"The Most Destructive Breach In History": Hackers Use NSA Code To Grind Baltimore To A Halt

Zero Hedge

The United States is no longer supplying its enemies only with conventional weapons – that list now also includes cyberweapons. While Baltimore has been struggling with an aggressive cyber-attack over the last three weeks, previously profiled here , it has now been revealed that a key component of the malware used by cyber-criminals was actually developed just a short drive from Baltimore - at the NSA, according to the New York Times.

The tool used - called EternalBlue – has been used by hackers in North Korea, Russia and China to "cut a path of destruction around the world", and resulted in billions of dollars in damages.

Now, it has come full circle and is back in the US, wreaking havoc just miles from Washington. In fact, security experts say that attacks using EternalBlue have soared and cyber-criminals are honing in on vulnerable towns and cities, using it to paralyze governments. The NSA's connection to the attacks had previously not been reported and the NSA hasn’t commented about it since an unidentified group leaked the weapon online in April 2017.

The NSA and the FBI still don’t know whether or not it was leaked by foreign spies or US insiders.

The leak has been referred to as “the most destructive and costly N.S.A. breach in history,” by Thomas Rid, a cybersecurity expert at Johns Hopkins University. He continued: “The government has refused to take responsibility, or even to answer the most basic questions. Congressional oversight appears to be failing. The American people deserve an answer.”

An answer that we're sure they won't get. 

Commenting on the leak in April 2017, Edward Snowden said that the "NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons; hackers leaked it."

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Triton is the world’s most murderous malware, and it’s spreading

Martin Giles
MIT Tech Review

The rogue code can disable safety systems designed to prevent catastrophic industrial accidents. It was discovered in the Middle East, but the hackers behind it are now targeting companies in North America and other parts of the world, too.

 

s an experienced cyber first responder, Julian Gutmanis had been called plenty of times before to help companies deal with the fallout from cyberattacks. But when the Australian security consultant was summoned to a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2017, what he found made his blood run cold.

The hackers had deployed malicious software, or malware, that let them take over the plant’s safety instrumented systems. These physical controllers and their associated software are the last line of defense against life-threatening disasters. They are supposed to kick in if they detect dangerous conditions, returning processes to safe levels or shutting them down altogether by triggering things like shutoff valves and pressure-release mechanisms.

The malware made it possible to take over these systems remotely. Had the intruders disabled or tampered with them, and then used other software to make equipment at the plant malfunction, the consequences could have been catastrophic. Fortunately, a flaw in the code gave the hackers away before they could do any harm. It triggered a response from a safety system in June 2017, which brought the plant to a halt. Then in August, several more systems were tripped, causing another shutdown.

The first outage was mistakenly attributed to a mechanical glitch; after the second, the plant's owners called in investigators. The sleuths found the malware, which has since been dubbed “Triton” (or sometimes “Trisis”) for the Triconex safety controller model that it targeted, which is made by Schneider Electric, a French company.

In a worst-case scenario, the rogue code could have led to the release of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas or caused explosions, putting lives at risk both at the facility and in the surrounding area.

Gutmanis recalls that dealing with the malware at the petrochemical plant, which had been restarted after the second incident, was a nerve-racking experience. “We knew that we couldn’t rely on the integrity of the safety systems,” he says. “It was about as bad as it could get.”

In attacking the plant, the hackers crossed a terrifying Rubicon. This was the first time the cybersecurity world had seen code deliberately designed to put lives at risk. Safety instrumented systems aren’t just found in petrochemical plants; they’re also the last line of defense in everything from transportation systems to water treatment facilities to nuclear power stations.

Triton’s discovery raises questions about how the hackers were able to get into these critical systems. It also comes at a time when industrial facilities are embedding connectivity in all kinds of equipment—a phenomenon known as the industrial internet of things. This connectivity lets workers remotely monitor equipment and rapidly gather data so they can make operations more efficient, but it also gives hackers more potential targets.

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UK-funded 'Integrity Initiative' Exposed Infiltrating European Media Through Fake News Factories

RT / Sott.net

It's been over a month since hackers began exposing the Scotland-based 'Integrity Initiative' as a UK government-funded propaganda outfit - and gradually new details of the organization's clandestine activities have come to light.

The documents were leaked by a group which claims to be associated with the Anonymous hackers. The first batch of leaks revealed the Integrity Initiative (II) was stealthily operating "clusters" of influencers across Europe working to ensure pro-UK narratives dominate the media.

Comment: That's not so bad in itself, but this was more than simple shameless self-promotion: British spooks and establishment figures were caught clandestinely influencing who does and does not get (s)elected into official positions in other European countries, on the basis of their 'proper ideological worldview'. For these people, the meaning of the word 'integrity' is very different from what most of us understand by it.

The second batch showed that the organization was also running disinformation campaigns domestically - specifically a smear campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn; all done under the guise of combatting "Russian propaganda."

Comment: Same as they did regarding Trump. Corbyn may be 'of the Left', but he clearly has - from the perspective of the deep state - more in common with the US president than relatively superficial differences suggest.

Now, a third batch of leaks has exposed that the project allegedly operated much like a modern-day version of Operation Mockingbird - a secretive 1950s project whereby the CIA worked hand-in-glove with willing journalists in major media outlets to ensure certain narratives were adhered to. Only this time, it's a UK-funded organization with deep links to the intelligence services and military passing itself off as a non-partisan "charity." 

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5 Whistleblowers Who Died Mysteriously

Sputnik

In the wake of the death on Wednesday of Iraq War veteran and computer security expert James Dolan, Sputnik decided to recall other whistleblowers that have passed away under rather vague circumstances.

1. James Dolan was a co-creator of the whistleblower submission system SecureDrop along with Aaron Swartz, who killed himself in 2013 following prosecution for an alleged criminal hacking incident. 36-year-old Dolan, who reportedly also took his own life, joined the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) after Swartz’s death. The circumstances of Dolan’s death are yet unknown, however the FPF reported that he had been suffering from PTSD since the Iraq War.

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WikiLeaks Publishes CIA Hacking Tool Designed To "Impersonate" Russia's Kaspersky Lab

Zero Hedge

 

On September 18th, the US Senate voted to ban the use of products from the Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab by the federal government, citing national security risk. The vote was included as an amendment to an annual defense policy spending bill approved by the Senate on the same day and was written to bar the use of Kaspersky Lab software in government civilian and military agencies.

Alas, according to a new revelation from WikiLeaks this morning, any perceived "national security risk" from Kaspersky could have resulted from the fact that the CIA specifically designed hacking software, code-named 'Hive', which intentionally "impersonated" the Russian cyber security firm so that "if the target organization looks at the network traffic coming out of its network, it is likely to misattribute the CIA exfiltration of data to uninvolved entities whose identities have been impersonated."

Here's a summary of the hacking tool posted by WikiLeaks:

Today, 9 November 2017, WikiLeaks publishes the source code and development logs to Hive, a major component of the CIA infrastructure to control its malware.

Hive solves a critical problem for the malware operators at the CIA. Even the most sophisticated malware implant on a target computer is useless if there is no way for it to communicate with its operators in a secure manner that does not draw attention. Using Hive even if an implant is discovered on a target computer, attributing it to the CIA is difficult by just looking at the communication of the malware with other servers on the internet. Hive provides a covert communications platform for a whole range of CIA malware to send exfiltrated information to CIA servers and to receive new instructions from operators at the CIA.

The cover domain delivers 'innocent' content if somebody browses it by chance. A visitor will not suspect that it is anything else but a normal website. The only peculiarity is not visible to non-technical users - a HTTPS server option that is not widely used: Optional Client Authentication. But Hive uses the uncommon Optional Client Authentication so that the user browsing the website is not required to authenticate - it is optional. But implants talking to Hive do authenticate themselves and can therefore be detected by the Blot server. Traffic from implants is sent to an implant operator management gateway called Honeycomb (see graphic above) while all other traffic go to a cover server that delivers the insuspicious content for all other users.

Digital certificates for the authentication of implants are generated by the CIA impersonating existing entities. The three examples included in the source code build a fake certificate for the anti-virus company Kaspersky Laboratory, Moscow pretending to be signed by Thawte Premium Server CA, Cape Town. In this way, if the target organization looks at the network traffic coming out of its network, it is likely to misattribute the CIA exfiltration of data to uninvolved entities whose identities have been impersonated.

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See also: EXPLOSIVE: Mainstream media “journalists” suspected of taking bribes to spread fake news “Russian Collusion”

Ross Ulbricht Loses His Appeal. Here's What Happens Next.

SHOW NOTES: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=23279

Lyn Ulbricht, mother of Ross Ulbricht, joins us today to discuss the arrest, conviction and unconscionable double life plus 40 year sentence of her son in the Silk Road case. We discuss the case against Ross and the exculpatory information that was withheld from the jury (and sometimes even the defence) during his trial. We also talk about the loss of his appeal in the 2nd District court and where the FreeRoss.org campaign goes from here.

No-Brainers and "Conspiracy Theories": Seth Rich, Craig Murray and the Narratives of the National Security State

Mike Whitney
Counterpunch

 Why is it a "conspiracy theory" to think that a disgruntled Democratic National Committee staffer gave WikiLeaks the DNC emails, but not a conspiracy theory to think the emails were provided by Russia?

Why?

Which is the more likely scenario: That a frustrated employee leaked damaging emails to embarrass his bosses or a that foreign government hacked DNC computers for some still-unknown reason?

That's a no-brainer, isn't it?

Former-DNC employee, Seth Rich, not only had access to the emails, but also a motive. He was pissed about the way the Clinton crowd was "sandbagging" Bernie Sanders. In contrast, there's neither evidence nor motive connecting Russia to the emails. On top of that, WikiLeaks founder, Julien Assange (a man of impeccable integrity) has repeatedly denied that Russia gave him the emails which suggests the government investigation is completely misdirected. The logical course of action, would be to pursue the leads that are most likely to bear fruit, not those that originate from one's own political bias. But, of course, logic has nothing to do with the current investigation, it's all about politics and geopolitics.

We don't know who killed Seth Rich and we're not going to speculate on the matter here. But we find it very strange that neither the media nor the FBI have pursued leads in the case that challenge the prevailing narrative on the Russia hacking issue. Why is that? Why is the media so eager to blame Russia when Rich looks like the much more probable suspect?

And why have the mainstream news organizations put so much energy into discrediting the latest Fox News report, when - for the last 10 months - they've showed absolutely zero interest in Rich's death at all? 

According to Fox News:

"The Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned down on July 10 on a Washington, D.C., street just steps from his home had leaked thousands of internal emails to WikiLeaks, law enforcement sources told Fox News.

A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report detailing the contents of DNC staffer Seth Rich's computer generated within 96 hours after his murder, said Rich made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time....

Rod Wheeler, a retired Washington homicide detective and Fox News contributor investigating the case on behalf of the Rich family, made the WikiLeaks claim, which was corroborated by a federal investigator who spoke to Fox News....

"I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and Wikileaks," the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department." ("Family of slain DNC staffer Seth Rich blasts detective over report of WikiLeaks link", Fox News)

Okay, so where's the computer? Who's got Rich's computer? Let's do the forensic work and get on with it.

But the Washington Post and the other bogus news organizations aren't interested in such matters because it doesn't fit with their political agenda. They'd rather take pot-shots at Fox for running an article that doesn't square with their goofy Russia hacking story. This is a statement on the abysmal condition of journalism today. Headline news has become the province of perception mandarins who use the venue to shape information to their own malign specifications, and any facts that conflict with their dubious storyline, are savagely attacked and discredited. Journalists are no longer investigators that keep the public informed, but paid assassins who liquidate views that veer from the party-line. 

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The real point of Wikileaks' Vault 7? Getting you used to Big Brother

Melissa Dykes
The Daily Sheeple

Wikileaks has released the first of its highly anticipated "Vault 7″... and the documents prove that the CIA not only has an enormous arsenal of lovely hacking tools and malware at its disposal, but the agency also has a fat bag of exploits that essentially allow it to take backdoor control of smart phones, televisions, gaming systems and more and turn them into live microphones.

The CIA... now in your living room any time it wants.

And now for the real takeaway of Wikileaks' Vault 7 "Year Zero" dump... incrementally acclimating people to living in a total information awareness society where the government has access and can invade your privacy any time it wants through technology.

See also: Organization with long history of spying on people may be spying on people: WikiLeaks Vault 7

Obama’s Sanctions against Moscow “Intended to Box In Donald Trump”. Evidence that Hacking of DNC Accusations are Fake

Michel Chossudovsky 
Global Research

President Obama in the course of his last few weeks in the White House has ordered several retaliatory actions against Russia, on the grounds that Moscow was in involved in the hacking of the Democratic Party National Committee (DNC) with a view to influencing the outcome of the US presidential elections in favor of Donald Trump.

The sweeping measures taken by Obama on December 29 consist in imposing sanctions on Russia’s intelligence services as well as requiring the departure of 35 Russian diplomats “suspected of being spies” from the US as well the shut down of two Russian compounds in Maryland and New York.

According to NBC, the December 29 sanctions on Russia constitute “an assertive act by President Obama to punish Russia before he leaves office.”

The unspoken truth, however, is that the punishment was intended for Trump.

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Exit Obama in a Cloud of Disillusion, Delusion and Deceit

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk

I had promised myself and my family that on this holiday I would do nothing but relax. However events have overtaken my good intentions. I find myself in the unusual position of having twice been in a position to know directly that governments were lying in globe-shaking events, firstly Iraqi WMD and now the "Russian hacks".

Anybody who believes the latest report issued by Obama as "proof" provides anything of the sort is very easily impressed by some entirely meaningless diagrams. William Binney, who was Technical Director at the NSA and actually designed their surveillance capabilities, has advised me by email.

It is plain from the report itself that the Russian groups discussed have been under targeted NSA surveillance for a period longer than the time frame for the DNC and Podesta leaks. It is therefore inconceivable that the NSA would not have detected and traced those particular data flows and they would be saved.

In other words, the NSA would have the actual hack on record, would be able to recognise the emails themselves and tell you exactly the second the transmission or transmissions took place and how they were routed. They would be able to give you date, time and IP addresses. In fact, not only do they produce no evidence of this kind, they do not even claim to have this kind of definite evidence.

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More Bullsh*t Fake News from Washington Post

Mike Mish Shedlock 

 

I was laughing the moment I saw the Washington Post headline story Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont. 

 

I did not touch the story because I thought it was BS. And it was. 

 

Glen Greenwald at the Intercept has the details in Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost Again: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid. 

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Russia "Tired Of Obama Lies About Hackers", Vows Response To Any New Sanctions

Zero Hedge

As Washington prepares to unleash new sanctions on Russia, it appears Putin won't take this laying down. If U.S. adopts new sanctions against Russia, govt in Moscow will resort to counter-measures, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warns in a website statement.

As we detailed previously, the delay in sanctions against Russia have come from Obama's inability to take unilateral actions under current laws.  While Obama previously signed an executive order that would allow him to freeze the assets in the United States of people overseas who have engaged in cyber acts, it only applies to actions that have threatened U.S. national security or financial stability.  Further, per a "senior administration official," use of the existing law would require (1) actual election infrastructure to be designated as 'critical infrastructure' and (2) the administration to prove that such infrastructure was actually "harmed," conditions which the National Security Council say have not been met.  

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Neocon Panic and Agony

The Saker

This column was written for the Unz Review: http://www.unz.com/tsaker/neocon-panic-and-agony/
 
There are clear signs that the Neocons running the AngloZionist Empire and it’s “deep state” are in a state of near panic and their actions are indicating that they are truly terrified.

The home front

On the home front, the Neocons have resorted to every possible dirty trick on the book to try to prevent Donald Trump from ever getting into the White House: they have

• organized riots and demonstrations (some paid by Soros money)
• encouraged the supporters of Hillary to reject the outcome of the elections (“not my President”)
• tried to threaten the Electors and make them either cast a vote for Hillary or not vote at all
• tried to convince Congress to refuse the decision of the Electoral College and
• they are now trying to get the elections annulled on the suspicion that the (apparently almighty) Russian hackers have compromised the election outcome (apparently even in states were paper ballots were used) and stolen it in favor of Trump.

That is truly an amazing development, especially considering how Hillary attacked Trump for not promising to recognize the outcome of the elections. She specifically said that Trump’s lack of guarantees to recognize the outcome would threaten the very basis of the stability of the US political system and now she, and her supporters, are doing everything in their power to do just that, to throw the entire electoral process into a major crisis with no clear path towards resolution. Some say that the Democrats are risking a civil war. Considering that several key Republican Congressmen have said they do support the notion of an investigation into the “Russian hackers” fairytale, I submit that the Republicans are doing exactly the same thing, that this is not a Democrat vs Republican issue, but a “deep state vs The People of the USA” issue.

Most experts agree that none of these tactics are going to work. So this begs the question of whether the Neocons are stupid, whether they think that they can succeed or what their true objective is.

My guess is that first and foremost what is taking place now is what always happens when the Neocons run into major trouble: they double down, again.

And again. And again. That is one of the key characteristics of their psychological make-up: they cannot accept defeat or, even less so, that they were wrong, so each time reality catches up to their ideological delusions, they automatically double-down. Still, they might rationalize this behavior by a combination of hopes that maybe one of these tricks will work, with the strong urge to do as much damage to President-Elect Trump before he actually assumes his office. I would never underestimate the vicious vindictiveness of these people.

What is rather encouraging is Trump’s reaction to all this: after apparently long deliberations he decided to nominate Rex Tillerson as his Secretary of State. From a Neocon point of view, if General Michael Flynn was bad, then Tillerson was truly an apocalyptic abomination: the man actually had received the order of “Friend of Russia” from the hands of Vladimir Putin himself!

Did Trump not realize how provocative this nomination was and how it would be received by the Neocons? Of course he did! That was, on his part, a totally deliberate decision. If so, then this is a very, very good sign.

I might be mistaken, but I get the feeling that Trump is willing to accept the Neocon challenge and that he will fight back. For example, his reaction to the CIA accusations about Russian hackers was very telling: he reminded everybody that “these are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction”. I think that it is now a safe bet to say that as soon as Trump take control heads will roll at the CIA.

[Sidebar: is it not amazing that the CIA is offering its opinion about some supposed Russian hacking during the elections in the USA? Since when does the CIA have any expertise on what is going on inside the USA? I thought the CIA was only a foreign intelligence agency. And since when does the CIA get involved in internal US politics? Yes, of course, savvy observers of the USA have always known that the CIA was a key player in US politics, but now the Agency apparently does not even mind confirming this openly. I don’t think that Trump will have the guts and means to do so but, frankly, he would be much better off completely dissolving the CIA. Of course, that could get Trump killed – messing with the Fed and the CIA are two unforgivable crimes in the USA – but then again Trump is already very much at risk anyway, so he might as well strike first].

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The Russian bear behind the keyboard: Russian hack claims are absurd

Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.uk

 

I am about twenty four hours behind on debunking the "evidence" of Russian hacking of the DNC because I have only just stopped laughing. I was sent last night the "crowdstrike" report, paid for by the Democratic National Committee, which is supposed to convince us. The New York Times today made this "evidence" its front page story. It appears from this document that, despite himself being a former extremely competent KGB chief, Vladimir Putin has put Inspector Clouseau in charge of Russian security and left him to get on with it. The Russian Bear has been the symbol of the country since the 16th century. So we have to believe that the Russian security services set up top secret hacking groups identifying themselves as "Cozy Bear" and "Fancy Bear". Whereas no doubt the NSA fronts its hacking operations by a group brilliantly disguised as "The Flaming Bald Eagles", GCHQ doubtless hides behind "Three Lions on a Keyboard" and the French use "Marianne Snoops". 

What is more, the Russian disguised hackers work Moscow hours and are directly traceable to Moscow IP addresses. This is plain and obvious nonsense. If crowdstrike were tracing me just now they would think I am in Denmark. Yesterday it was the Netherlands. I use Tunnel Bear, one of scores of easily available VPN's and believe me, the Russian FSB have much better resources. We are also supposed to believe that Russia's hidden hacking operation uses the name of the famous founder of the Communist Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky, as a marker and an identify of "Guccifer2" (get the references - Russian oligarchs and their Gucci bling and Lucifer) - to post pointless and vainglorious boasts about its hacking operations, and in doing so accidentally leave bits of Russian language script to be found.  

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Obama Out Not With A Bang, But A Whimper

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik

This is the way the Obama administration ends; not with a bang, but a pathetic whimper.

Queen of War Hillary “We Came, We Saw, He Died” Clinton’s campaign – fully supported by President Obama – spent a whopping $1.2 billion and floundered ignominiously at the US presidential election. So Obama decided that the consolation “prize” is to order the “intelligence community” – a contradiction in terms – to conduct a “full review” of how the evil Russians handed out the Big Prize to Donald Trump.

Queen of War famously insisted throughout the campaign that “17 US intelligence agencies” confirmed Russian hacking of the Podesta emails, then slow-dripped – Chinese torture-style – day after day by WikiLeaks, revealing the slimy inner workings of the DNC. In fact there was no damning 17 intel agencies verdict, just a dodgy comment by further disgraced Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper offering no evidence whatsoever.

And this right after the same rag went the full McCarthy, promoting a long black list remix of websites/news agencies, Sputnik included, denounced as fifth columnists and/or propaganda ops. Further enhancing its already negative credibility – constantly boosted by the neocon/neoliberalcon ravings of its editorial pages – the Post to this day has not retracted its infantile, bogus “report”.

The intersection of The New McCarthyism and the CIA at the Post couldn’t be more predictable; after all Bezos’ Amazon is a major contractor with the CIA, thus configuring the Post as a key US deep state asset. So welcome to Washington’s alleged newspaper of record regurgitating a US government (USG) blacklist of American and foreign journalists.

Now Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ two-bit neocon-infested rag The Washington Post – once upon a time a decent newspaper – piles up, mouthing a sensationalist CIA spin according to which Langley has the Russians did maneuver to install their Manchurian, Trumpian candidate.

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The CIA's big lies about 'Russian hacking' puts everyone in danger

Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org

I have watched incredulously as the CIA's blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story - blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton's corruption. Yes this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.

A little simple logic demolishes the CIA's claims. The CIA claim they "know the individuals" involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilize a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks. The anonymous source claims of "We know who it was, it was the Russians" are beneath contempt.

As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks - there is a major difference between the two. And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.  

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Hackers could get inside your BRAIN: Experts warn of growing threat from monitoring and controlling neural signals

 

UK Daily Mail

• Hackers placed images in apps and record your brain's response with BCIs
• Could find out anything from religious beliefs to sexual orientation
• May one day be used by advertisers, police and government 

Cyberthieves might be mining personal information from your brainwaves at this very moment.

And although this may sound like a plot from a science fiction film, it is a growing concern among researchers who have demanded officials implement a privacy and security framework to block hackers from reading our neural signals.

Experts at the University of Washington have revealed how hackerscould inserting images into dodgy apps and recording our brain's unintentional reaction using brain-computer interfaces.

Brain-computer Interfaces (BCIs) are widely used in the medical field and other industries, including marketing, gaming and entertainment.

Although this technology was initially created to improve and enhance the quality of human lives, in the wrong hands it will wreak havoc on them.

Researchers at the University of Washington say that time is running out and officials need to employ a privacy and security framework to stop those who would use our own brains against us, reports Motherboard.

'There's actually very little time,' electrical engineer Howard Chizeck told Victoria Turk with Motherboard over Skype.

'If we don't address this quickly, it'll be too late.'

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Next generation of children ‘will not know what money is’

The Telegraph

The next generation of children born in Britain “will not know what money is”, the boss of Apple has predicted.

Tim Cook, the chief executive of technology giant, forecast the death of cash by the time current university students have a family.

Cash is still used for more than half of payments by consumers, according to Payments UK, the industry body, but its popularity is falling as people switch to cards and smartphone apps such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

Answering questions from students at Trinity College Dublin, Mr Cook said: “Your kids will not know what money is.” 

In an outspoken address, he also vowed to deepen his fight against the so-called snooper’s charter. Mr Cook reiterated comments made to The Telegraph this week, stating that his company was commitment to full protection of customers’ data from hackers.

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Government Trolls Are Using ‘Psychology-Based Influence Techniques’ On YouTube, Facebook And Twitter

Michael Snyder
The End of The American Dream blog

Have you ever come across someone on the Internet that you suspected was a paid government troll?  Well, there is a very good chance that you were not imagining things.  Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now have solid proof that paid government trolls are using “psychology-based influence techniques” on social media websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.  Documents leaked by Snowden also reveal that government agents have been conducting denial-of-service attacks, flooding social media websites with thinly veiled propaganda and have been purposely attempting to warp public discourse online.  If we do not stand up and object to this kind of Orwellian behavior, it is only going to get worse and worse.

In the UK, the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) is a specialized unit within the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).  If it wasn’t for Edward Snowden, we probably still would never have heard of them.  This particular specialized unit is engaged in some very “questionable” online activities.  The following is an excerpt from a recent piece by Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman…

Though its existence was secret until last year, JTRIG quickly developed a distinctive profile in the public understanding, after documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the unit had engaged in “dirty tricks” like deploying sexual “honey traps” designed to discredit targets, launching denial-of-service attacks to shut down Internet chat rooms, pushing veiled propaganda onto social networks and generally warping discourse online.

We are told that JTRIG only uses these techniques to go after the “bad guys”.
But precisely who are the “bad guys”?

It turns out that their definition of who the “bad guys” are is quite broad.  Here is more from Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman…

JTRIG’s domestic and law enforcement operations are made clear. The report states that the controversial unit “currently collaborates with other agencies” including the Metropolitan police, Security Service (MI5), Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Border Agency, Revenue and Customs (HMRC), and National Public Order and Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). The document highlights that key JTRIG objectives include “providing intelligence for judicial outcomes”; monitoring “domestic extremist groups such as the English Defence League by conducting online HUMINT”; “denying, deterring or dissuading” criminals and “hacktivists”; and “deterring, disrupting or degrading online consumerism of stolen data or child porn.”

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US-backed Azov battalion crucifies and burns man alive in Ukraine

Comment: Warning: Graphic content. 

------------------------

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net

The pro-Kiev, ultra-Nazi Azov battalion in Ukraine has allegedly sent a snuff film depicting the brutal execution of a Ukrainian 'separatist' to militia fighters and hackers from the hacktivist collective known as Cyber Berkut. The video, shown below, is graphic, so be warned. It shows a group of armed men holding down a gagged man on a cross, tying him to it with duct tape. Nails are then hammered through the palms of his hands, the man's screams audible through the gag. While the actual nailing is not shown, the camera then moves in to show the nails in his hands. Then the cross is lifted, set in the ground, and the base is lit. The video cuts out as the fast-rising flames meet the crucified man's feet.

According to Cyber Berkut, the video had an accompanying message, stating the the footage was filmed near the village of Shirokino and warning that all separatists - 'traitors' to Ukraine - would face the same fate.

Cyber Berkut has been releasing leaked documents, audio, and video for the past year or so. They're the ones who released the phone call between EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton and Foreign Minister of Estonia Urmas Paet, in which they discuss the Maidan snipers. (You can see a list of some of their leaks on Wikipedia.) The video was then publicized by LifeNews in Russia, who confirmed its authenticity. LifeNews tends to be rather sensationalistic, but that does not necessarily imply the video is a fake.

That said, the authenticity of the video has not been confirmed. The DPR has so far refused to comment, and pro-Kiev websites are denouncing it as a Kremlin-produced hoax. Colonel Cassad is still on the fence. Azov is no stranger to torture. They're the ones who branded a swastika onto this Donbass resident. 

And that's their flag in the center of this infamous shot:

J. Hawk of Fort Russ summed up Colonel Cassad's position here.

On the one hand, Rozhin [Col. Cassad] points out that it's not as if there have been no cases of torture by the various neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine's official service (see photo above for an example--more at the link). Moreover, given the reputation of Cyber-Berkut, it seems unlikely that the organization would engage in spreading of false information. On the other hand, Rozhin acknowledges it's possible Cyber-Berkut got trolled by a pro-Kiev organization, which deliberately posted a fake clip so as to discredit CB.

The final possibility is that the clip is genuine, and the trolling claim is intended to depict the real video as a fake spread as misinformation. Keep in mind, however, that Novorossia media have fallen for fakes spread by the UAF before. The most notable was the story of a Novorossia nurse by the name of Sasha Serova being brutally murdered by the UAF, accompanied by a photo of...US porn star Sasha Grey (which is what the name Serova can mean). Therefore one has to approach such stories with particular care.

That makes more sense than the predictable "Kremlin propaganda" nonsense.

Real or not, people need to realize something: Azov, being the psychopaths they are, are perfectly capable of doing such a thing. As shown above, Azov has engaged in the most despicable acts of torture and murder possible. But many will deny the authenticity of this video not based on any evidence, but simply because they can't believe such a thing is possible. "They wouldn't do that, therefore they didn't. Only fanatical nutjobs like ISIS are that brutal."

Sorry, but that's just wrong. It doesn't matter what country you're from, what nationality you are, what religion you follow -- psychopaths are just as brutal, remorseless and monstrous. It just doesn't suit the West's geopolitical interests to admit that Azov -- who fights on the side of "our" guy, Poroshenko -- is the Ukrainian psychological equivalent of ISIS. It is. It's the same sickness: psychopathy.

 Actually, the connection is even clearer than that. Azov are "our guys". They're the ones effecting the U.S.'s will in Ukraine. As it just so happens, that is exactly what ISIS is doing in Syria and Iraq and Yemen, where they are being used to fight against the Houthi rebels that ousted the US-backed puppet president Hadi.