I can't believe that came from your mouth!
Dr. Jones
Do not talk about fight club. Oops.
Homepage: http://www.belch.com
Posts by Dr. Jones
Oh Yeah! Spidey 3 Trailer
Jun 28th
Wow, this one looks good. It will have Spidey versus Sandman and the New Green Goblin, Harry Osborne. Peter and Harry will fight each other too, not just Spider-man and Gobbie. Gwen Stacy is in this flick, so that means that the poor girl will die tragically and accidentally at the hands of Spider-man, who will be under the evil influence of….
The Black Symbiant Costume! The trailer is here, and it is chilling how well it looks like they stay true to Spidey history. Is that Peter Parker trying to destroy his suit in a bell tower?
Sigh. 11 Months until May 2007. Thanks to OhNoes Blog Here, where he has some more cool screen caps posted.
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Loading ...Palestinian Toys
Jun 28th
When Palestinians play in the streets, what game or toys do they play with? A soccer ball? Nope. Stickball? No. I’ve got it! Skateboards! Sorry. Hopscotch? Nah.
They play Hot Potato. With a Live Grenade. Fun for the whole family.
From the AFP here:
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Two Palestinians were killed and another seven, including a baby, wounded when a grenade accidentally exploded in the southern Gaza Strip.
Family members were playing with a grenade in the town of Khan Yunis when it exploded, killing 23-year-old Qassem Massud and his one-year-old niece, medical and security sources said Wednesday.
All the casualties were members of the same family.
Palestinians should try Twister or any other game from Milton Bradley. Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the story.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...US-CERT Chief Way Overpaid
Jun 28th
I know Andy Purdy. I like him, and he is a capable manager, but as the article below mentions, he does not have a stranglehold on cyber issues facing government and critical civilian infrastructures. And he is way overpaid for what he is supposed to do.
From the AP here:
Deal for cybersecurity chief questioned
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration’s cybersecurity chief is being paid $577,000 under a two-year agreement with the university that employs him and also does extensive business with the federal office he manages.
Donald “Andy” Purdy Jr. has been acting director of the
Homeland Security Department’s National Cyber Security Division for 21 months. His contract, which has drawn attention from members of Congress, is paying him more than the $175,000 annual salary that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff earns.Purdy is employed by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, which has loaned him to the Homeland Security Department in exchange for the government paying nearly all of his salary. Meanwhile, Purdy’s cybersecurity division has paid Carnegie Mellon $19 million in contracts this year, almost one-fifth the unit’s total budget.
Purdy said he has not been involved in discussions over his office’s business deals with the school.
Some lawmakers who oversee the Homeland Security Department questioned the decision to hire Purdy as acting cybersecurity director. They noted enduring criticism by industry experts and congressional investigators over the department’s performance on cybersecurity matters.
So DHS is giving Carnegie Mellon University 19 million bucks. In exchange, DHS gets the US-CERT website, cyber advisories, about a dozen or so staffers from CMU’s old CERT CC unit. And, they get Andy Purdy. Stubborn refusal to change outmoded procedures and resistance to using capable COTS cyber monitoring and correlation products? That’s free.
There is obviously a huge potential conflict of interest here too. Purdy is leading an organization, and his salary is paid by its largest contractor? Purdy says that he is not involved in any negotiations with CMU. This may be true. While Purdy may not be trying to influence decisions on whether to increase the DHS grants and contracts to CMU, he is certainly doing nothing to deter them either.
See previous articles about US CERT here.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...M00P Hacker Crew Busted
Jun 28th
Good work by multinational law enforcement agencies nabbed a hacker crew that is suspected of creating worms and trojans for the propigation of botnets.
From TechWeb here:
Three M00P Hackers Arrested
Authorities in the U.K. and Finland said Tuesday that they had arrested three men suspected of being part of the M00P hacker gang, which has created and distributed numerous worms and Trojan horses for at least the last year.
The British Metropolitan Police’s Computer Crime Unit, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, and the Finnish Pori Police Department combined to arrest the trio: a 63-year-old Suffolk man, a 28-year-old man in Scotland, and a 19-year-old man in Finland. Police in the two countries raided several residences and seized servers and other computers.
M00P has been linked to a number of worms and Trojans — including Dogbot, Hackarmy.c, Santabot.a, Shuckbot.a, Rbot.bf, and Tibick.a — that have been used to hijack large numbers of computers to produce a botnet, said U.K.-based security vendor Sophos Tuesday.
The trojans the crew used were unremarkable, and quite typical of IRC thin clients used to download more malware. Most shocking about this article is that Grandpa, 63, has some elite haxor skills.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Superman Returns- Avoids Child Support
Jun 28th
If he could see the new Superman movie, Christopher Reeve would be rolling over in his grave- that is, uh, if he wasnt paralyzed. And dead.
Think that was bad? The new Superman movie is worse. The acting, the special effects and the directing was excellent, making this the best Superman movie technically and visually. Its the story that was so awful. That, and the forced comparisons between Superman and Jesus Christ.
Let’s start with the story. This movie takes place as a sequel to the first series of movies starring Chris Reeve. Superman had supposedly gone on a five year mission to see if pieces of the planet Krypton still existed, and having found little or nothing of value, he comes home, gets his old job back at the Daily Planet, and resumes his acts of do-goodery.
Superman is now a multi-cultural, globalist icon. There is one telling scene where the editor of the Daily Planet asks a reporter to find out if Superman “Still stands for Truth, Justice and… the rest of it.” The glaring omission of the “American Way” should be a blow to patriotic Americans everywhere.
Superman uses his superpowers to stalk Lois Lane, and he becomes a Peeping Tom using his Xray vision to watch her in her home, and uses his super hearing to spy on her conversations with her live-in boyfriend. Lois Lane has a kid too, and the child ultimately turns out to be Superman’s progeny who uses a piano to smoosh a bad guy.
I think one of Superman’s other super powers is the ability to avoid paying Child Support. He is Super Deadbeat Dad.
Meanwhile, Lex Luthor gets out of jail because Superman failed to appear in court to testify against Lex for his crimes in the previous movies. I suppose that Comic Book judges are even more brainless than real life judges. Lex brilliantly schemes and plots to wipe out America and create a deathtrap for Superman.
The comparisons to Jesus Christ could not be more blatant.
Superman, who was sent by his father to “save the hearts of mankind,” and who can float in the atmosphere and listen to the prayers and cries of humanity, sacrifices himself to save mankind from Lex Luthor’s schemes by willingly going to his death. After being beaten savagely by Luthor and his cronies as if it were a scene from the Passion of the Christ, Superman has his side pierced by a piece of kryptonite. And his hands begin to bleed as if he has a stigmata. Superman falls into the ocean after his beating in a crucifixion pose. Superman’s body is taken to a hospital where he clinically dies. A woman enters his private hospital room, past the centurion guard, to find the hospital room empty. Superman reappears to humanity and to Lois Lane, and in the final scene of the movie, he rises majestically into space.
If you are considering seeing this movie, bring a blanket and a pillow. Besides being preachy, there are long stretches of super boredom.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Pickles, the Pickles! Oh, The Humanity!
Jun 27th
YouTube is the greatest ever. You gotta see this clip of the Pickle Lady. This woman went on Maury because she has a horrible fear of Pickles. Hilarity ensues as Maury Staffers chase the crying, shaking phobia-riddled woman around the studio with a plate of Pickles! Click Here or on the Photo to see the video.
My favorite quote: “I don’t like the shape or texture of Pickles!” Hmmm…
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Rose Bites Man
Jun 27th
Who knew that Guns N Roses are back touring? I had no idea until this story crossed by Yahoo News page. Axl is still stupid after all these years. Someone warm up the padded cell. Axl Rose is going to need it.
From the AP here:
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -
Axl Rose was arrested early Tuesday after allegedly biting a security guard in the leg in a hotel scuffle, police said.“He was deemed too intoxicated to be questioned right away,” Hagg told The Associated Press.
It was unclear what caused the fight, but Swedish tabloids said the guard tried to intervene when the 44-year-old rocker started arguing with a woman in the hotel lobby.
In May, Rose and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger capped an evening out at a new club called The Plumm in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood with midnight fisticuffs.
The scuffle reportedly started after Rose moved the drink of Hilfiger’s girlfriend. According to Rose, Hilfiger, 55, smacked him in the arm and told him to put the drink back.
If tickets are on sale for any US dates, you may wish to hold off on purchasing them pending the upcoming nervous breakdown.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Update on Vista Testing
Jun 27th
After many fitful restarts, it appears that my Vista installation has stabilized. IE7 still panics and restarts just about any time I try to download large files. In fact, I can’t view the videos over at Hot Air, and merely browsing to ATI.com causes the browser to crash and restart.
One of the biggest pains in the ass was when a Microsoft Update broke my newly installed version of Office 2007 Beta, which Microsoft recommends that is beta tested along with Vista. The update was supposed to be a spam filter, but somehow it corrupted other Outlook settings and I had to reinstall the whole Office Suite. My biggest problem is that I had already deleted the 500 MB downloaded file from my system to preserve space, so I had to download it again. Sigh.
There are several things about the new OS that are really nice. For one, the help files have made the biggest leap forward. They are comprehensive, very easy to read, and the help files actually LOOK good. The whole system gets indexed at installation too, so searching for just about anything is fast and easy. In fact, the keyword searches in the search bar will also produce results from the help files, for instance, if you want to find information on text to speech, you cant type that phrase in the search window and the help file will show you how to adjust text to speech on Vista.
This OS also takes security very seriously, almost to the point of annoyance. IE7 works hard to identify websites with expired certificates, invalid certificates, and does a good job of recognizing phishing websites. The built in spyware protector, Windows Defender, does a great job in identifying or blocking changes in browser settings, host file changes, and recognizing malware.
The beta feedback program is working pretty good too. With the IE crashes, for instance, I open a simple applet, wizard my way through by picking problems with Vista or IE7, and the feedback system automatically selects batches of logfiles to upload to Microsoft for analysis.
So other than being forced to use Firefox for a stable browser, Vista is looking pretty good.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Comcast Blows; Verizon FiOS Rules
Jun 26th
First of all, it has been raining non-stop here in the DC Metro area for 2 days now. Rivers and creeks are cresting their banks. Roads are washing out. Underpasses are filling with water. The Beltway was temporarily closed due to weather. A 140 year old elm tree fell over at the White House.
And, predictably, during heavy rainstorms, there are rampant power outages, downed lines, cable TV outages, and the cloudy weather blocks satellite reception. I used to have comcast, and besides it being extremely expensive, the installation and service takes forever if there is a problem.
Case in point is a sensational new video up on YouTube this past week in which a Comcast repairman showed up at a Northern VA man’s home to fix his cable connection to get his broadband working. The repairman was filmed sleeping on the customer’s couch, and the customer uploaded the video to Youtube. The video became virulent and everyone saw it. Even Comcast HQ. Comcast fired the guy today. Click the photo below to see the YouTube video.
From the AP here:
Comcast employee sleeps during house call
PHILADELPHIA – Comcast Corp. has fired an employee for sleeping on a customer’s couch during a house call after video of the incident became a minor Internet sensation.
Customer Brian Finkelstein posted video of the sleeping technician and told this story on YouTube.com, a site that lets users share videos.
His Comcast Internet connection had worked only intermittently since he moved to a new apartment June 1. A Comcast employee who came to Finkelstein’s home June 14 to replace the modem called the company for help. Put on hold for more than an hour, he caught some shut-eye while he waited.
Finkelstein, a Georgetown University law student, picked up his video camera, added an Eels song with the lyrics “I need some sleep,” and sent it to YouTube.
This is not the first customer-service issue to embarrass Comcast. In August, the company said it had fired two employees in the Chicago area for changing a woman’s name on her bill to a derogatory term after she repeatedly complained about poor service.
I have FiOS from Verizon.
There were zero outages of my service yesterday, and even if the power had flickered, Verizon installs the fiber converter with an Uninterruptable Power Supply to keep the cable boxes on. If you are tired of Comcast, and I know you are, check with Verizon to see if it is in your area yet and sign up!
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(1 votes, average: 6.00 out of 6) Loading ...If I Screw Up My Website, Can I Blame Google?
Jun 26th
A School System, who failed to secure their own webserver are now suing Google for “electronic trespassing” for including the names and social security numbers of over 600 students in the Google Search Cache.
Somehow, lawyers in Winston Salem, NC were able to convince a judge to issue an injunction to get Google to purge their servers of the school system’s data.
I am a usual critic of Google and its business practices, but in this case, Google is innocent. I don’t buy the school system’s story that Google used a student’s hard-coded password to spider the school system’s site. That’s not the way the Google web crawlers and indexing engine works. It is far more likely that the page was improperly protected.
From the Winston-Salem Journal here:
HICKORY — Catawba County Schools took aim at Google Friday.
The system filed an injunction against the Internet search engine
The temporary injunction, granted by the Honorable Richard D. Boner, calls for Google to remove any information pertaining to Catawba County Schools Board of Education from its server and index and alleges conversion and trespass against the corporation.
In short, schools say Google grabbed information they shouldn t have.
Google says they are wrong.
Either way, the names, Social Security numbers and test scores of 619 students were still bouncing around the Web for people with computers to find and read until late Friday, when the page was apparently removed.
Catawba County Schools chief technology officer Judith Ray said her department removed the file from its storage server Friday. They are also working to delete any other electronic files that may contain Social Security numbers or other secure student information.
However, in a way, the School System has a very small legitimate beef. This complaint that Google has very little in the way of customer service and assistance may be true. After all, its not like Google posts its 800 number for customer service. But if the school really wanted to remove the content from Google, Google provides an easy and fast way to do it. You can see how here.
Shocker, though, the school officials, who are too stupid to secure their own data, and too quick to jump to conclusions and blame Google, are also too stupid to use Google to find out how to remove cached content!
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Ann Coulter is a Deadhead?
Jun 26th
Yes, and a raging one at that. Ann Coulter, the author of the best selling Godless, recently gave an interview to Taylor Hill at Jambands.com here, and she claims that she has been to 67 Dead shows.
I liked the interview because I’m a big AC fan, and having married a hippy who is introducing me to the jamband scene, including camping trips to music festivals, I was able to see lots of parallels between what Ann was saying and how it jibes with my own experiences.
Here are some great highlights from the Interview-
TH: Are there any other jambands you like?
AC: All the usual String Cheese Incident, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler, New Potato Caboose. There s Jet, Cake, Outkast, 50 Cent, Black-Eyed Peas, Lord Alge, Beck, Kanye West (I like his Jesus song), Missy Elliot, and Eagles of Death Metal.
TH: What exactly do you love about the Grateful Dead?
AC: I really like Deadheads and the whole Dead concert scene: the tailgating, the tie-dye uniforms, the camaraderie it was like NASCAR for potheads. You always felt like you were with family at a Dead show a rather odd, psychedelic family that sometimes lived in a VW bus and sold frightening looking veggie burritos. But whatever their myriad interests, clothing choices, and interest in illicit drugs, true Deadheads are what liberals claim to be but aren’t: unique, free-thinking, open, kind, and interested in different ideas. Also, excellent dancers! Watching a Deadhead dance is truly something to behold.
TH: What’s your favorite Grateful Dead show, and why? Were you there?
AC: They were all my favorites especially the shows at Shoreline. It’s a beautiful outdoor amphitheater, the Dead’s home field, with California chardonnay for sale by the glass (in addition to not being a pot-smoker, I’m not much of a beer-drinker), and I often ran into my college Deadhead friends there. We’d go sailing during the day and see the band at night.
TH: It’s time to name names. Who are the other Deadheads who have infiltrated the conservative movement?
AC: As a Deadhead and a freedom-lover, I am wounded to the bone that you think the two do not naturally go hand in hand. The Deadheads I just met casually and not through conservative politics were almost always right-thinking, whatever they called themselves. Deadheads believe in freedom not a government telling people how much water they can have in their toilets or where they can smoke or whether they should be allowed to own a gun. (Remember the photos of Jerry testifying before some Congressional committee while chain smoking? Yeah, he’d really bond with Henry Waxman.)
One of my Dead friends I met at Vail made candles for Grateful Dead merchandizing. His daily routine consisted of waking up, smoking a bowl, and turning on the Rush Limbaugh radio show while he made his candles. (It’s true. He’s so far out there he practices this weird, freaky ritual known as commerce. Don’t try telling me pot is harmless!)
After Jerry died, U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) gave an incredibly touching tribute to Jerry Garcia and the good work the Dead’s Rex Foundation had done promoting the arts privately in contradistinction to millionaire actresses standing up in $50,000 gowns at the Oscars and demanding that hardworking waitresses and truck drivers be forced to support the arts through government taxation. You can look it up in the Congressional Record.
The idea of sailing in the day and taking in a show at night sounds like a very excellent day indeed.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Katherine Lester Speaks on GMA
Jun 23rd
The Lesters went on Good Morning America and told Katherine’s story about running away from her parents to go to Jordan to meet a Palestinian man that she fell in love with on MySpace.
The divorced parents of Katherine are letting her continue to chat with Abdullah Psycho on MySpace. When asked if Katherine was still planning to convert to Islam, she stammered, “Uh… I’d rather not answer that question.”
Well, the parents are stupid for letting her continue to chat. Katherine is stupid if she thinks she can go to Jericho where the only thing that grows is dirt. And as Trench is fond of pointing out, ” How many of us that are in our 30′s can look back and say we were honestly in love at 17? I can’t. How about you?”
Maybe the counselling will work. What the Lesters really need to do is get that girl out of the house. Let her meet boys in real life in her hometown, and she will be just fine. She says that she plans on Abdullah coming to America instead of her going over to Palestine. That might take a while, unless she plans on marrying him abroad and bringing him in as her spouse?
Click the photo to see the video of Katherine Lester on GMA. Its about 9 minutes long.
She can definitely do better than a dirt-farming Muslim deliverman.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Terrorist Indictment Released
Jun 23rd
You can view it here. Its a pretty interesting lead. Here are the terrorist’s names. Notice that none of them look particularly American, despite news reports that these are average Joes. Also, it is being reported that the terrorists are part of a “Radical Black Islam” gang, which usually brings to mind the New Black Panthers or something. But these names don’t look like typical Black Panther names. Five of these men are Americans.
Narseal Batiste, aka Brother Naz
Patrick Abraham, aka Brother Pat
Stanley Grant Phanor, aka Brother Sunni
Naudimar Herrera, aka Brother Naudy
Burson Augustin, aka Brother B
Lyglenson Lemorin, aka Brother Levi
Rotschild Augustine, aka Brother Rot
So it turns out that these bastards were going to blow up the Sears Tower, FBI Offices in several cities, and wanted to “kill all the devils we can” in a mission that would “be just as good or greater than 9/11.”
All of them are charged with the intent to provide material aid to a terrorist organization, Al-Queda, and levy war against the Government of the United States. Yeah, that is punishable by Death. Happy trails, dirtbags. No virgins for you! NEXT!
Update: Since they were busted in the planning phase, they will not face the death penalty.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Windows Vista Beta Testing
Jun 23rd
I sent Microsoft 10 bucks and was sent a DVD of the latest version of its operating system, Microsoft Vista. So far, I really like the new look and feel. The windows are transparent in this version, and you can see what is layered on the desktop. The desktop also features some gadgets that can float on the desktop, such as a clock, a CPU monitor, quick notepad and more.
The new media player looks great! It organized my music by album, artist, and title. The album art is greatly improved over previous versions.
There are a couple of features that are going to get old pretty quickly, such as the system interrupts- This is a feature in which the operating system will stop and prompt for human intervention for any action that will alter the underlying baseline of the operating system. For instance, any program that communicates on the internet will prompt you to click okay to confirm. Any action dealing with the hardware or software wizards will do the same. As a security pro, I understand why- it prevents software and malware from self-installing or altering the system. This should help defeat botnet code and other trojans, including browser hijackers. But its annoying.
IE7 looks pretty good and operates much better in Vista than it does on XP, where I have been testing it out for a few weeks now. But make sure you keep a copy of Firefox around. I tried several times to download the Office 2007 beta from Microsoft using IE7, and the browser kept crashing and restarting. I have no idea why, and I reported it to Microsoft. I fired up Firefox, approved its usage on the Internet, and downloaded the software.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Muslim Terrorists in Miami Nabbed, Sears Tower Saved
Jun 23rd
This is a story that will make you go “Whew!”
Terrorists living together in a warehouse in Miami were running a military-style bootcamp and were apparantly planning to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago.
And they were Muslims. Yes, followers of the Religion of Peace were planning on doing something heinous and violent in the name of Muhammad, a child molesting warlord from the 7th century.
From the AP Here:
MIAMI (AP) – Seven people were arrested Thursday in connection with the early stages of a plot to attack Chicago’s Sears Tower and other buildings in the U.S., including the FBI office here, a federal law enforcement official said.
One neighbor said the suspects had been sleeping in the warehouse while running what seemed to be a “military boot camp.”
The official told The Associated Press the alleged plotters were mainly Americans with no apparent ties to al-Qaida or other foreign terrorist organizations.
Residents living near the warehouse said the men taken into custody described themselves as Muslims and had tried to recruit young people to join their apparently militaristic group. They said the men, who appeared to be in their teens or 20s, had lived in the area about a year.
The men slept in the warehouse, said Tashawn Rose, 29. “They would come out late at night and exercise. It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard.”
She talked to one of the men about a month ago: “They seemed brainwashed. They said they had given their lives to Allah.”
Okay, what does “Mainly Americans” mean? Only 25 percent were foreigners? The article also goes on to say that the men spoke with what sounded like a Jamaican accent. I have the feeling that these were British Muslims. I look forward to the release of the names and details of this case.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Fake Document Ring Broken
Jun 22nd
Just blocks from the State Department and the White House. Generating these fake documents is a huge business, and this is a blow to illegal immigrants and would-be terrorists who need documentation to operate in the states.
From WMAL here:
WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal agents have arrested eight illegal immigrants who they say were part of a fake document ring operating out of Adams Morgan.
Agents say they seized 14,000 dollars and more than 100 fake documents Tuesday, including green cards, Social Security cards and employment authorization cards.
The ring is thought to be linked to an international organization run by the Castorena-Ibarra family, whose kingpin was captured in Mexico this week. Authorities say Tuesday’s raid was part of Operation Card Shark, an immigration and Customs Enforcement initiative that began in 2002.
The investigation has dismantled three other counterfeit documents rings and arrested 195 people in Adams Morgan.
This is good work by the ICE guys. More on the ringleader can be found here.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Pervert Piggybacker in Poke Pending Prosecution
Jun 22nd
A guy kept going to a coffee shop parking lot to siphon off the free wireless signal so he could surf the internet. He would never spend money in the coffee shop and the barrista got bitter and called the cops. The cops told him to go away, and when he came back he was arrested for “theft of services.”
It is not a crime to use an open wireless access point, and this case may get overturned. However, the prosecutors may also have a point here. If the wireless is intended for paying customers, then maybe this man was stealing services?
Oh yeah, the guy was a sex offender. He was probably trolling MySpace for victims. From KATU here:
VANCOUVER, Wash. – Brewed Awakenings, with its pithy name, artful drinks and wireless Internet service, has found itself unexpectedly percolating on the forefront of high-tech law.
“He doesn’t buy anything,” Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. “It’s not right for him to come and use it.”
Pranger says 20-year-old Alexander Eric Smith of Battle Ground sat in the parking lot in his truck for three months, spending hours at a time piggybacking on the coffee shop’s wireless Internet service for free.
When deputies told Smith to knock it off, he came back and is now charged with theft of services.
“It’s a repetitive occurrence and it’s something that is borderline creepy,” says Pranger.
As it turns out, Smith is a Level One Sex Offender, but whether he in fact committed a crime by not buying a single tall latte before accessing the Internet, well that remains to be seen. The sheriff’s office and prosecutors are now reviewing the case.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Ag Dept. Screws DC Employees
Jun 22nd
The Department of Agriculture gleefully announced that they think they could have maybe been hacked or something like that. Social Security Numbers and other personally identifiable info was snagged, maybe, by attackers.
From the AP here:
WASHINGTON – A hacker broke into the Agriculture Department’s computer system and may have obtained names, Social Security numbers and photos of 26,000 Washington-area employees and contractors, the department said Wednesday.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said the department will provide free credit monitoring for one year to anyone who might have been affected.
The break-in happened during the first weekend in June, the department said. Technology staff learned of the breach on June 5 and told Johanns the following day but believed personal information was protected by security software, the department said.
However, on further analysis, staff concluded that data on current or former employees might have been accessed and informed Johanns on Wednesday, according to the department.
The department said it notified law enforcement agencies. Its inspector general is investigating the break-in.
This story disturbs me for several reasons. First, this sounds like it was data for security badges. What is this data doing on a network that is accessible on a public network? Also, there is no information in the story that points to anyone at Ag knowing for sure that the data was compromised. This means that not only is the data on a public network, the Ag department is not monitoring this network with any degree of skill that could really tell if the data was hacked or not.
Also, as a bit of backstory, the Ag department is one of the most geographically dispersed federal agencies behind the Postal Service. Wherever there are farms, there are Ag department offices, and each office has their own systems and networks, and none of them are centrally managed to ensure that they are patched. In addition, these remote networks are often allowed back to central or regional hubs via remote control software and mashups of VPN software. The story doesnt offer any glimpses of how the hack was perpetrated, but it is very likely that it happened from a remote network that had elevated access.
What are the odds that Federal Agencies are crying about social security numbers being stolen just so they can get an increase in their federal budget for IT systems? Finally, like all federal agencies, the Agriculture Department has its own Inspector’s General Office. All IG’s carry handguns. I just find it humorous that an Ag worker, essentially a farmer-bureaucrat, has a handgun.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Ohio University Fires I.T. Supervisors
Jun 21st
This is what you get when you fail to monitor your networks, harden your access lists and investigate incidents. Losing almost a quarter million social security numbers does not look good on your resume’ either. I previously wrote about this issue here.
From the AP Here:
ATHENS, Ohio – Ohio University said Tuesday it has suspended two information technology supervisors over recent breaches by hackers who may have stolen 173,000 Social Security numbers from school computers.
The school did not identify the director of communications network services identified on the school’s Web site as Thomas Reid and manager of Internet and systems. Both were suspended pending the school’s investigation of the breaches, five of which have happened since March 2005.
“We hold ourselves fully accountable,” McDavis wrote Monday in an e-mail to faculty and staff.
The school said in April it had discovered a computer breach at its training center for fledgling businesses. Since then, electronic break-ins also were reported at the school’s alumni office, health center and the department that handles records for businesses the university hires.
Students, alumni and employees have been told to run credit checks and place fraud watches on their credit card and bank accounts. About two dozen people have told the school they were victimized by identity theft in the past year.
As opposed to many of the laptop thefts reported, this is a serious network breach where the data was actually used by the bad guys to setup fraudulent accounts. The University made the right move in firing these inept staffers, but this was actually a failure of policy from the top down, and the University President should be held accountable for failing to implement and enforce a stronger security posture.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Crouching Tang Bleeding Li
Jun 20th
A poor Chinese man name Li, forced to work on the 2nd shift by an oppressive Communist government, woke up late and refused to make Chicken Fried Rice for his wife Tang who got home after a grueling day on the day shift. Li was running late for work. Tang would have to pitch in and help out once in a while and make her own damned Chicken Fried Rice, and she better well damn quit nagging him first thing in the morning.
Tang was always teasing Li too, lording it over his head that she was on day shift, and therefore had higher status, while Li was on second shift. Tang had an engineering degree. She was a supervisor. Li did not apply himself to his fullest potential while in school. He pushed a broom around on the factory floor at the toy factory and would work the assembly line as an apprentice painting the red feathers on Sylvester the Cat action figure whenever anyone had to take a smoke break or go to the bathroom.
When Li refused to make chicken fried rice, Tang got angry, picked up a sword and ran him through. She claimed it was an accident to avoid the death penalty. Thus ends the miserable existence of poor Chinese Li. The next day, the third shift broomer at the toy factory got the promotion to the 2nd shift broomer.
From the Reuters here:
BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese woman has been charged with accidentally killing her husband with a sword after he refused to make her dinner, the Shanghai Daily said on Tuesday.
Police said Tang Xiaowan, 25, who has been practicing swordsmanship since she was young, had often forced her husband of three years at swordpoint to carry out her demands.
On March 3, her husband, Li Weidong, refused to cook dinner because he was late for work.
Police said Tang picked up her sword and put it on Li’s chest and promptly slipped, stabbing Li by mistake.
Li died in hospital from loss of blood.
Tang was arrested Monday and charged with manslaughter.
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