Fergie's Tech Blog

Somehow Sadly Appropriate for The Holidays...

Via Pundit Kitchen.

- ferg

posted by Fergie @ 12/07/2010 09:16:00 PM 0 comments

In Passing: Elizabeth Edwards

posted by Fergie @ 12/07/2010 05:34:00 PM 0 comments

Cyber Theft of $200,000 from Gregg County Texas

Via 12NewsNow.com (AP).

An East Texas county has halted electronic fund transfers after cyber hackers believed to be in Russia allegedly stole $200,000 in tax-related funds.


The Longview News-Journal reported Tuesday that Gregg County, state and federal authorities are investigating.


Tax assessor/collector Kirk Shields said Monday that local tax payments destined for schools and cities were hijacked.


Shields says confirmation of Nov. 23 theft, discovered in progress and traced to a website in Moscow, has led to changes in the county's method for moving funds.


Thieves use malicious software, known as malware, to infect the computers of unsuspecting users by e-mail. Shields says a county employee who mistakenly unleashed the virus has been suspended for violating cyber-security policy.


Efforts continue to retrieve the funds and identify the hackers.

Link.

posted by Fergie @ 12/07/2010 01:11:00 PM 0 comments

In Remembrance: Pearl Harbor

On this day in 1941 -- a day that will live in infamy -- the Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor.

The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was aimed at the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine air forces. The attack damaged or destroyed twelve U.S. warships, destroyed 188 aircraft, and killed 2,403 American servicemen and 68 civilians.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned the raid as the start of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, and it was commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who lost 64 servicemen. However, the Pacific Fleet's three aircraft carriers were not in port and so were undamaged, as were oil tank farms and machine shops. Using these resources the United States was able to rebound within six months to a year.

The U.S. public saw the attack as a treacherous act and rallied strongly against the Japanese Empire, resulting in its ultimate defeat.

It absolutely "...awakened the sleeping U.S. behemoth".

Sixty-nine years later, we haven't forgotten.

- ferg

posted by Fergie @ 12/07/2010 12:01:00 AM 0 comments

Russian ISPs May Avoid Responsibility for 'Sketchy' Content

Via RIA Novosti.

Russian providers of Internet services may avoid responsibility for offensive or controversial content stored on their servers, according to amendments to the Russian Civil Code proposed by the presidential law codification council, a Russian business daily said on Tuesday.


A new draft Civil Code includes an article stipulating responsibility of Internet providers for their content. The presidential council drew up the amendments to the article following an order by President Dmitry Medvedev, an active Internet user, the Vedomosti paper said.


The bill relieves providers of responsibility for the content if three conditions are met: the controversial content was uploaded to the provider's server "by a client or on his order"; a provider "did not know or should not have known" about the contentiousness of the content; the provider took "prompt measures" to eliminate the consequences of the controversial content storage following a written request by a third party.


The measures to be taken will be specified in a special law on Internet providers, Vedomosti said. According to the proposed amendments, a provider is obligated to delete the content within three days, suspend the domain on a written police request and limit access to questionable information upon a prosecutor's request.

Link.

posted by Fergie @ 12/06/2010 11:53:00 PM 0 comments

In Passing: Don Meredith

posted by Fergie @ 12/06/2010 10:24:00 AM 0 comments

Europe Wary of U.S. Bank Monitors

Eric Lichtblau writes in The New York Times:

When the European Parliament ordered a halt in February to an American government program to monitor international banking transactions for terrorist activity, the Obama administration was blindsided by the rebuke.


“Paranoia runs deep especially about US intelligence agencies,” a secret cable from the American Embassy in Berlin said. “We were astonished to learn how quickly rumors about alleged U.S. economic espionage” had taken root among German politicians who opposed the program, it said.


The memo was among dozens of State Department cables that revealed the deep distrust of some traditional European allies toward what they considered American intrusion into their citizens’ affairs without stringent oversight.


The program, created in secrecy by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has allowed American counterterrorism officials to examine banking transactions routed through a vast database run by a Brussels consortium known as Swift. When the program was disclosed in 2006 by The New York Times, just months after the newspaper reported the existence of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, it set off protests in Europe and forced the United States to accept new restrictions.

More here.

posted by Fergie @ 12/05/2010 08:04:00 PM 0 comments

FBI Allegedly Looking for Russian Spy Inside NSA

Ian Allen writes on intelNews.org:

American counterintelligence investigators are allegedly trying to uncover at least one Russian-handled double agent operating inside the US National Security Agency (NSA), according to information published on Wednesday in The Washington Times.


The paper based its allegation on an interview with an anonymous “former intelligence official” with close ties to the NSA —America’s largest intelligence agency, which is tasked with worldwide communications surveillance as well as communications security.


The anonymous source told the Times that the probe is directly connected to the arrest of nearly a dozen Russian deep-cover operatives by the FBI last summer. Washington eventually exchanged the Russian spies with several Western-handled Russian operatives captured by Moscow and held in Russian prisons. But the FBI allegedly believes that the deep-cover operatives, most of whom used false identity papers and had lived in the US for years, were primarily tasked with aiding at least one Russian-handled double spy operating inside the NSA’s Forge George F. Meade headquarters, in the US state of Maryland.


The anonymous intelligence source said that, not only the FBI, but the NSA is also “convinced” that “one or more Russian spies” are active inside the Agency, as well as perhaps in other Pentagon-affiliated intelligence agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency.


The Times contacted NSA and FBI representatives in connection with the anonymous revelations, but both agencies refused comment.

Link.

posted by Fergie @ 12/02/2010 10:10:00 PM 2 comments

Mark Fiore: WikiWorld

More Mark Fiore brilliance.


Via The San Francisco Chronicle.

- ferg

posted by Fergie @ 12/01/2010 06:53:00 PM 0 comments

Fraud Gang Infects All ATMs in Russian City

Lucian Constantin writes on Softpedia Security News:

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) has dismantled a fraud ring whose members managed to infect all ATMs in the city of Yakutsk with malware designed to steal credit card data.


Yakutsk is the capital of the Russian Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, the largest federal subject of the Russian Federation, by area. The city is average-sized compare to others in the country and has a population of around 210,000.


According to the authorities [Google translation], the organized crime group made up of three men, contracted a hacker from Moscow, who they met on an underground forum, to build a custom ATM virus for them.


The gang paid a total of 100,000 rubles (almost $3200) for the malware and proceeded to infect ATMs with it. Everyone got assigned tasks based on their expertise.


For example, one of them who worked as the head of an IT department, took care of obtaining access to the targeted ATMs.


A system administrator, who also acted a the leader of the group, handled the infection part, while a third man acted as money mule.


The suspects were arrested simultaneously and their apartments were searched. The police claims that it found copies of ATM malware on their computers, as well as stolen credit card information and other evidence of the fraud.

More here.

posted by Fergie @ 12/01/2010 05:20:00 PM 0 comments