Free Republic

Hackers are becoming more organised as a new pool of talent coming from eastern European countries – Russia in particular – becomes available, writes CIARA O’BRIEN A number of attacks involving Russian hackers has hit the headlines in recent weeks. The most recent was the charging of Albert Gonzalez, a former US government informant who has already been jailed in connection with hacking cases. He is accused of stealing 130 million credit and debit card numbers. Two unnamed Russian co-conspirators were also charged in relation to the theft, said to the biggest case of identity theft seen yet. Mr Harbison,...

Perhaps the most nebulous area of national security is cyber defense. What constitutes an act of cyber war? What organization should take the lead when cyber events occur and it is unclear who is behind them? Between criminals, “hacktivists,” terrorists or rogue nation states, you really do not know when these events are unfolding so you cannot determine if it is a federal law enforcement issue or an issue for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or is it a Military (DoD) issue. For months and, in some cases years, many people and organizations involved in cyber defense and security...

WASHINGTON -- Russian hackers hijacked American identities and U.S. software tools and used them in an attack on Georgian government Web sites during the war between Russia and Georgia last year, according to new research to be released Monday by a nonprofit U.S. group. In addition to refashioning common Microsoft Corp. software into a cyber-weapon, hackers collaborated on popular U.S.-based social-networking sites, including Twitter and Facebook Inc., to coordinate attacks on Georgian sites, the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit found. While the cyberattacks on Georgia were examined shortly after the events last year, these U.S. connections weren't previously known. "U.S. corporations...

Investigators say 700 people were involved in a Denver-based scheme run by Russian immigrants, with losses topping $80 million. A alleged massive organized bank-fraud scheme involving 16 Russian immigrants was busted by federal agents Friday, with 15 raids at several locations, including an Aurora auto dealership and a Denver medical-marijuana business. Federal agents said the Denver-based scheme led to losses of more than $80 million and involved 700 people — mostly students in the U.S. on visas who were recruited by the criminal enterprise. Described by authorities as a "bust out" scam, the allegations involved using the identity and credit...

Last week, Twitter was vexed by a DDoS attack that took it offline for a few hours. In that case, Russian hackers were suspected. This week's DDoS attack, however, may have different origins -- and they could be related to the attacks that took out a few U.S. and South Korean government sites last Fourth of July, according to AVG's chief of research. The latest attack hit the site in waves. "We're currently experiencing another wave of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against our system," Alex Payne, platform lead at Twitter, wrote on the service's Web dev blog on...

Could Solar Cycle 24 be skipped ? This would be stunning, because it suggests that the sun has skipped a solar cycle (#24) . Researchers, three from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the other from Marshall Space Flight Center-NASA, have published a paper that suggests this possibility.

Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras ousted in a coup, is attempting to fly home from Washington and reclaim his office, sparking clashes between his supporters and the security forces which have led to at least one death. At least one person was killed and several were injured as soldiers opened fire and let off tear gas rounds after at least 10,000 supporters of the Leftist leader descended on the airport outside the capital, Tegucigalpa. As his supporters mobbed the airport, soldiers were deployed en masse. Violent confrontations then erupted along the perimeter fence. As demonstrators tried to rip down...

CAIRO, Egypt -- A Kyrgyz deal with the United States to keep a U.S. air base open was agreed with Russia, a Kremlin official said Thursday. "We support all steps aimed at stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan," said the official accompanying President Dmitry Medvedev in Egypt. But Kommersant quoted an unidentified Russian diplomat as saying Moscow felt that it had been tricked by Kyrgyzstan over the base and would make an "adequate response" to the deal. The United States has agreed to pay $180 million to keep open the Manas air base after haggling with Kyrgyzstan since February, when the...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia was tricked by Kyrgyzstan over a deal with the United States to keep open a key air base in Central Asia, a Russian diplomat was quoted as saying by local media on Wednesday. ... The Kommersant newspaper quoted an unidentified Russian diplomat as saying Moscow viewed the U.S. move as a trick and that Russia would soon make an "adequate response" to the deal.

Kyrgyzstan has reversed a Russian order to evict the US military from an airbase close to Afghanistan in a significant foreign policy victory for Barack Obama. After winning major financial concessions from Washington, the Kyrgyz government said it had agreed to allow the US Air Force to retain control of the Manas Airbase for at least one more year. The move, which comes a fortnight before Mr Obama visits Moscow, was welcomed by the United States, which has emphasised the base's importance in the campaign to defeat the Taliban.

PADUCAH, Ky. – Storm-battered residents of several states hunkered down in frigid homes and shelters Thursday, expecting to spend at least a week without power and waiting in long lines to buy generators, firewood, groceries and bottled water.

I don’t know if any of you readers have ever experienced temperatures that are down to -50°F, but it is painful to endure. From the NWS WFSO in Caribou, Maine, a report of a new statewide low record event. (h/t to Joe Bastardi via Jeff L). Unlike the WSFO in Chicago, which wants to throw out a statewide record low temperature because they don’t seem to trust the quality control on an AWOS station calibrated the day before in Rochelle, the WSFO in Caribou seems ready to consider the temperature recorded by a USGS gage. Ah, consistency.

The lowest temperature ever recorded in the state of Maine occurred this morning, according to preliminary data from the National Weather Service. The temperature at Big Black River in northern Maine on the Canadian border bottomed out at -50F, besting the old record of -48°F. Here's the scoop from NWS: At 0730 am EST this morning a USGS gage at Big Black River recorded a low temperature of -50F. This exceeds the current statewide record low temperature of -48F set on January 19th...1925 at Van Buren. This report is considered unofficial until a review of the equipment and data by...

-43 Degree Temps Recorded In North Dakota Much of the country is in winter's icy grip and forecasters said it won't be letting go anytime soon. In Pollock, S.D., temperatures fell to a record-setting 47 below zero Thursday. Todd Moser works at a gas station where he said it took about 10 minutes to get the pumps working. Record to near record lows were set all over the Midwest, including Aberdeen, S.D., at -42 degrees; Dubuque, Iowa, at -26 degrees; Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at -29 degrees. The -29 degrees at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was the coldest temperature ever recorded there...

DES MOINES, Iowa --A blast of arctic air settling in over Iowa on Wednesday could bring the Des Moines area's lowest temperatures in 12 years, said KCCI meteorologist Kurtis Gertz. Temperatures could dip to -15 degrees tonight, a low not touched since 1996.

A rare phenomenon normally associated with Scandinavia has been recorded on the River Otter in Devon for what could be the first time.

Freezing temperatures and exceptional snowfall are causing travel delays across Europe and were blamed for at least 12 deaths, including that of a man in Milan who was crushed when a canopy collapsed under the weight of snow. In Poland, the Interior Ministry said at least 10 people have frozen to death due to temperatures reaching minus 25C.

Senior official says Russian peacekeepers will continue to occupy Georgia even after main bulk of army has left. A senior Russian government spokesman today said the withdrawal of the country's forces from Georgia would take "a couple of weeks" and they would leave in their own time. While the Russian army was reducing its presence in some towns it has occupied, it was continuing to take new territory and still held positions as near as 30 miles to the capital. "They [the Georgians] are perverting the agreement," he said. "The agreement doesn't indicate a specific time for withdrawal. There has...

In a joint declaration the Presidents of Lithuania and Poland, Valdas Adamkus and Lech Kaczynski, respectively, called for granting Georgia and Ukraine NATO membership action plan (MAP) “as soon as possible.” “Russian actions in the sovereign country of Georgia have gone far beyond any reasonable steps to ensure the safety of civilians and peacekeepers and have escalated to open looting, targeted destruction of Georgian economy, landscape and nature, and killings which have the obvious signs of ethnic cleansing in the territories controlled by Russian troops,” the joint statement reads. “Taking reference to the Bucharest NATO Declaration, which clearly stresses that...

IGOETI, Georgia — Despite assurances that it would withdraw troops from Georgia starting Monday, the Russian military operated with impunity as its forces moved convoys in and out of the city of Gori and plowed through a police roadblock in this town some 25 miles northwest of Tbilisi , the capital. In Washington , senior defense officials cited "troubling" intelligence that Russia had set up short-range ballistic missile launchers in South Ossetia . The SS-21 missiles have a range of 40 to 70 miles, meaning they can reach the capital from practically any part of South Ossetia , which Russian...