Tag: espionage

Anonymous grows up and matures…Anonanalytics.com

I liked the design, user interfaces and the conceptual ideas behind the latest Anonymous hactivist websites (much better than the shabby graphic design of Wikileaks, or Friends of Wikileaks, though I guess they have been busy what with Julian’s escapades and Syrian emails)

 

I disagree  (and let us agree to disagree some of the time)

with the complete lack of respect for Graphical User Interfaces for tools. If dDOS really took off due to LOIC, why not build a GUI for SQL Injection (or atleats the top 25 vulnerability testing as by this list http://www.sans.org/top25-software-errors/

Shouldnt Tor be embedded within the next generation of Loic.

Automated testing tools are used by companies like Adobe (and others)… so why not create simple GUI for the existing tools.., I may be completely offtrack here.. but I think hacker education has been a critical misstep[ that has undermined Western Democracies preparedness for Cyber tactics by hostile regimes)…. how to create the next generation of hackers by easy tutorials (see codeacademy and build appropriate modules)

-A slick website to be funded by Bitcoins (Money can buy everything including Mastercard and Visa, but Bitcoins are an innovative step towards an internet economy  currency)

-A collobrative wiki

http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page

Seriously dude, why not make this a part of Wikipedia- (i know Jimmy Wales got shifty eyes, but can you trust some1 )

-Analytics for Anonymous (sighs! I should have thought about this earlier)

http://anonanalytics.com/ (can be used to play and bill both sides of corporate espionage and be cyber private investigators)

What We Do

We provide the public with investigative reports exposing corrupt companies. Our team includes analysts, forensic accountants, statisticians, computer experts, and lawyers from various jurisdictions and backgrounds. All information presented in our reports is acquired through legal channels, fact-checked, and vetted thoroughly before release. This is both for the protection of our associates as well as groups/individuals who rely on our work.

_and lastly creative content for Pinterest.com and Public Relations ( what next-? Tom Cruise to play  Julian Assange in the new Movie ?)

http://www.par-anoia.net/ />Potentially Alarming Research: Anonymous Intelligence AgencyInformation is and will be free. Expect it. ~ Anonymous

Links of interest

  • Latest Scientology Mails (Austria)
  • Full FBI call transcript
  • Arrest Tracker
  • HBGary Email Viewer
  • The Pirate Bay Proxy
  • We Are Anonymous – Book
  • To be announced…

 

Why the West needs China to start moving towards cyber conflict

Hypothesis-

Western countries are running out of people to fight their wars. This is even more acute given the traditional and current demographic trends in both armed forces and general populations.

A shift to cyber conflict can help the West maintain parity over Eastern methods of assymetrical warfare (by human attrition /cyber conflict).

Declining resources will lead to converging conflicts of interest and dynamics in balance of power in the 21 st century.

Assumed Facts–

The launch of Sputnik by USSR led to the moon shot rush by the US.1960s

The proposed announcement of StarWars by USA led to unsustainable defence expenditure by USSR.1980s

The threat of cyber conflict and espionage by China (and Russian cyber actions in war with Georgia) has led to increasing budgets for cyber conflict research and defense in USA. -2010s

Assumptions–

If we do not learn from history, we are condemned to repeat it.

Declining Populations in the West and Rising Populations in the East in the 21 st century. The difference in military age personnel would be even more severe, due to more rapid aging in the west.

Economic output will be proportional to number of people employed as economies reach similar stages of maturity (Factor-Manufacturing-Services-Innovation)

Data-

http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/panel_population.htm

http://www.census.gov/population/international/

GDP projections to 2050 graphicView larger picture

GDP projections to 2050:
Summary-
Western defence forces would not be able to afford a human attrition intensive war by 2030 given current demographic trends  (both growth and aging). Existing balance of power could be maintained if resources are either shared or warfare is moved to cyber space. Technological advances can help augment resources reducing case for conflict scenarios.
Will the Internet be used by US against China in the 21 st century as Opium was used by GB in the 19th? Time will tell 🙂

Hacking Hackers

This is a ten step program to fight hacking attacks. You may or may not choose to ignore it, laugh at it, or ponder on it.

1) Internet security is a billion dollar business which will only grow in size as cloud computing approaches. Pioneers in providing security will earn considerable revenue like McAffee  , Norton did in the PC era. Incidentally it also means the consulting/partner group that is willing to work with virtual workers and virtual payments to offshore consultants.

2) Industrial espionage has existed from the days the West stole Gunpowder and Silk formula from China (and China is now doing the same to its software). The company and country will the best hackers will win. Keep your team motivated mate, or it is very easy for them to defect to the other side of the (cyber) wall.

3) When 2 billion people have access to internet the number of hackers will grow in number and quality much more rapidly than when only 100 million people across the world had access. Thanks to Google Translate, Paypal, Skype video Call, Tor Project, and Google Voice i can and have collaborative with hackers almost in all geographies. You can only imagine what the black hats are doing.

4) Analyzing hackers is like reading Chinese Tea Leaves. If you have experienced analysts, you will slip up. recruit the hackers in the dormitory before China recruits them using Lulz Security as a bogus cover. or USA recruits them as cover for spreading democracy in the Arab countries.

5) get your website audited for security breaches. sponsor a hack my website contest. before someone else does it for you.

6) Fighting hackers was always tough. But now we have part time hackers , people with perfectly respectable jobs who look like Mr Andersen and hack like Neo from the Matrix. Every kid once wanted to be a firefighter. Every geek dreams  of the one ultimate hack.

7) if you cant beat hackers, join them.

8) the more machine data is generated, the more you need external experts and newer software interfaces. Investing in open data, datasets is good. Keeping Bradley manning naked in his cell is bad. ignore the bad PR at your own cost.

9) Stop blaming China for every hack attack. You are a techie not a politician

10) Hack hard. Hack well. If someone hacks you, you will need to hack them off offensively unless you just want to be an easy mark for the rest of your lives. Counter -hacking expertise needs to be strengthened and groomed. hacking is an offense not just a defense game.

 

 

The Ethics of a Spy

From http://hypernews.ngdc.noaa.gov
Image via Wikipedia

(dedicated to all the intelligence agencies in the world. All of them except those that kill their own countrymen)

The Ethics of a Spy

is never to question Why

Instead  pause and wait

Act now, before it is too late

We wait and watch

with the worst kind of homo sapiens

hoping our soul is not as corrupted

We are the watchers, the perpetual legal aliens

The ethics of a cop

May be to who dun it or stop

But the ethics of spy

Is to act now before people die

The Flotilla 13, The Alpha Team, The Seals, The Cobras

We are all brothers from the other mothers

We destroy our souls so we can save

Humanity from destroying itself.

Every man we killed

Haunts us in our dreams

Every woman we loved

was the one and truly love it seems

Those who live by the sword

Shall die by the sword too

But if that is any excuse for not doing

Then you must be a bigger foo

The ethics of a spy

is never to ask why

But to find and search

Protect the sheep from stumbling in the lurch

And when it is all over

The lucky ones are already dead

Old spies never die

We just wait for another op till the end.

Related-

  1. An Exotic Tool for Espionage: Moral Compass http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/28/politics/28ethics.html
  2. Ethics of Spying: A Reader for the Intelligence Professional [Paperback]
 
http://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Spying-Reader-Intelligence-Professional/dp/0810856409

Image: Spy vs. Spy is the property of Mad Magazine.

Norway Supreme Court orders SAS to pay damages in data espionage case

Check out the details from

Norway Supreme Court orders SAS to pay damages in data espionage case

SAS said the Supreme Court of Norway ordered it Thursday to pay NOK160 million ($27.4 million) to Norwegian Air Shuttle, likely bringing to a conclusion the corporate espionage case in which SAS Norge was found to have improperly accessed and used data in Norwegian’s reservation system. Earlier this year…

http://atwonline.com/international-aviation-regulation/news/norway-supreme-court-orders-sas-pay-damages-data-espionage-ca

Unbelievable stuff!

Also check out Jim Goodnight‘s remarks

http://www.businessleader.com/raleighdurham/Index.aspx?page=impact&PID=387&impactTitle=Business+Leader+of+the+Year

Midway Airlines

When Goodnight spots a problem, he fixes it, in the most direct way possible. So when he heard that Midway Airlines was in trouble, he didn’t hesitate. Especially when he learned that an investment group was interested in buying the airline and moving the hub to another location. He led the investment group that bailed it out for $22 million.

“I just felt it would be a blow to our area to lose its major airline,” Goodnight says. “I looked back to when American had its hub here and we could get anywhere pretty easily. I really wanted that to continue. So we stepped up to the plate.”

They brought in a new CEO, Robert Ferguson, who was responsible, says Goodnight, for bringing Continental Airlines out of bankruptcy. They then took the airline to Wall Street, where public investors kicked in $75 million, $42 million of it to Midway, through an initial public offering.

As of mid-November, Midway Airlines and its commuter partner will operate 218 daily departures between Raleigh-Durham and 25 destinations in 14 states and the District of Columbia. The fleet includes 15 new CRJ aircraft and eight Fokker F100s, and averages less than three years of age ranking it among the youngest in the industry. In addition, Midway recently announced firm orders for 17 Boeing 737-700 aircraft. The first delivery will take place in December 1999.

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Chinese Fortune Cookies

An out-ward or right-ward shift in supply redu...
Image via Wikipedia

Source-http://www.usnews.com/usnews/images/cartoons/050110_editorial.jpg

In a world of experts-some questions to ask about China’s foreign policy , trade and military convergence

1) How can an increasingly rich 1.2 billion people accept a restricted internet, one child policies, and severe political restrictions/

2) How long can the Chinese respect for elders and ancestors be translated to a respect for the communist government? How do you measure the level of satisfaction?

3) Can ambitious Chinese Mandarins be motivated by career motives to act tougher than the country’s national interest demands?

4) Rare earth demand and supply curves? Clean energy investments versus climate change commitments graph?

5)Military- Metrics like Chinese Air Force flying hours per pilot, or submarine activity per annum?

As the Chinese supposedly said- May you live in interesting times

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Collateral

10 9 09 Bearman Cartoon Obama Nobel Peace Prize
Image by Bearman2007 via Flickr

It has always surprised me- how my American friends who passionately support the First Amendment kind of always oppose the Second Amendment and vice versa. Being a non American- I would always take the Fifth.

An earlier Wikileak video of killing two Reuters Employees-and I am not sure who is right- American govt for restricting access to federal employees or Chinese govt for restricting access to Nobel peace  prize.

or all the Govts of the world for all the cables they write. and all the journalists for all the stories they tell.

Merry Christmas anyways.

from Wikiquotes of another Indian.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi

Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed.

In this instance of the fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the native. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there a slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indian?

  • Comments on a court case in The Indian Opinion (25 March 1905)
  • Had we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British.
    • Speech (16 June 1947) as the official date for Indian independence approached (15 August 1947) , as quoted in Mahatma Gandhi : The Last Phase (1958) by Pyarelal, p. 326. The last sentence of this statement has sometimes been quoted as if it was being made as an affirmation of extreme hostility to the British, rather than as part of an affirmation of the strength of non-violence, and the ultimate weakness of those who needlessly resort to violence if it is within their power.
  • One of the objects of a newspaper is to understand popular feeling and to give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments; and the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects
  • The non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy. That State is the best governed which is governed the least.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0&feature=player_embedded]

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