Government - Page 27 - Results from #520

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Two convicted for refusal to decrypt data

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Two people have been successfully prosecuted for refusing to provide authorities with their encryption keys, resulting in landmark convictions that may have carried jail sentences of up to five years. The government said today it does not know their fate.

Anthony Pell
Aug 12, 2009

Security Cyber Czar Steps Down

The White House's acting cybersecurity czar announced her resignation Monday, in a setback to the Obama administration's efforts to better protect the computer networks critical to national security and the global economy. The resignation highlights the difficulty the White House has had following through on its cybersecurity effort.

Anthony Pell
Aug 04, 2009

Pirate Bay foundering under heavy fireFile-sharing site The Pirate Bay suffered further setbacks thi

File-sharing site The Pirate Bay suffered further setbacks this week, after Italian lawyers reportedly announced plans to sue the site's owners, and a court in the Netherlands ruled that the site must block all access for Dutch users within 10 days.

Anthony Pell
Aug 03, 2009

UK, not North Korea, source of DDOS attacks, researcher says

Here's another perspective on the attacks against US government institutions. Do you believe it was North Korea, from the UK, or elsewhere? Perhaps not by some organized effort at all?The U.K. was the likely source of a series of attacks last week that took down popular Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea, according to an analysis performed by a Vietnamese computer security analyst.

Dave Wreski
Jul 14, 2009

North Korea's Cyber War

File this one under "Government Security" -- a nice and succinct article about the recent attacks against US government institutions, and what the US is battling.North Korea celebrated America

Dave Wreski
Jul 14, 2009

Pirate Bay retrial denied; judge declared "unbiased"

After The Pirate Bay defendants lost a high-profile copyright infringement trial in Sweden, they charged that the judge belonged to pro-copyright groups and was therefore biased against them. A Court of Appeals ruling today disagrees; there will be no retrial.

Anthony Pell
Jun 26, 2009

Media Misreports on Biased Pirate Bay Judge

Three judges are currently reviewing the judge that handled the Pirate Bay trial to discover if he was biased or not. No decision has yet been made but the New York Times and several other publications report inaccuracies and plain wrongs that claim otherwise. Time to get the facts straight.

Dave Wreski
Jun 14, 2009

Hacker named to Homeland Security Advisory Council

Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat and Defcon hacker and security conferences, was among 16 people sworn in on Friday to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. The HSAC members will provide recommendations and advice directly to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

Anthony Pell
Jun 08, 2009

Judge Dismisses NSA Wiretap Civil Liberties Suits

What kind of far-reaching implications does this have? Can organization's, working with the government, really be allowed to monitor communications unencumbered? Can they watch for some sort of illegal activity, terrorist or not, and then arrest someone, without having previously had a warrant?A federal judge on Wednesday threw out 46 civil lawsuits filed against telecommunications companies for allowing the National Security Agency to probe their networks for terrorist communications without approval from a court. Companies such as AT&T were granted immunity under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (FISAAA), signed into law in July 2008, ruled U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker in a 46-page opinion.

Anthony Pell
Jun 05, 2009

Obama Says He Will Name National Cybersecurity Adviser

Interesting article. Do you agree that such a position needs to be created? Will the official have enough of a technology clue to make the right decisions?President Obama used a White House speech yesterday to try to raise national concern about threats to computer networks, drawing praise from some industry executives and lawmakers but criticism from others who said his initiatives do not go far enough.

Anthony Pell
Jun 01, 2009

U.S. Cyberattack Console Aims to Turn Grunts into Hackers

Don't tools like this already exist on the Internet and through open source that enable script kiddies to launch an attack? The U.S. military is putting together a suite of hacking tools that could one day make breaking into networks as easy for the average grunt as kicking down a door. That

Anthony Pell
May 28, 2009

Red Hat Sues Switzerland Over Microsoft Monopoly

This could set an interesting precedent. I understood that European adoption of open source was very high. In fact, higher than in some areas in the US. Is Red Hat fighting a losing battle?

Anthony Pell
May 26, 2009

Pirate Bay Money Squeeze Rejected by Court

The request from four major record labels to fine the Pirate Bay operators for every day the site remains up and running was declined by the Swedish District Court today. Contrary to what the labels had requested, the court said it wants to hear the defendants before it will take any action.

Anthony Pell
May 26, 2009

Cybercrime and Punishment: Sentencing Panel Discards Proxy Penalty

The U.S. government has dropped -- for now -- a plan to classify the use of "proxy" servers as evidence of sophistication in committing a crime. Proxy servers are computers that disguise the source of Internet traffic. They are commonly used for legitimate purposes, like evading Internet censors and working from home. However, they can also be used to hide from law enforcement. The U.S. Sentencing Commission was considering a change to federal sentencing guidelines that would have increased sentences by about 25 percent for people convicted of crimes in which proxies are used.

Dave Wreski
Apr 24, 2009

Questioning Security Certifications

A pretty good read: So we can't help but wonder: What is the point of certification? How can federal agencies ensure that their cybersecurity staffers, and their contractors' staff, have the right skill sets? What do you think?

Brittany Day
Apr 09, 2009

Linux Secure Enough for Iran

Too funny (or scary, depending on your point-of-view). Apparently Iran thinks so poorly of Microsoft Windows they won't even use it. "Secondly, Microsoft software has a lot of backdoors and security weaknesses that are always being patched, so it is not secure. We are also under US sanctions. All this makes us think we need an alternative operating system."

Brittany Day
Mar 27, 2009

Indictments in Kentucky Voting Fraud Case

While not specifically related to "Linux Security" I came across this news late last week and would like to share it here. I am amazed -- and appalled -- that this story is not getting more (any) national coverage: According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006. You read that right: this is exactly the type of voting fraud that many of the experts, such as Bruce Schneier, have been talking about for years. It's no longer theory, it's practical and has actually affected the outcome of elections. With that being said, where is the national outrage? Sure it was only state- and local-level elections in Kentucky, but now that we see vulnerabilities in these electronic voting machines being used in real life, how do we know for sure it's not affecting us in our state?

Brittany Day
Mar 25, 2009

Moving Infosec Responsibilities To The White House

A good idea? Forthcoming legislation would wrest cybersecurity responsibilities from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and transfer them to the White House, a proposed move that likely will draw objections from industry groups and some conservatives.

Brittany Day
Mar 23, 2009

FBI Issues Warning Over VoIP Scammers Hijacking Asterisk

The FBI is advising users of the open source VoIP package Asterisk to upgrade to the latest version, but has so far provided very little evidence on what vulnerability it has detected. The FBI's warning as published at the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is vague at best. The warning states: "The recent attacks were conducted by hackers exploiting a security vulnerability in Asterisk software. Asterisk is free and widely used software developed to integrate PBXii systems with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), digital Internet voice calling services; however, early versions of the Asterisk software are known to have a vulnerability." Do you use Asterisk for your VoIP? If so you might want to upgrade to the latest version because the FBI stated that they have found an vulnerability in the earlier versions of the software.

Bill Keys
Dec 10, 2008

Cyber-Attack on Defense Department Computers Raises Concerns

Reporting from Washington -- Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that may have originated in Russia -- an incursion that posed unusual concern among commanders and raised potential implications for national security. Linux Security and/or World Security? What should be focused? What are your thoughts on this cyber attack after the recent Mumbai attack. This article talks about the cyber security breach on military networks and discuss the software agent.bz for the consequences. Read on for more information.

Brittany Day
Nov 28, 2008

Government - Page 27

Addressing Memory Safety Concerns: Actions for Linux Administrators

German State Abandons Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

White House Warns: Move to Memory-Safe Languages