08.31.16
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism, Shoeshine, The Corporate Bund at 1:42 pm by George Smith
Hillary Clinton spoke in front of an American Legion audience today. She gave a special shout out to its Boys Nation thing:
“You help raise the next generation of American patriots. I want to give a special shout out to Boys Nation, which meant so much to my husband when he was growing up.”
And it was a small part in a longer pep talk about American exceptionalism and an extended pandering to military service (which the Clintons like the vast majority of Americans including myself had and hve no part of) and patriotism. This goes hand and hand with the America never stopped being great meme. which from the vantage point of the Clinton class, the wealthy and their still employed enablers, is all true. You see, America is always great, never stops being so, shame on you for thinking it, you must want American Hitler to be President.
“[When] Vladimir Putin, of all people, criticized American exceptionalism, my opponent agreed with him, saying, and I quote, ‘if you’re in Russia, you don’t want to hear that America is exceptional’,??? Clinton continued. “Well maybe you don’t want to hear it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
I’m not from Russia. But the exceptionalism shtick is drivel. But it is surely tailor-made for HRC’s kind of audience.
I was dragooned into attending the American Legion’s Boys State/Boys Nation thing when I was in high school. I did not care for it. But it was a great thing for budding fascists, bullies and bootlicks, though, so it makes sense to me that the Clintons would think highly of it. It was probably perfect for them, being real American “meritocracy” stuff.
You’ll surely get a kick out of my tribute to it, too, so here’s a reprint/dredge-up from about a decade ago.
JUNE 2007 — [Summer camps] must be about pain and embarrassment. It’s also important they be totally useless. It’s a bonus if they’re scarring, too.
Boy Scouts of America summer retreat in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, was good for all three decades ago. You went, more accurately — were sent — to be physically purged and have a week gouged from your summer.
It reliably meted out punishment to those who had committed no crime.
If you slipped up in even the pettiest way — made the biscuits wrong — you had to do push-ups in front of the troop leader, a thirty-something man with an icky fondness for watching his charges do physical training with their shirts off.
On a par with Boy Scouts of America summer retreat was Keystone Boys State.
Keystone Boys State was a one-shot, eligible to you only when you were between junior and senior year in high school.
This year’s Keystone Boys State is at Shippensburg College (Shippensburg State Teachers, originally), running between June 24-30. (That was for 2007. -ed) Perhaps Keystone Boys State campers will Google this essay and be persuaded to threaten their parents with reprisals should they be forced to fulfill their commitment later this month.
Kids, don’t go!
DD is giving it to you straight. Keystone Boys State is not the Army but you’ll get a little dose of it later this month. Except you won’t be able to drink heavily, shoot guns or patrol foreign boulevards for prostitutes. You won’t be made Army Strong.
Naturally, DD did not volunteer for Keystone Boys State. I was drafted by irresponsible vainglorious parents and members of the local American Legion who thought of me as a utensil, an honors student at Pine Grove Area High School, something to be offered to the state Legion leadership. In a small town like Pine Grove, kids didn’t have the luxury of snubbing their noses at “gifts” from the local American Legion-VFW. Parents wouldn’t have it.
My Keystone Boys State was held at State College. It is a tribute to Penn State University that the American Legion sponsored operation wasn’t capable of bringing out a loathing in me for all things Nittany Lions. I remain a fan of the college football team and Joe Paterno.
Indeed, it’s astonishing that Penn State University would have allowed the use of its facilities to an organization and operation which determinedly obstructed any efforts by campers to enjoy Penn State, or even get to know about the school.
You see, attendance at Keystone Boys State didn’t give camp-goers much of a glimpse of the university.
When I attended, Boys Staters were restricted to two dormitories, a nearby cafeteria and attached playing fields.
How Keystone Boys State managed this in the Seventies was nasty business.
Upon arrival in State College, campers were separated into platoons, with each platoon being assigned a nominal city, named after some Pennsylvania government functionary.
DD was assigned to “Bethman City.” Each city resided on one floor of a dorm. Each city’s adult minders were from the active ranks of the US military. Bethman City’s minder was a USMC man from Parris Island. I’ll call him Gunny, although that was not his real name.
Gunny was a power drunk with a talent for cussing, neither of which DD thinks could be any liability in the Marines, although it was momentarily surprising to see him lay it out so plainly within 60 seconds of arrival.
The first thing Gunny told us about was screening at Parris Island. He was specific in his description of a Marine Corps recruit found with a rubber dildo in his rectum. Why this was important to tell a bunch of high school boys, other than it being an X-rated shaggy dog story, was not immediately obvious.
More pressing, Gunny said, was that we campers recognize we were to stay within the bounds of Keystone Boys State. Under no circumstances were we to take walks to downtown State College, described as a potentially dangerous place.
At this point, DD’s high school eyes rolled, having already been to State College a number of times to see Saturday football. Since I was in the back, Gunny did not see the contempt in which I held him and his developing tale. If he had, perhaps I would have been ordered to do some push-ups without my shirt on.
Gunny explained that there were women who were pros in downtown State College and they were eager to take advantage of us. It was such an outrageously stupid story, a few of us assumed he’d been told to tell it by someone old and weird and higher-up from within the American Legion.
The current website for Keystone Boys State advertises it as “non-military.”
Whether this is true now I don’t know, but in the Seventies the claim was utter horsecrap.
The camp was functionally administered by US military men. Every morning there was inspection — the kind in which a military man examined your bed and opened the drawers of your empty desk to see if there was any dust in them. If there was dust in an empty drawer, it was scooped up and put on your bed or on the top of some of your property to teach you a lesson. Whatever miscellaneous lint or dirt was found during inspection was always deposited on your belongings or personal space. This kept up until our military counselors realized we’d stopped giving a shit about what they thought and did, around mid-week.
How well a Boys Stater’s city did in inspection determined in which order you would eat lunch during the day. Bethman City always did poorly and, as a result, we always ate lunch last or near to last.
In late afternoon, after some worthless class on state government and a round of compulsory softball in the sweltering heat, the camp retired to the drill field to practice calisthenics, marching in formation and pass-in-review. During the exercises, each city was judged on its form and ability to follow orders snappily. That determined in which order you ate dinner.
Bethman City, you guessed it, often finished last.
By mid-week, Gunny had reported in for Keystone Boys State duty drunk or with savage hangover too many times. He was dismissed and the slack taken up by an USAF man.
At that point, the boys of Bethman City made the decision to stop paying attention to cleaning up bathrooms, sweeping rooms atomically clean and making beds quarter-bounce-worthy for inspection. Then we always finished last.
Being snappy on the drill field went out, too. On the last day of camp, when all the thugs from high-school football teams and their assorted camp lackeys had been “elected” leaders of Keystone Boys State and allowed to go into the reviewing stand as the elite who watched the rest of the lumpen pass-in-review, we dropped our pants while trudging past the bleechers. We ate last.
The people who ran my Keystone Boys State liked nothing better than to order around teenagers, mostly for what appeared to be the sheer sake of it.
“A week at Keystone Boys State condenses what might take several months in real life to less than 168 hours,” informs the official KBS website. “This compressed simulation helps people learn lessons about the actions and consequences of leadership in a very realistic way.”
Yes, one thinks learning to suck up, march in formation and follow pointless orders does teach something about life but one ought not to ask teenage kids to give up a week of summer to learn it. The current website seems to indicate Keystone Boys State is big with those junior ROTC operations which haven’t yet been run off public high school properties.
“The effort to get everyone involved at [KBS] manifests itself by having every ‘citizen’ elected, selected, assigned or appointed to leadership positions throughout the week. Each citizen also is provided with text materials based on organizational science and personal development exercises. Much of what we do is a spin-off of the Stephen Covey text, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective [People],” the boys camp proclaims.
“All citizens should become familiar with parliamentary procedures, ‘Robert’s Rules of Order’ and Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – NOW ! ! !”
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” wasn’t required reading when DD attended Keystone Boys State, probably because it hadn’t yet been written.
It is another in a long line of publications from the self-help industry, filled with the kinds of slogans and advice people used to following orders and doing pointless institutional or corporate busy work for work’s sake think will help them improve their attitude so they can earn a quick million dollars, get promoted and exit the logjam of daily life.
Some of its tenets: Think Win/Win! Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood! Synergize!
Adoption of such a thing indicates the Keystone Boys State experience is, more than likely, an even more annoying and brainwashing experience in 2007 than it was in the Seventies.
It was true that every “citizen” of Keystone Boys State had to hold a “political” position by the end of the week.
This meant that as the inner core of apple-polishers was exhausted during the awarding of positions of “leadership” within the quasi-state camp apparatus, other positions were handed out on the basis of an ad hoc cronyism until, by the end of the week, everyone had one. It was mandated that everyone hold a public office.
I was made Bethman City dog catcher on the last day of formal camp operation. It didn’t require a vote.
For kids stumbling into this, if you must go to Keystone Boys State (and you SHOULD NOT if possible), I recommend you take a musical instrument, even if you aren’t in the high school band. Campers with instruments got to be in the Keystone Boys State community band. Perks were associated with it, like getting out of marching-in-formation and being allowed to eat ahead of everyone else, regardless of how badly your city did during inspection.
In the weeks following Keystone Boys State, I was able to make productive use of the camp one time and only once.
Everyone from Pine Grove High School who attended KBS was required to attend an American Legion dinner at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars banquet hall. After dinner, the campers would be asked to speak about their experience at Keystone Boys State.
I had no interest in attending and told my parents that if they forced the issue, like they’d forced KBS, I would tell the Legion dinner audience exactly what KBS was like. I would start with Gunny and his stories about a Marine recruit with a dildo up his ass and hookers patrolling the streets of State College looking for fresh-faced young boys.
That was all it took, really. When Mom and Dad asked what they should tell the organizers of the dinner, I told them to say I was at … another camp for the week.
Now that it one hell of a story, isn’t it? Real gonzo journalism. There ain’t nothing the Clintons could put down on paper to top it.
Anyway, moving on, about halfway through her speech today, Clinton gave a little spiel on computer security for the 1 percent. Computer security for the 1 percent is the years old story of China stealing all the intellectual property of America’s wealthiest companies, particularly it’s arms manufacturers
More recently, Russian hackers have taken their place. Worse, from the meritocratic and all-knowing point-of-view of the Democratic Party, Russia is attacking the DNC in cyberspace and possibly setting up to jigger the vote so as to throw the election to Trmp.
HRC is on the case:
We’ll invest in the next frontier of military engagement, protecting U.S. interests in outer space and cyberspace. You’ve seen reports. Russia’s hacked into a lot of things. China’s hacked into a lot of things. Russia even hacked into the Democratic National Committee, maybe even some state election systems. So, we’ve got to step up our game. Make sure we are well defended and able to take the fight to those who go after us.
As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack. We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses. And we’re going to invest in protecting our governmental networks and our national infrastructure. I want us to lead the world in setting the rules of cyberspace.
If America doesn’t, others will. So in short, we have to be ready to win today’s fights and tomorrow’s.
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04.23.16
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism, Rock 'n' Roll at 12:18 pm by George Smith
From a long time ago and what seems very far away, the only rock song to feature former US Cyber-Czar, Richard Clarke.
“They’ll also launch a big ol’ DOS,” he “sings.”
Taken from a conference call between him, the bosses of the biggest anti-virus companies, and some government officials on what was to be done during one of the big network virus/worm scares (Code Red, 2001, specifically) of the time. “A big ol’ DOS,” or denial-of-service attack was what the virus was going to launch.
At the time, the biggest anti-virus software developer in the US recommended disconnecting the US from the internet. Absolutely true.
“Cyberwar Boogie” is/was a jaunty ditty about trouble on the frontier in cyberspace from someone who was there. I even threw in some poor man’s Jimmy Riddle.
Seemed appropriate for a lazy Saturday.
It’s here. Do give it a listen.
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02.08.16
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism, Virus Creation Labs at 2:04 pm by George Smith
Over the weekend a number of news organizations ran with short stories on the Malware Museum at the Internet archive, a listing of some old MS-DOS computer viruses that came with visual or audio effects. The hook is you can now view these old programs without endangering yourself.
True, but only in a sideways manner. MS-DOS viruses were 16-bit. They don’t run on modern systems. And even when you are free to download them (working DOS and boot sector virus code is still archived widely around the web), your browser will stop you first (Chrome in particular), Windows Defender second, and your installed anti-virus program, third.
So what’s been done at the Internet archive is the piping of the screen effects of some old computer viruses, shown by old MS-DOS programs made to do just that and run in DOSBox, a set of programs that allows you to run old 16-bit PC programs on a variety of modern platforms. (Mostly, DOSBox was made so you could play old and obsolete games.)
Getting down to the nitty-gritty, the programs on-line at the Malware Museum were typically made by anti-virus researchers. The resulting screen displays make much of it clear. Often what was done was a surgical removal of the display code, or an emasculation of those parts of the virus responsible for replication and the destructive part of the payload, rendering the code inert.
What is and was lost in most of the short pieces on the matter is that the old PC viruses with visual or sonic activations did not give you the entertainment all the time, or sometimes even very frequently. They were set to various triggers, date or time counts. The reason for that, generally speaking, was simple.
The virus that gave itself away with a performance trick was a virus that was going to be removed.
In the early Nineties I wrote a file virus called Acme. It searched out .exe files on your hard disk and copied itself beside them, taking their name, except as a .com program, taking advantage of the DOS operating system rule that when the name of a program was given, the operating system would load the .com version of it in preference to the .exe. This guaranteed Acme would execute before the file it was a mimic for.
When Acme could find no more programs to infect it would play a few musical notes in an endless loop. This guaranteed it was always discovered. And, eventually, I got a call from some kid who had infected the family’s PC, which would now do nothing but play music. The virus was easy to take off a system without harm once you knew what it was.
All the programs at the Malware Museum date from the very late-Eighties and early Nineties. The displays are from file-infecting viruses and boot sector viruses, the latter which were the most easily and widely spread. The reason again was simple: Vectors. Vectors, another word designating how diseases, real world, or digital, are spread.
With old PCs, one vector was shared disks and diskettes. A virus that infected the first sector on them stood the best chance of being spread around. Another vector was infected program files. But infected programs, or utilities, apps they’re called today, were only effective in spreading computer disease if they came in contaminated packages or shareware, the latter of which was largely distributed online, often through networks connected by telephone lines.
So when an old virus infected diskette or floppy was left in your PC overnight until you turned it on the next morning, the first thing that happened was that your hard disk was infected. And after that, every subsequent data disk put in the machine was contaminated and able to spread the program.
One story on the Malware Museum reads:
The good news is that you can peruse a pretty sizable collection in the Malware Museum now without worrying that they’ll wreck your machine. Like the night-forgotten PC games it has collected over the years, the malware plays within browsers. To a point, they’re even somewhat interactive …
Like The Next Web notes, some of them are even kind of gorgeous in their own spartan way now that they’ve been pacified.
The last part’s stretching it.
And the graphic chosen shows one of the displays, clearly labeled as a virus demonstrator.
Now comes the good part, personal history.
When I was doing the old Crypt Newsletter in prep for The Virus Creation Labs book twenty some years ago, I wrote computer viruses and included them in the former.
And one of the issues of the old newsletter delivered a set of programs called Urnst’s Scareware. It was a set of four of the common virus displays, sans all the crap that warned users they were just virus simulators.
Urnst’s Scareware is still available on the net. And the programs are labeled as computer viruses, although they are not.
Here they are.
If you try to download the file your browser will get in the way. Danger! Danger!
Even if you bypass the warnings, Chrome will snatch the download away from you, forcing you to call up its downloads “history” and “recover” the file. At which point it plaintively asks if you want to get hurt, “plenty.”
Even if you say yes, Windows Defender will then take the download off you.
And then you must call up Defender and turn it off for a minute. (This, in and of itself, is a bit amusing if you know the history of anti-virus and Microsoft. When Urnst’s Scareware was distributed Microsoft Anti-virus was about the worst anti-virus program, ever. It was a sort of crippled version of a program offered by Central Point, a company that was bought and killed by Symantec in the mid-Nineties. Today, however, Microsoft is very much better at anti-virus. Windows Defender is actually good.)
However, you can also view what Urnst’s Scareware did here. Auf Deutsch.
On display, the effects for the Den Zuk boot virus, the Ping Pong and Cascade viruses. Not included, the Jerusalem virus payload mimic, which instigated a minor system slowdown and a slight disruption of the old ASCII screen with a small empty patch.
Finally, the reason why I made Urnst’s Scareware. So you could scare people without hurting them! Not all of the programs in the Crypt Newsletter were quite so benign.
So you think you’re pretty hot stuff when it comes to tech, huh?
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10.07.15
Posted in Crazy Weapons, Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism, Extremism, Imminent Catastrophe, WhiteManistan at 2:50 pm by George Smith
Gun nut, sexual athlete and ex-antivirus mogul John McAfee just went full electromagnetic pulse crazy. I suppose it had to happen although on the scale of all things McAfee, it’s not very original.
In a recent syndicated column (yes, someone gave him one), McAfee parrots what the extreme kook right and survivalists/preppers have been going on about for the last fifteen years, electromagnetic pulse doom:
My first thought upon hearing Obama’s proclamation [on the Roseburg massacre and gun violence) was that I was in the middle of an acid flashback and I had no benzodiazepines to mediate the trip. My second thought was: what possible single issue, in this complex society of ours, would merit a “single issue” status?
I assumed that the single issue would be the tragic issue of our national security. This issue would clearly be the rampant illiteracy of our elected leaders in the science of cyber security. Experts agree that an all out cyber attack, beginning with an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack on our electronic infrastructure, would wipe out 90% of the human population of this country within two years of the attack. That means the death of 270 million people within 24 months after the attack.
Yet our leaders are nearly all ill prepared for this near certain, not-too-distant event. If I were forced to choose a single issue, this would obviously be the issue.
One of my favorite celebrity freaks, McAfee then flails around for a bit before offering up the statistic that “85 percent of all mass shootings have happened while Democrats were on watch.”
Of course. McAfee continues that this needs looking into.
And I’m happy to say that someone did look into it a couple years back, except not expressly from the angle of gun massacres, but from the slightly broader definition of domestic right wing terrorism. (I think we can agree Chris Harper Mercer was a right-wing gun nut (along with his mother), as well as a few other things.)
From this blog, at the time:
[The] report, entitled Challengers from the Sideline: Understanding America’s Violent Far Right, analyzed right wing domestic terrorism for contributing factors. The strongest correlator was the number of seats held in the House of Representatives by Republicans.
Simply, right wing violence escalates when their are more GOP Reps. The report reasoned this might be because those perpetrating right wing violence feel supported ideologically by Republicans in that body.
The other possibility, of course, is that the rhetoric emitted by the Republican Party in control of the House creates an environment in which some people feel empowered, or moved, to violence against the government.
The other contributing factor was legislation, specifically that having to do with gun control. The Brady Bill, or Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, signed into law in 1993 during the Clinton administrations, caused a spurt in militia growth and related right wing violence in that period …
And in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security got into hot water over a report on domestic terrorism that painted the right wing as fertile ground for radicalization. And that the specifics fueling the radicalism and violence were political issues, economic hardship and a couple other things (like the resentment of an African American president). But the most specific driver was the belief that the state was either planning to confiscate guns or enacting gun control legislation even when none of these were true.
And today we know that for the entire duration of the Obama administration, the National Rifle Association has mounted a concerted campaign that has little other purpose than to gin up paranoia and fear about gun confiscation by the same administration. Even though there has been absolutely (or virtually) no gun control laws of any kind enacted during the period.
So if we are to take Mr. McAfee at his word, yes, it certainly looks like most of the slaughters look like they take place when Democrats are in charge. And one of the drivers appears to be because white gun nuts have been repeatedly told Democrats are coming for their guns, among many other things.
The Homeland Security report was issued around the time of the massacre in Aurora and readers can see how that turned out.
The authors paid for that one with their careers. However, it proved a little harder to get at West Point.
In any case, often by intent and sometimes not, John McAfee has always had something of a comedic flair. This column being a good example, as well as his recent announcement that he’s running for President. Pat Paulsen lives!
As the paranoia of the gun crazy right wing in America rolls on newspapers continue to publish features on the local white guys who believe it’s all going to come crashing down from electromagnetic pulse attack. But they’re going to be ready with their off-the-grid homes, ammo, guns, gold bars and pemmican, ready to preserve their American way, if not democracy, in the inevitable ritual of purification.
Excerpts from the Kansas City Star:
Mark Rinke — a 32-year-old, married father of two in Olathe who worries about TEOTWAYKI (The End of the World As You Know It) — declined to be interviewed at his home for a strategic reason.
“OPSEC,??? said Rinke, floating the military jargon for operations security.
In other words, should the United States ever fall into social chaos through war, economic collapse or some other calamity, Rinke would rather, for security’s sake, not reveal too much regarding the details of his stockpiled energy, arms, water and food.
“WHAT WE’VE SEEN IS NOT ONLY THE PROLIFERATION OF APOCALYPTIC IDEAS BY THE INTERNET, BUT THEIR PROLIFERATION IN POPULAR CULTURE IN ALL FORMS.???
— Michael Barkun, Syracuse University professor emeritus of political science
“I think it [electromagnetic pulse doom] is a pretty decent concern because it doesn’t necessarily take a country making a decision to do it,??? Rinke said. “It can be a rogue thing with a homemade rocket. One day a guy pulls his contraption out of his garage and shoots it off. Our grid goes down.???
Should that day arrive, Rinke feels confident he will be among the prepared.
Remember, no liberals in the bunker.
The Pulse — from the incomparable archives.
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02.21.15
Posted in Crazy Weapons, Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism at 12:31 pm by George Smith
From the Voice of America News (condensed):
WASHINGTON—
The revelation of secret technology that buries spyware into computer hard drives could be a blow to espionage efforts by the U.S. National Security Agency, intelligence analysts say.
Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based security software manufacturer, recently reported it found computers in 30 nations infected with spying programs …
A former NSA employee told Reuters that Kaspersky’s analysis was correct and that people still in the spy agency valued these espionage programs as highly as Stuxnet.
“Is anybody safe anymore???? That was the reaction to the report by Bill Supernor, the chief technology officer for KoolSpan, a U.S. company providing secure voice and text systems for mobile phones.
KoolSpan sells more products overseas than in the U.S. “Customers already suspicious of U.S. products will now be even more concerned that firms have been compromised,??? Supernor said. “If this is the U.S. doing this to our adversaries we are seriously shooting ourselves in the foot,??? he said …
George Smith, a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, said the report represented “a black eye for the U.S. government because it undermines trust on the global networks.”
“It makes it hard to argue for proper rules of conduct in cyber space because there are now no boundaries,??? Smith said.
Actually, I wasn’t emphatic enough. It’s made it impossible to argue for proper rules of conduct.
Twenty years ago I wrote The Virus Creation Labs. Much of the book was about the nature and ways of the anti-virus industry.
The anti-virus researchers had a code: no virus-writers! Writing malicious code was verboten, immoral. And they were pretty loud and forthright about it.
The question is now is who’s been asked to overlook American-made malware, particularly of this nature, if they run across it? Anyone? American anti-virus and computer security firms?
It puts such US companies in a bind. Even if they haven’t cooperated, how can you be sure?
Computer security conventions are big business. Of course, the US malware industrial complex must send many of its employees to them. Incognito.
But anti-virus researchers were and probably still are pretty smart guys. And they used to be keenly interested in who the virus writers were. Certainly they know their material is read by them. And they know they’ve seen them at conventions, perhaps even been chatted up by one or two.
The next shoe to drop, then, is the identification of one or more of our American malware and virus-writers, and the place they work out of. Much like what was done to the Chinese government hacking operation in Shanghai.
It is hard to say when or if it will come. Things like reality and what constitute reasonable consequences don’t apply to national security matters in the US.
Kaspersky should keep up the good work.
More later, maybe.
Read the entire VOA News piece. There’s a quote from someone at the Heritage Foundation, to the effect that Kaspersky’s anti-virus and malware analysis is part of a campaign to “deligitimize the NSA.”
On the Heritage Foundation here.
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01.21.15
Posted in Cyberterrorism at 3:23 pm by George Smith
“No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids. We are making sure our government integrates intelligence to combat cyber threats, just as we have done to combat terrorism. So tonight, I urge this Congress to finally pass the legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber-attacks, combat identity theft, and protect our children’s information. That should be a bipartisan effort. If we don’t act, we’ll leave our nation and our economy vulnerable. If we do, we can continue to protect the technologies that have unleashed untold opportunities for people around the globe.”
Same old.
First, Congress generally won’t pass anything the President recommends, in this case CISPA.
Second, you can’t conflate shutting down networks, “stealing our trade secrets,” and civilian privacies. In the United States the only things that have mattered on the national stage are protecting the properties of the corporate sector, Wall Street and the military; secondarily, ameliorating the embarrassment and liability caused when a huge corporate system is breached and its data spilled.
Everyone else is on their own.
Anyway, you can’t have a secure global network when a limitlessly funded wing of the national defense has, as one of its main functions, the subversion and undermining of network security for its own uses and agenda.
Someday, expect a cyber-Bruce Ivins:
Normally, internship applicants need to have polished resumes, with volunteer work on social projects considered a plus. But at Politerain [a training program for the NSA’s malware programs], the job posting calls for candidates with significantly different skill sets. We are, the ad says, “looking for interns who want to break things.”
Potential interns are also told that research into third party computers might include plans to “remotely degrade or destroy opponent computers, routers, servers and network enabled devices by attacking the hardware.” Using a program called Passionatepolka, for example, they may be asked to “remotely brick network cards.” With programs like Berserkr they would implant “persistent backdoors” and “parasitic drivers”. Using another piece of software called Barnfire, they would “erase the BIOS on a brand of servers that act as a backbone to many rival governments.”
An intern’s tasks might also include remotely destroying the functionality of hard drives.
Volunteer work on social projects. Good joke, that.
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12.24.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism at 3:14 pm by George Smith
Freedom … because Google’s toffs and geniuses said so:
“Given everything that’s happened, the security implications were very much at the front of our minds,” Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond wrote in a blog post. “But after discussing all the issues, Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country (however silly the content might be).”
For the last two decades more people in the national security state have been hoping for and predicting, first — “electronic Pearl Harbor,” then “digital Pearl Harbor,” and now “cyber-Pearl Harbor.”
Because they would all benefit from it. And even while it stubbornly refused to transpire, they made out on the subject very well, anyway.
Now that it’s here and gone, figuratively triggered by Seth Rogen, many are a little bit at a loss for words. Because you can’t go to war over a cyber-attack that stuffed Seth Rogen’s movie and Sony, if only briefly. Seriously.
It’s kind of a bummer.
From the New York Times:
When does a cyberattack against an American company, network or government agency warrant military involvement?
Ummm, not now, say all.
“But just because a victim state may be entitled to use its military to take countermeasures does not mean that it necessarily should,” writes Kristen E. Eichensehr, a visiting assistant professor of law at UCLA. “Other options, such as criminal prosecution, international sanctions and old-fashioned naming and shaming, may be legal, available and more effective responses.”
“We will not go to war over Sony, nor should we,” adds James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s frustrating …”
No war. But give more money to the private sector, writes Jason Healey: “[In] nearly every significant attack or conflict, the savior has been the private sector, companies like McAfee or Microsoft that have the agility … The answer to ever-worsening cyberattacks is an overriding priority on defense centered on our true cyber power, America’s private sector.”
Got it. Give more money to large security corporation so they can protect the stuff of the 1 percent, like The Interview.
“For years now, the Obama administration has warned of the risks of a cyber-Pearl Harbor, a nightmare attack that takes out America’s power grids and cellphone networks and looks like the opening battle in a full-scale digital war,” writes David Sanger, also at the Times.
“Such predictions go back at least 20 years…” he continues. You bet.
There is, of course, an anonymous “senior defense official”:
“If you had told me that it would take a Seth Rogen movie to get our government to really confront these issues, I would have said you are crazy … But then again, this whole thing has been crazy.???
Seth Rogen is now a kind of universal IQ test. If you want to see him or his movie because it says important stuff about computer security and freedom, you flunk.
Computer Security for the 1 Percent — from the archives.
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12.23.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism at 1:42 pm by George Smith
Catching up with the Voice of America, which broadcast this hours before Sony withdrew The Interview from wide release on Xmas day. (Today, it reversed itself and is trying to coax it into a 200-300 theater special showing on the 25th, about ten percent of what was originally slated.)
From the Voice of America:
Cyber attacks similar to the recent major breach of Sony Pictures’ computer networks, with which North Korea was allegedly involved, may be expected in future, computer security experts say.
Sony’s comedy “The Interview” makes fun of a fictional CIA plot to assassinate North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, using two bumbling American reporters who were granted a rare interview with the reclusive dictator.
North Korean officials complained about the film to the United Nations in July, but the hacking didn’t start until late November. Films were stolen and released, and private company emails were made public. The hack has cost Sony millions and forced the entertainment giant to cancel release of the film.
But what could be more damaging, said George Smith, senior fellow for Globalsecurity.org, are the vulnerabilities in the Internet itself.
“How many stories have we had in the last couple of weeks on things of this nature? The Sony one has dominated the news, but a month prior to that there was the news of the banks [JPMorgan Chase and other institutions], and earlier in the week there was a story how the Sands Casino network … was heavily compromised, allegedly by hackers sympathetic to Iran,” he said.
Smith said it is very difficult to secure a global business like Sony. He said networks are now so complex, even the people responsible for their security aren’t quite sure how to move forward.
“It’s going to continue the way it has,” he said. “There’s no visible trend on the horizon that sees this improving, OK? But people become used to it.” Also, the original, at VoA.
Me, I’m waiting to see how thrilled the Chinese are over Universal’s American hacker movie that has one of its nuclear reactors blown up by remote control.
Hilarious. Another obvious winner.
Film critic Peter Rainer’s take on The Interview:
What was Sony thinking? In the history of corporate bonehead decisions, the financing and distributing of a slobbola comedy about the assassination of a sitting world leader has to rank right up there with the New Coke …
I remember seeing a movie at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival called “The Death of a President,??? a British faux documentary about the assassination of then-President George W. Bush and the ascension of Dick Cheney, whose rise was viewed almost as alarmingly as the assassination. As with “The Interview,??? many of the major US theater chains refused to show the film, and it rapidly vanished.
The opposite is true for “The Interview,??? which has moved to the nation’s front pages without ever having been released at all. My guess is that Sony greenlighted this movie simply because they thought it would clean up with the gross-out crowd and, besides, Kim Jong-un, with his funny haircut, was a safe target.
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12.22.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism at 5:57 pm by George Smith
Whether it’s hacktivism or our mighty cyberwar machine, knocking North Korea off the net follows the standard American strategy of beating up on the weak or places where the vast majority are dirt poor and have it very bad. Because we can.
I’ve called it Bombing Paupers in the past.
What might further steps look like?
Theoretically, we might make North Korean bank machines (if they even have them) not work for a populace that has no money. Or, my favorite: Turning off the lights in a country that can’t keep the lights on at night.
And if we really wanted to get tough we could mess up the computers at the cabbage and maize processing factories so people have less soup and porridge and are more malnourished over the holidays.
Yep, having a fit over North Korea is a defining demonstration the Culture of Lickspittle reigns supreme in America.
From the New York Times, no link:
The loss of service is not likely to affect the vast majority of North Koreans, who have no access to the Internet. The biggest impact would be felt by the country’s elite, state-run media channels and its propagandists, as well as its cadre of cyberwarriors.
Unless, of course, they’re vacationing over the border in China or in Macau.
A Senate report on torture is issued and nothing is done, or will be done. The Sony hack blows it off the front page.
The New York Times editorial board comes out in favor of investigating and putting on trial Bush administration officials and intelligence ageny helpers instrumental in torture. But knocking North Korea off line, a country run by insane people where the average citizen earns one or two dollars a month, is bigger.
The President attempts to begin normalization of relations with Cuba and finds it eclipsed by the consequences of Seth Rogen’s lousy movie.
I feel sorry for the man. Being circumspect or rational never gets you very far here.
For example, from the New York Times, seriously:
Why doesn’t he ask Sony for a copy of “The Interview,??? screen it at the White House and invite the nation’s political and cultural elite to the event? That would send a powerful message to the world that Pennsylvania Avenue respects freedom of thought and speech.
If I were the President I’d make a counter-proposal:
I’d watch The Interview at the White House if Hollywood promises not to employ Seth Rogen, co-director Evan Goldberg and James Franco for the next two years.
Seth Rogen is a new IQ test. If you refer to him with anything but contempt, you flunk.
If you think this is a little unfair consider for a moment how much money Seth Rogen took home for this and how poor, by comparison, the general state of North Korea. Making a movie that relied on making fun of a place so wretched was easy and more than a little bit odious.
“Though most of my students were computer majors [at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology], they did not know the Internet existed, and I wasn’t allowed to tell them,” writes someone at Slate.
“Three comics who acquired a draft of the script of the now-scrubbed Seth Rogen-James Franco flick will produce a reading of the taboo Kim Jong Un satire at the Manhattan’s Treehouse Theater on Dec. 27,” reports the New York Daily News.
“The goal is to strike a blow for creative freedom …” it continues.
“I was completely horrified by the precedent that’s been set,” one of the comedians, Benny Sheckner, told the newspaper.
In another piece, the Daily News informs both Rogen and Franco have hired new “giant bodyguards.”
And from the New York Times, notification of a new movie on “hackers,” called “Blackhat,” from Michael Mann, coming to theaters soon:
Hollywood has always had a hard time turning computer code and venomous software into captivating cinema. But Mr. Mann, who wrung three Oscar nominations from “The Insider,??? his 1999 story of a tobacco company whistle-blower, has spent years on “Blackhat,??? partly in an effort to bridge the gap between film and what he saw as an underappreciated mass threat posed by hackers.
The stakes are even higher than those in the Sony attack. “Blackhat??? begins with a hack-induced explosion at a Chinese nuclear plant …
Mr. Mann, whose films include “Ali,??? “Heat??? and “Public Enemies,??? said he became interested in a hacker-centered story after spending time in Washington with government cyberdefense officials.
Universal [the company making the movie] is slightly concerned that the Sony attack might actually hurt “Blackhat??? — ticket buyers could be tired of hacking stories after weeks of media attention on Sony, and a film that is too topical might strike potential viewers as less entertaining.
Imagine, if you will, the actor who plays Thor in the Marvel comic book movies as a hacker in “Blackhat.” It appears to go downhill from there.
Blow up a Chinese nuclear reactor, research advisors courtesy of US cyberdefense officials! Just brilliant.
Again, please feel free to throw something in the Xmas pot. It’s been another hard year and I would like to get something inexpensively made in China for guitar-playing.
And if you’d like a digital copy of Loud Folk Live, say so.
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12.20.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism at 1:16 pm by George Smith
Sony has its morons
Seth Rogen is just one
38th parallel got Kim Jong Un
He’s a cyberwar son of a gun
Yeah, he’s weird and screwy as a man can come
But he’ll throw you for a real big loss
And when the bad guys come on the net at night
You know they all call Kim “Boss”
You don’t put ricin on some tape
You don’t spit into the wind
You shouldn’ta said “Yes!” to Seth’s shitty movie
And you don’t mess around with Kim
To Jim Croce’s “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim.” Fill in the rest of the lyrics.
The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern reviewed “The Interview” and it’s another perfect first graf:
Never has less of a film had more of an impact on the studio—and the nation—that produced it. (And never until now have I discussed a film that, as the situation currently stands, most people will never get to see.) “The Interview??? isn’t just a film, of course. It’s a buddy comedy, with a slob aesthetic, that became the provocation for real-world events of shocking import; the quality of the thing wouldn’t seem to matter at this point. Yet the remarkably dismal quality is emblematic of the mind-set that brought the movie, and its attendant crises, into being.
Reactions, the sky-is-falling predictable:
Ex-NSA lawyer Joel Brenner, author of America the Vulnerable: “We can’t ignore this … We can’t let this go without some retaliation.”
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman, R. Michael McCaul of Texas: “I would argue that we should be able to respond in kind to hit them.”
North Korea doesn’t have a global movie industry. (Encroaching characteristic in Computer Security for the 1 Percent: Attacking an American company is an act of war rather than a criminal matter.)
Bloomberg News (no link): “The North Korean success likely will spawn additional attacks, either repeat episodes involving the Kim government or others. Next time, the target may not be a Hollywood comedy, but an essential part of the U.S. economy.”
Tacit admission Seth Rogen’s “The Interview” isn’t worth very much.
Secondary admission that using cyberwar to turn out the lights in North Korea might not mean much. Since the lights there are out a lot already.
We could hurt their finances: “[Sanctions] froze about $25 million in North Korean deposits.”
“The Interview” cost $42 million. North Korea doesn’t have much in the way of “finances.”
Bloomberg: “The U.S. electric grid and critical infrastructure, such as water plants, are vulnerable to attack.”
Yes, see here. I did mention that if Sony leaks “The Interview” to the net the next option would be for North Korea to turn off the lights in the United States.
Alternatively, Sony could ask the NSA to host and protect “The Interview” on its servers.
Please feel free to throw something in the Xmas pot. It’s been another hard year and I would like to get something inexpensively made in China for guitar-playing.
And if you’d like a digital copy of Loud Folk Live, say so.
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