From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jan 29 10:51:30 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2018 16:51:30 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - WH said it has no plans to build a 5G wireless network Message-ID: The Trump Administration said it has no plans to build a 5G wireless network Tony Romm The Trump administration labored to clarify on Monday that it currently has no plans to build its own ultra-fast 5G wireless network, despite publication of a memo that suggested the idea was under consideration. At issue is a proposal put forth by an unnamed official at the National Security Council, a White House-based body that advises the president on critical U.S. and foreign policy matters. The document, first reported by Axios last night, called for the U.S. government to effectively nationalize a portion of the telecom sector ? a radical departure from current policy ? in a bid to combat Chinese influence. As multiple White House officials confirmed to Recode on Sunday, the document as published is dated. They also stressed it had merely been floated by a staff member, not a reflection of some imminent, major policy announcement ? and probably might never be. For one thing, it?s the Federal Communications Commission that serves as the government?s steward of the wireless airwaves that power 5G and myriad other uses for smartphones, tablets and similar mobile devices. And the chairman of that independent agency, Ajit Pai, said Monday that he vehemently opposed the idea of nationalizing 5G. ?I oppose any proposal for the federal government to build and operate a nationwide 5G network,? he said in a statement. ?The main lesson to draw from the wireless sector?s development over the past three decades ? including American leadership in 4G ? is that the market, not government, is best positioned to drive innovation and investment.? < - > https://www.recode.net/2018/1/29/16945452/donald-trump-5g-wireless-network-national-security-council-memo From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 30 07:23:18 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 13:23:18 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - UK appeals court: RIPA mass surveillance unlawful Message-ID: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful udges say snooper?s charter lacks adequate safeguards around accessing personal data Alan Travis Home affairs editor Tue 30 Jan 2018 06.38 EST Last modified on Tue 30 Jan 2018 07.53 EST Appeal court judges have ruled the government?s mass digital surveillance regime unlawful in a case brought by the Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson. Liberty, the human rights campaign group which represented Watson in the case, said the ruling meant significant parts of theInvestigatory Powers Act 2016 ? known as the snooper?s charter ? are effectively unlawful and must be urgently changed. The court of appeal ruling on Tuesday said the powers in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014, which paved the way for the snooper?s charter legislation, did not restrict the accessing of confidential personal phone and web browsing records to investigations of serious crime, and allowed police and other public bodies to authorise their own access without adequate oversight. The three judges said Dripa was ?inconsistent with EU law? because of this lack of safeguards, including the absence of ?prior review by a court or independent administrative authority?. Responding to the ruling, Watson said: ?This legislation was flawed from the start. It was rushed through parliament just before recess without proper parliamentary scrutiny. < - > https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/30/uk-mass-digital-surveillance-regime-ruled-unlawful-appeal-ruling-snoopers-charter From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 30 07:48:48 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 13:48:48 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - This Washington Post fact check was chosen by a bot Message-ID: <7909BF38-E5E3-48A6-ACB2-C7EAEF5B8CC0@infowarrior.org> This Washington Post fact check was chosen by a bot By Daniel Funke ? January 30, 2018 https://www.poynter.org/news/washington-post-fact-check-was-chosen-bot From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 30 19:37:47 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 01:37:47 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - new ... The Cabinet Files Message-ID: <0A0CCAE2-E848-4FB0-A722-8F771D7E471C@infowarrior.org> (c/o E) The Cabinet Files Hundreds of top-secret and highly classified cabinet documents have been obtained by the ABC following an extraordinary breach of national security. By political reporter Ashlynne McGhee and Michael McKinnon < - > How did you get them? Journalism like this relies on brave confidential sources, and we'll protect their privacy at all costs. Suffice to say no-one broke any laws. The documents were in two locked filing cabinets sold at an ex-government sale in Canberra. They were sold off cheaply because they were heavy and no-one could find the keys. A nifty person drilled the locks and uncovered the trove of documents inside. < - > http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-31/cabinet-files-reveal-inner-government-decisions/9168442 From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jan 31 06:33:10 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 12:33:10 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Tackling_the_Internet=E2=80=99s_Central?= =?utf-8?q?_Villain=3A_The_Advertising_Business?= Message-ID: <1932ED55-0408-40B2-81AE-88AFEC41755E@infowarrior.org> Tackling the Internet?s Central Villain: The Advertising Business By Farhad Manjoo Jan. 31, 2018 Pretend you are the lead detective on a hit new show, ?CSI: Terrible Stuff on the Internet.? In the first episode, you set up one of those crazy walls plastered with headlines and headshots, looking for hidden connections between everything awful that?s been happening online recently. There?s a lot of dark stuff. In one corner, you have the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election with digital propaganda. In another, a rash of repugnant videos on YouTube, with children being mock-abused, cartoon characters bizarrely committing suicide on the kids? channel, and a popular vlogger recording a body hanging from a tree. Then there?s tech ?addiction,? the rising worry that adults and kids are getting hooked on smartphones and social networks despite our best efforts to resist the constant desire for a fix. And all over the internet, general fakery abounds ? there are millions of fake followers on Twitter and Facebook, fake rehab centers being touted on Google, and even fake review sites to sell you a mattress. So who is the central villain in this story, the driving force behind much of the chaos and disrepute online? This isn?t that hard. You don?t need a crazy wall to figure it out, because the force to blame has been quietly shaping the contours of life online since just about the beginning of life online: It?s the advertising business, stupid. And if you want to fix much of what ails the internet right now, the ad business would be the perfect perp to handcuff and restrain ? and perhaps even reform. Ads are the lifeblood of the internet, the source of funding for just about everything you read, watch and hear online. The digital ad business is in many ways a miracle machine ? it corrals and transforms latent attention into real money that pays for many truly useful inventions, from search to instant translation to video hosting to global mapping. But the online ad machine is also a vast, opaque and dizzyingly complex contraption with underappreciated capacity for misuse ? one that collects and constantly profiles data about our behavior, creates incentives to monetize our most private desires, and frequently unleashes loopholes that the shadiest of people are only too happy to exploit. And for all its power, the digital ad business has long been under-regulated and under-policed, both by the companies who run it and by the world?s governments. In the United States, the industry has been almost untouched by oversight, even though it forms the primary revenue stream of two of the planet?s most valuable companies, Google and Facebook. < - > https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/technology/internet-advertising-business.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jan 31 09:41:49 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 15:41:49 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Facebook Really Wants You to Come Back Message-ID: <092E166C-D3E0-468C-8322-44A4FAB55D2F@infowarrior.org> Facebook Really Wants You to Come Back The social network is getting aggressive with people who don?t log in often, working to keep up its engagement numbers. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-31/facebook-really-wants-you-to-come-back From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jan 1 09:25:10 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2018 15:25:10 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - After Equifax breach, anger but no action in Congress Message-ID: <8E07B5DB-C0C5-49BA-89E9-4B21C2622822@infowarrior.org> After Equifax breach, anger but no action in Congress By MARTIN MATISHAK The massive Equifax data breach, which compromised the identities of more than 145 million Americans, prompted a telling response from Congress: It did nothing. Some industry leaders and lawmakers thought September?s revelation of the massive intrusion ? which took place months after the credit reporting agency failed to act on a warning from the Homeland Security Department ? might be the long-envisioned incident that prompted Congress to finally fix the country?s confusing and ineffectual data security laws. Instead, the aftermath of the breach played out like a familiar script: white-hot, bipartisan outrage, followed by hearings and a flurry of proposals that went nowhere. As is often the case, Congress gradually shifted to other priorities ? this time the most sweeping tax code overhaul in a generation, and another mad scramble to fund the federal government. ?It?s very frustrating,? said Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce consumer protection subcommittee, who introduced legislation in the wake of the Equifax incident. ?Every time another shoe falls, I think, ?Ah, this is it. This will get us galvanized and pull together and march in the same direction.? Hasn?t happened yet,? said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a member of a broader Senate working group that has tinkered for years to come up with data breach legislation. Every time lawmakers punt on the issue, critics say, they are leaving Americans more exposed to ruinous identity theft scams ? and allowing companies to evade responsibility. With no sign that mammoth data breaches like the one at Equifax are abating, the situation is only growing more dire, according to cyberspecialists. In the meantime, companies and consumers are left to navigate 48 different state-level standards that govern how companies must protect sensitive data and respond to data breaches. Companies say the varying rules are costly and time-consuming, while cyberspecialists and privacy hawks argue they do little to keep Americans? data safe. But while industry groups, security experts, privacy advocates and lawmakers of both parties agree that Congress must do something to unify these laws, no one has been able to agree on what that ?something? should be. < - > https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/01/equifax-data-breach-congress-action-319631 From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jan 3 05:02:42 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2018 11:02:42 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: NSA's top talent is leaving because of low pay, slumping morale and unpopular reorganization References: <7C829244-26A0-48B9-8F46-420571ABB4F7@roscom.com> Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Monty Solomon > Subject: NSA's top talent is leaving because of low pay, slumping morale and unpopular reorganization > Date: January 3, 2018 at 12:51:13 AM EST > To: Richard Forno > > > NSA?s top talent is leaving because of low pay, slumping morale and unpopular reorganization > > Since 2015, the spy service has lost several hundred hackers, engineers and data scientists. > > https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-nsas-top-talent-is-leaving-because-of-low-pay-and-battered-morale/2018/01/02/ff19f0c6-ec04-11e7-9f92-10a2203f6c8d_story.html > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jan 3 05:06:21 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2018 11:06:21 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fusion GPS founders speak out Message-ID: <5228A99D-2126-4285-970C-40568447AB76@infowarrior.org> The Republicans? Fake Investigations By Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch Jan. 2, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/opinion/republicans-investigation-fusion-gps.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&_r=0 A generation ago, Republicans sought to protect President Richard Nixon by urging the Senate Watergate committee to look at supposed wrongdoing by Democrats in previous elections. The committee chairman, Sam Ervin, a Democrat, said that would be ?as foolish as the man who went bear hunting and stopped to chase rabbits.? Today, amid a growing criminal inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, congressional Republicans are again chasing rabbits. We know because we?re their favorite quarry. In the year since the publication of the so-called Steele dossier ? the collection of intelligence reports we commissioned about Donald Trump?s ties to Russia ? the president has repeatedly attacked us on Twitter. His allies in Congress have dug through our bank records and sought to tarnish our firm to punish us for highlighting his links to Russia. Conservative news outlets and even our former employer, The Wall Street Journal, have spun a succession of mendacious conspiracy theories about our motives and backers. We are happy to correct the record. In fact, we already have. Three congressional committees have heard over 21 hours of testimony from our firm, Fusion GPS. In those sessions, we toppled the far right?s conspiracy theories and explained how The Washington Free Beacon and the Clinton campaign ? the Republican and Democratic funders of our Trump research ? separately came to hire us in the first place. We walked investigators through our yearlong effort to decipher Mr. Trump?s complex business past, of which the Steele dossier is but one chapter. And we handed over our relevant bank records ? while drawing the line at a fishing expedition for the records of companies we work for that have nothing to do with the Trump case. Republicans have refused to release full transcripts of our firm?s testimony, even as they selectively leak details to media outlets on the far right. It?s time to share what our company told investigators. We don?t believe the Steele dossier was the trigger for the F.B.I.?s investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp. The intelligence committees have known for months that credible allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia were pouring in from independent sources during the campaign. Yet lawmakers in the thrall of the president continue to wage a cynical campaign to portray us as the unwitting victims of Kremlin disinformation. We suggested investigators look into the bank records of Deutsche Bank and others that were funding Mr. Trump?s businesses. Congress appears uninterested in that tip: Reportedly, ours are the only bank records the House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed. We told Congress that from Manhattan to Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., and from Toronto to Panama, we found widespread evidence that Mr. Trump and his organization had worked with a wide array of dubious Russians in arrangements that often raised questions about money laundering. Likewise, those deals don?t seem to interest Congress. We explained how, from our past journalistic work in Europe, we were deeply familiar with the political operative Paul Manafort?s coziness with Moscow and his financial ties to Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin. Finally, we debunked the biggest canard being pushed by the president?s men ? the notion that we somehow knew of the June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower between some Russians and the Trump brain trust. We first learned of that meeting from news reports last year ? and the committees know it. They also know that these Russians were unaware of the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele?s work for us and were not sources for his reports. Yes, we hired Mr. Steele, a highly respected Russia expert. But we did so without informing him whom we were working for and gave him no specific marching orders beyond this basic question: Why did Mr. Trump repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police state that most serious investors shun? What came back shocked us. Mr. Steele?s sources in Russia (who were not paid) reported on an extensive ? and now confirmed ? effort by the Kremlin to help elect Mr. Trump president. Mr. Steele saw this as a crime in progress and decided he needed to report it to the F.B.I. We did not discuss that decision with our clients, or anyone else. Instead, we deferred to Mr. Steele, a trusted friend and intelligence professional with a long history of working with law enforcement. We did not speak to the F.B.I. and haven?t since. After the election, Mr. Steele decided to share his intelligence with Senator John McCain via an emissary. We helped him do that. The goal was to alert the United States national security community to an attack on our country by a hostile foreign power. We did not, however, share the dossier with BuzzFeed, which to our dismay published it last January. We?re extremely proud of our work to highlight Mr. Trump?s Russia ties. To have done so is our right under the First Amendment. It is time to stop chasing rabbits. The public still has much to learn about a man with the most troubling business past of any United States president. Congress should release transcripts of our firm?s testimony, so that the American people can learn the truth about our work and most important, what happened to our democracy. Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch, both former journalists, are the founders of the research firm Fusion GPS. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jan 3 05:13:27 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2018 11:13:27 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - 'Kernel memory leaking' Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign Message-ID: 'Kernel memory leaking' Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jan 3 18:21:36 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:21:36 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - POTUS dissolves voter fraud commission Message-ID: <10D0C155-AC30-43B7-932E-4FC5CE4F7132@infowarrior.org> (So much #winning! --rick) Trump dissolves voter fraud commission By Brandon Carter - 01/03/18 06:49 PM EST 257 http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/367343-trump-dissolves-voter-fraud-commission The White House announced Wednesday that President Trump is dissolving his voter fraud commission after states failed to hand over requested information. ?Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry,? Trump said in a statement released by the White House. ?Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today I signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission, and have asked the Department of Homeland Security to review these issues and determine next courses of action.? Trump created the bipartisan commission by executive order in May. The president has claimed without evidence that thousands of people voted illegally in the 2016 election. ?This breaking news story will be updated. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 4 06:52:44 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2018 12:52:44 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Yes, Your Amazon Echo Is an Ad Machine Message-ID: Yes, Your Amazon Echo Is an Ad Machine Adam Clark Estes 3-4 minutes https://gizmodo.com/yes-your-amazon-echo-is-an-ad-machine-1821712916 CNBC reports that Amazon is in discussions with huge companies that want to promote their goods on Echo devices. Proctor & Gamble as well as Clorox are reportedly in talks for major advertising deals that would allow Alexa to suggest products for you to buy. CNBC uses the example of asking Alexa how to remove a stain, with Alexa in turn recommending a Clorox product. So far it?s unclear how Amazon would identify promoted responses from Alexa, if at all. Here?s the really wacky thing: Amazon has already been doing this sort of thing to some degree. Currently, paid promotions are built into Alexa responses, but maybe you just haven?t noticed it. CNBC uses this example: There are already some sponsorships on Alexa that aren?t tied to a user?s history. If a shopper asks Alexa to buy toothpaste, one response is, ?Okay, I can look for a brand, like Colgate. What would you like?? So it seems like Amazon wants to get you coming and going. Not only does the company want to let you buy stuff with your voice. Jeff Bezos and friends also want to make money by suggesting what to buy and even by pushing those products higher up in the search results so that you?re more likely to do it. If this strategy sounds familiar, that?s because it?s essentially how the internet works. You?re allowed to ask Google all kinds of questions so that Google can charge companies to serve you relevant ads?ads that might make you buy those companies? products. It?s capitalism, baby, and it?s hardly dead. Nowadays, it?s just artificially intelligent, which is beyond terrifying. Then again, you might find this convenient. Browsing pages on Amazon.com to find a cleaning product can be a real chore; it?s almost as bad as walking down the aisles of Target trying to pick the right thing for the job. Where this whole dance gets tricky is when Amazon accumulates so much power and market share that it can control the product pipeline and dictate prices. That might be why Amazon is potentially thinking about buying Target. Heck, the company already owns Whole Foods. One more massive brick-and-mortar retail store would really prepare Amazon to take on Walmart in a big way, especially if people can just bark at their Echo about what they want to buy and then go pick it all up at the store. Who knows if any of that will happen. Well, the advertising thing, that?s already happening, and it?s reportedly about to happen more often. Amazon is also selling an insane amount of goods. Around the same time that the CNBC story about ads on Echo dropped, Amazon announced it had sold over 5 billion items via Prime in 2017. That?s almost as many products as there are people on the planet. So yes, Amazon is getting big. And yes, your Echo is listening. About the author Adam Clark Estes Senior editor at Gizmodo. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 4 06:53:34 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2018 12:53:34 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - AI System Sorts News Articles By Whether or Not They Contain Actual Information Message-ID: AI System Sorts News Articles By Whether or Not They Contain Actual Information https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/paq3eb/machine-learning-news-aggregation < - > In a recent paper published in the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, computer scientists Ani Nenkova and Yinfei Yang, of Google and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively, describe a new machine learning approach to classifying written journalism according to a formalized idea of ?content density.? With an average accuracy of around 80 percent, their system was able to accurately classify news stories across a wide range of domains, spanning from international relations and business to sports and science journalism, when evaluated against a ground truth dataset of already correctly classified news articles. < - > From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jan 6 19:59:39 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2018 01:59:39 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - John Young, Who Led First Space Shuttle Mission, Dies at 87 Message-ID: <63489784-72F9-438E-BCE1-ABDC0E0BFD70@infowarrior.org> John Young, Who Led First Space Shuttle Mission, Dies at 87 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/obituaries/john-young-dead.html John W. Young, who walked on the moon, commanded the first space shuttle mission and became the first person to fly in space six times, died on Friday at his home in Houston. He was 87. His death was announced by the acting administrator of NASA, Robert Lightfoot, who said the cause was complications of pneumonia. Mr. Young joined NASA in the early years of manned spaceflight and was still flying, at age 53, in the era of space shuttles. He was the only astronaut to fly in the Gemini, Apollo and shuttle programs. He was also chief of NASA?s astronauts office for 13 years and a leading executive at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. When he was honored by the Smithsonian?s Air and Space Museum upon retiring from NASA in December 2004, after 42 years with the agency, Mr. Young played down his accomplishments. ?Anybody could have done it,?? he told The Orlando Sentinel. ?You?ve just got to hang in there.? But Robert Crippen, who flew with Mr. Young on the first space shuttle flight, called him an inspiration to the astronauts who followed him, remarking, ?If they have a hero, that hero is John Young.? In addition to his versatility in flying all manner of spacecraft, Mr. Young was considered a meticulous engineer in troubleshooting technical problems during the preparation for his missions and other spaceflights, and he remained with NASA when many an astronaut headed for the business world. As Mr. Crippen put it: ?It?s rare when an individual comes along that actually personifies his chosen profession, but rare is what John Young is.? After serving as a Navy test pilot, Mr. Young joined NASA in 1962 at the outset of the Gemini program, a bridge between the missions of the original Mercury 7 astronauts and the Apollo program, which sent men to the moon. Mr. Young flew twice in Gemini spaceships, commanded the Apollo mission that preceded Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin?s landing on the lunar surface and later drove a rover vehicle through the moon?s highlands. He closed out his explorations of space by flying on two shuttle missions. Mr. Young had a mischievous side and something of a rebellious streak. He smuggled a corned beef sandwich aboard Gemini 3 to the consternation of NASA officials, who feared that crumbs could have damaged the spacecraft?s systems, though that did not happen. On his flight to the moon, he complained graphically to his fellow crewmen about his flatulence, evidently caused by the potassium-fortified orange juice he was required to drink. He thought he was speaking on a closed radio circuit, but his microphone was open, and all the world heard it. While brainstorming technical problems in preparation for missions, Mr. Young often displayed an easy and seemingly casual manner. ?He drawled his way through conversation and gave the impression he was still the country boy who grew up in Orlando, Florida, back when it was mostly farmland,? Andrew Chaikin wrote in ?A Man on the Moon? (1994). ?Some people saw the country-boy bit as an act; it wasn?t,? Mr. Chaikin continued. ?It was just John?s way of getting the people around him to think a little harder about the problem. Inside Young was an unwavering determination, an overriding sense of responsibility ? to the space country, to the program, to his crew ? and an almost childlike sense of wonder at the universe.? John Watts Young was born on Sept. 24, 1930, in San Francisco, a son of William Young, a civil engineer, and the former Wanda Howland. His father once recalled that as a boy he would ?draw pictures of airplanes and rockets.? Mr. Young, who grew up in Orlando, Fla., went on to Georgia Tech, receiving a bachelor?s degree in aeronautical engineering in 1952. He entered the Navy after graduating and flew fighters before becoming a test pilot. When President John F. Kennedy proposed landing a man on the moon in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress in May 1961, Mr. Young was watching on a small black-and-white television set at the Naval Air Test Center in Florida. He was enthralled by the challenge and joined NASA in September 1962 as one of nine pilots selected for the Gemini program. In March 1965, Mr. Young flew in Gemini 3, the first manned mission of that program, with Virgil Grissom (who was known as Gus), who fired rockets to carry out the first manual change of orbit in a spacecraft. In July 1966, Mr. Young commanded Gemini 10, flying with Michael Collins, in the first dual-rendezvous spaceflight. Their craft docked with an Agena target vehicle while in orbit, then unlocked and came within inches of another Agena, a prelude to the maneuvering that would be required on a mission to the moon. On his third flight, in May 1969, two months before the first moonwalk, Mr. Young was the command module pilot of Apollo 10, orbiting the moon while Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan orbited below him in the lunar module, tracking proposed landing sites. While commanding the Apollo 16 mission in April 1972, Mr. Young, together with Charles Duke, drove the lunar rover vehicle through the previously unexplored highlands of the moon, scooped up more than 200 pounds of rocks, then returned to the command craft, piloted in orbit by Thomas Mattingly. Mr. Young became chief of NASA?s astronaut office in 1974. He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1976, but continued to fly for NASA as a civilian. In April 1981, Mr. Young commanded the Columbia space shuttle, with Mr. Crippen as the pilot, in the first flight of a reusable winged spacecraft. They orbited the earth 36 times, then touched down on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base, the first landing of a spacecraft on a runway. Mr. Young?s final flight came in the fall of 1983 when he commanded Columbia in the first launching of the European-built Spacelab laboratory, which was housed in the shuttle?s cargo bay. The six-man crew flew for 10 days, carrying out numerous experiments. For all his service with NASA, Mr. Young could be a harsh critic of the agency. In January 1986, the Challenger shuttle blew up 73 seconds after launching, killing its seven astronauts. In March, Mr. Young wrote two internal memos asserting that NASA had exposed astronauts to numerous potentially ?catastrophic? hazards because of pressure to maintain its launching schedule. Mr. Young remained as the astronauts? chief until 1987, then became special assistant to the director of the Johnson Space Center for engineering, operation and safety. He continued in a supervisory post at the center until retiring. Mr. Young is survived by his second wife, the former Susy Feldman, two children, John and Sandra, from his first marriage to the former Barbara White, which ended in divorce, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In May 2000, still listed as an active astronaut though he would make no more spaceflights, Mr. Young said he yearned for NASA to fly to the moon again and envisioned missions beyond it. ?Our ability to live and work on other places in the solar system will end up giving us the science and technology that we need to save the species,? he told The Associated Press. ?I?m talking about human beings. I?d hate to miss all that fun.? Correction: January 6, 2018 Because of an editing error, an earlier version of a picture caption with this obituary misidentified the space shuttle that exploded in 2003. It was the Columbia, not the Challenger. A version of this article appears in print on January 7, 2018, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: John Young, 87, Dies; Led First Space Shuttle Mission. Order Reprints From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jan 7 18:24:01 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:24:01 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Very OT: POTUS' secret, shrinking schedule Message-ID: <308F2FD7-24A3-4BAC-A838-A62A77088899@infowarrior.org> Perfect --- he has more time to focus on more pressing national priorities, like bulltripe 'contests' about the news media and ensuring he's constanty trending on Twitter. And, of course, so he can be safely tucked back into bed by 630PM to fondle his cheeseburgers and remotes in order to Make America Grimace Again. At least he's donating his federal salary places so we're not reimbursing him for this level of boorish incompetence and slothyness. -- rick Scoop: Trump's secret, shrinking schedule https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sneak-peek-a7c58480-bc9e-4580-93c1-6358a6102b93.html?chunk=0#story0 President Trump is starting his official day much later than he did in the early days of his presidency, often around 11am, and holding far fewer meetings, according to copies of his private schedule shown to Axios. This is largely to meet Trump?s demands for more ?Executive Time,? which almost always means TV and Twitter time alone in the residence, officials tell us. The schedules shown to me are different than the sanitized ones released to the media and public. The schedule says Trump has "Executive Time" in the Oval Office every day from 8am to 11am, but the reality is he spends that time in his residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting. Trump comes down for his first meeting of the day, which is often an intelligence briefing, at 11am. That's far later than George W. Bush, who typically arrived in the Oval by 6:45am. Obama worked out first thing in the morning and usually got into the Oval between 9 and 10am, according to a former senior aide. Trump's days in the Oval Office are relatively short ? from around 11am to 6pm, then he's back to the residence. During that time he usually has a meeting or two, but spends a good deal of time making phone calls and watching cable news in the dining room adjoining the Oval. Then he's back to the residence for more phone calls and more TV. Take these random examples from this week's real schedule: ? On Tuesday, Trump has his first meeting of the day with Chief of Staff John Kelly at 11am. He then has "Executive Time" for an hour followed by an hour lunch in the private dining room. Then it's another 1 hour 15 minutes of "Executive Time" followed by a 45 minute meeting with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Then another 15 minutes of "Executive Time" before Trump takes his last meeting of the day ? a 3:45pm meeting with the head of Presidential Personnel Johnny DeStefano ? before ending his official day at 4:15pm. ? Other days are fairly similar, unless the president is traveling, in which case the days run longer. On Wednesday this week, for example, the president meets at 11am for his intelligence briefing, then has "Executive Time" until a 2pm meeting with the Norwegian Prime Minister. His last official duty: a video recording with Hope Hicks at 4pm. ? On Thursday, the president has an especially light schedule: "Policy Time" at 11am, then "Executive Time" at 12pm, then lunch for an hour, then more "Executive Time" from 1:30pm. Trump's schedule wasn't always like this. In the earliest days of the Trump administration it began earlier and ended later. Trump would have breakfast meetings (e.g. hosting business leaders in the Roosevelt Room). He didn't like the longer official schedule and pushed for later starts. The morning intelligence briefing ended up settling around 10:30am. Aides say Trump is always doing something ? he's a whirl of activity and some aides wish he would sleep more ? but his time in the residence is unstructured and undisciplined. He's calling people, watching TV, tweeting, and generally taking the same loose, improvisational approach to being president that he took to running the Trump Organization for so many years. Old habits die hard. In response to this article, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote: ? "The time in the morning is a mix of residence time and Oval Office time but he always has calls with staff, Hill members, cabinet members and foreign leaders during this time. The President is one of the hardest workers I've ever seen and puts in long hours and long days nearly every day of the week all year long. It has been noted by reporters many times that they wish he would slow down because they sometimes have trouble keeping up with him." From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jan 7 18:26:38 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:26:38 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Security Flaw in AMD's Secure Chip-On-Chip Processor Disclosed Online Message-ID: Security Flaw in AMD's Secure Chip-On-Chip Processor Disclosed Online AMD has fixed, but not yet released BIOS/UEFI/firmware updates for the general public for a security flaw affecting the AMD Secure Processor. This component, formerly known as AMD PSP (Platform Security Processor), is a chip-on-chip security system, similar to Intel's much-hated Management Engine (ME). Just like Intel ME, the AMD Secure Processor is an integrated coprocessor that sits next to the real AMD64 x86 CPU cores and runs a separate operating system tasked with handling various security-related operations. < - > https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/security-flaw-in-amds-secure-chip-on-chip-processor-disclosed-online/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 9 11:18:09 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2018 17:18:09 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI chief: Encryption is 'urgent public safety issue' Message-ID: <79FC58DA-BFE9-43DB-9396-265959D405DE@infowarrior.org> FBI continues hysterically tilting at windmills ref good-guys-only access to 'strong' crypto. -- rick FBI chief: Encryption is 'urgent public safety issue' By Olivia Beavers - 01/09/18 12:12 PM EST http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/368094-fbi-chief-warns-impenetrable-device-encryption-poses-urgent-public FBI Director Christopher Wray stated Tuesday that the inability of law enforcement agencies to surpass the strong encryptions on electronic devices poses an ?urgent public safety issue.? Wray said that during the last fiscal year, the FBI failed to break through the powerful protective coding of 7,775 devices, even though they had advanced tools at their disposal and the legal right to access the contents, Reuters reported. He said the inability to access cellphone data that is "going dark" would impact FBI investigations across the board including counterterrorism, counterintelligence, human trafficking and organized crime. Much of Wray's speech at the International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS) in New York was posted on the FBI's Twitter account. Wray, who took over as the head of the FBI in August, emphasized that the bureau's inability to overcome the obstacle of encryption is a "public safety issue." The FBI has long argued that law enforcement should have the ability to pry open cellphones as a way of protecting domestic security. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein have repeatedly called for tech companies to design encryption systems that still allow law enforcement access, an argument also made during the Obama administration. This has been resisted by tech companies and privacy advocates. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 9 13:33:13 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2018 19:33:13 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Feinstein posts testimony of Fusion GPS co-founder Message-ID: <3F8B73A1-0927-4F78-ABBA-AEE9E5B5037C@infowarrior.org> Feinstein posts testimony of Fusion GPS co-founder Senator Dianne Feinstein unilaterally released on Tuesday the transcript of a congressional interview with Glenn Simpson, whose research firm was behind the dossier on alleged contacts between Donald Trump?s campaign and the Russian government. The dossier, commissioned by the firm Fusion GPS during the 2016 presidential election campaign, was compiled by a former British spy named Christopher Steele. The document makes an allegation that there was a ?conspiracy of cooperation? between Russian agents and the Trump campaign, and the president has frequently scorned it. Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, said she released the transcript because ?the American people deserve the opportunity to see what he said and judge for themselves?. < - > https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/09/trump-russia-dossier-senator-dianne-feinstein-glenn-simpson From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 9 13:38:30 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2018 19:38:30 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Now Kodak does the bitcoin stock pump.... Message-ID: <91E80C24-64A8-472F-8054-F541BF67E462@infowarrior.org> Paging the SEC..... 130-year-old Eastman Kodak joins cryptocurrency craze with 'KodakCoin'; shares surge The 130-year-old company said Tuesday it has used blockchain, the technology underpinning popular digital currencies such as bitcoin, to create a new platform for digital photography with its own digital currency, called KodakCoin. The site, called KodakOne is "a new economy" for photographers to license their work and receive payments, the company said. Shares of Kodak jumped more than 30 percent Tuesday after the announcement. < - > https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/09/kodak-joins-cryptocraze-with-digital-photo-licensing-site.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jan 10 06:26:33 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2018 12:26:33 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more 'usable' warheads Message-ID: <679980E5-AB9F-48BE-9B47-04C128D84B46@infowarrior.org> US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more 'usable' warheads Julian Borger in Washington https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/09/us-to-loosen-nuclear-weapons-policy-and-develop-more-usable-warheads Tue 9 Jan ?18 19.43 GMT Last modified on Wed 10 Jan ?18 01.05 GMT The Trump administration plans to loosen constraints on the use of nuclear weapons and develop a new low-yield nuclear warhead for US Trident missiles, according to a former official who has seen the most recent draft of a policy review. Jon Wolfsthal, who was special assistant to Barack Obama on arms control and nonproliferation, said the new nuclear posture review prepared by the Pentagon, envisages a modified version of the Trident D5 submarine-launched missiles with only part of its normal warhead, with the intention of deterring Russia from using tactical warheads in a conflict in Eastern Europe. The new nuclear policy is significantly more hawkish that the posture adopted by the Obama administration, which sought to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US defence. Arms control advocates have voiced alarm at the new proposal to make smaller, more ?usable? nuclear weapons, arguing it makes a nuclear war more likely, especially in view of what they see as Donald Trump?s volatility and readiness to brandish the US arsenal in showdowns with the nation?s adversaries. The NPR also expands the circumstances in which the US might use its nuclear arsenal, to include a response to a non-nuclear attack that caused mass casualties, or was aimed at critical infrastructure or nuclear command and control sites. The nuclear posture review (NPR), the first in eight years, is expected to be published after Donald Trump?s State of the Union speech at the end of January. < - > The development of a low-yield warhead for a sea-launched ballistic missile is based on the belief that in any conflict with Russia on Nato?s eastern flank, the Russians would use a tactical nuclear weapon early on, to compensate for their relative weakness in conventional arms. The Russians, the argument goes, would count on US reluctance to use the massive warheads on its existing weapons, leading Washington to back down. Hans Kristensen, the director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that justification for developing the new weapons was incoherent. ?It assumes that the intelligence community has determined that one or several adversaries out there are gambling that the US would be self-deterred from using a ballistic missile warhead because they have larger yield. Thats just not the case. We have never, ever heard anyone say that is so,? Kristensen said. ?I don?t think any adversary ? certainly not Russia, ? would gamble that if they did something with nukes that were low yield that we would not respond. That?s completely ludicrous,? he added. ?I think this is about having some warhead work at the laboratories and exploring options. I don?t see this as a real mission.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 11 06:32:29 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 12:32:29 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Apple's privacy feature costs ad companies millions Message-ID: <0D7CEB42-0F5A-476D-8FE9-AE1DE604D2A8@infowarrior.org> Sad trombone.... --rick No tracking, no revenue: Apple's privacy feature costs ad companies millions Ad-tech firm Criteo likely to cut its 2018 revenue by more than a fifth after Apple blocked ?pervasive? tracking on web browser Safari < - > https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/09/apple-tracking-block-costs-advertising-companies-millions-dollars-criteo-web-browser-safari From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 11 06:46:40 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 12:46:40 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Uber=E2=80=99s_Secret_Tool_for_Keeping_?= =?utf-8?q?the_Cops_in_the_Dark?= Message-ID: <08DBE233-DDF8-4E7B-A10C-8500E9D400AF@infowarrior.org> Uber?s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark At least two dozen times, the San Francisco headquarters locked down equipment in foreign offices to shield files from police raids. By Olivia Zaleski and Eric Newcomer January 11, 2018, 5:30 AM EST https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-11/uber-s-secret-tool-for-keeping-the-cops-in-the-dark In May 2015 about 10 investigators for the Quebec tax authority burst into Uber Technologies Inc.?s office in Montreal. The authorities believed Uber had violated tax laws and had a warrant to collect evidence. Managers on-site knew what to do, say people with knowledge of the event. Like managers at Uber?s hundreds of offices abroad, they?d been trained to page a number that alerted specially trained staff at company headquarters in San Francisco. When the call came in, staffers quickly remotely logged off every computer in the Montreal office, making it practically impossible for the authorities to retrieve the company records they?d obtained a warrant to collect. The investigators left without any evidence. Most tech companies don?t expect police to regularly raid their offices, but Uber isn?t most companies. The ride-hailing startup?s reputation for flouting local labor laws and taxi rules has made it a favorite target for law enforcement agencies around the world. That?s where this remote system, called Ripley, comes in. From spring 2015 until late 2016, Uber routinely used Ripley to thwart police raids in foreign countries, say three people with knowledge of the system. Allusions to its nature can be found in a smattering of court filings, but its details, scope, and origin haven?t been previously reported. The Uber HQ team overseeing Ripley could remotely change passwords and otherwise lock up data on company-owned smartphones, laptops, and desktops as well as shut down the devices. This routine was initially called the unexpected visitor protocol. Employees aware of its existence eventually took to calling it Ripley, after Sigourney Weaver?s flamethrower-wielding hero in the Alien movies. The nickname was inspired by a Ripley line in Aliens, after the acid-blooded extraterrestrials easily best a squad of ground troops. ?Nuke the entire site from orbit. It?s the only way to be sure.? Other companies have shut off computers during police raids, then granted officers access after reviewing a warrant. And Uber has reason to be cautious with the sensitive information it holds about customers and their locations around the world. Ripley stands out partly because it was used regularly?at least two dozen times, the people with knowledge of the system say?and partly because some employees involved say they felt the program slowed investigations that were legally sound in the local offices? jurisdictions. ?Obstruction of justice definitions vary widely by country,? says Ryan Calo, a cyberlaw professor at the University of Washington. ?What?s clear is that Uber maintained a general pattern of legal arbitrage.? ?Like every company with offices around the world, we have security procedures in place to protect corporate and customer data,? Uber said in a statement. ?When it comes to government investigations, it?s our policy to cooperate with all valid searches and requests for data.? Uber has already drawn criminal inquiries from the U.S. Department of Justice for at least five other alleged schemes. In February, the New York Times exposed Uber?s use of a software tool called Greyball, which showed enforcement officers a fake version of its app to protect drivers from getting ticketed. Ripley?s existence gives officials looking into other Uber incidents reason to wonder what they may have missed when their raids were stymied by locked computers or encrypted files. Prosecutors may look at whether Uber obstructed law enforcement in a new light. ?It?s a fine line,? says Albert Gidari, director of privacy at Stanford Law School?s Center for Internet & Society. ?What is going to determine which side of the line you?re on, between obstruction and properly protecting your business, is going to be things like your history, how the government has interacted with you.? About a year after the failed Montreal raid, the judge in the Quebec tax authority?s lawsuit against Uber wrote that ?Uber wanted to shield evidence of its illegal activities? and that the company?s actions in the raid reflected ?all the characteristics of an attempt to obstruct justice.? Uber told the court it never deleted its files. It cooperated with a second search warrant that explicitly covered the files and agreed to collect provincial taxes for each ride. Uber deployed Ripley routinely as recently as late 2016, including during government raids in Amsterdam, Brussels, Hong Kong, and Paris, say the people with knowledge of the matter. The tool was developed in coordination with Uber?s security and legal departments, the people say. The heads of both departments, Joe Sullivan and Salle Yoo, left the company last year. Neither responded to requests for comment. Ripley?s roots date to March 2015, when police stormed Uber?s Brussels office, say people with knowledge of the event. The Belgian authorities, which accused Uber of operating without proper licenses, gained access to the company?s payments system and financial documents as well as driver and employee information. A court order forced Uber to shut down its unlicensed service later that year. Following that raid and another in Paris the same week, Yoo, then Uber?s general counsel, directed her staff to install a standard encryption service and log off computers after 60 seconds of inactivity. She also proposed testing an app to counter raids. Workers in Uber?s IT department were soon tasked with creating a system to keep internal records hidden from intruders entering any of its hundreds of foreign offices. They used software from Twilio Inc. to page staffers who would trigger the lockdown. The security team, which housed many of Uber?s most controversial programs, took over Ripley from the IT department in 2016. In a letter shared with U.S. attorneys and made public in a trade-secrets lawsuit against Uber, Richard Jacobs, a former Uber manager, accused the security group of spying on government officials and rivals. Jacobs?s letter makes an oblique reference to a program for impeding police raids. A 2016 wrongful-dismissal lawsuit by Samuel Spangenberg, another Uber manager, also references its use during the May 2015 tax authority raid in Montreal. The three people with knowledge of the program say they believe Ripley?s use was justified in some cases because police outside the U.S. didn?t always come with warrants or relied on broad orders to conduct fishing expeditions. But the program was a closely guarded secret. Its existence was unknown even to many workers in the Uber offices being raided. Some were bewildered and distressed when law enforcement ordered them to log on to their computers and they were unable to do so, two of the people say. Later versions of Ripley gave Uber the ability to selectively provide information to government agencies that searched the company?s foreign offices. At the direction of company lawyers, security engineers could select which information to share with officials who had warrants to access Uber?s systems, the people say. Another option was contemplated for times when Uber wanted to be less transparent. In 2016 the security team began working on software called uLocker. An early prototype could present a dummy version of a typical login screen to police or other unwanted eyes, the people say. But Uber says no dummy-desktop function was ever implemented or used, and that the current version of uLocker doesn?t include that capability. The project is overseen by John Flynn, Uber?s chief information security officer. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 11 08:44:03 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 14:44:03 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI Calls Apple 'Jerks' and 'Evil Geniuses' For Making iPhone Cracks Difficult Message-ID: <1A29B408-7ABA-4808-8F69-01E40B95D900@infowarrior.org> FBI Calls Apple 'Jerks' and 'Evil Geniuses' For Making iPhone Cracks Difficult https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/01/11/0011209/fbi-calls-apple-jerks-and-evil-geniuses-for-making-iphone-cracks-difficult From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 11 09:00:19 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 15:00:19 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - How robo-call moguls outwitted the government and completely wrecked the Do Not Call list Message-ID: <72F576AC-9A8D-49A1-87DE-1A6B35EEAD97@infowarrior.org> How robo-call moguls outwitted the government and completely wrecked the Do Not Call list By Simon van Zuylen-Wood January 11 at 8:00 AM https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-robo-call-moguls-outwitted-the-government-and-completely-wrecked-the-do-not-call-list/2018/01/09/52c769b6-df7a-11e7-bbd0-9dfb2e37492a_story.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 11 10:59:44 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 16:59:44 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits Message-ID: <1D08833D-3B5D-41C3-8211-93A1E4294F92@infowarrior.org> House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits By Charlie Savage, Eileen Sullivan and Nicholas Fandos https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/us/politics/fisa-surveillance-congress-trump.html Jan. 11, 2018 WASHINGTON ? A yearslong effort by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to impose significant new privacy limits on the National Security Agency?s warrantless surveillance program fell short on Thursday, as the House of Representatives voted to extend the legal basis for that program by six years with only minimal changes. The vote, 256 to 164, centered on an expiring law, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which permits the government to collect without a warrant from American firms, like Google and AT&T, the emails and other communications of foreigners abroad ? even when they are talking to Americans. Before approving the extension of the law, the House voted 233 to 183 to reject an amendment that proposed a series of overhauls. Among them was a requirement that officials get warrants in most cases before hunting for and reading emails and other messages of Americans swept up under the program. The legislation still has to go through the Senate. But fewer lawmakers there appear to favor major changes to spying laws, so the House vote is likely the effective end of a debate over 21st-century surveillance technology and privacy rights that broke out in 2013 following the leaks by the intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden. Congress did, in 2015, vote to end and replace a program that Mr. Snowden exposed under which the N.S.A., under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, had been secretly collecting logs of Americans? domestic phone calls in bulk. But lawmakers who favored extending that overhaul to the warrantless surveillance program fell short in adding to that feat. The vote on Thursday was a victory for the Trump administration and the intelligence community, which opposed imposing major new curbs on the program, and for Republican leadership, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who had blocked the House from an opportunity to consider a less-sweeping compromise package developed by the House Judiciary Committee. They gambled that faced with an all-or-essentially-nothing choice, a majority of lawmakers would choose the status quo ? and won. Earlier on Thursday, President Trump contradicted his own White House and top national security officials in a Twitter post that criticized an important surveillance law just as Congress began debating whether to approve it. But less than two hours later, the president appeared to reverse himself, telling lawmakers to ?Get smart!? Mr. Trump?s first tweet on the topic appeared to encourage lawmakers to support limiting the law. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/951431836030459905 He was referring to an explosive and largely uncorroborated dossier that details claims about ties between Russia and Mr. Trump and his aides. The tweet enraged Republican leaders on Capitol Hill who have been trying to chart a course to renew it, more or less intact. Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Mr. Trump spoke by phone between the president?s two tweets, according to a senior Republican congressional aide. Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, asked Mr. Ryan to pull the bill from consideration, according to a senior Democratic aide familiar with the request. But Republicans, battling a last-minute push from conservative lawmakers, gambled on moving forward with a vote. Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate had counted on enough moderate Democrats and Republicans to stick together to extend the legal basis for the surveillance program, with only minimal changes. John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, was spotted in a House cloakroom talking to members before the vote in a last-minute lobbying push. https://twitter.com/Phil_Mattingly/status/951492396633780224 Mr. Trump, who is known to watch Fox News while he is tweeting, posted his tweet shortly after a Fox News legal analyst appealed directly to the president during a Thursday morning segment about the coming House vote. The analyst, Andrew Napolitano, turned to television cameras and said, ?Mr. President, this is not the way to go.? He added that Mr. Trump?s ?woes? began with surveillance. By midmorning, in a follow-up tweet, the president appeared to step back from supporting the limits that his own administration has been encouraging lawmakers to reject. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/951457382651056128 From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 11 11:02:34 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 17:02:34 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?_9th_Circuit_Appeals=3A_Violating_a_Web?= =?utf-8?q?site=E2=80=99s_Terms_of_Service_Is_Not_a_Crime?= Message-ID: Ninth Circuit Doubles Down: Violating a Website?s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/ninth-circuit-doubles-down-violating-websites-terms-service-not-crime From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 16 12:00:29 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 18:00:29 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Apple health data used in murder trial Message-ID: <69AC8F89-340D-43B6-A92A-C0463F16390C@infowarrior.org> Apple health data used in murder trial ? 12 January 2018 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42663297 Health data has provided crucial evidence at a trial in Germany, in which a refugee is accused of rape and murder. Apple's Health App accurately records steps and has been pre-installed on the iPhone 6S and newer models. Data suggesting the suspect was climbing stairs could correlate to him dragging his victim down a riverbank and climbing back up, police said. The accused - Hussein K - has admitted his guilt but disputed some details. The 19-year-old medical student Maria Ladenburger was murdered in October 2016 and the trial - at the district court in Freiburg - started in September. Ms Ladenburger was raped and drowned in the River Dresiam. The suspect - identified by a hair found at the scene of the crime - refused to provide police with the PIN code to his phone so investigating officers turned to an unnamed cyber-forensics firm in Munich, which broke into the device. The health data app on iPhones records activity - including how many steps are taken, nutrition and sleep patterns as well as various body measurements such as heart rate. As well as locating Hussein's movements, the phone also suggested periods of more strenuous activity, including two peaks, which the app put down to him "climbing stairs". An investigator of similar build to the suspect went to the area where the body was found and recreated how the police believe he disposed of the body. The police officer's movement data on the same app showed him also "climbing stairs". "For the first time, we correlated health and geo-data," chief of police Peter Egetemaier told the court, according to German paper Die Welt. Complicating the trial are attempts to pin down Hussein's real age. He initially claimed that he was 17 but his father, tracked down to Iran, has disputed this. Age will play a part in sentencing. The maximum for someone under 18 is 10 years, whereas the adult sentence for such a crime could be up to 30 years. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 16 12:10:28 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 18:10:28 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: How the Tet Offensive Undermined American Faith in Government References: <1873822676.1690760.1516103388626@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Mark M > > How the Tet Offensive Undermined American Faith in Government > By Julian E. Zelizer > > January 15, 2018 > > http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/01/how-tet-offensive-undermined-american-faith-government/145203/ > > > When Americans wince upon hearing presidents make proclamations about foreign policy, the legacy of the 1968 Tet Offensive looms large. > > On January 30, at the start of the sacred Vietnamese holiday of Tet, which celebrated the start of the new lunar year, the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong launched a massive military offensive that proved the battle raging in Southeast Asia was far from over, and that President Lyndon B. Johnson?s administration had grossly oversold American progress to the public. Although U.S. troops ultimately ended the offensive successfully, and the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong suffered brutal loses, these bloody weeks triggered a series of events that continue to undermine Americans? confidence in their government. > > The Tet offensive came after several months of the North Vietnamese modifying their strategy. Rather than a battle of attrition, the leadership planned to launch a massive assault that aimed to undermine the morale of the South Vietnamese as well as the American public. Since December, the North Vietnamese had been conducting a series of attacks meant to send U.S. forces in the wrong direction. Johnson and his military advisors fell for the trick. The president and General William Westmoreland had focused on potential attacks against a U.S. Marine base in Khe Sanh. Johnson kept asking military leaders if they were prepared to defend the base and he kept promising congressional Democrats and Republicans that he had received their assurances everything would be fine. > > Meanwhile, Johnson had conducted a massive public relations blitz in the end of 1967 to convince the public that the war was nearing a conclusion and that the United States was winning. The Progress Campaign, as it was sometimes called, deployed large volumes of data to convince the media that the communists were losing on the battlefield and that their numbers were diminishing. > > Westmoreland told Meet the Press on November 19, 1967 that the U.S could win the war within two years and then proclaimed at the National Press Club on November 21 that ?the end begins to come into view.? In November 1967, according to the Harris poll, confidence in the president?s Vietnam policies rose by 11 points (from 23 to 34 percent). In his State of the Union Address on January 17, Johnson sounded downright optimistic, even though he acknowledged that the U.S. faced major challenges overseas and that victory in Vietnam would take some time. As he asked Congress to pass a tax surcharge to help pay for the escalating costs of the war, while continuing to fund the Great Society, the president declared that the enemy was testing the ?will? of the nation to ?meet the trials that these times impose.? > > In resolute fashion, Johnson went on to promise that ?America will persevere. Our patience and our perseverance will match our power. Aggression will never prevail.? Max Frankel of The New York Times reported, ?Whereas a year ago he promised ?more cost, more loss and more agony? in the war, this year he emphasized the positive, what he called the ?marks of progress,? and dwelt less on the whole issue of the war than in the previous two speeches.? > > Then the situation took a bad turn a few weeks later. The crisis of Tet began in the early morning of January 30, the start of the year of the Monkey. In Saigon, NLF fighters attacked the American embassy. A 20-year-old soldier, Chuck Searcy, recalled waking up after an evening of drinking and movies, that when the sirens went off he assumed it was a drill and they would be able to go back to sleep. ?But then a captain came around the perimeter in a jeep with a loudspeaker announcing that this was not a practice alert ? It was the moment when the war became a reality for us, because up to then, Saigon had been considered a very safe area and quite secure and basically an area that would never be attacked.? The fighting continued until 9:15 the next morning. Nineteen enemy soldiers would lose their lives in the battle for the embassy; five Americans were killed. This was just one of many onslaughts that took place as the communists conducted their offensive in five major cities, 36 provincial capitals and smaller hamlets across the country. > > Desperate to stop the public fallout, on January 31, Johnson ordered Westmoreland to hold daily press briefings to ?convey to the American public your confidence in our capability to blunt these enemy moves, and to reassure the public here that you have the situation under control.? Johnson warned legislators that the anti-war protests in the U.S. were being triggered by allies of the communists. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara privately told Johnson, ?I think it shows two things, Mr. President. First, that they have more power than some credit them with ? My guess is that we will inflict very heavy losses on them, both in terms of personnel and materiel and this will set them back some, but after they absorb the losses, they will remain a substantial force.? > > After the initial shock and awe, U.S. troops mounted a fierce and effective counter-attack, one of the most successful military operations of the war. When it was all over in late February, the communists suffered over 40,000 deaths, including some of their most skilled troops. The fighting ended when the U.S. and South Vietnamese recaptured the city of Hue. > > Yet the military victory turned into a political disaster for the administration. Johnson tried to stop the political bleeding from the realization that the Vietnam War was not ending any time soon. > > The Tet Offensive showed that Johnson and Westmoreland were lying about having ?reached an important point where the end begins to come into view,? as Westmoreland famously had said. > > The media coverage of Tet provided reporters with unprecedented access to the images of the conflict as the battles moved into the cities, and they delivered. One of the most famous images from the period was that of a South Vietnamese brigadier general Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the chief of the national police, putting a bullet in the head of Nguyen Van Lem, a captain in the Vietcong. The photograph, taken by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams on February 1, confirmed the brutality of this conflict to many Americans. Life magazine?s cover on February 16 featured a photograph of two North Vietnamese soldiers with Chinese AK-47 automatic rifles, guarding Hue, with an article by Catherine Leroy called, ?The Enemy Lets Me Take His Picture.? > > The images on television were just as bad. The coverage shifted from smoke and helicopters to soldiers fighting to recapture ground in a brutal war. ?There, on color screens,? one observer noted, ?dead bodies lay amidst the rubble and the rattle of automatic gunfire as dazed American soldiers and civilians ran back and forth trying to flush out the assailants.? Walter Cronkite famously signed off his broadcast challenging the president and joining journalists who had increasingly been saying that the government was not telling the full truth. ?Who won and lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I?m not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout but neither did we ? For it seems now more certain than ever, that the bloody experience in Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.? ABC anchor Frank McGee followed up a few days later telling viewers ?The war is being lost? while his colleague Frank Reynolds said it put the president?s credibility ?under fire.? > > Inside the White House, the historian Robert Dallek found that Johnson?s advisors were shaken. Following one meeting of foreign policy advisors, Joseph Califano reported that they were ?beyond pessimistic.? The new secretary of defense, Clark Clifford, recalled that ?It is hard to imagine or recreate the atmosphere in the sixty days after Tet. The pressure grew so intense that at times I felt the government might come apart at its seams. Leadership was fraying at its very center?something very rare in a nation with so stable a government structure.? Clifford said that in early March he made his ?overwhelming priority? as Secretary ?to extricate our nation from an endless war.? > > ?The element of hope has been taken away by the Tet Offensive,? noted Secretary of State Dean Rusk, ?People don?t think there is likely to be an end.? Newsweek ran a cover story on February 19, with Westmoreland on the cover, entitled ?Man on the Spot.? > > By the time that Tet ended, Johnson was left with a massive credibility gap that overshadowed everything he had done on domestic policy. By March, when anti-war Democrat Senator Eugene McCarthy performed unexpectedly well in the New Hampshire primary, the polls had really turned on the president and the war. An initial spike in public support from Tet in February, with a notable increase in hawkish sentiment about Vietnam, turned hard against the administration in March. 49 percent of Americans thought the war was a mistake; only 41 percent thought it was the right decision. Only 35 percent believed that it would end within the next two years. His overall approval ratings for handling the war fell to a meager 26 percent. On the last day of the month, with his support plummeting, Johnson shocked the nation by going on television to announce that he would not run for reelection. > > When rumors circulated that Westmoreland had asked for 206,000 more troops in response to Tet, Americans were outraged and the apparent blindness of the people in power. The Democratic Convention in 1968 was a disaster, as liberal Democrats and the anti-war movement opened up a civil war. Ironically, the person to reap the most benefits from the war was Richard Nixon, the next president of the United States, who lied and deceived the public about Vietnam in ways that even Johnson could not have imagined. > > Besides the damage that Tet imposed on Johnson, the surprise attack and the revelation that the administration had vastly oversold the prospects for success were a severe blow to public confidence in American government leaders to tell the truth and to do the right thing. > > The right also took its own lessons from Tet and other parts of the increasingly critical wartime coverage, namely that the media could not be trusted. As reporters focused on Tet as evidence of failure, hawkish Democrats and Republicans were quick to note, rightly so, that the U.S. counter-offensive had been successful. Johnson felt this way and tried to hammer away on the point that the media was misrepresenting what happened. For decades, coverage of Tet would remain to conservatives a symbol of why the ?liberal establishment? could not be trusted to give the public a realistic assessment of national security issues. > > For much of the nation, however, the specifics of Tet were beside the points. The real story was the context of the disastrous policies in Vietnam that cost thousands of American lives every month, undermined the nation?s moral authority in the Cold War, and didn?t seem to be working. As the historian Fred Logevall has argued, Tet is not the sole culprit behind the shattered faith from Vietnam, as opposition to the war and the realization of government falsehood had been growing for several years. But Tet still packed an extraordinarily powerful punch on a nation primed to be disillusioned. Based on what they were seeing in the winter of 1968, the communists in North Vietnam remained strong and determined, and promises that the war was ending were simply not true. > > Tet shaped the world within which we live today: In an era when Americans still don?t fully trust government officials to tell them the truth about situations overseas, and don?t have confidence that leaders, for all their bluster, will do the right thing. > > Tet is an important reminder that for liberals and conservatives sometimes a little distrust is a good thing. Particularly at a time when we have a president who traffics heavily in falsehoods, Tet showed that blind confidence in leaders can easily lead down dangerous paths. > > By Julian E. Zelizer // Julian E. Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and a fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the author of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 16 13:33:09 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 19:33:09 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: Cybersecurity Today Is Treated Like Accounting Before Enron References: Message-ID: <77BF6C3E-6E38-42AC-9710-C510CC4D1C9D@infowarrior.org> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Simon > Cybersecurity Today Is Treated Like Accounting Before Enron > > By NATHANIEL FICK > > JAN. 8, 2018 > > https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/opinion/cybersecurity-breach-spectre-meltdown.html > > Last week, we learned that researchers had discovered two major flaws in microprocessors of nearly all the world?s computers. The revelation came on the heels of a distressing series of major hacks: In 2017, Yahoo revealed that all of its three billion accounts were compromised, WannaCry ransomware shut down hospitals across the globe, and an Equifax breach affected approximately 145.5 million consumers in the United States. The latest news about the computer security problems ? whose names, ?Spectre? and ?Meltdown,? appropriately convey their seriousness ? is just the latest evidence that true digital security remains out of our reach. > > But when these vulnerabilities are exposed and damaging attacks occur, there are few lasting repercussions. Almost without fail, stock prices bounce back, customers return, executives keep their jobs or exit with golden parachutes, and government mostly looks the other way. After the news of Equifax?s massive breach, for example, the company?s stock dropped roughly 35 percent. But it?s already recovered nearly half of its lost market value, and Fortune reported that the former chief executive officer Richard Smith retired with as much as $90 million in compensation. Resilience is one of the hallmarks of stable, mature markets, but something isn?t right here. > > The tepid consequences are part of a growing problem. From a corporate governance and accountability perspective, cybersecurity today is being treated like accounting was before the fallout from the Enron scandal inspired the Sarbanes-Oxley Act?s increased standards for corporate disclosures. With the privacy and personal data of hundreds of millions of people at risk, and especially now with the increasing ubiquity of connected devices in our lives, the security of digital assets is too important for that kind of treatment. We need to bolster a culture of responsibility around cybersecurity, combining stronger and more uniform corporate governance with a clearer government commitment to enact better defensive policies. > > A complex hack may not be a C.E.O.?s fault, but it is absolutely his or her responsibility. Investors and consumers need to demand more from the executives to whom they entrust their digital lives. The same holds true for government. Protection of the welfare and livelihood of its citizens is a foundational principle of government, and yet for more than a decade there has been very little consequence for nation-states and state-affiliated groups who?ve pilfered the intellectual property, and violated the personal privacy, of citizens and companies around the world. > > Strengthening a culture of responsibility will require changes by both companies and the government. Last year, the New York State Department of Financial Services took a promising step by implementing new data-security regulations for certain financial companies operating within the state. It includes rules for reporting cybersecurity events within 72 hours, annual proof-of-penetration tests, and, by 2020, third-party assessments ? all designed to increase accountability and remove the fog of uncertainty that often surrounds breaches. The federal government would be wise to follow New York?s lead and implement similar laws on the federal level. Without federal action in this regard, increased regulation of cybersecurity practices will happen anyway, but in a fragmentary and disjointed way. More uniform regulations can help a more uniform standard to emerge, providing companies with the predictability and certainty they need in order to evaluate their risk management and security investments the right way. > > While more must be expected of companies, more should be expected of government as well. American businesses are under attack by our nation?s geopolitical adversaries, and by nonstate groups affiliated with them. Just imagine if American shipping companies were battling foreign navies, or if domestic airlines were fighting an adversary?s air force. This asymmetry locks the businesses into fights they cannot win. > > Continue reading the main story > In its most dire scenario, the increasing velocity and severity of cyberattacks on American companies may encourage more firms to take matters into their own hands by ?hacking back? against their attackers. This would open a Pandora?s box of ugly consequences. Even large Wall Street banks, spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on security, cannot win against the Chinese or Russian militaries, so they escalate at their peril. > > But if private companies and individuals are not to fight back in self-defense, then their government must do a better job on their behalf. > > In short, the federal government must ensure that deterrence works in the digital domain. Cyberconflicts often pit the vast resources of nation-states against those of private companies. Businesses can only be reasonably expected to agree to increased cybersecurity regulation if they have confidence in the government to perform its basic function of protecting its citizens. > > Just as policy frameworks exist to respond to, and dissuade, physical attacks on Americans and their interests, foreign and domestic, so the government must deter adventurism in cyberspace. Notably, this doesn?t merely mean that one hack justifies another ? rather, the full range of diplomatic, informational, economic and military options should be on the table. Failure to make such consequences clear and credible contributes to a fundamental failure of deterrence in cyberspace and exposes the United States government, American businesses, and individual citizens to many more such attacks in the future. > > Every business is now a digital business, and nearly every citizen is increasingly reliant on the connected world. We live in an era of mass targeted attacks where nation state-level resources are being directed against companies and private citizens, and until our security culture changes, we can expect to see more massive breaches throughout 2018 and beyond. > > Nathaniel Fick is the chief executive of Endgame, a cybersecurity software company. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 16 17:03:51 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 23:03:51 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI's San Francisco Chief: We Heart Apple, They Train Our Cops Message-ID: <64F370BB-CA01-4D16-8923-F980606432AD@infowarrior.org> FBI's San Francisco Chief: We Heart Apple, They Train Our Cops Thomas Fox-Brewster , Forbes Staff https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/01/16/apple-and-the-fbi-are-closer-than-you-think/#6555920b4b63 John Bennett, head of the California division of the FBI, believes the relationship between law enforcement and Silicon Valley giants like Apple is improving. Since its 2016 bust-up with Apple over access to the iPhone of San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook, some at the FBI have tried a different tack in dealing with an increasingly privacy-conscious Silicon Valley. Just as Apple has recently been offering olive branches of a sort to cops trying to access data on encrypted iPhones, there's been an effort on the feds' behalf to develop a more cooperative approach. John Bennett, special agent in charge at the FBI San Francisco division, is one of those presenting a new narrative of bonhomie and camaraderie. Bennett was reportedly one of the pivotal figures in the San Bernardino incident, though he won't tell Forbes much about it. And he now finds himself as something of a peacemaker at the center of the modern-day Crypto Wars, where smartphone and software giants develop increasingly powerful encryption, giving citizens much improved privacy, whilst the cops try to undermine those protections to get at criminals benefitting from the improvements. Bennett's been a solider in the war for some time now, having been the section chief of the Digital Forensics and Analysis Section in the Operational Technology Division, one of the FBI's main hacking units based out of Quantico, Virginia. And he'll continue to find himself in the middle of tussles between feds and the increasingly pro-privacy techies; the San Francisco bureau is a go-between for national FBI units and Silicon Valley giants like Apple. After speaking to Bennett just before Christmas, it was clear the relationship between Apple and law enforcement (in San Francisco at least) was much closer than the stream of media stories would have one believe. He had much praise for Apple, particularly for its direct assistance for law enforcement, not just at the FBI but at local police departments too. That included training at the FBI's Silicon Valley Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory (RCFL). "They've offered training for Mac forensics and they do that for a lot of law enforcement. We just happen to be in their backyard, so it's a little easier for when they want to do a class," Bennett said. "We schedule something, they come to the facility and we bring people in from around the country to work with them. They offer those forensic training classes, not only to the FBI but to local departments too." How Apple trains cops There's little-to-zero public information on Apple's training for law enforcement and it's not something the iPhone maker has ever discussed openly. But one source close to the company told Forbes that whilst its trainings don't include information on breaking Apple security to fully access devices, employees walk the FBI through the best processes to get information from suspect iPhones, Macs and iCloud accounts, all in line with the company's public guidelines. Forensic agents are given updates to any changes to iOS or MacOS that could have an impact on investigations, the source said. Recommended by Forbes Much of Apple's time is given to local and regional police, who have understanding of neither the tech nor the process to request data from Apple, the source added. (They detailed one case in which a local police department printed out 15,000 pages when it received a data file from Apple, rather than dealing with it digitally.) Apple provides its training free of charge too. Looking back at the San Bernardino shooting and its aftermath, Bennett recalls much being made of the government vs. Apple story. "A lot of people made a lot of hay that everyone was at war with each other.... Apple is a great company that we have tremendous respect for," he told Forbes. "We have a great relationship with them from a local field perspective and also from understanding products and what they do from an engineering standpoint, which [goes back] to Quantico." That Virginia base is where the FBI carries out much of its hacking and offensive work against criminals and their tech, in particular via its computer forensics labs and the Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU). According to Bennett, the relationship isn't one-way traffic. "From our experience in San Francisco, we have meetings with Apple and they are not only a great company but they're also victims. Their stuff gets hit and their employees get in harm's way, so they call us locally on a lot of things they need help for ." Some love lost Not that there's a tabula rasa from which to write a new love story between tech giants and the cops. Bennett's approach as chief of a department that acts as a liaison between Silicon Valley and wider American law enforcement appears, on the face of it, less belligerent than that of his colleagues. Earlier this month, his boss and FBI head Christopher Wray gave a keynote at Fordham University, during the FBI International Conference on Cyber Security, in which he said whilst the FBI supported strong encryption, software needed "to be thoughtfully designed so they don't undermine the lawful tools we need to keep this country safe." "Being unable to access nearly 7,800 devices is a major public safety issue. That's more than half of all the devices we attempted to access in that timeframe - and that's just at the FBI," Wray said. "That's not even counting a lot of devices sought by other law enforcement agencies - our state, local and foreign counterparts. It also doesn't count important situations outside of accessing a specific device, like when terrorists, spies and criminals use encrypted messaging apps to communicate." Just last week, as reported by Motherboard, FBI forensic expert Stephen Flatley called Apple "jerks" and "evil geniuses" for making it increasingly difficult for investigators to get into devices. And last year, it appeared another standoff was imminent, as the feds sought access to the iPhone SE of Texas shooter Devin Kelley, who killed 26 at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs in November. Apple reportedly offered the FBI assistance with getting data from Devin's phone shortly after it learned cops wanted access to the phone, but didn't receive a response from the FBI. Forbes was told by a source familiar with the matter that in order to get into that phone, the FBI has approached at least one third party asking for assistance to get into Kelley's iPhone, just as the agency did for the San Bernardino device, when it coughed up somewhere between $900,000 and $1.5 million to the successful bidder. Forbes was unable to determine if a contract was awarded or if the FBI found a way into the device. A spokesperson for the FBI said it didn't have any more to add to the matter than what was already public. Bennett isn't entirely enamored by Apple's focus on improving iPhone security with layers of encryption. But he understands the Cupertino company's approach. "They're in an interesting environment where they have to service a legal process from agencies, from FBI to GCHQ to Chinese to Russian services. They are trying to make sure everyone is playing from a level field. "What Apple has tried to do in the past is engineer their ability out of having access to people's private data, and that's the balance former [FBI] director [James] Comey had talked about, the balance between safety and privacy. We're not here to say one is better than the other." From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 18 10:10:44 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 16:10:44 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Apple Is Blocking an App That Detects Net Neutrality Violations From the App Store Message-ID: <70C5B0FA-BC21-41D1-8C56-D5A46FF61215@infowarrior.org> Apple Is Blocking an App That Detects Net Neutrality Violations From the App Store Apple told a university professor his app "has no direct benefits to the user." https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5vn9k/apple-blocking-net-neutrality-app-wehe From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 18 15:49:53 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 21:49:53 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Sebastian Gorka wanted on Hungarian gun charges Message-ID: <09187B10-48CC-462D-8DC6-AF6EF4E3EF5E@infowarrior.org> Hungarian Police Have A Warrant Out For Former Trump Adviser Sebastian Gorka Gorka's warrant on gun charges was in effect the entire time he was in the White House. Originally posted on January 18, 2018, at 11:49 a.m. Updated on January 18, 2018, at 12:31 p.m. https://www.buzzfeed.com/hayesbrown/hungarian-warrant-for-sebastian-gorka Hayes Brown BuzzFeed News Reporter Former Trump White House staffer Sebastian Gorka has an active warrant out for his arrest in Hungary, according to the Hungarian police's website. Gorka, whose exact role in the White House while serving as a deputy assistant to the president was never entirely clear, apparently is in trouble with the law over a charge of "firearm or ammunition abuse." The warrant, first reported in Hungarian online outlet 444, was issued on Sept. 17, 2016, prior to Trump's election. That means that during the entire seven months Gorka spent in the White House, including when meeting with Hungarian Foreign Minister P?ter Szijj?rt? in Washington last March, an arrest warrant was pending overseas. Details about the reasoning behind the warrant are sparse: The Hungarian police's website only notes the date it was issued, the charge, and that it was filed with the Buda?rs police station in Budapest. 444 noted that the charge could have resulted from an incident as far back as 2009. The police station did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' request for comment. Gorka declined to comment. "Don't waste your time," he said when reached by phone. "I don't talk to BuzzFeed, thank you." After this story's publication, Gorka noted on Twitter that he moved to the US in 2008 while not denying that the warrant exists. Gorka's affinity for guns is well-known. He told Recoil magazine in November that he packs a pistol ? along with a knife and tourniquet ? every day. In February 2016, he had a gun confiscated after attempting to bring it through Washington's Reagan National Airport. BuzzFeed News previously reported on Gorka's history in Hungary. The details of Gorka's leaving the White House still remain murky: He claims to have resigned, but reports at the time indicated that he was fired and the Secret Service ordered not to let him into the building. Whether or not Gorka possessed a security clearance during his months in the Trump administration is also at question, with reports suggesting he had none. A background check prior to the issuance of a clearance likely would have turned up Gorka's warrant. CORRECTION January 18, 2018, at 12:32 p.m. Sebastian Gorka was born in London. A previous version of this article mistakenly referred to him as a native Hungarian. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 18 15:51:24 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 21:51:24 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - NSA surveillance programs renewed by Senate Message-ID: <0070C299-99DD-4107-B312-BD5C6B58A996@infowarrior.org> NSA surveillance programs renewed by Senate Laura Hautala January 18, 2018 10:25 AM PST https://www.cnet.com/news/nsa-surveillance-programs-upstream-prism-edward-snowden-renewed-senate/ The US Senate voted Thursday to extend NSA surveillance programs first revealed by Edward Snowden. With little debate, the US Senate voted 65 to 34 Thursday to renew the law authorizing key surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency. The programs, known as Prism and Upstream, allow the NSA to collect online communications of foreigners outside the US. Prism collects these communications from internet services, and Upstream taps in to the internet's infrastructure to capture information in transit. Some communications from Americans and others in the US are collected in the process. The vote Thursday renews for six years Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which authorizes the programs. Last week, the House approved a bill renewing the programs. Though the mere existence of the programs caused an uproar when an NSA contractor revealed them in 2013, the lawmakers' debates over renewing the programs focused this year on whether the FBI should have to satisfy more legal requirements before accessing Americans' communications from NSA databases for the agency's investigations. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden first revealed the programs by leaking information about them to journalists in 2013. After the news coverage, the administration of President Barack Obama declassified much information about the programs. In the debate leading up to the vote Thursday, Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, called FISA "the single most important tool that we have." US Intelligence agencies say the programs are vital for defending national security. Thursday's vote came after Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, invoked a rule preventing lawmakers from considering amendments in the debate leading up to a final vote on the renewal. That meant the Senate wouldn't debate reforms proposed by privacy advocates that would require the FBI get a warrant before searching the NSA's database of information scooped up by the Upstream and Prism programs. Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, and Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, said these reforms were necessary to keep the spy programs constitutional. Paul said during a debate that the reforms wouldn't stop the spy programs, or keep the FBI from accessing the information collected by the NSA. "It means they would have to ask a judge," Paul said. "It's called the Fourth Amendment." In a statement, Laila Abdelaziz, who campaigns for the privacy advocacy group Fight for the Future, criticized the Senate for missing an opportunity to reform the surveillance programs. The House of Representatives considered that reform last week but voted down an amendment that included a strict warrant requirement. "The FISA reauthorization bill that just passed turns the internet into a powerful surveillance weapon that can be used by the government against its own citizens," Abdelaziz said. Supporters of the surveillance programs said they're constitutional and that the renewal was appropriate. "Everybody who knows anything about Section 702 knows that it is one of the most important sources of foreign intelligence that we have," said Robert Litt, an attorney who served as general counsel for the Department of National Intelligence during and after Snowden's disclosures. What's more, Litt said, the public outrage about the surveillance programs has faded as the program's scope and purpose became more clear. "I think as people learned more and more about Section 702, they became more and more comfortable with the overall nature of the program," he said. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jan 20 08:44:18 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2018 14:44:18 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?OT=3A_The_Republican=E2=80=99s_Guide_to?= =?utf-8?q?_Presidential_Etiquette?= Message-ID: <54582DE5-A04C-4E87-93A7-E71D765A3A0D@infowarrior.org> The Republican?s Guide to Presidential Etiquette By THE EDITORIAL BOARD JAN. 20, 2018 When the editorial board published the first edition of the Republican?s Guide to Presidential Etiquette last May, we hoped to provide a helpful reminder to those morally upright members of the G.O.P. who were once so concerned about upholding standards of presidential decorum. Remember the hand-wringing when Barack Obama wore a tan suit or tossed a football in the Oval Office? Yet even as the current occupant of the White House continues to find new and shocking ways to defile his office, congressional Republicans have only lashed themselves more tightly to him. The examples come so fast that it?s easy to forget that the last one happened just four days ago, or just this morning. As part of our continuing effort to resist the exhausting and numbing effects of living under a relentlessly abusive and degrading president, we present, for the third time in nine months, an updated guide to what Republicans now consider to be acceptable behavior from the commander in chief. As before, these examples, drawn from incidents or disclosures in the last three-plus months, do not concern policy decisions ? only the president?s words and actions. And no, we?re not even opening that Michael Wolff book. If you are president, you may now: < - > https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/20/opinion/the-Republicans-Guide-to-Presidential-Etiquette.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jan 20 08:45:59 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2018 14:45:59 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - US gov shuts down Message-ID: <0013BD94-13A2-458E-B6FB-882CFED8E2A9@infowarrior.org> So much #winning to mark the one-year anniversary of the 45 regime.... --rick US government enters shutdown after Senate rejects funding bill Sabrina Siddiqui, Ben Jacobs and Lauren Gambino in Washington Sat 20 Jan 2018 07.56 EST First published on Fri 19 Jan 2018 22.33 EST The United States has its first government shutdown in nearly five years after senators failed to reach a deal to keep the lights on. With government shutdown, Republicans reap what they sow An effort by Republicans to keep the government open for one month was rejected in a vote on Friday night after they failed to address Democratic concerns about young undocumented migrants known as Dreamers. Republicans needed 60 votes to pass the bill. Five red-state Democrats supported it while four Republicans voted against and 12am ET came and went without a deal, causing funding for the federal government to lapse. Federal law requires agencies to shut down if Congress has not appropriated money to fund them. Hundreds of thousands of ?non-essential? federal employees will be put on temporary unpaid leave. In previous shutdowns, services deemed ?essential?, such as the work of the homeland security and the FBI, have continued. < - > https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/20/us-government-faces-shutdown-after-senate-rejects-funding-bill From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Jan 20 08:47:56 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2018 14:47:56 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Update_on_Twitter=E2=80=99s_Review_of_t?= =?utf-8?q?he_2016_U=2ES=2E_Election?= Message-ID: <0B1DC85D-9774-49BC-8FC7-35FCC56248F2@infowarrior.org> Update on Twitter?s Review of the 2016 U.S. Election When we appeared before the United States Congress last fall, Twitter publicly committed to regularly updating both congressional committees and the public on findings from our ongoing review into events surrounding the 2016 U.S. election. Twitter is committed to providing a platform that fosters healthy civic discourse and democratic debate. We have been cooperating with congressional investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We have committed to be as transparent as possible about sharing what we have learned through our retroactive investigation into activity related to the election. Since we presented our findings to Congress last fall, we have updated our analysis and continue to look for patterns and signals in data. Today, we are sharing an update on several aspects of that ongoing work, as well as steps we are taking to continue to make progress against potential manipulation of our platform. < - > https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/2016-election-update.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jan 22 08:25:43 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2018 14:25:43 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Fwd: Why Cloudflare Let an Extremist Stronghold Burn References: <40B70DD0-FD09-4B66-91BA-F34F7667FE78@roscom.com> Message-ID: <93C81E6F-8607-49A5-96AC-2DEF325700A7@infowarrior.org> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Monty Solomon > Subject: Why Cloudflare Let an Extremist Stronghold Burn > Date: January 21, 2018 at 12:24:20 PM EST > > Why Cloudflare Let an Extremist Stronghold Burn > https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-cloudflare/ > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Jan 22 20:09:01 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2018 02:09:01 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - New FBI director threatened to resign Message-ID: <35BA80A6-DE43-48CC-B941-4B82FD8B4AF3@infowarrior.org> Scoop: FBI director threatened to resign amid Trump, Sessions pressure https://www.axios.com/scoop-1516661397-877adb3e-5f8d-44a1-8a2f-d4f0894ca6a7.html Attorney General Jeff Sessions ? at the public urging of President Donald Trump ? has been pressuring FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but Wray threatened to resign if McCabe was removed, according to three sources with direct knowledge. ? Wray's resignation under those circumstances would have created a media firestorm. The White House ? understandably gun-shy after the Comey debacle ? didn?t want that scene, so McCabe remains. ? Sessions told White House Counsel Don McGahn about how upset Wray was about the pressure on him to fire McCabe, and McGahn told Sessions this issue wasn?t worth losing the FBI Director over, according to a source familiar with the situation. ? Why it matters: Trump started his presidency by pressuring one FBI Director (before canning him), and then began pressuring another (this time wanting his deputy canned). This much meddling with the FBI for this long is not normal. McGahn has been informed about these ongoing conversations, though he has not spoken with Wray about FBI personnel, according to an administration source briefed on the situation. Trump nominated Wray, previously George W. Bush's Deputy Attorney General, last June to replace James Comey as director. Trump has also tweeted negatively about other senior FBI officials who are allies of Comey, including the former top FBI lawyer James A. Baker who was recently ?reassigned? after pressure from Sessions. White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah said of Wray: ?As we?ve said, the president has enormous respect for the thousands of rank and file FBI agents who make up the world?s most professional and talented law enforcement agency. He believes politically-motivated senior leaders including former Director Comey and others he empowered have tainted the agency?s reputation for unbiased pursuit of justice. The president appointed Chris Wray because he is a man of true character and integrity and the right choice to clean up the misconduct at the highest levels of the FBI and give the rank and file confidence in their leadership.? As I reported last night, Sessions has adamantly urged Wray to make a "fresh start" with his core team. Trump and other Republicans have been hammering McCabe ? who was selected by the White House as acting director after the Comey firing ? for months on Twitter. ? On July 26, Trump tweeted: "Why didn't A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got...big dollars ($700,000) for his wife's political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the Swamp!" The latest: The New York Times ? and others ? reported in December that McCabe "is expected to retire after he becomes eligible for his pension [in] early [2018]." But senior Justice officials are still not sure what McCabe plans to do. The FBI declined to comment for this story. Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores also declined to comment. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 23 06:28:26 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2018 12:28:26 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - SEC is scrutinizing overnight blockchain companies: chairman Message-ID: (About time! --rick) SEC is scrutinizing overnight blockchain companies: chairman Reuters Staff https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-sec-blockchain/sec-is-scrutinizing-overnight-blockchain-companies-chairman-idUSKBN1FB2XI WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is scrutinizing public companies that change their name or business model in a bid to capitalize upon the hype surrounding blockchain technology, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said on Monday. Dozens of little-known companies across the globe have seen their share prices leap in recent months after unveiling plans to enter the bitcoin industry or that of its underlying distributed ledger blockchain technology. In December, the SEC temporarily suspended trading in the shares of Crypto Company (CRCW.PK), a small firm that saw its stock rise more than 2,700 percent after signing a deal to buy a cryptocurrency data platform. Clayton warned that it was not acceptable for companies without a meaningful track record in the sector to dabble in blockchain technology, change their name and immediately offer investors securities without providing adequate disclosures around the risks involved. ?The SEC is looking closely at the disclosures of public companies that shift their business models to capitalize on the perceived promise of distributed ledger technology and whether the disclosures comply with the securities laws, particularly in the case of an offering,? he told a conference on Monday. The chairman also said the SEC had seen ?disturbing? evidence that legal professionals have been wrongly counseling clients that initial coin offerings, whereby cryptocurrency start-ups solicit funds from investors who receive tokens in return, do not need to comply with federal securities law. Crypto Co174.0 CRCW.PKOTC Markets Group - US Other OTC and Grey Market --(--%) ? CRCW.PK The SEC has previously said that such fundraisings should comply with securities law and has warned investors more broadly over the risks of cryptocurrency fraudsters. ?I have instructed the SEC staff to be on high alert for approaches to ICOs that may be contrary to the spirit of our securities laws and the professional obligations of the U.S. securities bar,? Clayton said. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Jan 23 10:51:31 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2018 16:51:31 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?DHS_giving_=E2=80=98active_defense?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=99_cyber_tools_to_private_sector=2C_secretary_says?= Message-ID: <0F81DB97-A5EF-49C7-A2F7-7C9911BFC5DF@infowarrior.org> (This will end well, I'm sure. --rick) DHS giving ?active defense? cyber tools to private sector, secretary says By Morgan Chalfant - 01/16/18 11:50 AM EST 10 http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/369129-homeland-security-giving-active-defense-tools-to-private-sector The Department of Homeland Security is providing tools and resources to private companies to engage in ?active defense? against cyber threats, its secretary said Tuesday, a practice that has drawn scrutiny from some legal and cybersecurity experts. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a Senate panel that ?active defense? is part of the department?s engagement with the private sector. ?There is wide disagreement with respect to what it means,? Nielsen said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. ?What it means is, we want to provide the tools and resources to the private sector to protect their systems.? ?So, if we can anticipate or we are aware of a given threat ? and as you know, we?ve gone to great lengths this year to work with the [intelligence] community to also include otherwise classified information with respect to malware, botnets, other types of infections ? we want to give that to the private sector so that they can proactively defend themselves before they are in fact attacked,? Nielsen explained. Active defense measures, which fall on the spectrum between passive defense and offensive actions, can involve companies going outside their networks to disrupt attacks, identify attackers or retrieve stolen data. Companies might also use beacon technology to determine the physical location of an attacker if files are stolen. Nielsen did not go into detail about the active defense measures that the Homeland Security Department is supporting in the private sector. A House bill introduced by Reps. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) that would allow companies to engage in a range of active defense measures has attracted bipartisan support and triggered debate about the advantages and pitfalls of letting companies retaliate against hackers. Some critics say that active defense measures would amount to ?hacking back? and come with a host of legal and security risks. Proponents, meanwhile, say they would better allow companies to monitor and stop attacks. "The status quo is not acceptable anymore," Graves told The Hill in November. Nielsen was responding to questions during the hearing from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who said that characterizations of active defense as ?hacking back? are ?inaccurate.? Hatch asked the Homeland Security secretary whether current law imposes any unnecessary restrictions on private companies? ability to deploy active defense tools. Nielsen signaled that the department is examining whether there are any legal barriers hindering efforts by companies to protect their data and consumers. ?It?s rather complicated,? Nielsen said. ?There are some limitations with respect to liability, there are other questions with respect to insurance, and we do need to continue to work with the private sector to understand if there are any barriers that could prevent them from taking measures to protect themselves and the American people.? As part of its broad mission, Homeland Security is responsible for engaging with the private sector and critical infrastructure owners on cybersecurity threats. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jan 24 07:30:26 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2018 13:30:26 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Your guide to the anti-FBI conspiracy theories rippling through conservative media Message-ID: <20B3BD2C-4AD1-4842-9021-71DA28F4FDB3@infowarrior.org> You know we're in Bizzaroworld when I feel obligated to pass this along.... --rick Your guide to the anti-FBI conspiracy theories rippling through conservative media By Philip Bump January 24 at 7:00 AM https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/01/24/your-guide-to-the-anti-fbi-conspiracy-theories-rippling-through-conservative-media/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Jan 24 16:07:40 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2018 22:07:40 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Amit Yoran: Strong encryption is vital to our future in tech Message-ID: <98FD96AB-FFB3-4AB3-8F6F-88FA60282CDF@infowarrior.org> Strong encryption is vital to our future in tech By Amit Yoran, opinion contributor ? 01/24/18 04:31 PM EST 0 http://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/370574-strong-encryption-is-vital-to-our-future-in-tech Don?t be fooled by recent proposals ? anyone who understands how technology works knows that ?back doors? aren?t the answer. This month marked yet another shot across the bow from U.S. Department of Justice officials targeting strong encryption. At the International Conference on Cyber Security, FBI Director Christopher Wray described the inability of law enforcement authorities to access data from electronic devices as an ?urgent public safety issue.? This follows Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein?s recent proposal for so-called ?responsible encryption.? Don?t be fooled ? no matter what wording the DOJ conjures up to try and sell the idea, it?s a back door. Despite the flawed logic in such proposals, the concept continues to gain steam, with more and more policymakers and administration officials calling for weakened and breakable encryption. Following the mass shootings in Texas in early November, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) suggested that it was time to bring back legislation that she introduced along with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) in 2016 that would effectively ban strong encryption as it exists today. Back doors aren?t the answer While these proposals may sound well-intentioned, in reality they are anything but responsible. This approach to encryption policy would betray U.S. security and economic interests. For that reason, it?s time to review again why back doors are just plain backward thinking: First, strong cryptography is a foundational building block for good cybersecurity. According to the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, cybersecurity is the single greatest threat to the United States. The greatest challenge that exists in maintaining effective operational security lies in implementation. Compromises of even the most sensitive and well-protected systems occur on a regular basis. Remember, there are many more breaches than just the ones that we see on the news. Back doors only increase system complexity, which creates additional risk. What?s more, whoever possesses the capability to access encrypted data then becomes a greater target. Safeguarding that access would require exceptional security capabilities that the government and many corporations simply have not demonstrated thus far. Weakened encryption is a competitive disadvantage Requiring U.S. technology companies to add back doors accessible by the U.S. government would also put those firms at a significant competitive disadvantage against foreign competitors. Such a policy would also serve to erode trust for U.S. companies in overseas markets. Why would a foreign firm or government buy products from U.S. companies with the full knowledge that their sensitive data is accessible by the U.S. government and possibly others who would compromise the system? As Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) recently noted, ?a one-country-only solution simply pushes the bad guys onto foreign-based hardware and software.? There are plenty of foreign competitors willing to serve those businesses and provide them with strong encryption. Compromising encryption among U.S. companies will not necessarily result in better visibility into the activities of criminal actors, and certainly not the ones that pose the greatest threat to public safety. After all, restricting encryption technology in the U.S. will not make those technologies or known methods unavailable. Sophisticated adversaries and criminals will just create and buy encrypted devices abroad. Terrorists will also use non-backdoored encryption they already have access to. Moreover, it?s highly unlikely that any credible terrorist or foreign intelligence service would ever use technology that was knowingly weakened or that U.S. intelligence or law enforcement agencies have access to. Training the good guys And finally, it must be said: Law enforcement already has access to an astounding amount of data that could be used to solve crimes. In fact, the majority of the content we produce or interact with on a daily basis is readily available through proper legal channels. At a minimum, sophisticated law enforcement agencies need more robust technical training and should work to develop the same skills that hackers use every day to access computer systems. Either of these approaches is more palatable than requiring technology companies to build a back door and roll out the welcome mat for all manner of cyber criminals. While we appreciate the work of the law enforcement community and sympathize with their mission, there is a reason why the entirety of the cryptographic, cybersecurity and tech communities have been unequivocal in their perspective on this issue. Encryption protects the security of people worldwide, and we know from experience that any unnecessary access creates unnecessary risk. Therefore, the only ?responsible? approach is to preserve good encryption and push back against ill-informed proposals advocating a parochial position based on a myopic lens. Amit Yoran is chairman and CEO of Tenable, overseeing the company?s strategic vision and direction. Prior to joining Tenable, Amit was president of RSA, where he led their growth and strategy since 2014. Amit came to RSA through the acquisition of his high-growth company, NetWitness, a network forensic product provider. Previously, he served as founding director of the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) program in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 25 11:08:45 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2018 17:08:45 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Senator Demands FBI Director Explain His Encryption Backdoor B--shit Message-ID: <1EECF32D-D1C6-4C4F-B3B7-F4855B583C19@infowarrior.org> Senator Demands FBI Director Explain His Encryption Backdoor Bullshit https://gizmodo.com/senator-demands-fbi-director-explain-his-encryption-bac-1822400040 (Though the request would have more weight politically if it came from a GOP senator, say a Burr or Grassley. After all, most everyone knows Wyden is one of the few voices of reason on privacy and crypto in the Senate anyway (eg, he's not a surveillance maximalist and/or someone who gulps the Chicken Little Koolaid) so this request shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. --- rick) From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Jan 25 18:43:15 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2018 00:43:15 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?b?IOKAnEJsb2NrY2hhaW7igJ0gU3RvY2tzIENv?= =?utf-8?q?llapse_by_40=25_to_90=25?= Message-ID: <4EC16DB3-7C19-45AB-B92D-90615C73844F@infowarrior.org> The music is slowing down on this stock manipulation scam.... ?Blockchain? Stocks Collapse by 40% to 90% https://wolfstreet.com/2018/01/25/the-40-to-90-collapse-of-blockchain-stocks/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Jan 26 09:12:33 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2018 15:12:33 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - ICE to gain access to database that tracks license plates Message-ID: <8FCA1FFA-348F-40C1-A194-14E89E038902@infowarrior.org> ICE to gain access to database that tracks license plates By Jacqueline Thomsen - 01/26/18 10:05 AM EST 0 http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/370855-ice-to-gain-access-to-database-for-tracking-license-plates The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency will soon have the ability to track license plates across the U.S., The Verge reported Friday. ICE has reached a deal with Vigilant Solutions, a top source for license plate data, to gain access to the firm?s database of billions of license plates. The move will allow the agency to start implementing location tracking for the plates. ?Like most other law enforcement agencies, ICE uses information obtained from license plate readers as one tool in support of its investigations,? an ICE spokesperson told The Verge in a statement. ?ICE is not seeking to build a license plate reader database, and will not collect nor contribute any data to a national public or private database through this contract.? Vigilant did not return multiple requests for comment by The Verge. Vigilant has built up its database using information from local law enforcement, car repossession firms and other private organizations. Using the database, ICE agents will be able to see where license plates have been located over the past five years, as well as find individual?s residences, according to Verge. Officials can also be instantly alerter when new records of specific plates are located. Civil liberties groups slammed ICE?s access to the database. ?There are people circulating in our society who are undocumented,? American Civil Liberties Union senior policy analyst Jay Stanley told The Verge. ?Are we as a society, out of our desire to find those people, willing to let our government create an infrastructure that will track all of us?? From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jan 28 15:22:05 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2018 21:22:05 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FitBit OPSEC Message-ID: (x-posted) Strava?s fitness tracker heat map reveals the location of military bases https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/28/16942626/strava-fitness-tracker-heat-map-military-base-internet-of-things-geolocation This twitter thread suggests that there might be some OPSEC refresher briefings this week .... https://twitter.com/tobiaschneider/status/957317886112124928 From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Jan 28 17:13:24 2018 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2018 23:13:24 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Axios: WH considers nationalizing 5G network Message-ID: Scoop: Trump team considers nationalizing 5G network https://www.axios.com/trump-team-debates-nationalizing-5g-network-f1e92a49-60f2-4e3e-acd4-f3eb03d910ff.html Trump national security officials are considering an unprecedented federal takeover of a portion of the nation?s mobile network to guard against China, according to sensitive documents obtained by Axios. Why it matters: We?ve got our hands on a PowerPoint deck and a memo ? both produced by a senior National Security Council official ? which were presented recently to senior officials at other agencies in the Trump administration. The main points: The documents say America needs a centralized nationwide 5G network within three years. There'll be a fierce debate inside the Trump administration ? and an outcry from the industry ? over the next 6-8 months over how such a network is built and paid for. Two options laid out by the documents: ? The U.S. government pays for and builds the single network ? which would be an unprecedented nationalization of a historically private infrastructure. ? An alternative plan where wireless providers build their own 5G networks that compete with one another ? though the document says the downside is it could take longer and cost more. It argues that one of the ?pros? of that plan is that it would cause ?less commercial disruption? to the wireless industry than the government building a network. Between the lines: A source familiar with the documents' drafting says Option 2 is really no option at all: a single centralized network is what's required to protect America against China and other bad actors. < - > https://www.axios.com/trump-team-debates-nationalizing-5g-network-f1e92a49-60f2-4e3e-acd4-f3eb03d910ff.html