Welcome, Oidhche Shamhna (Samhain Eve)

Via Wikipedia.

The Samhain celebrations have survived in several guises as a festival dedicated to the harvest and the dead. In Ireland and Scotland, the Féile na Marbh, the "festival of the dead" took place on Samhain.

Samhain Eve, in Irish and Scots Gaelic, Oidhche Shamhna, is one of the principal festivals of the Celtic calendar, and is thought to fall on or around the 31st of October. It represents the final harvest. In modern Ireland and Scotland, the name by which Halloween is known in the Gaelic language is still "Oíche/Oidhche Shamhna". It is still the custom in some areas to set a place for the dead at the Samhain feast, and to tell tales of the ancestors on that night.

Traditionally, Samhain was time to take stock of the herds and grain supplies, and decide which animals would need to be slaughtered in order for the people and livestock to survive the winter. This custom is still observed by many who farm and raise livestock.

More here.

“The clouds I can handle, but I can’t fight an Eclipse”

Eclipse has been on my must watch list for a long long time but I guess I am just destined not to see the Twilight series movies on the big screen. Today I managed to get the DVD from a local library and that sure did make my Saturday afternoon.

If you are wondering what a grown-up (supposedly) like me gets out of watching these teenage romances, or as someone mentioned at work, extended Hannah Montana series, I have nothing to say. My defense rests here – a post that I did a while back.

Coming to Eclipse, I thoroughly enjoyed the battle that brought together the indomitable spirit of the Cullens and the unyielding grit of the werewolves, against the new-born vampire army!

The menacingly dark weather of Forks, Washington seems to provide an ideal case of pathetic fallacy – the clouds that could rain any time, the skies that could darken without warning, the coastal forests - all provide the perfect set-up that is pregnant with possibilities – a sense of foreboding lurks just like the omnipresent overcast sky…

And finally what I absolutely adore about these Twilight movies - the incredibly cute dialogues. So, instead of going ga-ga over the lovable Cullens, I thought I’ll reproduce a few of the dialogues here for your reading pleasure ;).

Edward (proposing to Bella): I think you'll find the vampire human divorce rate a little lower. Just marry me.

Edward (referring to Jacob): Doesn't he own a shirt?

Edward (to Bella): Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars – point of light and reason. And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty...

Charlie (Bella’s dad): (to Bella) There's... things that you need to think about if-you if you're going to be... physically intimate...

Bella: Okay, Don't, don't have ‘the talk...’ please!...

Charlie: ... Alright, so, you guys are taking precautions?...

Bella: Okay, Dad, please just don't worry about... that... Edward is...Old School…I am still a virgin!...

Charlie (to himself): Virgin... I'm liking Edward a little more now...

Bella’s mom: There’s something…strange about the way you two are together… The way he watches you—it’s so…protective. Like he’s about to throw himself in front of a bullet to save you or something.

Edward: I’m from a different era. Things were a lot less complicated. And if I met you back then, I would have courted you. Would’ve taken chaperoned strolls, and iced tea on the porch. I may have stolen a kiss or two but only after asking your father’s permission, I would've got down on one knee and I would’ve presented you with a ring. This is my mother’s. Isabella Swan, I promise to love you every moment forever. Would you do me the extraordinary honor of marrying me?

Awwwww...now who can resist the gentlemanly immortals!

Fraudsters Find Holes in Debit Card Fraud Detection

Jeremy Kirk writes on ComputerWorld:

Over the last few weeks, criminals have been exploiting weak fraud detection systems used for debit cards with "flash" attacks, where hundreds of withdrawals are made over a very short period of time.


Banking executives have noticed a rise in such attacks, where fraudsters withdraw money throughout a wide region within a span of just minutes, said Avivah Litan, a vice president at Gartner who frequently consults with banks about fraud issues.


"The fraud happens within 10 minutes in these geographic diverse locations," she said.


The amounts withdrawn are usually within a range that would not immediately raise a red flag, Litan said. She said a Canadian banker she recently spoke with said they noticed withdrawals from 100 ATMs all over Canada within 10 minutes.


The pattern is particularly interesting since it means that the criminal gangs are clearly coordinating the timing of the withdrawals using money mules, or people who are hired to do the risky job of taking a fraudulent payment cards to ATMs that are often under video surveillance.

More here.

Judge: Free Speech Protects Amazon Buyers' Data

An AP newswire article by Emery P. Dalesio, via MSNBC.com, reports that:

Lists that identify the books, music and movies individual customers bought from online retailer Amazon.com are protected from North Carolina tax collectors, a federal judge has ruled.


Amazon said in a lawsuit it filed in April in its hometown of Seattle that disclosing the names, addresses and purchases of its customers as requested by the North Carolina Revenue Department would harm anyone who may have bought controversial books or movies.


U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled late Monday that the First Amendment protects a buyer from the government demanding to know the books, music, and audiovisual products they've bought.


Amazon and the American Civil Liberties Union, which later joined the case, "have established that the First Amendment protects the disclosure of individual's reading, listening, and viewing habits," Pechman wrote.


"The ACLU is not taking issue with the department's authority to collect taxes on these purchases, but there is no legitimate reason why government officials need to know which North Carolina residents are reading which books or purchasing which specific brands of products," said Katy Parker, legal director for the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation.

More here.

Inside The Kingdom

Inside The Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia is the true story of a woman born in the western world to mixed parenthood and married to a Saudi Arabian hailing from none other than the much known Bin Laden family – this is a tale of the innocence of childhood, the defining moments of youth and love, the saga that is marriage, the pain that motherhood brings, the bitterness of dreams that go sour when faced with the recklessness of reality.

However, this is not simply one of the many hapless stories of broken marriages and international divorces that are tough on women – this is a narrative convoluted by the clash of religions, beliefs, and faiths – this is the life of Carmen Bin Ladin, sister-in-law of the world’s most dreaded terrorist.

Carmen is a Swiss national now residing in Geneva post her divorce with Yeslam Bin Ladin. Inside The Kingdom chronicles snapshots from Carmen’s life, in her words. She talks about her growing up years in Europe – her strained relationship with her Swiss father and her exotic vacations to her mom’s Persian home in Iran. She lovingly recalls how she fell in love with Yeslam - his commanding presence, his alluring roots, his belief in equality of partners in a relationship, his intelligence. Her fond memories of their time together in California, US and the big fat wedding in Saudi Arabia convince the readers of her assurance of a life of fulfilling love and empowering freedom.

Life is a bubble balanced on swords – and unfortunately, Carmen’s bubble broke. The oil boom in the Middle East in the mid 1970s compelled Yeslam to move back to Saudi Arabia in order to take advantage of all the money that was waiting to be made. And thus, started the long and arduous journey of Carmen – the black cloak or burqa, the thick veil, the walls within homes, the eyes that never meet, the suffocating shadows, the deafening silences, the blatant disregard for individualism, and finally the fervent and fanatic reverence of Islam that threatened to annihilate Carmen and her beautiful daughters.

The final straw to her 11-year marriage was the disintegration of her only pillar of strength – her husband, Yeslam. As his personal traits and attitude collided with the radical Islamism and complicated family politics, his weakness to stand by his wife and daughters against the established system came to the fore.

The book published in 2004 is Carmen’s attempt to distance herself form the “Bin Laden” name that had become a curse for her and her daughters in light of the 9/11 attacks in the US. She was compelled to come out in the open to state her severed ties with the family of 22 wives, 29 daughters and 25 sons – of which Osama Bin Laden was one.

Sadly, her struggle is not over. Though legally divorced in 2006 after a bitter long battle, Carmen still worries about her daughters’ well-being given Yeslam’s constant threats of abduction. Unfortunately, Yeslam holds a Swiss passport in order to keep in touch with his children.

This book is a must read for all of us who are so smug in the cobwebs of our everyday living, so entangled in our small worlds that we forget to thank god for our blessed lives, forget to cherish what we have, and forget to pray for others...

(The lives of women in Saudi Arabia remain deplorable even in today’s times – While modern amenities are making their way to the region, the people continue to steep deeper into the harshest form of Islam – that derived from the Bedouin practices. The power nexus that oil, money, dependence of the western world on Saudia Arabia, and the failure of milder forms of Islam as, for example, preached by the Shah of Iran is blood curdling. Jean Sasson has written a trilogy on the life of a Saudi princess – This is also a true account. You can read about it in my post here.)

Siemens Stuxnet Patch Does Not Provide Sufficient Protection

Via The H Online.

The Siemens SIMATIC Security Update for protecting WinCC systems against Stuxnet infections doesn't close the actual hole in the SQL server configuration. It only prevents the known Stuxnet variants from working. As IT forensics expert Oliver Sucker demonstrates (German language link) in a video, only a few steps are required to bypass the protection and regain full remote access to a WinCC system,.


The issue is based around the hard-coded access data for the WinCC system's Microsoft SQL database. The Stuxnet worm uses this data to log into further systems from another infected system. There, it uses the integrated xp_cmdshell command shell to access the underlying Windows operating system at system privilege level from the database.


The SIMATIC update prevents the database from executing commands via xp_cmdshell by switching the pertaining configuration option from 1 to 0. According to Sucker, however, the privileges of the hard-coded WinCCAdmin database user are so comprehensive that an attacker can use a few trivial SQL commands to switch the setting back from 0 to 1 after logging in. This will re-enable the execution of commands via the command shell. Sucker has so far not disclosed the exact SQL commands required.


When asked by The H's associates at heise Security, Siemens refused to comment on the issue. Siemens spokesman Gerhard Stauss said in an email, "Our (latest) official statement to the effect that we are investigating ways of tightening authentication procedures remains in place". Until Siemens decides to improve its authentication by allowing the definition of custom access credentials, users can only hope that there will be no further Stuxnet variants or hacker attacks.

More here.

Mark Fiore: G.I. L.G.B.T P.D.Q.

More Mark Fiore Brilliance.

Via The San Francisco Chronicle.

- ferg

Feds Experiencing Critical Cybersecurity Staff Shortage

William Jackson writes on Defense Systems:

The Homeland Security Department is focused on recruiting and hiring cybersecurity personnel. It tripled the number of professionals working in the National Cybersecurity Division in fiscal 2009 and doubled it again last year.


But that still brings the number of cybersecurity professionals working in the division to only 220.


“We just don’t have enough people yet,” Philip Reitinger, deputy undersecretary in the National Protection and Programs Directorate, said Thursday at a forum on workforce development hosted in Washington by Deloitte. “This is going to be a continuing challenge for us.”


DHS has been recruiting from other agencies as well as from the private sector, but Reitinger called that a “zero sum game,” because there are not enough trained professionals coming into the field to meet demand. “There are not enough people to go around.”

More here.

Conversations around Cooking

I think till I was 16-17 or something, the only activity I knew with respect to food was eating. Cooking never figured in my vocabulary – All that I knew was that food was “produced” in the kitchen :D.

But alas, life is cruel, isn’t it? While I am a connoisseur of good food – quick to pass my judgment on what I like and what I don’t when it comes to gastronomic delights, I had been quite oblivious to the plight of those caught on the other side of the deal.

Now that I sometimes dabble in the kitchen with weapons such as knives, mixies, equipments such as cookers and pans, and the dangerous spices, trying my best to survive the ordeal (successfully), my heart goes out to all the people on whose food I have ever passed negative comments, starting from Mom!

Dear mom, your pathetic lauki (gourd), hospital-like yellow daal (gram - pulse) and pukey spinach (did I ever tell you I was a difficult child?) tastes so much better than what I can barely manage even now.

Here are some hilarious conversations I have been “involved” in over the years…

Age: 17 or 18

Some random aunt invited home for dinner: So Prabha (that’s my mom), you must be so lucky to have a young daughter who can help you with the kitchen. I have only two sons and all that they can do is cut salad and lay the table!

Mom: Faintly smiles (Poor thing, she must be wondering how to start training her son, having given up on me)

Aunt (to me now): So what all do you cook?

Me: umm, well, umm, I cut salad once in a while, I also help laying the table, umm, I attended some cooking classes in school and learnt umm well, forget it. I reheat food pretty well though!

(You don’t want to know the aunt’s reaction!)

Age: 19

(We were moving houses during my college break. I was super enthusiastic to take over “adult” responsibilities. I still remember most of the last minute paint touch up and varnish happening under my supervision.)

The chief painter (to my mom): Aunty, didi (that’s me) zyaada acchi chai banaati hai (Meaning, I make better tea than my mom)

Mom (Shocked!): So Yuvi how is your tea more special?

Me: I dunno!

Mom: Okay, let’s see you make tea

I start making the tea.

Mom: Hang on, what are these boiled tea leaves doing here?

Me: The ones that I made tea with earlier!

Mom: So you are using the same tea leaves over and over again

Me: Yeah!

Mom: Hell!

Age: 20-21

A pesky relative visiting us (to my mom): Chachi (aunt), you better start teaching Yuvika how to handle the kitchen else marriage will become a huge problem. Everybody wants a wife/DIL who can cook!

Mom: Let her be. When the time comes, she will manage.

(That’s why I love you mom!)

Age: 23

(After, my wedding date was fixed.)

Dad: Yuvi now you are marrying a south Indian, you better learn how to cook! Don’t you know South Indian women spend a lot of time in the kitchen!

Me: I don’t understand the logic dad!

Dad: If you are expected to make sambhar, rasam, what will you do?

Me: I will tell them I never grew up on sambhar-rasam.

Dad: But what if they asked you to make some north Indian specialties?

Me: I will say I never learnt cos I was marrying a South Indian!

Dad gives up!

Since then, I have come a long way. I make curd rice, chhola (chick peas), most of the pulses, potatoes, cottage cheese, pav bhaji, veggie rice, rotis, paranthas, puris, noodles, pasta, and cakes, kheer and badam payasam with considerable ease. I have tried my hands on rasam (a reasonable first attempt), sambhar (a disaster – Vish couldn’t even decipher the dish after having the courage to eat it) – Rajma (kidney beans) and some veggies are hits and misses with a ratio of 3:1 maybe!

Wow, I think that’s quite a lot- wonder why I still hesitate answering the heavily loaded question “Can you cook?”

And here’s the latest conversation I had with my FIL one recent evening!

Me: Appa, is pav-bhaji okay for dinner?

FIL: Yes, perfect

Me: Okay I will start now.

FIL: But it is only 6 PM, we’ll eat at 8?

Me: Yes, but I need to start now, so that I have time for last minute work-arounds and fire fighting – this is called risk mitigation planning (IT and Management guys, back me up here)

FIL (visibly amused): Oh okay, but don’t strain too much!

Aww, I was instantly reminded of the pride in my dad’s heart, the beaming glow in my hubby’s eyes and the mischievous smile on my bro’s lips when I make the slightest of efforts to what can barely pass off as “cooking”.

Apparently the way to the hearts of the men in my life is not through their stomachs. Phew! Thank god!

Leaving you with a pic of one of the better cakes I have baked - just to add some credit to my claims :p...

UK: Every eMail and Website to be Stored

Tom Whitehead writes on the Telegraph.co.uk:

Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state.


The plans were shelved by the Labour Government last December but the Home Office is now ready to revive them.


It comes despite the Coalition Agreement promised to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason".


Any suggestion of a central "super database" has been ruled out but the plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time.


That will allow the security and police authorities to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public if they argue it is needed to tackle crime or terrorism.

More here.

Two Russians Convicted as Money Mules

Dan Goodin writes on The Register:

Two Russian men have been convicted for their roles as money mules who tried to siphon funds out of US bank accounts and send it to ringleaders in Ukraine.


Dmitry Vladislavovich Krivosheev, 25, and Maxim Valeryevich Illarionov, 24, who were living in Miami, last week were convicted of one count each of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud by a federal jury in Oklahoma. The men set up bank accounts that received funds stolen from a Bank of America account belonging to Oklahoma City-based Powell Aircraft Title Services, according to court papers [.pdf]filed in April.


According to prosecutors, the company's bank account came under control of unknown individuals in Ukraine who used malware to make fraudulent wired transfers. At least $1.3m has been fraudulently diverted from bank accounts using the scheme, they said.


A third man accused of being recruiting the mules, Alexy Olegovich Petrov, was acquitted in the trial. According to court papers, he directed both mules to open the accounts and personally drove them various branches so they could make withdrawals and got a split of their proceeds.


Krivosheev and Illarionov face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison and fines of $250,000. A sentencing hearing will be sent in about 90 days, prosecutors said.

More here.

U.S. Pushes to Ease Technical Obstacles to Wiretapping

Charlie Savage writes on The New York Times:

Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped, federal officials say.


The officials say tougher legislation is needed because some telecommunications companies in recent years have begun new services and made system upgrades that create technical obstacles to surveillance. They want to increase legal incentives and penalties aimed at pushing carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to ensure that any network changes will not disrupt their ability to conduct wiretaps.


An Obama administration task force that includes officials from the Justice and Commerce Departments, the F.B.I. and other agencies recently began working on draft legislation to strengthen and expand a 1994 law requiring carriers to make sure their systems can be wiretapped. There is not yet agreement over the details, according to officials familiar with the deliberations, but they said the administration intends to submit a package to Congress next year.


Albert Gidari Jr., a lawyer who represents telecommunications firms, said corporations were likely to object to increased government intervention in the design or launch of services. Such a change, he said, could have major repercussions for industry innovation, costs and competitiveness.

More here.

Australia: MI6 Officers Apply for Canberra Spy Jobs

David Leppard writes on The Australian:

According to insiders, the strong interest among middle-ranking officers in jobs at the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) reflects a crisis in morale at MI6.


There has been growing uncertainty among the agency's 2600 staff who have been unsettled by looming budget cuts, inquiries into alleged complicity in the torture of terrorism suspects and moves to keep operatives behind computer screens in London rather than sending them on overseas missions.


The changes are being overseen by Sir John Sawers, the MI6 chief, who achieved unexpected fame - and ridicule - last year when his wife Shelley inadvertently breached security by posting pictures of him on Facebook. He was shown wearing Speedos - nicknamed "budgie smugglers" in Australia - on the open section of a Facebook page.


The attraction of Australia for Sawers's officers is enhanced by the contrast with a three-year Whitehall-wide pay freeze. Forced to retire at 55, insiders say they face limited promotion prospects as executive jobs are cut.

More here.

UK Arrests Man Accused of Organizing Money 'Mules'

Jeremy Kirk writes on ComputerWorld:

U.K. police arrested a 34-year-old man on Monday on suspicion of creating counterfeit credit cards and organizing a network of people involved in money laundering, officials said.


Authorities from the Metropolitan Police's .Central e-crime Unit also seized data and equipment believed to be used to created fraudulent payment cards, including blank dummy cards with magnetic strips, during a raid Monday morning in east London.


The man, whose name was not made public, is also accused of organizing money "mules" -- people recruited to accept stolen funds and transfer them to other bank accounts for a small share of the amount.


The latest action follows a spate of arrests in the U.K., U.S. and Ukraine in one of the largest coordinated computer crime actions by law enforcement.

More here.

All’s well that ends well!!!

Prayers do work, don’t they? I had sincerely hoped and wished for Delhi to pull through the Commonwealth Games when the Queen’s baton relay happened in October last year. You can read the post here.

And yayay, we did it! Yes, there were a lot of hiccups and major roadblocks; the corruption was deplorable (and is unforgivable); the apathy of the government officials involved was disappointing … but we managed to put up our India shining face – bright and vibrant – when it mattered the most.

In the last couple of months, along with national and international media, everybody was bashing the preparations. As I watched the images of dishonesty and blatant money games flashed on TV, I kept my fingers crossed. While the media reports were not really exaggerated, I was a little miffed that they spoke about nothing positive at all.

However, in retrospect I guess it paid well. Indians round the world cursed and kicked and came out in the open showing their anger and shame at the Kalmadis of CWG who tried their best to barter national integrity and pride for the green bucks – a coffer filling exercise was the CWG for them!

Last minute fire fighting did a lot of damage control – we Indians thrive on jugaad, don't we? ;) (jugaad is a colloquial hindi word – loosely translated as getting things done by hook or by crook – I found a wiki link too for it here – wow Internet rocks!)

While I am thrilled at the spectacular show that Delhi organized, I feel that after the back patting is done, we need to book the culprits who caused so much confusion and delay. They need to be punished in order to set an example for other such events to come – nobody puts national pride at stake, and then gets away with it!

Also, we now need to maintain all the infrastructure we have managed to assemble thanks to the CWG budget - yes, it overshot ten times the initial amount, but we cannot undo that – what we can do is ensure that we preserve the progress we have made – preserve the spirit that is India, the spirit that is Delhi – the spirit that sometimes becomes an obscure flame thanks to selfish politicians, but still emboldens and illuminates the world when the time beseeches.

Go Delhi go!

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Programming Note: Digital Crimes Consortium, Montreal, Quebec

I'm off again this week, this time to Montreal for the Digital Crimes Consortium (DCC) meeting.

So posts to the blog will be somewhere between "few" and non-existent until this weekend.

Apologies, and thanks for following.

- ferg

Not now!

(A Facebook addict like me should have posted this much earlier, but oh well!)

Ok guys, FB adds a new step to the friend request denial procedure – Not Now.

A simple Yes and No, or in FB terms, Confirm and Ignore has now become:

Step 1: Confirm and Not Now

Step 2: Confirm and Delete Request

My initial reaction to this feature was WTF! Either I want the requestor to be on my friend’s list or I don’t; what’s with the unnecessary grey area in the middle?

But then, social networking could easily be as complicated as rocket science itself!

If you thought managing relationships was a difficult task; it becomes even more formidable on cyber space.

Here are the broad categories most friend requests I receive fall in:

I The genuine friends...

...Those who make FB well worth the time I spend on it: lost and found childhood companions, friends from school and college, neighborhood peers, colleagues from work!

II Relatives...

...Those I am very close to and those that I have seldom met. I don’t really mind family on FB and so long have been able to manage pretty well :D!

III The one-time met/seen/heard of acquaintances...

These are people I could easily qualify as weirdoes, if not stalkers. Your friend’s cousin’s friend you got introduced to at a mall; a colleague at work you attended a meeting with or saw at the coffee vending machine, and have never spoken to before or after that – forget spoken to – have never acknowledged his/her presence before or after that; the guy who helped you with your hand baggage in the plane (yes, I got one such friend request – we never even exchanged our names, so I am guessing he peeped into my boarding pass – how nightmarish!)

IV The complete strangers...

...The “do you want to do friendship with me”-“your profile pic looks great, so let’s be friends” category.

Till September, I was confidently using the Ignore option for the last category.

It was the third category of requests that left me in a fix to decide among the following options:

• Should I be politically correct and go ahead and add the person and later tweak my privacy settings?
• Do I care about social proprietary? FB is my personal space and I decide whom to share it with.
• Defer the decision.

Though the last option was quite convenient, FB would regularly pop the reminder, making me feel a tad bit guilty (gosh, I take FB way too seriously, don’t I?).

So now, the Not Now option comes to my rescue. It aids me in my indecisiveness – I can conveniently brush your request under the carpet – hide it, as per FB terminology, and never have to deal with my conscience because there are no reminders – yayay – how convenient!

Did I hear you smirk? Yes, I belong to the easy-way-out generation – why not? I have no qualms about it!

Therefore, my initial WTF reaction to Not Now has been now transformed to “not bad”.

Though I have always detested people who fall in the maybe-maybe not category when it comes to answering questions – be it in surveys or interviews or etc, I really don’t seem to mind it on social networking sites.

What FB could have done to make things easier is that they could have added a third button in Step 1 itself – Delete request.

So, at one go I can decide whether to hide the request for Category 3 or simple delete and report spam/block for Category 4. A simple usability enhancement!

What say? Not now?

FBI Nabs Identity Theft Fugitive in Boston

Travis Andersen writes in The Boston Globe:

FBI agents arrested a fugitive in Brighton on Wednesday night wanted for his alleged role in an identity theft scheme operating out of New York City.


Special agent Richard Kolko, a spokesman for the FBI office in New York, said Boston agents apprehended Nikolai Garafulin, 21, in a building on Commonwealth Avenue. He did not have an exact address.


A spokesman for the Boston Fire Department, which responded to the scene, said the address was in Brighton. Firefighters had to rescue Garafulin after he fled to a fire escape and became trapped, Kolko said.


Garafulin is one of 37 defendants charged in an alleged scheme to use computer malware to steal over $3 million from US bank accounts, according to the New York FBI. He is charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud for his alleged role in the scheme.

Link.

Former NSA CTO: Ban Criminal Harboring Countries From the Internet

Asher Moses writes on The Sydney Morning Herald:

Countries in Eastern Europe and Africa that harbour cyber criminals should be locked out of the global internet until their governments do something to reduce the threats, the former chief technology officer at the US National Security Agency says.


The Australian ISP industry is already one of the first in the world to develop an industry code that would see some infected Australian users effectively unable to access the open internet until they clean their computer of malware. This is due to formally come into effect on December 1.


While applauding this idea, Dr Prescott Winter, who left the NSA in February after a 27-year career there, including as its CTO, said governments and internet providers around the world could go a step further and target the source of many of the threats.


Security companies regularly finger countries in Eastern Europe and Africa as being havens for cyber criminals and spawning much of the internet security threats affecting internet users worldwide. Even global superpowers like China have been accused of sponsoring hackers to attack Western internet companies including Google.

More here.

Data Overload Blocks Tracking of Sex Offenders

An AP newswire article by Todd Richmond, via Salon.com, reports:

A company that provides electronic monitoring to track sex offenders, parolees and others said its system shut down after unexpectedly hitting its data storage limit, leaving authorities across 49 states unaware of offenders' movement for about 12 hours.


Prisons and other corrections agencies were blocked from getting notifications on about 16,000 people being tracked, BI Incorporated spokesman Jock Waldo said Wednesday. The system operated by the Boulder, Colo.-based company reached its data threshold -- more than 2 billion records -- Tuesday morning.


Tracking devices continued to record movement Tuesday, but corrections agencies couldn't immediately view the data. The company has substantially increased its data storage capacity and hasn't heard of any safety issues, Waldo said. People being monitored were unaware of any problems.

More here.

Russian Talent Turning to Cyber Crime

Anastasia Ustinova writes in The New Zealand Herald:

The US Department of Justice said it might have been the most sophisticated computer fraud.


For Viktor Pleshchuk, it was the chance to buy a brand new BMW and an apartment in his hometown of St Petersburg.


The 29-year-old last month pleaded guilty to participating in a worldwide hacking scheme that led to the illegal withdrawal of more than US$9 million ($12 million) from cash machines worldwide operated by RBS WorldPay, the US payment-processing division of Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland Group.


The conviction shed light on a growing trend from Russia.


Just as President Dmitry Medvedev seeks to persuade investors his country is a safe place, more technology graduates are turning to cybercrime.

More here.

Web Traffic Redirected to China Still a Mystery

Elinor Mills writes on C|Net News:

Six months after Web traffic involving popular U.S. sites and e-mail from computers around the globe was re-directed to Chinese servers unnecessarily, Internet watchers are trying to figure out why it happened and how to prevent future mishaps.


In at least two instances since mid-March, large amounts of traffic on the Internet have been routed to China in circumstances still shrouded in mystery, Rodney Joffe, senior technologist at DNS (Domain Name System) registry Neustar, told CNET in an interview this week.


The first situation happened on March 24, when workers at network operation centers in various parts of the world noticed that traffic to popular sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and about 20 or 30 others was being redirected to servers in China. This had the result of giving Web surfers in western countries a glimpse of what Chinese Internet users see when they try to access sites that are blocked--error messages indicating that the sites don't exist or censored Chinese-language versions of the sites. It's unknown how long the situation lasted, according to Joffe.


The next month, something similar happened on April 8. In this case, 37,000 routes, or paths to groups of Internet Protocol addresses--representing about 10 percent of the total routes--were diverted through servers in China for 17 minutes, Joffe said.

More here.

Programming Note: MAAWG 20th General Meeting, Washington, D.C.

I'll am leaving for Washington, D.C., this morning to attend the MAAWG 20th General Meeting, so blog posts will be few to non-existent until the end of the week.

Thanks for following, and let's be careful out there!

- ferg

The centennial post!

So Blogger tells me this is my 100th post, and I am super kicked. What makes the milestone even more special is the fact that it coincides with my entry into the third year of blogging!

Yes, My Musings completes two years today!

What started as an impromptu expression of thoughts has become a medium that has grown on me - has become a very defining aspect of who I am.

Though quite a diary person from my kiddie days, when I used to write long pages on events, experiences that touched me – blogging has been a different adventure. While I would be more than content to just put down on paper (e-paper ;)) my feelings, thoughts and musings, being read brought in a whole new exciting dimension to the act of writing itself.

If blogging has been cathartic, having readers – known and unknown - from different spaces – physical and philosophical – has been exhilarating. I want to thank all the ardent “followers” on the blog, RSS feeds, Twitter, and the family and friends on FB and Buzz who have been patient enough to read through my posts, share their valuable insights, and always been so appreciative of my efforts.

The journey so far…

In 2006-07, with constant traveling and moving, personal journals were getting difficult to maintain – so much so that I had almost lot touch with the “pen”. I had been trying to get a foothold on the blogging space but more than anything else, it was sheer laziness that kept me at bay.

Finally, in October 2008, though having registered on Blogspot more than a year ago, I did my first blog post. Usually, most bloggers do a Welcome or a Hello World post to mark their entry into the blogosphere – I was abrupt.

The death of Sowmya Viswanathan was shocking, and more tragic was the reaction of the politicos – You can read the post here.

On hindsight, I don’t know what made me a regular blogger after that post. Maybe I needed that impetus, that push to break the writer’s block.

Since then, this blog has been an expression of most things in life that hold meaning for me.

I have done a range of posts from seemingly frivolous ones to more introspective ones. What’s kept me going is that I have been able to be true to myself. Though I love the reactions of people to my writing I don’t write to please anyone in particular. What I write is essentially me and that is a satisfying emotion.

There was a time when I felt that an anonymous profile might suit me better. Anonymity might enable me to write more honestly and openly.

I argued that against integrity. If I feel strongly about something, why should I be scared to associate my identity with it? However, there are still times that I am not enable to share an experience that involves others for fear of compromising their privacy – but I guess trade-offs would always be there.

The making of My Musings…

Though I started with quite a simple template from blogger.com, I am in love with my current template from pyzam.com.

The daisy is your everyday flower – yet it is beautiful and exquisite in its simplicity. The green is for life and the sunshine peeping through the clouded sky is the hope we all live on!

Indiblogger and BlogAdda memberships have had their advantages – apart from being ranked, I got to interact with fellow bloggers, each gifted and uniquely talented!

Not a tech savy person, I have been able to get some widgets going. My favorite ones include the visitor counter (I love to see the so many flags of countries from where people access my blog – Oh how on top of the world I feel :)), and the Link Within gadget that adds associated posts below the latest post.

As for my favorite posts, I cannot choose among my creations, can I?

So here’s raising a toast to the blogosphere! Cheers!

Remember,

I RANT, THEREFORE I AM.

Over to you now…

Iran Arrests Stuxnet 'Spies' Who Hit Atomic Work

An AFP newswire article, via Google News, reports:

Iran's intelligence minister said on Saturday authorities had arrested several "nuclear spies" who were working to derail Tehran's nuclear programme through cyberspace.


Without saying how many people were arrested or when, Heydar Moslehi was quoted on state television's website as saying Iran had "prevented the enemies' destructive activity."


His remarks came against the backdrop of reports that the Stuxnet worm is mutating and wreaking havoc on computerised industrial equipment in Iran and had already infected 30,000 IP addresses.


But Moslehi said intelligence agents had discovered the "destructive activities of the arrogance (Western powers) in cyberspace, and different ways to confront them have been designed and implemented."


"I assure all citizens that the intelligence apparatus currently has complete supervision on cyberspace and will not allow any leak or destruction of our country's nuclear activities."


The website said Moslehi emphasised that his ministry was aware of the different activities of "enemies' spy services."

More here.

Would Wiretapping Laws Spell the End of Quantum Encryption? Yes.

Davide Castelvecchi writes in Scientific American:

The nascent industry of quantum communications could suffer a fatal blow if the U.S. enacts sweeping new regulations to provide wiretapping access to law enforcement.


The weirdness of quantum mechanics makes it possible for two parties to share an encryption key and be sure that no one else can copy it. Any attempt to eavesdrop on the communication of the quantum key would irreversibly disturb its quantum state, thus revealing that the channel is being wiretapped.


In recent decades, the development of quantum communication and encryption has motivated significant advances in basic research in mathematics, physics and engineering.

More here.

FBI Officially Notifies Russia of 4 Arrested Russians in Banking Fraud

Via RIA Novosti.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has officially informed the Russian Consulate General on the detainment of four Russian citizens suspected of a large-scale banking fraud, a Russian vice consul said.


The Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said on Friday that a total of 25 Russians have been charged in a large-scale banking fraud case in the United States.


"We have received an official notification from the FBI on the detainment of four Russian and two Moldovan citizens on September 30 suspected of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and the use of forged passports," Alexander Otchainov said.


The four Russian names in the notification are Adel Gataullin, Maxim Miroshnichenko, Kristina Svechinskaya and Yulia Sidorenko and the Moldovan citizens are Viktoria Opinka and Alina Turuta.


When asked about a great mismatch in the number of detained Russians stated by the attorney's office and the official FBI notification, Otchainov said that perhaps the part of the detained could have Russian names but could not be citizens of Russia.

More here.

U.S. Spies Want Algorithms to Spot Hot Trends

Katie Drummond writes on Danger Room:

The U.S. intelligence community wants a sharp competitive edge on the world’s best and brightest ideas. In an effort to find the next big thing before it happens, they’re looking to do away with fallible human trendspotters, and enlist an algorithmic system to “scan the horizon” and tap into the first signs of burgeoning memes in science and technology.


IARPA, the intel world’s far-out research arm, is already wary of trusting big calls and predictions to flesh-and-blood experts alone. Earlier this year, the agency solicited proposals for a system that would evaluate and rank the value of expert opinion based on niche, learning style, prior performance and “other attributes predictive of accuracy.”


This time around, IARPA’s looking for a system that wouldn’t just rate experts, but would take over many of their responsibilities entirely. The agency’s Foresight and Understanding from Scientific Exposition (or FUSE) wants researchers to create “a reliable, evidence-based capability that…reduce[s] the labor involved to identify specific technical areas for in-depth review.”


As IARPA’s solicitation notes, trying to identify the hottest trends before they heat up is time-consuming, time sensitive and susceptible to human bias. Not to mention that most experts are confined to certain geographic regions, cultures, languages and technical niches. But with globalization churning out innovations worldwide, IARPA wants a system that can operate in several languages and account for cultural differences.

More here.

Court Shuts Down Huge Internet Fraud 'Cramming' Operation

Via ConsumerAffairs.com.

A federal court has permanently shut down the illegal operations of Inc21, a firm that placed bogus charges on the telephone bills of thousands of small businesses and consumers for Internet-related services they never agreed to buy.


The court, at the request of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has barred the defendants from charging consumers' telephone bills and prohibits them from telemarketing unless they get prior approval from the FTC and the court.


It also ordered third parties through which charges were placed -- including local exchange telephone companies, or LECs -- to return money in escrow to consumers, and ordered the defendants to pay nearly $38 million in restitution for consumers.

More here.

U.S. Power Plants at Risk of Attack by Computer Worm Like Stuxnet

Ellen Nakashima writes in The Washington Post:

A sophisticated worm designed to infiltrate industrial control systems could be used as a blueprint to sabotage machines that are critical to U.S. power plants, electrical grids and other infrastructure, experts are warning.


The discovery of Stuxnet, which some analysts have called the "malware of the century" because of its ability to damage or possibly destroy sensitive control systems, has served as a wake-up call to industry officials. Even though the worm has not yet been found in control systems in the United States, it could be only a matter of time before similar threats show up here.


"Quite honestly you've got a blueprint now," said Michael J. Assante, former chief security officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, an industry body that sets standards to ensure the electricity supply. "A copycat may decide to emulate it, maybe to cause a pressure valve to open or close at the wrong time. You could cause damage, and the damage could be catastrophic."


Joe Weiss, an industrial control system security specialist and managing partner at Applied Control Solutions in Cupertino, Calif., said "the really scary part" about Stuxnet is its ability to determine what "physical process it wants to blow up." Said Weiss: "What this is, is essentially a cyber weapon."

More here.

Ukrainian Police Arrest 5, Targeting Brains Behind ZeuS Botnet

Robert McMillan and Grant Gross write on ComputerWorld:

Ukrainian police on Thursday arrested five people thought to be the brains behind a scam using the Zeus Trojan to siphon money from small businesses in the U.S.


The operation is part of an ongoing effort to take down a criminal empire that stole $70 million from victims' bank accounts over the past few years. Many of those hit were small businesses or local organizations that ended up having to absorb the costs of the fraud.


Ukraine's national police force, the SBU, made the arrests as part of a joint effort with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, police in the Netherlands and the U.K.'s Metropolitan Police Service. Those detained are "key subjects responsible for this overarching scheme," the FBI said in a statement.


Ukrainian SBU agents also executed eight search warrants in an operation that was manned by about 50 police officers.

More here.