What causes NSA to lose sleep at night?
And one of their big problems is self-created:
I've been quite critical about how NSA's behavior over the last 15 years
has alienated a large portion of the security industry practitioners.
I haven't seen anything over the last year or two to cause me to change
that - and the whole FBiPhone incident is causing even more collateral
damage.
NSA has a lot of smart people, and the ones who are trying to fight the
Bad Guys are fighting the Good Fight. But they have a huge branding
problem to overcome. Adm. Rogers isn't addressing that.
At this point, wonder if he thinks they CAN truly overcome the distrust?
At this point, the question must be asked: do these people rise to, or only aspire to, the level of 'whiny pussy'?
“So many of us shared in our pain. I felt I was in danger, and I felt so
many people in that room were in danger,” proclaimed Marcus Robinson,
student and president of the Pittsburgh Rainbow Alliance. Robinson also
suggested that councilors should have been provided in another room to
protect students who felt “traumatized” by Yiannopoulos’s opinions.
A homosexual male goes to a university, gives a non-compulsory and extracurricular event in which he expresses opinions they don't agree with, and they have attacks of the vapors like this? Amazing.
Showing posts with label Database 'Security'. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Database 'Security'. Show all posts
Friday, March 04, 2016
Friday, June 24, 2011
Ooooh, there's got to be some serious pucker factor
in DC right now:
The acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is strongly resisting pressure to step down because of growing controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns to flow unchecked into Mexico, according to several federal sources in Washington.
Kenneth E. Melson, who has run the bureau for two years, is reportedly eager to testify to Congress about the extent of his and other officials' involvement in the operation, code-named Fast and Furious.
And while that's going on, ATF is proving just what a bunch of clowns run the place by doing something like this:
Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News posted this Tweet a couple of hours ago:
C'mon, how effing stupid do you have to be... maybe payoff to her? Who knows?
Speaking of stupid and vindictive, Issa needs to start going after these clowns. And come down on them with both boots.
"This causes problems for the government." Well, if their government can't at least HELP protect them, they damn well have the basic human right to protect themselves.
A group that boasts of successfully hacking Sony and the Senate and CIA web pages in recent months claimed Thursday to have hacked into the computer files of an Arizona law enforcement agency. The attacked, it said, was motivated by Arizona’s immigration policy.
The Lulz Security hacking collective said on its web site that it was releasing “hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement.”
Back to BATFE and the administration playing games with the law, with information and lying to the media:
But Operation Fast and Furious also shows how willing this administration is to deliberately mislead the press and how easily the Washington Post was conned by the administration in a story it published last year.
On December 13, 2010, the Post ran a story about U.S. gun dealers with “the most traces for firearms recovered by police.” The Post included “the names of the dealers, all from border states, with the most traces from guns recovered in Mexico over the past two years.” The Post did not reveal where it got this information, but pointed out that Congress passed a law in 2003 exempting the trace information maintained by the ATF from public disclosure. So the Post had to have gotten this information through a leak directly from the ATF (or by illegally hacking the ATF’s records, a far-fetched and highly unlikely scenario).
Two of the gun dealers the Post’s story assailed were Lone Wolf Trading Co. in Glendale and J&G Sales in Prescott, Ariz. Lone Wolf Trading is number one on the list for Mexican traces; J&G is number three.
However, at the time the ATF was apparently leaking this information to the Post, both of these dealers were cooperating with the ATF in the Fast and Furious Operation. When Fox News talked recently to the owner of J&G, Brad DeSaye, about the ATF’s disastrous operation, he said that when he questioned the ATF about whether the agency wanted the gun shop to sell to the cartel front men, the ATF said, “Keep selling.”
...
This double-dealing by the ATF is appalling. It was bad enough that the ATF was running a secret operation that had gone off the rails and was supplying dangerous weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels. But then the agency apparently leaked deceptive information on gun sales that put the gun dealers in a bad light, or at a minimum, misled the Post when it should have tried to provide cover for dealers who were following ATF instructions. Indeed, these dealers were showing up in the Mexican trace information because the ATF was telling them to ignore the law and the usual verification procedures and sell guns to the cartels, sometime dozens in a single day to one person.
And they've leaked(pushed? Asked "Please publish this to cover us!" ?) claims that Issa knew about Gunwalker and had no problem with it until now. Response from the committee: "Bullshit."
Frederick R. Hill, a spokesman for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa chairs, acknowledged on Tuesday that an ATF briefing on “weapons smuggling by criminal cartels” took place in April 2010 but declined to specify what Issa or his staff were told.
He accused “opponents” of the committee’s investigation of the gun-trafficking operation of “incredulously trying to assert that Obama administration political appointees at the Justice Department were ignorant — yet Congress was in the know on the details of Operation Fast and Furious.’’
“This irresponsible and false accusation is indicative of a Justice Department bereft of leadership and rattled by the revelations of its own misconduct,’’ Hill added.
Gas prices have eased a bit(temporarily, unless Congress does something about Obama and the EPA blocking drilling & such), but food prices... not so much.
Well, that does seem interesting:
"Reporter" Vogel is in fact a former staffer for the George Soros funded Center for Public Integrity. Says Politico itself (albeit well down in the bio) in this staff bio found here:
Before joining POLITICO prior to its 2007 launch, Vogel reported for …. The Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.
In other words, what we have here, unacknowledged to the general public by Politico, is a former Soros guy using the cyber pages of Politico to take a swing at the integrity of Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity and so on. Everyone on the list being a Soros target in one form, fashion or another.
The acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is strongly resisting pressure to step down because of growing controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns to flow unchecked into Mexico, according to several federal sources in Washington.
Kenneth E. Melson, who has run the bureau for two years, is reportedly eager to testify to Congress about the extent of his and other officials' involvement in the operation, code-named Fast and Furious.
And while that's going on, ATF is proving just what a bunch of clowns run the place by doing something like this:
Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News posted this Tweet a couple of hours ago:
ATF Phoenix case agent Hope MacAllister --headed ATF's controversial gunwalking op-- today reportedly recvd national ATF "Lifesaving Award."Today, it was also confirmed by CBS News that "gunwalked" two AK-47 variants were found at the scene of a shoot-out in Mexico between authorities and the suspects in a high profile murder. The murder victim was the brother of a Mexican state attorney general.
CBS News has learned that U.S. officials called Mexico's attorney general the day before last week's gunwalker hearing to inform her of the link to the murder.
Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez, the brother of then-Chihuahua's attorney general Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez, was kidnapped in October.Hooded terrorists surrounding the handcuffed Rodriguez forced him to record a video statement that was widely-distributed in Mexico. His body was found in November.
C'mon, how effing stupid do you have to be... maybe payoff to her? Who knows?
Speaking of stupid and vindictive, Issa needs to start going after these clowns. And come down on them with both boots.
"This causes problems for the government." Well, if their government can't at least HELP protect them, they damn well have the basic human right to protect themselves.
A group that boasts of successfully hacking Sony and the Senate and CIA web pages in recent months claimed Thursday to have hacked into the computer files of an Arizona law enforcement agency. The attacked, it said, was motivated by Arizona’s immigration policy.
The Lulz Security hacking collective said on its web site that it was releasing “hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement.”
Back to BATFE and the administration playing games with the law, with information and lying to the media:
But Operation Fast and Furious also shows how willing this administration is to deliberately mislead the press and how easily the Washington Post was conned by the administration in a story it published last year.
On December 13, 2010, the Post ran a story about U.S. gun dealers with “the most traces for firearms recovered by police.” The Post included “the names of the dealers, all from border states, with the most traces from guns recovered in Mexico over the past two years.” The Post did not reveal where it got this information, but pointed out that Congress passed a law in 2003 exempting the trace information maintained by the ATF from public disclosure. So the Post had to have gotten this information through a leak directly from the ATF (or by illegally hacking the ATF’s records, a far-fetched and highly unlikely scenario).
Two of the gun dealers the Post’s story assailed were Lone Wolf Trading Co. in Glendale and J&G Sales in Prescott, Ariz. Lone Wolf Trading is number one on the list for Mexican traces; J&G is number three.
However, at the time the ATF was apparently leaking this information to the Post, both of these dealers were cooperating with the ATF in the Fast and Furious Operation. When Fox News talked recently to the owner of J&G, Brad DeSaye, about the ATF’s disastrous operation, he said that when he questioned the ATF about whether the agency wanted the gun shop to sell to the cartel front men, the ATF said, “Keep selling.”
...
This double-dealing by the ATF is appalling. It was bad enough that the ATF was running a secret operation that had gone off the rails and was supplying dangerous weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels. But then the agency apparently leaked deceptive information on gun sales that put the gun dealers in a bad light, or at a minimum, misled the Post when it should have tried to provide cover for dealers who were following ATF instructions. Indeed, these dealers were showing up in the Mexican trace information because the ATF was telling them to ignore the law and the usual verification procedures and sell guns to the cartels, sometime dozens in a single day to one person.
And they've leaked(pushed? Asked "Please publish this to cover us!" ?) claims that Issa knew about Gunwalker and had no problem with it until now. Response from the committee: "Bullshit."
Frederick R. Hill, a spokesman for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa chairs, acknowledged on Tuesday that an ATF briefing on “weapons smuggling by criminal cartels” took place in April 2010 but declined to specify what Issa or his staff were told.
He accused “opponents” of the committee’s investigation of the gun-trafficking operation of “incredulously trying to assert that Obama administration political appointees at the Justice Department were ignorant — yet Congress was in the know on the details of Operation Fast and Furious.’’
“This irresponsible and false accusation is indicative of a Justice Department bereft of leadership and rattled by the revelations of its own misconduct,’’ Hill added.
Gas prices have eased a bit(temporarily, unless Congress does something about Obama and the EPA blocking drilling & such), but food prices... not so much.
Well, that does seem interesting:
"Reporter" Vogel is in fact a former staffer for the George Soros funded Center for Public Integrity. Says Politico itself (albeit well down in the bio) in this staff bio found here:
Before joining POLITICO prior to its 2007 launch, Vogel reported for …. The Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.
In other words, what we have here, unacknowledged to the general public by Politico, is a former Soros guy using the cyber pages of Politico to take a swing at the integrity of Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity and so on. Everyone on the list being a Soros target in one form, fashion or another.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Why so many police officers have such a sucky attitude?
One course I attended used the example of a person employed as a plumber being the target of a search warrant. In this example, the officers were told how to use his employment as a plumber as further evidence of terrorism. The suspect’s employment would be described as an elaborate scheme to justify possessing pipes and chemicals so as to have bomb making materials readily available. Based on this example, all plumbers are potential pipe bomb makers. All gun dealers are plotting to provide arms to gangs or terrorists. All pest control companies are preparing mass poisonings. By using this logic, simply having the ability to do something criminal automatically makes the person guilty of plotting the crime. With all the various methods of manufacturing methamphetamine, it would also be easy to claim that a disassembled clandestine drug lab was located during the search. In other words, it is easy to frame anyone for possessing bomb making materials (or other crimes) if the officer knows what items to list in the report and how to link these items to terrorism.
And why would such 'training' be happening? Who'd want to do this?
During the past several years, I have witnessed a dramatic shift in the focus of law enforcement training. Law enforcement courses have moved away from a local community focus to a federally dominated model of complete social control. Most training I have attended over the past two years have been sponsored by Department of Homeland Security (DHS), namely the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
No matter what topic the training session concerns, every DHS sponsored course I have attended over the past few years never fails to branch off into warnings about potential domestic terrorists in the community. While this may sound like a valid officer and community safety issue, you may be disturbed to learn how our Federal government describes a typical domestic terrorist.
Go read the whole thing. Remember cases in the past where some ATF agent would find a piece of header pipe or exhaust pipe and charge the guy with making illegal silencers? Same thing, except your reloading or craft materials can be used to 'prove' you're a domestic terrorist.
Methods of developing evidence of terrorist activity from virtually any search have also been discussed. Various common materials which may be associated with homemade explosives are listed, such as lengths of pipe, gunpowder, matches, flammable liquids and fireworks. Officers are told when these items are found, they can be listed as “bomb making materials”. The training even goes so far as to instruct officers that the items are cleverly disguised as legitimate, such as gasoline stored near a lawn mower, pipes stored in a shop building or gunpowder stored with reloading materials.
Found over at Sipsey Street
And why would such 'training' be happening? Who'd want to do this?
During the past several years, I have witnessed a dramatic shift in the focus of law enforcement training. Law enforcement courses have moved away from a local community focus to a federally dominated model of complete social control. Most training I have attended over the past two years have been sponsored by Department of Homeland Security (DHS), namely the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
No matter what topic the training session concerns, every DHS sponsored course I have attended over the past few years never fails to branch off into warnings about potential domestic terrorists in the community. While this may sound like a valid officer and community safety issue, you may be disturbed to learn how our Federal government describes a typical domestic terrorist.
Go read the whole thing. Remember cases in the past where some ATF agent would find a piece of header pipe or exhaust pipe and charge the guy with making illegal silencers? Same thing, except your reloading or craft materials can be used to 'prove' you're a domestic terrorist.
Methods of developing evidence of terrorist activity from virtually any search have also been discussed. Various common materials which may be associated with homemade explosives are listed, such as lengths of pipe, gunpowder, matches, flammable liquids and fireworks. Officers are told when these items are found, they can be listed as “bomb making materials”. The training even goes so far as to instruct officers that the items are cleverly disguised as legitimate, such as gasoline stored near a lawn mower, pipes stored in a shop building or gunpowder stored with reloading materials.
Found over at Sipsey Street
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Found this linked by Breda
Her post here; I'm going to excerpt a chunk from Amputee Mommy's post:
I was instructed to remove my leg. I refused, stating that it was against procedure to insist that I remove my prosthetic. Another man was brought over, who lectured me about the increased security risk and the need to keep screening procedures current. He reiterated that the rules have changed, and that he needed my prosthetic. Looking at my frightened little boy and knowing that we were becoming pressed for time, I begrudgingly removed my leg and handed it to the rude agent. "What's that?" the man asked while pointing to my liner. I explained that it was my prosthetic liner, and that I wore it to keep my prosthetic attached. He insisted that he needed to run my liner through the machine as well. I don't think that the general public understands how personal a residual limb is to the amputee. It is on par with one's genitals. I simply don't remove my liner in public exposing my limb, and I was humiliated by the request. At this point, our plane was boarding. I had amassed a group of four TSA officers around me, and Robby was scared and in tears. I knew that what they were asking me to do was wrong, but I also knew that fighting at that moment would caused us to miss our plane. I just wanted to get home. I took off my liner. I sat quietly in a chair as onlookers and gawking passengers watched me expose one of my most personal features. I felt defeated and humiliated. My liner, which is supposed to be maintained in a hygienic manner, was thrown into a screening bin inside out and run through the machine. No care was given to sanitizing the container which I am sure is riddled with fecal matter and bacteria. I was given no opportunity or materials to clean the liner after it was contaminated. It was half-hazardly thrown into my lap as I was told that I could leave. I put my leg on and gave Robby a huge hug. We gathered our carry-on items which had been removed from our bags and strewn on a metal table. Tears were rolling down my face as I called my family for support.
Read it all. Breakables warning in effect, and the TSA assholes involved ought to be fired. At the least. If they're fucking professionals they should ACT like professionals, which means knowing what the hell they're doing when dealing with things like this.
I was instructed to remove my leg. I refused, stating that it was against procedure to insist that I remove my prosthetic. Another man was brought over, who lectured me about the increased security risk and the need to keep screening procedures current. He reiterated that the rules have changed, and that he needed my prosthetic. Looking at my frightened little boy and knowing that we were becoming pressed for time, I begrudgingly removed my leg and handed it to the rude agent. "What's that?" the man asked while pointing to my liner. I explained that it was my prosthetic liner, and that I wore it to keep my prosthetic attached. He insisted that he needed to run my liner through the machine as well. I don't think that the general public understands how personal a residual limb is to the amputee. It is on par with one's genitals. I simply don't remove my liner in public exposing my limb, and I was humiliated by the request. At this point, our plane was boarding. I had amassed a group of four TSA officers around me, and Robby was scared and in tears. I knew that what they were asking me to do was wrong, but I also knew that fighting at that moment would caused us to miss our plane. I just wanted to get home. I took off my liner. I sat quietly in a chair as onlookers and gawking passengers watched me expose one of my most personal features. I felt defeated and humiliated. My liner, which is supposed to be maintained in a hygienic manner, was thrown into a screening bin inside out and run through the machine. No care was given to sanitizing the container which I am sure is riddled with fecal matter and bacteria. I was given no opportunity or materials to clean the liner after it was contaminated. It was half-hazardly thrown into my lap as I was told that I could leave. I put my leg on and gave Robby a huge hug. We gathered our carry-on items which had been removed from our bags and strewn on a metal table. Tears were rolling down my face as I called my family for support.
Read it all. Breakables warning in effect, and the TSA assholes involved ought to be fired. At the least. If they're fucking professionals they should ACT like professionals, which means knowing what the hell they're doing when dealing with things like this.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
More ref the Stuxnet worm
from the guy at Classical Values, including
Well isn't that interesting?
Yes, it is.
Iran has suffered a series of technical setbacks to its nuclear programme in the past 12 months, triggering suggestions that western intelligence agencies are sabotaging its likely ambition to build an atomic weapon.As Iran continues to defy international sanctions, western security analysts say the country is making progress towards the ability to test a nuclear bomb in the next few years.
But a series of recent reverses, notably affecting Iran's ability to enrich uranium, is prompting debate over whether the programme is being undermined by sabotage, sanctions, or the incompetence of the regime's scientists.
In the past year, a dramatic reduction has taken place in the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at the regime's nuclear plant in Natanz.
In May 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency said there were 4,920 operational centrifuges. Twelve months later the IAEA stated that Iran was running only 3,936, a reduction of 20 per cent.
Iran also appears to be having difficulties on other fronts. Ivan Oelrich, of the Federation of American Scientists, said the centrifuges were only working at 20 per cent efficiency. The latest IAEA report says that 4,592 centrifuges are installed at Natanz - but are sitting idle and doing nothing at all.
Well isn't that interesting?
Yes, it is.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Speaking of 'This database and your information is secure',
bullcrap.
The state worker who unwittingly ran an improper child-support check on the man known as Joe the Plumber told lawmakers yesterday that a deputy director later "dictated" how she was supposed to cover it up.
Vanessa Niekamp, an administrator for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services' Office of Child Support and a 15-year state employee, said that when Deputy Director Doug Thompson came into her office, "He appeared very upset, his neck was bright red, and he was shaking. He closed my door."
Thompson told her she must write an e-mail to the agency's information-security officer, and then "dictated word for word" what she wrote, Niekamp said. He also reminded her that she could be fired at any time, she said.
Situation: "Oh God, there could be real trouble about this; let's get it covered up quick!" As opposed to, oh, trying to do the right thing about it. Couldn't have that, no...
Happily, Niekamp actually seems to care about things like the law, and security:
"Within an hour, I took the rest of the day off -- again using my vacation time -- and went directly to the office of the inspector general. I told them everything I knew about what happened."
Niekamp took another day of vacation yesterday to testify before the House State Government and Elections Committee about legislation that calls for the firing of any unclassified state employee who improperly accesses confidential personal information.
And the only thing keeping Niekamp from being screwed over is the wide public knowledge of this crap. And you know her 'superiors' will try it anyway, most likely; it's the standard crooked/scared/jerk bureaucrat response to someone telling an inconvenient truth.
I don't like that 'unclassified' part; it should be 'any state employee'.
"Doug told me that the person Carri had asked me to look up was Joe the Plumber -- the one who was talked about in the national news. He said he needed my help explaining something," Niekamp said.
"Doug then told me I must write an e-mail to our agency's information-security officer to explain why the file had been accessed. He turned my computer screen so he could see it and dictated word for word what he wanted me to write. ...
"He then told me that we needed to make sure that we answer questions about what happened the same way, so that our versions were not different from each other. Before he said that, he reminded me that I was an unclassified employee -- which, as you may know, is someone who can be fired without cause."
Niekamp said she knew the checks were improper because the staff undergoes training and must read and sign a form explaining when they can access confidential and personal information maintained by the department.
"Both Doug and Carri can access the (child-support) system and could have accessed a file without my involvement," Niekamp said. "To this day, I do not understand why they asked me to look at this information when they could have easily done this themselves."
Because they're used to telling other people to do things, and it wasn't until the heat started that they realized they'd screwed the pooch. So they needed you to cover up for them, and threw in the threat of firing to back it up.
Which comes back to the 'unclassified' bullcrap; someone like that can be fired at any time for any reason, this needs to address the classified employees, the people in charge of this mess.
Now we'll see if the authorities there actually care about trying to protect these damned systems from abuse.
The state worker who unwittingly ran an improper child-support check on the man known as Joe the Plumber told lawmakers yesterday that a deputy director later "dictated" how she was supposed to cover it up.
Vanessa Niekamp, an administrator for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services' Office of Child Support and a 15-year state employee, said that when Deputy Director Doug Thompson came into her office, "He appeared very upset, his neck was bright red, and he was shaking. He closed my door."
Thompson told her she must write an e-mail to the agency's information-security officer, and then "dictated word for word" what she wrote, Niekamp said. He also reminded her that she could be fired at any time, she said.
Situation: "Oh God, there could be real trouble about this; let's get it covered up quick!" As opposed to, oh, trying to do the right thing about it. Couldn't have that, no...
Happily, Niekamp actually seems to care about things like the law, and security:
"Within an hour, I took the rest of the day off -- again using my vacation time -- and went directly to the office of the inspector general. I told them everything I knew about what happened."
Niekamp took another day of vacation yesterday to testify before the House State Government and Elections Committee about legislation that calls for the firing of any unclassified state employee who improperly accesses confidential personal information.
And the only thing keeping Niekamp from being screwed over is the wide public knowledge of this crap. And you know her 'superiors' will try it anyway, most likely; it's the standard crooked/scared/jerk bureaucrat response to someone telling an inconvenient truth.
I don't like that 'unclassified' part; it should be 'any state employee'.
"Doug told me that the person Carri had asked me to look up was Joe the Plumber -- the one who was talked about in the national news. He said he needed my help explaining something," Niekamp said.
"Doug then told me I must write an e-mail to our agency's information-security officer to explain why the file had been accessed. He turned my computer screen so he could see it and dictated word for word what he wanted me to write. ...
"He then told me that we needed to make sure that we answer questions about what happened the same way, so that our versions were not different from each other. Before he said that, he reminded me that I was an unclassified employee -- which, as you may know, is someone who can be fired without cause."
Niekamp said she knew the checks were improper because the staff undergoes training and must read and sign a form explaining when they can access confidential and personal information maintained by the department.
"Both Doug and Carri can access the (child-support) system and could have accessed a file without my involvement," Niekamp said. "To this day, I do not understand why they asked me to look at this information when they could have easily done this themselves."
Because they're used to telling other people to do things, and it wasn't until the heat started that they realized they'd screwed the pooch. So they needed you to cover up for them, and threw in the threat of firing to back it up.
Which comes back to the 'unclassified' bullcrap; someone like that can be fired at any time for any reason, this needs to address the classified employees, the people in charge of this mess.
Now we'll see if the authorities there actually care about trying to protect these damned systems from abuse.
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