?s private conversations with foreign leaders undermines national security. ?This is beyond the pale and will have a chilling effect going forward on the ability of the commander in chief to have candid discussions with his counterparts,? Ned Price, a former National Security Council official under President Barack Obama, told The Hill. ?Granted, the White House contributed to this atmosphere by welcoming the free-for-all environment, where anonymous leaks are commonplace. But we must draw the line somewhere.? Sessions on Friday said that "no government can be effective when its leaders cannot discuss freely with foreign leaders.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Aug 5 16:08:44 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2017 21:08:44 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: Army tells troops to stop using DJI drones immediately, because cyber References: <290CE1B4-B078-4B71-BAEA-DE67A401E0A2@roscom.com> Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Monty Solomon > Subject: Army tells troops to stop using DJI drones immediately, because cyber > Date: August 4, 2017 at 7:15:31 PM EDT > > Army tells troops to stop using DJI drones immediately, because cyber > https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/army-tells-troops-to-stop-using-dji-drones-immediately-because-cyber/ > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 11:09:00 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 16:09:00 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: POTUS retweets story w/classified info & anony(!) sources Message-ID: <3D481BE1-C4E3-47BA-9AAE-77005C85C333@infowarrior.org> (Remember, despite railing against them repeatedly, anonymous sources are totally, and ONLY, acceptable when they support one's position, policies, popularity, or crowd size, right? --rick) Nikki Haley condemns Fox News leak on North Korea, then Trump tweets out the news anyway https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nikki-haley-condemns-fox-news-133330251.html UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on Tuesday slammed an apparent leak of classified details about US intelligence seeing North Korea load up anti-ship missiles onto a patrol boat. "I can't talk about anything that's classified and if it's in the newspaper that's a shame," Haley said in an appearance on "Fox and Friends." "It's incredibly dangerous when things go out to the press like that." "You're not just getting a scoop, you're playing with people's lives," said Haley. But it looks like President Donald Trump had another reaction to the anonymous leak. On Tuesday morning, the president retweeted the story before tweeting: "After many years of failure,countries are coming together to finally address the dangers posed by North Korea. We must be tough & decisive!" The story, a scoop from Fox's Pentagon reporter Lucas Tomlinson, cited anonymous US defense officials as saying ?North Korea is not showing any evidence it plans to halt its missile tests,? and describing "a trend that does not bode well for hopes of de-escalating tensions on the [Korean] peninsula.? Tomlinson regularly publishes scoops from the Pentagon, often about breaking news or incidents at sea. Trump's focus on North Korea comes after the UN Security Council unanimously voted to impose unprecedented sanctions on Pyongyang a month after the Hermit Kingdom first demonstrated an intercontinental ballistic missile. As president, Trump can declassify information as he sees fit, and he tweeted on Monday his dissatisfaction with much of the press' coverage of the sanctions on North Korea. North Korea has tested ship-launched missiles in the past and relies on boats to receive data from missile tests that stray far from the mainland. The arming of a patrol boat could indicate preparations for another missile test by North Korea. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 11:12:47 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 16:12:47 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Game of Thrones hackers demand ransom Message-ID: <21AF5C23-B1B9-4A92-B980-36730D89A47D@infowarrior.org> Game of Thrones hackers demand ransom http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40860785 Hackers who have leaked Game of Thrones scripts and other data from entertainment company HBO have released a note demanding a ransom payment. In a new dump, they also published a script for the as yet unbroadcast fifth episode of the current series. Company documents and video episodes of other HBO shows were also shared. The hackers claim to have 1.5TB of data in total, but HBO has said it does not believe its email system has been compromised. Documents in the latest leak were marked "HBO is falling", according to the Wired news site, and included legal information, employment agreements and other company files. The Associated Press reports that some documents appeared to contain personal contact information for Game of Thrones actors. The ransom note featured in a video containing scrolling text, addressed to HBO chief executive Richard Plepler. However, the hackers have not made public how much they want. "Our demand is clear and non-negotiable: we want XXXX dollars to stop leaking your data," the redacted note reads. "HBO spends $12m for market research and $5m for [Game of Thrones series seven] advertisements. So consider us another budget for your advertisements." It was signed: "Mr Smith". Although the note is not dated, it gives HBO a deadline of three days to make the payment. The broadcaster has said it continues to investigate the incident. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 11:13:51 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 16:13:51 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Warrantless US Spying Is Set to Expire Soon. Let It Die Message-ID: Warrantless US Spying Is Set to Expire Soon. Let It Die https://www.wired.com/story/warrantless-us-spying-is-set-to-expire-soon-let-it-die Surveillance technologies have historically restricted the freedoms of communities of color and immigrants in this country. This history continues today through a resurgent national security apparatus with emboldened nationalist tendencies. Members of Congress have the power to rein these surveillance mechanisms. At this moment, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is pending reauthorization from Congress. This piece of legislation must be reformed in order to prevent dragnet surveillance, backdoor searches of phone and email records, and unlawful targeting of communities of color and immigrant communities. Unless these revisions are made, Congress should let the provision expire. Section 702 allows for warrantless surveillance of conversations between people in the US and in foreign countries. The law passed in 2008 during the George W. Bush's presidency, was extended by the Obama administration, and is now set to expire at the end of 2017, unless Congress reauthorizes the provision?a move the Trump administration supports. Rebuttals to questions of surveillance often go something like this: 'If you?ve got nothing to hide, then you shouldn?t be worried.' But a review of American history points to the same groups being routinely spied on by the government: black and native bodies, immigrants, poor communities, and anybody deemed as an ?other? or a threat to national security. High-profile cases of surveilled prominent figures include civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez, who were both monitored by the FBI. More recently, cities like Baltimore experienced dragnet surveillance after protesting against the police murder of Freddie Gray. Black Lives Matter activists in Ferguson, Missouri became targets of surveillance. Muslim communities have long withstood surveillance of their neighborhoods, mosques, and community leaders. If history is any indicator, the net cast on those suspected of being threats to our nation?s safety is vast?and in a time where much of the nation is intent on resisting and dissenting, this puts much of the country at risk of being surveilled. Furthermore, surveillance, particularly enabled under 702, is nefariously opaque. Proponents of Section 702, such as the Heritage Foundation, and Trump?s homeland security and counterterrorism advisor Thomas Bossert, argue that oversight protocols and existing language in the provision will prevent significant overreach. In an op-ed in the New York Times published earlier this year, Bossert claimed that Section 702 doesn?t allow for targeting of US citizens, emphasizing that the provision ?expressly forbids intentional targeting? and that an individual court order supported by probable cause is needed to surveil citizens and foreigners inside the US. But newly declassified memos reviewed by The Hill revealed a slew of violations by the NSA and FBI during the Obama administration, proving that although intentional targeting of US citizens may not be allowed, citizens' data is nonetheless being intercepted?and searched. Among the various violations cited in the memo are ?numerous overcollection incidents,? and ?the misuse of overly broad queries or specific US person terms to search through NSA data.? Immigrants are also largely at risk of being surveilled through Section 702?s so-called upstream monitoring, which allows communication to a friend or family member outside of the country (or browser history, chat logs), to be searched for potential ?selectors? or keywords of interest. This means that more than a quarter of the US population?more than 84 million people?are at risk of having their data intercepted. We recently visited our nation?s capitol with a delegation of community leaders and policy advocates from across the country to meet with Senators Al Franken (D-MN), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR), along with Representatives Justin Amash (R-MI) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), to discuss the impacts of new surveillance technologies on immigrant communities and religious minorities. Among the solutions proposed was to reform Section 702 to close the backdoor search loophole, and prevent overly broad law enforcement from being used to target immigrants and citizens of color, religious minorities, and activists. Last month, the Center for Media Justice joined over two dozen civil rights and civil liberties groups including the ACLU and Color of Change to send a letter to the House Judiciary Committee recommending reforms to the provision. History shows that intelligence programs without adequate oversight, demonstrated by COINTELPRO and the contents of the Edward Snowden revelations, inevitably overstep their mandates. Congress should recall the origins of the fourth amendment in this moment: Let?s stop putting mass surveillance technologies in the hands of intelligence agencies, especially with nothing but the misplaced hope they will do the right thing. Ken Montenegro (@kmontenegro) is national vice president of the National Lawyers Guild in New York. Steven Renderos (@stevenrenderos) is organizing director at the Center for Media Justice in Oakland, California. WIRED Opinion publishes pieces written by outside contributors and represents a wide range of viewpoints. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 11:15:07 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 16:15:07 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - CIA 'torture' psychologists to stand trial Message-ID: CIA 'torture' psychologists to stand trial Paul HANDLEY AFP?August 8, 2017 https://www.yahoo.com/news/cia-torture-psychologists-stand-trial-145536035.html Washington (AFP) - Two psychologists who helped design the CIA's post-9/11 detainee interrogation program will stand trial in September for promoting the use of torture methods like water-boarding, starvation and chaining prisoners in extreme stress positions. Federal judges in Washington state late Monday ordered a lawsuit on behalf of three former detainees -- one of whom died in a CIA prison following harsh interrogation -- to go to a jury trial, rejecting efforts to force a settlement and prevent a full hearing of the case. The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the ex-detainees, will be the first involving the torture program to go to trial. The government has headed off previous efforts, citing what is said is a need to protect sensitive intelligence. The case targets psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who were recruited by the CIA in 2002 to design and help conduct interrogations of war-on-terror suspects captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The two were paid $80 million for their work, which included helping interrogate Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda, and Abu Zubaydah, another top Qaeda official. The ACLU suit alleges that Jessen and Mitchell were responsible for, and profited financially from, the illegal torture of Tanzanian Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Libyan Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and Afghani Gul Rahman. The first two were later freed after years of imprisonment, while Rahman died of hypothermia in a CIA prison cell in November 2002, after what the ACLU says was two weeks of "brutal torture". "This is a historic day for our clients and all who seek accountability for torture," said ACLU attorney Dror Ladin in a statement. "The court's ruling means that for the first time, individuals responsible for the brutal and unlawful CIA torture program will face meaningful legal accountability for what they did. Our clients have waited a long time for justice." The court rejected the psychologists' arguments that they were not responsible for all of the CIA's interrogation activities and had nothing to do with the interrogations of two of the men. They also claimed they were not responsible for specific decisions to use so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" in the specific cases of the three, but only broadly supplied the CIA with a list of methods to choose from. Defending that act as legal, they cited a post-World War II war trial which cleared a technician involved in supplying poison Zyklon B gas to Nazi concentration camps of culpability in mass murder. They also claimed that the decision to use such techniques was made by the CIA and approved by the Department of Justice, and that they cannot therefore be held responsible. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 11:16:32 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 16:16:32 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - When Silicon Valley Took Over Journalism Message-ID: <42A26754-04F7-48A8-881B-2EC563C793BF@infowarrior.org> When Silicon Valley Took Over Journalism The pursuit of digital readership broke the New Republic?and an entire industry. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/when-silicon-valley-took-over-journalism/534195/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 12:16:27 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 17:16:27 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: The Possible Blackwatering of Afghanistan Message-ID: <31FBCEEE-44DF-4787-B584-421CCFA1AAD7@infowarrior.org> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/08/08/war-afghanistan-trump-white-house-weighs-bold-plan-privatize/548004001/ The White House is actively considering a bold plan to turn over a big chunk of the U.S. war in Afghanistan to private contractors in an effort to turn the tide in a stalemated war, according to the former head of a security firm pushing the project. Under the proposal, 5,500 private contractors, primarily former Special Operations troops, would advise Afghan combat forces. The plan also includes a 90-plane private air force that would provide air support in the nearly 16-year-old war against Taliban insurgents, Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater security firm, told USA TODAY. The unprecedented proposal comes as the U.S.-backed Afghan military faces a stalemate in the war and growing frustration by President Trump about the lack of progress in the war. < - > From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 12:36:39 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 17:36:39 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: Science section of 2018 National Climate Assessment leaked to NYTimes References: <20170808173533.GA6049@gsp.org> Message-ID: <3ABC9FA5-E322-49BC-8BCB-7C97899390E8@infowarrior.org> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Rich Kulawiec > Subject: Science section of 2018 National Climate Assessment leaked to NYTimes > Date: August 8, 2017 at 13:35:33 EDT > To: Richard Forno , Dave Farber , Lauren Weinstein > > (for IP, if you wish) > > A national hero has leaked the final draft of the science section of the > 2018 National Climate Assessment to the New York Times. Article: > > Scientists Fear Trump Will Dismiss Blunt Climate Report > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/climate/climate-change-drastic-warming-trump.html > > Excerpt: > > The report concludes that even if humans immediately stopped > emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would > still feel at least an additional 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit > (0.30 degrees Celsius) of warming over this century compared > with today. The projected actual rise, scientists say, will be > as much as 2 degrees Celsius. > > A small difference in global temperatures can make a big > difference in the climate: The difference between a rise in > global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and one of 2 degrees > Celsius, for example, could mean longer heat waves, more intense > rainstorms and the faster disintegration of coral reefs. > > Among the more significant of the study's findings is that it is > possible to attribute some extreme weather to climate change. The > field known as "attribution science" has advanced rapidly > in response to increasing risks from climate change. > > The report: > > https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/climate/document-Draft-of-the-Climate-Science-Special-Report.html > > The report as a downloadable PDF: > > http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/climate/2017/climate-report-final-draft-clean.pdf > > It's 673 pages. The executive summary is readable by a general audience > but some science background would be helpful for some of the chapters. > > ---rsk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 15:55:05 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 20:55:05 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cable's New Brilliant Idea: Charging You More Money To Skip Ads Message-ID: <9FA4C59D-AFA4-47DF-A6C0-C5585AC42868@infowarrior.org> Cable's New Brilliant Idea: Charging You More Money To Skip Ads We've noted for years how cable executives facing market (r)evolution just can't stop making bone-headed decisions. As cord cutting accelerates and ratings take a dive, many cable and broadcast executives have decided the solution is to stuff more ads than ever into every viewing hour, in some instances actually editing down or speeding up programs so the additional ad load will fit. That's of course when they're not busy trying to prevent users from using modern technologies like DVR ad skipping, relentlessly raising cable rates and perpetuating some of the worst customer service in America. Quite often, cable executives try to obscure the sector's dysfunction by pretending to be innovative, and hoping nobody can tell the difference. The latest case in point: FX Networks has struck a new deal with Comcast that lets viewers avoid ads on some FX programs -- if they're willing to pay another $6 per month: < - > https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170807/08180537950/cables-new-brilliant-idea-charging-you-more-money-to-skip-ads.shtml From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Aug 8 15:56:19 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2017 20:56:19 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?One_broadband_choice_still_counts_as_?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=9Ccompetition=E2=80=9D_after_court_decision?= Message-ID: <03C6BDAE-CB71-4BBF-A14B-81C874FF9368@infowarrior.org> One broadband choice still counts as ?competition? after court decision AT&T and Verizon can charge more for business data, but lawsuit is still pending. Jon Brodkin - 8/8/2017, 3:50 PM https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/08/one-broadband-choice-still-counts-as-competition-after-court-decision/