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Submission + - Banks Tell Merchants To Pay Up Post Breaches (pymnts.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: This sounds like a no-brainer, but ...

Industry bodies that represent banks are urging lawmakers to introduce legislation during the new session of Congress next year that would make retailers pay for cleanup costs themselves.

Banks have complained – particularly in the string of breaches that have started with Target and most recently capped off with Target’s successor as the “biggest breach in history” Home Depot – that their institutions are picking up tab for breaches caused by lapses in merchant security protocols.

Submission + - Mozilla Updates Firefox With Forget Button, DuckDuckGo Search, And Ads 1

Submitted by Krystalo
Krystalo writes: In addition to the debut of the Firefox Developer Edition, Mozilla today announced new features for its main Firefox browser. The company is launching a new Forget button in Firefox to help keep your browsing history private, adding DuckDuckGo as a search option, and rolling out its directory tiles advertising experiment.

Submission + - Federal workers, contractors reportedly behind half of government cyber breaches (ap.org)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Federal employees and contractors are unwittingly undermining a $10 billion-per-year effort to protect sensitive government data from cyberattacks, according to a published report.

The AP says that workers in more than a dozen agencies, from the Defense and Education departments to the National Weather Service, are responsible for at least half of the federal cyberincidents reported each year since 2010, according to an analysis of records.

Submission + - Police officer suspended for slapping citizen for refusing a warrantless search 6

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: This story demonstrates why it is becoming essential for every citizen to begin recording their interactions with the police every single time.

Yesterday police were contacted in regard to a video posted online which appeared to show an inappropriate interaction between an on-duty member of the Sheriff’s Office and a civilian, resulting from a suspicious vehicle complaint in the Town of Halfmoon.

The Sheriff’s Office has identified and interviewed all parties involved in the interaction and as a result, the police officer has been suspended without pay effective immediately, pending the outcome of the investigation and possible disciplinary action.

Make sure you watch the video. It is very clear that the officer did not know he was being recorded. It is also clear to me that his behavior in this situation was not unusual, that this police officer is quite used to using violence to get his way, regardless of the law. Had the recording not existed, however, he would not have been suspended, and would not be likely to lose his job.

The recording did exist, however, which has forced the Saratoga police force to take action.

Submission + - Rap Sheets, Watchlists and Spy Networks Now Available With Single Click (nextgov.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Law enforcement officials nationwide now have the ability to search multiple sensitive databases, including spy agency intranets and homeland security suspicious activity reporting – with a single login.

The databases now accessible include the Homeland Security Information Network, a key exchange between state-run intelligence fusion centers and the federal government, as well as the Justice Department's Regional Information Sharing Systems, which tracks local crime and gang activity.

Also available are the intelligence community's internal networks, collectively described as "Intelink," and the FBI's Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal, the gateway to background check data, facial recognition tools and other criminal records. The four networks are each labeled sensitive but unclassified.

No mention of oversight or penalties for misuse.

Submission + - Website peeps into 73,000 unsecured security cameras via default passwords (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: After coming across a Russian website that streams video from unsecured video cameras that employ default usernames and passwords (the site claims it's doing it to raise awareness of privacy risks), a blogger used the information available to try to contact the people who were unwittingly streamed on the site. It didn't go well. The owner of a pizza restaurant, for example, cursed her out over the phone and accused her of "hacking" the cameras herself. And whoever (finally) answered the phone at a military building whose cameras were streaming on the site told her to "call the Pentagon."

The most common location of the cameras was the U.S., but many others were accessed from South Korea, China, Mexico, the UK, Italy, and France, among others. Some are from businesses, and some are from personal residences. Particularly alarming was the number of camera feeds of sleeping babies, which people often set up to protect them, but, being unaware of the risks, don't change the username or password from the default options that came with the cameras.

It's not the first time this kind of issue has come to light. In September 2013, the FTC cracked down on TRENDnet after its unsecured cameras were found to be accessible online. But the Russian site accesses cameras from several manufacturers, raising some new questions — why are strong passwords not required for these cameras? And, once this becomes mandatory, what can be done about the millions of unsecured cameras that remain live in peoples' homes?

Submission + - 'Star Wars: Episode VII' has a title: 'The Force Awakens' (ew.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: If you feel a disturbance in the Force, it’s millions of voices suddenly crying out the new title of Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens. The reveal comes as the movie finishes its final day of shooting (with many more months of post-production to come.)

Although there were still a few days left of shooting, the cast of the J.J. Abrams film already celebrated their wrap party last weekend, following a bumpy few months of principal photography thrown into crisis when Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford, broke his leg on set in an accident involving a falling door on the Millennium Falcon.

Submission + - Terrorists used false DMCA claims to get personal data of anti-islamic youtuber

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: German newspaper FAZ reports (google translated version) that, after facing false DMCA claims by "FirstCrist, Copyright" and threatened by youtube with takedown, a youtuber running the german version of islam-critic Al Hayat TV had to disclose their identity in order to get the channel back online, in accordance with youtube policy. Later, the channel staff got a mail containing a death threat by "FirstCrist, Copyright", containing: "thank you for your personal data. [...] take care your house gets police protection!". As the staff had already suspected that "FirstCrist, Copyright" were in fact islamists, they had tried to convince youtube youtube to find another way, but in vain.

Submission + - Is the federal tax code going to put the cannabis business out of business? (usatoday.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Under section 280E of the tax code the federal government stands to make more money from the sale of marijuana than those legally selling it. And that could be enough to shut down many shops.

In 1982, Congress amended the U.S. tax code, which says businesses selling a Schedule I or II drug — like marijuana, heroin, methamphetamine or cocaine — cannot deduct all of their regular business expenses. The rule means that the "costs of the product," like the soil and fertilizer used to grow plants, are deductible. But the "costs of selling," like advertising, rent and utilities — even salaries for employees — are not deductible.

Submission + - Some Virgin Galactic customers demand money back

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: News reports suggest that — following last week’s SpaceShipTwo crash — more than thirty of the seven hundred people who placed deposits with Virgin Galactic to fly on SpaceshipTwo have pulled out, demanding their money back.

In response to the claim that more than 30 customers are considering their position in the aftermath of the crash, a spokesperson for Virgin Galactic admitted a number of people have asked for their money back. “We can confirm that less than three per cent of people have requested refunds,” the spokesman said.

This is not a surprise, nor should it be. A company can only survive a crisis like this by responding honestly, quickly, and directly. If Virgin Galactic does this, finding the cause of the crash and fixing it, they will likely hold onto most of their customers. If they don’t, those remaining customers will leave. This week’s cancellations are the first immediate response to the crash. The future of the company, however, will be determined by what happens in the next six months.

Submission + - Russia Conducts Full "Nuclear Triad" Drill (barentsobserver.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: While east Ukraine, aka the Donetsk Republic, was voting over the weekend in what the west pre-emptively classified as another sham vote as its outcome would merely push east Ukraine even closer to the Kremlin, Russia was busy conducting its most comprehensive Nuclear preparedness drill in recent history, one involving the entire "nuclear triad" consisting of strategic bombers; submarines and an the ICBM shown below on Saturday morning.

As reported by the Barents Observer, the silo-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast. A few minutes later, the dummy nuclear warhead hits its target on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far eastern corner, the Ministry of Defense reports. The Ministry adds that the Topol-M missile has an “extremely high accuracy of target destruction.”

This took place after a close encounter on Friday, when Norwegian F-16s were scrambled from Bodø airbase for the second time this week as a group of four Tu-95 strategic bombers were approaching from the northeast, Norway’s TV2 reports. The bombers, flying out over the Barents Sea from Russia’s Kola Peninsula, were accompanied by four Il-78 tankers.

The third arm of Russia’s nuclear triad, the submarine based ballistic missiles (SLBM), were tested on Wednesday, when “Yury Dolgoruky” launhced a Bulava missile from submerged position in the Barents Sea.

Submission + - New rocket coming from ULA? (al.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The competition heats up: The head of ULA hints that the company is developing a new rocket.

“Today, we have Atlas and Delta,” Bruno said of ULA’s product line. The company is completing studies leading to an announcement early next year of “what we will have next.” He confirmed, “It could be a new rocket.”

It could be that they have seen the writing on the wall and realize that Atlas and Delta are simply too expensive to compete with SpaceX and have decided they need to come up with something better.

Submission + - CDC deletes ebola info from website

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One day after posting information that said ebola could be spread by a sneeze, the Centers for Disease Control has deleted that information from its webpage.

It could be the deleted webpage was wrong, which raises the question: Why had they posted it in the first place? Or it could be that the deleted webpage was right, which raises the question: Why did they delete it?

Or it could be that they haven’t the slightest idea what they are doing, which raises the question: Why do so many Americans still want to put their trust, and their lives, at the mercy of these government hacks?

Submission + - A mysterious piece of Russian space junk does maneuvers

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: What was first thought to be a piece of debris left over from the launch of three Russian military communication satellites has turned out to be a fourth satellite capable of maneuvers.

The three satellites were designated Kosmos-2496, -2497, -2498. However, as in the previous launch on December 25, 2013, the fourth unidentified object was detected orbiting the Earth a few kilometers away from “routine” Rodnik satellites.

Moreover, an analysis of orbital elements from a US radar by observers showed that the “ghost” spacecraft had made a maneuver between May 29 and May 31, 2014, despite being identified as “debris” (or Object 2014-028E) in the official US catalog at the time. On June 24, the mysterious spacecraft started maneuvering again, lowering its perigee (lowest point) by four kilometers and lifting its apogee by 3.5 kilometers. Object E then continued its relentless maneuvers in July and its perigee was lowered sharply, bringing it suspiciously close to the Briz upper stage, which had originally delivered all four payloads into orbit in May.

This is the second time a Russian piece of orbital junk has suddenly started to do maneuvers. The first time, in early 2014, the Russians finally admitted five months after launch that the “junk” was actually a satellite. In both cases, the Russians have not told anyone what these satellites are designed to do, though based on the second satellite’s maneuvers as well as its small size (about a foot in diameter) it is likely they are testing new cubesat capabilities, as most cubesats do not have the ability to do these kinds of orbital maneuvers.

Once you have that capability, you can then apply it to cubesats with any kind of purpose, from military anti-satellite technology to commercial applications.

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