Double Whammy! Another Sony Case (And it's Not BioShock)
,----[ Quote ]
| We received a report that our F-Secure DeepGuard HIPS system was warning
| about a USB stick software driver. The USB stick in question has a built-in
| fingerprint reader. The case seemed unusual so we ordered a couple of USB
| sticks with fingerprint authentication. We installed the software on a test
| machine and were quite surprised to see that after installation our F-Secure
| BlackLight rootkit detector was reporting hidden files on the system.
`----
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/#00001263
Gonzo a goner, but NSA surveillance here to stay
,----[ Quote ]
| Ultimately, it will be up to the courts to undo the damage done, as Gonzalez
| spent so much time walking all over the fundamental rights of Americans he's
| practically left footprints on the Bill of Rights. Thanks to his stewardship,
| American citizens can now be classed as enemy combatants, spied on without
| warrants, imprisoned indefinitely without charges or redress to the courts,
| and subjected to "enhanced interrogation" techniques.
|
| Bravo, Gonzo. Good-bye, and good-riddance.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/27/gonzalez_resigns/
Related:
Cybercrime Poses Challenges for Government, Industry Says Report
,----[ Quote
| Botnet – A network of remotely controlled systems used to coordinate attacks
| and distribute malware, spam, and phishing scams. Bots (short for “robots”)
| are programs that are covertly installed on a targeted system allowing an
| unauthorized user to remotely control the compromised computer for a variety
| of malicious purposes.
`----
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/news/general/10857/cybercrime-poses-challenges-government-industry-says-report
FBI ducks questions about its remotely installed spyware
,----[ Quote ]
| There are plenty of unanswered questions about the FBI spyware that, as we
| reported earlier this week, can be delivered over the Internet and implanted
| in a suspect's computer remotely.
`----
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9747666-7.html
United States Government Online Watchdogs? Part of the war on terror?
,----[ Quote
| Is there anyone in the abandonia community with a US based connection who is
| experiencing this watchdog behavior? Are any foreign Vista users experiencing
| similar attacks from their own countries ministries and governing agencies?"
`----
http://www.whitedust.net/news/3984/United_States_Government_Online_Watchdogs?_Part_of_the_war_on_terror?.../
Back doors in Windows XP...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGlNTEQ0RzM
Mother of all spyware...
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Forget-about-the-WGA-20-Windows-Vista-Features-and-Services-Harvest-User-Data-for-Microsoft-58752.shtml
Police eats your CPU cycles and disk space...
,----[ Quote ]
| Vista—Microsoft’s latest operating system—may prove to be most
| appropriately named, especially for those seeking evidence of how a
| computer was used.
`----
http://www.abanet.org/journal/ereport/jy13tkjasn.html
Will Microsoft Put The Colonel in the Kernel?
,----[ Quote ]
| "The kernel meets The Colonel in a just-published Microsoft patent
| application for an Advertising Services Architecture, which delivers targeted
| advertising as 'part of the OS.'
`----
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/14/043200
Microsoft patents the mother of all adware systems
,----[ Quote ]
| The adware framework would leave almost no data untouched in its quest to
| sell you stuff. It would inspect "user document files, user e-mail files,
| user music files, downloaded podcasts, computer settings, computer status
| messages (e.g., a low memory status or low printer ink)," and more. How could
| we have been so blind as to not see the marketing value in computer status
| messages?
`----
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070717-microsoft-patents-the-mother-of-all-adware-systems.html
German government admits it is already conducting online searches
,----[ Quote ]
| Piltz called on the German government to block funding for the
| programming of software used in online searches; she also said it
| was urgent that the government "discontinue these searches until
| the German Supreme Court has reached a ruling on the matter."
`----
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/88895/from/rss09
"Trusted" Computing
,----[ Quote ]
| Do you imagine that any US Linux distributor would say no to the
| US government if they were requested (politely, of course) to add
| a back-door to the binary Linux images shipped as part of their
| products ? Who amongst us actually uses the source code so helpfully
| given to us on the extra CDs to compile our own version ? With
| Windows of course there are already so many back-doors known and
| unknown that the US government might not have even bothered to
| ask Microsoft, they may have just found their own, ready to
| exploit at will. What about Intel or AMD and the microcode on
| the processor itself ?
`----
http://tuxdeluxe.org/node/164
'---[ Quote ]
| In relation to the issue of sharing technical API and protocol
| information used throughout Microsoft products, which the
| states were seeking, Allchin alleged that releasing this
| information would increase the security risk to consumers.
|
| "It is no exaggeration to say that the national security is
| also implicated by the efforts of hackers to break into
| computing networks. Computers, including many running Windows
| operating systems, are used throughout the United States
| Department of Defense and by the armed forces of the United
| States in Afghanistan and elsewhere."
`----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Allchin
How NSA access was built into Windows
,----[ Quote ]
| A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that
| special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency
| have been secretly built into Windows.
|
| [...]
|
| The first discovery of the new NSA access system was made two years
| ago by British researcher Dr Nicko van Someren. But it was only a
| few weeks ago when a second researcher rediscovered the access
| system. With it, he found the evidence linking it to NSA.
`----
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5263/1.html
NSA Builds Security Access Into Windows
,----[ Quote ]
| A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has shown that special access
| codes for use by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) have been secretly
| built into all versions of the Windows operating system.
`----
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990903S0014
Could Hollywood hack your PC?
,----[ Quote ]
| Congress is about to consider an entertainment industry proposal
| that would authorize copyright holders to disable PCs used for
| illicit file trading.
`----
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-945923.html
|
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