Computer Crash Wipes Out Years of Air Force Investigation Records
June 15th, 2016Via: Government Executive:
The U.S. Air Force has lost records concerning 100,000 investigations into everything from workplace disputes to fraud.
A database that hosts files from the Air Force’s inspector general and legislative liaison divisions became corrupted last month, destroying data created between 2004 and now, service officials said. Neither the Air Force nor Lockheed Martin, the defense firm that runs the database, could say why it became corrupted or whether they’ll be able to recover the information.
Lockheed tried to recover the information for two weeks before notifying the Air Force, according to a service statement.
The Air Force has begun asking for assistance from cybersecurity professionals at the Pentagon as well as from private contractors.
“We’ve kind of exhausted everything we can to recover within [the Air Force] and now we’re going to outside experts to see if they can help,” said Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon.
For now, Air Force officials don’t believe the crash was caused intentionally.
DDOS on Cryptogon Underway
June 14th, 2016Update: Latest Attack
Last night’s antics.
—
Update: Some of the Attacking Machines
People are saying that other alternative news sites have recently been attacked. Here are some of the IPs that attacked Cryptogon, if any other admins was to see if they were hit by the same IPs. This isn’t a complete list at all. This is just me flicking through the log for some of the worst offenders:
17.142.153.27
108.226.16.36
130.63.95.202
135.23.225.54
178.62.215.201
208.79.236.208
222.211.173.232
82.192.80.209
I had Wordfence set to cooldown abusive clients, but it didn’t work, for some reason. Or maybe Wordfence was trying to track so many attackers, it pulled me down. I don’t know right now. I have to go through the log more carefully. Also, the attackers realized that my RSS feed was undefended, and decided to hammer on that as well—in case you’re wondering why the RSS feed is gone.
—
If you notice anything different on here, it’s because I’m trying to keep the site up.
I lost control for about 12 hours after the G4S update to the Orlando post. While I couldn’t access the server admin area, the public facing parts of the site were throwing various database and server configuration errors to visitors.
Anyway, I’m still turning a few wrenches under the hood…
And thanks, CloudFlare, I’m-Under-Attack mode works well.
GCHQ Spy Programme with Secret Link to Scottish Police
June 12th, 2016Via: The National:
SECRET reports leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden have revealed how UK mass surveillance of phone and internet activity was accessed by Scottish police forces.
The documents confirm that a little-known policing body called the Scottish Recording Centre (SRC) was given access to information logs that include millions of communications data, including phone activity, internet histories and social media behaviour on Facebook.
The confirmation that UK state spy agency GCHQ ran a specific programme, called “Milkwhite”, to share data with devolved policing and tax authorities is the first Snowden leak to directly implicate Scottish authorities in the controversial policy of bulk data collection.
American news site The Intercept, which has access to the Snowden files, explained Milkwhite gave “an obscure Scotland-based surveillance unit” access to “huge troves of meta-data” from UK state surveillance.
Metadata includes who a surveillance target is calling, emailing, what websites they visit, and, when location data is available, a person’s movements. The scale of secret surveillance caused global outrage over a lack of transparency, invasions of privacy and abuses of power when the first Snowden documents were released in 2013.
In 2007, UK spies drew up secret plans to snoop on the activities of “every visible user on the internet”. UK state lawyers admitted six years later that the number of people targeted was an “infinite list”. New leaked government reports claim that spies are gathering so much information that it risks harming effective security operations.
Similar: “You work it backwards to make it clean”
Orlando: Mass Shooting at Nightclub
June 12th, 2016Judge Napolitano: “Nobody Died Until 05:13 in the Morning”
—
Gun Store Owner: We Called FBI Before Orlando Shooting
Via: CBS:
The co-owner of a Florida gun store says his employees contacted law enforcement before the Orlando shooting after gunman Omar Mateen attempted to purchase body armor and ammunition.
Robbie Abell, co-owner of Lotus Gunworks, said Thursday his workers had a gut feeling about Mateen when he came to the store four or five weeks ago.
Mateen asked for level 3 body armor, according to Abell, but was told the store didn’t carry it. He then made a phone call and spoke in Arabic before asking for bulk ammunition, but employees did not sell it to him.
Abell told reporters “we contacted FBI direct” after Mateen left the store but he did not elaborate on how investigators responded. He believed his employees did what they should have done, Abell said.
—
Hopsicker: Orlando Shooting Dad a Longtime CIA Asset
I hope Dan goes deep on this one eventually.
Via: Mad Cow Productions:
The father of the man who slaughtered 50 people in the Orlando nightclub shooting Saturday night is a longtime CIA asset, whose TV show receives funding from the Voice of America -Dari. Pictured below is Seddique Mateen with California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
Rohrabacher was initially elected to Congress in 1988, with the fundraising help of friend Oliver North. Rohrabacher’s decades-long involvement in “all things Afghan” eventually earned him the nickname “Gunga Dana.” Today he chairs the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats.
…
Rohrabacher has stated that he sees radical Islam as the source of a major terrorist threat to the U.S. Calls to his office today to request comment on whether he views CIA assets relocated in the U.S. as a terrorist threat have not been returned.
—
Ex-Wife: Mateen Was Gay
Via: New York Post:
The ex-wife of Orlando mass killer Omar Mateen claimed Monday that she believed he was homosexual — as it was revealed that he frequented the gay nightclub where he staged the nation’s worst massacre in modern times.
Sitora Yusufiy, who was married to Mateen in 2009 for three months, made the shocking claim on Brazilian television station SBT Brazil.
Her fiancé, Marco Dias, speaking in Portuguese on her behalf, said Yusufiy believed that Mateen had “gay tendencies” and that his father had called him gay in front of her. Dias also claimed “the FBI asked her not to tell this to the American media.”
Modal Trigger
Sitora YusufiyPhoto: Facebook
The bombshell came as a male former classmate of Omar Mateen said he had been asked out romantically by the mass killer, who reportedly was a virtual regular at the Pulse nightclub, having visited it more than a dozen times over the years.
Modal Trigger
Omar MateenPhoto:
The former classmate said he would hang out with Mateen, hitting gay bars after attending class at Indian River Community College police academy in 2006 — and one time Mateen asked him out “romantically,” according to the Palm Beach Post.
—
MATEEN WORKED FOR DHS CONTRACTOR G4S, THE PRIVATE SECURITY FIRM THAT TRANSPORTS AND RELEASES ILLEGAL ALIENS INSIDE THE U.S.
I just hope that the punchline to this absurd joke isn’t a mushroom cloud.
Via: Independent:
The global security firm and employer of the man who killed at least 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando has said it is “shocked and saddened” by the mass murder and is working with law enforcement.
Omar Mateen worked with private security group G4S Secure Solutions as a private security officer in Florida. The role requires 28 hours of classroom training by a licensed instructor.
Officials said he had two firearms licenses, a security officer license and a statewide firearms license, all expiring in September 2017.
—
Mateen Interviewed by the FBI Twice, Had Been On Terrorist Watch List, Shares Name with FBI Informant in Another Florida Terrorism Case
Mateen (more on the name in a minute) was suspected of being a terrorist and had contact with a suicide bomber… Despite these factors, he was taken off the terrorist watch list and issued a security guard license.
Fascinating.
Mateen was a mentally ill cop poser (see the image below) with multiple contacts with the FBI.
Now read this piece in the New Yorker about the FBI manufacturing terrorism cases:
But Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who researches national security law at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, told the Times, “They’re manufacturing terrorism cases.” In too many instances, he said, “these people are five steps away from being a danger to the United States.”
In the same article, we learn that there was an FBI informant named David Mahmood Siddiqui in another Florida terrorist case:
This is not the first time that the F.B.I. has attracted criticism from national-security experts and civil-liberties groups for generating terrorism cases through sting operations and confidential informants. In “The Imam’s Curse,” published in September, I reported on a Florida family that was accused of providing “material support” to terrorists. In that case, a father, Hafiz Khan, and two of his sons were arrested. The charges against the sons were eventually dropped, but Hafiz Khan was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. At Khan’s trial, his lawyer, Khurrum Wahid, questioned the reliability of the key informant in the case, David Mahmood Siddiqui. Wahid accused Siddiqui, who’d had periods of unemployment, of lying to authorities because his work as a confidential informant was lucrative. For his role in the case, Siddiqui had received a hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars, plus expenses. But in a subsequent interview with the Associated Press, Siddiqui stood by his testimony and motives: “I did it for the love of my country, not for money.”
Several years ago, our lone wolf shooter, Mateen, changed his name.
It turns out the he added Mateen to his original name, which was Omar Mir Seddique.
According to Wikipedia, Seddique is another English spelling of Siddiqui.
Reuters notes:
In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his son’s rampage had “nothing to do with religion.”
What are the odds that an FBI informant in a Florida terrorist case shares the same last name as the perpetrator of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history—also in Florida—a lone wolf cop poser with multiple acknowledged contacts with the FBI, who was formerly listed on the terrorist watch list and associated with a suicide bomber… while holding a valid security guard license?
Coincidences.
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Mateen had been interviewed by the FBI twice and had once been on a terrorist watch list.
—
Omar Mateen Wearing NYPD Shirt
Hmm.
Via: Daily Mail:
—
Updates: Orlando Sentinel
—
Via: Los Angeles Times:
50 people are dead and at least 53 injured in the deadliest shooting in American history after a gunman took hostages overnight inside Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the city’s mayor Buddy Dyer said.
The gunman has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a U.S. law enforcement official said.
He was killed by law enforcement. He had an assault rifle, handgun and another “device.”
Mateen lived in Fort Pierce, Fla., the law enforcement official said. Fort Pierce is about 120 miles south of Orlando on the state’s Atlantic coast.
The FBI says they cannot rule out terrorism as a motive.
Yes, There Have Been Aliens
June 11th, 2016Via: New York Times:
LAST month astronomers from the Kepler spacecraft team announced the discovery of 1,284 new planets, all orbiting stars outside our solar system. The total number of such “exoplanets” confirmed via Kepler and other methods now stands at more than 3,000.
This represents a revolution in planetary knowledge. A decade or so ago the discovery of even a single new exoplanet was big news. Not anymore. Improvements in astronomical observation technology have moved us from retail to wholesale planet discovery. We now know, for example, that every star in the sky likely hosts at least one planet.
But planets are only the beginning of the story. What everyone wants to know is whether any of these worlds has aliens living on it. Does our newfound knowledge of planets bring us any closer to answering that question?
A little bit, actually, yes. In a paper published in the May issue of the journal Astrobiology, the astronomer Woodruff Sullivan and I show that while we do not know if any advanced extraterrestrial civilizations currently exist in our galaxy, we now have enough information to conclude that they almost certainly existed at some point in cosmic history.
…
Specifically, unless the probability for evolving a civilization on a habitable-zone planet is less than one in 10 billion trillion, then we are not the first.
…
In other words, given what we now know about the number and orbital positions of the galaxy’s planets, the degree of pessimism required to doubt the existence, at some point in time, of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization borders on the irrational.
Judge Finds Merck Lied in Patent Trial
June 9th, 2016Via: Los Angeles Times:
The public doesn’t have a very high opinion of drug manufacturers for various reasons, and now federal Judge Beth Labson Freeman of San Jose has provided another one. Finding that Merck & Co. lied to a business partner and to the court itself, Freeman this week threw out a patent infringement judgment Merck had won against Gilead Sciences, and overturned a $200-million jury award in the case.
Welcome to Larry Page’s Secret Flying-Car Factories
June 9th, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
With Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk, the Google co-founder looks to the skies.
The Google-Linked Startup That’s Working to Put Hillary Clinton in the White House
June 8th, 2016You’ll love this one.
Via: Quartz:
An under-the-radar startup funded by billionaire Eric Schmidt has become a major technology vendor for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, underscoring the bonds between Silicon Valley and Democratic politics.
The Groundwork, according to Democratic campaign operatives and technologists, is part of efforts by Schmidt—the executive chairman of Google parent-company Alphabet—to ensure that Clinton has the engineering talent needed to win the election. And it is one of a series of quiet investments by Schmidt that recognize how modern political campaigns are run, with data analytics and digital outreach as vital ingredients that allow candidates to find, court, and turn out critical voter blocs.
But campaigns—lacking stock options and long-term job security—find it hard to attract the elite engineering talent that Facebook, Google, and countless startups rely on. That’s also part of the problem that Schmidt and the Groundwork are helping Clinton’s team to solve.
The Groundwork is one of the Clinton campaign’s biggest vendors, billing it for more than $177,000 in the second quarter of 2015, according to federal filings. Yet many political operatives know little about it. Its website consists entirely of a grey-on-black triangle logo that suggests “the digital roots of change” while also looking vaguely like the Illuminati symbol:
“We’re not trying to obfuscate anything, we’re just trying to keep our heads down and do stuff,” says Michael Slaby, who runs the Groundwork. He was the chief technology officer for president Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, a top digital executive for Obama 2012, and the former chief technology strategist for TomorrowVentures, Schmidt’s angel investment fund.
He explained that the Groundwork and its parent company, Chicago-based Timshel—which according to its website is named for a Hebrew word meaning “you may” and is devoted to “helping humanity solve our most difficult social, civic, and humanitarian challenges”—are “all one project, with the same backers,” whom he declined to name.
Research Credit: HP
Oklahoma Highway Patrol Now Using Card Readers to Rob People
June 8th, 2016Via: News9:
You may have heard of civil asset forfeiture.
That’s where police can seize your property and cash without first proving you committed a crime; without a warrant and without arresting you, as long as they suspect that your property is somehow tied to a crime.
Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards.
It’s called an ERAD, or Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machine, and state police began using 16 of them last month.
Here’s how it works. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money.
“We’re gonna look for different factors in the way that you’re acting,” Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent said. “We’re gonna look for if there’s a difference in your story. If there’s someway that we can prove that you’re falsifying information to us about your business.”
Troopers insist this isn’t just about seizing cash.
Department of Energy: Warning Messages for Future Humans to Avoid Radioactive Waste Dumps
June 7th, 2016Wikipedia: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant:
For the case of the WIPP, the markers, called “passive institutional controls”, will include an outer perimeter of thirty-two 25-foot (7.6 m)-tall granite pillars built in a four-mile (6 km) square. These pillars will surround an earthen wall, 33 feet (10 m) tall and 100 feet (30 m) wide. Enclosed within this wall will be another 16 granite pillars. At the center, directly above the waste site, will sit a roofless, 15-foot (4.6 m) granite room providing more information. The team intends to etch warnings and informational messages into the granite slabs and pillars.
Via: U.S. Department of Energy:
This place is not a place of honor.
No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.
Nothing valued is here.
This place is a message and part of a system of messages.
Pay attention to it!
Sending this message was important to us.
We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
