Movie Magic USB hacking tool really exists

Tech Crunch brings us a cool USB hacking tool here

As they describe it, the star hax0r of the movie is left alone with a computer, they pull out a necklace, plug it into the computer, it takes it over and sets up a reverse shell.

Unfortunately it only works on a Mac, ( how is this possible!  just kidding ) but other versions are coming soon

Washington Post Article on Sony hack - also the "Don't spend $10 Million to protect $1 Million" quote IS Director

Why it’s so hard to calculate the cost of the Sony Pictures hack

The cyberattack on Sony Pictures went far beyond the typical corporate hack -- with attackers allegedly leaking huge amounts of data, including personal information about employees and internal company strategy information. The malware reportedly used in the attack also damaged the underlying systems at the company, making recovery much more difficult than other types of corporate cyberespionage.

"These attacks are pretty devastating," said Kurt Baumgartner, principal for security research at Kaspersky Lab. The investigation into the situation could run on for months, and the cleanup will likely cost millions "if not tens of millions," he said.

...

Jason Spaltro, then executive director of information security at Sony Pictures, called it a "valid business decision to accept the risk of a security breach"  in a 2007 interview with CIO Magazine, adding he would not invest "$10 million to avoid a possible $1 million loss."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/05/why-its-so-hard-to-calculate-the-cost-of-the-sony-pictures-hack/

OK, look at it this way:

• 2007:  Sony would not invest "$10 million to avoid a possible $1 million loss." 
• Also 2007 TJ Maxx,  reported over $250 million
•  2011, Sony's PlayStation Network an estimated $170 million
• 2011: RSA $66 Million
• 2013: Target  $400 million
• 2014: Sony ???

Also 2014:

 Fusion [ when did Kash Hill leave Forbes? Halloween - Oh I was London]  reports that documents leaked after the recent attack show the company had just 11 people assigned to its information security team: "Three information security analysts are overseen by three managers, three directors, one executive director and one senior-vice president." (Sony Pictures did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)
 BTW - According to Wikipedia, Sony Pictures Entertainment revenue for as of March 2014 was $8.0B

*Updated* Google News in Spain goes Dark

Update: Gizmodo agrees -  http://gizmodo.com/a-big-round-of-applause-to-google-for-shaming-spain-wor-1669840971

In a new take on "planned outage", Google has turned off Google News in Spain over a ridiculous tax for the snippets their search engine displays.

Techdirt calls it the "Nuclear Option", I call it "Well, Duh".

I was kinda hoping they'd do it in Germany or the EU (OMG what a crock!)

I say Go Go Google!

EFF has an important writeup in their blog too - can't resist this quote:

 Online intermediaries may be a convenient scapegoat for the fading fortunes of European newspaper publishers, but banning the use of text snippets alongside website links is a misguided and—now self-evidently
—counter-productive approach. Once it becomes illegal for aggregators to freely link news summaries to publicly-available websites, it becomes that much easier for those who want to prohibit other sorts of links, such as links to political YouTube videos, to make their case.

This will be fun to watch when the news websites in Spain Lose All Their Traffic

It won't shut down until Dec 16, think there will be furious backpedaling at the Spanish news sites?

Hint to Spanish sites:  Look for referer tag in your logs to see how much money you'll lose.

Viewing or using Sony stolen documents? Wrong Wrong Wrong

And I'm not gonna do it.  Period.

And there's always a BUT.

Remember:

1. The rootkit on the audio CD?
2. The promise to run Linux on the PS3?
3. All the Harrassment for Geohot?

the list goes on

Sony is not a friend of their community.  Is this karma?

The idiots that are threatening the families are going to get caught, and they're going to do time. BTW. duh?

Australia News (ABC) reports 77 Chinese arrested in Kenya accused of Cybercrime network attacking Banking and telecom system.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-05/dozens-of-chinese-held-in-kenya-in-cyber-bust/5945610

Other interesting tidbits

1. Running mysterious "command centre" from upmarket houses in the capital Nairobi
2. "preparing to raid the country's communication systems".
3. equipment capable of infiltrating bank accounts, Kenya's M-Pesa mobile banking system and ATMs.
4. "being in the country illegally and operating radio equipment" without the necessary permits.
5. "military-style dormitories".
6. "China promised to send investigators to work with ours on this matter," 
7. the group were making microchips for ATM cards 

Maybe most interesting of all:

China, a major investor in Kenya's infrastructure and communications networks and hailed earlier this year by president Uhuru Kenyatta as "an honourable partner" for east Africa's largest economy

Declassified FISA court documents declassified under FOIA illustrate a wealth of Government activities

1500 pages of Documents Yahoo's case against their National Security Letters in 2008 have recently become declassified.

I guess the law is one thing and the interpretation of it is something completely different, especially where there is no oversight or public inspection.  If activities can be performed and judged  by the government, with no opposing council or public inspection, how can they not get out of control? 


The first document (64 pages) shows this in spades, where the FISA court justices can't understand that tapping the phones of provably innocent people isn't constitutional because they aren't aware of it.  A good article about it is (as usual) on Techdirt.

 It also shows contradictory statements of facts

'"There is no database," says Gregory Garre, before having to admit a few sentences later, that incidental data is retained (and distributed)'

[page 8] In the following quote, the Yahoo attorney (Zwillinger) is relating that in spite of monetary compensation for their time and effort they are still injured.

Justice Arnold: Well, if this order is enforced, and it's secret, how can you [yahoo] be hurt?  The people don't know that -- that they're being monitored in some way.

Awesome! Uber crying that media is mean to them, suggests "Digging up dirt on journalists"

Update #7 - 20-June because AUATT (below) - The FTC is investigating them?

Update #6 - 14-June-2017 - As a matter of fact, this blog is "All Uber all the time".  After Emil Michael's and Travis Kalanick's LOA departures, board member David Bonderman in a discussion with Adriana Huffington - 'who was speaking about the need for more female representation on Uber’s board. When “there’s one woman on the board, it’s much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board,” Huffington said, to which Bonderman shot back “what it shows is that it’s much more likely to be more talking.” - Bonderman was out in about the time it takes to say "Do we need to call security?"

Update #5 - 12-June-2017 - Eric Holder report released soon, likely not good.   Travis Kalanick on LOA after a family tragedy (we're truly sorry and our thoughts and prayers for the family), oh, and Emil Michael out
 
Update #4: The Verge:  Can Uber be saved from itself?

Watch for:  Ryan Graves (employee #1) to take the fall for the latest things, both the Misogyny from Susan Fowlers blog (sub watch - are they investigating her personally? ) and Greyball (Verge again) 

Update #3a:
Uber allegedly has a pretty horrible culture of sexual harassment, per engineer-author Susan Fowler who isn't afraid to blow the whistle under her own name, and there's a really good blog post at Global Nerdy that deconstructs and validates the claims

Kara Swisher from Recode/Decode had a podcast about Uber that posted the day after Susan’s blog post went viral named “Self-driving cars are an ‘existential crisis’ for Uber, ‘Upstarts’ author Brad Stone says”

Here’s Kara’s blog post about the leather jacket

http://www.recode.net/2017/2/22/14700114/is-uber-lost

Update #2:  CNN-  Uber limits employee access to God mode

Update #1:  Washington Post blog has insight on their privacy and least privilege policy

 AKA - Let's DOX our customers, that'll show them

So correct me if I'm wrong, Buzzfeed article, linked from Drudge:

According to Buzzfeed article uber-executive-suggests-digging-up-dirt-on-journalists :

1. Uber thinks journalists are being mean, especially pando writer Sarah Lacey writing about them after a Buzzfeed article accusing them of sexism (awesome example of just that BTW)
2. VP of Black Bag Jobs, er "business", Emil Michael, suggests opposition research including aforementioned digging up dirt
3. Immediate spin control, an Uber spokes droid states (from the article) "the company does not do “oppo research” of any sort on journalists, and has never considered doing it. She also said Uber does not consider Lacy’s personal life fair game, or believe that she is responsible for women being sexually assaulted."
4.  Even though (from the article again) "the general manager of Uber NYC accessed the profile of a BuzzFeed News reporter, Johana Bhuiyan, to make points in the course of a discussion of Uber policies."
5.  SO a new economy taxi company is on record of using it's data against journalists and anybody still uses them?!
6. Update:  Amy Keyishian at Re/code had the first link to Seth Meyers clip with the "That Boober Guy" nickname for Travis Kalanick, some great advice on the difference in truth in public and private speech, and equating the Emil Michael quotes with Valdemort speaking to Hogwarths.