Free Republic

For the second day in a row, I have gotten a strange security warning when trying to enter the National Review website. It warns me of spyware, gives me a phone number to call, and even has a voice message. I have not found a way to escape that message short of shutting down my computer. It seems to be a fake security warning. Has anyone else encountered this problem? If so, do you know what is going on and what to do about it? Thanks.

The body of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was not buried at sea, according to leaked emails of intelligence firm Stratfor, as revealed by WikiLeaks. Stratfor’s vice-president for intelligence, Fred Burton, believes the body was “bound for Dover, [Delaware] on [a] CIA plane” and then “onward to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda [Maryland],” an email says. The official version is that the body of Al-Qaeda’s top man, who was killed by a US raid in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, was buried at an undisclosed location at sea in a proper Muslim ceremony. "If body dumped at...

The Office of the Inspector General of the State Department found in its latest investigation that Clinton aides had “created an appearance of undue influence and favoritism” in a number of cases including that of Ambassador Howard Gutman. The investigation is largely a whitewash. There is no mention of the fact that one whistleblower related to the case, Richard Higbie, had his emails deleted by a hacker. Or that the main whistleblower, Aurelia Fedenisn, was harassed at home and had her law firm burgled.It goes almost without saying that Richard Nixon went down for much less than that.There is also...

I need some advice from Freeperland folks who are savvy with computer issues. Last evening, I received a call from a "Windows Security Center". They knew my name and obviously my phone number. Gave me a spiel that Windows software security had been compromised/corrupted and according to their records, knew I had Windows 7. To prove they were legit, they had me start my computer and prompted me through a series of commands to bring up my specific Windows license number. She read it off and that license numbers was listed on my machine. She prompted me to run a...

The Operation Arid Viper campaign has successfully stolen more than 1 million files with current malware campaigns underway, though it's not the usual suspects, according to Kaspersky Lab and Trend Micro. The Arab-speaking group, with ties to Gaza, have targeted foreign government offices, critical infrastructure, military, universities, and other high-profile targets. The attacks likely occurred starting in mid-2013 and a full investigation into their actions is underway.   "Whoever the real culprits are, it is clear that they are part of the Arab world, evidence of a budding generation of Arab hackers and malware creators intent on taking down their...

When hackers steal money from banks, they usually go for Bonnie and Clyde attacks, taking whatever they can take in a single grab, one Kaspersky executive told The New York Times, as the security research discovered a different type of bank cyber heist, one likened to Ocean’s Eleven in terms of planning, but also when it comes to the significant amount of stolen cash. Following a well planned operation, that involved months of spying through the use of sophisticated software, unknown hackers originating from Russia, China and Europe managed to steal at least $300 million from a large number of...

In a report to be published on Monday, and provided in advance to The New York Times, Kaspersky Lab says that the scope of this attack on more than 100 banks and other financial institutions in 30 nations could make it one of the largest bank thefts ever — and one conducted without the usual signs of robbery. The Moscow-based firm says that because of nondisclosure agreements with the banks that were hit, it cannot name them. Officials at the White House and the F.B.I. have been briefed on the findings, but say that it will take time to confirm...

Many of the allegations made by former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson regarding alleged computer intrusions by the U.S. government are disputed in a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general. “The OIG’s investigation was not able to substantiate the allegations that Attkisson’s computers were subject to remote intrusion by the FBI, other government personnel, or otherwise,” reads the inspector general’s report. In her book “Stonewalled,” Attkisson had issued a wide-ranging set of claims — that her CBS News work computers and her personal computer had been hacked, that a strange wire was found hanging from the cable TV/broadband box

The academically free have different ideas of what free speech means than the rest of us do. At the Modern Language Association’s 2015 convention in Vancouver, Canada, Rosaura Sanchez, a former protester-and-activist-turned-Latin American and Chicano literature-professor at UC-San Diego, claimed that professors do face “consequences to speaking out on campus” She went on to allege that she has been “surveilled and recorded” while at protests by campus administrators. Most people do not use freedom of expression in order to keep the expressed thought a big secret. Sanchez asserted that on her campus “dissenters names are placed in a black book,”...

The investigative arm of the Department of Justice is attempting to short-circuit the legal checks of the Fourth Amendment by requesting a change in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. These procedural rules dictate how law enforcement agencies must conduct criminal prosecutions, from investigation to trial. Any deviations from the rules can have serious consequences, including dismissal of a case. The specific rule the FBI is targeting outlines the terms for obtaining a search warrant. It's called Federal Rule 41(b), and the requested change would allow law enforcement to obtain a warrant to search electronic data without providing any specific...

Subheadline: Chinese hackers pillaged U.S. defense, contractor networks for critical data China obtained more than 50 terabytes of data from U.S. defense and government networks, notably the Joint Strike Fighter’s stealth radar and engine secrets, through cyber espionage, according to newly disclosed National Security Agency documents. A NSA briefing slide labeled “Top Secret” and headlined “Chinese Exfiltrate Sensitive Military Data,” states that the Chinese have stolen a massive amount of data from U.S. government and private contractors. The document was made public by the German magazine Der Spiegel in a two articles detailing how NSA in the mid-2000s was capable...

The proposed changes to the CFAA and related laws, posted online by the White House early last week, would broaden the definition of computer crime and stiffen penalties for existing crimes, including doubling the maximum penalty for many violations from 10 years to 20 years. "Hanging out in an IRC chat room giving advice to people now makes you a member of a ‘criminal enterprise,’ allowing the FBI to sweep in and confiscate all your assets without charging you with a crime.”

Sharyl Attkisson was one of the most distinguished investigative journalists in television news, covering everything from the dangers of certain prescription drugs to mismanagement at the Red Cross to TARP to K Street. Over a career that spanned more than 20 years at CBS News, she received numerous awards for her work, including multiple Emmys. In her memoir Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, Attkisson looks back on the final years of her network career. One concludes from her book that Attkisson encountered more difficulty practicing her profession at...

Last month, Senator Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the executive summary of their final report investigating the CIA's controversial detention and interrogation program. As part of their study, the Democrats compiled twenty case studies, which were intended to address claims made by the CIA regarding the efficacy of its interrogations. One of those case studies focused on the identification and arrest of Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri, who was freed from a US prison just days ago. Al Marri served as a "sleeper" operative for al Qaeda inside the US in 2001....

It was a mere two months ago that Israeli cyber-security researchers hacked into a device that plugs into the diagnostic port of a car and determined they could remotely control the vehicle from anywhere in the world. At the time, the simulated attack seemed like the automotive version of a canary in a coal mine. If researchers could breach this one device, perhaps other aftermarket products that plug into diagnostic ports were also vulnerable? In short order, another cyber-security firm now reports finding serious flaws in a device used by more than 2 million motorists. Researchers at Florida-based Digital Bond...

Officials may have tracked down the leader of the group responsible for the not particularly harmful (but quite embarrassing) United States Central Command social media hack Monday, and the culprit may be none other than a 20-year-old Brit named Junaid Hussain. The avowed ISIS supporter who also goes by the moniker "TriCk" is believed to be behind the so-called Cyber Caliphate, which undertook the extremely strenuous task of guessing passwords to accounts CENTCOM wasn't smart enough to protect with two-step verification.The millennial has already served a stint in prison for leaking former British PM Tony Blair's personal information and photos....

DOVER, TN (WSMV) - The FBI is investigating a possible hacking by ISIS in Dover, TN. According to a report in the Stewart Houston Times, hackers posted some county documents on Twitter earlier this month. *snip* The report also said the hack may be related to the state and federal hacks pulled off by ISIS.

The troubling implications of the Central Command social media hacking In a coincidence many Americans may see as emblematic of the administration’s approach to global terror, President Obama was addressing the nation regarding cyber security Monday while hackers claiming to represent ISIS assumed control over the media accounts of the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM). “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. The hacking of the Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts began Monday afternoon and lasted approximately 30 minutes...

Call me a skeptic, but when I heard a report that the hack into "gov" web pages had come out of Maryland . . next to DC . . . next to the home of the CIA . . . well, that is just a little interesting. Especially if the administration uses this as a ruse to begin controlling security on the internet. As Glen Beck would say, "I'm just sayin."

A group calling itself the CyberCaliphate claimed responsibility for the hack. A Twitter account from a group identifying itself as Anonymous said Monday it had tracked the source of the hack to Maryland, but that was not confirmed by official sources.