Quantum Dawn 2 will prepare banks, brokerages and exchanges for cyber attacks … Read More
At least 27 killed in Iraq bombings
Two car bombs went off in the southern city of Basra, 420km to the southeast of Baghdad, leaving at least five dead and 10 wounded, police pointed out. Next, bombings took place in Najaf, Nassiriya, Kut, Hilla, Tuz Khurmato, as well as in Mahmudiya, southern Baghdad. Six police officers were also shot dead on the outskirts of the northern town of Mosul, at a checkpoint. The deadliest blasts took place in and near the central city of Kut, where two parked car bombs targeted an industrial area and a gathering of construction workers, police told AP. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet, but the country has seen an increase in activity by Sunni Islamist insurgents since the beginning of this year. In May alone, over 1,000 people were murdered in militant attacks, according to the UN estimates – the numbers which make the month the deadliest since the sectarian massacres in 2006 and 2007. … Read More
‘We need a Serpico to clean up spy agencies’
RT: One argument is that Snowden exposed the existence of a system that was designed to prevent terrorist attacks; he’s made that known now to extremists. So surely that’s espionage, isn’t it? Tony Gosling: Well, this has got nothing to do with terrorism or terrorist attacks. This system is actually designed to troll all information. Let’s think about what that means. It includes all of the communications of our politicians, our political representatives and MPs. It also includes lawyers, people who might be defending us in court. And it includes journalists. It is probably the biggest phishing operation in history…Look at what Rupert Murdoch did with the News International scandal involving phone hacking. What was happening there? Information was being garnered and then used against people. And if you’ve got everything that anyone has ever said in private, you can take down just about anybody on the political scene. We’ve seen quite a lot of these takedowns. So that’s the real danger here…It undermines the rule of law. And effectively, that’s what’s been going on inside of the National Security Agency, and probably here at [British intelligence agency] GCHQ. All we are asking for is the rule of law. We’ve had enough of them using these intelligence agencies, this whole thing of national security, to cover up their own crimes. Somebody has authorized these, and somebody has carried them out. And if they haven’t got warrants from judges to do this surveillance then they’ve broken the law. What we need is some kind of Serpico [Frank Serpico was a NY cop who blew the whistle on entrenched police corruption – Ed.] to go into these intelligence services and clean them up, otherwise we’re heading down, as Daniel Ellsberg was saying, the road to tyranny. RT: Okay, the whistle has now been blown…but what’s going to happen to Snowden do you think? Gosling: Well, I would hope that there would be a movement – in fact, it’s already happening on the internet pretty straightaway – to protect him and look after him. [Snowden] is the latest in a series of people. We’ve had Julian Assange, to begin with, somebody who’s been working in the public interest exposing criminality and international war crimes, now incarcerated in London. Bradley Manning’s trial is just starting and, of course, Snowden is just the latest in this link. And I would imagine there will be attempts to protect him by the general public in the West. Certainly, he’s been working in our interest, making sure our taxpayers’ money is not misused by these intelligence services. RT: Well, his biggest worry now is that nothing is going to change, despite all this. Gosling: There are many politicians, lawyers, journalists and ordinary citizens across the West who want to see our intelligence services clear their act up. Because this is no good. We can’t have them simply able to break the law, and basically crying wolf: “National security, national security, we’re not going to allow the police in here.” We need the police to go into these agencies and ask question; if necessary, arrest intelligence officers who have been involved in this. But the key is to find out who authorized this in the first place, and…unless we send those people to jail, we are really in a dangerous situation where we could be living in what is effectively a technocracy, and that’s to say that democracy is out the window, those that own and control the technology that surrounds us, this surveillance technology, will be able to take down anybody, blacken the name of anybody they wish to. This is really a mixture of an Orwellian state, that was talked about by George Orwell…and also [former US President Dwight] Eisenhower warned us that the military-industrial complex could get on top and it seems most of our politicians, and many of our journalists in the West, are on the back foot. … Read More
Guardian Publishes Presidential Directive Authorizing Overseas Cyber Attacks
Top-secret directive steps up offensive cyber capabilities to ‘advance US objectives around the world’ … Read More
At least 8 dead in Damascus car bomb blast – reports
“At least eight regime forces were killed, and a number of civilians injured, after a large explosion caused by a car bomb hit the Jobar neighborhood near a police station,” said SOHR director, Rami Abdel Rahman. The number of casualties was not immediately known, but a ‘number of civilians’ were also injured, according to AFP. A Sky News Arabic correspondent placed the immediate death toll closer to 10. The explosion took place at around 5:30am local time (02:30 GMT), on Sunday morning, and was speculated in social media to have been instigated by the Al-Qaeda allied al-Nusra Front insurgents. However, there has been no confirmation of the perpetrators’ identities yet, and state news agency SANA has not yet released a statement. Brief gunfire accompanying the blast was reported in the city’s Abbasids Square and around Parliament Square, with some local agencies also reporting later clashes in both Aleppo and Homs. Clashes between rebels and regime forces have been ongoing in the central northeastern area of Damascus’ Jobar, according to SOHR. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian students are expected to be sitting high school diploma tests on Sunday. Multiple explosions struck the outskirts of Damascus last month when airstrikes – attributed to Israel, but not confirmed – blasted military posts at the beginning of May, with the explosions reportedly killing scores of soldiers. The conflict in Syria has entered its third year, with Damascus frequently being the site of bomb attacks. At least 80,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011, according to UN estimates. … Read More
Hack-up Plan: US recruits cyber warriors as tension with China grows
http://www.youtube.com/v/TFPRFOD0p1k?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata See more here: Hack-up Plan: US recruits cyber warriors as tension with China grows
‘We don’t need US military secrets’: Beijing slams White House theft claim
A US Science Board report leaked this week alleged the Chinese hackers had obtained access to the designs of two dozen major US weapons systems in what amounted to “billions of dollars of combat advantage to China.” The Washington Post, who saw a copy of the report, intimated that such information could be used by the Chinese government to speed up the development of their military. An unnamed official told the Post that China had saved themselves “25 years of research and development” by stealing the plans. Beijing reacted with ire, with Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng dismissing the report as ridiculous. “It both underestimates the Pentagon’s defensive security abilities and the Chinese people’s intelligence,” said Geng in a news briefing. He stressed that China had demonstrated on numerous occasions it has the ability “to build the weapons needed for national security.” “Recently China’s aircraft carrier, new fighter jets and transport aircraft … have clearly shown this,” concluded Geng. The Washington Post wrote that among the designs procured by the Chinese were blueprints for combat aircraft, ships and missiles defense systems for Europe, Asia and the Gulf. These included the advanced Patriot missile system, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the Black Hawk helicopter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. While Pentagon press secretary George Little told CNN on Tuesday claims that cyber-attacks had weakened US military capabilities were incorrect. “Suggestions that cyberintrusions have somehow led to the erosion of our capabilities or technological edge are incorrect, we maintain full confidence in our weapons platforms,” said Little. The White House has accused Beijing repeatedly of hack attacks on US government and military systems. At the beginning of May the US Department of Defense formally condemned Chinese cyber-attacks, “some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military.” “Hacking attacks are transnational and anonymous,” Hong Lei, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said. “Determining their origins is extremely difficult. We don’t know how the evidence in this so-called report can be tenable.” The issue of cyber warfare has been a significant bone of contention in Sino-American relations lately, although Beijing has refuted all claims of cyber-attack on the US. Chinese President Xi Jingping is in America this week, where he will conduct talks with his American counterpart Barack Obama. Cyber security is expected to be at the top of the agenda, as well as China’s growing military might and its claim on disputed territory in the East China Sea. … Read More
