Browsing Category:
2016 Election, Hackers, Technology
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Report: Even Clinton’s Printer May Have Been Hackable
by Tammy on May 28, 2016Of course. Hey, I have an idea! Let’s promote her to Leader of the Free World! Said no one ever. Via Washington Examiner. Findings this week suggest that if Hillary Clinton ever used a private network to print documents from her home-based server, that printer could have been breached by hackers. The information came from Internet address maps stored by Farsight Security, a San Mateo, Calif.-based tech company. The map indicated that one of the subdomains attached to the former secretary of state’s “clintonemail.com” address had been given the less-than-subtle name, “printer.clintonemail.com.” It isn’t clear whether Clinton ever used the address to actually attach an Internet-connected printer. If she did, it could have served as another attack vector for hackers...
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Video: Russians Test ‘Terminator Suit’ In Minefield
by Pat_S on April 29, 2016I wonder how this woman was selected for the test. She’s described as a female specialist at the Central Scientific Research Institute for Precision Machine Engineering. Video: Young Russian woman tests newest anti-mine security suit Wearing a special protective suit the specialist strolls through the shooting range at Klimovsk (30 miles south of Moscow), while landmines explode near her and flames burst out of the ground. Regardless of the land mine explosions, the video’s heroine remains safe and takes her mask off in front of the camera at the end. Officials in the Russian government seem to be quite impressed. Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation stated on his Facebook page that, “the Terminator is a...
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Germany: City Installs In-Ground Traffic Lights For Pedestrians Using Cellphones
by Pat_S on April 25, 2016No need to yell “heads up” in Augsburg, Germany. After two near misses and one fatality, the city installed traffic lights in the ground for “smombies”—smartphone zombies. City installs traffic lights in the floor for people constantly glued to their phones They have been in operation since last week, and flash red when a tram is approaching, or when the normal traffic light turns red – because craning your neck is [sic] check for a brief moment is a very obvious inconvenience. Related: Heads-up technology puts data on car windshields at CES **************************************************** //
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AMC Theatres Abandoning Its Horrible “Texting-Allowed” Plan
by Tammy on April 15, 2016Uh, yeah. Bad, bad, bad idea. Via Nerdist. A lot of the time internet outrage is stupid, ineffective, or both. But on rare occasions we can all come together in one, reasonable voice and say, “Nope. Noooooope. Don’t do that, that’s really dumb and infuriating and really don’t do that,” and we can make the world a better place—or at least our local theater. Well, we did it everyone, because AMC Theatres announced Friday that they are already abandoning plans to allow texting in their theaters, following a very loud and very negative reaction to the idea. NO TEXTING AT AMC. Won't happen. You spoke. We listened. Quickly, that idea has been sent to the cutting room floor. pic.twitter.com/JR0fo5megR —...
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Man Accidentally Deletes His Entire Company With One Line Of Bad Code
by Shifra on April 15, 2016Oops… Via Independent: A man appears to have deleted his entire company with one mistaken piece of code. By accidentally telling his computer to delete everything in his servers, hosting provider Marco Marsala has seemingly removed all trace of his company and the websites that he looks after for his customers. Mr Marsala wrote on a forum for server experts called Server Faultthat he was now stuck after having accidentally run destructive code on his own computers. But far from advising them how to fix it, most experts informed him that he had just accidentally deleted the data of his company and its clients, and in so doing had probably destroyed his entire company with just one line of code....
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FBI Paid Professional Hackers One-Time Fee to Crack San Bernardino iPhone
by Tammy on April 12, 2016Hmm… Via Washington Post. The FBI cracked a San Bernardino terrorist’s phone with the help of professional hackers who discovered and brought to the bureau at least one previously unknown software flaw, according to people familiar with the matter. The new information was then used to create a piece of hardware that helped the FBI to crack the iPhone’s four-digit personal identification number without triggering a security feature that would have erased all the data, the individuals said. The researchers, who typically keep a low profile, specialize in hunting for vulnerabilities in software and then in some cases selling them to the U.S. government. They were paid a one-time flat fee for the solution. Cracking the four-digit PIN, which the...
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FBI Says a Mysterious Hacking Group Has Had Access to US Govt Files for Years
by Tammy on April 7, 2016Great! The existential importance of the choices we make on November 8th becomes more evident every day. Via Motherboard. The feds warned that “a group of malicious cyber actors,” whom security experts believe to be the government-sponsored hacking group known as APT6, “have compromised and stolen sensitive information from various government and commercial networks” since at least 2011, according to an FBI alert obtained by Motherboard. The alert, which is also available online, shows that foreign government hackers are still successfully hacking and stealing data from US government’s servers, their activities going unnoticed for years. This comes months after the US government revealed that a group of hackers, widely believed to be working for the Chinese government, had for more...
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FBI: iPhone Hack Won’t Work On Models 5s Or Newer
by Tammy on April 7, 2016Well, I’m glad they got the San Bernardino phone unlocked. Now, whatever “tool” the FBI used on that one, I hope they focus on expanding their ability to open others, as long as there’s a warrant 🙂 Via WaPo. The FBI’s method for unlocking an iPhone belonging to one of the attackers in San Bernardino, Calif., would only work on a very “narrow slice” of devices, according to the bureau’s director. As a result, FBI Director James B. Comey said, he is confident that the tool would not help unlock newer phones. Federal authorities have not revealed the outside group that helped them unlock the San Bernardino phone, a device at the center of a weeks-long fight between the FBI...
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Surveillance And The Culture Of Self-Censorship
by Pat_S on April 3, 2016The internet and social media have been touted as democratizing forces. A recent study suggests that knowing there is government and private cyber surveillance results in self-censorship of minority opinions and creating a dominant voice online. Under Surveillance: Examining Facebook’s Spiral of Silence Effects in the Wake of NSA Internet Monitoring Since Edward Snowden exposed the National Security Agency’s use of controversial online surveillance programs in 2013, there has been widespread speculation about the potentially deleterious effects of online government monitoring. This study explores how perceptions and justification of surveillance practices may create a chilling effect on democratic discourse by stifling the expression of minority political views. Using a spiral of silence theoretical framework, knowing one is subject to surveillance...
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Lip-Reading Tech ‘Could Capture What People on CCTV say’
by Tammy on March 25, 2016I suppose this was inevitable. Interesting, this news is out of England where they have already capitulated to Islamists so I’m not sure why they feel the need to know what people are saying in the streets. Unless, of course, they want to capture people insulting Islam. Via Mirror UK. New lip-reading technology could help solve crimes by deciphering what people caught on CCTV are saying, researchers have claimed. The visual speech recognition technology developed by the University of East Anglia in Norwich can be used to determine what people are saying in situations where audio is not good enough to hear – such as on security camera footage . Helen Bear, from the university’s school of computing science, said...
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Yay! Queen Elizabeth Sends Her First Tweet
by Tammy on October 24, 2014You all know I like the British Royal Family. Except for Charles. But he did do a pretty good job raising the boys. Today Queen Elizabeth tweeted using the @BritishMonarchy account. Which I’m now following 🙂 She’s 88 and still going strong. I like that, too 🙂 On a day like today, I hope you enjoy this sort of fun news as much as I do. It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R. — BritishMonarchy (@BritishMonarchy) October 24, 2014 Hear ye, tweet ye! Queen Elizabeth II sends first tweet The queen has taken her reign to Twitter. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II sent her first...
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Is The NSA Intercepting Laptops Purchased Online To Install Spy Malware?
by Tammy on December 30, 2013That’s what the Germans are saying. Here’s the report. Via The Verge. According to a new report from Der Spiegel based on internal NSA documents, the signals intelligence agency’s elite hacking unit (TAO) is able to conduct sophisticated wiretaps in ways that make Hollywood fantasy look more like reality. The report indicates that the NSA, in collaboration with the CIA and FBI, routinely and secretly intercepts shipping deliveries for laptops or other computer accessories in order to implant bugs before they reach their destinations. According to Der Spiegel, the NSA’s TAO group is able to divert shipping deliveries to its own “secret workshops” in a method called interdiction, where agents load malware onto the electronics or install malicious hardware that...
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Churches Using GPS To Keep Track of Baby Jesus
by Tammy on December 21, 2013Good idea! It’s a problem some churches didn’t know how to handle until now. One security company is using its power to partner with a symbol that needs a little help this holiday season. Each year, Baby Jesus figurines are stolen from nativity scenes across the country. Now, church owners are fighting back. A GPS device is put inside the doll to prevent theft. “And the beauty of this is it really works and it’s simple to use,” said Alan Czyzewski, Parishioner at St. Ambrose Church in New Jersey. Brickhouse Securities gives out free GPS devices to qualified religious institutions. Then they track the movements. “We then monitor it from our cloud-based mapping system, and set up alerts so that...
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This 6-Foot, 330-Pound Robot May One Day Save Your Life
by Tammy on December 16, 2013Things that make you go, Hmm… Or make you think of ‘Terminator.’ Obviously this could either be a fabulous thing or go very wrong. I suppose how robots turn out depends ultimately on the condition of humanity. What do you think– are robots like this a good or a bad idea? If it goes wrong, it can go very wrong, but if used for good, well, the benefits can be amazing. Via Wired. Meet Atlas, the Pentagon’s 6’2″, 330-pound humanitarian robot. He was designed to save lives in disaster zones (like Fukushima). But while this Tin Man has a heart, he lacks a brain. In December, seven teams of scientists from top institutions, including MIT and Virginia Tech, will compete...
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FBI Can Hijack Your Webcam
by Tammy on December 9, 2013Another reminder of how vulnerable all ‘smart’ electronics are to the Fed’s snoops. Me? I have swatches of paper packing tape covering my webcams. Via Newsmax. The FBI’s advanced surveillance methods can even activate a computer’s webcam to spy on computer users — without switching on the device’s telltale green light — reports about the investigation behind a bomb threat suspect reveal. The covert snooping in the case of a mystery man, “Mo,” also shows how investigators can download files, photographs and stored e-mails from a computer without its owner knowing, reports The Washington Post. “We have transitioned into a world where law enforcement is hacking into people’s computers and we have never had public debate,” Christopher Soghoian of the...