Baseworld
May 16th, 2013Via: Tom Dispatch:
Outside the United States, the Pentagon controls a collection of military bases unprecedented in history. With U.S. troops gone from Iraq and the withdrawal from Afghanistan underway, it’s easy to forget that we probably still have about 1,000 military bases in other peoples’ lands. This giant collection of bases receives remarkably little media attention, costs a fortune, and even when cost cutting is the subject du jour, it still seems to get a free ride.
With so much money pouring into the Pentagon’s base world, the question is: Who’s benefiting?
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Beyond the sheer volume of dollars heading overseas, an analysis of Pentagon spending reveals a troubling pattern: the majority of benefits have gone to a relatively small group of private contractors. In total, almost a third of the $385 billion has flowed into the coffers of just 10 top contractors, including scandal-prone companies like KBR, the former subsidiary of Halliburton, and oil giant BP.
Research Credit: luky
Florida Tweaks Traffic Lights to Rob Citizens of Millions of Dollars
May 15th, 2013Via: WTSP:
A subtle, but significant tweak to Florida’s rules regarding traffic signals has allowed local cities and counties to shorten yellow light intervals, resulting in millions of dollars in additional red light camera fines.
The 10 News Investigators discovered the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) quietly changed the state’s policy on yellow intervals in 2011, reducing the minimum below federal recommendations. The rule change was followed by engineers, both from FDOT and local municipalities, collaborating to shorten the length of yellow lights at key intersections, specifically those with red light cameras (RLCs).
While yellow light times were reduced by mere fractions of a second, research indicates a half-second reduction in the interval can double the number of RLC citations — and the revenue they create.
Research Credit: conceptualdecay
Official Cover Espionage Bust in Russia
May 15th, 2013Update: Activity Possibly Linked to Boston Bombing
Via: USA Today:
The U.S. diplomat expelled for allegedly spying for the CIA was trying to recruit a senior Russian intelligence officer involved with fighting terrorism in the North Caucasus, the region linked to the suspects in the Boston bombing case, the Russian newspaper Kommersan reported, quoting Russian security service sources.
The Russian Foreign Ministry declared Ryan Fogle, a third secretary in the U.S. Embassy’s political section, persona non grata on Wednesday and ordered him to leave the country. He was detained by officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Monday night.
Kommersant, quoting “participants of the special operation,” said Fogle “was trying to recruit an FSB officer in charge of the fight against terrorism in the North Caucasus.”
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All countries run intelligence operations out of their embassies. This is the nine-to-five grind of espionage work. If there’s anything noteworthy here, it’s the banality of the whole thing.
When I took an international security studies class in college long ago, this process was described in a massive, gray, subterranean, lecture hall, complete with droning professor, yawning students and an overhead projector. (Maybe that’s why I didn’t bother to post this story—memories of that sleep inducing lecture hall.)
There is a sort of kabuki theater that states run through when a bust goes down (see: persona non grata). For the defunct CIA case officer, it means, board plane back to ‘Merica, take desk job in the DI (Directorate of Intelligence). The end.
Non-official cover take downs are far more interesting, when we hear about them.
Via: CNN:
Wigs, dark glasses, a compass and a large bundle of foreign cash — it’s the stuff of any Cold War-era spy novel.
That’s the “spy arsenal” Russia’s counterintelligence agency says it found with a U.S. diplomat when he was caught allegedly trying to recruit a Russian special services staff member.
The diplomat in question, Ryan Fogle, third secretary of the Political Department of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, was declared “persona non grata” Tuesday.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has demanded his “early expulsion.”
Fogle was detained overnight Monday to Tuesday “during an attempt to recruit a representative of one of the Russian security services,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.
He was briefly held before being handed over to the embassy, following formal protocol, Russia’s counterintelligence agency, the FSB, said earlier.
‘Petrol Price Rigged for a Decade’
May 15th, 2013Via: Telegraph:
MPs and energy experts tonight raised fears motorists have been “taken for a very expensive ride”, after officials searched the offices of BP and Shell for evidence of price-rigging.
The companies are suspected of distorting the oil price since 2002, meaning drivers have potentially been ripped off for more than 10 years.
Over that time, petrol prices have risen dramatically by more than 80 per cent to around 135p per litre.
European investigators, who raided the London offices of BP and Shell, said the alleged price-rigging could have had a “huge impact” on the cost of oil, including the price of fuel for consumers.
The investigation into market-fixing already has echoes of the Libor scandal, which saw the banks falsely report key interest rates used to calculate mortgages. It cost several British banks hundreds of millions of pounds in fines.
Navy Launches X-47B from Carrier
May 14th, 2013Via: ABC:
The Navy for the first time Tuesday launched an unmanned aircraft the size of a fighter jet from a warship in the Atlantic Ocean, as it wades deeper into America’s drone program amid growing concerns over the legality of its escalating surveillance and lethal strikes.
Called the X-47B, the drone is considered particularly valuable because it’s the first that is designed specifically to take off and land on an aircraft carrier, allowing it to be used around the world without needing the permission of other countries to serve as a home base.
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The X-47B took off successfully Tuesday morning and made two low approaches to the ship before heading back toward land. The test aircraft isn’t intended for operational use; instead, the military is using the information it gathers during these demonstrations to develop the drone program.
Saudis Discussing Surveillance and Censorship Program with Outside Developer
May 14th, 2013Via: Thought Crime:
Last week I was contacted by an agent of Mobily, one of two telecoms operating in Saudi Arabia, about a surveillance project that they’re working on in that country. Having published two reasonably popular MITM tools, it’s not uncommon for me to get emails requesting that I help people with their interception projects. I typically don’t respond, but this one (an email titled “Solution for monitoring encrypted data on telecom”) caught my eye.
I was interested to know more about what they were up to, so I wrote back and asked. After a week of correspondence, I learned that they are organizing a program to intercept mobile application data, with specific interest in monitoring:
Mobile Twitter
Viber
Line
WhatsApp
Microsoft Reads Skype Chat Messages
May 14th, 2013Via: The-H Security:
Anyone who uses Skype has consented to the company reading everything they write. The H’s associates in Germany at heise Security have now discovered that the Microsoft subsidiary does in fact make use of this privilege in practice. Shortly after sending HTTPS URLs over the instant messaging service, those URLs receive an unannounced visit from Microsoft HQ in Redmond.
TEPCO Seeks Permission to Dump Groundwater from Fukushima Plant Into Ocean
May 14th, 2013Via: Japan Today:
Officials from Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) on Monday met with a Fukushima fisheries cooperative to seek its members’ permission to dump groundwater from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean.
The contaminated water storage has been a problem since early in the accident. TEPCO officials acknowledged last month that a lack of storage space has become a “crisis.” TEPCO has promised to speed up building more reliable steel tanks and eventually empty the underground tanks.
Runoff from the three reactors melted in the aftermath of the March 2011 quake-tsunami and a steady inflow of groundwater seeping into the basement of their damaged buildings produce about 400 tons of contaminated water daily at the plant.
Justice Department Secretly Obtained Two Months’ Worth of Telephone Records of Journalists Working for Associates Press
May 14th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
In a sweeping and unusual move, the Justice Department secretly obtained two months’ worth of telephone records of journalists working for the Associated Press as part of a year-long investigation into the disclosure of classified information about a failed al-Qaeda plot last year.
The AP’s president said Monday that federal authorities obtained cellular, office and home telephone records of individual reporters and an editor; AP general office numbers in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn.; and the main number for AP reporters covering Congress. He called the Justice Department’s actions a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering activities.
The aggressive investigation into the possible disclosure of classified information to the AP is part of a pattern in which the Obama administration has pursued current and former government officials suspected of releasing secret material. Six officials have been prosecuted, more than under all previous administrations combined.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the AP’s president and chief executive, Gary B. Pruitt, said that the Justice Department sought information beyond what could be justified by any specific probe and demanded that the government return the phone records and destroy all copies.
“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” Pruitt wrote to Holder. “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”
Bloomberg Posted Private Terminal Messages Online
May 13th, 2013Via: Quartz:
Bloomberg says it accidentally posted on the internet more than 10,000 private messages that traders sent each other on their Bloomberg terminals. The new revelation, reported by the Financial Times, will undoubtedly escalate the furor over Bloomberg’s handling of data that its customers consider to be confidential.
The messages were related to the Bloomberg Valuation Service, known as BVAL, which sets prices on financial products likes bonds and credit default swaps that are often traded among a small number of investors over the messaging system on their Bloomberg terminals. Customers allow Bloomberg to scan those messages for data about trades, so a market price can be established.
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According to Bloomberg’s account, the messages that ended up online (and have since been removed) were voluntarily forwarded to Bloomberg by a customer “so that we could conduct internal testing to improve our technology for the client.” A Bloomberg employee uploaded the messages to what he thought was a private website. In fact, it could be accessed by anyone.
