01.12.12

Hardware

• Is Microsoft Blocking Linux Booting on ARM Hardware?

  Programmatic disabling of Secure Boot either during Boot Services or after exiting EFI Boot Services MUST NOT be possible. Disabling Secure MUST NOT be possible on ARM systems.

  Assurance that x86 system makers don’t have to lock out gnu/linux are only there to favor Intel and later create an illusion of voluntary lockdown. The real question is if builders care about Windows anymore.

• HOWTO: Bodhi Linux on Genesi Smartbook

  ARM Bodhi Entertainment Packages compiled for Debian, “Man does Debian with the +Bodhi Linux E packages SCREAM on this little Smartbook ” This is an alpha release and there are some issues with audio and power management.

Security

• Microsoft malware romps out of Adobe Reader and compromises US Federal systems.

  Why do people still use Windows? Because companies like Adobe “support” Microsoft?

• Venuzuelan Cyber Attacks go one way, so far.

• Top German cop uses spyware on daughter, gets hacked in retaliation

  one of the daughter’s friends found the installed spyware. [on the dad's personal computer] … he found a cache of security-related e-mails from work … the information necessary for hackers to infiltrate Germany’s federal police. … got into the servers for the “Patras” program, which logs location data on suspected criminals through cell phone and car GPS systems. Concerned about security breaches, the government eventually had to take the entire set of Patras servers offline.

  I’m sure there will be more.

Some Google reports on mostly Windows Malware.

This issue is brought up periodically by Microsoft people as part of their campaign to screw Google. According to them, if Google does not protect users from Microsoft flaws, they are guilty. When Google does protect Windows users, they are guilty of slander against website owners. I’m not sure why the people at Google bother, but their studies offer first rate insight into just how bad it is to be a Windows user on the web..

Four Years of Web Malware

Google’s Safe Browsing initiative has been protecting users from web pages that install malware for over five years now. Each day we show around 3 million malware warnings to over four hundred million users whose browsers implement the Safe Browsing API. …

The Ghost In The Browser Analysis of Web-based Malware

We have seen evidence that web-based malware is forming compromised computers into botnet-like structures and believe that a large fraction of computer users is exposed to web-based malware every day. Unlike traditional botnets that are controlled by a bot master who pushes out commands, web-based malware is pull based and more difficult to track. Finding all the web based infection vectors is a significant challenge and requires almost complete knowledge of the web as a whole. We expect that the majority of malware is no longer spreading via remote exploitation but rather as we indicated in this paper via web-based infection.

The Nocebo Effect on the Web: An Analysis of Fake Anti-Virus Distribution

Fake AV is responsible for 50% of all malware delivered via Ads, which represents a five-fold increase from just a year ago.

Generic Malware Debunking Post [2008]

It may be possible that our malware flagging system has false positives, but I can’t recall a single case that I’ve seen where there wasn’t some security hole or malware that was a true issue for the website owner.

How Google handles malware: a historical overview [2007]

Almost exactly a year ago, Google and other search engines were raked over the coals for exactly the opposite reason: allowing users to get infected with malware from search engine results.

Defence/Police/Aggression

• Israel Basically Threatens to Assassinate Teen Hacker Who Leaked Israelis’ Credit Cards

  His attack is “a breach of sovereignty comparable to a terrorist operation, and must be treated as such,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in a speech on Saturday … A commentator on Ynet, Israel’s most popular news site, argued the hack was “no different than missile strikes and should be addressed similarly.”

• Israel and the US are murdering Iranian scientist.

• Police thugs in Florida murdered a man with pepper spray.

  This photo is a picture of a [62 year old] man who is strapped to a chair naked inside a jail for hours with a hood over his face. That evokes thoughts of being tortured … taken in the final hours of Christie’s life. … The District 21 Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide because he had been restrained and sprayed with pepper sprayed by law enforcement officers. But to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime… he was pepper sprayed 10 times over a 48-hour period … His heart failed from the shock of the pepper spray.

Cablegate

• Wikileaks revealed US espionage of Indigenous Peoples in 2011

  Wikileaks revealed extensive espionage of Indigenous Peoples … the US feared the power of Indigenous Peoples, specifically their claims to their traditional territories, a right stated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Further, the Declaration states the right of free, prior and informed consent before development proceeds and protects intellectual and cultural property rights.

  Here we see that the confused concept of “intellectual property” is a one way instrument of power and that the US government often acts as a tool of large companies.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Rick Santorum’s idea of subsidizing “synfuel”

  From 2003 through 2005, TIME estimates, the synfuel industry raked in $9 billion in tax credits. … some plants spray newly mined coal with diesel fuel, pine-tar resin, limestone, acid or other substances–a practice that industry critics call “spray and pray.” Other operators mix coal-mining waste with chemicals, coat it with latex and blend it with untreated coal to form briquettes. … the whole point isn’t creating a profitable new energy resource for the U.S.; it’s about collecting the tax subsidy.

• Spin Cycle: Will Changing Global Hydrology Throw the Geopolitical Machine Off-Balance?

  How global warming and groundwater depletion are making problems around the world.

Finance

• An audit of the “bailouts” shows that $16 trillion dollars were given out.

  Sen. Sanders required an audit of the Federal Reserve as a part of the Dodd-Frank bill. This audit discovered that the Fed provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and around the world.

  People said it would be this way and said that this unimaginable sum is more expensive than all of the wars fought by the US combined.

Anti-Trust

• Claim: Microsoft now paid royalties on 70% of US Android smartphones

  LG has become the latest in a long line of Android handset vendors to sign a patent licensing agreement with Microsoft. … This is the eleventh agreement between Microsoft and Android-using OEMs, with other licensees including Samsung, HTC, and Acer. In total, Microsoft says that more than 70 percent of all Android smartphones sold in the US are covered by a similar patent agreement. The only major manufacturer now without a license agreement is Motorola Mobility.

  Payment is pure speculation by the author. A comment in this article calls to mind the correct pronunciation of “M$” which is “shit”. I quit using the abbreviation “M$” because Google does not index it, not because I thought it was inappropriate or in some way shameful.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• CNN was so totally in the Pentagon’s pocket that it fired commentators who didn’t support Bush’s war party line.

  This was in the time of the Pentagon’s Paid Political Pundit Program, which the Pentagon just decided was in accord with its rules. This means it would not hesitate to do the same thing to promote war with Iran.

Censorship

• SOPA news blackout

  Corporate media likes SOPA, so the blackout is no surprise.

• Rep. Lamar Smith Decides Lying About, Insulting And Dismissing Opposition To SOPA Is A Winning Strategy

  SOPA sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith has decided that his best strategy continues to be to ignore any and all criticism of SOPA and pretend that none of it “is legitimate.” … Dismissing the concerns of pretty much the entire tech sector and their users

  Incidently, SOPA would shut down Lamar Smith’s own web site for copyright violation. Way to go!

• Senator Leahy Hopes To Rush Through PIPA By Promising To Study DNS Blocking… Later?!?

  Rather than drop the DNS blocking, or even hold off on voting on the bill — both of which would be sensible steps in a much bigger process, he wants to rush the bill through… but ignore the DNS provisions until there’s a chance to “study” the impact of them:

  The senator also makes false claims about industry support.

• Artists hate SOPA

• Cory Doctorow: The internet is the best place for dissent to start

  Zuckerman is the director of MIT’s Centre for Civic Media and the founder of Geekcorps, an NGO that sends technologists to the developing world to work on locally initiated, sustainable technology initiatives. He knows an awful lot of the daily, gritty reality of the internet’s place in free speech and justice contexts in some of the world’s most brutal and censorious regimes. … revolutions are touched off by everyday people with everyday grievances – arbitrary detention, corruption and police brutality – and those people will use the tools they are familiar with to get the word out. … the only way to keep activists, dissidents, and those who struggle against brutal oppression safe is to somehow convince the people who make the world’s most popular social tools to harden them from the get-go.

  Facebook, Twitter and the government responsible for SOPA and the US Patriot act can be counted on to screw people, not protect them so we need to keep moving our neighbors to federated networks and freedomboxes. Google seems to understand and might escape Patriot act reporting by federating G+. It is easy to DDoS a known website and easier still to spy on a single company. Federated networks force oppressive governments to watch everyone and then break everything.

Privacy

• US customs can and will seize laptops and cellphones, demand passwords

  former MIT researcher, David House – was returning from rest and relaxation in Mexico when federal agents seized his laptop. … the government wanted to know more about House’s connections to Bradley Manning, the US Army private accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks. … last year alone, 5,000 devices were seized.

  You can’t trust a laptop device has left your sight, so you are better off serving data to yourself with OpenSSH and carrying nothing if you must visit the US.

Civil Rights

• US Citizens: Demand NDAA rollback and the closure of Guantanamo Bay.

  Indefinite detention without charge or trial is fundamentally contrary to the democratic values that our system of government rests upon. The recent law that authorizes the indefinite military detention of American citizens is an outrage and must be rolled back. Additionally, the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, which continue to be a dark spot on our national conscience, should be closed.

• NDAA

  Colin Powell’s former chief of staff sees #NDAA as “road to tyranny,” also believes it will be used to target Occupy and other peaceful protest groups.

• New Bill Known As Enemy Expatriation Act Would Allow Government To Strip Citizenship Without Conviction

  Congress is considering HR 3166 and S. 1698 also known as the Enemy Expatriation Act, sponsored by Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA). This bill would give the US government the power to strip Americans of their citizenship [without trial]… even though the language of the NDAA has been revised to exclude American citizens, the US government merely has to strip Americans of their citizenship and the NDAA will apply.

• Republicans continue to deny basic facts about health care in the US.

  44,789 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance. … Any health care system that denies necessary care on the basis of wealth is evil. It doesn’t matter how you micromanage it, or tinker with it. It’s evil.

• All forms of torture are still common

Copyrights

• CDs and DVDs are now so worthless that burglars won’t steal them.

  It’s not because people are downloading the same things, it’s because there’s so much more and better than physical publishers can provide.

• Ithika and MIT come out against the Research Works Act

  AAP [Association of American Publishers] has therefore been widely criticised for its support of the RWA, and some in the research community have called on members of the association to disavow both the bill and AAP’s support for it.

• Ars Technia is surprised to find themselves on the MPAA’s enemies list.

  we’re really on the MPAA’s side; they just don’t realize it. We’re both content creators who support copyright and want to see creators get paid for their efforts. But copyright maximalism is the wrong way forward.

  It should be obvious by now that big publishers are pushing censorship and restrictions for their own interests, they will happily screw writers, musicians and everyone else they can.