Please try the URL privacy information feature enabled by clicking the flashlight icon above. This will reveal two icons after each link the body of the digest. The shield takes you to a breakdown of Terms of Service for the site - however only a small number of sites are covered at the moment. The flashlight take you to an analysis of the various trackers etc. that the linked site delivers. Please let the website maintainer know if you find this useful or not. As a RISKS reader, you will probably not be surprised by what is revealed…
The New York Times front page today 16 Jun 2020 [PGN-ed]
This is a remarkably comprehensive take on the saga that began in the Iowa caucuses in February 2016, Robby Mook (who was falsely accused of developing the app that came from Shadow Inc.), the Kremlin-backed Russian Internet Research Agency, and more that continues today.
Clint Watts, former FBI special agent: “The Kremlin doesn't need to make fake news any more. It's all American made.”
Russians have concluded that it is easier to identify divisive content from real Americans [rather than masquerading as real Americans] and help it spread through low-profile networks of social media accounts.
Cindy Otis, former CIA analyst: “Russia's trolls learned it is far more effective to find the sore spots and amplify content by native English speakers than it is to spin out their own wackadoodle conspiracy theories.”
@DanRadov [who had earlier promulgated various Russian fake news as formerly @DanWals83975326, and who is still active]: “U.S. has long been in the position when one spark can burn the whole country down and all of the United West for that matter. Buckle your seatbelts people. We are up for a rough ride.”
Fox News published digitally altered and misleading photos on stories about Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in what photojournalism experts called a clear violation of ethical standards for news organizations.
As part of a package of stories Friday about the zone, where demonstrators have taken over several city blocks on Capitol Hill after Seattle police abandoned the East Precinct, Fox's website for much of the day featured a photo of a man standing with a military-style rifle in front of what appeared to be a smashed retail storefront.
The image was actually a mashup of photos from different days, taken by different photographers — it was done by splicing a Getty Images photo of an armed man, who had been at the protest zone June 10, with other images from May 30 of smashed windows in downtown Seattle. Another altered image combined the gunman photo with yet another image, making it appear as though he was standing in front of a sign declaring “You are now entering Free Cap Hill.”
Fox News Removes a Digitally Altered Image of Seattle Protests Fox News acknowledged that one photo was a combination of several images, and a second was taken in a different city. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/13/business/media/fox-news-george-floyd-protests-seattle.html
Fox News Removes Digitally Altered, Misleading Photos of Seattle ‘Autonomous Zone’ From Website https://time.com/5853408/fox-news-altered-photo-seattle/
Fox News removes altered images from Seattle protest https://www.axios.com/fox-news-removes-seattle-protest-altered-images-dfad3cf6-3784-4eaf-89e8-896705387d64.html
‘We are going to crush this lady’: Six former eBay employees charged in federal cyberstalking case targeting Natick couple
Travis Andersen, The Boston Globe, 15 Jun 2020
Six eBay employees including a former police captain in California last year engaged in a relentless campaign of harassment and cyberstalking of a Natick couple that published a newsletter critical of the online retailer, sending items including fly larvae, live spiders, and a bloody pig mask to their home and traveling to Massachusetts to conduct surveillance of the victims in an effort to get them to stop publishing, authorities alleged Monday.
The publication of ‘Vault 7’ cyber tools by WikiLeaks marked the largest data loss in agency history, a task force concluded.
Who are their targets? NGOs, Journalists, Activists for now…. but, literally, ANYONE and EVERYONE are at risk … Immediately following are TWO VERY different reports that represent TWO very DIFFERENT angles and hazards to personal safety, personal security and personal privacy in the digital universe.
John Scott-Railton, Adam Hulcoop, Bahr Abdul Razzak, Bill Marczak, Siena Anstis, and Ron Deibert, Dark Basin, Uncovering a Massive Hack-For-Hire Operation, THE CITIZEN LAB, 9 Jun 2020 https://citizenlab.ca/2020/06/dark-basin-uncovering-a-massive-hack-for-hire-operation/
and… “The thrill of the hunt”… except, in this case… the fox may not have a tail, be red… or even be a fox! …
MISTAKEN IDENTITY Olivia Nuzzi, New York Magazine - Intelligencer, 8 Jun 2020 What It's Like to Get Doxed for Taking a Bike Ride
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/what-its-like-to-get-doxed-for-taking-a-bike-ride.html
Sasha Ingber, Newsy, 11 Jun 2020 Former Air Force Officer Fears Intelligence Collected On Protesters
https://www.newsy.com/stories/surveillance-planes-above-floyd-protests/
[Thanks to Gene Spafford]
You might not believe it, but it's possible to spy on secret conversations happening in a room from a nearby remote location just by observing a light bulb hanging in there—visible from a window—and measuring the amount of light it emits.
A team of cybersecurity researchers has developed and demonstrated a novel side-channel attacking technique that can be applied by eavesdroppers to recover full sound from a victim's room that contains an overhead hanging bulb.
The findings were published in a new paper by a team of academics—en Nassi, Yaron Pirutin, Adi Shamir, Yuval Elovici and Boris Zadov—from the Israeli's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science, which will also be presented at the Black Hat USA 2020 conference later this August. <https://www.blackhat.com/us-20/briefings/schedule/index.html#lamphone-real-time-passive-reconstruction-of-speech-using-light-emitted-from-lamps-20599>
The technique for long-distance eavesdropping, called “Lamphone <https://www.nassiben.com/lamphone>,” works by capturing minuscule sound waves optically through an electro-optical sensor directed at the bulb and using it to recover speech and recognize music.
How Does the ‘Lamphone Attack’ Work?. […] https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/lamphone-light-bulb-spy.html
https://www.universalhub.com/2020/feds-allege-ebay-terror-campaign-against-natick
This has been driving us crazy all day…
T-Mobile Hit by Widespread Voice and Data Outage
“T-Mobile customers across the country are reporting issues placing and receiving calls as well as when using data services. The self-proclaimed Uncarrier said it began to experience an unspecific network outage that is impacting hundreds of thousands of customers starting in the early afternoon.”
“Our engineers are working to resolve the widespread voice and text issue,” the company said on its website. It went on to recommend that customers use third-party messaging.
[BAD IDEA!]
I've noted in the past why this is a TERRIBLE idea. Yes, URLs can be long and messy, but they frequently provide critical cues that you're on the correct pages. Further tampering with them is an invitation to new kinds of confusion and hack attacks.
Google is messing with the address bar again—new experiment hides URL path
There's a fundamental issue with password validation
https://towardsdatascience.com/why-password-validation-is-garbage-56e0d766c12e
The major items missing from the “Nutrition Label” is whether or not the “Thing” will still “Thing” when the “Internet” is not and never has been present.
Without that information it is impossible for any rational decision to be made and one must assume that the “Thing” will not “Thing” and is therefore completely unsuitable for use.
Good discussion of false negative/positive outcomes for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnostic tests.
“The PCR tests, when done perfectly, do boast a very low false-positive rate. But they're not always done perfectly.
“Certified labs like hers use procedures to reduce the risk of false test results, since a false-positive test can lead to a medical misdiagnosis. But slip-ups are inevitable.
“Most errors are caused by poor sample handling or other errors even before a sample gets to the lab, she says.
“And PCR is so incredibly sensitive, contamination is a particular concern. Even the tiniest amount of stray material in a lab can spell trouble, Pritt says.”
Every registered voter in Georgia received an absentee ballot request form. While the voter still had to return the form to receive an absentee ballot, every Georgia voter had an opportunity to vote using an hand-marked paper ballot submitted by postal mail.
The only way to view site content is to disable ad blocking or more generally, script blocking—and I find that unappealing, even temporarily.
A business model apparently overrides any information-providing mission. My personal vote is thumbs-down; others are free to choose differently.
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