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John Lemke

Swedes may soon exchange postage stamps for SMS codes - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...stage-stamps-for-sms-codes.ars

swedes wroteatindienation wroteatlockergnome 2011.03.15 2011 phone sms text cellphone stamp postage Sweden Denmark

shared by John Lemke on 15 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • John Lemke on 15 Mar 11
     
    that ritual is about to be replaced with a more high-tech one: people may soon be able to pay for their postage via text message, thereby eliminating the need for a stamp. The system works like this: Swedes will be able to send a text message to the postal service saying that they want postage for a letter. The postal service will then presumably charge an account on file, then respond with another text that contains a code. The letter-sender will then write the code on the envelope to show that postage had been paid.
John Lemke

Cops to Congress: We need logs of Americans' text messages | Politics and Law - CNET News - 0 views

news.cnet.com/...ogs-of-americans-text-messages

2012 security freespeech freedom legal law privacy Police SMS

shared by John Lemke on 06 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • CNET has learned a constellation of law enforcement groups has asked the U.S. Senate to require that wireless companies retain that information, warning that the lack of a current federal requirement "can hinder law enforcement investigations." They want an SMS retention requirement to be "considered" during congressional discussions over updating a 1986 privacy law for the cloud computing era -- a move that could complicate debate over the measure and erode support for it among civil libertarians. As the popularity of text messages has exploded in recent years, so has their use in criminal investigations and civil lawsuits. They have been introduced as evidence in armed robbery, cocaine distribution, and wire fraud prosecutions. In one 2009 case in Michigan, wireless provider SkyTel turned over the contents of 626,638 SMS messages, a figure described by a federal judge as "staggering."
John Lemke

NSA paid $10 Million bribe to RSA Security for Keeping Encryption Weak - 0 views

thehackernews.com/...d-10-million-bribe-to-rsa.html

2013 nsa bribe RSA backdoor security yourrights privacy spying surveillance INN 2013.12.23

shared by John Lemke on 21 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • According to an exclusive report published by Reuters, there is a secret deal between the NSA and respected encryption company RSA to implement a flawed security standard as the default protocol in its products.
  • Earlier Edward Snowden leaks had revealed that the NSA created a flawed random number generation system (Dual_EC_DRBG), Dual Elliptic Curve, which RSA used in its Bsafe security tool and now Snowden has revealed that RSA received $10 million from NSA for keeping Encryption Weak. So, anyone who knows the right numbers used in Random number generator program, can decipher the resulting cryptotext easily.
John Lemke

Hackers Using 'Shellshock' Bash Vulnerability to Launch Botnet Attacks - 0 views

thehackernews.com/...ash-Vulnerability-exploit.html

2014.09.29-TNN indienationnews vulnerability bash hackers security vunerability

shared by John Lemke on 27 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Researchers on Thursday discovered a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability in the widely used command-line shell GNU Bourne Again Shell (Bash), dubbed "Shellshock" which affects most of the Linux distributions and servers worldwide, and may already have been exploited in the wild to take over Web servers as part of a botnet that is currently trying to infect other servers as well.
  • the vulnerability is already being used maliciously by the hackers.
  • There is as of yet no official patch that completely addresses both vulnerabilities, including the second, which allows an attacker to overwrite files on the targeted system.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • It's things like CGI scripts that are vulnerable, deep within a website (like CPanel's /cgi-sys/defaultwebpage.cgi)," Graham wrote in a blog post. "Getting just the root page is the thing least likely to be vulnerable. Spidering the site and testing well-known CGI scripts (like the CPanel one) would give a lot more results—at least 10x." In addition, Graham said, "this thing is clearly wormable and can easily worm past firewalls and infect lots of systems. One key question is whether Mac OS X and iPhone DHCP service is vulnerable—once the worm gets behind a firewall and runs a hostile DHCP server, that would be 'game over' for large networks."
  • 32 ORACLE PRODUCTS VULNERABLE
  • PATCH ISSUED, BUT INCOMPLETE
  • John Lemke on 27 Sep 14
     
    "Researchers on Thursday discovered a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability in the widely used command-line shell GNU Bourne Again Shell (Bash), dubbed "Shellshock" which affects most of the Linux distributions and servers worldwide, and may already have been exploited in the wild to take over Web servers as part of a botnet that is currently trying to infect other servers as well."
John Lemke

Revisiting The Purpose Of The Copyright Monopoly: Science And The Useful Arts | Torrent... - 0 views

torrentfreak.com/nce-and-the-useful-arts-121202

2012 indienationnews legal law government politics IN TNN intelectualProperty IP copyright constitution USA

shared by John Lemke on 04 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • If there’s one thing that needs constant reminding, it’s the explicit purpose of the copyright monopoly. Its purpose is to promote the progress of human knowledge. Nothing less. Nothing more.
  • [Congress has the power] to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
  • has the power, and not the obligation
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • two kinds of monopolies: copyright monopolies and patent monopolies, respectively. Science and the useful arts. The “science” part refers to the copyright monopoly, and the “useful arts” has nothing to do with creative works – it is “arts” in the same sense as “artisan”, that is, craftsmanship.
  • the purpose of the copyright monopoly isn’t to enable somebody to make money, and never was. Its sole purpose was and is to advance humanity as a whole. The monopoly begins and ends with the public interest; it does not exist for the benefit of the author and inventor.
  • The second thing we note is the “science” part. The US Constitution only gives Congress the right to protect works of knowledge – educational works, if you like – with a copyright monopoly. “Creative works” such as movies and music are nowhere to be found whatsoever in this empowerment of Congress to create temporary government-sanctioned monopolies.
  • Which brings us to the third notable item: “the exclusive right”. This is what we would refer to colloquially as a “monopoly”. The copyright industry has been tenacious in trying to portray the copyright monopoly as “property”, when in reality, the exclusive rights created are limitations of property rights (it prohibits me from storing the bitpatterns of my choosing on my own hardware). Further, it should be noted that this monopoly is not a guarantee to make money. It is a legal right to prevent others from attempting to do so. There’s a world of difference. You can have all the monopolies you like and still not make a cent.
  • The fourth notable item is the “for limited times”. This can be twisted and turned in many ways, obviously; it has been argued that “forever less a day” is still “limited” in the technical sense. But from my personal perspective – and I’ll have to argue, from the perspective of everybody reading this text – anything that extends past our time of death is not limited in time.
John Lemke

Rep. Goodlatte Slips Secret Change Into Phone Unlocking Bill That Opens The DMCA Up For... - 0 views

www.techdirt.com/...t-new-copyright-problems.shtml

2014 unlocking cell phone DMCA copyright Section 1201 technology law legal yourrights writeabout wroteatindienation indienationnews IN-Pub

shared by John Lemke on 25 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Because of section 1201 of the DMCA, the "anti-circumvention" provision, companies have been abusing copyright law to block all sorts of actions that are totally unrelated to copyright. That's because 1201 makes it illegal to circumvent basically any "technological protection measures." The intent of the copyright maximalists was to use this section to stop people from breaking DRM. However, other companies soon distorted the language to argue that it could be used to block certain actions totally unrelated to copyright law -- such as unlocking garage doors, ink jet cartridges, gaming accessories... and phones
  • Separately, every three years, the Librarian of Congress gets to announce "exemptions" to section 1201 where it feels that things are being locked up that shouldn't be. Back in 2006, one of these exemptions involved mobile phone unlocking.
  • Every three years this exemption was modified a bit, but in 2012, for unexplained reasons, the Librarian of Congress dropped that exemption entirely, meaning that starting in late January of 2013, it was possible to interpret the DMCA to mean that phone unlocking was illegal. In response to this there was a major White House petition -- which got over 100,000 signatures, leading the White House to announce (just weeks later) that it thought unlocking should be legal -- though, oddly, it seemed to place the issue with the FCC to fix, rather than recognizing the problem was with current copyright law.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • While this gives Goodlatte and other maximalists some sort of plausible deniability that this bill is making no statement one way or the other on bulk unlocking, it certainly very strongly implies that Congress believes bulk unlocking is, in fact, still illegal. And that's massively problematic on any number of levels, in part suggesting that the unlocker's motives in unlocking has an impact on the determination under Section 1201 as to whether or not it's legal. And that's an entirely subjective distinction when a bill seems to assume motives, which makes an already problematic Section 1201 much more problematic. Without that clause, this seemed like a bill that was making it clear that you can't use the DMCA to interfere with an issue that is clearly unrelated to copyright, such as phone unlocking. But with this clause, it suggests that perhaps the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause can be used for entirely non-copyright issues if someone doesn't like the "motive" behind the unlocker.
  • Unfortunately, the bill was deemed so uncontroversial that it's been listed on the suspension calendar of the House, which is where non-controversial bills are put to ensure quick passage. That means that, not only did Goodlatte slip in a significant change to this bill that impacts the entire meaning and intent of the bill long after it went through the committee process (and without informing anyone about it), but he also got it put on the list of non-controversial bills to try to have it slip through without anyone even noticing.
John Lemke

NSA Is Tracking Mobile Phone Location On So Many People It Can't Handle The Data Storag... - 0 views

www.techdirt.com/...cant-handle-data-storage.shtml

mobile mobile phone data law legal tech security yourrights spying tracking nsa

shared by John Lemke on 05 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The NSA cannot know in advance which tiny fraction of 1 percent of the records it may need, so it collects and keeps as many as it can — 27 terabytes, by one account, or more than double the text content of the Library of Congress’s print collection.
  • NSA defends the program by saying that it uses the location data to find "unknown associates of known intelligence targets." Basically, it's tracking where everyone goes, just in case people end up spending time with people the NSA deems as being terrorists.
  • Elsewhere in the article, they quote NSA officials repeatedly saying that the program is "tuned to be looking outside the United States," but not saying it only collects info outside the US. Also, they make clear, once a person leaves the US, the NSA no longer believes the 4th Amendment applies to them, so their location is fair game in this giant database.. Asked for specific numbers, an NSA person said:
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • It’s awkward for us to try to provide any specific numbers..."
    • John Lemke
      John Lemke on 05 Dec 13
       
      Sad day when accountability becomes awkward.
    • John Lemke
      John Lemke on 05 Dec 13
       
      Sad day when accountability becomes awkward.
John Lemke

FBI Arrested CEO of 'StealthGenie' for Selling Mobile Spyware Apps - 0 views

thehackernews.com/...Mobile-spying-app.html

2014 indienationnews tech news surveillance spying malware spyware FBI UK StealtyGenie mobile arrested apps security

shared by John Lemke on 01 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested the CEO of a UK-based company for allegedly advertising and selling a spyware app to individuals who suspect their romantic partners of cheating on them.
  • The dodgy cell phone spyware application, dubbed as StealthGenie, monitors victims’ phone calls, text messages, videos, emails and other communications "without detection" when it is installed on a target's phone, according to the Department of Justice.
  • Once installed on the phone, it allows conversations to be monitored as they take place, enables the purchaser to call the phone and activate it at any time to monitor all surrounding conversations within a 15-foot radius, and collects the user’s incoming and outgoing email and SMS messages, incoming voicemail, address book, calendar, photographs, and videos. All of these functions are enabled without the knowledge of the user of the phone.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Akbar was charged with conspiracy, sale of a surreptitious interception device, advertisement of a known interception device and advertising a device as a surreptitious interception device in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
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