08th Feb2012

Think Before You Tweet: Why Two Teenagers Were Refused Entry To The U.S.

by iSpit

Two teenagers were refused entry to the United States after a series of tweets were taken somewhat out of context. Another reminder to think before you tweet.

Amid the funny wigs and the undue pomp in the traditional British courtroom, it seems that our distant American cousins fail to share our often-poor taste in humour.

When one teenager tweeted his friend claiming that he was going to “destroy America”, it appears that U.S. authorities took the public message somewhat too seriously.

At least the other teenager did not respond by joking about “diggin’ Marilyn Monroe up”. Oh, wait.

To their surprise, however, when they arrived at L.A. International, they were not only detained and questioned at length by U.S. authorities, but were swiftly — after a night in the cells, naturally — plonked back on a plane back to England, and barred from entering the United States again.

One U.S. Homeland Security agent allegedly told the hapless teenager: “You’ve really f***ed up with that tweet, boy.” At least on this side of the pond, one can bet that Her Majesty’s finest would not be so rude.

The famous quote goes: “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” In this case, it could not be closer to the truth.

Just as something classified as “sick” can describe both a good, and a rather vomitous situation in English slang, so can the word “destroy”. And “crumpet”, come to think of it.

The two teenagers will not be allowed to return to the United States without prior authorisation from the U.S. Embassy in London.

It’s not the first time a Twitter user has fallen foul of the law, however. In 2010, Paul Chambers fell foul of Section 127 of the UK’s Communications Act 2003, which describes how one tweet was of “indecent, obscene, or menacing character”. He only threatened to blow up an airport in a fit of anger.

But little did the authorities realise was the scale of the reaction by the wider Twitterverse, including some high-profile users. In amidst a hashtag revolution, over 5,000 users had taken to make joke-’threats’ of their own.

When reporters asked whether the local police force would prosecute the lot of them, they reportedly replied with a rather succinct: “No.”

It just goes to show that even seemingly innocent descriptors can be taken wholly out of context. Anyone who has been through the U.S. border will know it is wise not to make any smart cracks, witty remarks, or frankly show any emotion for that matter.

It nevertheless serves as a reminder to think very carefully before you tweet.

05th Jan2012

French Presidential Officials Caught Illegally Downloading Music

by iSpit

French presidential officials have been caught illegally downloading copyrighted material; ironic, as the officials could have broken the Frenchthree strikes’ laws twice over.

Just as both employees of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the RIAA, one of the main proponents behind the controversial SOPA bill currently going through Congress, more high-profile organisations and government departments are found to be illegally downloading copyrighted material.

Enter the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Members of staff at the Lysée Palace, home and office of the French president, could be found to be breaking some of the toughest anti-piracy measures in Europe, France’s own ‘three strikes’ law.

Last week, Russian website YouHaveDownloaded opened its doors as it claimed to track around 20 percent of all public torrent downloads. You can check your IP address and others against the database of almost 53 million users and over 110,000 tracked torrents to see if you or prominent others are found illegally downloading copyrighted material.

Sarkozy’s anti-piracy legislation involves cutting off pirates after three proven conditions, known as the ‘three-strike’ rule.

Husband to musician Carla Bruni, Sarkozy pushed through the controversial rule in the French parliament last year, thought to be the toughest anti-piracy law in Europe.

Reports suggest that around sixty French web users were on their third and final strike as of October this year.

According to TorrentFreak, a total of six infringing downloads were tracked back to Sarkozy’s residence, double the three-strike limit.

The Irish government had previously implemented a three-strike rule, but on Monday indicated that it would be replaced with a UK-like system where court orders could be invoked to block access to sites instead.

Along with the U.S. Department for Homeland Security and the RIAA, copyright holders themselves, from Sony, Universal and Fox employees were found to be downloading content — some of which belonged to their employers.

It would have been an almost perfect hypocrisy had Bruni’s music been illegally downloaded. Alas, it’s not the case. Someone clearly has a taste for The Beach Boys though.

27th Dec2011

Everybody Pirates: RIAA, Homeland Security Caught Downloading Torrents

by iSpit

Since the release of a website that monitors nearly 20 percent of all public BitTorrent downloaders, even more pro-SOPA figures have been found downloading copyrighted material.

Earlier this week, it was found that employees of major copyright holders Sony, Universal, and Fox were all found to have illegally downloaded content through the BitTorrent network.

Today, two prominent figures in the online piracy fight were also found to be seemingly undoing all of their employers’ hard work in the fight against online piracy

Perhaps it just goes to prove that everybody pirates?

The Recording Industry of America (RIAA) is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Hollywood, working on behalf of the record industry. It’s also one of the main proponents behind SOPA, the controversial anti-piracy act currently working its way through Congress.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does what it says on the tin. Part of its remit is to seize domain names controlled or managed by the U.S. government or U.S.-based firms to crack down on online piracy.

It would therefore be highly ironic should one find that employees of both the RIAA and the Dept. of Homeland Security should be found to be illegally downloading copyrighted material through peer-to-peer networks.

But the RIAA in particular will be feeling the heat when its workers arrive at the office on Monday morning.

According to TorrentFreak, entire series episodes have been downloaded from BitTorrent sites, as well as software, and even gangster-rap music by the music industry representative body.

Last week, one Russian website, YouHaveDownloaded, opened its doors as it claimed to track around 20 percent of all public torrent downloads. You can check your IP address — as well as others — against the database to see if you or prominent others are found illegally downloading copyrighted material.

From an search-engine optimisation (SEO) perspective, Stephen Chapman discussed how users who wish to remain anonymous — and potentially out of the public eye of this site — can do so when downloading content from the web.

Considering it’s the RIAA who wants to disconnect pirates from the web, I suppose it shows that almost everyone is at risk from SOPA should the bill go through — even one of the key outfits pushing for the bill.

Though over 200,000 people work for the Dept. for Homeland Security, it is no surprise that at least someone within the government department is downloading content illegally.

But one person alone can shame the collective entity, and any ‘breach’ like this would be vital ammunition for anti-SOPA advocates.

14th Dec2011

New Wikileaks Files Expose Widespread Mobile Phone, Email Hacking Capability

by iSpit

Wikileaks has released dozens of new documents highlighting the state of the once covert, but now lucrative private sector global surveillance industry.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange unveiled today the latest batch of released files from the whistleblowing organisation.

Speaking to a number of students and members of the press, bright and optimistic as ever, said: ”Who here has an iPhone? Who here has a BlackBerry? Who here uses Gmail? Well, you’re all screwed.”

According to Assange, over 150 private sector organisations in 25 countries have the ability to not only track mobile devices, but also intercept messages and listen to calls also.

The technologies developed by this industry can be used to access Internet browsing histories and email accounts, through computing tapping or accessing mobile phones remotely. This information is then sold as wholesale information to governments or other private industry partners.

Speaking at City University in London, he said that the publication of the ‘Spy Files’ is intended to be a “mass attack on the mass surveillance industry”. He described the interception of this data as “lawful”, it will lead society to a “totalitarian surveillance state”.

Along with representatives from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and Privacy International, documents were shown to suggest that software could not only read emails and text messages on mobile phones, but invasively alter them and send out fake messages to others.

The UK, one of the most surveilled countries in the world, with more CCTV cameras per person than any other major city, is one of the most prevalent in Internet monitoring, phone and text messaging analysis, GPS tracking and speech analysis technologies.

In the past ten years, he highlighted, the private industry had grown from a covert, behind-the-scenes industry, that primarily sold the U.S. National Security Agency, and GCHQ, the UK’s third intelligence service.

Wikileaks released today 287 documents, documenting “the reality of the international mass surveillance industry”, highlighting how “dictators and democracies alike” can procure this “spying system” technology developed by U.S., the UK, Australia and Canada.

Last month, it was found that Leeds-based company Datong plc. sold phone tracking and remote-disability technology to Scotland Yard, home of London’s Metropolitan Police, which could then be used to track protestors or disable remotely shut-off mobile phones en masse.

ZDNet uncovered evidence to support that this technology could have been sold to oppressive regimes in the Middle East and North Africa.

In one case, a subsidiary of Nokia Siemens Networks, Trovicor supplied the government of Bahrain technology that enabled the tracking of human rights activists, the Wikileaks website said.

U.S.-based company SS8, along with Hacking Team in Italy and Vupen in France, are all said to manufacture Trojan malware that can hijack computers and phones — including BlackBerrys, iPhones and Android devices — and “record its every use, movement, and even the sights and sounds of the room it is in”.

Wikileaks said that other companies like Czech Republic-based Phoenexia collaborate with military units to create speech analysis tools, allowing the government to acquire intelligence based on identified gender, age and even their vocal stress levels.

In one document dating back to 2006, it shows how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sold technology to the oppressive Libyan regime to “intercept data” and acquire the “localisation of GSM”, the ability to locate where mobile phones are located geographically.

Another leaked document from 2011 shows how one UK firm is “depended upon” by the government, including “law enforcement agencies, intelligence and military agencies [and] special forces”. Such technologies can be “integrated into bespoke solutions for static, tracking and mobile overt and covert surveillance”.

28th Apr2011

White House Draft Bill Expands DHS Cyber Responsibilities

by iSpit

Under a White House plan, the Homeland Security Department will have far-reaching oversight over all civilian agency computer networks.

The proposal would codify much of the administration’s memo from July 2010 expanding DHS’s cyber responsibilities for civilian networks.

The White House, however, is taking those responsibilities further, according to a source familiar with the document. The administration drafted a legislative proposal to give DHS many, if not all, of the same authorities for the .gov networks that the Defense Department has for the .mil networks.

Federal News Radio recently viewed a draft copy of the legislative proposal.

“I have to question why the Executive branch is writing legislation,” said the source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it. “This is not a proposal or white paper like the White House usually sends to Capitol Hill. This is the actual legislation.”

The source said the 100-page document is going through interagency review. DHS sent the document around to agencies late last Friday and asked for comments by Monday. The source said few agencies (more…)

07th Dec2010

Police State of Wiretapping the Web: Who Do THEY Want to Watch?

by iSpit

To celebrate National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, wouldn’t it be nice if our government stopped pushing wiretapping to increase our vulnerability? The warm fuzzy feeling of security and privacy seemed considerably less reassuring after FBI Director Robert Mueller called for more surveillance and legal abilities to intercept communications. He stated, “Some have suggested there is an inherent tension between protecting national security and preserving civil liberties. I do disagree. Yes, we have a right to privacy. But we also have a right to ride the subways without the threat of bombings….It is not a question of conflict; it is a question of balance.”

That “balance” was emphasized by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Mark Fiore with his new Snuggly the Security Bear cartoon to reassure citizens about ubiquitous surveillance in America. The cute bear with a wickedly evil laugh begins with, “I’m friendly. Are you wiretap friendly?”

FBI’s Mueller spoke of enhanced public trust in the FBI, of how they want to “dispel myths about the FBI and the work we do.” This is the same FBI that used “questionable investigative techniques and improperly collected and retained First Amendment information” and now wants to require all encrypted communications systems to have backdoors for surveillance.

(more…)

25th Nov2010

Popular Music Sites Raided By Homeland Security / ICE

by iSpit

A large file-sharing link site dedicated to rap and hiphop music and news has been raided by the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The servers of RapGodFathers, a site with close to 150,000 members, were seized and moves put in place to take over its domain name. Following raids earlier in the year which took out several sites and domain names connected to the streaming of Hollywood movies, we can now report fresh Department of Homeland Security / Immigration and Customs Enforcement action against a site in the music sector.

Acting on a search warrant issued on 23rd November and signed by United States Magistrate Judge Jeff Kaplan, DHS and ICE agents arrived at a Dallas datacenter Tuesday with orders to take down the 146,500 member RapGodFathers site (RGF), seize its servers and gather evidence on its owners, administrators and moderators.

(more…)

20th Oct2010

Another “Entrapment” FBI Informant Case — Sami Samir Hassoun

by iSpit

This last Sunday a young man of Lebanese descent was arrested Sami Samir Hassoun, 22 years old and a permanent resident alien who works at a neighborhood Bakery allegedly tried to set off explosives in a busy part of Chicago.  However, the explosives – weren’t actually explosives.  It was fake, provided to this brother by what turned out to be an FBI informant.  From one source:

“The arrest stemmed from an investigation conducted by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Hassoun was charged with one count each of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted use of an explosive device.”

Weapon of mass destruction – a fake bomb provided by the FBI.  This young man is 22 years old.  He may never have done any of this without the encouragement of the informant.  This has been a common theme in the latest wave of arrests of Muslims.  It’s called entrapment.  It’s generally not used much against non-Muslims because of the legal issues.  It’s a ready-made defense for any good attorney.  But when it’s a Muslim no one bats an eyelash.  People are so brainwashed by the media – they will justify anything.

“Hassoun ultimately decided (no doubt with the encouragement of the “cooperating witness”) to detonate an explosive device in the Wrigleyville area of Chicago. He planned to cause the blast on a weekend night in order to inflict maximum damage. After that, an undercover agent was introduced to the plotter by his cooperating associate in July.” (more…)

06th Oct2010

Pennsylvania Homeland Security Chief Quits

by iSpit

State Homeland Security Director James F. Powers Jr., criticized for releasing terror bulletins that listed law-abiding protest groups, resigned to protect the office from further distraction, Gov. Ed Rendell said Friday.

Rendell said he did not ask Powers to quit.

Powers declined to comment through an aide but released a statement saying he decided to resign after “a thorough examination, detailed consideration, and reflection on emerging events” related to the terror bulletins.

The bulletins went to law enforcement agencies, local governments and private security officials, warning of protests by environmental activists, anti-war demonstrators and anti-tax groups. Homeland Security compiled them, based on information provided by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response. The institute, a for-profit company, won a $103,000 contract from Powers with approval of the state Department of General Services. Rendell has said the contract won’t be renewed this month.

Powers, a retired Army Special Forces officer, was a good man who made a bad decision on the bulletins, Rendell said.

(more…)

04th Oct2010

The First “Black” President Of The USA John Hanson: Revisited (Who Did You Think I Meant?)

by iSpit

Disregard the bible talk

Part 2 Below…

(more…)

03rd May2010

Groups Ask DHS To Suspend Full-Body Imagers

by iSpit

A TSA volunteer demonstrates a full-body scanner at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport last month.

More than 30 privacy and civil liberties groups are asking the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the use of full body imagers at airports, saying there is evidence that privacy safeguards don’t work and the devices are not effective.

In a petition filed Wednesday, the groups also said the machines — which see through travelers’ clothes — violate people’s “deeply held religious beliefs.”

The Transportation Security Administration has sped up deployment of the machines after a man with explosives sewn into his underwear attempted to bomb a plane on Christmas Day. About 46 machines are in place in 23 airports, and the agency plans to have about 1,000 set up by the end of 2011.

The TSA has steadfastly defended the effectiveness and safety of the machines and says extensive precautions are taken to protect the identities of those who go through them. (more…)

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