Digital Consequences
[viral tweet by conservative comedian Evan Sayet…] My favorite drawings at the Muhammad cartoon festival in Texas were the two chalk outlines out front. … [Sayet regrets:]
"I only regret we live in a society where a joke at the expense of would-be mass murderers is something that anyone thinks I have to defend. And, again, the Leftists have accomplished their goal. Who is really irreverent here, me in a silly tweet about would-be mass murderers or those who sought to assault that which SHOULD be revered, the First Amendment right — the HUMAN right — of free speech?"
A December blackout of North Korea’s Internet was retaliation for that nation’s hacking of computers at Sony Corp.’s Hollywood studio, a top U.S. lawmaker on cybersecurity issues said without identifying who was responsible.
Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, on Tuesday became the first U.S. official to link the outage as reprisal for disrupting computers at Sony Pictures Entertainment.
"ISIS supporters set up their own rival to Facebook called “Selafabook” recently. The social media site aims to become an alternative to Facebook and Twitter amid the crackdown against the terrorist group’s followers. …" (Middle East Eye report)
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday adopted sweeping new regulations sought by President Obama for how Americans use and do business on the Internet… voted 3-2 to adopt its so-called net neutrality plan — a proposal that remained secret in the run-up to the final vote. …would put the Internet in the same regulatory camp as the telephone by classifying it like a public utility…
[And nothing improves service like government regulation, lots and lots of regulation.]
"…Remarkably, the computer science class at Brenham High School used a design on the Internet and a $1500 3D printer to build Kaedon a new hand. …"
"Combining CNC (Computer Numerical Control) technology with embedded face recognition and tracking software, the system dispenses layers of batter directly onto a hot plate allowing the creation of detailed and complex images within the pancake surfaces. As the conventional pancake batter is applied it immediately starts to cook and change colour and as subsequent layers are added the different tonal qualities of the image build up. …"
…“I can intercept the encrypted communications of SuperFish’s victims (people with Lenovo laptops) while hanging out near them at a cafe wifi hotspot.” If you have a Lenovo laptop that has Superfish on it (try Filippo Valsorda’s Superfish test to see), I would advise nothing short of wiping the entire machine and installing vanilla Windows—not Lenovo’s Windows. Then change all of your passwords.
"Once they were ready to strike they were able to impersonate bank staff online in order to transfer millions of pounds into dummy accounts.
"The hackers were also able to cause ATMs to dispense cash on demand without the use of a card."
…The letter claims that Google has been confusing America with 2016: Obama’s America, which was D’Souza’s first movie and has been out of theaters for two years, while Lionsgate released America on July 2 and it is currently playing in about 1,100 theaters nationwide. Google, according to the letter, has been "misdirecting many users who mistakenly believed the film was not playing in theaters. We understand this was brought to your attention for correction five days ago, yet the problem persists." …
Hackers apparently based in Iran have mounted a three-year campaign of cyber-espionage against high-ranking U.S. and international officials, including a four-star admiral, to gather intelligence on economic sanctions, antinuclear proliferation efforts and other issues. … "What they lack in technical sophistication, they make up in creativity and persistence."
It’s hard to explain to regular people how much technology barely works, how much the infrastructure of our lives is held together by the IT equivalent of baling wire. Computers, and computing, are broken. … The number of people whose job it is to make software secure can practically fit in a large bar, and I’ve watched them drink. It’s not comforting….
Committee Chairman Mike Rogers did not specifically identify the purported new threat nor its origin but referred several times to what he described as Iran's growing cyber espionage capabilities.
"I think they're (Iran) closer than we'd all like them to be to come in and cause trouble on our financial services networks," the Michigan Republican told a cybersecurity conference hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Internet Association formally threw open its doors for business Wednesday, unveiling the 14 Web companies that make up its membership (they include AOL, Amazon, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, RackSpace and Zynga, among others)....
Its launch, and its new chief...mark a turning point on Capitol Hill.
You may have noticed these names ring a bell or two. Indeed, after you scratch off the thin layer of fresh Red paint, you find the same old Leftists, pushing the same old illegal and unpopular, failed and failing policies.
Twitter has become the battleground for the 2012 elections and the fight to push the country further left or closer to the right. It is the vehicle that not only informs and influences the opinions of others, but often it is Twitter that actually drives the news cycle.... thought this might be the perfect opportunity to share a list of the “Top Ten Dirty Tricks Leftists Play Online...." there are some on the left who vehemently disagree with such tactics.... there are some on the right who might not play entirely fairly, either.... the instigators of such tactics I’m about to list below appear to be overwhelmingly left-leaning....
According to reports from various industry sources, the Chinese government has begun the process of picking a national computer chip instruction set architecture (ISA). This ISA would have to be used for any projects backed with government money — which, in a communist country such as China, is a fairly long list of public and private enterprises and institutions, including China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world. ... developing a brand new ISA — a daunting task, considering you have to create an entire software (compiler, developer, apps) and hardware (CPU, chipset, motherboard) ecosystem from scratch. But, there are benefits to building your own CPU architecture. ...silicon-level monitoring and censorship ...a ubiquitous, always-open backdoor that can be used by Chinese intelligence agencies... DNS and IP address blacklist [built] into the hardware itself ...implement a hardware-level 10pm curfew for video games... code that automatically turns negative mentions of Hu Jintao (the Chinese president) into positives, and inserts a few honorifics at the same time ...a latent botnet of hundreds of millions of computers that can be activated upon the commencement of World War III. Or, or, or… [The word "benefits," as employed here, is not value-oriented.]
FreeMarketAmerica released the video in response to Earth Day, which “fizzled badly” this year, in part because of the continued revelations regarding the hysteria rhetoric of Gaia catastrophists, and in part, I’m guessing, because people have other things to worry about, such as how to scrape together the money to pay for their mortgages, pay off their student loans, buy gas for their climate-destroying automobiles and oh my God will you freaking people please shut up? Because it went viral, I saw no need of posting it here . . . until Michelle Malkin and others were notified by the creators that YouTube has suspended their account ... Whether this was a matter that YouTube took up on its own volition, or whether it succumbed to lefty pressure is impossible to know without more information. Until I’m presented with evidence that this was an internal decision generated without any outside pressure, I’m inclined to give YouTube the benefit of the doubt.
The manner and progression in which the internet was cut reminds me of how both Iran and Egypt cut their internet during the height of their uprisings. This was a Chinese kill-switch test .... and yes .... it was successful.
Mountains and oceans are hard to move, but portions of cyberspace can be turned on and off by throwing a switch. ... barriers to entry in the cyber domain are so low that non-state actors and small states can play a significant role at low cost. ... it makes little sense to speak of dominance in cyberspace. If anything, dependence on complex cyber systems for support of military and economic activities creates new vulnerabilities in large states that can be exploited by non-state actors. ... greater dependence on networked computers and communication leaves the US more vulnerable to attack than many other countries, and cyberspace has become a major source of insecurity, because, at this stage of technological development, offense prevails over defense there. ... actors are diverse (and sometimes anonymous), physical distance is immaterial, and some forms of offense are cheap. Because the Internet was designed for ease of use rather than security, attackers currently have the advantage over defenders. ... [No good conclusion to this except that "states need to sit down" to address the threat. Yeah. H/t War News Update]
wear the Internet on your face? ... Google Glasses, now in an early prototype phase [video] ... also slightly scary for anyone concerned about the prying eyes of government surveillance.
[Brings to mind this video about CIA and the Internet]
Arizona will make it possible to prosecute you for posting something offensive on the net.
A. It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use a telephone any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person. It is also unlawful to otherwise disturb by repeated anonymous telephone calls electronic or digital communications the peace, quiet or right of privacy of any person at the place where the telephone call or calls communications were received.
The Pentagon has admitted a foreign power hacked and stole 24,000 files from the United States this year forcing them to treat the internet as a warzone. The audacious theft was announced as Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn launched a new online security strategy, which now classes cyberspace as an 'operational domain' like the sea, air and land. ... He said as part of its active defences, the Pentagon would introduce new operating concepts and capabilities on its networks, such as sensors, software and signatures to detect and stop malicious code before it affects U.S. operations. [And even though the whole herd of horses has been stolen, we are doubling the locks on the barn door!]
The Democrat Congress couldn't pass the energy sector-killing Cap & Trade? No problem, President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just began to implement it as if it did. The Democrat Congress couldn't pass the union-payoff, anti-free choice Employee Free Choice Act? No problem, President Obama's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) just began to implement it as if it did. Then there is President Obama's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — and its December 21 illegal Internet power grab executed so as to then impose the absurd Network Neutrality. The Democrat Congress couldn't pass Net Neutrality — and in fact 302 of its members were opposed to the FCC unilaterally force-feeding it to us. Please note: The FCC has zero authority over anything unless and until Congress writes a law that says "Hey FCC, do this." And as FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski readily admits, Congress has never done so with the Internet. ... The Media Marxists — the folks who are working to have the government control all news, media and communications — know this. They have moved past the "Fairness" Doctrine to other, bigger, newer forms of censorship. Mark Lloyd — a Hugo Chavez-loving Media Marxist whom the FCC hired as their inaugural "Chief Diversity Officer" — wrote a piece called "Forget the Fairness Doctrine" in which he details other ways to achieve the same silencing of the Right on the radio. But the Left is thinking long term — and that means Net Neutrality. The Godfather of the Media Marxist movement — Robert McChesney — describes Net Neutrality thusly: "(T)he ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."
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