There are rumblings that Dick Cheney could get a Secret Service after he leaves office.
I understand that both Quayle and Gore got 6 months, but anything beyond that, let him pay for it himself, he’s still getting lots of money from Halliburton.
Category: Security
Many Security Exploits Financial, Not Technical Issue
El Reg writes about an academic article that calls for making vendors liable for security exploits.
This is a good idea:
In the real world investment in risk avoidance may not be profitable. Security failures often arise due to perverse incentives rather than the lack of suitable technology. For example, credit card firms can rely on business models that push the cost of fraud onto merchants and consumers rather than investing in reducing the problem themselves. That’s because such investments would place them at a commercial disadvantage to their competitors.
Establishing economic incentives for IT suppliers to produce more secure products is arguably an even greater problem because software publishers are not held liable for the shortcomings of their products. These shortcomings may damage consumer faith in ecommerce but fail to effect sales, so a market-based solution in absence of regulatory pressure is difficult to imagine.
Microsoft would be bankrupt in 6 months.
This is the Funniest Thing I’ve Read All Week
Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times has a hysterical essay on the thrill of the trappings of power. Read it, but don’t drink anything, you’ll have to clean your screen.
A sample:
“If you fly into Camp David on a helicopter,” he assured me, “it’s instant arousal. But if you have to go to a European summit in Brussels, its so depressing you’re impotent for a week.”
ROTFLMAO
Finally, Some Sanity on Security Classifications
The Public Interest Declassification Board is calling for a streamlining of the declassification process.
Speaking as someone who has held a secret clearance*, the biggest problem is complacency, and this is driven by over-classification.
When everything you touch, even things that are ordinary and are actually publicly known, is classified, are classified, nothing is classified. It becomes background noise.
*Just in case you are wondering if the fact that a complete and total pratt like me got a secret clearance means that we are all doomed, the answer is yes.
When the Department of Defense Homeland Secrity Wants It’s Money Back, You’ve Screwed Up
So, the Coast Guard wants to to stretch and improve some (49) patrol boats, and the contract goes out to Lockheed-Martin and Northrop-Grumman, with the former doing the new systems, and the latter doing the hulls.
Small problem though, the systems don’t work, and the stretched boats buckle and leak. What’s more they leaked more than water. They used unshielded cables on the upgrade, meaning that your average Russian fishing trawler could listen in to a secure military network.
So the Coast Guard is asking for its money back:
The U.S. Coast Guard has asked a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Northrop Grumman Corp to pay $96.1 million for eight patrol boats that it modified, but that cannot be used.
I’m shocked, but less so than if it happened on a DoD, as opposed to a DHS contract*.
The coast guard is decommissioning (basically scrapping) the boats in question, and is taking back management of the program from the LSI (see my rundown on the LSI process, and why congress is moving to ban the process, here) of the , “$24 billion, 25-year modernization program known as Deepwater”.
Wouldn’t happen in the DoD. Too many generals who plan to work their retirements with the defense contractors.
*The strikethrough in the title is irony, not a correction.
Hack0rz to Penetrate 787 Systems in flight
Well, it appears that one of Boeing’s innovations with the 787 is the ability to wirelessly access maintenance and control systems, and the FAA is demanding that there be more security on these systems.
The entire world of aviation is increasingly looking like the Pilot episode of
The Lone Gunman an X-Files spin off, in which the forces of fascism attempt to take over the computer systems of an airliner and fly it into the Twin Towers.
Heck, the entire world is beginning to seem like an episode of The Lone Gunman.
Congress Expanding FOIA Rules
The changes add both scope and teeth to the law.
It’s clear that Bush won’t sign it, but with Reid keeping the senate in session again, it may become law without his signature.
Who Has Back Door Access?
No, this is not about soon to be former Idaho Senator Larry Craig, it’s about Seagate’s new encrypted hard drives.
They have encryption built into the drives, but I can’t hope but wonder who has been given the back door keys.
Intel and Symantec team up Stop You From Using Your PC As You Wish
It appears that the Bobsey Twins of the security worldhave decided to put features into chipset that will prevent users from running the software they choose.
They are not admitting this, but the statement that, “Intel plans to incorporate Trusted Platform Module capabilities, which already ships as separate modules in some of its laptops, into its chipsets next year.” Means that you will not be able to run the programs that you buy on your PC.
Hello AMD.
NBC Producer Owned at Def Con.
It appears that an overzealous, and quite frankly not very bright Producer for the NBC program Dateline, Michelle Madigan, got outed at Def Con, the hackers convention.
Reporters are allowed, they are supposed to wear a press badge, and not to photograph or record without the subject’s consent.
Def Con is a bit of an odd bird, it resembles those “Christmas Truces” during the first world war, with white hats, black hats, and law enforcement all mingling in relative peace.
There is a hacking contest, and numerous demonstrations of security holes and hacking tools, which is why law enforcement shows up. This is just as useful to them as it is to the Nigerian spammers who attempt to get you to give them your bank account information.
It appears that the hopefully soon to be unemployed Ms. Madigan was attempting to create a bogus story about law enforcement folks being there.
While probably not factually false, it’s an attempt to create a scandal where none exists. Def Con is as valuable an asset to people combating hackers as it is for hackers, and any security professional who gets his undies in a bunch about people attending should not be in the field.
There is a description, with photos and video, of Ms. Madigan’s flight once she was outed here.
It appears that she was chased from the show by reporters looking for pictures and video once she was outed.
I love the irony.
House Minority Leader Boehner and Fox News Conspire to Leak Classified Information for Political Gain
Well, it looks like John Boehner and the employess of Fox News are filthy traitors who whould be locked away foir the rest of their life. I expect the administration to pursue this investigation with all diligewnce that it did the leaking of the name of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame.
A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the Bush administration’s wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by congressional lawmakers this week to expand the president’s spying powers.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) disclosed elements of the court’s decision in remarks Tuesday to Fox News as he was promoting the administration-backed wiretapping legislation. Boehner has denied revealing classified information, but two government officials privy to the details confirmed that his remarks concerned classified information.
I keep forgetting, it’s OK if you are a Republican.
It’s be a bit less serious if those pig felchers called the “blue dog coalition” didn’t fold like a bunch of overcooked broccoli this weekend to give Bush and his evil minions™ everything that they wanted.
We can now all be spied on at Abu Gonzalez’s say so.
Bush Admin Wants Official Secrets Act
Bush and his evil minions™ at the department of justice are using the threat of prosecution under the espionage act to attempt to create a US version of the Official Secrets Act.
The espionage statutes concerning classified information could be employed against journalists who publish such information without authorization, a Justice Department official told Congress recently, elaborating on remarks made last year by Attorney General Gonzales.
These people have American freedoms, and they are doing their level best to destroy them.
Impeach Dick Cheney Today. Impeach George W. Bush Tomorrow.
A Light Sabre to Make You Vomit
Well, it appears that Department of Homeland Security has come up with another means of enforcing tyrrany controlling unruly crowds, a vomit inducing strobe light.
Enough to Make You Sick
Its inventors call it the LED Incapacitator(L-E-D, as in light-emitting diode). Weapons buffs call it a nonlethal weapon. But test subjects who have buckled and reeled from its nauseating strobe call it other names—none printable.
A later version of the LED Incapacitator, featuring a trimmer head. A flashlight designed to make you nauseatingly ill? What fiendish minds would invent such a tool? The minds of Bob Lieberman and Vladimir Rubtsov, president and senior scientist of Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., a small R&D company in Torrance, CA. Under a multiphase contract from the S&T Directorate’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Office, with technical direction from S&T program manager Gerald Kirwin, the two physicists are refining an ultra-bright, multicolored, pulsing “lightsaber” that’s more disorienting, dazzling, and dizzying—though a tad less dangerous—than disco. It’s enough to make you sick. And that, Lieberman says, is not always a bad thing.
How does the LED Incapacitator incapacitate? By simultaneously overwhelming the subject both physiologically (temporarily blinding him) and psychophysically (disorienting him). A built-in rangefinder measures the distance to the nearest pair of eyeballs. Then, a “governor” sets the output and pulse train (a series of pulses and rests) to a level, frequency, and duration that are effective, but safe. The colors and pulses continuously change, leaving no time for the brain or eyes to adapt. After a few minutes, the effects wear off.
The light could be used to make a bad guy turn away or shut his eyes, giving authorities enough time to tackle the suspect and apply the
cuffs … all while sparing the lives of passersby, hostages, or airline passengers.
An animated cross section shows how red, green, and blue LEDs are focused through an optical plate. “There are often confrontations at border crossings with suspected illegal aliens or drug runners,” Lieberman says. “You don’t want to hurt or kill them, just take them into custody. With this,” he smiles, “they don’t need to know English to comply.”
Output and size can easily be scaled up to fit the need; immobilizing a mob, for instance, might call for a wide-angle “bazooka” version. Scaling down is more difficult. At
15 inches long by4 inches wide, the current prototype is more transportable than portable. The next-generation weapon must be as short and svelte as aD-cell Maglite, designed to fit on a duty belt.“Phase 3 will be our shrink phase,” Lieberman says.This fall, in
Phase 2, researchers at Pennsylvania State University will test the LED Incapacitator on volunteers at the school’s Institute of Nonlethal Defense Technology. Intelligent Optical Systems will use the test results to evaluate design features and tweak the strobe’s pattern and colors. “There’s one wavelength that gets everybody,” says Lieberman. “Vlad calls it the evil color.” Further tests are scheduled for the fall, and production could begin by December. By 2010, the LED Incapacitator could be in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents, and National Guardsmen.
Not to mention enterprising criminals, and private security companies…delightful.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Clearances for Felons?
SSCI Warns Against Clearances for Ex-Convicts.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence endorsed a statutory prohibition that prevents the Department of Defense from granting security clearances to former convicts who have served a year or more in jail, individuals who are mentally incompetent, are drug addicts, or have been dishonorably discharged from the military.The Pentagon had requested a repeal of that provision, first enacted in 2000, and the request was approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“The [Intelligence] Committee understands DoD’s desire to have more flexibility to give clearances to otherwise qualified individuals who are currently barred from receiving or renewing their security clearances.”
…
They are so short on people that they want to clear felons?
But still, they are engaging in anti-gay witchunts.
Welcome to our broken military.
Another Case of Flying While Brown.
An American Airlines employee, boarding an American Airlines flight from an American Airlines bus caused a flight cancellation because he appeared to be of “middle eastern origin”.
And we also have case of flying while a Cancer survivor, in which a woman was made to remove her prosthetic breast and check it through luggage.
It’s not just that this stuff is stupid. This stuff is counterproductive. DHS has, for reasonso of political expedience and incompetence, created an atmosphere where panic reigns, and this makes it easier, not harder for someone wishing to do bad things to succeed.
You end up with primate brain (terrorist) against lizard brain (panic).
And These Guys are Protecting US???
Would that Karl Rove’s evil minions were so incompetent.
Hacker breaks into Pentagon email system
By Austin Modine in Mountain View
Published Friday 22nd June 2007 00:20 GMTThe Pentagon took as many as 1,500 computers offline yesterday to stamp out a security breach in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters in a news briefing today that a hacker had penetrated an unclassified OSD email system, prompting the shutdown. The system reportedly does not contain information related to military operations.
“A variety of precautionary measures are being taken. We expect the systems to be online again very soon.”
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Bush Administration Endangers Air Travelers Over Petty Snit
Yep, bullsh&% at the expense of safety, because petty score settling.
One wonders what other self destructive stupidity might be occurring because of, say, oedipal conflicts, *COUGH* IRAQ *COUGH*.
U.S. delays exporting licenses to Syrian Air
The U.S. government is dragging its feet on exporting licenses for aviation security items to Syrian Air – and the airline thinks there is an ulterior motive. Fortune’s
Marc Perelman reports.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Marc Perelman, Fortune
June 14 2007: 5:42 AM EDT(Fortune Magazine) — Is the Bush administration toying with aviation safety to pursue its political goals in the Middle East?
That’s what the chairman of Syria’s national airline and other experts say is the effect of extensive delays by Washington in issuing export licenses to Syrian Air for U.S.-manufactured aviation-security items – even though those items are exempt from a three-year-old export ban.
“Since the export ban has been in place, the U.S. has begun to delay the export-license process,” Syrian Air chairman Nachaat Numir told Fortune in a recent interview in Damascus. “In the past the normal export-license application process took one month, maximum. Now it takes several months, even a year.”
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