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Alexandra IcecreamApps

Free Printable Calendars: Best Websites - Icecream Tech Digest - 0 views

icecreamapps.com/...ntable-calendars-best-websites

Internet calendars calendar template Calendarlabs Calendarpedia calender free printable pdf print Timeanddate.com Vertex42 WinCalendar

shared by Alexandra IcecreamApps on 04 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Alexandra IcecreamApps on 04 Dec 15
     
    It's hard to believe, but it's already December. Brace yourselves, winter is coming. In a little less than a month a new calendar year will start. All the mistypes and crossed out 5s in the date fields of all documents and papers will appear. Due to…
  • Alexandra IcecreamApps on 04 Dec 15
     
    It's hard to believe, but it's already December. Brace yourselves, winter is coming. In a little less than a month a new calendar year will start. All the mistypes and crossed out 5s in the date fields of all documents and papers will appear. Due to…
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

When Authors Demand Payment For Every Copy, They Advocate Communism - TorrentFreak - 0 views

torrentfreak.com/re-advocating-communism-151220

authors demand payment copy communism advocate Falkvinge

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 22 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 22 Dec 15
     
    " Rick Falkvinge on December 21, 2015 C: 114 Opinion Yes, really. There's a whole lot of confusion in the dangerous and wrong cliché that "authors must be paid" for every copy that's made. We live in a market economy for good reasons."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 22 Dec 15
     
    " Rick Falkvinge on December 21, 2015 C: 114 Opinion Yes, really. There's a whole lot of confusion in the dangerous and wrong cliché that "authors must be paid" for every copy that's made. We live in a market economy for good reasons."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Protect Global Internet Freedom - 1 views

www.protectinternetfreedom.net

protect internet freedom global partcipate pariticipation engagement

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 15 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 15 Nov 12
     
    [On December 3rd, the world's governments will meet to update a key treaty of a UN agency called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Some governments are proposing to extend ITU authority to Internet governance in ways that could threaten Internet openness and innovation, increase access costs, and erode human rights online. We call on civil society organizations and citizens of all nations to sign the following Statement to Protect Global Internet Freedom: ...]
Paul Merrell

Hey ITU Member States: No More Secrecy, Release the Treaty Proposals | Electronic Front... - 0 views

www.eff.org/...crecy-release-wcit-documents-0

Internet freedom Openweb ITU regulation

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will hold the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) in December in Dubai, an all-important treaty-writing event where ITU Member States will discuss the proposed revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR). The ITU is a United Nations agency responsible for international telecom regulation, a bureaucratic, slow-moving, closed regulatory organization that issues treaty-level provisions for international telecommunication networks and services. The ITR, a legally binding international treaty signed by 178 countries, defines the boundaries of ITU’s regulatory authority and provides "general principles" on international telecommunications. However, media reports indicate that some proposed amendments to the ITR—a negotiation that is already well underway—could potentially expand the ITU’s mandate to encompass the Internet.
  • The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will hold the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) in December in Dubai, an all-important treaty-writing event where ITU Member States will discuss the proposed revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR). The ITU is a United Nations agency responsible for international telecom regulation, a bureaucratic, slow-moving, closed regulatory organization that issues treaty-level provisions for international telecommunication networks and services. The ITR, a legally binding international treaty signed by 178 countries, defines the boundaries of ITU’s regulatory authority and provides "general principles" on international telecommunications. However, media reports indicate that some proposed amendments to the ITR—a negotiation that is already well underway—could potentially expand the ITU’s mandate to encompass the Internet. In similar fashion to the secrecy surrounding ACTA and TPP, the ITR proposals are being negotiated in secret, with high barriers preventing access to any negotiating document. While aspiring to be a venue for Internet policy-making, the ITU Member States do not appear to be very open to the idea of allowing all stakeholders (including civil society) to participate. The framework under which the ITU operates does not allow for any form of open participation. Mere access to documents and decision-makers is sold by the ITU to corporate “associate” members at prohibitively high rates. Indeed, the ITU’s business model appears to depend on revenue generation from those seeking to ‘participate’ in its policy-making processes. This revenue-based principle of policy-making is deeply troubling in and of itself, as the objective of policy making should be to reach the best possible outcome.
  • EFF, European Digital Rights, CIPPIC and CDT and a coalition of civil society organizations from around the world are demanding that the ITU Secretary General, the  WCIT-12 Council Working Group, and ITU Member States open up the WCIT-12 and the Council working group negotiations, by immediately releasing all the preparatory materials and Treaty proposals. If it affects the digital rights of citizens across the globe, the public needs to know what is going on and deserves to have a say. The Council Working Group is responsible for the preparatory work towards WCIT-12, setting the agenda for and consolidating input from participating governments and Sector Members. We demand full and meaningful participation for civil society in its own right, and without cost, at the Council Working Group meetings and the WCIT on equal footing with all other stakeholders, including participating governments. A transparent, open process that is inclusive of civil society at every stage is crucial to creating sound policy.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Civil society has good reason to be concerned regarding an expanded ITU policy-making role. To begin with, the institution does not appear to have high regard for the distributed multi-stakeholder decision making model that has been integral to the development of an innovative, successful and open Internet. In spite of commitments at WSIS to ensure Internet policy is based on input from all relevant stakeholders, the ITU has consistently put the interests of one stakeholder—Governments—above all others. This is discouraging, as some government interests are inconsistent with an open, innovative network. Indeed, the conditions which have made the Internet the powerful tool it is today emerged in an environment where the interests of all stakeholders are given equal footing, and existing Internet policy-making institutions at least aspire, with varying success, to emulate this equal footing. This formula is enshrined in the Tunis Agenda, which was committed to at WSIS in 2005:
  • 83. Building an inclusive development-oriented Information Society will require unremitting multi-stakeholder effort. We thus commit ourselves to remain fully engaged—nationally, regionally and internationally—to ensure sustainable implementation and follow-up of the outcomes and commitments reached during the WSIS process and its Geneva and Tunis phases of the Summit. Taking into account the multifaceted nature of building the Information Society, effective cooperation among governments, private sector, civil society and the United Nations and other international organizations, according to their different roles and responsibilities and leveraging on their expertise, is essential. 84. Governments and other stakeholders should identify those areas where further effort and resources are required, and jointly identify, and where appropriate develop, implementation strategies, mechanisms and processes for WSIS outcomes at international, regional, national and local levels, paying particular attention to people and groups that are still marginalized in their access to, and utilization of, ICTs.
  • Indeed, the ITU’s current vision of Internet policy-making is less one of distributed decision-making, and more one of ‘taking control.’ For example, in an interview conducted last June with ITU Secretary General Hamadoun Touré, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin raised the suggestion that the union might take control of the Internet: “We are thankful to you for the ideas that you have proposed for discussion,” Putin told Touré in that conversation. “One of them is establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).” Perhaps of greater concern are views espoused by the ITU regarding the nature of the Internet. Yesterday, at the World Summit of Information Society Forum, Mr. Alexander Ntoko, head of the Corporate Strategy Division of the ITU, explained the proposals made during the preparatory process for the WCIT, outlining a broad set of topics that can seriously impact people's rights. The categories include "security," "interoperability" and "quality of services," and the possibility that ITU recommendations and regulations will be not only binding on the world’s nations, but enforced.
  • Rights to online expression are unlikely to fare much better than privacy under an ITU model. During last year’s IGF in Kenya, a voluntary code of conduct was issued to further restrict free expression online. A group of nations (including China, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) released a Resolution for the UN General Assembly titled, “International Code of Conduct for Information Security.”  The Code seems to be designed to preserve and protect national powers in information and communication. In it, governments pledge to curb “the dissemination of information that incites terrorism, secessionism or extremism or that undermines other countries’ political, economic and social stability, as well as their spiritual and cultural environment.” This overly broad provision accords any state the right to censor or block international communications, for almost any reason.
  • EFF Joins Coalition Denouncing Secretive WCIT Planning Process June 2012 Congressional Witnesses Agree: Multistakeholder Processes Are Right for Internet Regulation June 2012 Widespread Participation Is Key in Internet Governance July 2012 Blogging ITU: Internet Users Will Be Ignored Again if Flawed ITU Proposals Gain Traction June 2012 Global Telecom Governance Debated at European Parliament Workshop
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 12
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Make a Donation to the Internet Archive - 0 views

archive.org/donate

save Internet Archive internet archive donation

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 23 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 23 Dec 12
     
    [3-for-1 Match for All Donations! A generous supporter has offered to match every dollar we raise 3-to-1 through December 31st. We are trying to raise $150,000 in donations by the end of the year - with the match, that will give us $600,000, enough to buy 4 more petabytes of storage. Help us keep the library free for millions of people by making a tax-deductible donation today.]
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

A digital freedom strategy in EU foreign policy | Europarlament - 0 views

www.europarl.europa.eu/...getDoc.do

digital freedom strategy foreign policy policy Europe

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 12 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 12 Dec 12
     
    [Texts adopted - Tuesday, 11 December 2012 - - P7_TA-PROV(2012)0470 ]
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

#KeepItOn - Access Now - 0 views

www.accessnow.org/keepiton

#KeepItOn governmets international authorities politics policies keep web www pages webpages up democract built upon differences

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 24 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 24 Nov 16
     
    "This December, world leaders will meet in Mexico to discuss the future of the internet. We're going to be there calling on them to put an end to internet shutdowns."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Ten Years in Jail For UK Internet Pirates: How the New Bill Reads - TorrentFreak - 0 views

torrentfreak.com/-how-the-new-bill-reads-161204

jail internet pirates bill reads

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 05 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 05 Dec 16
     
    " By Andy on December 4, 2016 C: 102 News The Digital Economy Bill is currently at the report stage. It hasn't yet become law and could still be amended. However, as things stand those who upload any amount of infringing content to the Internet could face up to 10 years in jail. With the latest bill now published, we take a look at how file-sharers could be affected."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Version 4.0 - Public Discussion Launches - Creative Commons - 1 views

creativecommons.org/...30676

creative commons public discussion

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 12 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 12 Dec 11
     
    [Diane Peters, December 9th, 2011 We are pleased to announce the beginning of the public discussion process that we expect to result in version 4.0 of the Creative Commons license suite. Timeliness and Opportunity The 4.0 discussions held at the 2011 Global Summit confirmed for CC the need to commence the 4.0 discussion process now if we wish to consider issues relevant to important would-be adopters in a timely manner. As explained following legal sessions at the Summit, version 3.0 is working (and will continue to work) really well for many adopters, but the reality is different for others. ...]
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

European Charter of the Commons Campaign - P2P Foundation - 1 views

p2pfoundation.net/harter_of_the_Commons_Campaign

commons charter campaign

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 04 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 04 Feb 12
     
    [= A European Citizen's Initiative for a European Charter of the Commons was initiated by the municipality of Naples, with the the first high level technical meeting of jurists taking place recently (in December) at the International University College of Turin.]
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) - 0 views

www.itu.int/...default.aspx

world conference international telecommunications wcit

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 06 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 06 Aug 12
     
    [At the request of our membership, ITU will convene the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 3-14 December 2012. This landmark conference will review the current International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), which serve as the binding global treaty outlining the principles which govern the way international voice, data and video traffic is handled, and which lay the foundation for ongoing innovation and market growth. The ITRs were last negotiated in Melbourne, Australia in 1988, and there is broad consensus that the text now needs to be updated to reflect the dramatically different information and communication technology (ICT) landscape of the 21st century.]
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

How to Build Your Twitter Brand in 60 Days - 0 views

smedio.com/60-days-tips-from-jody-barrett

how to build brand twitter

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 23 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 23 Feb 14
     
    "One of my favorite things in social media is coming across new faces and new brands. I am intrigued with how they are using Twitter, and, if they get it much faster than I did. I didn't know how to tweet effectively for my first six months on Twitter back in 2009. Yes, its true. However, I recently sat down with businesswoman Jody Barrett. She joined Twitter last Summer, but didn't step up efforts to grow her account until December 1st 2013. This woman is funny, direct, and very aware of the power of social media. She gets it, big time, and it didn't take her six months to understand."
Gary Edwards

Windows XP: How end of support sparked one organisation's shift from Microsoft | ZDNet - 1 views

www.zdnet.com/hift-from-microsoft-7000028510

Chrome chrome-OS

shared by Gary Edwards on 17 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 17 Apr 14
     
    Good story of how a UK Company responded to Microsoft's announcement if XP end of life. After examining many alternatives, they settled on a ChromeBook-ChromeBox - Citrix solution. Most of the existing desktop hardware was repurposed as ChromeTops running Chrome Browser apps and Citrix XenDesktop for legacy data apps. excerpt/intro: "There are the XP diehards, and the Windows 7 and 8 migrators. But in a world facing up to the end of Windows XP support, one UK organisation belongs to another significant group - those breaking with Microsoft as their principal OS provider. Microsoft's end of routine security patching and software updates on 8 April helped push the London borough of Barking and Dagenham to a decision it might otherwise not have taken over the fate of its 3,500 Windows XP desktops and 800 laptops. "They were beginning to creak but they would have gone on for a while. It's fair to say if XP wasn't going out of life, we probably wouldn't be doing this now," Barking and Dagenham general manager IT Sheyne Lucock said. Around one-eighth of corporate Windows XP users are moving away from Microsoft, according to recent Tech Pro Research. Lucock said it had become clear that the local authority was locked into a regular Windows operating system refresh cycle that it could no longer afford. "If we just replaced all the Windows desktops with newer versions running a newer version of Windows, four years later we would have to do the same again and so on," he said. "So there was an inclination to try and do something different - especially as we know that with all the budget challenges that local government is going to be faced with, we're going to have to halve the cost of our ICT service over the next five years." Barking and Dagenham outsourced its IT in December 2010 to Elevate East London, which is a joint-venture between the council and services firm Agilisys. Lucock and systems architect Rupert Hay-Campbell are responsible for strategy, policy
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Apr 14
     
    Meanwhile, some organizations missed the end of life deadline and are now paying Microsoft for extended support. E.g., the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, which is still running 58,000 desktops on WinXP. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/irs-another-windows-xp-laggard-will-pay-microsoft-for-patches/
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Apple and Other Tech Companies Tangle With U.S. Over Data Access - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...th-us-over-access-to-data.html

apple microsoft tech companies tangle US data access pantomime

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 11 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 11 Sep 15
     
    "...While that prospect has been shelved for now, the Justice Department is engaged in a court dispute with another tech company, Microsoft. The case, which goes before a federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday and is being closely watched by industry officials and civil liberties advocates, began when the company refused to comply with a warrant in December 2013 for emails from a drug trafficking suspect. ..."
Paul Merrell

W3C Public Newsletter, 2008-11-03 from W3C Newsletter on 2008-11-03 (w3c-announce@w3.or... - 0 views

lists.w3.org/...0004.html

accessibility web standards WCAG 2.0 W3C

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Nov 08 - Cached
  • The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has published the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0" as a Proposed Recommendation, and published updated Working Drafts of "Understanding WCAG 2.0," "Techniques for WCAG 2.0," and How to Meet WCAG 2.0. WCAG defines how to make Web sites, Web applications, and other Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Comments are welcome through 2 December 2008. Read the announcement, Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/PR-WCAG20-20081103/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20-20081103/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-WCAG20-TECHS-20081103/ http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/ http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2008OctDec/0091 http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag20.php http://www.w3.org/WAI/
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties CyberCrime pages - 0 views

www.cyber-rights.org/cybercrime

cybercrime Cyber-Liberties Cyber-Rights

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 01 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 01 Aug 11
     
    [Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK), An Advocacy Handbook for the Non Governmental Organisations: The Council of Europe's Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and the additional protocol on the criminalisation of acts of a racist or xenophobic nature committed through computer systems, December 2003. This report has been revised and updated in October 2005. ...]
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

UK Users Need 27 Services to Get Most Popular Films, Report Finds | TorrentFreak - 0 views

torrentfreak.com/ular-films-report-finds-141208

media distribution scheme censorship let's sharing save entertainment culture creativity spreading

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 09 Dec 14 - No Cached
    • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.
      Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 09 Dec 14
       
      # is it, or isn't it '#censorship' this '#Media #Distribution' scheme..?
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 09 Dec 14
     
    [ Andy on December 8, 2014 C: 38 Breaking If UK Internet users want access to most recent popular film content they'll need to remember a lot of passwords. A new survey from KPMG has found that while overall availability is good, users wanting the best will have to use to a patience-challenging 27 services ...]
Paul Merrell

Operation Socialist: How GCHQ Spies Hacked Belgium's Largest Telco - 0 views

firstlook.org/...elgacom-hack-gchq-inside-story

surveillance state GCHQ NSA Regin-malware Belgacom

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • When the incoming emails stopped arriving, it seemed innocuous at first. But it would eventually become clear that this was no routine technical problem. Inside a row of gray office buildings in Brussels, a major hacking attack was in progress. And the perpetrators were British government spies. It was in the summer of 2012 that the anomalies were initially detected by employees at Belgium’s largest telecommunications provider, Belgacom. But it wasn’t until a year later, in June 2013, that the company’s security experts were able to figure out what was going on. The computer systems of Belgacom had been infected with a highly sophisticated malware, and it was disguising itself as legitimate Microsoft software while quietly stealing data. Last year, documents from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that British surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters was behind the attack, codenamed Operation Socialist. And in November, The Intercept revealed that the malware found on Belgacom’s systems was one of the most advanced spy tools ever identified by security researchers, who named it “Regin.”
  • The full story about GCHQ’s infiltration of Belgacom, however, has never been told. Key details about the attack have remained shrouded in mystery—and the scope of the attack unclear. Now, in partnership with Dutch and Belgian newspapers NRC Handelsblad and De Standaard, The Intercept has pieced together the first full reconstruction of events that took place before, during, and after the secret GCHQ hacking operation. Based on new documents from the Snowden archive and interviews with sources familiar with the malware investigation at Belgacom, The Intercept and its partners have established that the attack on Belgacom was more aggressive and far-reaching than previously thought. It occurred in stages between 2010 and 2011, each time penetrating deeper into Belgacom’s systems, eventually compromising the very core of the company’s networks.
  • Snowden told The Intercept that the latest revelations amounted to unprecedented “smoking-gun attribution for a governmental cyber attack against critical infrastructure.” The Belgacom hack, he said, is the “first documented example to show one EU member state mounting a cyber attack on another…a breathtaking example of the scale of the state-sponsored hacking problem.”
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • When the incoming emails stopped arriving, it seemed innocuous at first. But it would eventually become clear that this was no routine technical problem. Inside a row of gray office buildings in Brussels, a major hacking attack was in progress. And the perpetrators were British government spies. It was in the summer of 2012 that the anomalies were initially detected by employees at Belgium’s largest telecommunications provider, Belgacom. But it wasn’t until a year later, in June 2013, that the company’s security experts were able to figure out what was going on. The computer systems of Belgacom had been infected with a highly sophisticated malware, and it was disguising itself as legitimate Microsoft software while quietly stealing data. Last year, documents from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that British surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters was behind the attack, codenamed Operation Socialist. And in November, The Intercept revealed that the malware found on Belgacom’s systems was one of the most advanced spy tools ever identified by security researchers, who named it “Regin.”
  • Publicly, Belgacom has played down the extent of the compromise, insisting that only its internal systems were breached and that customers’ data was never found to have been at risk. But secret GCHQ documents show the agency gained access far beyond Belgacom’s internal employee computers and was able to grab encrypted and unencrypted streams of private communications handled by the company. Belgacom invested several million dollars in its efforts to clean-up its systems and beef-up its security after the attack. However, The Intercept has learned that sources familiar with the malware investigation at the company are uncomfortable with how the clean-up operation was handled—and they believe parts of the GCHQ malware were never fully removed.
  • The revelations about the scope of the hacking operation will likely alarm Belgacom’s customers across the world. The company operates a large number of data links internationally (see interactive map below), and it serves millions of people across Europe as well as officials from top institutions including the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council. The new details will also be closely scrutinized by a federal prosecutor in Belgium, who is currently carrying out a criminal investigation into the attack on the company. Sophia in ’t Veld, a Dutch politician who chaired the European Parliament’s recent inquiry into mass surveillance exposed by Snowden, told The Intercept that she believes the British government should face sanctions if the latest disclosures are proven.
  • What sets the secret British infiltration of Belgacom apart is that it was perpetrated against a close ally—and is backed up by a series of top-secret documents, which The Intercept is now publishing.
  • Between 2009 and 2011, GCHQ worked with its allies to develop sophisticated new tools and technologies it could use to scan global networks for weaknesses and then penetrate them. According to top-secret GCHQ documents, the agency wanted to adopt the aggressive new methods in part to counter the use of privacy-protecting encryption—what it described as the “encryption problem.” When communications are sent across networks in encrypted format, it makes it much harder for the spies to intercept and make sense of emails, phone calls, text messages, internet chats, and browsing sessions. For GCHQ, there was a simple solution. The agency decided that, where possible, it would find ways to hack into communication networks to grab traffic before it’s encrypted.
  • The Snowden documents show that GCHQ wanted to gain access to Belgacom so that it could spy on phones used by surveillance targets travelling in Europe. But the agency also had an ulterior motive. Once it had hacked into Belgacom’s systems, GCHQ planned to break into data links connecting Belgacom and its international partners, monitoring communications transmitted between Europe and the rest of the world. A map in the GCHQ documents, named “Belgacom_connections,” highlights the company’s reach across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, illustrating why British spies deemed it of such high value.
  • Documents published with this article: Automated NOC detection Mobile Networks in My NOC World Making network sense of the encryption problem Stargate CNE requirements NAC review – October to December 2011 GCHQ NAC review – January to March 2011 GCHQ NAC review – April to June 2011 GCHQ NAC review – July to September 2011 GCHQ NAC review – January to March 2012 GCHQ Hopscotch Belgacom connections
Paul Merrell

Why the Sony hack is unlikely to be the work of North Korea. | Marc's Security Ramblings - 0 views

marcrogers.org/...-to-be-the-work-of-north-korea

Sony-hack North-Korea false-flag FBI Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Everyone seems to be eager to pin the blame for the Sony hack on North Korea. However, I think it’s unlikely. Here’s why:1. The broken English looks deliberately bad and doesn’t exhibit any of the classic comprehension mistakes you actually expect to see in “Konglish”. i.e it reads to me like an English speaker pretending to be bad at writing English. 2. The fact that the code was written on a PC with Korean locale & language actually makes it less likely to be North Korea. Not least because they don’t speak traditional “Korean” in North Korea, they speak their own dialect and traditional Korean is forbidden. This is one of the key things that has made communication with North Korean refugees difficult. I would find the presence of Chinese far more plausible.
  • 3. It’s clear from the hard-coded paths and passwords in the malware that whoever wrote it had extensive knowledge of Sony’s internal architecture and access to key passwords. While it’s plausible that an attacker could have built up this knowledge over time and then used it to make the malware, Occam’s razor suggests the simpler explanation of an insider. It also fits with the pure revenge tact that this started out as. 4. Whoever did this is in it for revenge. The info and access they had could have easily been used to cash out, yet, instead, they are making every effort to burn Sony down. Just think what they could have done with passwords to all of Sony’s financial accounts? With the competitive intelligence in their business documents? From simple theft, to the sale of intellectual property, or even extortion – the attackers had many ways to become rich. Yet, instead, they chose to dump the data, rendering it useless. Likewise, I find it hard to believe that a “Nation State” which lives by propaganda would be so willing to just throw away such an unprecedented level of access to the beating heart of Hollywood itself.
  • 5. The attackers only latched onto “The Interview” after the media did – the film was never mentioned by GOP right at the start of their campaign. It was only after a few people started speculating in the media that this and the communication from DPRK “might be linked” that suddenly it became linked. I think the attackers both saw this as an opportunity for “lulz” and as a way to misdirect everyone into thinking it was a nation state. After all, if everyone believes it’s a nation state, then the criminal investigation will likely die.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • 6. Whoever is doing this is VERY net and social media savvy. That, and the sophistication of the operation, do not match with the profile of DPRK up until now. Grugq did an excellent analysis of this aspect his findings are here – http://0paste.com/6875#md 7. Finally, blaming North Korea is the easy way out for a number of folks, including the security vendors and Sony management who are under the microscope for this. Let’s face it – most of today’s so-called “cutting edge” security defenses are either so specific, or so brittle, that they really don’t offer much meaningful protection against a sophisticated attacker or group of attackers.
  • 8. It probably also suits a number of political agendas to have something that justifies sabre-rattling at North Korea, which is why I’m not that surprised to see politicians starting to point their fingers at the DPRK also. 9. It’s clear from the leaked data that Sony has a culture which doesn’t take security very seriously. From plaintext password files, to using “password” as the password in business critical certificates, through to just the shear volume of aging unclassified yet highly sensitive data left out in the open. This isn’t a simple slip-up or a “weak link in the chain” – this is a serious organization-wide failure to implement anything like a reasonable security architecture.
  • The reality is, as things stand, Sony has little choice but to burn everything down and start again. Every password, every key, every certificate is tainted now and that’s a terrifying place for an organization to find itself. This hack should be used as the definitive lesson in why security matters and just how bad things can get if you don’t take it seriously. 10. Who do I think is behind this? My money is on a disgruntled (possibly ex) employee of Sony.
  • EDIT: This appears (at least in part) to be substantiated by a conversation the Verge had with one of the alleged hackers – http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/25/7281097/sony-pictures-hackers-say-they-want-equality-worked-with-staff-to-break-in Finally for an EXCELLENT blow by blow analysis of the breach and the events that followed, read the following post by my friends from Risk Based Security – https://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/2014/12/a-breakdown-and-analysis-of-the-december-2014-sony-hack EDIT: Also make sure you read my good friend Krypt3ia’s post on the hack – http://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/sony-hack-winners-and-losers/
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Dec 14
     
    Seems that the FBI overlooked a few clues before it told Obama to go ahead and declare war against North Korea. 
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Researchers Make BitTorrent Anonymous and Impossible to Shut Down | TorrentFreak [# Via... - 1 views

torrentfreak.com/impossible-to-shut-down-141218

researches make bittorrent anonymous impossible shut down

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 19 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 19 Dec 14
     
    [ Ernesto on December 18, 2014 C: 0 Breaking While the BitTorrent ecosystem is filled with uncertainty and doubt, researchers at Delft University of Technology have released the first version of their anonymous and decentralized BitTorrent network. "Tribler makes BitTorrent anonymous and impossible to shut down," lead researcher Prof. Pouwelse says. ...]
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