‘I wonder why they call it Miner when it tells jokes?’
We wrote an evil data mining application called Miner, which, if we wanted, could masquerade as a game, a test, or a joke of the day. It took us less than three hours.
But whatever it looks like, in the background, it is collecting personal details, [...]
Andrew Sullivan is one of the best and most accomplished bloggers. Yet lately he seems to be lost in the deep and unforgiving well that is Obama-mania. Now I am a proud supporter of Obama, but not narrowly so. I post on topics other than just the election and Obama. Reading Sullivan’s blog, on [...]
UK PM Gordon Brown now has a Twitter account.
If you don’t know what Twitter is, I’m sorry to be the one to inform you. It’s a micro-blogging service, essentially an aggregator of away messages and statuses, known as ‘tweets’ to users. For example, ‘at work.’ That’s it. There’s nothing else, just updates on what you’re [...]
The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing Thursday on virtual worlds which was simulcast in Second Life. There were all sorts of ridiculous questions posed, particularly those that focused on how Second Life was policing its site from terrorists. Despite their apparent ignorance on the subject, several committee members took the [...]
Yahoo has set up a fund that will provide legal defense and family support to Chinese ‘cyber dissidents’ like the ones they threw under the bus in 2004:
Business journalist Shi and pro-democracy blogger Wang were given 10-year jail sentences as a direct result of information provided to Chinese authorities by Yahoo, their lawsuit alleged.
Shi has [...]
A new Dutch film entitled “Fitna” brews Islam’s well known extremities into one steaming cauldron. Its release online yesterday has been met with death threats, DDoS attacks on hosts, and promises of terroristic reprisal in the Netherlands.
One of my favorite web sites, LiveLeak, was the first to host the film online. After hours of online [...]
For the second time in two weeks we’re learning about Chinese hackers doing its government’s dirty work:
The FBI has opened a preliminary investigation of a report that China-based hackers have penetrated the e-mail accounts of leaders and members of the Save Darfur Coalition, a national advocacy group pushing to end the six-year-old conflict in Sudan…The [...]
NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data
By SIOBHAN GORMAN
March 10, 2008; Page A1
According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called “transactional” data from [...]
Here’s a quick video summarizing what net neutrality is and what’s at stake if it’s not adopted.
Another whistle-blower has come forward claiming that he has witnessed the NSA’s back door access to a telecom’s cellular data stream. The witness refuses to identify the telecom involved. It is known that he works for a network security firm which provided consultant work for this telecom starting in 2003. Here are the talking points [...]
The telecoms are already biting back at possible net neutrality regulation. AT&T released a wildly misleading statement last week chiding possible FCC bylaws and Congressional regulation:
“It would enact a new broadband policy for the United States that would include unprecedented regulation of the Internet, This bill will jeopardize billions in badly needed Internet investment and [...]
Remember those internet cable disruptions in the Middle East a few weeks ago? Repair ships are on location:
Reports from those vessels have apparently indicated that [the cables] may not have been caused by accident or through natural events. According to the ITU’s (International Telecom Union) head of development, Sami al-Murshed, “We do not want to [...]
In a pretty extraordinary ex-parte move, the Julius Baer Bank and Trust got Dynadot, the U.S. hosting company for Wikileaks, to agree not only to take down the Wikileaks site but also to ” lock the wikileaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar.”
Essentially, an employee for JBB [...]
Image compliments of Electronic Frontier Foundation. Splitter and NSA room described here.
While the Web site offers users the option to deactivate their accounts, Facebook servers keep copies of the information in those accounts indefinitely. Indeed, many users who have contacted Facebook to request that their accounts be deleted have not succeeded in erasing their records from the network.
I’m one of those many former users of Facebook. [...]
Yes, the RIAA is still suing hapless college students. This time they have taken several Boston University students to court.
The RIAA has tried to block the introduction of an amicus curiae brief in that case citing an unrelated ‘mis-characterization’ by the third party. The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed the brief with a Boston Federal Court [...]
A submarine cable in the Middle East has been snapped, adding to global net problems caused by breaks in two lines under the Mediterranean on Wednesday.
Bloomberg and Times UK are reporting that the two cables cut in the Mediterranean Wednesday are the result of an ‘errant anchor.’ Although this has not yet been confirmed, storms [...]
Readers of this blog know I have forewarned about the possibility of a cyber-war. It’s happened.
Monday, a group knows as Anonymous or Legion posted a video declaring war on the Church of Scientology. It’s suspected that they are operating under the umbrella of a so-called Project Chanology. Here’s the video:
In a perfectly coordinated effort, Anonymous [...]
The Washington Post details the internet security concern the CIA took to an energy and utility trade show this week:
In a rare public warning to the power and utility industry, a CIA analyst this week said cyber attackers have hacked into the computer systems of utility companies outside the United States and made demands, in [...]
I wrote a post recently alluding to the idea of a cyber war. Essentially, if the powers that be attempt to reconfigure the internet it’s going to anger a lot of very skilled people. I’ve come across two videos that display just how skilled these people I’m speaking of are and how destructive their capabilities [...]
About
Brian is a recent college graduate living in Washington, D.C.
Contact
Google Talk: bmcguigan.
Quotes
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
– Plato
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Barack Obama
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