Canada: High Ranking RCMP Official Arrested After Vancouver Company Sold Encrypted Cellphones to International Drug Traffickers and Money Launderers
September 17th, 2019If the devices are so secure, why are we reading about this?
Hmm…
Via: CBC:
The investigation into top RCMP civilian official Cameron Ortis began with a shadowy, multimillion-dollar Vancouver-based company run by Canadians that sold encrypted cellphones to drug traffickers and money launderers around the world.
The key figures behind Phantom Secure Communications even used modified versions of Canada’s iconic Blackberry devices to help their international criminal clientele evade police.
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At the heart of the system was Canada’s iconic Blackberry.
Phantom Secure took the Blackberry phones, installed sophisticated encryption software and routed the data through encryption servers located in countries the company believed were unco-operative with law enforcement.
Police estimate that in 2018 there were at least 10,000 Phantom Secure devices in use worldwide, with users paying $4,000 a year for the service.
But not just anyone could buy these phones. Prospective customers had to be vouched for by an existing client, which prosecutors said helped restrict Phantom Secure’s customer base to those who wanted to use the device for criminal activity.
Prosecutors said Phantom Secure maintained its servers in Panama and Hong Kong, using proxy servers to further disguise the location of its servers.
The company helped drug trafficking and money laundering in Australia, Asia, Europe, the United States and Canada, concealing its proceeds through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
More: There’s Something Rotten in the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance
Research Credit: EB
Blast Sparks Fire at Russian Laboratory Housing Smallpox Virus
September 17th, 2019Via: Guardian:
A gas explosion has sparked a fire at a Russian laboratory complex stockpiling viruses ranging from smallpox to Ebola, authorities have said.
The State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology denied that the fire had exposed the public to the pathogens stored inside, some of the deadliest on Earth.
The blast took place during repairs to a fifth-floor sanitary inspection room at the facility – known as Vector – in Koltsovo, in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia, the centre said on Monday. The site housed secret biological weapons research during the Soviet era and is now one of Russia’s main disease research centres.
One worker suffered third-degree burns after the blast, which blew out the glass in the building. The fire reportedly spread through the building’s ventilation system. A fire covering ??30 square metres was later extinguished.
Russian authorities insisted that the room where the explosion occurred was not holding any biohazardous substances and that no structural damage was caused. The mayor of Koltsovo said that the laboratory did not contain any disease samples because of ongoing repair work.
The smallpox virus survives in two places on Earth: at Vector and at another high-security laboratory at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Volkswagen Is Creating a New Car Operating System
September 16th, 2019Via: Ars Technica:
The cars we drive are increasingly defined as much by the software they run as their engines or chassis. It started slowly. Discrete electronic control units started to appear under the hood, controlling fuel management or anti-lock brakes. New functions required new code, run on new little black boxes, metastasizing to the point where today, a new car might have up to 70 different modules, with software from as many as 200 different vendors. If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it can be. Which is why Volkswagen Group—parent company to brands like VW, Audi, and Porsche—is saying “enough!”
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In the future, a single unified automotive OS will run on everything from a VW Polo to an Audi A8.
Russia Carried Out a ‘Stunning’ Breach of FBI Communications System
September 16th, 2019Via: Yahoo News:
American officials discovered that the Russians had dramatically improved their ability to decrypt certain types of secure communications and had successfully tracked devices used by elite FBI surveillance teams. Officials also feared that the Russians may have devised other ways to monitor U.S. intelligence communications, including hacking into computers not connected to the internet. Senior FBI and CIA officials briefed congressional leaders on these issues as part of a wide-ranging examination on Capitol Hill of U.S. counterintelligence vulnerabilities.
These compromises, the full gravity of which became clear to U.S. officials in 2012, gave Russian spies in American cities including Washington, New York and San Francisco key insights into the location of undercover FBI surveillance teams, and likely the actual substance of FBI communications, according to former officials. They provided the Russians opportunities to potentially shake off FBI surveillance and communicate with sensitive human sources, check on remote recording devices and even gather intelligence on their FBI pursuers, the former officials said.
U.S. Blames Iran for Saudi Oil Attack, Trump Says ‘Locked and Loaded’
September 15th, 2019Via: Reuters:
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday the United States was “locked and loaded” for a potential response to the attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, after a senior U.S. administration official said Iran was to blame.
ICE Is Building State-Of-The-Art Urban Warfare Training Facility, Hyper-Realistic Simulations Of Homes In Chicago And Arizona
September 15th, 2019Via: Newsweek:
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is looking to build a “state-of-the-art” “urban warfare” training facility that will include “hyper-realistic” simulations of homes, hotels and commercial buildings in Chicago and Arizona.
In an acquisition form for the procurement of “hyper-realistic training devices” for a new training facility for its expanding Special Response Team (SRT) program, ICE outlined the details of plans for its new training center in a document published on the U.S. Federal Business Opportunities website.
While ICE sought to redact the location of the new training facility in the document, it was not successful in doing so.
After copying and pasting the document’s contents into a separate document, Newsweek was able to establish that the facility will be built at the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs’ (OFTP) Tactical Operations Complex (TOC) at Fort Benning, Georgia.
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Among the training devices expected to be included at the new training site are “hyper-realistic props/design” that simulate “residential houses, apartments, hotels, government facilities and commercial buildings,” along with other training configurations.
The “devices” are defined as “scalable, portable, modular” training structures that would be “made from portable shipping containers or other appropriate modular materials that can be relocated to alternate sites as needed.”
“Hyper-realistic is defined as ‘such a high degree of fidelity in the replication of battlefield conditions in the training environment that participants so willingly suspend disbelief that they become totally immersed and eventually stress inoculated’,” ICE says.
Hyper-realism, the agency states, is “a critical component to this acquisition as the details provide essential information that must be acknowledged, processed and acted upon to minimize risk to our Special Agents, Deportation Officers and SRT operators during high-risk search and arrest warrants, fugitive operations, undercover operations, hostage rescue, gang operations, etc.”
“For example, details like the number of dishes left on the table, toys in the yard, lighting, furniture, etc. all provide clues that allow our agents and officers to infer vital information that directly affects their safety and the potential resolution or outcome in the scenario,” it continues. “Learning to process this information quickly to identify whether there are children present, or how many people are currently in the structure is a necessary skill developed in training.”
Saudis Race to Restore Oil Output After Aramco Attacks
September 15th, 2019Flashback: Trump and Saudi Arabia Both Want Higher Oil Prices
Mission accomplished.
Via: Bloomberg:
Saudi Arabia is racing to restore oil production after a brazen drone strike on a key Aramco facility slashed its output by half, or about 5% of world supply, an assault that the U.S. has blamed on Iran.
State energy producer Saudi Aramco lost about 5.7 million barrels per day of output after 10 unmanned aerial vehicles on Saturday struck the world’s biggest crude-processing facility in Abqaiq and the kingdom’s second-biggest oil field in Khurais, the company said.
Aramco would need weeks to restore full production capacity to a normal level, according to people familiar with the matter. The producer however can restore significant volume of oil production within days, they said. Aramco could consider declaring force majeure on some international shipments if the resumption of full capacity at Abqaiq takes weeks, they said.
The attack will likely rattle oil markets and cast a shadow on Aramco’s preparations for what could be the world’s biggest stake sale. It’s also set to escalate a showdown pitting Saudi Arabia and the U.S. against Iran, which backs proxy groups from Yemen to Iran and Lebanon.
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Saudi Aramco, which pumped about 9.8 million barrels a day in August, will be able to keep customers supplied for several weeks by drawing on a global storage network.
The Saudis hold millions of barrels in tanks in the kingdom itself, plus three strategic locations around the world: Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Okinawa in Japan, and Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.
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For the global oil market, the 5.7 million barrels a day outage is the worst single and sudden supply disruption ever, surpassing the loss of Kuwaiti and Iraqi petroleum supply in August 1990, and the loss of Iranian oil output in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, according to data from the U.S. Energy Department.
The U.S. Department of Energy said it’s prepared to dip into the Strategic Petroleum Oil Reserves if necessary to offset any market disruption.
South Africa’s Xenophobic Crisis
September 15th, 2019Via: serpentza:
Magnesium: Mineral Content of Vegetables Has Declined 80–90% Last 100 Years
September 14th, 2019This is from 2018.
Via: Nutrients:
Magnesium is a critical mineral in the human body and is involved in ~80% of known metabolic functions. It is currently estimated that 60% of adults do not achieve the average dietary intake (ADI) and 45% of Americans are magnesium deficient, a condition associated with disease states like hypertension, diabetes, and neurological disorders, to name a few. Magnesium deficiency can be attributed to common dietary practices, medications, and farming techniques, along with estimates that the mineral content of vegetables has declined by as much as 80–90% in the last 100 years. However, despite this mineral’s importance, it is poorly understood from several standpoints, not the least of which is its unique mechanism of absorption and sensitive compartmental handling in the body, making the determination of magnesium status difficult. The reliance on several popular sample assays has contributed to a great deal of confusion in the literature. This review will discuss causes of magnesium deficiency, absorption, handling, and compartmentalization in the body, highlighting the challenges this creates in determining magnesium status in both clinical and research settings.
Saudi Arabia Oil Facilities Ablaze After Drone Strikes
September 14th, 2019Via: BBC:
Drone attacks have set alight two major oil facilities run by the state-owned company Aramco in Saudi Arabia, state media say.
Footage showed a huge blaze at Abqaiq, site of Aramco’s largest oil processing plant, while a second drone attack started fires in the Khurais oilfield.
The fires are now under control at both facilities, state media said.
A spokesman for the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen said it had deployed 10 drones in the attacks.
The military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, told al-Masirah TV, which is owned by the Houthi movement and is based in Beirut, that further attacks could be expected in the future.
