Free Republic

IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win." His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public. I grew up...

Julian Assange may be held up at the moment, but his supporters are waging war. An organization of online "hacktivists" linked to the 4Chan network "partially paralyzed" MasterCard.com on Wednesday after the credit card company stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks. The group, known as Anonymous, orchestrated the illegal DDoS attack (distributed denial of service) as part of the "Operation: Payback" campaign supporting WikiLeaks. Although the Anonymous website is itself now suspended -- call that getting a taste of your own medicine -- Surge Desk recovered an earlier statement from the group preserved by Google cache (as it appeared at 4...

We recently gave you a brief history of viruses on the Mac and as requested by a user we wanted to give you a history of viruses on Linux. Given the tight security integrated into Linux, it is difficult to take advantage of a vulnerability on the computer, but some programmers have found ways around the security measures. There are several free options for anti-virus on Linux that you really should use, even if it isn't always running - a weekly or monthly scan doesn't hurt. Free anti-virus solutions include: ClamAV, AVG, Avast and F-Prot. 1996: The cracker group VLAD...

“American capitalism is broken,” warns economist Peter Morici. Worse, American government is broken with “two bankrupt political parties bankrupting the country,” warns Stanford political scientist Larry Diamond. Why? Because Wall Street is broken: Our engine of capitalism is broken. Morici warns that Wall Street’s insatiable gluttony is strangling America’s 8,000 regional banks: “About 3,000 regional banks face extinction, and ordinary Americans can only borrow money at government run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or at extortionist rates on big-bank-controlled credit cards.” Time to counterattack, or the clock runs out. The plan? Hackers are America’s “Hail Mary pass” against Wall Street’s...

Last week, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics opened a new Internet-based voting system for a weeklong test period, inviting computer experts from all corners to prod its vulnerabilities in the spirit of "give it your best shot." Well, the hackers gave it their best shot -- and midday Friday, the trial period was suspended, with the board citing "usability issues brought to our attention." Here's one of those issues: After casting a vote, according to test observers, the Web site played "Hail to the Victors" -- the University of Michigan fight song. "The integrity of the system had...

A baby-faced band of "money mules" helped an Eastern European hackerring transfer $3 million in cash it pilfered from American bank accounts, federal prosecutors in New York said yesterday. The group, including several women who are college co-eds here on student visas, was allegedly tasked with opening hundreds of bank accounts used to receive the stolen funds.

NOTE The following text is a quote: Extradited Hacker Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison for Masterminding First-Ever Hack Into Internet Phone Networks Defendant Also Ordered to Pay Over $1 Million in Restitution NEWARK, NJ—The first individual ever charged with hacking into the networks of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers and reselling hacked VoIP services for a profit was sentenced today to 120 months in prison, United States Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Edwin Andres Pena, 27, transmitted over 10 million minutes of unauthorized telephone calls over the victims' networks. Pena, a Venezuelan citizen, fled the United States...

The person responsible for the "Here you have" email worm, which wreaked havoc last week on businesses across the United States, may be part of a cyber-jihad group upset over American military presence in Iraq. The malware author, who uses the handle "iraq_resistance," is believed to be part of the cyber-jihad organization "Brigades of Tariq ibn Ziyad," whose goal is to digitally infiltrate U.S. Army agencies, Joe Stewart, director of malware research at SecureWorks, a network security company, told SCMagazineUS.com on Monday. Researchers concluded this after determining that a worm launched last month, but on a much smaller scale, was...

The online version the New York Post editorial in today's issue harshly criticizing WikiLeaks for publishing stolen classified Pentagon Afghan war documents without redacting them to prevent Afghans from facing retribution from the Taliban has been hacked.Attempts to access the editorial directly through NYPost.com and through Google result in being directed to Pages.US.comWikiLeaks and its founder, reputed computer hacker Julian Assange, have come under criticism from allies Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International for outing Afghans without regard to their safety.This week, Assange called Afghans aiding the U.S. in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban "genuinely traitorous." That...

NOTE The following text SNIPPET is a quote: International Hacker Arraigned After Extradition Elaborate Scheme Stole over $9.4 Million from Credit Card Processor ATLANTA, GA—SERGEI TŠURIKOV, 26, of Tallinn, Estonia, has been extradited to the United States. TŠURIKOV appeared today and was arraigned before United States Magistrate Judge E. Clayton Scofield III, on federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud, computer fraud, and aggravated identity theft. TŠURIKOV was indicted by a federal grand jury on these charges on November 10, 2010, along with VIKTOR PLESHCHUK, 29, of St. Petersburg, Russia; OLEG COVELIN,...

SNIPPET: "The guy who uploaded it seems to think that he's a cyber-hacker for Allah, too."

28 June 2010 HAXOR TRAINING TO COMMENCE SHORTLY AT AL-FALOJA? SNIPPET: "Signs point to yes."

SNIPPET: "-- The Voice of Truth claims responsibility for attacking the site on March 17, April 7, April 14, May 17, June 4, and June 7 of this year (the dates are based on this Islamic calendar date converter)." SNIPPET: "So, who could be doing this? Earlier this year, someone identifying himself as @th3j35t3r on Twitter bragged about taking sites promoting terrorism, for short periods of time (30-60 minutes). He says he's hit at least some of the Taliban usual suspect sites - for example: www.alemarah.info - official taliban website (Afghan Resistance) - ooops I did it again, down for...

Oh man this is rich. The same group of people who want to grab control of private civilian networks can't even secure their own network! Can you say poetic justice?

New hires are being given the choice of using Macs or LinuxGoogle is one of the most creative and powerful tech companies in the world, thus its actions are scrutinized at times.  However, it's hard not to see a bit of significance in this one -- Google is reportedly phasing out Windows due to security concerns. News of the plan broke as Google remains reeling from a major intrusion by Chinese hackers which occurred using an unprotected flaw in Internet Explorer 6.  Back in early February, Google announced that it would be dropping dedicated support for Internet Explorer 6, leaving a fifth of...

Hackers planted code into three sites belonging to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.As a consumer and a taxpayer, it's assumed that government websites are the most secure in the nation. After all, if hackers can gain access and plant malware for viewers to download , then the nation really isn't that all secure on the cyber frontier, right? Unfortunately, that's apparently what has happened to three websites belonging to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. How safe and secure do you feel now? Roger Thompson of AVG discovered the infestation on Monday. The urls involved include bep.gov (Bureau of...

NEW DELHI — India has banned telecom equipment from China citing national security reasons, heightening trade tensions between the two Asian economic giants. In a recent order, the government has told mobile operators not to import any network equipment manufactured by Chinese vendors such as Huawei and ZTE. Indian officials say the ban was prompted by concerns that Chinese telecom equipment could have spyware or malicious software - known as "malware" - embedded in it which could give Chinese intelligence agencies access to telecom networks in India. Under strict new conditions, Indian telecom companies will have to get a security...

BEIJING—China-based hackers stole Indian national-security information, 1,500 emails from the Dalai Lama's office and other sensitive documents, a new report said Tuesday. Researchers at the University of Toronto said they were able to observe the hacking and trace it to core servers located in China and to people based in the southwestern city of Chengdu. The researchers said they monitored the hacking for the past eight months. The report said it has no evidence of involvement by the Chinese government, but it again put Beijing on the defensive. Separate reports earlier this year said security investigators had traced attacks on...

Many nations are taking advantage of the Internet to encourage, or even organize, patriotic Internet users to obtain hacking skills. This enables the government to use (often informally) these thousands of hackers to attack enemies (foreign or domestic.) These organizations arrange training and mentoring to improve the skills of group members. Turkey has over 44,000 of these hackers, Saudi Arabia has over 100,000, Iraq has over 40,000, Russia over 100,000 and China, over 400,000. While many of these Cyber Warriors are rank amateurs, even the least skilled can be given simple tasks. And out of their ranks will emerge more...

By some estimates we will need nearly 60,000 newly trained cyber defense warriors (as they are called), just in the next 3 years to help stop the threats to U.S. interests, companies and friends around the globe. That number is staggering when you realize that much of the hacking that exists today is unknown. For example, for every hacker like Francois who clearly wants to be known, there are hundreds who want to do just the opposite....they just want to sneak in, get the info and then sneak out......never detected.