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Swedish Prosecutors Have Dropped The Julian Assange Rape Investigation
by Cecilia Tanaka 22 May '17

22 May '17

https://www.buzzfeed.com/franciswhittaker/sweden-has-dropped-its-case-again…

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Re: [Cryptography] Photojournalists & filmmakers want cameras, to be encrypted
by grarpamp 22 May '17

22 May '17

On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 6:40 PM, John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> wrote: > Here's an example. Some thugs with a rented box truck broke into a > cannabis dispensary storefront in a residential neighborhood near > mine, some years ago. These thugs appeared to be hired or imported by > the DEA. Their typical pattern had been to break all the glass, smash > I brought an ordinary pocket camera (pre-cellphone). > my camera failed me by taking very blurred images. People need to consider lenses when buying cameras. Other things equal, going with the fastest f-stop you can budget will get you less blur, 2.8, down to even 1.x for dim light. Image Stabilization gizmos will never beat a fast shutter. And for a lot of street use, fixed wide lenses with decent pixel count backs more 'dont have to think' useful than crazy range fidgety zooms. > Since these thugs had no legal leg to stand on, I would've welcomed > intervention by local police > When the thugs are violating their own laws, which seems to be a > very common occurrence Some Sheriff's don't take kindly to external forces doing improper things. In that case even a trouble call to them will hold up the thugs for a while. >> 2 and 3 are solved with remote storage, to a "safe" place, of the stills or >> video. Take it off the camera, fast. Don't forget, open firmwares for some cameras do exist... http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK Don't know if that includes encryption or sigs or authentication in UI yet but it is an example that the camera maker isn't always right. Don't forget to transparent overlay your embedded serial numbers with noise.

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"All fossil-fuel vehicles will vanish in 8 years..."
by John Newman 21 May '17

21 May '17

Kinda off-topic, but interesting. https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/05/16/1942252/all-fossil-fuel-vehicl… http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/fossil-fuel-vehicles-… Stanford University economist Tony Seba forecasts in his new report that petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will no longer be sold anywhere in the world within the next eight years. As a result, the transportation market will transition and switch entirely to electrification, "leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century," reports Financial Post. From the report: Seba's premise is that people will stop driving altogether. They will switch en masse to self-drive electric vehicles (EVs) that are ten times cheaper to run than fossil-based cars, with a near-zero marginal cost of fuel and an expected lifespan of 1 million miles. Only nostalgics will cling to the old habit of car ownership. The rest will adapt to vehicles on demand. It will become harder to find a petrol station, spares, or anybody to fix the 2,000 moving parts that bedevil the internal combustion engine. Dealers will disappear by 2024. Cities will ban human drivers once the data confirms how dangerous they can be behind a wheel. This will spread to suburbs, and then beyond. There will be a "mass stranding of existing vehicles." The value of second-hard cars will plunge. You will have to pay to dispose of your old vehicle. It is a twin "death spiral" for big oil and big autos, with ugly implications for some big companies on the London Stock Exchange unless they adapt in time. The long-term price of crude will fall to $25 a barrel. Most forms of shale and deep-water drilling will no longer be viable. Assets will be stranded. Scotland will forfeit any North Sea bonanza. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela will be in trouble. -- John

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Hacking and Making the Body for Humanity
by grarpamp 21 May '17

21 May '17

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/mar/12/sxsw-neuroscientists-home-h… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Rm-U9havE https://www.neuralink.com/

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Re: [Webinar] Decrypting the WannaCry ransomware: Why is it happening and (how) is it going to end?
by Cecilia Tanaka 21 May '17

21 May '17

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:10 PM, Nancy Quiros <quiros(a)isoc.org> wrote: > > Hi , > > The webinar tends to make an analysis of the main technological, geopolitical, legal, and economic > aspects of the ransomware. Experts from different fields will discuss > why ransomware has become a major issue: Can such attacks be prevented > by technological measures alone? Is there a need for a legal response, > such as Microsoft’s proposal for the Digital Geneva Convention? Is > raising more awareness among users the ultimate solution? > > The webinar will discuss whether it is possible to put a stop to > malicious software, or whether they should be considered the price we > have to pay for the many advantages of the Internet. Choices on policy > will have to be made sooner rather than later. The aim of the > discussion is to explore and help make informed policy choices. > > ----- > Nancy Quiros > Development Manager LAC Chapters Thank you for the clarification, Nancy! Very much appreciated! <3 Ceci :)

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I watched the FKN Newz today Oh-boy!
by Razer 21 May '17

21 May '17

Global Moroning & Climate Change Denial edition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLcX4yUHxug Also... "When to kill your rulers" "Is it just me or does anybody else want to overthrow their government? I'm not saying we should just to be clear. No... I'm just wondering what kind of oppression do we have to endure before we slaughter the lying murdering scum who rule over us..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXv40mWpJsU (So what are you waiting for?) Rr

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Airlines Giving You Facials Too
by grarpamp 21 May '17

21 May '17

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/15/technology/delta-facial-recognition-luggage/ http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/your-airline-will-see-you-now/

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All Ur BTC Iz Mine(d): "Massive cryptocurrency botnet used leaked NSA exploits"
by Razer 20 May '17

20 May '17

> Massive cryptocurrency botnet used leaked NSA exploits weeks before WCry > > Campaign that flew under the radar used hacked computers to mine > Monero currency. > > On Friday, ransomware called WannaCry used leaked hacking tools stolen > from the National Security Agency to attack an estimated 200,000 > computers in 150 countries. On Monday, researchers said the same > weapons-grade attack kit was used in a much-earlier and possibly > larger-scale hack that made infected computers part of a botnet that > mined cryptocurrency. > > Like WannaCry, this earlier, previously unknown attack used an exploit > codenamed EternalBlue and a backdoor called DoublePulsar, both of > which were NSA-developed hacking tools leaked in mid April by a group > calling itself Shadow Brokers. But instead of installing ransomware, > the campaign pushed cryptocurrency mining software known as Adylkuzz. > WannaCry, which gets its name from a password hard-coded into the > exploit, is also known as WCry. > > Kafeine, a well-known researcher at security firm Proofpoint, said the > attack started no later than May 2 and may have begun as early as > April 24. He said the campaign was surprisingly effective at > compromising Internet-connected computers that have yet to install > updates Microsoft released in early March to patch the critical > vulnerabilities in the Windows implementation of the Server Message > Block protocol. In a blog post published Monday afternoon, Kafeine wrote: > >> In the course of researching the WannaCry campaign, we exposed a lab >> machine vulnerable to the EternalBlue attack. While we expected to >> see WannaCry, the lab machine was actually infected with an >> unexpected and less noisy guest: the cryptocurrency miner Adylkuzz. >> We repeated the operation several times with the same result: within >> 20 minutes of exposing a vulnerable machine to the open web, it was >> enrolled in an Adylkuzz mining botnet. >> >> Figure 1: EternalBlue/DoublePulsar attack from one of several >> identified hosts, then Adylkuzz being downloaded from another host - >> A hash of a pcap of this capture is available in the IOCs table. >> >> The attack is launched from several virtual private servers which >> are massively scanning the Internet on TCP port 445 for potential >> targets. >> >> >> Upon successful exploitation via EternalBlue, machines are infected >> with DoublePulsar. The DoublePulsar backdoor then downloads and runs >> Adylkuzz from another host. Once running, Adylkuzz will first stop >> any potential instances of itself already running and block SMB >> communication to avoid further infection. It then determines the >> public IP address of the victim and download[s] the mining >> instructions, cryptominer, and cleanup tools. >> >> It appears that at any given time there are multiple Adylkuzz command >> and control (C&C) servers hosting the cryptominer binaries and mining >> instructions. >> >> Figure 2 shows the post-infection traffic generated by Adylkuzz >> in this attack. > > > Symptoms of the attack include a loss of access to networked resources > and system sluggishness. Kafeine said that some people who thought > their systems were infected in the WannaCry outbreak were in fact hit > by the Adylkuzz attack. The researcher went on to say this overlooked > attack may have limited the spread of WannaCry by shutting down SMB > networking to prevent the compromised machines from falling into the > hands of competing botnets. > > Proofpoint researchers have identified more than 20 hosts set up to > scan the Internet and infect vulnerable machines they find. The > researchers are aware of more than a dozen active Adylkuzz control > servers. The botnet then mined Monero, a cryptocurrency that bills > itself as being fully anonymous, as opposed to Bitcoin, in which all > transactions are traceable. > > Monday's report came the same day that a security researcher who works > for Google found digital fingerprints tying a version of WCry from > February to Lazarus Group, a hacking operation with links to North > Korea. In a report published last month, Kaspersky Lab researchers > said Bluenoroff, a Lazarus Group offshoot responsible for financial > profit, installed cryptocurrency-mining software on computers it > hacked to generate Monero coins. "The software so intensely consumed > system resources that the system became unresponsive and froze," > Kaspersky Lab researchers wrote. > > Assembling a botnet the size of the one that managed WannaCry and > keeping it under wraps for two to three weeks is a major coup. > Monday's revelation raises the possibility that other botnets have > been built on the shoulders of the NSA but have yet to be identified. > With links: https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/05/massive-cryptocurrency-botnet-used…

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Msg-ing all [CypherPunks] disruption operators: CFP - WOOT '17
by Razer 20 May '17

20 May '17

The USENIX Workshop on Offensive Technologies (WOOT) aims to present a broad picture of offense and its contributions, bringing together researchers and practitioners in all areas of computer security. Offensive security has changed from a hobby to an industry. No longer an exercise for isolated enthusiasts, offensive security is today a large-scale operation managed by organized, capitalized actors. Meanwhile, the landscape has shifted: software used by millions is built by startups less than a year old, delivered on mobile phones and surveilled by national signals intelligence agencies. In the field's infancy, offensive security research was conducted separately by industry, independent hackers, or in academia. Collaboration between these groups could be difficult. Since 2007, the USENIX Workshop on Offensive Technologies (WOOT) has aimed to bring those communities together. WOOT '17 will feature a Best Paper Award and a Best Student Paper Award. Topics Computer security exposes the differences between the actual mechanisms of everyday trusted technologies and their models used by developers, architects, academic researchers, owners, operators, and end users. While being inherently focused on practice, security also poses questions such as "what kind of computations trusted systems are and aren't capable of?," which harken back to fundamentals of computability. State-of-the-art offense explores these questions pragmatically, gathering material for generalizations that lead to better models and more trustworthy systems. WOOT provides a forum for high-quality, peer-reviewed work discussing tools and techniques for attack. Submissions should reflect the state of the art in offensive computer security technology, exposing poorly understood mechanisms, presenting novel attacks, or surveying the state of offensive operations at scale. WOOT '17 accepts papers in both an academic security context and more applied work that informs the field about the state of security practice in offensive techniques. The goal for these submissions is to produce published works that will guide future work in the field. Submissions will be peer reviewed and shepherded as appropriate. Submission topics include but are not limited to: https://www.usenix.org/conference/woot17/call-for-papers

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UK Dead Set On Invasively Controlling The Internet
by grarpamp 20 May '17

20 May '17

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/theresa-may-i… https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/theresa-may-wants-to-regulate-the-inte… Theresa May is planning to introduce huge regulations on the way the internet works, allowing the government to decide what is said online. Particular focus has been drawn to the end of the manifesto, which makes clear that the Tories want to introduce huge changes the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online. The plans will allow Britain to become "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet" It comes just soon after the Investigatory Powers Act came into law. That legislation allowed the government to force internet companies to keep records on their customers' browsing histories, as well as giving ministers the power to break apps like WhatsApp so that messages can be read. the government will work even harder to ensure there is no "safe space The new rules would include laws that make it harder than ever to access porn The government will be able to place restrictions on seeing adult content and any exceptions would have to be justified to ministers Tech companies would be forced to help, and pay a tax to support, controversial government schemes like its Prevent strategy to promote extremist government narratives. will also seek to regulate the kind of news that is posted online and how companies are paid for it. If internet companies refuse to comply there will be a strict and strong set of ways to punish them. "We will introduce a sanctions regime and anticipate and reject potential criticism

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