Public Intelligence Blog

Berto Jongman

Cyber Space and the State (Adelphi Papers Special Issue)

Cyber War Will Not Take Place (Journal of Strategic Studies)

DefDog

Example of the state of USGOV systems….

Anonymous gain access to FBI and Scotland Yard hacking call

BBC news, 3 February 2012

Hacking network Anonymous has released a recording of a conference call between the FBI and UK police in which they discuss efforts against hacking.

The call, said to have taken place last month, covers the tracking of Anonymous and similar groups, dates of planned arrests and evidence details.

Anonymous also published an email, apparently from the FBI, showing the email addresses of call participants.

The FBI confirmed the intercept and said it was hunting those responsible.

The loose collective Anonymous have targeted a number of big institutions in recent years

“The information was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained. A criminal investigation is under way to identify and hold accountable those responsible,” it said in a statement.

London’s Metropolitan Police’s central e-crime unit said the matter was being investigated but that no operational risks had been identified.

A comment on one of the Twitter accounts linked to Anonymous, AnonymousIRC, said: “The FBI might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now.”

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  This is too funny for words.  Hackers and Phi Beta Iota have been very clear for over 20 years that most law enforcement systems are easy to hack into, especially now that they are all digital and controlled by a server where no one has had the brains to change the factory installed root password.  What is really happening now is that government incomtence in security is being “outed.”  CIA has worked overseas for decades, pretending to be clandestine when in fact all case officers have been known to local liaison.  Similarly, government “security” is an oxymoron.  On the one hand, it does not exist, and on the other we are spending tens of billions on the well-intentioned but ignorant threatics of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) and the world’s most expensive coffee klatch, the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC).  This is what you end up with when a government of arrogant “experts” and even more arrogant politicians refuse to listen to both insider iconoclasts and outsider “loyal opposition” minds that actually know what they are talking about and see these things 20 years before the “leaders” at the top, who are really nothing more than clerks fighting for budget share, without a strategic bone in their bodies.

1994 Sounding the Alarm on Cyber-Security

See Also:

Read the rest of this entry »

DefDog

No. It’s THE code breaker. No more secrets… Sneakers

Victims in hacking of security analyst Stratfor targeted after speaking to news media, online

Associated Press, 27 December 2011

EXTRACT:

The loose-knit hacking movement “Anonymous” claimed Sunday through Twitter that it had stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to the company’s clients. Anonymous members posted links to some of the information Sunday and more on Monday.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  We sounded the alarm in 1994 and were ignored.  We sounded it again in 2010 and were ignored.  STRATFOR is the lowest common denominator in an abysmally irresponsible government-private sector ecology of ignorance mixed with complacency.

DefDog

Some background on this old report…..this conference has been going on for some time, fluctuates between Garmisch and Moscow…The US has offered to host it but has been consistently turned down. China showed up two years ago and the next conference (2012) is scheduled to be in Beijing…..if the US cannot, with is efforts in technological development, host a cyber conference it is indicative of what the rest of the world thinks of us….

Russia’s Cyber Security Plans

As Washington airs plans for a new “cyber command,” a top Russian official discusses the threat of cyberweapons.

Phi Beta Iota:  The lack of intelligence and integrity in the US Government is chillingly deep, especially within the US secret intelligence, and nowhere more irresponsible than within the National Security Agency/US Cyber-Command – both oxymorons.  The Chinese are all over NSA and Cyber is not a Command.

See Also:

Read the rest of this entry »

check out the interview

One on One: Cole Stryker, Author of ‘Epic Win for Anonymous’

By JENNA WORTHAM

Cole Stryker, a freelance writer and media consultant living in New York, spent years digging into Internet culture and communities, both as a participant and as a blogger covering viral phenomena. He’s the author of a new book called “Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan’s Army Conquered the Web.” He discussed with me what it’s like exploring the seedy underbelly of the Internet, the rise of Anonymous, and why it and 4chan, widely considered one of the darkest and most subversive corners of the Internet, may be one of the most important and influential creations to emerge from the modern Web.

Also see:
Autonomous Internet: 4chan and anonymnity

AnonOps

Marcus Aurelius

(1) Wish the Israelis every success, but their chances are likely decreased thanks to leaks;

(2) Wonder if GEN Alexander of USCYBERCOM will seek to re-negotiate his deal IOT report directly to POTUS?

Israeli Military Reportedly Plotting to Cripple Iran in Cyberspace

Published August 07, 2011

EXTRACT:

“Israel has two principal targets in Iran’s cyberspace,” said a defense source with close knowledge of the cyber war preparations. “The first is its military nuclear program and its military establishment. The second is Iran’s civil infrastructure. Attacking both, we hope, will cripple the entire country’s cyberspace.”

DefDog Recommends....

Wardriving Evolves Into Warflying

Researchers release specs for a DIY radio-controlled plane that hacks systems by air

By Ericka Chickowski, Contributing Editor

Dark Reading, 4 August 2011

BLACK HAT USA 2011 — Las Vegas — Yesterday at Black Hat, two security researchers demonstrated how a radio-controlled model airplane outfitted with a computer and 4G connectivity could be used to create a nearly undetectable aerial hacking device that could perpetrate aerial attacks on targets otherwise unreachable by land.

Created completely with off-the-shelf equipment and open-source software — and with a budget of only about $6,100 — the demo plane they brought on stage with them was capable of wireless network sniffing and cracking, cell tower spoofing, cell phone tracking and call interception, data exfiltration, and video surveillance.

Read more….

Phi Beta Iota:  Until integrity in all senses of the word is “root,” society will continue to be vulnerable to all forms of corruption including low-bidder unethical cyber-systems, and high-bidder unethical cyber-attack.

See Also:

2010: OPINION–America’s Cyber Scam

Click on Image to Enlarge

NEW: Chapter Draft 1.2

The chapter more fully integrates the DNI spiral between modern mature intelligence (M4IS2) and modern mature Air Power.

Abstract 3.1

Briefing 3.3 (29 Slides With Notes As Presented 3 MB ppt)

Briefing 3.3 (29 Slides With Notes As Presented 40 KB pptx)

Event: 15-17 June Ontario UN Aerospace Power

Click on Image to Enlarge

New Botnet, Now 4.5 Million Machines Strong, is ‘Practically Indestructible’

Today in cyber threats: more than four million Windows PCs have been commandeered by a botnet that cybersecurity experts are calling nearly “indestructible.” Known as TDL-4 (it’s the fourth iteration of the malicious program), this particular little nuisance hides in places security software rarely checks and speaks with other infected machines and their overseers in a novel encrypted code. Some are calling it the most sophisticated threat out there today. Watch your back, Stuxnet.

Read rest of story….

Phi Beta Iota: Apart from the known fact that the US Government ignored documented warning from Winn Schwartau, Jim Anderson, Bill Caelli, and Robert Steele in 1994, what we have here is the culimination of fifteen years in which governments continue to operate as Industrial Era hierarchies, choosing secrecy to protect incompetence rather than multinational sharing to achieve resilience–they are as a result inept beyond belief.  The cloud–given the plethora of proprietary and therefore generally insecure hardware and software–is not going to be cleaned up on the present course, where spam is 75% of all email despite the best (isolated) efforts of all concerned.  M4IS2, anyone?

See Also:

Journal: Army Industrial-Era Network Security + Cyber-Security RECAP (Links to Past Posts)

Search: Steele USMC C4I 1990′s

DefDog Recommends....

Special report: Government in cyber fight but can’t keep up

Reuters, 16 June 2011

EXTRACT: Notwithstanding the military’s efforts, however, the overall gap appears to be widening, as adversaries and criminals move faster than government and corporations, and technologies such as mobile applications for smart phones proliferate more rapidly than policymakers can respond, officials and analysts said.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: Duh.  We told you so in 1994.  Not only can the US Government not catch up, ever, but until there are the twin pillars of bottom up open source everything and a global M4IS2 grid, governments will continue to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.