CISPA is back – Imgur

CISPA is the bill that undermines Internet privacy in the name of vague “cyber threats.” Learn more and contact your legislators now: https://eff.org/r.2bJf

via CISPA is back – Imgur.

Devil’s Advocate convicted in London of being fake lawyer | Reuters

An Italian man known as the “Devil’s Advocate” who said he provided legal representation to the likes of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, was not a genuine lawyer but a fraudster, a jury at a London court ruled on Wednesday.

Giovanni Di Stefano, 57, conned clients out of large sums of money by setting himself up as a lawyer when he had no legal qualifications and was not registered to work as a lawyer in Italy or Britain.

During the trial, the court heard Di Stefano had links to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam.

The court was shown a BBC documentary from 2004 in which he described Saddam as a “nice guy” and boasted of being asked to defend a number of notorious British killers such as Harold Shipman, the family doctor who murdered about 250 patients.

via Devil’s Advocate convicted in London of being fake lawyer | Reuters.

Phone and email records to be stored in new spy plan – Telegraph

Landline and mobile phone companies and broadband providers will be ordered to store the data for a year and make it available to the security services under the scheme.

The databases would not record the contents of calls, texts or emails but the numbers or email addresses of who they are sent and received by.

For the first time, the security services will have widespread access to information about who has been communicating with each other on social networking sites such as Facebook.

Direct messages between subscribers to websites such as Twitter would also be stored, as well as communications between players in online video games.

The Home Office is understood to have begun negotiations with internet companies in the last two months over the plan, which could be officially announced as early as May.

It is certain to cause controversy over civil liberties – but also raise concerns over the security of the records.

Access to such information would be highly prized by hackers and could be exploited to send spam email and texts. Details of which websites people visit could also be exploited for commercial gain.

The plan has been drawn up on the advice of MI5, the home security service, MI6, which operates abroad, and GCHQ, the Government’s “listening post” responsible for monitoring communications.

Rather than the Government holding the information centrally, companies including BT, Sky, Virgin Media, Vodafone and O2 would have to keep the records themselves.

Under the scheme the security services would be granted “real time” access to phone and internet records of people they want to put under surveillance, as well as the ability to reconstruct their movements through the information stored in the databases.

via Phone and email records to be stored in new spy plan – Telegraph.

The CIA wants to spy on you through your TV: Agency director says net-connected gadgets will ‘transform’ surveillance | Mail Online

When people download a film from Netflix to a flatscreen, or turn on web radio, they could be alerting unwanted watchers to exactly what they are doing and where they are.

Spies will no longer have to plant bugs in your home – the rise of ‘connected’ gadgets controlled by apps will mean that people ‘bug’ their own homes, says CIA director David Petraeus.

The CIA claims it will be able to ‘read’ these devices via the internet – and perhaps even via radio waves from outside the home.

via The CIA wants to spy on you through your TV: Agency director says net-connected gadgets will ‘transform’ surveillance | Mail Online.

fbidentified comments on 25 alleged Anonymous members arrested internationally; hacker group retaliates

Back in high school my AP History teacher began a rant on the new freedom of information act, and explained that if anyone cared enough you could send an old fashion letter to the FBI, and they had to give up all information they knew about you (or would tell you). We convinced him to do it as a class project, and all twenty students wrote well thought out letters to our FBI.

About two months go by, and we have all figured the government just ignored us, then a large box from USPS shows up, and my teacher opens it to find our returned letters of information!

My letter began as normal, “Thank you for your time and consideration to sending us this letter to receive your information…”

Then began my list of cyber crimes, starting with “KNOWN ASSOCIATE OF HACKER GROUP ANONYMOUS.” I may still have the letter lying around somewhere, but I felt proud that my three and a half page list of silly cyber crimes was the longest letter anyone got, the administration wouldn’t allow the teacher to do it anymore after we did.

Other fun notes included,

Copyright Theft – TPB downloads

DDOS

CP Watchlist (4chan)

“Threat to cyber identity”

via fbidentified comments on 25 alleged Anonymous members arrested internationally; hacker group retaliates.

Five ways the world could end – Yahoo!

With a year packed full of strong solar flares affecting communications, future volcanic predictions and giant asteroids passing dangerously close to Earth, what kind of cataclysmic events are most likely to push humans to the brink of extinction? We look at some of the most popular doomsday theories and examine whether these five natural phenomena could end the world as we know it – or whether they are just pure science fiction.

via Five ways the world could end – Yahoo!.

Why So Many People Bought Guns on Black Friday

According to America’s official gun-counting officials, prospective gun buyers registered 129,166 background check requests on Black Friday 2011—more than on any other Black Friday in American history, and a 32 percent increase from the last all-time high. What provoked all these gun sales?

The officials don’t really know, actually! Neither do the gun industry analysts, though they at least noticed that many prospective purchasers were first-time buyers and women. Hmm, so we can assume that some people suddenly got turned on to the idea of owning a gun, and some ladies wanted a firearm for self-defense. Other possible reasons why shoppers contributed to this year’s gun-buying frenzy:

They wanted something besides their tool belts to hang from their waists.

Their family’s favorite paintball place closed because of the economy, and anyway shooting off real guns sounded more exciting.

In case someone pepper-sprayed them in the towels aisle at Walmart.

They tried every other product on the market to remove those stubborn grass and ketchup stains from their clothing, but nothing worked. They thought they’d give shooting out the stains a try.

They were tired of feeling left out every time a gun battle broke out in their neighborhood.

They thought it would help them achieve a raise in their annual performance review at work.

They’re moving to Arizona and wanted to fit in with the locals.

They woke up one morning with the soul of a cowboy inhabiting their body. Now they are better prepared to save those people in the Colorado mining town from the company bigwigs.

They woke up one morning with the soul of a violent drug dealer inhabiting their body. Now they are better prepared to consolidate their power and become a company bigwig.

They bought Grandma slippers last year, and a new bathrobe before that, and a needlepoint kit the year before that, and were out of ideas.

“Shoot all the decorations off the goddamn Christmas tree” sounded like a fine family-game substitute for the usual round of Trivial Pursuit, which they couldn’t play because during last year’s celebrations Cousin Tommy (who is 47 years old) swallowed half the plastic pie wedges in a fit of rage.

Why did you buy your gun on Black Friday? Does it have any special features?

via Why So Many People Bought Guns on Black Friday.

The Surveillance Catalog – The Wall Street Journal

Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.

The documents—the highlights of which are cataloged and searchable here—were obtained from attendees of a secretive surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C., last month.

via The Surveillance Catalog – The Wall Street Journal.

Updated movie of asteroid 2005 YU55 (video) – Washington DC DC | Examiner.com

This 28-frame movie of asteroid 2005 YU55 was generated from data obtained by NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar on Monday.

In the movie clip, the rotation of the asteroid appears faster than it occurs in nature. 2005 YU55 has a rotation period of about 18 hours.

via Updated movie of asteroid 2005 YU55 (video) – Washington DC DC | Examiner.com.

UP cop calls Mayawati govt corrupt, dumped in mental asylum – The Times of India

NEW DELHI: A senior police officer was on Friday night allegedly manhandled and forcibly dumped into a mental asylum after he took on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati by alleging massive corruption in the state.

IPS officer Devendra Dutt Mishra, a DIG in the Uttar Pradesh Fire Service Department who is due to retire in 2 years, had threatened to make public files containing evidence of the massive embezzlement of funds in the purchase of equipment. He alleged that senior officers had siphoned off crores and that his superior had pressurised him to clear files, TimesNow reported.

Interacting with mediapersons at Lucknow, he blamed the state administration and cited certain incidents in which certain officers in the lower hierarchy have been hounded by the powers-that-be.

Speaking to reporters at his office Mishra said that the Mayawati government was thoroughly corrupted and had used money to buy favours from people.

“Everybody has been bought. Fake people are consoling me. After that the administrators are showing courage,” Mishra said.

In a defiant mood, Misra appeared to be least bothered about the consequences he may have to face on account of the All India Service Conduct Rules which he was openly violating by attacking the government.

via UP cop calls Mayawati govt corrupt, dumped in mental asylum – The Times of India.