The hackers have already rushed to exploit a huge vulnerability in Oracle’s Java software. Indeed, over the long weekend a number of security groups, including Rapid7, AlienVault and other cyber security companies, announced that the vulnerability in question is so bad that the security experts are currently urging everyone to disable Java on their personal computers until it is fixed in case they don’t want to suffer from the unauthorized intrusion into the system.
For example, Jaime Blasco, a research manager from AlienVault Labs, announced that his security team had identified the code which attacked the computers by exploiting a recently discovered vulnerability in the latest version of Oracle’s Java. The hackers can then use an instrument known as “Poison Ivy”, which allows the intruders to gain control of the infected machine.
As you can see, the risk is too high to let it go unnoticed, and at the moment the security experts point out that the only solution to the problem is to immediately disable Java software on your machine. This is no mean feat, Oracle’s Java is running on 97% of enterprise computers.
The experts explain that the best attack vector is to lure an Internet user to a site that has already been compromised by the hackers. That’s why it is much safer to allow use of Java browser plug-ins only on a case-by-case basis. This is done by manually allowing to use a plug-in when prompted for permission by trusted programs.
While Oracle isn’t commenting the situation at the moment, a number of security firms, including Rapid7, have set up web pages designed to warn users whether their browser has a Java plug-in installed which is vulnerable to hacker attack.
The authorities claimed the individual is responsible for bringing down Sony and arrested a person who is alleged of being a member of the hacking collective LulzSec. The FBI caught him on charges he participated in an extensive computer breach of the Sony studios.
Raynaldo Rivera, 20, from Tempe, Arizona, surrendered to the authorities of the United States. A federal grand jury ruled that there was enough evidence to charge the individual with conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected personal computer. The mass media confirm that he could get 15 years jail time if he is convicted.
The prosecutors claimed that Raynaldo Rivera and his LulzSec fellows had stolen data from Sony Corp’s Sony Pictures’ computer systems in May and June last year through an “SQL injection” method of attack.
Raynaldo Rivera then reportedly helped to publish the confidential data onto the website of the hacking collective and also announced the intrusion on Twitter. The evidence of the authorities was based on a super-grass confession from Hector Monsegur and assistance from Cody Kretsinger, 24. The latter is a confessed LulzSec member who pleaded guilty four months ago to federal charges stemming from his role in the Sony attack.
The hackers have published such personal details as names, addresses, emails, phone numbers and passwords of several thousands of users who had entered contests promoted by the international giant. The company then said that the breach cost it over $600,000.
One of the hacking collectives, connected to the well-known group Anonymous, has recently dumped details about the banks and accounts of politicians on the Internet as part of the protest against hackers’ arrests.
The hacking collective named TeamGhostShell announced that the group has managed to get all the details of the banks and politicians in a few fairly major hacks. The hacktivists also said that the move in question was part of the protest against banks and politicians and aimed at avenging other hackers who have been captured by law enforcement agencies lately.
DeadMellox, the leader of TeamGhostShell, was first to report the intrusion through his or her tweet. It revealed some details of the hack, clarifying that the information leaked included account details of banks and politicians. They were found as part of a program titled ProjectHellFire. In the meantime, the hackers promised to reveal more details later.
The leader of the hacktivists wrote that it wasn’t the last hack and more releases would be carried out as part of collaborations with Anonymous and other hacking groups. In addition, the hackers confirmed that a couple more projects are still scheduled for later in 2012.
Besides, cyber intruders have claimed that they have 3 different access points to millions if not billions of databases from a Chinese mainframe. This fact alone should worry the government at the very least. In addition, the hackers claimed to have turned over both the American stock exchange mainframes and Department of Homeland Security. The leaked files can be found on the Internet.
India is for some reason worried that Twitter has become a threat to the country’s security and has warned the microblog of “appropriate and suitable action”.The country has told Twitter that it has to shut down twenty accounts believed to be spreading scare-mongering stories. However, Twitter hasn’t replied to the threat yet.
It seems that India has been getting all censorship mad lately. For example, the authorities have blocked 200 pages that are claimed to have incited communal violence in the northeast. There even had been fighting between Muslim settlers and local tribal groups in the state of Assam.
The country’s authorities claim that the websites, as well as mass SMS messages, had frightened people from the northeast who were working in southern cities. Although social networks like Facebook, Google and Twitter were praised for helping the Arab Spring by aiding the free flow of information, it looks like the more established democracies have also begun regarding the web pages as a threat.
At the moment, Google and Facebook are trying to comply with the country’s government requests to remove the material. However, Twitter hasn’t given its reply to India’s requests yet. The problem is that India isn’t just stopping with the certain Twitter accounts – instead, it’s trying to close the Twitter accounts of journalists who have criticized the local authorities, which is not that democratic. In addition, India has thumped Al Jazeera news, along with the Daily Telegraph and the Aussie Broadcasting Corporation – the government believes that they are stirring up trouble.
The actions of the Indian government appear to be a knee jerk reaction against whatever might “inflame passions”. However, in fact it’s very often only bad press about botched government handling of a certain crisis. According to the experts’ reports, censorship in India is becoming more and more common.
In the meantime, the government of the United States is also starting to get involved. Since the country’s relationship with Pakistan was revealed to be a sham, the Unites States appears to have been trying to cultivate India. And now the country finds out that it has to leap to the defense of such American giants as Google and Twitter.
Swedish commuters continue using their smartphones and social media in order to avoid paying public transport fares. This is done in protest at ticket prices and the costs of “extortionate” fines.
Commuters in Gothenburg are helping each other to avoid ticket inspectors on the tram network: they set up a Facebook group to out the locations of the ticket inspectors, where more than 18,000 members signed up to post sightings of ticket inspectors in real time, in order to inform the others of their presence.
Every day the commuters with smartphones post numerous messages to detail where a group of inspectors have entered a tram, and in which direction they are going, thus warning other passengers of routes to avoid. The matter is that there is a strong sentiment among many citizens that both fares and resultant fines are way too high. In addition, a recent video of one female tram passenger being physically restrained by ticket inspectors also led to widespread condemnation of the tactics used by the authorities to enforce fines.
One of the Gothenburg residents explained that the reason for the members of the public to go to such lengths is to protest fare prices. The locals complain that the prices for tram tickets are ridiculously high, adding that taxes are supposed to be used to subsidize lower prices. In the meantime, residents argue that the move in question is a legitimate protest, regardless of using modern technology. The idea is that when ticket inspectors can be avoided through social media, they will have to find some other way to make people pay, such as lower the fares and cut the staff.
Citizens who have strong views on the cost of public transport – for instance, that taxes are to be used to make sure residents pay a proportion of their income rather than a flat price – tend to join up to Planka, a Swedish outfit that supports free transport. This organization has numerous offices across the country and runs a “free riding” insurance scheme. Its idea is the following: people who sign up pay a fee to the outfit - around $15 a month – and when they get caught by ticket inspectors Planka pays the fine on behalf of the commuter.
The organization has its own Twitter feed and other social media to inform commuters of the whereabouts of ticket inspectors. At the moment, ticket inspectors started to respond to the tactics, but apparently they will have their work cut out.
A Metropolitan police officer was snapped by the reporters when holding the clipboard saying Assange’s name.
The clipboard held by a uniformed officer last week outside the Ecuadorian embassy featured a sheet of paper titled “Restricted” and saying “EQ Embassy brief – Summary of current position re. Assange. Action required – Assange to be arrested under all circumstances”.Further, the paper detailed all ways that Julian Assange could exit the building of the embassy, including in a diplomatic bag or car. The document also warned of the possibilities of “distraction” – for instance, the supporters of Assange could arrange a riot outside the embassy.In response, representatives of the Metropolitan Police claimed in the interview that the document in question wasn’t related to the Julian Assange case, although everyone would be surprised if there were any other fugitives from justice hiding in the embassy named Assange.In August, Ecuador has officially offered Julian Assange asylum in the country, but the United Kingdom said they wouldn’t let Assange out of the embassy. According to the Foreign Office, the country has to hand Assange over to Sweden after every court in the land rejected his legal efforts to avoid extradition.The dispute arose when the British Foreign Office wrote an official letter to Ecuadorian officials saying that under a little known legislation they could temporarily suspend the embassy's diplomatic protection in order to allow authorities to enter and arrest WikiLeaks founder. Ecuador's resident has dismissed any steps in that direction as “suicidal”.In the meantime, Assange’s lawyer Baltasar Garzon explained that Julian was willing to answer Swedish prosecutors’ questions, but only if he was provided some guarantees. According to Assange’s supporters, a secret American grand jury has been empanelled to consider charges against the WikiLeaks founder. However, it is unclear why the United States didn’t ask the United Kingdom to hand him over.Julian Assange claims that the allegations against him in Sweden are politically motivated. He also believes that Sweden will transfer him to the US, where he could face the death penalty for running WikiLeaks.In the meantime, Sweden is getting more hacked off with WikiLeaks founder and the local press is starting to wonder why the rest of the world continues ignoring Swedish victims in favor of his tin foil hat defenses.
Recently Norway’s only law company that had a license to monitor file-sharing networks had lost their right to do so. This means that the file-sharers are now able to freely download whatever they want without running a risk to be caught.
Five years ago Simonsen law firm obtained a license from the local information protection office to track file-sharers and keep a database of their IP addresses. Three years ago their license expired and there was a heated debate on what licenses can and cannot do.
Today Simonsen faces yet another problem: the law firm, part of which is Espen Tøndel (a well-known pirate-chaser), had lost their license once again this past March, but this time it seems to be permanent, with the Privacy Appeals Board rejecting their appeal against Data Inspectorate. The latter made a decision not to license Simonsen anymore.
Cecilie Rønnevik, the senior advisor to the country’s Data Inspectorate, confirmed that “as of today, no monitoring of file-sharers is allowed in the country”.
In the meantime, Simonsen, which also represents the Motion Picture Association of America, claims that if nobody is authorized to process personal information in order to stop copyright violation, it definitely weakens the licensees’ ability to pursue infringements that take place on the Internet, and their ability to protect their interests as well. The law firm hopes and believes that the problem in question will soon be solved, but an alternative solution is to create an anti-piracy outfit to represent copyright owners.
Cecilie Rønnevik admitted they had been asked if they could accept an organization on the licensee side, and they promised to consider the idea of getting an application for a license. However, no application has been filed thus far, which should make Norwegian file-sharers really happy.
As you know, there’s been lots of controversy on the question of file-sharing and how this activity affected the entertainment industry. There were a lot of studies, some of which claimed that the file-sharing is actually helping with sales, while others claimed the exact opposite. Recently, another study was conducted on how file-sharing affected CD sales in Canada by Birgitte Andersen, a Danish academic working in the UK.
However, the first survey on this issue was taken in 2006 by an economics professor Liebowitz at the University of Texas. His study was highly regarded, and after a look into file-sharing, he came to a conclusion that it had seriously harmed the recording industry. A year before, Professor also criticized the idea that unauthorized file-sharing helped copyright holders.
Still, not everybody agreed with his opinion, including Birgitte Andersen. Her study was first published by Industry Canada’s official website four years, titled “The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music”. It has confirmed that a P2P file-sharing actually tends to increase rather than decrease music purchasing.
After Andersen’s study was published, Michael Geist labeled it as a “must read” and concluded that the music industry had benefited from peer-to-peer, so there was no emergency that necessitates legislative intervention to reform the Copyright Act. Geist continued to defend and praise Birgitte Andersen, particularly after her paper was scrutinized by Liebowitz who claimed that her report was a result not just implausible but even impossible to be true.
Then, in March 2010, Andersen withdrew her initial claim by publishing a revised report in collaboration with her co-author Marion Frenz. They concluded that there was no association between the number of P2P files downloaded and CD album sales, so peer-to-peer file-sharing can’t be blamed for the decline in CD markets.
Finally, last week, professor George Barker at the Australia’s National University published a study based on Birgitte Andersen’s two surveys, where he said that her findings were “fundamentally flawed”. The most interesting fact is that Industry Canada is still keeping Andersen’s original study on their official website, even though it was abandoned by the author and also proved to be wrong by both Liebowitz and Barker.
Surprisingly for everyone, American authorities decided to extend their efforts from torrent trackers and streaming services to the websites that offer pirated Android apps.
In cooperation with French and Dutch police, the FBI decided to seize domain names of the portals that offer pirated mobile apps. Thus far, it remains unknown whether their admins were arrested or not.
The Department of Justice of the United States has made a statement a couple days ago, saying that they have seized 3 domains associated with offering illegal Android apps. The joint forces of three countries took offline applanet.net, appbucket.net and snappzmarket.com, whose users were very surprised to see the “FBI seizure” banner greeting on the main page.
Although it is only the first time such operations took place, it could just be the beginning. According to Special Agent Brian Lamkin, who led the operation in question, this kind of piracy is a kind problem which won’t be set aside. He explains that the virtual thefts cost businesses millions of dollars and are even able to inhibit the development and implementation of new ideas and apps. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, in cooperation with different corporate and government partners, isn’t just committed to fighting such thefts, but is also well poised to coordinate with the many jurisdictions that are impacted by such activities.
In the meantime, Assistant Attorney General Breuer claimed that cracking down on piracy of the copyrighted works, including popular applications, is considered a top priority of the Criminal Division. Since software applications have become an increasingly important part of our nation’s economy and creative culture, the Criminal Division is now committed to cooperating with their law enforcement partners in the effort to protect the creators of the applications and other forms of intellectual property from Internet users who want to steal it.
As you might remember, “Operation in Our Sites”, launched two years ago, resulted in the seizure of hundreds of domain names by American authorities, but these operations were only focused on the services that offered counterfeit goods or facilitated copyright violation. So, it is yet unclear whether this kind of domain seizures will become a norm or not.
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