Sean Hannity tonight mocked the upcoming automatic sequestration as President Obama's "Mayan apocalypse" and took on Obama's apparent demonization of his Republican rivals. During a heated discussion with Austan Goolsbee and Tucker Carlson, Hannity said that if Obama is going to keep name-calling and lobbing attacks at conservatives, he might as well refer to the president as a "thief."
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Highly ALERT: Chinese Military Behind U.S. Cyber Attacks
A large and complex hacker group connected to China's military has been linked to hacks involving more than 100 companies in the U.S. and the theft of several hundreds of terabytes of data, according to a comprehensive report released Tuesday that unabashedly blames China for some of the largest hacks detected in recent years.
The group, known as the Comment Crew and APT1, operates out of a 12-story office tower in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai, and is said to be part of Unit 61398, a unit of the People's Liberation Army that has a staff of hundreds and perhaps thousands of hackers who have systematically stolen valuable data from U.S. firms since at least 2006 using the resources of state-owned enterprises, such as China Telecom, to conduct the attacks, according to Mandiant, the computer security firm that released the detailed 76-page report.
"The sheer scale and duration of sustained attacks against such a wide set of industries from a singularly identified group based in China leaves little doubt about the organization behind APT1," Mandiant writes in its report. "We believe the totality of the evidence we provide in this document bolsters the claim that APT1 is Unit 61398."
According to Mandiant, senior leaders of the Communist Party of China are directly responsible for tasking China's military with committing systematic cyberespionage and data theft against organizations around the world, and Unit 61398 aggressively recruits new talent from the science and engineering departments of universities in China to conduct the activities.
A chart showing the hierarchical structure of China's hacking apparatus. Courtesy of Mandiant
Victims have included the security firm RSA, Coca-Cola and the maker of equipment used in critical infrastructure systems. Multiple industries have been targeted, including the aerospace and high-tech electronics industries as well as transportation, financial services, satellite and telecommunications, chemical, energy, media and advertising and food and agriculture.
But there are concerns that instead of just stealing data, the group may be targeting critical infrastructure systems with the aim of planting malware to conduct sabotage.
One of the most recent hacks attributed to the group involved Telvent Canada, a maker of control software used in the smart grid. According to the company, which is owned by Schneider Electric, the attackers installed malicious software on its network and also accessed project files for its OASyS SCADA system, which is heavily used in oil and gas pipeline systems in North America, as well as in some water system networks.
The breach raised concerns that the hackers could embed malware in project files to infect the machines of program developers or other key people involved in a SCADA project. One of the ways that Stuxnet spread — the worm that was designed to target Iran's uranium enrichment program and was reportedly designed by the U.S. and Israel — was to infect project files in an industrial control system made by Siemens, with the aim of passing the malware to the computers of developers.
Though Mandiant doesn't name victims in its report, The New York Times attributes a hack of Coca-Cola in 2009 to the group. The attack occurred while the beverage giant was attempting to acquire the China Huiyuan Juice Group for $2.4 billion.
"As Coca-Cola executives were negotiating what would have been the largest foreign purchase of a Chinese company, Comment Crew was busy rummaging through their computers in an apparent effort to learn more about Coca-Cola's negotiation strategy," the paper reports.
The hackers are responsible for engaging in prolonged breaches of victim networks that last months and in some cases years, during which they have stolen technology blueprints, proprietary manufacturing processes, test results, business plans, pricing documents, partnership agreements, and emails and contact lists.
The average hack has lasted 356 days, but in one case a victim was compromised for four years and 10 months. One victim lost 6.5 terabytes over a 10-month period.
The hackers used tried-and-true techniques that involve sending aggressive spear phishing emails to victims and using custom digital weapons to gain a foothold on systems and establish communication with a command-and-control server before they begin exporting data.
"They employ good English — with acceptable slang — in their socially engineered emails," Mandiant writes. "They have evolved their digital weapons for more than seven years, resulting in continual upgrades as part of their own software release cycle. Their ability to adapt to their environment and spread across systems makes them effective in enterprise environments with trust relationships."
Read More: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013...
Glenn Beck ~ By The End of Obamas Term People will be Spying on each others
By end of Obama's 2nd term, people will be spying on each other, turning in neighbors (Glenn Beck) This all started with the Bush Administrations Neo-cons (Fascist) Under the "Patriot Act" nice name for deception all pass down to Obama. Fear tactics work the Neocons took that out of a Nazi playlist. they know how to keep us divided because United We stand Divided we Fall. Fear only radicalize people arms them and gives the Government an excuse for Martial Law. Learn from the middle east if the military is not with us. Depopulation. One morning US citizens will wake up and realized they are in North Korea.
Max Keiser : We Are Heading Towards a Post Dollar World
The people shouldn't have to pay a ton of money if they live in a region where there is oil and gas. Why should it be propped up to the price of the rest of the world? Crazy. We have been at war half of the time since our nation has been founded. All due to the banksters and the damn "elites" who I like to call "Leeches" since they have never done hard labor or anything but LIE to the people. Gas backed currency. Holy fracking hell! exchange petro-dollars for gaz-currency... oil-gaz seems like more of the same to me...Any 'backed' currency can be inflated. It just requires the issuer to abuse their issue.Feces backed currency. Now that would be cool. It would at least act like a fertilizer and help grow crops unlike the US Dollar.
Max Keiser Report: When Truth is Found to be Lies Max Keiser talks to former energy regulator, Chris Cook, about how we move from dollar diplomacy to gas diplomacy and a world where energy as the modern water hole where you don't have to kill each other and a gas backed currency becomes a new global reserve currency in a post-dollar world.
Anonymous - Operation Vatican - engaged
MIRROR - Greetings world.
The Peoples Liberation Front and Anonymous are joining forces yet again to defend whistle-blowers and fight for transparency in government. This time in the most unlikely of places, the Vatican City State. This spring, a book was published which detailed massive corruption and wrong-doing in the highest levels of the Popes' administration. It was entitled "His Holiness" by Gianluigi Nuzzi. The book relied heavily on a massive cache of documents apparently leaked directly from the Pope's apartment and office at the Holy See.
In May of this year, Paolo Gabriele the Pope's butler was arrested for photo-copying the massive trove of documents and delivering them to Nuzzi for use in his book. Today, Mr. Gabriele was convicted by the Vatican courts and sentenced to 18 months in an Italian prison for this alleged disclosure of sensitive and secret material. The fact that Paolo Gabriele was almost certainly aided by someone high up in the Vatican government, most likely a Cardinal -- was never investigated by the Vatican police. Instead, Mr. Gabriele was given a very quick trial in a Vatican City courtroom and summarily sentenced to a year and a half in prison. The computer technician Claudio Sciarpelletti has been convicted of assisting in the disclosure and has been sentenced to two months.
Anonymous and the Peoples Liberation Front will not stand by while whistleblowers who expose corruption in governments or corporations are persecuted and imprisoned. Whether it be Bradley Manning in the USA or Paolo Gabriele in the Vatican City State, risking everything to bring transparency to the world is an act of extreme heroism -- and deserves to be defended at all costs. The Pope is an absolute monarch, and as such has the ability to instantly pardon Paolo Gabriele and Claudio Sciarpelletti. We demand that the Pope do so at once.
Until this one simple demand is met, Anonymous and the PLF will wage a relentless campaign. We will also work closely with Anonymous Italy to organize ground protests in St. Peter's Square, especially during outdoor Papal "audiences". The Roman Catholic Church should have nothing to hide, and nothing to fear from transparency. Free Paolo Gabriele now.
We Are Anonymous.
We Are Everywhere.
We Are Legion.
We Do Not Forgive.
We Do Not Forget.
Your Holiness Benedict XVI, it is too late to expect us.
Updates: Gabriele has since been released after being pardoned by the Pope, and the Pope has now resigned.
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