There are 521 posts filed in Follow-Up (this is page 10 of 53).
Today’s opinion piece is not the first time Charles Lane has come under fire from veterans. Veteran blogger Jonn Lilyea took Lane apart after Lane took aim last year at TriCare, the veteran health care system:
So, this fairly disingenuous fellow, Charles Lane, writes in the Washington Post opinion section about how we veterans don’t deserve Tricare as it currently exists. Apparently, we shouldn’t expect the government to honor it’s promises after we’ve fulfilled our commitment;
NSA planting spyware on a Cisco router
The photo that disturbed Cisco so much, the one showing the NSA tampering with a Cisco router, actually does not concern me as much as previous reports of NSA spying. The photo shows NSA doing what it should be doing, going after the bad guys. They have a specific router going to a specific customer and they’re using good old-fashioned hard work to gain their access. I can only assume that the target of this investigation is worthy of such attention and its targeting has been duly legally authorized.
The other thing this photo shows me is that NSA opted to plant its spyware using physical means rather than network means. If NSA has some sort of super-secret backdoor into Cisco firmware it certainly isn’t apparent from this photograph.
Cisco can of course decide it wants to make it difficult for these NSA operations to succeed and that’s the company’s prerogative. Certainly this photograph can cause the company’s customers to question Cisco’s security and can hurt its business. Even so, if NSA wants to load its firmware on boxes one by one and hands-on in a legally-authorized pursuit of a true intelligence target, I suppose I’m ok with that.
Here’s a good, in-depth look at the perils Hillary faced when she opted to run her own mailserver.
The private email address for Hillary Clinton, which became the talk of Washington this week and created her first major speed bump on her road to the White House, has actually been freely available on the Internet for a year, thanks to a colorful Romanian hacker known as Guccifer.
On March 14, 2013, Guccifer—his real name is Marcel-Lehel Lazar—broke into the AOL account of Sidney Blumenthal, a journalist, former White House aide to Bill Clinton, and personal confidante of Hillary Clinton. Lazar crowed about his exploits to journalists, disclosing a set of memos Blumenthal had written to Clinton in 2012, as well as the personal email address and domain she’s now known to have used exclusively for her personal and official correspondence.
Few journalists noticed that at the time, and it caused no ruckus in Washington. But the fact that Clinton’s private email was now public means she was not just putting her own information at risk, but potentially those in the circle of people who knew her private address.
via Hillary’s Secret Email Was a Cyberspy’s Dream Weapon – The Daily Beast.
No, it’s not always a room filled with wires and glowing blue lights. It’s probably not even the size of your furnace. The personal email server used by Hillary Rodham Clinton during her time as secretary of state was probably about the size of your office desktop computer and could have been tucked quietly in a corner somewhere.
She’s come a long way since 1997, when Clinton’s staff bought the then-first lady a copy of the book "E-Mail for Dummies."
Setting up your own email server is something only the geekiest of tech geeks do because of the serious hassles involved, including spending every waking hour fending off spam. Like brewing your own beer, it’s typically done just for fun — a way to challenge your smarts and fill the time. It also appeals to those who fear the government is sniffing around and could compel companies like Google or Yahoo to release customer data.
via 'Homebrew' email servers: Genius as well as sneaky? :: WRAL.com.
Here is Wilson’s official statement on today’s FCC ruling.
CITY OF WILSON APPLAUDS FCC CHAIRMAN WHEELER AND THE COMMISSION FOR ITS LEADERSHIP IN DECIDING IN FAVOR OF LOCAL BROADBAND CHOICE
Wilson, N.C. — The City of Wilson applauds FCC Chairman Wheeler and the Commission for their leadership today in approving the City’s petition to preempt a North Carolina state law that restricts municipal Gigabit broadband deployment. Today’s historic decision now enables Wilson and other North Carolina municipalities to provide the Gigabit broadband infrastructure and services that North Carolina and America need in order to remain competitive in our emerging knowledge-based global economy.
Continue reading
Wilson’s petition to the FCC was just granted and I couldn’t be happier. North Carolina’s “Level Playing Field” law, written by Time Warner Cable, is now null and void. Now communities across the state can build themselves their own digital future with a community broadband service.
I would be dancing in the street if the street wasn’t a slushy mess right now!
For years, cities around the country have been trying to build their own, local competitors to Verizon, Charter and other major Internet providers. Such government-run Internet service would be faster and cheaper than private alternatives, they argued. But in roughly 20 states, those efforts have been stymied by state laws.
Now, the nation’s top telecom regulators want to change that. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commissions voted 3-2 to override laws preventing Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wilson, N.C. from expanding the high-speed Internet service the cities already offer to some residents.
via The FCC rules against state limits on city-run Internet – The Washington Post.
The story of Ken Dilanian playing footsie with the CIA brought to mind a comment I heard a few years back from someone in a position to know who insisted that news anchor Ted Koppel was a paid CIA asset. That was quite an extraordinary claim but I did not follow up and I could not find much evidence on the web to back it up.
It is not, however, a new phenomenon. Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein wrote a lengthy story about improper CIA involvement with the media. Wikipedia describes “Operation Mockinbgird” as a CIA plan to influence media and speaks of it in the past tense, though there is no indication that the operation has ended. Perhaps it hasn’t.
Ken Dilanian
Associated Press Intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian reports on the NSA/GCHQ’s theft of mobile phone keys, as reported by The Intercept.
WASHINGTON AP — Britain’s electronic spying agency, in cooperation with the U.S. National Security Agency, hacked into the networks of a Dutch company to steal codes that allow both governments to seamlessly eavesdrop on mobile phones worldwide, according to the documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden.
via AP News | The Times-Tribune | thetimes-tribune.com.
Dilanian’s soft-pedaling arrives in the second paragraph:
Continue reading
Germany’s Der Spiegel published Snowden documents last month that describe an NSA project to modify hard drive firmware for spying purposes. This pretty much fingers the NSA as the “Equation Group” Kaspersky mentioned in its report.
Normally, internship applicants need to have polished resumes, with volunteer work on social projects considered a plus. But at Politerain, the job posting calls for candidates with significantly different skill sets. We are, the ad says, "looking for interns who want to break things."
Politerain is not a project associated with a conventional company. It is run by a US government intelligence organization, the National Security Agency (NSA). More precisely, it’s operated by the NSA’s digital snipers with Tailored Access Operations (TAO), the department responsible for breaking into computers.
via New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle – SPIEGEL ONLINE.
I submitted this letter to the editor to the N&O today. I trust they’ll agree with it and run it to correct the errors in the abysmal op-ed they ran last week.
Dawson Gage’s recent opinion piece about Google Fiber was deeply flawed. No public infrastructure is being “handed over” to Google. In actuality, Google will buy or build its infrastructure like any other provider. Gage also alleges Google was “deeply involved in the illegal, secret surveillance” when in fact much evidence exists to the contrary. Furthermore, how Gage can suggest that broadband hasn’t enriched our lives is bizarre and puzzling.
I know Google Fiber’s arrival is exciting news but let’s keep our heads, please.
Mark Turner
Raleigh, NC
Founder, Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh! Facebook Group
Update 6 Feb: The N&O ran my letter today. Gave it a headline of “Google all good.” I’m not sure I’d go that far, but at least someone has now set the record straight. On the same page, though, another letter writer repeated Gage’s “public giveway” premise. Sigh.
