Friday, October 24, 2014
Russians Creating News
The new Russian news service, Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today) established by a decree of President Putin had a press release last month that announced the new arabic language center for the news. In an amazing twist the spokesperson, Rima Mayta, who made the announcement said, "Our motto is We don't translate news, we create it!" Now we know what this news service is really about.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Putin Puts Fear in Government Leaders
There is a good story in Politico today about fear. We have to wonder if this is the cold war all over again, because it sure sounds like it.
It is by Ben Judah and it is called "Putin's Coup"
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/vladimir-putins-coup-112025.html#.VEajZYdh0lU
This is one of the more interesting things he has to say: " Fear has returned to Moscow. Paranoia has gripped Russian officials and business elites. Those privy to sensitive information no longer carry smartphones. Instead they carry simple old cell phones and now remove the battery – to make sure the phone is dead – when they talk about Kremlin politics among themselves. This is because they assume the security services are now recording what is being said and this can disable the recording device. There is real fear that the next dramatic event in Russian politics could trigger a wave of sackings, arrests or even purges."
So, we have repeated bashings from the Russians over NSA and the disclosures of Edward Snowden, and we suddenly find that it is their leadership, not the rest of the world, that has to put away smartphones and live with one with no geo-location or complicated features to allow tracking and monitoring by their own government.
Russia is clamping down on their Internet, dissent, and any form of disagreement with the views of Putin.
There is a picture on the front page of the Wall Street Journal on the 17th that shows the irritation Putin has with anyone who doesn't like his leadership style. It is a good article but the picture tells more than any story could.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/west-unwilling-to-be-objective-on-ukraine-says-russia-1413539137?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj
It is by Ben Judah and it is called "Putin's Coup"
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/vladimir-putins-coup-112025.html#.VEajZYdh0lU
This is one of the more interesting things he has to say: " Fear has returned to Moscow. Paranoia has gripped Russian officials and business elites. Those privy to sensitive information no longer carry smartphones. Instead they carry simple old cell phones and now remove the battery – to make sure the phone is dead – when they talk about Kremlin politics among themselves. This is because they assume the security services are now recording what is being said and this can disable the recording device. There is real fear that the next dramatic event in Russian politics could trigger a wave of sackings, arrests or even purges."
So, we have repeated bashings from the Russians over NSA and the disclosures of Edward Snowden, and we suddenly find that it is their leadership, not the rest of the world, that has to put away smartphones and live with one with no geo-location or complicated features to allow tracking and monitoring by their own government.
Russia is clamping down on their Internet, dissent, and any form of disagreement with the views of Putin.
There is a picture on the front page of the Wall Street Journal on the 17th that shows the irritation Putin has with anyone who doesn't like his leadership style. It is a good article but the picture tells more than any story could.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/west-unwilling-to-be-objective-on-ukraine-says-russia-1413539137?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Anonymous Hits Chinese Targets
Well, this is certainly inspiring. Emil Protalinski, writing for ZDNet at
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/anonymous-hacks-hundreds-of-chinese-government-sites/11303 has a long summary of Anonymous hacking websites in China. This must seem strange to the Chinese, since they are usually the ones doing the hacking and not being hacked. It is good for them.
When Anonymous went after Syria, exposing a number of government documents, most of dubious value, I thought they might be experimenting with what they might be able to do to a government that was controlling its Internet and ruthless about going after people who intrude in their systems. They are taking on a good bit more with this one.
I'm not sure what good will come of defacing websites and publishing telephone numbers of government officials. It seems like they would be more interested in documents related to the Golden Shield Project that puts the clamps on information getting in an out of China. It would tell them how and what information was being controlled and how that was being done. There is some pointers on what to look for in Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China, Harvard Law School, March 2003. Since that was quite awhile ago, it could use an update.
Most governments don't like Anonymous very much. They are not under any government's control and do things that can prove embarrassing. They sometimes work like the press, exposing wrongs that are done that can't be exposed any other way. You have to decide for yourself if that is a good thing or a bad thing. With the balkanization of the Internet preventing the flow of information around the world, I think they might be onto something. Maybe they can work on Russia when they get done with the Chinese.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/anonymous-hacks-hundreds-of-chinese-government-sites/11303 has a long summary of Anonymous hacking websites in China. This must seem strange to the Chinese, since they are usually the ones doing the hacking and not being hacked. It is good for them.
When Anonymous went after Syria, exposing a number of government documents, most of dubious value, I thought they might be experimenting with what they might be able to do to a government that was controlling its Internet and ruthless about going after people who intrude in their systems. They are taking on a good bit more with this one.
I'm not sure what good will come of defacing websites and publishing telephone numbers of government officials. It seems like they would be more interested in documents related to the Golden Shield Project that puts the clamps on information getting in an out of China. It would tell them how and what information was being controlled and how that was being done. There is some pointers on what to look for in Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China, Harvard Law School, March 2003. Since that was quite awhile ago, it could use an update.
Most governments don't like Anonymous very much. They are not under any government's control and do things that can prove embarrassing. They sometimes work like the press, exposing wrongs that are done that can't be exposed any other way. You have to decide for yourself if that is a good thing or a bad thing. With the balkanization of the Internet preventing the flow of information around the world, I think they might be onto something. Maybe they can work on Russia when they get done with the Chinese.
Friday, October 10, 2014
Charges added to Seleznev's indictment
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/alleged-russian-cyber-criminal-now-charged-40-count-superseding-indictment
The Justice department has released additional information on the arrest of Roman Seleznev, aka Track2, indicating he stole at least 2 million credit card numbers and operated a website that had instructions for how to put those numbers to good use.
Seleznev, as you may remember, has a father who is a leader in the Russian Duma. Nice to see the son of a ranking member of their government involved in this kind of activity.
The Justice department has released additional information on the arrest of Roman Seleznev, aka Track2, indicating he stole at least 2 million credit card numbers and operated a website that had instructions for how to put those numbers to good use.
Seleznev, as you may remember, has a father who is a leader in the Russian Duma. Nice to see the son of a ranking member of their government involved in this kind of activity.
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