AmyVernon - Slashdot User

Submission + - FBI Authorized Informants To Break The Law 22,800 Times In 4 Years

Submitted by blottsie on Tuesday August 23, 2016 @05:32PM

blottsie writes: Over a four-year period, the FBI authorized informants to break the law more than 22,800 times, according to newly reviewed documents.

Official records obtained by the Daily Dot under the Freedom of Information Act show the Federal Bureau of Investigation gave informants permission at least 5,649 times in 2013 to engage in activity that would otherwise be considered a crime. In 2014, authorization was given 5,577 times, the records show.

USA Today previously revealed confidential informants engaged in “otherwise illegal activity,” as the bureau calls it, 5,658 times in 2011. The figure was at 5,939 the year before, according to documents acquired by the Huffington Post. In total, records obtained by reporters confirm the FBI authorized at least 22,823 crimes between 2011 and 2014.

Submission + - How The U.S. Will Likely Respond To Shadow Brokers Leak

Submitted by blottsie on Thursday August 18, 2016 @11:09AM

blottsie writes: The NSA and FBI are both expected to investigate the leak of NSA-linked cyberweapons leaked this week by an entity calling itself the Shadow Brokers, experts with knowledge of the process tell the Daily Dot. However, multiple experts say any retaliation by the U.S. will likely remain secret to keep the tactical advantage.

Meanwhile, Motherboard reports that some former NSA staffers believe the leak is the work of a "rogue NSA insider."

Submission + - Cisco patches 'ExtraBacon' zero-day exploit leaked by NSA hackers (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Patrick O'Neill on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @03:54PM

Patrick O'Neill writes: After a group of hackers stole and published a set of NSA cyberweapons earlier this week, the multibillion dollar tech firm Cisco is now updating its software to counter two potent leaked exploits that attack and take over crucial security software used to protect corporate and government networks.

“Cisco immediately conducted a thorough investigation of the files released, and has identified two vulnerabilities affecting Cisco ASA devices that require customer attention,” the company said in a statement. “On Aug. 17, 2016, we issued two Security Advisories, which deliver free software updates and workarounds where possible.”

Submission + - Hackers Claim To Be Selling NSA Cyberweapons In Online Auction

Submitted by blottsie on Monday August 15, 2016 @12:50PM

blottsie writes: A group of hackers identifying themselves as the Shadow Brokers claims to have hacked the NSA's Equation Group, a team of American hackers that have been described as both "omnipotent" and "the most advanced" threat cyberspace has ever seen.

On the Shadow Brokers' website, the group has shared a sample of data that some cybersecurity experts say lends credibility to the breach. The the hackers' asking price for what they claim is a cache of NSA-built cyberweapons.

Submission + - Russia's Rise To Cyberwar Superpower

Submitted by blottsie on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @03:25PM

blottsie writes: In a flurry of action over the last decade, Russia has established itself as one of the world’s great and most active cyber powers.

The focus this week is on the leak of nearly 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee. The culprit is alleged by many, including Democratic Party officials, to be Russia. The evidence—plainly not definitive but clearly substantial—has found support among a wide range of security professionals. The Russian link is further supported by U.S. intelligence officials, who reportedly have “high confidence” that Russia is behind the attack.

“They are some of the best in the world,” Chris Finan, a former director of cybersecurity legislation in the Obama administration, an ex-director at DARPA for cyberwar research, and now the CEO of the security firm Manifold Technology, says. “We’re not talking North Korea or even China, who are really sloppy. The Russians are really good at covering their tracks.”

Submission + - Leaky Database Leaves Oklahoma Police, Bank Vulnerable To Intruders

Submitted by blottsie on Tuesday July 12, 2016 @02:51PM

blottsie writes: A leaky database has exposed the physical security of multiple Oklahoma Department of Public Safety facilities and at least one Oklahoma bank.

The vulnerability—which has reportedly been fixed—was revealed on Tuesday by Chris Vickery, a MacKeeper security researcher who this year has revealed numerous data breaches affecting millions of Americans.

The misconfigured database, which was managed by a company called Automation Integrated, was exposed for at least a week, according to Vickery, who said he spoke to the company’s vice president on Saturday. Reached on Tuesday, however, an Automation Integrated employee said “no one” in the office was aware of the problem.

Submission + - Former Tor developer created malware to hack Tor users for the FBI (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Patrick O'Neill on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @05:35PM

Patrick O'Neill writes: Matt Edman is a cybersecurity expert who worked as a part-time employee at Tor Project, the nonprofit that builds Tor software and maintains the network, almost a decade ago. Since then, he's developed potent malware used by law enforcement to unmask Tor users. It's been wielded in multiple investigations by federal law-enforcement and U.S. intelligence agencies in several high-profile cases.

Submission + - 'Crypto Wars' Timeline: A Complete History Of The New Encryption Debate

Submitted by blottsie on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @04:46PM

blottsie writes: The latest debate over encryption did not begin with a court order demanding Apple help the FBI unlock a dead terrorist's iPhone. The new "Crypto Wars," chronicled in an comprehensive timeline by Eric Geller of the Daily Dot, dates back to at least 2003, with the introduction of "Patriot Act II." The battle over privacy and personal security versus crime-fighting and national security has, however, become a mainstream debate in recent months.

Submission + - Why Open APIs Fall Far Short of Open Source (itworld.com)

Submitted by

itwbennett

on Wednesday February 15, 2012 @02:23PM

itwbennett writes: "451 Group analyst Jay Lyman opined in a LinuxInsider column that because of open APIs, 'non-open source software is often open enough.' Not so, says ITworld blogger Brian Proffitt. Sure, open APIs are an easy way for a small developer to 'plug into a big software ecosystem,' but it's a trap. 'If open APIs are the only connector to a software project, the destiny of that code lies solely in the hands of the owners,' says Proffitt. 'Which means that anyone connecting into the application will have to deal with the changes imposed from the top down.'"

Submission + - Should Next-Gen Game Consoles Be Upgradeable? (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:01PM

MojoKid writes: "Historically, console add-ons that boosted the performance of the primary unit haven't done well. Any attempt to upgrade a system's core performance risks bifurcating the user base and increases work developers must do to ensure that a game runs smoothly on both original and upgraded systems. The other reason is that a number of games rely on very specific hardware characteristics to ensure proper operation. In a PC, swapping a CPU with 256K of L2 for a chip with 512K of L2 is a non-issue assuming proper platform support. Existing software will automatically take advantage of the additional cache. The Xbox 360, on the other hand, allows programmers to lock specific cache blocks and use them for storing data from particular threads. In that case, expanding the amount of L2 cache risks breaking previous games because it changes the range of available cache addresses. The other side of the upgrade argument is that the Xbox 360 has been upgraded more effectively than any previous console; current high-end versions ship with more than 10x the storage of the original, as well as support for HDMI and integrated WiFi. It would also forestall the decline in comparative image quality between console and PC platforms. Here's Battlefield 3 on the PC as compared to the PS3. The PS3 version of the game looks like it's being lit by Spike Lee, with high-powered flood lights just out of view. Textures are minimal and the concrete wall at the left might have been drawn using MS Paint."

Submission + - Nascent Graphene Institute Makes Steps Towards Transistors (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by

judgecorp

on Monday February 06, 2012 @12:32PM

judgecorp writes: "A research team at Manchester has taken a big step towards building transistors with graphene. So far graphene's marvelous conductiviity has actually proved a drawback, but the team has sandwiched a layer of molybdenum disulfide between layers of graphene to provide a high on/off ratio. Also, the British Government is finding £50 million to fund Manchester as a centre for graphene study and development, led by two professors there, Sir Kostya Novoselov and Sir Andre Geim, who shared the 2010 Nobel prize for Physics for their work on graphene."

Submission + - AMD's New Radeon HD 7950 Tested (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @12:28PM

MojoKid writes: "When AMD announced the high-end Radeon HD 7970, a lower cost Radeon HD 7950 based on the same GPU was planned to arrive a few weeks later. The GPU, which is based on AMD's new architecture dubbed Graphics Core Next, is manufactured using TSMC’s 28nm process and features a whopping 4.31 billion transistors. In its full configuration, found on the Radeon HD 7970, the Tahiti GPU sports 2,048 stream processors with 128 texture units and 32 ROPs. On the Radeon HD 7950, however, a few segments of the GPU have been disabled, resulting in a total of 1,792 active stream processors, with 112 texture units and 32 ROPs. The Radeon HD 7950 is also clocked somewhat lower at 800MHz, although AMD has claimed the cards are highly overclockable. Performance-wise, though the card isn't AMD's fastest, pricing is more palatable and the new card actually beats NVIDIA's high-end GeForce GTX 580 by just a hair."

Feed Ars Technica: GoDaddy Faces boycott over SOPA support (arstechnica.com)

From feed by feedfeeder on Thursday December 22, 2011 @05:15PM

Major Internet companies have formed a united front in their opposition to the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act. Well, almost. One exception has been the domain registrar GoDaddy. In a op-ed published in Politico shortly after SOPA was introduced in the House, GoDaddy applauded the bill and called opponents "myopic."

Now furious Internet users at reddit (which, like Ars, is owned by Condé Nast) have organized a boycott of the registrar.

"I just finished writing GoDaddy a letter stating why I'm moving my small businesses 51 domains away from them, as well as my personal domains," wrote redditor selfprodigy on Thursday morning. He proposed that December 29 be declared "move your domain day," with GoDaddy customers switching to competing registrars. The post has accumulated more than 1,500 comments, most of them supporting the idea.

We contacted GoDaddy for comment. A spokesman declined to comment on the boycott specifically, but reiterated the firm's support for the legislation. She sent us a link to the company's written testimony to the House Judiciary Committee last month.

"This debate is about preserving, protecting, and creating American jobs, and protecting American consumers from the dangers that they face on-line," the statement reads. "US businesses are getting robbed and US consumers are getting duped."

The company dismissed free speech concerns. "Not only is there no First Amendment concern, but the notion that we should turn a blind eye to criminal conduct because other countries may take oppressive steps in response is an affront to the very fabric of this nation."

GoDaddy appears to be doubling down on this position. Today, it reposted its Politico op-ed to the GoDaddy support forums. Comments were disabled.

The House Judiciary Committee has released a list of 142 companies that support SOPA. GoDaddy appears to be the only domain registrar, or Internet company for that matter, on the list. Indeed, even traditionally strong copyright supporters like the Business Software Alliance have been having second thoughts about the legislation.

Read the comments on this post

Submission + - AMD Radeon HD 7970 Launched, Fastest GPU Tested (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Thursday December 22, 2011 @11:26AM

MojoKid writes: "Rumors of AMD's Southern Island family of graphics processors have circulated for some time, though today AMD is officially announcing their latest flagship single-GPU graphics card, the Radeon HD 7970. AMD's new Tahiti GPU is outfitted with 2,048 stream processors with a 925MHz engine clock, featuring AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture, paired to 3GB of GDDR5 memory connected over a 384-bit wide memory bus. And yes, it's crazy fast as you'd expect and supports DX11.1 rendering. In the benchmarks, the new Radeon HD 7970 bests NVIDIA's fastest single GPU GeForce GTX 580 card by a comfortable margin of 15 — 20 percent and can even approach some dual GPU configurations in certain tests."

Submission + - No SOPA Vote Until 2012 (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by

jfruhlinger

on Friday December 16, 2011 @04:02PM

jfruhlinger writes: "A victory, or a just a breather? The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has postponed further debate on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) until after Congress' holiday break. At the urging of some SOPA opponents, Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and committee chairman, said Friday he will consider a hearing or a classified briefing on the bill's impact on cybersecurity."

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