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NSA Website down - not reachable. Being hacked at this moment.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mozillas-lightbeam-tool-will-expose-who-is-looking-over-your-shoulder-on-the-web-8902269.html

So I get a private call, dead air for a few seconds, then the phone rings back to the caller. Indian accented man answers claiming my computer is infected with a virus, no company name nothing. So I ask which computer. a few meaningless back and forth. Ask me to google teamviewer.com, instead of just going to teamviewer.com. wanted access to my system, wouldn't tell me the virus. did an off line scan anyway. So note to selfs, do not let anyone your not 100% sure is legit connect to your system with teamviewer

Ensuring protection against the fraudulent use of passports outweighs personal privacy concerns about mandatory fingerprinting, the European Union’s top court said Thursday. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Thursday (17 October) that although the taking and storing of fingerprints for passports breached privacy and personal data rights, it did not breach the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and was in line with EU law. Article eight of the Charter includes an explicit right to the protection of personal data, but the Luxembourg-based Court ruled that the infringement of privacy was justified because fingerprinting reduced fraud. … Meanwhile, government...

Has Obama endangered public safety, national security? ICE Council President Chris Crane reacts

Col. Daren Margolin has been relieved as head of Security Battalion at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. (Marine Corps) The two-star head of Marine Corps Installations Command has relieved the commanding officer of Quantico’s Security Battalion following an incident involving a personal weapon, Marine Corps officials said. Col. Daren Margolin, a 24-year officer was removed from his post Oct. 18 by Maj. Gen. Juan Ayala due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command, said Capt. Maureen Krebs, a Marine Corps spokeswoman. Krebs said the decision stemmed from a single incident last week involving one of Margolin’s personal...

Truecrypt is a cross-platform, free disk encryption software for Windows and Unix-like operating systems. It is generally considered a good disk encryption software, and not too long ago, I wrote a tutorial that showed how to encrypt the Windows installation of a Windows-Linux dual-boot setup (see Dual-boot Fedora 18 and Windows 7, with full disk encryption configured on both OSs). Truecrypt is said to be published under an open source license, but in some quarters, its license has not been accepted as a valid open source license. And some of those people believe it has a backdoor. Guess who is...

Above: Obama's DHS Secretary-designee Jeh Johnson, former DOD General Counsel who led the reversal of the Pentagon's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" restrictions on "gays in the military".- Barack Obama once again demonstrated his lack of interest in choosing national security and immigration enforcement officials who have actual experience in their fields. Back in August, Obama surprised many in D.C. by selecting John Sandweg for new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director - despite the fact that Sandweg had zero law enforcement experience and had fought for the release of violent sexual predators and pedophiles as an attorney. Now Obama continues...

Travelers who attempt to make a joke about strict security procedures at airports have been warned they face arrest. A loudspeaker announcement made by the Transport Security Administration warns the public: 'Any inappropriate remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest.' Concerned passenger Matt Miller recorded the loudspeaker message while passing through George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.

Josh wrote recently about a serious security bug that appeared in Debian Linux back in 2006, and whether it was really a backdoor inserted by the NSA. (He concluded that it probably was not.) Today I want to write about another incident, in 2003, in which someone tried to backdoor the Linux kernel. This one was definitely an attempt to insert a backdoor. But we don’t know who it was that made the attempt—and we probably never will.Back in 2003 Linux used a system called BitKeeper to store the master copy of the Linux source code. If a developer wanted...

Biggest security purchase since Intel wolfed down McAfee Intrusion prevention's a hot topic in the world of security, as reflected in the $2.8bn price tag Cisco has paid to complete the acquisition of network security specialists Sourcefire.The purchase - which was announced in July - is the largest security firm purchase since Intel's $7.7bn acquisition of McAfee in 2010. And it's a huge personal payday for Marty Roesch, creator of the open-source intrusion protection system Snort. He took Snort's basic technology and built commercial code under the Sourcefire brand since 2001."I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sentimental. When...

Israel said on Thursday it plans to run for a rotating seat on the U.N. Security Council for the time ever for 2019-2020, although U.N. diplomats said it will not be easy for the Jewish state to win. “We’re going all out to win,” Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor told Reuters. “It’s about time.” … Prosor said Israel will be vying against Germany and Belgium for two seats allotted to the “Western European and Others Group.” Technically, Israel should be a member of the Asia-Pacific Group along with the other states in the Middle East, but predominantly Muslim states blocked...

Adobe announced Thursday that it was the victim of a hack and that personal data for 2.9 million users were stolen. The software company, known for Photoshop and other programs, said cyber attackers were able to access user information, including account IDs, encrypted passwords as well as credit and debit card numbers. The hackers were able to erase data of some Adobe users. The hackers also illegally accessed source codes for numerous Adobe products. That's like stealing the secret formula for Coca-Cola. The company did not specify which users of its various software programs were hit. "We deeply regret that...

Gen. Keith Alexander, head of the embattled National Security Agency (NSA), says he is willing to share cyberattack information with the private sector—an offer seen as a Trojan horse by at least one expert.... Revelations of massive NSA data gathering from telecom and Internet companies has sparked a fierce national debate on whether the spy agency's antiterrorism activities have gone too far in collecting information on innocent Americans. In claiming the NSA has done nothing illegal, Alexander blamed calls from Capitol Hill to restrict government surveillance on "sensationalized" reporting and "media leaks," Politico reported he said in his speech. However,...

Federal prosecutors have documented at least 350 instances of faulty background investigations done by private contractors and special agents for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in recent years, illustrating what some lawmakers call systemic weaknesses in the granting of federal security clearances. Reuters calculated the total by reviewing court documents and press releases from prosecutors for 21 cases resulting in convictions that involved the making of false statements from December 2004 to March 2012. These are the cases government officials have cited to assert that action is taken against investigators who falsely claim to have reviewed records or done...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday pledged action on immigration overhaul legislation even as most of the attention on Capitol Hill is focused on fights over the budget and debt. Rep. Bob Goodlatte said the immigration issue needs to be solved and work is happening behind the scenes toward that goal.

If you are watching the news in the early stages of the Navy Yard shooting, you may not be surprised that you hear one thing and hours later hear something totally different. It seems the media gets focused on things like, how many shooters were there, what kind of gun was used, how did he get a security clearance with his background and so on. Many of these are valid questions but the demand put on Navy officials for facts quickly impacts on those with boots on the ground, leading to nothing but misinformation.I reminisce of the frustration I often...

A team from universities in the US, Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany have published research demonstrating that subtle changes below the gate level of chips can alter functionality in a controlled but covert manner. The possibility for hardware trojans to be inserted into motherboards and processors – especially since many of these are manufactured abroad in countries such as China – has been a growing concern. But, say the researchers in a paper titled 'Stealthy Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans' published last week, "since there have been no reported hardware trojans in practice yet, little is known about how such a trojan would...

FBI Washington field office just confirmed gunman was NOT armed with AR15. Spokesperson says 1 shotgun and 2 pistols recovered— Pamela Brown (@PamelaBrownCNN) September 17, 2013

I received an unusual email from FR today: On Mon Sep 16 12:23:52 2013 somebody at the Internet address 138.162.0.42 requested this information to be sent to you. Your screen name is: Bob Your password is: ----------- (removed) To log into your account, please visit: http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/login When I looked up the requesting IP address, this is what was returned: Overview for 138.162.0.42 Updated 0 seconds ago NetRange: 138.162.0.0 - 138.162.255.255 CIDR: 138.162.0.0/16 OriginAS: NetName: NMCI-NET-ORF NetHandle: NET-138-162-0-0-1 Parent: NET-138-0-0-0-0 NetType: Direct Assignment RegDate: 1990-05-07 Updated: 2011-02-23 Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-138-162-0-0-1 OrgName: Navy Network Information Center (NNIC) OrgId: NNICN-1 Address: 2465 GUADALCANAL ROAD...