In Chiba prefecture next to Tokyo
0 Spammers Continue to Exploit the Disaster in Japan
From Symantec Blog:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/spammers-continue-exploit-disaster-japanSymantec has blogged previously about spammers exploiting the recent catastrophic situation in Japan. Since then, Symantec has observed additional variations in spam attacks in which the spammers are continuing to exploit the tragedy, even as the earthquake and tsunami relief efforts are in progress. Similar to what we have seen in the past, virus attacks in the form of messages containing links to images in the message body were observed in the third week of March. Such attacks, along with scam emails, are usually prevalent after such disasters have occurred. The subject line and screenshot of a sample message body of the virus attack can be seen below.
Subject: Novo tsunami atinge Sendai e Japao declara estado de emergencia em usina nuclear
[Subject: New tsunami hits Japan Sendai and declares state of emergency in nuclear plant]
[Subject: New tsunami hits Japan Sendai and declares state of emergency in nuclear plant]
As seen in the screenshot above, what appears to be a video is in fact just a link to an image. Once the link is clicked, the user is asked to download and install an executable file (“XAR485849834.exe” – screenshot below) that is malware related to a Brazilian banking Trojan. The link to the image hxxp://xxx.<removed>trade.com/globo.com.html leads the user to download the malware payload from the attacking machine. After it has been successfully installed, the malware gathers the user’s Internet banking details and other sensitive information.
Similar to the sample above, another variation of the spam attack has a message that lures the user into watching a video of the devastating tsunami in Japan. The From and Subject lines of the spam message are below.
From: "Veja o video gravado no momento do tsunami no japao." <tsunami@terra.com.br>
Subject: Veja o video gravado no momento do tsunami no japao.
Subject: Veja o video gravado no momento do tsunami no japao.
The English translation of the subject line and body of the spam message (in Portuguese) is below.
Subject: Watch the video recorded at the time of the tsunami in Japan.
Camera man was able to shoot everything
View video
View video
What appears to be a video is again just an image that is composed of a link to the attacking machine that downloads the malware. The IP addresses involved in the above spam attacks are traced back to Brazil.
The scammers have also been exploiting the relief efforts by sending 419 scam emails that have been prevalent ever since the natural disaster took place. In another variation of the Nigerian scam that has been observed recently, the fake message urges people to help the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami while the country is battling a nuclear crisis.
The message lists the various organizations working on relief and recovery in the region. However, towards the end the message, the scammer requests a donation in the form of a wire transfer payment through a popular service. The scammer also asks that the sender emails the complete details of the transaction (as mentioned on the receipt) to an email address that quite obviously belongs to the scammers. Scammers favor wire transfer services because payments are irreversible, untraceable, and require minimal identity checks. The IP address 82.128.7.139—which is involved in the scam email—was traced back to Lagos, Nigeria. This IP has been blacklisted because of its past involvement in such scams.
Symantec recommends that our readers reach out to the earthquake and tsunami victims through legitimate and secure channels so that the help that you send reaches the intended recipients. Moreover, be cautious of downloading certain file types, particularly executables (.exe). Any emails containing or leading to this type of application extension should be considered suspicious, particularly if it's coming from an unknown sender.
2 Bin Laden is dead.....Long live Bin Laden.
Who's keeping the terror myth alive?
In the trigger-happy post-9/11 world, the favoured way to instigate a war is to demand that the designated "evildoer" prove a negative.
Iraq was invaded because it couldn't prove that it didn't have WMDs. Iran is under constant threat of attack unless it can demonstrate that it's not seeking nuclear weapons. And now Pakistan is being chastised for allegedly harbouring Osama bin Laden—who in all probability has been dead and buried for eight years.
But with the hunt for the elusive bin Laden having already cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, perhaps Americans should demand conclusive proof that Israel hasn’t conned them into fighting a phoney “war on terror.”
0 CIA Veteran says Bin Laden is a diversion and not capable of 9/11 attacks
Former CIA official Milt Bearden talks about Bin Ladens non-existent involvement in 911 and how the CIA trained Usama Bin Laden.
I would like to add that everything stated in this video by
Mr Bearden is now admitted by the white house and here are some quotes to confirm that claim;
Mr Bearden is now admitted by the white house and here are some quotes to confirm that claim;
"We've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming." —Dick Cheney, "Interview of the Vice President by Tony Snow", March 29, 2006 www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060329-2.html
"9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11." —FBI agent Rex Tomb, June 6, 2006
And to read what Bin Laden himself said concerning 911 one week after 911 go to CNN's official site
And remember that everything he states here is totally contrary to what is said in the videos that have been proven to be fake of Bin Laden confessing to 911.
0 6 year old girl groped then drug tested by TSA...for your "Protection"
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
April 13, 2011
Prisonplanet.com
April 13, 2011
The parents of a six year old girl who was subjected to an enhanced pat-down at the hands of the TSA appeared confused and disturbed in an interview on ABC News’ Good Morning America today as they called for a change in security procedures.
Selena and Dr. Todd Drexel, of Bowling Green, Ky., were thrust into the spotlight this week after a video of their daughter, Anna, being searched at New Orleans Armstrong International Airport went viral on the internet.
The couple said they allowed the video to be uploaded to Youtube in order to gauge other opinions on the incident which they feel was very wrong.
The video (below) shows the child in some distress as she is intimately probed by a stranger while her parents look on powerless.
LIttle Anna’s reaction to the incident speaks volumes. She was upset and distressed because she thought she had done something wrong and was being punished by the so called authorities. The untainted innocence of the child’s view of the incident tells you that there is something very very wrong with the way millions of Americans are allowing their government to act in the name of security.
To pick out a six year old child a a possible security threat and frisk her for dangerous weapons in an American airport is utterly insane, however it is far from an isolated incident, as we have previously documented.
If anyone else abducted someone’s child and then sexually molested them they would be rightly called a pedophile and locked up for a long time, but when the government does it not only is it deemed acceptable, but it also trains a whole generation of children that being kidnapped by an adult and having their genitals groped is normal.
Parents Say TSA Made It Clear “There Would Be Trouble” If They Refused To Allow 6-Year Old Daughter To Be Groped
0 Racist? Angry? The answer may be in a pill
A pill to enhance moral behaviour; a treatment for racist thoughts; a therapy to increase your empathy for people in other countries?
These may sound like the stuff of science fiction but, with medicine moving closer to altering our moral state, society should be preparing for the consequences, according to a book reviewing scientific developments in the field.
Drugs such as Prozac, which alters a patient's mental state, already have an impact on moral behaviour but scientists predict that future medical advances may allow much more sophisticated manipulations.
The field is in its infancy but "it's very far from being science fiction", says the deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and a Wellcome Trust biomedical ethics award winner, Dr Guy Kahane.
"Science has ignored the question of moral improvement so far but it is now becoming a big debate," he says. "There is already a growing body of research you can describe in these terms. Studies show that certain drugs affect the ways people respond to moral dilemmas by increasing their sense of empathy, group affiliation and by reducing aggression."
Researchers have become interested in developing biomedical technologies capable of intervening in the biological processes that affect moral behaviour and moral thinking, says a Wellcome Trust research fellow at Oxford University's Uehiro Centre, Dr Tom Douglas. He is a co-author of Enhancing Human Capacities, published this week.
"Drugs that affect our moral thinking and behaviour already exist but we tend not to think of them in that way," he says. "[Prozac] lowers aggression and bitterness against environment and so could be said to make people more agreeable. Or oxytocin, the so-called love hormone ... increases feelings of social bonding and empathy while reducing anxiety. Scientists will develop more of these drugs and create new ways of taking drugs we already know about."
But would pharmacologically induced altruism, for example, amount to genuine moral behaviour? "We can change people's emotional responses but quite whether that improves their moral behaviour is not something science can answer," Kahane says.
He also admits it is unlikely that people would rush to take a pill that would improve their morals.
"Becoming more trusting, nicer, less aggressive and less violent can make you more vulnerable to exploitation," he says. "On the other hand, it could improve your relationships or help your career."
Kahane does not advocate putting morality drugs in the water supply but does suggest that if administered widely, they might help humanity tackle global issues.
"Relating to the plight of people on the other side of the world or of future generations is not in our nature," he says. "This new body of drugs could make possible feelings of global affiliation and of abstract empathy for future generations."
The chairman in ethics in medicine and director of the centre for ethics in medicine at the University of Bristol, Professor Ruud ter Meulen, warns that while some drugs can improve moral behaviour, others - and sometimes the same ones - can have the opposite effect.
"While oxytocin makes you more likely to trust and co-operate with others in your social group, it reduces empathy for those outside the group," he says.
He says deep brain stimulation, used for Parkinson's disease, has had unintended consequences, leading to cases in which patients begin to steal or become sexually aggressive.
Meulen suggests moral-enhancement drugs might be used in the criminal justice system. "These drugs will be more effective in prevention and cure than prison," he says.
0 Report: FBI device didn't record bomb plot
Prosecutors in the Portland tree lighting bomb plot say the FBI attempt to record the suspect's first words about a plot failed because the recorder died, according to a report in The Oregonian.
The newspaper reports that prosecutors wrote in court documents filed Thursday that other agents still overheard the July 30 conversation between bombing suspect Mohamed Mohamud and an undercover agent.
Mohamud is charged with plotting to detonate a van filled with what he thought were explosives via a remote cell phone trigger during Portland's Christmas Tree Lighting event in Pioneer Courthouse Square. About 10,000 people were gathered in the square that night. FBI agents arrested Mohamud immediately after they say he attempted to detonate the device. However, Mohamud's lawyers appear to be building a case that the Somali was illegally entrapped.
Mohamud is charged with attempting to ignite a weapon of mass destruction.
Link to original story
http://projectmindwake.blogspot.com/2010/11/oregon-fbi-supply-weapon-of-mass.html
http://projectmindwake.blogspot.com/2010/11/oregon-fbi-supply-weapon-of-mass.html
0 UK Home secretary wants plan to collect details of flights in and out of Europe to be expanded to include all flights within EU
Britain is trying to set up an EU-wide network of travel databases to record the movements and personal details of millions of air passengers within Europe
The home secretary, Theresa May, is hoping that, when they meet on Monday, European justice and home affairs ministers will back a massive expansion of EU proposals, which as they stand would apply only to flights in and out of Europe and see travellers' details anonymised after 30 days.
 |
| Theresa May, the home secretary, is meeting European justice and home affairs ministers on Monday to discuss proposals for collecting passenger records. |
May, who was elected on a pledge to scale back the "database state", has been lobbying hard for the data – known as passenger name records (PNR) – to also be collected for flights within Europe, tripling the number of journeys tracked. She wants the data to be stored for up to six years.
The home secretary has already won the backing of 17 other EU member states for the move but is heading for a civil liberties clash with the European parliament and the German government.
She has argued that the expansion is needed to combat terrorism but critics say it will involve the storage of a huge amount of personal data, leaving room for random profiling.
PNR data is already collected for flights between Europe and America, with the airlines required to pass on passenger booking details to authorities.
The 19 separate items of personal information involved include home address, passport number, credit card details, mobile phone number and the traveller's itinerary.
0 Does Government Own Your Remotely Backed Up Computer Files, Your Emails, or Your Cell Phone GPS Info?
Did you know that there are no laws to prevent government agencies from raiding your computer's remotely hosted back up files, your third party emails, your cloud computing files, or your cell phone GPS location records? Well, there aren't.
As the law stands today government can go into your private computer files or trace your cell phone location without a warrant. As a result of this lapse in protection form unlawful search and seizure a new group of concerned parties intends to change the law with the Digital Fourth Amendment campaign. (http://www.digitalfourthamendment.org/)
The problem is not necessarily that government is out to steal all our computing information, but that the laws have simply not caught up to today's technology. The laws that cover how policing agencies and governments can access your emails, computer files, and cell phone GPS records are currently governed by rules that are decades out of date. These rules were written in the 1980s, long before the Internet came along, before cloud computing was invented, before email, and well before cell phones that could track your whereabouts became pervasive.
You see, today all your personal information that is stored in third party storage space is not considered to be the kind of personal property that would require a court-issued warrant for government to access. If you have email stored at Google, if you use a cloud computing service, or if you have a third party data back up service it is all open for government to view without a warrant because it is in the actual possession of a third party. Currently none of these computer records are considered your private records.
This also holds true for cell phone GPS location records. As the law stands today government can access your cell phone location records and find out where you've been and all without a by your leave from the courts.
The Digital Fourth Amendment campaign aims to change that and bring the laws against unlawful search and seizure into the digital world of the 21st century.
You see, today all your personal information that is stored in third party storage space is not considered to be the kind of personal property that would require a court-issued warrant for government to access. If you have email stored at Google, if you use a cloud computing service, or if you have a third party data back up service it is all open for government to view without a warrant because it is in the actual possession of a third party. Currently none of these computer records are considered your private records.
This also holds true for cell phone GPS location records. As the law stands today government can access your cell phone location records and find out where you've been and all without a by your leave from the courts.
The Digital Fourth Amendment campaign aims to change that and bring the laws against unlawful search and seizure into the digital world of the 21st century.
Read more: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/publius-forum/2011/04/does-government-own-your-remotely-backed-up-computer-files-your-emails-or-your-cell-phone-gps-info.html#ixzz1JCcnjzEN
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