The Perils of Plastic: The Problems With Debit And Credit Cards Are Deeper Than We Thought
December 31st, 2013Via: ReadWrite:
I called the regional Secret Service office—that agency is involved in both protecting the President and investigating financial crimes—and talked to the agent that was handling the investigation. He confirmed my suspicions: The problem is far worse than we imagined.
While there are no real answers yet in our area, it appears that some computer systems have been compromised either at stores or in the companies handling the processing of card transactions. In other words, a company involved in the flow of payments has been hacked. It could be more than one company. The computer hacking has exposed everyone whose cards are going through those systems. The thieves are using the ATM card information in a way that does not require the PINs.
As the agent explained it to me, what happens once the thieves have stolen a bunch of numbers from a company is that they print gift cards with their name on them and our billing information on the magnetic stripe. He said they rarely bother with printing up credit cards anymore.
Research Credit: conceptualdecay
Shopping for Spy Gear: Catalog Advertises NSA Toolbox
December 30th, 2013Via: Spiegel:
A document viewed by SPIEGEL resembling a product catalog reveals that an NSA division called ANT has burrowed its way into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry — including American global market leader Cisco and its Chinese competitor Huawei, but also producers of mass-market goods, such as US computer-maker Dell.
These NSA agents, who specialize in secret back doors, are able to keep an eye on all levels of our digital lives — from computing centers to individual computers, and from laptops to mobile phones. For nearly every lock, ANT seems to have a key in its toolbox. And no matter what walls companies erect, the NSA’s specialists seem already to have gotten past them.
DROPOUTJEEP: How NSA Owns iPhones
December 30th, 2013It looks like they implemented Back Orifice for iOS.
Anyway, *yawn*. So now we know the name of the tool.
The first reference that I can find on Cryptogon for a U.S. government agency having this capability is: FBI Uses Mobile Phones for Audio Surveillance – Even When Phones Are Off. That’s from 2006.
Via: Daily Dot:
The U.S. National Security Agency has the ability to snoop on nearly every communication sent from an Apple iPhone, according to leaked documents shared by security researcher Jacob Appelbaum and German news magazine Der Spiegel.
An NSA program called DROPOUTJEEP allows the agency to intercept SMS messages, access contact lists, locate a phone using cell tower data, and even activate the device’s microphone and camera.
Off Topic: Connection from Water Heater to Thermostat
December 30th, 2013How about a little home improvement mystery to break up the steady flow of nightmares and doom?
Alrighty then!
The thermostat on our hot water cylinder fried itself yesterday morning. There are a few reasons why I’m baffled by this:
1. This is the second time that this has happened. When it happened the first time, I just assumed that the thermostat (which was the original one that was in hot water cylinder when we bought the house) had gone bad, who knows why, I just replaced it, monitored the situation closely for a few days and thought the problem had been resolved.
About once a month, I checked the water temperature and it was right on when compared to the setting on the thermostat. I would also check the wiring to and from the thermostat for any signs of trouble. No problems. Wires remained at room temperature after the unit had been running. The circuit breaker never tripped throughout any of this.
It worked fine for six months… until yesterday, when it let the smoke out of the wire between the thermostat and the cylinder.
2. On both fried thermostats, the meltdowns occurred between the output terminals on the thermostats and the input terminal on the water heater. The input terminals on both thermostats and the household wiring leading into the thermostats never showed any sign of trouble. You can’t see it on the picture I’ve posted below, but the input side of this thermostat is pristine.
Cooked Cotherm Thermostat
3. So, with all electrical supply places closed and messages left on multiple electricians’ 24-hour response lines being ignored, I decided to conduct an experiment. Rather than trying to wash dishes and my filthy creature sons with cold water, I wired up the hot water cylinder without any thermostat inline and flipped the breaker to ON. (Don’t try this at home, you might poke your eye out.) Then I sat by and watched… as the hot water cylinder uneventfully heated the water without any problems at all. The water had been lukewarm so I just let it run. After about 15 minutes, I felt the wires—Ambient temperature. After a half hour—Ambient temperature. After an hour—Ambient temperature. All the time, the water was getting hotter and hotter. Finally, after about an hour and a half, with the water at 52C, I shut it down. The input wiring still felt right around ambient temperature.
So, people out there in Cryptogon-land:
Why are the thermostats frying between the output terminal on the thermostats and the input terminal on the hot water cylinder?
Why does the system work fine with no thermostat in the circuit?
One-Third of Americans Reject the Idea of Evolution
December 30th, 2013I tell people in New Zealand about the Creation Museum and they don’t believe that the place exists. They think I’m making it up.
Via: Reuters:
One-third of Americans reject the idea of evolution and Republicans have grown more skeptical about it, according to a poll released on Monday.
Sixty percent of Americans say that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” the telephone survey by the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project showed.
But 33 percent reject the idea of evolution, saying that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time,” Pew said in a statement.
Although this percentage remained steady since 2009, the last time Pew asked the question, there was a growing partisan gap on whether humans evolved.
“The gap is coming from the Republicans, where fewer are now saying that humans have evolved over time,” said Cary Funk, a Pew senior researcher who conducted the analysis.
The poll showed 43 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats say humans have evolved over time, compared with 54 percent and 64 percent respectively four years ago.
Japan’s Homeless Recruited for Murky Fukushima Clean-Up
December 30th, 2013Via: Reuters:
Seiji Sasa hits the train station in this northern Japanese city before dawn most mornings to prowl for homeless men.
He isn’t a social worker. He’s a recruiter. The men in Sendai Station are potential laborers that Sasa can dispatch to contractors in Japan’s nuclear disaster zone for a bounty of $100 a head.
“This is how labor recruiters like me come in every day,” Sasa says, as he strides past men sleeping on cardboard and clutching at their coats against the early winter cold.
It’s also how Japan finds people willing to accept minimum wage for one of the most undesirable jobs in the industrialized world: working on the $35 billion, taxpayer-funded effort to clean up radioactive fallout across an area of northern Japan larger than Hong Kong.
…
In January, October and November, Japanese gangsters were arrested on charges of infiltrating construction giant Obayashi Corp’s network of decontamination subcontractors and illegally sending workers to the government-funded project.
In the October case, homeless men were rounded up at Sendai’s train station by Sasa, then put to work clearing radioactive soil and debris in Fukushima City for less than minimum wage, according to police and accounts of those involved. The men reported up through a chain of three other companies to Obayashi, Japan’s second-largest construction company.
Obayashi, which is one of more than 20 major contractors involved in government-funded radiation removal projects, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the spate of arrests has shown that members of Japan’s three largest criminal syndicates – Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai and Inagawa-kai – had set up black-market recruiting agencies under Obayashi.
Research Credit: almaverdad2
State Department Whistleblower Has Email Hacked, Deleted
December 30th, 2013Gmail? Really?
Via: New York Post:
The personal e-mail account of a State Department whistleblower was hacked, and four years worth of messages — some detailing alleged wrongdoing at the agency — were deleted, The Post has learned.
The computer attack targeted the Gmail account of Diplomatic Security Service criminal investigator Richard Higbie, his lawyer, Cary Schulman, confirmed.
“They took all of his e-mails and then they deleted them all,” said Schulman. He said that he could not prove who was responsible for the hack job, but said the attack was “sophisticated” and called the targeting of Higbie “alarming.”
“Obviously, somebody is not happy with something he’s doing and wanted to get that information and also cause him an inability in the future to have ready access to that,” Schulman said.
The e-mails included evidence about misconduct by top officials at the department, communications with other potential whistleblowers there, and correspondence with members of Congress who are investigating the allegations, Schulman said.
Maniac Cop Gets Only Two Years in Prison for Dozens of Forced Anal Cavity Searches
December 30th, 2013Via: Police State USA:
A disgusting scandal involving police officers performing illegal anal cavity searches with the intent to “degrade and humiliate” dozens and dozens of victims has come to an apparent conclusion, which some feel amounts to little more than a slap on the wrists for those involved.
Between February 2010 and February 2012, a small group of Milwaukee officers took part in a string of serial assaults on subjects pulled off the streets. In many cases, the officers demanded the subjects produce the drugs they assumed were being hidden somewhere on their person. When they were not satisfied with the cooperation from the subjects, an officer would jam his hand into the subject’s underpants, touch his genitals, and insert a finger into his anus on the side of the road. Some of the complaints stated that drugs were planted during these searches. At least one complainant was a juvenile, and one stated that he was fingered so hard that his anus bled afterwards.
The group’s ringleader was Milwaukee Officer Michael Vagnini, assisted primarily by three other officers; Jeffrey Dollhopf, Brian Kozelek and Jacob Knight. Although 7 officers and one supervisor were originally suspended, the four officers mentioned above were the men the district attorney felt had enough involvement to pursue legal actions against.
Officer Vagnini was the the one who directly performed the searches with his hand; the others were present and assisted with detaining the victims, holding them down, provided Vagnini cover while molested them, and then failed to report the crimes to superiors in the department.
Russia: Second Bombing in Two Days ; 32 Dead in the Two Attacks
December 30th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
The southern Russian city of Volgograd was hit with the second deadly suicide bombing in two days on Monday, rattling security officials as the country prepares for next month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, about 400 miles to the southwest.
The bombers targeted a crowded trolley bus on Monday and a railroad station on Sunday, killing at least 32 people and injuring many more.
NSA: Office of Tailored Access Operations
December 29th, 2013I always thought that this was called Special Collection Service. Maybe this TAO thing is Double Plus Special.
Via: Spiegel:
The NSA’s TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency’s top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting.
