Since the Paris attacks, there is a growing concern by DHS and the FBI that ISIS are able to communicate via “Dark Comms” or communications that are so highly encrypted they cannot tracked or monitored, common sense would tell you that authorities are going to start casting the “Surveillance” net wider to compensate, meaning more…
Category: Computer Related
TOR Browser Compromised by Feds?
Say it ain’t so! EVER SINCE A Carnegie Mellon talk on cracking the anonymity software Tor was abruptly pulled from the schedule of the Black Hat hacker conference last year, the security community has been left to wonder whether the research was silently handed over to law enforcement agencies seeking to uncloak the internet’s anonymous…
Tradecraft: Geo-Locating by Photos
They say photos say a 1,000 words; well in the 21st Century they can also tell your exact location. -SF Russian soldiers geolocated by photos in multiple Syria locations, bloggers say By Maria Tsvetkova MOSCOW (Reuters) – Three serving or former Russian soldiers have been geolocated by photographs in Syria, including locations near Hama, Aleppo…
The Social Science of Online Radicalization
As Charlie Winter noted recently at War on the Rocks, the Islamic State’s robust social media apparatus has been propagating a remarkably effective, multi-faceted communications strategy that incorporates narratives of statehood, military success, and religious legitimacy. The Islamic State’s success in using social media to disseminateits extremist ideas and mobilize tens of thousands of foreign…
Facebook Friend or Terrorist: Who’s in Your Online Social Network?
As a law enforcement officer in Northeast Florida, the arrest of a 19-year-old local man named Shelton Thomas Bell got my attention. In January of this year, Bell was sentenced to twenty years in federal prison for conspiring and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. He burned American flags, recruited support locally, conducted “training…
Teen who Hacked CIA Director’s Email Tells How he Did It
A HACKER WHO claims to have broken into the AOL account of CIA Director John Brennan says he obtained access by posing as a Verizon worker to trick another employee into revealing the spy chief’s personal information. Using information like the four digits of Brennan’s bank card, which Verizon easily relinquished, the hacker and his…
U.S. Navy Returns to Celestial Navigation Amid Fears of Computer Hack
Not being DEPENDENT on technology is a skill-set guys; because with one EMP blast, the RESET button gets punched and we are back to the stone age. I will be posting more on this. -SF “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with…
Iran’s Cyber-Espionage Tricks
A group of suspected Iranian hackers are using a sophisticated network of fake LinkedIn profiles to spy on unsuspecting targets worldwide — including the U.S. — according to a new report. The fake personas fell into two groups: one set that were fully developed profiles posing as recruiters for major worldwide government contractors and international…
What @Snowden told me about NSA’s Cyberweapons
By James Bamford Stephen Gerwin, chief of the Howard County Bureau of Utilities, it was “a peculiar project.” His workers were told they needed to get background checks and sign nondisclosure forms before they could begin work on a wastewater pump station in a forested area near the Little Patuxent River. “You sign a document…
DHS wants Boeing to Test Brain Chip
The Department of Homeland Security is funding a Boeing company to create a “brain chip” for its self-destructing Black smartphone that could be adapted for any device, DHS officials say. The technology powering the devices potentially could identify the user’s walking style, for example. Officials would be alerted if the gait does not match the authorized user’s…