Free Republic

Happy Sunday! Ready to have your mind blown?By mixing ultra-bright projectors and advanced facial tracking with some damned fine visual design, these guys are able to use their faces as a canvas some truly wild work. ==>>>Watch on as they morph from human, to alien, to cheetah, to robot overlord on the fly.<<<==So how does it work? To oversimplify it: an array of cameras tracks the dots on their faces, akin to the way Hollywood motion capture systems work. They then take some truly amazing texture/animation work and digitally morph it around a model of each guy’s face — essentially...

As President Barack Obama addressed the nation regarding national cyber security efforts, hackers claiming to represent the Islamic State (IS) took over the Twitter account of the Pentagon division in charge of the Middle East. Hackers with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, posted links on U.S. Central Command’s official Twitter page to what it claimed was “confidential data from your mobile devices.” “ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now,” said one tweet sent from CENTCOM’s account.

Did the Obama administration put a journalist under surveillance for reporting critically on its activities? Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson says yes — and she wants $35 million in damages from the Department of Justice for it. Attkisson filed a series of legal motions today that claim the DoJ hacked into her computer and attacked her professionally: In a series of legal filings that seek $35 million in damages, Attkisson alleges that three separate computer forensic exams showed that hackers used sophisticated methods to surreptitiously monitor her work between 2011 and 2013. … In the lawsuit and related claims against...

BEIJING — North Korea on Sunday denounced new economic sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama in response to a cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment that U.S. officials have blamed on the regime. The country's official news agency quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying the new sanctions would only "harden its will and resolution to defend ... the dignity of the nation." The new penalties —which cut off access to the U.S. financial sector for 10 individuals and three government entities identified as key operatives engaged in hostile behavior, including the country's intelligence agency — add to sanctions imposed...

The risk is relatively low right now. But we must improve the security of future devices. We're living at the dawn of the age of the Internet of Things. Appliances ranging from light switches and door locks to cars and medical devices now boast internet connectivity. The convenience can't be beat. But what are the security and privacy implications? Is a patient implanted with a remotely controllable pacemaker at risk for security compromise? Vice President Dick Cheney's doctors worried enough about an assassination attempt via implant that they disabled his defibrillator's wireless capability. Should we expect capital crimes via hacked...

“All iCloud accounts could be vulnerable to hacking by a new tool that claims it can break into any user’s login,” Andrew Griffin reports for The Independent. “The tool claims to use an exploit to get through Apple’s security.” “It uses a ‘dictionary attack’ to get into accounts — a hack that involves automatically trying a number of passwords until the right one is found. Sites usually have locks in place to stop such an attack, by only allowing a certain number of tries of one password, but the tool claims to be able to bypass those,” Griffin reports. “A...

**SNIP** Over the past few years, the number of security incidents at federal agencies involving the potential exposure of personal information has skyrocketed -- from about 10,400 in 2009 to more than 25,500 in 2013, according to the Government Accountability Office. There’s no data yet this year on the total number of breaches at agencies in 2014. But with the year almost in the rearview mirror, Nextgov takes a look back at the 10 most impactful, high-profile or otherwise eyebrow-raising federal agency breaches. 1. White House Hacked The Obama administration has made cybersecurity a key priority, so it must have...

US cybersecurity experts say they have solid evidence that a former employee helped hack Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer system — and that it was not masterminded by North Korean cyberterrorists. One leading cybersecurity firm, Norse Corp., said Monday it has narrowed its list of suspects to a group of six people — including at least one Sony veteran with the necessary technical background to carry out the attack, according to reports. The investigation of the Sony hacking by the private companies stands in stark contrast to the finding of the FBI, which said Dec. 19 its probe traced the hacking...

A hacker group known as “Lizard Squad” has claimed responsibility for attacks targeting both Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) on Wednesday evening. FROM EARLIER: The iPhone 6 might be low-res, but Apple’s highest-resolution device ever is coming soon Microsoft’s Xbox Live went down for Xbox 360 users in the afternoon of December 24th, with the company’s status page for the service showing that Xbox Live core services were “limited.” The hacker team posted various messages on Twitter, confirming that it took down Xbox Live on Christmas Eve.

MOSCOW — In a sign of new limits on Facebook’s ability to serve as a platform for political opposition movements, Russian users appear to have been blocked from accessing a page calling for a protest in support of a prominent dissident. In 2011, Facebook was hailed by opposition movements during the Arab Spring and in Russia as a powerful new tool to spread information beyond the control of repressive governments. That may no longer be the case, at least not in Russia. Russian Internet regulators said Saturday that they had sent Facebook a “demand” that it block access to a...

A German federal agency has acknowledged in a report Wednesday that a cyberattack caused physical damage to an iron plant in the country. It was a rare admission by a government tying a cyber action to actual physical destruction. The attackers gained access to an unnamed plant’s office network through a targeted malicious email and were ultimately able to cross over into the production network. The plant’s control systems were breached which “resulted in an incident where a furnace could not be shut down in the regular way and the furnace was in an undefined condition which resulted in massive...

Hunter Walker December 20, 2014A North Korean official said on Saturday that the secretive regime wants to mount a joint investigation with the United States to identify who was behind the cyber attack against Sony Pictures. An unnamed spokesman of the North Korean foreign ministry was quoted by the country's state news agency, KCNA, describing US claims they were behind the hack as "slander." "As the United States is spreading groundless allegations and slandering us, we propose a joint investigation with it into this incident," the official said, according to Agence France-Presse. After they began publishing leaked Sony movies, internal...

'Christmas dump' incoming with more 'interesting' Sony Pictures data Months before the hacker intrusion on Sony Pictures' network, analyst firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) performed an analysis on the company's security, and found it lacking. More than 100 devices were found to be unmonitored by corporate security following an incomplete transition from a private security firm to an in-house team. As a result, any Sony response to network intrusion would be, in the words of the auditors, "slow, fragmented, and incomplete, if it would even happen at all." However, corrective actions proposed by PWC seemingly went undone, which left the doors to...

If there is one salient fact that emerges from the now infamous Sony hack it is that the bad guys won.  The bad guys won because there they paid no price for the damage inflicted.  In the Sony case the hackers are outside and beyond the law, so their backers and sponsors are encouraged to cause even more damage in future. To stop cyber attacks, particularly those sponsored by foreign governments, we need to respond to attacks now. Sony is a movie company, a major cog in the entertainment industry.  Whether Sony rises or falls has little or nothing to...

Did you know that having First Amendment rights in the United States comes with the responsibility not to offend dictators from North Korea? Had no idea? Me either. Last night on CNN "journalist" Sharon Waxman, who has worked at a number of media outlets including the Washington Post, argued that having First Amendment rights means we shouldn't be making fun of North Korean dictators because they might get upset. She was of course referring to the recent and massive hack on Sony pictures by North Korea as retaliation for "The Interview," a comedy about assassinating Kim Jong-Un. "I also want...

I’m glad he spoke up, not only because he’s right, not only because a little public shaming from an A-lister might get others to rethink, but because that tribute to Hollywood’s bravery that he gave a few years ago at the Oscars would have looked even more embarrassing in hindsight if he’d kept quiet about this.Nothing fancy about the logic of his petition: “We know that to give in to these criminals now will open the door for any group that would threaten freedom of expression, privacy and personal liberty. We hope these hackers are brought to justice but...

The hackers behind a devastating cyberattack at Sony Pictures have sent a new message to executives at the company, crediting them for a "very wise" decision to cancel the Christmas day release of "The Interview," a source close to the company told CNN. The email message was received by Sony's top executives on Thursday night and was obtained by CNN. The source said that the company believes the email was from the hackers because it followed a pattern of previous messages, sent to a list of particular executives and formatted in a particular way. A Sony spokesman declined to comment.

As Newt Gingrich noted yesterday, the surrender by Sony Pictures to a shadowy group of North Korean hackers has set a chilling precedent... just wait 'til they grab hold of one of our nuclear plants(like the Israelis already did  to Iran)... BIG defeat for the US and Japan here, and a terrifying incident, to be sure (that's why they call it 'terrorism')- so now this little tinpot-nothing-of-a-country has substantial unchecked power/influence right inside the United States of America? Can you imagine Ronald Reagan/Cap Weinberger letting this go down without KJU being made to seriously regret it? Of course, Obama...

Matt Johnston December 17, 2014The US government is planning to announce Thursday that North Korea is directly to blame for the devastating and unprecedented attack on Sony, according to multiple reports. Now we wait and see how the US Government may respond to that attack now that they've placed their blame. That threat is likely retaliation for the controversial comedy "The Interview," which depicts the assassination of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un. US Investigators have been able to parse through enough evidence now to claim that North Korea is "centrally involved." On Tuesday, an online threat was posted against theaters...

In the most shocking development yet, the Sony attackers have threatened a 9/11-like attack on movie theaters that screen Seth Rogen and James Franco’s North Korean comedy “The Interview.” They also released the promised “Christmas gift” of files. The contents of the files are unknown but it’s called “Michael Lynton,” who is the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment. “The world will be full of fear,” the message reads. “Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.) Whatever comes in the coming...