SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green : Cybersecurity Legislation Components, (Sun, Feb 5th)

This post was syndicated from: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green and was written by: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green. Original post: at SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green

As many of us have seen in the media recently, the United States and other world governments are deeply entrenched in discussions over proposed cybersecurity legislation. There are many different flavors of legislation currently being discussed by governments across the globe, of which I dont intend to cover here. In the US it appears the government has finally started to address cybersecurity issues that have been discussed in this forum for years. One piece of the legislation currently being discussed is a proposal sponsored by Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) is House Resolution 3674 – the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Enhancement Act of 2011 or PrECISE. The thrust of the bill is to amend the current Homeland Security Act of 2002 which will give additional authority to the USGovernment in the national cybersecurity effort.

I want to highlight some of the ideas being presented in this bill and how they are going to be a huge win for the cyber security community. These are just a few of the items being discussed, but these will pay huge dividends in the security effort.

The coordination and sharing of information between the civilian and government agencies is one of the topics some of the bills being considered address, and is a critical component in the cybersecurity effort. As it is written in PrECISE SEC. 2. Sec.226 (2) foster the development, in conjunction with other governmental entities and the private sector, of essential information security technologies and capabilities for protecting Federal systems and critical infrastructure information systems, including comprehensive protective capabilities and other technological solutions. Organizations that have previously developed implementation strategies for information systems have a leg up on organizations that have not. The Black Hat community has excelled at this type of sharing, and has been an excellent vehicle for their efforts. They are not impeded by corporate policy, federal guidelines, or other governing regulations.

The silos of information that exist in the enterprise today have also led to silos of security information. The production, collection, and correlation of that information is often difficult because different vendor technologies, implemented at different stages, lead to disparate systems. PrECISE SEC. 2, Sec 226 Para. (3) states the need to acquire, integrate, and facilitate the adoption of new cybersecurity technologies and practices in a technologically and vendor-neutral manner to keep pace with emerging terrorist and other cybersecurity threats. There are many great minds and methods to approach this, and the solution will not be easy. It is a critical solution that needs to be addressed.

User awareness and education is critical for every aspect of information security. With the increase of reliance on technology throughout, the importance of user education increases accordingly. PrECISE SEC. 2, Sec 226 Para.(6) states and

-(C) training opportunities to support the development of an effective national cybersecurity workforce and educational paths to cybersecurity professions
User education and awareness training, coupled with the information sharing efforts mentioned in Para. (2) will go a long way towards improving the overall security of the information and systems we use every day.

I am excited to see the governments taking cybersecurity seriously, and hope the politicians can produce something that is useable and applicable to the world today. The implementation of some of the ideas discussed in this bill will be a huge undertaking, and needs to be done.As a society we have moved beyond the point where cybersecurity is merely desirable by the people who rely on technology. it is a fundamental need, and in some instances, desperately.
Tony Carothers
tony d0t carothers at g_mail

(c) SANS Internet Storm Center. http://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

[Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова] : Ако Полша не ратифицира ACTA

This post was syndicated from: [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова] and was written by: nellyo. Original post: at [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова]

Полша спира процеса на ратификация на АСТА. Според министър-председателя, процесът за ратификация на ACTA ще бъде замразен толкова дълго, колкото   е нужно, за да се преодолеят съмненията.

Според FFII  оценките на институциите за ефекта от това събитие са различни:

  • представител на Eвропейската  комисия е  казал за ZDNet, че за ЕС това е край на ратификационния процес и на национално, и на наднационално равнище, защото ако една държава не ратифицира споразумението, то не може да влезе в сила за ЕС;
  • представител на Съвета е изразил мнение, че в частта на изключителната компетентност на ЕС  споразумението може да влезе в сила, а в частта на споделената – само за ратифициралите държави.

Ако ЕК и Съветът останат  на различни позиции, очакването е да се сезира Съда на ЕС.

SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green : Apple Security Advisory 2012-001 v1.1, (Sat, Feb 4th)

This post was syndicated from: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green and was written by: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green. Original post: at SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green

Earlier today, Apple announced v 1.1 of the Security update 2012-001. The advisory announced the availability of Security Update for Mac OSX10.6.8 that addresses a compatibility issue, and the removal of security fixes that were present in original update for Snow Leopard. I am not confident why Apple removed security fixes from the original release, but maybe one of our readers can help us understand the issues behind the ImageIOsecurity fix removal.
Below is the security advisory and we will link to the advisory once it is available on Apple’s website.

APPLE-SA-2012-02-03-1 Security Update 2012-001 v1.1

Security Update 2012-001 v1.1 is now available

for Mac OS X v10.6.8 systems to address a compatibility

issue.

Version 1.1 of this update removes the ImageIO security

fixes released in Security Update 2012-001.

OS X Lion systems are not affected by this change.

Update #1:
Apple Support shows there were 3 different issues which were corrected in ImageIO in the original Security Update information located at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5130.
Elsewhere, it appears that there are a number of users of OS XLion which had problems after applying the original update as reported in Apple Support forums, 9to5Mac, and thevarguy.com. The Security Advisory only mentions OS X Snow Leopard, so I am not sure that the two issues are related or just coincidental. Stay tuned for more information.
Update #2:
Secunia has a very nice list of details in the update from yesterday. More information is located at http://secunia.com/advisories/47843/. No real information on why the ImageIO updates were removed.

—-
Guy Bruneau Scott Fendley (ISC Handler On Duty)

(c) SANS Internet Storm Center. http://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

TorrentFreak : Busted By The FBI: The Life Of An Elite Teen BitTorrent Uploader

This post was syndicated from: TorrentFreak and was written by: enigmax. Original post: at TorrentFreak

In the early part of the last decade when they were still the innocent side of 15-years-old, one schoolfriend showed another an Iomega ZIP drive (right) full of ‘warez’ – games and software with a big fat zero written on their price tag.

Having never seen anything like it before, James (as we shall call him for now) became hooked, and quickly began to display a trait inherent in many addicted file-sharers.

“I simply couldn’t get enough,” he told TorrentFreak. “It was more fun downloading and sharing the stuff with all my friends then actually using it or playing the actual games.”

Having become inspired by these simple beginnings, James began chatting with other like-minded people on warez sites and ICQ, going on to share warez via PUBS, FTP-enabled servers conveniently left open by companies with more bandwidth than security sense.

Sharing files wasn’t a simple process back then and James took exception when Napster began dumbing down the process.

“We hated it, simply despised it because it made a mockery of the hard work we put in to obtain all these different warez,” he recalls.

But despite these early bad feelings towards Napster, the future would eventually see James become a facilitator of even easier ways of downloading. Not for just his friends, but for more than a hundred thousand people.

After working his way up to become one of the top members on the GraveyardFXP warez board, James says he became a moderator of DelusionalFXP. It was there, on their IRC channel, that he would meet people whose new project would suck him in and change his life forever. At some point along the line, ‘James’ became better known to his peers as StonyVision, and he was invited to join a new project being set up by, among others, a fellow pirate known as Sk0t.

Under Sk0t’s leadership, a torrent site called Elite Torrents was taking shape and preparing itself for an eventual membership of some 130,000 active users. It would also become the only US-based BitTorrent tracker ever to be busted by the FBI and ICE.

Elite Torrents

After he’d installed BitComet and began sharing content in February 2004, staff on Elite noticed something very appealing about StonyVision – his impressive upload capability. StonyVision told us he’d “followed instructions” on how to use two instead of the regular one modem his cable connection usually allowed, which gave him business-standard upload speeds. When you’re delivering content on BitTorrent, upload bandwidth is king, and Elite wanted some of Stony’s.

But as file-sharers are often heard to complain, you can never have enough bandwidth, so Stony acquired a 100mbit server at The Planet in Texas and began seeding his files from there. Once around 150 of Elite’s users had grabbed his latest release he’d begin releasing his next torrent, usually the very latest movies. His performance eventually meant that he became a member of staff, later going on to organize other Elite Torrents uploaders.

Of course, StonyVision needed content to share and he wasted no time in getting it directly from source – The Scene. He’d gained access to this elite network through his contacts at DelusionalFXP and ended up adding his own server to something called T.O.P. or “Tower of Power” – 53 dedicated 100mbit servers acting as a single giant RAID FTP piracy site. But still Stony needed more.

“At that point I was on four or five top sites, and my main interest was always movies. I loved movies and still do,” Stony explained. “Since my server was tied up I ended up renting two more, one to race with and another for seeding content on Elite Torrents.”

In common with his more old-school peers, Stony saw himself as something of a Robin Hood, “taking from the rich and giving to Average Joe”, and reveled in the positive feedback left by up to 130,000 Elite Torrents users.

But the environment in the United States had become increasingly unfriendly towards The Scene. The FBI and DoJ’s Operation Fastlink was underway and there was a growing fear that torrent sites would be targeted next. Stony sensed the tension and stepped down from the site’s staff around April 2005. He was 19-years-old – and too late.

Elite Torrents and its operators were already being watched and no amount of IP-address obfuscation would prove effective in hiding Stony or his fellow staffers on the site.

“Truth be told I did hide my IP and was the hardest one to find but [the FBI] used the Patriot Act and came up with an asinine amount of money lost to these companies and the movie industry and labeled me as a possible domestic terrorist who was conspiring to commit copyright infringement,” Stony explains.

“I woke up to banging on the door over and over, the dogs started barking. I got up thinking who’s the asshole banging on my door at 6am? Next thing I know there’s 10+ FBI agents in my house. I started laughing at first – I thought it was a joke – until the reality sunk in.”

It was 25th May 2005 and Operation D-Elite, which was to claim several admins and staff members at Elite Torrents, was underway.

“That was the day of days, I was in total and utter dismay and couldn’t even wrap my head around what had happened. I had no clue what was happening to the others. I lawyered up immediately which in itself is a funny story. I opened up the Yellow Pages, looked under ‘lawyer’ and there it was – an ad with a firm that had dealt with computer crime.

“I think I need a lawyer,” Stony told the gentleman on the other end who inquired “Why?”

“Well, the FBI had just raided my house along with a group they called ICE,” Stony responded.

A few awkward seconds of silence was followed by: “How fast can you get here?”

What came next was mountains of litigation and Stony being told to expect the worst – 5 years in prison. The pressure proved too much and Stony went off the rails, turning to alcohol.

In December 2006 he would learn his fate for the uploading of 53 movies, 6 pieces of software and 10 video games. The government demanded a prison sentence in order to deter others from infringement. To Stony’s huge relief, they didn’t get their way.

“Luckily for me I had the most liberal federal judge there was at the time. I was given a fine of $3,500, 6 months house arrest, community service and 3 years probation in which I was not allowed to touch a computer. I had somehow escaped doing time and the U.S attorney was furious.”

But despite avoiding prison, Stony says that he’s still paid a price.

“It’s been the bane of my existence and yet made me who I am. I continued on a self destructive path for quite some time doing crazy things, still working out, getting in bar fights. Truth be told I’ve been to hell and back, stared the devil in the face with its trillions of dollars of influence (RIAA, MPAA) and laughed and walked away.”

Stony says that confessing to a double felony on job applications hinders him, but the support of a new woman in his life has helped tremendously. So how are things today?

“I of course no longer pirate anything anymore as I’m sure I’m still on numerous watch lists. Its simply fun to look every now and again,” says Stony.

“My story isn’t one of inspiration but one of caution. It could happen to anyone out there. I know people are thinking ‘nah, not me’, but that’s what I thought too and now here we are.”

Stony told us that he recently got back online again with his own computer and was inspired by the huge anti-SOPA and PIPA campaigns.

“Thanks to everyone who spoke out on Internet blackout day. It really did give me goosebumps to see people finally stand up and be heard,” he concludes.

Sk0t’s story and those of his fellow operators and uploaders can be found here and here.

Source: Busted By The FBI: The Life Of An Elite Teen BitTorrent Uploader

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РККА / WBCA : 2012-02-04 борба със скуката

This post was syndicated from: РККА / WBCA and was written by: Vasil Kolev. Original post: at РККА / WBCA

Сериозното нещо, което пиша не е готово, така че ето с какво се забавлявах в последно време, за да не ми е скучно:

Дойде желязото за курса по системна администрация и проучвам точно с какво ще го ползвам. Дотук vmware бяха дисквалифицирани заради windows-only клиенти, така като гледам това, което има за Xen за linux е силно счупено (openxenmanager), вероятно ще трябва да направя някоя магия. Ето така ми изглеждаше бюрото снощи, по време на началния setup.
(да живее ipmi-то, мога да държа желязото в другата стая и да го паля/спирам отдалечено, че вие ужасяващо)

Компилирах си osmocombb за openmoko gta02 телефона. Задачката беше забавна, понеже има няколко различни среди за компилация, а самия osmocombb е мислен да работи на pc-то (host-а) и да сипва един малък firmware на отсрещната машина, а вече на host-а няколко приложения да се закачат към osmocon-а и да правят каквото правят. Съответно имаше компилиране на osmocon за moko-то, което отне един следобед в проби и грешки, заедно с още няколко часа подкарване на правилната версия на cell_log. Сега обаче цялото нещо умира в първите няколко минути, трябва да се види дали е от хардуера.

Около работата има други забавления. Последното е компилация на libprotobuf за symbian, та в момента се точи SDK-то. Имаше преписване на чужди заявки, дебъгване на странни рядко-случващи се явления (хората стават много нещастни, като се пропусне да се отбележи плащане, а знаехте ли, че в php при FastCGI се ползва един формат на header(), в останалите случаи друг?), обработка на binary данни в java (какъв език е тва, че няма htonl()), търсене на ntfs partition в някакъв пратен от на майната си диск и разни други стандартни неща за правене.

Взех си два албума на deathmole (виртуалната група на автора на Questionable content), звучат приятно.

Подкарах си statusnet на s.ludost.net, чиято цел е да ми замести twitter-а (вече го има него в sidebar-а на блога). Остава ми да го вържа с jabber-а да ми праща какво се случва, да му вдигна https, вероятно да му напиша филтри и ще е съвсем използваемо. Който иска да ме чете/добавя – http://s.ludost.net/krokodilerian, тия дни
(а си подкарах statusnet, понеже съм решил, че е крайно време да се мине от cloud бози на federated тип услуги, но това ще е тема на друг post (или по-скоро няколко). Още пиша бележки, да видим какво ще излезе.)

Вече има ipv6 адрес на marla.ludost.net (раздадоха ми /126 от evolink, май даже на тях самите им се вижда странно) и вече web-а и още няколко неща се виждат спокойно от там. Има няколко неща, които още не съм пипнал поради мързел и понеже очаквам странни трудни-за-виждане-и-още-по-трудни-за-дебъгване-проблеми (ejabberd + две машини + dialback + комуникация с gtalk и някои други хора), та ще си ги оставя за когато ми стане наистина скучно.

Блогът на Юруков : Министри спрямо продуценти за ACTA

This post was syndicated from: Блогът на Юруков and was written by: Боян Юруков. Original post: at Блогът на Юруков

Николай Младенов на 4-ти февруари в Twitter:

споразумение протест политици министри acta  politika bylgariq

Трайчо Трайков на 31-ви януари пред Дневник:

Когато се регулират правата на интелектуалната собственост в киното, в музиката там индустрията, която създава по-строгите правила е длъжник на обществото. Непродуктивно и безсмислено да искаш да ти се плати 50 евро за нещо, което човек може да намери безплатно, отколкото да приемеш по-реалистичен подход и да искаш да ти се плати 1 евро, което повечето хора биха платили.


Междувремено „развлекателната“ индустрия излиза с отворено писмо:

Борбата срещу разпространението на фалшиви стоки и пиратско съдържание в глобалната мрежа преди всичко ще защити гражданите, тяхното здраве и сигурност, както и интересите им на потребители.

Аз и вие не сте абсолютно нищо друго освен потребители. Ние не трябва да правим абсолютно нищо, освен да седим пред екрана и да консумираме. Интернет е просто още един канал за доставяне на тяхното съдържание. Всяка форма на промяна, смесване, подобрение или каквото и да е върху въпросното съдържание е кражба, а вие сте престъпници. У нас почти няма човек, който да не е свалял торенти. Ако някой не го е правил, то това е защото не знае още как. Става дума за стотици милиони обменени филми, музика и клипове. Но това е „мръсна“ тайна на обществото и се крие само защото иначе Продуцентите може да ни се разсърдят.

Когато излезе „Светът е голям…“ исках да си го купя. Всички ми казваха, че е бил страхотен и исках да си платя, за да го гледам. Така де, българско кино – трябва да го подкрепяме. Може би знаете, че не съм в България и следователно не можех да отида на кино. Писах на въпросното продуценско студио (от някъде извадих мейл) и те ми казаха, че няма още DVD. Викам си – добре, ще чакам. Когато излезе на DVD, писах пак и казаха, че може само от магазините в България да се купи. Нямали доставка.

Отговорих им нещо, което повторих и потретих когато настоявах да си купя Дзифт и Love.net – не искам да плащам за производството на платмасов диск, после за опаковането му и доставка до Германия. Излишно е, а и се хаби много петрол за целта. След това така или иначе ще го сваля от диска на USB, за да го гледам на телевизора. Искам да си го сваля от някъде, пък дори да платя същата сума, както с доставката. Сещате се сами, че такава възможност няма. Вероятно отгатвате и какво направих – след няколко дни размяна на мейли загубих 5 минути да си го сваля от торенти. И трите пъти.

„Светът е прекрасен…“ наистина беше чудесен филм. И Дзифт, и Love.net. А можеше да си платя, ако имаше възможност. Така направих с албума на Бате Сашо – той предлага възможност да си го свалиш след плащане. Така успях да го подкрепя, защото прави прекрасна музика.

Когато всички в целевия ти пазар правят нещо, това не е престъпление, а възможност за нов вид бизнес. Не е полезно за „стоката ви от женския пазар“ да назидавате потенциалните си клиенти като престъпници. Просто казвам.

TorrentFreak : We Need Copyright Reform, Not ACTA!

This post was syndicated from: TorrentFreak and was written by: Marietje Schaake. Original post: at TorrentFreak

The internet is a great tool to alert politicians to all the dangers of this treaty, just as the internet was a tool to mobilize people against the SOPA and PIPA bills in the US. For any lobby to be effective, however, it must be fact based. Misinformed criticism helps those supporting ACTA.

The dangers and threats of the ACTA treaty are shared by free-speech advocates and access to medicine groups alike. ACTA is seeking to deal with a number of widely differing issues, and hence does not do a good job at any of them. Additionally, there are serious concerns about the collateral damage that ACTA would cause.

Regrettably, concerns by businesses, NGO’s and politicians have not led to a better result. This is partly due to the intransparant way in which ACTA has been established and negotiated. As a democratically elected representative, I believe it is not the role of government to protect outdated business models, and I do believe it is our job to ensure democratic oversight.

Besides zooming in on the details of what ACTA will and will not do, taking a step back and looking at the broader picture is also important. As someone who advocates copyright reform, notably the harmonization of copyright laws in Europe, I do not believe stricter enforcement of outdated systems is helpful or relevant. Enforcement is not even possible in many cases, and not without violating people’s fundamental rights.

Yet there is a big push towards enforcing outdated legal structures of copyright by the entertainment industry. ACTA will lock any signatory country into a system of copyright enforcement, leaving the democratic process disadvantaged to enact necessary reform of our laws to suit the digital age.

The fast development of the information society and all the innovations we have seen in the last 15 or so years have changed the way we live. People can enforce their fundamental rights of access to information, and free speech with the help of the internet. Human rights violations are documented and shared across the world, and the way we access and share information and culture such as news, music and films has changed forever. Most copyright rules were developed for the printing press and codified internationally before radio had even been invented.

Some of the most important EU laws regulating the internet were established before social media and peer-to-peer sharing took off. The E-commerce Directive of 2000 and the Copyright Directive of 2001 were enacted without foresight of the new services which were developed over the last 10 years. Time and time again, it has been proven that the Directives and their national implementations do not suit the digital age that followed directly afterwards. The fragmentation of European copyright puts the EU, which is widely known for its wealth in culture, at a competitive disadvantage in comparison to the United States.

Copyright and E-Commerce need to suit the needs of the advanced information society we now live in. To enable a flourishing Digital Single Market in Europe, we need to analyse case-law of the last 12 years regarding the internet, hear from creators, innovators and consumers. If we want to serve consumers, artists and businesses well, we need to find a new balance in copyright. Every aspect of copyright needs to be discussed: the exclusive rights, limitations and exceptions, collective management, enforcement, etc. Only then should we discuss how to enforce the new found balance on the international arena, such as with ACTA.

ACTA must not be passed. Let’s focus on reform to allow for the opportunities of the internet to bloom, instead of allowing outdated business models to limit the free market, and to criminalize audiences. Additionally, health threats as a result of counterfeit medicine deserve a better solution than ACTA. Join me in voicing your concern with this treaty, so we can establish flexible copyright rules which are fit for the 21st century.

About The Author

Marietje Schaake is a Member of European Parliament (D66/ALDE Group). She is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), as well as the Committee on Culture, Media and Education (CULT).

Source: We Need Copyright Reform, Not ACTA!

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Чорба от греховете на dzver : ACTA

This post was syndicated from: Чорба от греховете на dzver and was written by: dzver. Original post: at Чорба от греховете на dzver

Малка група хора се мъчи с много пари да прокара отвратително международно споразумение, с което да ни отнеме свещеното право на свободен нет. Тази малка група рипа срещу собствения си интерес – никой не е вечно на поста си на министър, така че армия от ГДБОП с качулките могат да разбият и неговия апартамент и да открият 500 гигабайта хард диск, след едва 1-2 мандата време.

Ако АКТА се ратифицира, ще се прилага. Имаме практиката на наредба 40. Знаем, че такива текстове се приемат за да се използват в големи размери. Джентълменското споразумение на Бойко Борисов за ратификация, дето няма да доведе до промени, няма никаква стойност. Богати хора са инвестирали луди пари в АКТА, ще очакват да си ги избият от всички държави.

SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green : Sophos 2012 Security Threat Report, (Fri, Feb 3rd)

This post was syndicated from: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green and was written by: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green. Original post: at SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green

Last week Sophos released it 2012 Security Threat Report which highlighted some key finding from 2011:
- Smartphones and tablets causing significant security challenges

- Major data breaches and targeted attacks on high-profile companies and agencies

- Hacktivism – A shift from hacking for money to hacking as a form of protest or to prove a point

- Conficker worm is still the most commonly encountered pieces of malicious software seen is Sophos customers

- Fake antivirus software is still the most common type of malware but in second half of the year appears to be on the decline

- Spearphishing attacks on the rise
Despite all this, some successes On March 16, 2011 a coordinated effort known as Operation b107 between Microsoft, FireEye, U.S. federal law enforcement agents and the University of Washington knocked Rustock offline. [1] The entire report available here.
Handler Mark published a diary on some of the things to take in consideration When your service provider has a breach. [3]
[1] http://www.sophos.com/en-us/security-news-trends/reports/security-threat-report/html-07.aspx

[2] http://www.sophos.com/en-us/security-news-trends/reports/security-threat-report/html-01.aspx

[3] https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=10651

[4] http://www.sophos.com/medialibrary/PDFs/other/SophosSecurityThreatReport2012.pdf
Data breach diaries reported by ISC in 2011:
[1] WordPress.com https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=10729

[2] RSA Breach https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=10609

[3] Lockheed Marting https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=10939

[4] Sega Pass https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=11065

[5] SonyPictures https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=10996

[6] DigiNotar SSL Breach (result = bankruptcy) https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=11479

[7] GlobalSign https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=12205

[8] Stratfor Global Intelligence https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=12271
———–
Guy Bruneau IPSS Inc. gbruneau at isc dot sans dot edu

(c) SANS Internet Storm Center. http://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Schneier on Security : Friday Squid Blogging: Clothing that Keeps an Exercise Journal

This post was syndicated from: Schneier on Security and was written by: schneier. Original post: at Schneier on Security

It’s called Squid.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

[Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова] : ACTA: резервирано

This post was syndicated from: [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова] and was written by: nellyo. Original post: at [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова]

  Какво ли  значи по соломоновски

 Според в.Труд  министър-председателят по соломоновски  се е подписал под следното уверение: “Международното споразумение АКТА да бъде ратифицирано от НС на РБ, като за членовете, налагащи контрол на трафика в интернет, ще бъде заложена резерва, че се прилага действащото в момента българско законодателство”. (Борисов спаси интернет от договора АКТА).

Организациите, участвали в срещата, са Интернет общество, Сдружение за електронни комуникации и Асоциация на потребителите на телекомуникационни и интернет услуги (АПТИУ).

По начало не се оспорва, вж и  мнението на изготвилите доклада за Европейския парламент, че  резерви при ратификациите на АСТА не се допускат. Очевидно в правителството  се споделя  обратно мнение.

Съвсем различен въпрос   е – когато АСТА влезе в сила  такова, каквото е  (нисък праг – само шест ратификации) – как ще се прилага в различните държави.

АСТА и ратификациите

В  коментар  към решението на Съвета се припомня, че в АСТА има

  • разпоредби в полето на  изключителната компетентност на ЕС  – затова е взето решение ЕС да стане страна по споразумението и
  •  разпоредби  относно наказателното правоприлагане в областта на споделената компетентност.

ЕС няма намерение да хармонизира законодателството на ЕС по отношение на наказателното правоприлагане в областта на правата върху интелектуална собственост. Това е така поради доказаната липса на съгласие, вж съдбата на IPRED2.  А и държави като Холандия са посочили аргумент за субсидиарност (Сommission of the European Communities v. Council of the European Union, C-176/03).  Затова ЕК предлага присъединяването на отделните  държави  от ЕС  (на всички държави, се казва в гласуваното от Съвета решение).

Ако ЕС е страна по АСТА, а държавата – не,  ще възниква  въпросът ефективно ли  е прилагането на АСТА с вече съществуващите мерки в националното право на държавата от ЕС, която не се е присъединила.

В този смисъл трябва да е ясно, че вчерашната среща  в МС има отношение само към националните мерки.

Особености на националното АСТА-прилагане

САЩ приема статус ‘sole executive agreement’ за АСТА,  с което се изключва необходимостта от законодателно одобрение. В ход е и нов проект  от същия тип Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). В доклада на INTA, ЕП се отбелязва очевидната липса на желание да се търси нормална ратификационна процедура и поставя въпроса какво – при липса на възможност за ангажиране на американския законодател – ЕС може да очаква от САЩ.

Парламентите в Холандия, Германия и др. държави от ЕС са изразявали желание да не се променя националното право във връзка с присъединяване на ЕС  към АСТА (парл.въпроси Германия, 8 април 2010; Холандия, 23 .12.2010).  Това очевидно са резервирани държави,  те  (поне засега) изразяват резервираността си, като не подписват. С което си спестяват бъдещи  неясноти, съпътстващи прилагането.

Но резервираност   – както на национално, така и на наднационално равнище  – може да се изрази  и на този етап, стига да  има действителна воля за това.

Кампанията в ЕП

Всеки глас на българските членове  на ЕП има особена стойност. Публично изразиха позиция Ивайло Калфин, Надежда Нейнски, Светослав Малинов, Антония Първанова, Метин Казак,  Слави Бинев.

Отворен парламент  публикува анкета с евродепутатите  по темата АСТА, не подкрепят споразумението Кристиан Вигенин и Ивайло Кирилов.

В тази анкета се е появило твърдение, че когато АСТА влезе в сила след шест ратификации на държави, споразумението влиза в сила и за България.

Всъщност не.  Чл.40.2 АСТА:  Настоящото споразумение влиза в сила за всяка от подписалите го страни, депозирали своя инструмент за ратификация, приемане или одобрение, след депозирането на шестия инструмент и т.н.

*

Видео от БНТ: Георги Дамянов, Теодор Захов, Комитата, Йордан Караджов

Schneier on Security : The Problems of Too Much Information Sharing

This post was syndicated from: Schneier on Security and was written by: schneier. Original post: at Schneier on Security

Funny. Fake, but funny.

Edited to add (2/3): The rest of the story.

[Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова] : Съд на ЕС: закрила на фотографии

This post was syndicated from: [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова] and was written by: nellyo. Original post: at [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова]

В Официален вестник на ЕС : съобщение за решение на Съда на ЕС по дело С-145/10 Eva-Maria Painer v Standard VerlagsGmbH и др. 

Решението е по преюдициално запитване,  отправено в рамките на спор между г‑жа Painer,  фотограф на свободна практика, и петима издатели във връзка с използването от тях на фотографии на Natascha K.

Г-жа Painer   е направила няколко фотографии на Natascha K., като е избрала фона, позата и изражението на лицето, нагласила е фотоапарата и е проявила тези фотографии. Natascha K. е отвлечена, по-късно успява да избяга. Ответниците   публикуват фотографиите в свои вестници и интернет сайтове, без обаче да посочат името на автора. Освен това  публикуват портретна снимка, изготвена чрез компютърна обработка (фоторобот), като твърдят, че това е позволено свободно използване.

В преюдициалното запитване се иска изясняване наняколко въпроса, между които

  •  използване на фотографии във връзка с издирване на лица;
  • степента на защита: дали фотографските произведения и/или фотографиите, и в частност портретните снимки, са „по-слабо“ закриляни или че въобще не са закриляни от авторско право, тъй като предвид „реалистичното заснемане“ разкриват много ограничени възможности за художествено творчество.
  • свободно използване на фоторобот, изготвен въз основа на портретна снимка.

Според Съда:

  • Законът не може да се позволи на дадена медия, както в случая издател на периодичен печат, да си присвои защитата на обществената сигурност. Всъщност само държавата, чиито компетентни органи разполагат с подходящи средства и координирани структури, трябва да се счита за отговорна и способна да осигури осъществяването на такава цел от общ интерес чрез подходящи мерки, включително, например, разпространението на обявление за издирване. Все пак, при определени условия не може да се изключи възможността издател на периодичен печат да допринесе именно за постигането на цел, свързана с обществената сигурност, като публикува фотография на издирвано лице.
  • Реалистичните фотографии, по-специално портретните снимки, се ползват от закрилата на авторското право, ако са собствено авторско интелектуално творение, т.е. когато то отразява личността на автора.

Що се отнася до портретна снимка, следва да се посочи, че авторът може да направи своя свободен и творчески избор по няколко начини и в различни моменти при реализирането ѝ.

На подготвителния етап авторът може да избере фона на снимката, позата на сниманото лице или осветлението. При заснемането на портретната снимка той може да избере разполагането в кадър, ъгъла на снимане или още създадената атмосфера. Накрая, при проявяването на снимката авторът може да избере между различните съществуващи техники на проявяване тази, която желае да възприеме, или, ако е необходимо, да използва софтуер.

  • Относно фоторобота: след като се установи, че разглежданата портретна снимка има качеството на произведение, закрилата ѝ не е по-слаба от закрилата, от която се ползва всяко друго произведение, включително фотографско произведение.

 

LWN.net : The end of LinuxDevices?

This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: corbet. Original post: at LWN.net

LinuxDevices.com is carrying a
brief note
from the “outgoing editor-in-chief” stating that the site’s
owner has been acquired. “At this point, the future of
LinuxDevices.com is uncertain. What we can say for sure is that it has been
a pleasure serving our readers — the best in the business.

LWN.net : Slackware updates

This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: ris. Original post: at LWN.net

Slackware has been silent for some time (noted in this comment thread). Although we
haven’t seen any advisories in the LWN mailbox, the changelogs are showing some
new updates. Slackware users should update their systems.

LWN.net : Stable kernels 3.0.19, 3.2.3 and 2.6.32.56

This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: ris. Original post: at LWN.net

Greg KH has released stable kernels 3.0.19,
3.2.3 and 2.6.32.56. All of them have important fixes
across the board.

Update 3.2.4 has now been released
to address a compilation problem in 3.2.3.

LWN.net : Friday’s security updates

This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: ris. Original post: at LWN.net

CentOS has updated ghostscript (C6; C5; C4: multiple vulnerabilities), php (C6; C5; C4: remote code execution), and C5: php53 (remote code execution).

Debian has updated iceweasel
(multiple vulnerabilities), iceape
(multiple vulnerabilities), and php5
(remote code execution).

Mandriva has updated mozilla
(multiple vulnerabilities).

Red Hat has updated RHEL5: php53
(remote code execution), RHEL4,5,6: php
(remote code execution), ghostscript (RHEL5,6; RHEL4: multiple vulnerabilities), and RHEL5.6: freetype (code execution).

Scientific Linux has updated SL5:
php53
(remote code execution), SL4,5,6:
php
(remote code execution), and ghostscript (SL5,6; SL4:
multiple vulnerabilities).

Diaspora* : DIASPORA* grows up.

This post was syndicated from: Diaspora* and was written by: dennis. Original post: at Diaspora*

TL;DR: Our next design push is geared towards making the things our crazy awesome international community is already doing easier, more useful, and fun.

Ahoy!

We have been learning a lot by watching the Diaspora* develop and grow. Diaspora* has evolved into a social community unlike any other, where free thinkers from around the world interact. It provides a vehicle for all sorts of different kinds of people to share ideas and form new relationships. This is what’s happening on Diaspora* right now. It is what makes it unique, and it is what the core team is trying to optimize for.

A lot of the early thinking about Diaspora* – both in the press, and our own – defined it in juxtaposition to existing social networks. But we’ve come to learn that it is something quite different. The interactions on other networks are built around the assumption that you are addressing people you actually know – your ‘friends’, or people who are interested in everything you say – your ‘audience’. Something entirely different is happening on Diaspora*, and that’s why the metaphors from those networks don’t fit.

A diverse, international community of people meeting and discussing all sorts of things needs to be thought about differently. Rather than just being  a digital construction of the world around you, Diaspora* is about reaching to new places and discovering people from all over the globe. We are trying to promote raw and authentic conversations in a way the world has never seen.

We have developed some theories around how and why people interact on Diaspora*, and some hypotheses around how we can improve these experiences. We are planning to try to help Diaspora* be its unique self, by testing our hypotheses, which means changing a few key interactions.

We have seen people participate in longer-form discussions with people all over the globe. At a high level, our plan is to make it easy to keep track of these discussions, and keep them going longer in a more interesting way.

You may have noticed some changes in verbiage around the site.

We are refocusing around a new design metaphor – conversation. To help these conversations grow and evolve, we want to distance ourselves from messages with short ‘half lives,’ and make it easier for people to communicate with each other in more meaningful ways. That may seem abstract now, but over the next few weeks we’ll be rolling out changes which we hope will support these goals. If our ideas work, we’ll build on them. If they don’t, we’ll look for another path.

Diaspora is still in alpha. Now is certainly the best time to be doing these experiments.  Since the start of the year, we have been focused on some back end changes so we can worry less about uptime, and focus more on designing the future of our social web.  For example, we have improved the average response time of Diaspora* 10-fold. We now have a solid foundation to stand on, so we can work on making something the world really needs.

We are totally stoked to have you with us at these exciting times.We feel strongly that you will see how awesome it is, and we’re grateful to have you with us to help us iron out the kinks. After a few months of iterating, we can open up to the world (Beta!). We are glad to be in a place where we can take risks as we discover the best path to walk.

If you think that Diaspora* is awesome, we hope you enjoy these experiments. We look forward to seeing all the awesome things you do that make Diaspora* a party like no other.

Thanks for being part of it!

Dennis, Daniel, Sarah, Rosanna & Maxwell

Schneier on Security : VeriSign Hacked, Successfully and Repeatedly, in 2010

This post was syndicated from: Schneier on Security and was written by: schneier. Original post: at Schneier on Security

Reuters discovered the information:

The VeriSign attacks were revealed in a quarterly U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing in October that followed new guidelines on reporting security breaches to investors. It was the most striking disclosure to emerge in a review by Reuters of more than 2,000 documents mentioning breach risks since the SEC guidance was published.

The company, unsurprisingly, is saying nothing.

VeriSign declined multiple interview requests, and senior employees said privately that they had not been given any more details than were in the filing. One said it was impossible to tell if the breach was the result of a concerted effort by a national power, though that was a possibility. “It’s an ugly, slim sliver of facts. It’s not enough,” he said.

The problem for all of us, naturally, is if the certificate system was hacked, allowing the bad guys to forge certificates. (This has, of course, happened before.)

Are we finally ready to accept that the certificate system is completely broken?

TorrentFreak : Seized Sports Streaming Site Makes a Blazing Comeback

This post was syndicated from: TorrentFreak and was written by: Ernesto. Original post: at TorrentFreak

sportsrowYesterday, several sports streaming sites had their domain names seized by the Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE unit.

Leading up to the Super Bowl this weekend, a total of 307 domain names were seized, 16 of which provided access to online streams of popular sporting events.

Commenting on the actions, ICE Director John Morton was quick to declare victory, but perhaps this came a little too soon. Firstrow, one of the largest sites which had several of its domains taken over by the US government, is not planning to give up the ‘battle’ anytime soon.

Quickly after its firstrow.tv, firstrowsports.tv, firstrowsports.net and firstrowsports.com domains were seized, the service was operating as normal under a new domain – Firstrowsports.eu. Talking to TorrentFreak, one of the owners said that the US has stepped out of line by simply taking away their property.

“The US has prided itself on their ‘innocent before proven guilty’ mantra, yet is clearly hypocritical when it comes to this,” the Firstrow co-owner told us. “Numerous times the US has seized domains, before the defendants have been proven guilty in a court of law.”

“What is the point of trying to approve SOPA and PIPA if they do the same without these laws,” he questioned, referring to the pending US bills that would make it even easier to seize allegedly infringing domains.

The response of Firstrow stands in sharp contrast with that of ICE Director John Morton yesterday.

“In sports, players must abide by rules of the game, and in life, individuals must follow the laws of the land. Our message is simple: abiding by intellectual property rights laws is not optional; it’s the law,” Morton said.

This comment forms the base of the dispute. What is the law of the land? The people who operate Firstrow don’t live in the US, and neither are their servers located there. In fact, Firstrow says that their site is perfectly legal where they are based, so they will continue business as usual.

“Since we don’t live in a third-world country here, the courts decide if something is illegal not the entertainment industry lobbies. We will continue until a court decides that the site is illegal, but for now we’ve seen three court decisions on this matter that say it is not.”

Firstrow’s co-owner is referring to the court cases in Spain, where sites that merely link to copyrighted works have been declared legal. Rojadirecta, a site very similar to Firstrow, won in Spanish courts twice.

In the US, however, things work differently. Two operators of streaming sites have already been arrested and await criminal trials. And if the domains are linked to foreigners, the US believes it has the authority to take them over if they are deemed to infringe copyrights.

This stance has raised eyebrows among foreign governments. A few months ago the European Parliament adopted a resolution which criticized US domain name seizures. According to the resolution these measures need to be countered as they endanger “the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication.”

Yesterday’s actions show that the US authorities are not impressed by the international critique, just as Firstrow refuses to change course after yet another domain seizure. Firstrow says ICE is wasting its time and continues to provide access to sports fans all across the world, who are otherwise unable to see their beloved games.

“ICE must have a lot of spare time if they can waste it on these domain seizures,” Firstrow’s co-owner says. “They should invest time in the real important stuff , instead of chasing people who have no other option than to watch a sports game for free.”

Source: Seized Sports Streaming Site Makes a Blazing Comeback

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TorrentFreak : Megaupload Founder Accuses Police of Assault, Denied Bail Again

This post was syndicated from: TorrentFreak and was written by: enigmax. Original post: at TorrentFreak

Today, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom appeared at New Zealand’s High Court to continue his fight against extradition to the United States on copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering charges.

Dotcom has been held in custody since dozens of police raided his Coatesville mansion last month following a lengthy FBI investigation.

During the day-long hearing before Justice Asher, Dotcom’s lawyer, Paul Davison QC, appealed a decision by Judge McNaughton in the Auckland District Court last week which denied the 38-year-old German national bail.

Judge McNaughton had concluded that with all his resources, Dotcom posed a “significant” flight risk.

The defense said that Dotcom has several health-related conditions – one of which is thought to be diabetes – which cannot be properly dealt in prison, adding that the Megaupload founder wanted to be able to spend time with his wife who is currently carrying twins.

Just because Dotcom had access to a helicopter and private jet, Davison added, it did not follow that he would seek to use them to flee the country.

When it was Dotcom’s turn to take the stand he told the Court that during his high-profile arrest last month, police had assaulted him after finding him in a secure panic-room known as the “Red Room”.

“I was punched in the face, I was kicked down on the floor,” Dotcom said. “One guy was standing on my hand so my nail was ruptured and my hand was bleeding, it was quite aggressive.”

Dotcom also told of how that during his time in prison he had received “funny visits”, phone calls and contacts from people he had never heard of including a succession of women wanting to be his friend.

One unsolicited telephone call claimed he was a prosecutor who in return for receiving some money would help Dotcom get bail

“I immediately said ‘absolutely not’ and I gave the number to the officer,” Dotcom said.

Another, the court was told, was said to be an expert document forger.

“If people were to approach me and to offer such a service, I would tell them to go to hell,” Dotcom said. “I have no desire to run away.”

But lawyer for the United States government, Anne Toohey, said that the chances of the New Zealand resident fleeing were too high, a point on which the court eventually agreed.

Describing Dotcom as “an extreme flight risk”, Justice Asher again denied bail. Dotcom is set to appear in court again on February 22nd for an extradition hearing.

Source: Megaupload Founder Accuses Police of Assault, Denied Bail Again

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Linux How-Tos and Linux Tutorials : Weekend project: Zap Your Coworkers’ Minds with Multi-Pointer X

This post was syndicated from: Linux How-Tos and Linux Tutorials and was written by: Nathan Willis. Original post: at Linux How-Tos and Linux Tutorials

Care to rethink your desktop user experience? It may be simpler than you think. Chances are you own more than one pointing device, but for years you've never been able to take full advantage of that hardware, because whenever you plugged in a second hardware mouse, it simply shared control of the same cursor. But with X, it doesn't have to: you can have any many distinct, independent cursors on screen as you have devices to control them. So grab a spare from the parts box in the closet, and get ready for the ol' one-two punch.

Care to rethink your desktop user experience? It may be simpler than you think. Chances are you own more than one pointing device, but for years you've never been able to take full advantage of that hardware, because whenever you plugged in a second hardware mouse, it simply shared control of the same cursor. But with X, it doesn't have to: you can have any many distinct, independent cursors on screen as you have devices to control them. So grab a spare from the parts box in the closet, and get ready for the ol' one-two punch.

What, you don't have a spare mouse? There a good chance you do have a second pointing device, though — even if it's a mouse and the built-in trackpad on your laptop. But this process will work for any pointing hardware recognized by X, including a trackball and a mouse, or even a mouse and a pen tablet. To X, they are all the same. You will need to ensure that you are running the X.org X server 1.7 or later to use the feature in questions, Multi-Pointer X (MPX). You almost certainly already are — X.org 1.7 was finalized in 2009, and all mainstream distributions follow X.org closely. Bring up your distribution's package manager and install the libxi and libxcursor development packages as well; they will come in handy later.

What is MPX?

Demo of Vinput demo appSo why don't we use MPX all the time? For starters, most of the time one cursor on screen is all that we need, because there are very few applications that benefit from multiple pointers. But there are several. The simplest use case is for multi-head setups, where two or more separate login sessions run on the same machine, using different video outputs and separate keyboard/mouse combinations. You often see this type of configuration in classrooms and computer labs.

But the more unusual and intriguing alternative is running multiple pointers in a single session, which can simplify tasks that involve lots of manipulating on-screen objects. If you paint with a pressure-sensitive tablet using Krita or MyPaint, for example, a second cursor might allow you to keep your tablet pen on the canvas and alter paint settings or brush dynamics without hopping back-and-forth constantly. The same goes for other creative jobs like animation and 3D modeling: the more control, the easier it gets. Plus, let's be frank, there's always the wow factor — experimenting and showing off what Linux can do that lesser OSes cannot.

The basics

MPX is implemented in the XInput2 extension, which handles keyboards and pointing devices. The package is a core requirement for all desktop systems, but most users don't know that it comes with a handy command-line tool to inspect and alter the X session's input settings. The tool is named xinput, and if you run xinput list, it will print out a nested list of all of your system's active input devices. Mine looks like this:

 

⎡ Virtual core pointer          	id=2	[master pointer (3)]
⎜  ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer       	id=4	[slave pointer (2)]
⎜  ↳ Microsoft Microsoft Trackball Explorer®	id=9	[slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard          	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
  ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard       	id=5	[slave keyboard (3)]
  ↳ Power Button              	id=6	[slave keyboard (3)]
  ↳ Power Button              	id=7	[slave keyboard (3)]
  ↳ Mitsumi Electric Goldtouch USB Keyboard 	id=8	[slave keyboard (3)]

 

As you can see, I have one "virtual" core pointer and a corresponding "virtual" core keyboard, both of which are "master" devices to which the real hardware (the trackball and USB keyboard) are attached as slaves. Normally, whenever you attach a new input device, X attaches it as another slave to the existing (and only) master, so that all of your mice control the same pointer. In order to use them separately, we need to create a second virtual pointer device, then attach our new hardware and assign it as a slave to the second virtual pointer.

From a console, run xinput create-master Secondary to create another virtual device. The command as written will name it "Secondary" but you can choose any name you wish. Now plug in your second pointing device (unless it is already plugged in, of course), and run xinput list again. I plugged in my Wacom tablet, which added three lines to the list:

 

⎜  ↳ Wacom Graphire3 6x8 eraser       	id=16	[slave pointer (2)]
⎜  ↳ Wacom Graphire3 6x8 cursor       	id=17	[slave pointer (2)]
⎜  ↳ Wacom Graphire3 6x8 stylus       	id=18	[slave pointer (2)]

 

The new virtual device also shows up, as a matched pointer/keyboard pair:

⎡ Secondary pointer              	id=10	[master pointer (11)]
⎜  ↳ Secondary XTEST pointer        	id=12	[slave pointer (10)]
⎣ Secondary keyboard              	id=11	[master keyboard (10)]
  ↳ Secondary XTEST keyboard         	id=15	[slave keyboard (11)]

 

That's because so far, X does not know whether we're interested in the keyboard or the pointer. You'll also note that every entry has a unique id, including the new hardware and the new virtual devices. The "cursor" entry for the Wacom tablet is the only one of the three we care about, and its id is 17. Running xinput reattach 17 "Secondary pointer" assigns it as a slave to the Secondary virtual pointer device, and voila — a second cursor appears on screen immediately.

You can start to use both pointers immediately (provided that your hand-eye coordination is up to the task). Grab two icons on the desktop at once, rearrange your windows with both hands, click on menus in two running applications at once.

Cursors, Foiled Again

What you'll soon find out, though, is that life on the bleeding edge comes with some complications. First of all, your mouse cursors look exactly the same, which can be confusing. Secondly, although GTK+3 itself is fully aware of XInput2 and can cope with MPX, individual applications may not be. That means you can uncover a lot of bugs simply by using both pointers at once.

You can tackle the indistinguishable-cursors issue by assigning a different X cursor theme to the second pointer. The normal desktop environments don't support this in their GUI preferences tools, but developer Antonio Ospite wrote a quick utility called xicursorset that fills in the gap. Compiling it requires the libxi and libxcursor development packages mentioned earlier, but it does not require any heavy dependencies, nor do you even need to install it as root — it runs quite happily in your home directory.

To assign a theme to your new cursor, simply run ./xicursorset 10 left_ptr some-cursor-theme-name. In this call, 10 is the id of our "Secondary pointer" entry from above, and left_ptr is the default cursor shape (X changes the cursor to a text-insertion point, resize-tool, and "wait" symbol, among other options, as needed). X.org cursor theme packages are provided by every Linux distribution; the "DMZ" theme is GNOME's default and uses a white arrow.

The simplest option might be to use the DMZ-Black variant: ./xicursorset 10 left_ptr DMZ-Black, but there are far more, including multi-color options. I personally grabbed the DMZ-Red theme from gnome-look.org's X cursor section, to make the auxiliary cursor stand out more.

One thing you will notice about these instructions is that they do not persist between reboots or login sessions. Currently there is no way to configure X.org to remember your wild and crazy cursor setups. I asked MPX author Peter Hutterer what the reasoning was, and he said it simply hadn't been asked for yet. Because MPX usage is limited to a few applications and usage scenarios, most people only use it in a dynamic sense — plugging in a second device when they need it for a particular task.

On the other hand, one of Ospite's readers (an MPX user named Vicente) wrote a small Bash script to automate the process; if you use MPX a lot, it could save you some keystrokes.

Multi-Tasking

But, as Hutterer said, apps with explicit support for MPX are pretty limited at this stage. There is a multi-cursor painting application included with Vinput, and the popular multiplayer game World Of Goo can use MPX to enable simultaneous play. There was a dedicated standalone painting application called mpx-paint hosted at GitHub, but the developer's account appears to have shut down.

Mainstream applications have been slower to pick up on MPX support. Inkscape is a likely candidate, where manipulating two or more control points at once would open up new possibilities. Developer Jon Cruz says it is "on the short list" alongside Inkscape's growing support for extended input devices. Whenever the application completes its port to GTK+3, the MPX support will follow.

Blender has also discussed MPX, but so far the project's main focus has been on six-axis 3D controllers (which are understandably a higher priority). However, for broader adoption we may have to wait. Hutterer himself worked on bringing MPX support to the Compiz window manager, but said that the real sticking point is tackling the "unsolved questions" about window management — which is something the desktop environment will need to tackle. Luckily, the latest X.org release includes multi-touch support — a related technology useful for gestures. As Linux on tablets continues to grow, gestures become an increasingly in-demand option. As applications are adapted to support multi-touch gestures, MPX support should grow as well.

The implications are interesting for a number of tasks, including the gaming and creative applications already discussed. When you throw in the possibility of multiple keyboards, the possibilities get even broader. After all, thanks to network-aware text editors like Gobby and Etherpad, we are getting more comfortable with multiple edit points in our document editors. Imagine what you could do with an IDE that allowed you to edit the code in one window while you interacted with the runtime simultaneously. In can be hard to grasp the implications — but you don't have to dream them all up; with MPX you can experiment today.

Grigor Gatchev - A Weblog : И пак за ACTA

This post was syndicated from: Grigor Gatchev - A Weblog and was written by: Григор. Original post: at Grigor Gatchev - A Weblog

Днес присъствах на пресконференция, дадена от Асоциацията на потребителите на телекомуникационните и интернет услуги. Говориха Янаки Ганчев, Невен Дилков и други. Беше интересно.

Янаки Ганчев разказа, че на 1 февруари те са имали почти едночасова среща с министър-председателя. Че са му обяснили страховете на Интернет потребителите около ACTA и че се е стигнало до “джентълменско споразумение”, подписано от Бойко Борисов. Съгласно него, Министерският съвет ще внесе в НС предложение ACTA да бъде одобрен с “резерви”, като се посочи, че в областта на Интернет потреблението ще се прилага наличното сега българско законодателство. Асоциацията е поканена да участва и в работните групи на НС, където нещата ще бъдат доизбистряни.

Дотук добре. Извоювана е немалка победа – поне на думи. Предполагам, че Бойко Борисов ще си сдържи думата, и не ми се вярва парламентарната група на ГЕРБ (единствената, която все още заявява поддръжка за ACTA) да го бламира. Би трябвало да съм спокоен.

Но не съм. Правата на Интернет потребителите са само една малка част от полезните неща, които ACTA разрушава. Образно казано, ползата от тази корекция за мен е колкото от това да ти дадат каска, която да те пази при обстрел от упор. Каската вероятно ще опази част от теб, и то най-важната – но уви, крайният резултат вероятно ще бъде същият, както и без нея.

С риск да повторя доста от предишния си запис, ще изредя накратко част от оставащите проблеми, и ще предложа максимално скромните възможни техни решения:

- Процесът на договарянето и допълването на ACTA продължава да е секретен. (В глава V, статия 38, т. 2 изрично е дефинирано, че консултациите и позициите на страните ще бъдат конфиденциални, а това ще налага запазване и на постигнатите договорености конфиденциални поне до приемането им. В противен случай опитен наблюдател лесно ще отгатва по междинните резултати позициите на страните, а това обезсмисля конфиденциалността им.) Това е точка, която България няма как да подпише “с резерви” и да не спазва.

- Нарушаването на личното пространство и разкриването на лична информация далеч не се изчерпва с опазването на Интернет присъствието от тези посегателства. ACTA стимулира нарушаването им и извън интернет, като може да наложи например масово следене на търговска кореспонденция под предлог предотвратяване на нарушаване на търговски марки и т.н. (Това следва от силния дисбаланс между права на праводържатели и права на не-праводържатели, създаван от ACTA. Този дисбаланс е резултат от цялостния дух на ACTA и няма как да бъде отстранен без цялостна промяна на споразумението.)

- Дори ако бъде спазено, споразумението не защитава срещу практическото анулиране от ACTA на концепцията за “честна употреба” в глава I, част 1, статия 5, т. k. (Този нежелан ефект може да бъде отстранен, например като България посочи в “резервите” си, че няма да прилага ACTA в нарушаване на българските и международни закони за “честна употреба”.)

- Споразумението не защитава и срещу ефекта на ACTA да изнася противоречията по предмета си на ниво спорове между големи организации, извън възможностите на отделните хора да се включват (освен като обвиняеми). По този начин, то не предпазва срещу тенденцията на ACTA да превръща света от общност на хора в общност на големи организации (доколкото участниците в тези противоречия ще са като правило корпорации – в общност на корпорации). Тази тенденция може да бъде отстранена чрез подходяща промяна на Глава I, част 1, статия 5, т. l и някои други точки; това обаче ще създаде други трудности и рискове в практическото прилагане на ACTA. Затова намирането на подходящо решение е много трудно, а оттам и отстраняването на тази тенденция. Също, дори България да намери и прилага подходящото решение, светът е взаимосвързан и нежеланите ефекти на тенденцията ще се чувстват у нас въпреки всичко.

- Създаването на обстоятелства за извънсъдебни действия (както на “приватизиране на цензурата”, така и на рекет с интелектуални права) не отслабва от това споразумение. Намаляването на тази опасност би изисквало основна преработка на ACTA, която България не може да наложи. А в настоящия вид на споразумението, единственият начин България да намали задоволително тази опасност би бил да откаже да подпише ACTA изцяло.

- Споразумението не предотвратява (и принципно няма как да предотврати) и претърсването на хора и личния им багаж на границата. А това е една от най-инвазивните и неприемливи части на ACTA. Тя може да бъде в малка степен отслабена, като България се възползва от разрешението в глава II, част 3, статия 14, т. 2 и въведе правила, които изключват проверяването на личен багаж и некомерсиални количества стоки поради изисквания, произтичащи от ACTA. Това ще позволи подобни проверки да не се извършват от българските гранични власти (но няма да спре извършването им от други гранични власти).

- В глава II, част 3, раздел 4, статия 23, т. 1 се запазват изискванията на ACTA нарушенията на интелектуални права да бъдат обявени за криминални престъпления, и за тях да може да се налага наказанието затвор. Също в пълна сила остава възможността почти всяка възможна употреба без изрично разрешение на обект на интелектуални права да може да бъде представяна като “целяща пряко или непряко търговско или икономическо предимство”, и така да се оказва криминално престъпление. В пълна сила остава и уговорката, че криминални престъпления са всички такива употреби, но не само те – тоест, не е посочено какви други употреби на обект на ИП, неносещи никакво търговско или икономическо предимство, също са криминални престъпления. На теория това би могло да бъде дори личното слушане на музика, или споменаването на търговска марка или име на фирма в критична статия. Единственият начин България да ограничи тези нежелани ефекти е да заяви, че изцяло отказва да изпълнява тази точка.

- Продължават като криминални престъпления да се третират вносът, износът и транзитът на продукти, нарушаващи нечия търговска марка. Това е в сила дори ако в страната-производител и в страната-получател тези продукти не нарушават търговска марка. Иначе казано, ACTA способства една страна с неоправдано строг режим на интелектуални права да може да го налага и върху търговията на страни, чийто режим е по-либерален.

- ACTA продължава да постановява, че държавите имат право да обявят за криминално престъпление записването на прожектиран филм, дори ако е с изцяло некомерсиална, нетърговска и неразпространителска цел (напр. за строго лична употреба). За щастие, тази точка е пожелателна – България не е длъжна да я изпълнява. Възможността да бъде въведена обаче неизбежно ще допринася за създаването на общ “смразяващ ефект”.

- В глава II, част 3, раздел 4, статия 23, т. 4 ACTA продължава да задължава държавите да обявят за криминално престъпление подпомагането или подбуждането към споменатите криминални престъпления. С други думи, изказвания в смисъл, че това поголовно криминализиране е нередно и несправедливо, могат да бъдат тълкувани като подбудителство към нарушаването им, и авторът им да бъде обявен за криминален престъпник. Единственият начин това пряко и брутално нарушение на свободата на словото да бъде блокирано е България да декларира, че изцяло отказва да изпълни тази точка. (Което, в добавка към изводите за другите точки от статия 23, прави логичен отказът да се изпълнява цялата статия.)

- Съгласно глава II, част 3, раздел 5, статия 27, т. 5, държавите са длъжни да въведат юридически мерки срещу заобикалянето на технологични средства, които се използват за контролиране на употребата на обекти на интелектуални права. В т. 6 е уточнено, че става дума за устройства или средства, създадени с идеята предимно за такова заобикаляне. Ще рече: ако устройството става предимно за друго, то е използваемо за другото, но всяко такова заобикаляне нарушава закона. В т. 6 се прави изключение, ако продуктът има значителна комерсиална употреба извън такива заобикаляния; за свободния софтуер обаче често се приема, че няма комерсиална употреба, и съответно той попада под удара на ACTA. Съгласно т. 7, държавите са задължени да подсигурят юридически мерки срещу лица, които предприемат действия, които биха могли да направят възможно нарушаването на авторски права (и в частност снемането на електронните ограничения над негови обекти). Иначе казано, Това важи в пълна сила дори ако употребявате законно закупени обекти на ИП, само по разрешения начин, и ако пишете софтуер, който бива използван само за такава цел. За илюстрация: преди ACTA авторът на DeCSS (програма за разшифроване на DVD) не можеше да бъде осъден, тъй като я беше написал и използвал за гледане на законно закупени от него филми. Под ACTA той се явява престъпник, независимо че не е нарушил ничии интелектуални права. Тези точки носят силен “смразяващ ефект” не само върху обществото, но и върху технологичния напредък. Той може да бъде избягнат, ако България заяви в “резервите” си, че няма да ги спазва.

- В глава II, част 2, статия 11: държавите биват задължени да разрешат на съдилищата си да нареждат на нарушителя или обвиняемия да предостави информация около нарушението на праводържателя или съда. Изискването за предоставянето на такава информация на праводържателя е форма на принуда към самоинкриминиране, което е нарушение на фундаментално човешко право. От демократичните законодателства се очаква да забраняват подобно нещо. Тази възможност за нарушения може да бъде избягната, ако България заяви, че няма да изпълнява тази точка.

- В глава II, част 2, статия 12, т. 1 (а): държавите биват задължени да разрешат на съдилищата си да нареждат на когото е необходимо да блокира възможността нарушение на интелектуални права да бъде извършено. Такова блокиране обаче е невъзможно без пълно следене на всички, например на всички Интернет потребители. Ако споразумението между Б.Б. и АПТИУ бъде спазено, Интернет потребителите ще бъдат защитени, но всички останали – не. Резултатът ще е тотално нарушаване на личностни права. Също, ефектът дори от такова следене няма да е пълен – мярката стимулира нарушаване на общочовешки права, без да постигне търсения ефект. (И също така създава условия за тежки антиконкурентни икономически злоупотреби.) Такова развитие може да бъде избягнато, ако България заяви, че няма да изпълнява тази точка.

- В глава II, част 2, статия 12, т. 2 държавите биват задължени да разрешат на съдилищата си да действат inaudita altera parte (непублично и тайно), където е подходящо – и особено където ще бъде нанесена невъзвратима вреда на праводържател, или когато е възможно доказателства да бъдат унищожени междувременно. Обикновено подобен текст касае само втората възможност: поставянето на “невъзвратима вреда на праводържател” наравно с унищожаването на доказателства е недопустимо фаворизиране от съда на праводържателя спрямо другата страна. Също така, обикновено подобен текст се формулира максимално тясно и изрично, за да се избегне възможността с разрешението за тайни действия да се злоупотребява, а текстът тук е формулиран широко и неясно. Това създава възможността той да бъде прилаган широко и в нарушение на духа на правото. Тази възможност може да бъде избягната, ако България заяви, че няма да изпълнява тази точка.

- В глава II, част 3, статия 17, т. 4, ако праводържателят е злоупотребил с правото си да подава сигнали за арестуване и изземване на стока, обявена за “пиратска”, то държавата има право да упълномощи митническите и другите си компетентни органи да не приемат и/или да не разглеждат сигнали от този праводържател. Ако обаче държавата не е употребила изрично това си право, то компетентните й органи са длъжни да работят по сигналите дори на доказан злоупотребител, и да създават проблеми на коректни лица. Тази възможност може да бъде избягната, ако България изрично упълномощи компетентните си органи да отказват работа по сигналите на доказани злоупотребители.

- В глава II, част 3, статия 20, т. 2, ако стоки бъдат обявени за нарушаващи търговска марка, простото премахване на “пиратската” търговска марка не може да е основание стоките да бъдат обявени за легални. (Иначе казано, с тях трябва да се постъпи по стандартния ред – унищожаване.) В случаи, когато се касае за истинско фалшифициране на търговска марка, мярката може и да бъде оправдано наказателно действие. Ако обаче се касае за непредумишлено подобие на търговски марки, мярката ще е очевидно ексцесивна и ще служи единствено на създаването на пречки пред конкуренцията. (Обикновено не е проблем, особено за най-големите, да регистрират умишлено търговска марка, донякъде подобна на тази на конкурента, и след това да искат унищожаване на стоката му заради това подобие.) Тези злоупотреби могат да бъдат отчасти избягнати, ако България декларира, че ще изпълнява тази точка само в случаите на доказано от съд умишлено фалшифициране. Пълното им избягване обаче е възможно само ако България откаже изобщо да изпълнява тази точка.

- В глава II, част 3, статия 22, подточка (b), държавата може да оторизира компетентните си органи да предадат на праводържател информация (на практика всичката, с която те имат как да разполагат) за потенциално нарушаващата стока и потенциалния нарушител. А съгласно подточка (c), ако държавата не е изпълнила подточка (b), то тя е ДЛЪЖНА да оторизира компетентните си органи да го вършат – като минимум за вносните в нея стоки. (Което, заедно с другите провизии, реално води до ефекта, че държавите-участнички реално се оказват принудени да действат съгласно законите на тази от тях, която защитава най-много интересите на праводържателите – включително в ущърб на интересите например на потребителите.)

- В глава II, част 3, статия 25, т. 3 държавите са длъжни да дадат право на компетентните си органи да разрешават конфискуването и унищожаването както на стоките, нарушаващи търговската марка и на “пиратските” копия, така и на всичко, свързано със създаването им. Държавите са длъжни също така да подсигурят да няма никаква възможност при никакви обстоятелства да се плати или даде каквато и да е компенсация за конфискуваното и унищоженото. (Второто изречение е безсмислено – в случаи на доказано криминално престъпление е принципна практика иззетото и унищожено да не се компенсира. Изречението е смислено само в един случай – ако е иззето и унищожено имущество, за което впоследствие се е оказало, че не нарушава търговски марки и не е “пиратско”. А смисълът и в този случай да не се плащат компенсации има как да е само един – да се стимулира изземването и унищожаването, като вършещите го бъдат освободени от отговорност в случай на грешки. Подобна практика е неприемлива, особено в съчетание със статия 20, подточка b. Тя може да бъде спряна по само един начин – като България декларира, че няма да спазва тази точка.)

—-

Изброеното дотук е само част от проблемите, които виждам в ACTA. Не съм засегнал например възможността да се пречи на генеричните лекарства (ако тя се реализира, цените на лекарствата в България ще скочат средно между 5 и 10 пъти – набързо ще станем младежка нация, и здравната вноска ще трябва да е поне 20-25% от заплатата). Не съм обсъдил подробно “приватизирането на цензурата” и “приватизирането на следенето”. Не съм засегнал какъв страховит “ефект на смразяването” може да има именно върху творците, и как възможността да твориш извън ярема на голяма корпорация може да бъде на практика унищожена… Неизброените ми тук опасения са повече от изброените, а надали съм се сетил за всичко вероятно и опасно.

Имам сериозни съмнения и доколко споразумението между Б.Б. и АПТИУ ще бъде трайно. Срещал съм в Нета изчисления, че за да се постигне това ниво на потайност и агресивно налагане на ACTA, спазвано на ниво правителства на най-големите държави, за “лобиране” трябва да са били похарчени над 10, може би над 20 милиарда долара. Моите преценки сочат същия порядък. А свободата на Интернет потребителите е пословичният “най-зъл враг” на всички праводържатели. Който е дал такъв куп пари, и почти е постигнал желаното, много лесно ще даде още милиард-два, за да го допостигне. Да се оттегли тихомълком уговорка по ACTA ще е несравнимо по-лесно, отколкото да бъде подписана и ратифицирана след вече оттеглен подпис.

Вероятно ли е това да се случи? В момента имаме министър-председател, който няма зад гърба си мафия, способна да контролира големия процент от избирателите. Като резултат той е принуден да ги слуша и да изпълнява, ако не иска политическият му път да приключи скоропостижно. Единственият такъв в историята на “прехода” ни, и определено единственият сред активните в момента политици. А има куп кусури, някои от тях отвратителни – напълно е реалистично да падне от власт още на следващите избори, след година и нещо. Който и да го замени, с почти пълна сигурност ще отмени “резервите” ни към ACTA, дори ако в момента публично се кълне в обратното. Така че премахването на “резервите” ни в срок от 2-3 години ми изглежда на практика сигурно.

А има и друго. Ако България изяви резерви по всички точки, които описах (а те са само част дори само от скандалните), всеки нормален дипломат би задал въпроса: “Защо изобщо тогава го подписвате?”. И ще е прав: споразумение, което не ни изнася по към една трета от обема си, на практика не ни изнася изобщо. Затова добрият вариант за България ще е изобщо да не подписва ACTA.

Няма ли в ACTA нищо ценно? Ако трябва да сме честни, има. Много от правилата му за защита на търговски марки например биха били от полза за България. Никой обаче не може да ни попречи да си въведем в сила като национални закони каквото и когато пожелаем от тези правила, дори ако не сме подписали ACTA. Обратното не е вярно – подпишем ли го, ще сме на практика задължени да въведем и нежеланите му елементи. Ако не веднага, то много скоро.

Затова моят призив е – нека се преборим ACTA да бъде отхвърлено изцяло. Просто това е най-мъдрата постъпка, която можем да направим.

Един от начините е да гласуваме в Интернет за петицията, която ще бъде изпратена на органите на ЕС. Към момента, в който пиша тези редове, са я подписали над 1 500 000 души. Нека помогнем тя да достигне 2 милиона – а по възможност и повече.

Друг е да дойдем на общоевропейската демонстрация срещу ACTA. Тя се провежда в много градове в ЕС, по едно и също време – в 11 часа на 11 януари. В София ще тръгне шествие от пилоните на НДК. Доколкото зная, като минимум в Пловдив и Варна също има заявени демонстрации, може би и в други градове.

И трети е да говорим с познатите си и да им обясним какво всъщност значи ACTA. И да им кажем, че в България това споразумение се лансира от ГЕРБ, поне засега. Нека знаят, когато някой от ефектите на ACTA им се стовари отневиделица, на кого да “благодарят” за него. За да знаят пък в ГЕРБ, че подкрепят ли ACTA в парламента, ще си понесат политическата отговорност, до последния загубен глас. И да си помислят имат ли желание това да се случи.

SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green : ISC StormCast for Friday, February 3rd 2012 http://isc.sans.edu/podcastdetail.html?id=2302, (Fri, Feb 3rd)

This post was syndicated from: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green and was written by: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green. Original post: at SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green

(c) SANS Internet Storm Center. http://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green : Critical PHP bug patched, (Fri, Feb 3rd)

This post was syndicated from: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green and was written by: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green. Original post: at SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green

Just about a month ago, PHP 5.3.9 was released, which included a patch for the hash collision problem. The basic hash collision problem affected various languages, including php and .Net (Microsoft fixed the issue in an out of band patch 2011-100 in late December).
PHP fixed the issue not by introducing a new hash function, but instead it limited the number of input parameters. Just like the php hardening patch suhosin did all along, PHP now supported a max_input_var parameter to limit the number of input parameters a request may send. The default limit was set to 1,000, plenty for most web applications.
Sadly, the fix was implemented incorrectly, and introduced a more severe vulnerability, a remote code execution vulnerability. Thats right: An attacker could craft a request, that will execute code on a web server running PHP 5.3.9.
Today, the PHP team released PHP 5.3.10 to address the issue.
If you are running PHP 5.3.9: PATCH NOW! This is a very critical bug
If you are running PHP 5.3.8: DO NOT UPGRADE TO 5.3.9. I would actually recommend that you wait.
Additionally, try to enable Suhosin if at all possible. There is a slight performance hit, but it is unlikely to break your web application unless you are already tight in resources. Many Linux distributions include Suhosin, so it may be pretty easy to set up.
——

Johannes B. Ullrich, Ph.D.

SANS Technology Institute

Twitter

(c) SANS Internet Storm Center. http://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green : New Poll – What security issue concerns you the most this year?, (Fri, Feb 3rd)

This post was syndicated from: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green and was written by: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green. Original post: at SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green

———– Guy Bruneau IPSS Inc. gbruneau at isc dot sans dot edu

(c) SANS Internet Storm Center. http://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green : PHP 5.3.10 Released, Fixes CVE-2012-0830 available for download http://www.php.net/archive/2012.php#id2012-02-02-1, (Fri, Feb 3rd)

This post was syndicated from: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green and was written by: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green. Original post: at SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green

———– Guy Bruneau IPSS Inc. gbruneau at isc dot sans dot edu

(c) SANS Internet Storm Center. http://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

xkcd.com : Wrong Superhero

This post was syndicated from: xkcd.com and was written by: xkcd.com. Original post: at xkcd.com

Hi! Someone call for me? I'm a superhero who specializes in the study of God's creation of Man in the Book of Genesi-- HOLY SHIT A GIANT BUG!

LWN.net : PHP 5.3.10 released with critical security fix

This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: corbet. Original post: at LWN.net

The PHP 5.3.10 release is out; it contains a fix for a remote code
execution bug introduced recently by another security fix. Anybody running
5.3.9 should probably upgrade as soon as possible.

Valery's Mlog : Couchsurfing in Istanbul (part 2)

This post was syndicated from: Valery's Mlog and was written by: Valery Dachev. Original post: at Valery's Mlog

(03.2.2012: I know the events took place more than two years ago and I also know I should have turned this draft into a post back then… but still I’d better do that later than never.)

Saturday

We overslept and missed the boat trip that was planned for the morning so we went the meeting in Fatih where lots of landmarks of Istanbul and former Constantinopole are located. Finding a place to park in this district is a difficult task during holidays so we did it in Karaköy and crossed the Galata bridge walking. On the top of this two-level bridge you could see a huge number of fishermen waiting for their catch to get bored of the muddy water and take a trip to someone’s plate in a nearby restaurant. However we were in a hurry so I ate something as simple as “balık ekmek” (bread with fish) right on the street. :)

We climbed the road to Ayasofiya and Topcapı Sarayı but we couldn’t actually see much as you could spend a whole day in the castle… and we had about half an hour. People were waiting for us in a cafe nearby. As soon as we got together we visited Sultanahmet Cami. Although it is known as The Blue Mosque it doesn’t seem blue at all but it was definitely impressive! We took some photos and went on. Near Mehmet Akif Ersoy park we saw a band of about 20 people playing an Ottoman military march everybody seemed to know. After visiting the famous Kapalıçarşı and buying souvenirs and (of course) Turkish delight we crossed Galata bridge again to get back to Karaköy. In caffeehouses around you could see people smoking nargile, drinking tea and playing traditional games like Tavla and Okey almost on the street. It’s their way to relax during holidays and we gave it a try. It works!

Even more people from France, Netherlands and even Nigeria joined us in a yet another cafe named Istanbul. Die-hard fans had an opportunity to visit a match of the famous Beşiktaş football team, and those who were not that excited of the idea went back to a İstiklal. After having a meal (tas kebabı in my case) in a restaurant we headed to the grand CouchSurfing gathering!

The event took place in Seksek Cafe & Bar – a bar typical for this part of Istanbul on the fifth floor of the building. Event organisers had prepared a wonderful PowerPoint presentation showing the most of the participants (or at least those who had confirmed their presence in advance). We just couldn’t stop dancing, drinking, talking… Well, OK, we stopped at some point during the night and decided to get back home and get some sleep before our last day in Turkey. We even managed to visited the Galata Kulesi meanwhile. It is extremely beautiful… at least from the outside.

Our GPS worked for us that night and we just a few hours before sunset we were back in Asia. :)

Sunday

Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side the next day – it was cloudy and rainy enough to ruin our plans for a picnic in Moda Parkı. Still we had the chance to meet the others, have some Turkish coffee and tea, and wander around the neighbourhood (nice photos are available in the Internet). I even bought myself a narghile… after some haggling (pazarlık ?) of course.
Saying “Goodbye” was heartbreaking. Everyone I met and the stay I had there was just awesome. I didn’t feel like leaving and some of the others were even crying (I hope it was not them being too happy about our departure). That’s why we left as late as possible and even gave Marti a lift to Edirne where we had a nice welcome by her parents. We spent a nice evening enjoying a nice dinner and coffee, and discussing our controversial past, present and future. :)
Return
I just want to “thank” Bulgarian Border Police for reminding us where we were heading to! The rest of the article is dedicated to them.
The end.


LWN.net : Critical PHP vulnerability being fixed (The H)

This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: jake. Original post: at LWN.net

The H is reporting that a critical remote code execution bug has been found in PHP that was caused by the recent fix for the widespread denial of service via hash collisions vulnerability. “The cause of the problem is the security update to PHP 5.3.9, which was written to prevent denial of service (DoS) attacks using hash collisions. To do so, the developers limited the maximum possible number of input parameters to 1,000 in php_variables.c using max_input_vars. Because of mistakes in the implementation, hackers can intentionally exceed this limit and inject and execute code. The bug is considered to be critical as code can be remotely injected over the web.

TorrentFreak : Feds Arrest Streaming Site Operator for Copyright Infringement

This post was syndicated from: TorrentFreak and was written by: Ernesto. Original post: at TorrentFreak

seizedEarlier today we reported that leading up to the Super Bowl this weekend, several sports streaming sites had their domain names seized by the Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE unit.

At the time there was no official announcement from the authorities, but ICE has now confirmed that this, their 10th round of domain seizures, is being branded ‘Operation Fake Sweep.’

In total the authorities took down a record breaking 307 domain names. The majority, 291, sold counterfeit NFL merchandise and the remaining sites allegedly linked to copyrighted streams.

The full list of seized streaming domains is firstrow.tv, xonesports.tv, firstrowsports.tv, firstrowsports.net, firstrowsports.com, hq-streams.tv, robplay.tv, soccertvlive.net, sports95.net, sports95.com, sports95.org, sportswwe.net, sportswwe.tv, sportswwe.com, youwwe.net and youwwe.com.

In addition to the seizures, police also arrested 28-year old Yonjo Quiroa of Comstock Park, Michigan. According to the press release Quiroa is the owner of nine of the sixteen sites, which he operated from his home.

Responding to the arrest and domain seizures, ICE Director John Morton declared victory.

“While most people are focusing on whether the Patriots or Giants will win on Sunday, we at ICE have our sights on a different type of victory: defeating the international counterfeiting rings that illegally profit off of this event, the NFL, its players and sports fans,” Morton said.

“In sports, players must abide by rules of the game, and in life, individuals must follow the laws of the land. Our message is simple: abiding by intellectual property rights laws is not optional; it’s the law.”

NFL’s Vice President of Legal Affairs Anastasia Danias welcomed the support of the authorities.

“We are grateful for Homeland Security Investigations’ tireless efforts in combating intellectual property theft and are pleased to be working along with them and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department on this important issue,” he said.

The controversial seizures which started early 2010 have now resulted in the takeover of 669 domain names. The majority of the sites in question offered counterfeit goods and three dozen were linked to copyright infringements. One domain name has been returned because it was seized by mistake.

Source: Feds Arrest Streaming Site Operator for Copyright Infringement

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LWN.net : Security advisories for Thursday

This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: jake. Original post: at LWN.net

CentOS has updated openssl (C4:
multiple vulnerabilities).

Debian has updated tomcat6 (multiple
vulnerabilities).

Fedora has updated BackupPC (F15; F16:
cross-site scripting), polipo (F15; F16:
denial of service), moodle (F15; F16: multiple vulnerabilities), firefox (F16: multiple vulnerabilities), xulrunner (F16: multiple vulnerabilities), thunderbird (F16: multiple vulnerabilities),
thunderbird-lightning (F16: multiple
vulnerabilities), gstreamer-plugins-bad-free (F16: multiple
vulnerabilities), and libvpx (F16: multiple
vulnerabilities).

Mandriva has updated apache
(multiple vulnerabilities).

Oracle has updated firefox (OL4; OL5; OL6: multiple vulnerabilities), seamonkey (OL4: multiple vulnerabilities),
thunderbird (OL4; OL6: multiple vulnerabilities), and openssl (OL4: multiple vulnerabilities).

Red Hat has updated openssl (RHEL 4:
multiple vulnerabilities)

Scientific Linux has updated thunderbird (SL4&5; SL6: multiple vulnerabilities), firefox (multiple vulnerabilities), seamonkey (SL4: multiple vulnerabilities), and
openssl (SL4: multiple vulnerabilities).

LWN.net : Seigo: Spark answers

This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: jake. Original post: at LWN.net

Aaron Seigo answers questions about the Spark tablet, which is based on Plasma Active, that he announced on January 29. There is more information about the hardware and software, delivery timeframe (May 2012), and pre-orders: “Pre-order registration will open early next week. This was one piece in the puzzle that was taking a bit [longer] than I hoped for to come together, but it’s finally slotted in and our distribution partner has got the necessary infrastructure settled. I’ll lift the veil off of the pre-order and our distribution strategy when it goes live.

Backblaze Blog : Director of Product Marketing: Andy

This post was syndicated from: Backblaze Blog and was written by: Gleb Budman. Original post: at Backblaze Blog


Thanks to our great customers, Backblaze continues to grow. We are excited to announce that we have hired a Director of Product Marketing. Let’s spend a few minutes with Andy…

Where are you from? And where are you now?
I was born in Brooklyn New York and grew up on Long Island in Shirley, exit 67 on the Long Island Expressway – way out there. I spent 10 years in the Air Force and moved to California when I got out.

Why did you leave the Air Force?
I was a computer programmer in the Air Force. I nearly tripled my salary when I got out. My first job in California was at a start-up as a Systems Administrator. I’ve loved start-ups ever since.

How did you get into product marketing?
I kept going to college at night and eventually crossed over to the dark side (marketing) when I got my MBA.

Any regrets in crossing over to the dark side?
No. I stay reasonably technical; I’ve built and maintain a couple of web sites and do a little programming on the side. I believe you can’t market technology unless you understand technology, so I try to “keep dirty”.

Why join Backblaze?
I’ve used the online backup service for over a year and it just works. I visit my backed up files every once in a while – they seem happy. Seriously, I have to believe in what I’m marketing. It’s clear from all the customer kudos that Backblaze is really good at what they do.

Where else have you worked?
I’ve worked in companies of all sizes from PeopleSoft and Symantec down to start-ups. All of them have been in the technology industry.

OK, one last question – you had a fun first car?
My first car was a 1958 Cadillac, Fleetwood sixty-special. I paid $125 for the car and it weighed 6,000 pounds and got 8 miles a gallon. We once got 15 people in it, plus 3 in the trunk, to get into a $5.00 a car drive-in movie. I still think we could have gotten 2 more folks in the trunk.

Krebs on Security : Half of Fortune 500s, US Govt. Still Infected with DNSChanger Trojan

This post was syndicated from: Krebs on Security and was written by: BrianKrebs. Original post: at Krebs on Security

More than two months after authorities shut down a massive Internet traffic hijacking scheme, the malicious software that powered the  criminal network is still running on computers at half of the Fortune 500 companies, and on PCs at nearly 50 percent of all federal government agencies, new research shows.

Source: FBI

The malware, known as the “DNSChanger Trojan,” quietly alters the host computer’s Internet settings to hijack search results and to block victims from visiting security sites that might help scrub the infections. DNSChanger frequently was bundled with other types of malware, meaning that systems infected with the Trojan often also host other, more nefarious digital parasites.

In early November, authorities in Estonia arrested six men suspected of using the Trojan to control more than four million computers in over 100 countries — including an estimated 500,000 in the United States. Investigators timed the arrests with a coordinated attack on the malware’s infrastructure. The two-pronged attack was intended to prevent miscreants from continuing to control the network of hacked PCs, and to give Internet service providers an opportunity to alert customers with infected machines.

But that cleanup process has been slow-going, according to at least one security firm. Internet Identity, a Tacoma, Wash. company that sells security services, found evidence of at least one DNSChanger infection in computers at half of all Fortune 500 firms, and 27 out of 55 major government entities.

“Yes, there are challenges with removing this malware, but you would think people would want to get this cleaned up,” said Rod Rasmussen, president and chief technology officer at Internet Identity. “This malware was sometimes bundled with other stuff, but it also turns off antivirus software on the infected machines and blocks them from getting security updates from Microsoft.”

Computers still infected with DNSChanger are up against a countdown clock. As part of the DNSChanger botnet takedown, the feds secured a court order to replace the Trojan’s DNS infrastructure with surrogate, legitimate DNS servers. But those servers are only allowed to operate until March 8, 2012. Unless the court extends that order, any computers still infected with DNSChanger may no longer be able to browse the Web.

Rasmussen said there are still millions of PCs infected with DNSChanger. “At this rate, a lot of users are going to see their Internet break on March 8.”

Tom Grasso Jr., an FBI supervisory agent at the National Cyber Forensics & Training Alliance in Pittsburgh, Pa., said the DNSChanger Working Group — the industry and law enforcement coalition that’s handling the remediation — has been discussing what to do about the upcoming deadline, but he declined to offer specifics.

“We’re certainly exploring all different options to minimize whatever impact there’s going to be on a lot of people,” Grasso said.

Even if the DNS Changer working group manages to get the deadline extended, the cleanup process will likely take many years.  At least, that’s been the experience of the the Conficker Working Group, a similar industry consortium that was created to help contain and clean up infections from the infamous Conficker Worm. That working group was formed in 2009, yet according to the group’s latest statistics, nearly 3 million systems remain infected with Conficker.

Given the Conficker Working Group’s experience, shutting down the surrogate DNS network on March 8 may actually be a faster — albeit more painful — way to clean up the problem.

“I’m guessing a lot more people would care at that point,” Rasmussen said. “It certainly would be an interesting social experiment if these systems just got cut off.”

Individuals in charge of a large network can learn if any systems are infected with DNSChanger by sending a request to one of the members of the DNS Changer Working Group. Home users can avail themselves of step-by-step instructions at this link to learn of possible DNSChanger infections.

Where do you come down on the decision to extend the Mar. 8 deadline? Register your vote in the poll below. Feel free to sound off in the comments.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

LWN.net : Gettys: Bufferbloat demonstration videos

This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: corbet. Original post: at LWN.net

Jim Gettys says: “If
people have heard of bufferbloat at all, it is usually just an abstraction
despite having personal experience with it. Bufferbloat can occur in your
operating system, your home router, your broadband gear, wireless, and
almost anywhere in the Internet. They still think that if experience poor
Internet speed means they must need more bandwidth, and take vast speed
variation for granted. Sometimes, adding bandwidth can actually hurt rather
than help. Most people have no idea what they can do about bufferbloat. So
I’ve been working to put together several demos to help make bufferbloat
concrete, and demonstrate at least partial mitigation.
” Definitely
useful viewing for anybody who is concerned with the problem and how to
begin addressing it.

Linux How-Tos and Linux Tutorials : Running ownCloud3 On Nginx (LEMP) On Debian Squeeze/Ubuntu 11.10

This post was syndicated from: Linux How-Tos and Linux Tutorials and was written by: Falko Timme. Original post: at Linux How-Tos and Linux Tutorials

This tutorial shows how you can install and run ownCloud3 on a Debian Squeeze or Ubuntu 11.10 system that has nginx installed instead of Apache (LEMP = Linux + nginx (pronounced "engine x") + MySQL + PHP). ownCloud enables universal access…

This tutorial shows how you can install and run ownCloud3 on a Debian Squeeze or Ubuntu 11.10 system that has nginx installed instead of Apache (LEMP = Linux + nginx (pronounced "engine x") + MySQL + PHP). ownCloud enables universal access to files through the widely implemented WebDAV standard, providing a platform to easily view and sync contacts, calendars and bookmarks across devices while supporting sharing, viewing and editing via the web interface. It offers the ease-of-use of Dropbox and box.net without vendor lock in. ownCloud users can run its file sync and share services on their own hardware. nginx is a HTTP server that uses much less resources than Apache and delivers pages a lot of faster, especially static files.

Read more at HowtoForge

TorrentFreak : Megaupload: Hong Kong Mulls Copyright Crackdown

This post was syndicated from: TorrentFreak and was written by: enigmax. Original post: at TorrentFreak

“Hong Kong, what an awesome place to do business and to host my new phantom persona,” Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom wrote here on TorrentFreak last December.

“I should write a book about doing business in Hong Kong, that’s how good it is. People there leave you alone and they are happy for your success,” he added.

But leaving him alone wasn’t on the agenda of the Hong Kong authorities. In a triumphant January statement they revealed how they had worked with the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to “smash a transnational cyberlocker syndicate” – aka Megaupload.

The commitment from Hong Kong Customs was significant. Not only did they invest a year’s worth of investigative manpower, but also supplied 100 officers from their various copyright enforcement divisions to carry out raids on the company.

According to an FT report, authorities there are set to go even further. Later this year, Hong Kong Customs will set up an “electronic crime investigation” center after being called on by media companies to pay closer attention to other cyberlocker-type services operating locally.

Mega Headquarters in Kong Kong

hong kong

The announcement is likely to further unsettle several other file-hosting services that have a presence in the territory such as Filesonic.com, Uploading.com, Uploaded.to, zshare.net, Filepost.com and Hulkshare.com.

Just a couple of days after the Megaupload raids, Filesonic – one of the top 10 file-sharing sites on the Internet – reacted by disabling all 3rd party sharing.

Like Megaupload before it, Filesonic blocks all local IP addresses, presumably in an attempt to avoid local difficulties. But although there is no suggestion that Filesonic has done anything wrong, this type of blockade alone will not ensure it has a quiet life.

Hong Kong authorities described the motivation behind Megaupload’s IP block as “a bid to hinder investigation by law enforcement agencies.” Filesonic told FT that they have “a zero tolerance” approach to piracy.

Uploaded.to, another site with Hong Kong links, reacted to the Megaupload raids by blocking all visitors from the United States. Others have disabled their affiliate programs or taken other measures.

“Targeting the organized and transnational nature of IP infringing activities in the wake of technology development, the Hong Kong Customs will continue to monitor the situation and co-operate with the IPR industry and overseas law enforcement agencies so as to suppress infringing activities effectively,” HK Customs said in a statement.

Whether Customs will follow-up with further action remains to be seen, but in the meantime an Eastern chill is certainly blowing through cyberlocker land.

Source: Megaupload: Hong Kong Mulls Copyright Crackdown

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Блогът на Юруков : ACTA – илюзията за решение

This post was syndicated from: Блогът на Юруков and was written by: Боян Юруков. Original post: at Блогът на Юруков

явор колев фалшифициране протест интернет джентълменско споразуменит борисов anon acta  technologyandinternet politika bylgariq

Когато има политическа и медийна криза като тази с ACTA, начините да се реши са няколко:

  • Първо може да представите проблема като позитив, както направиха Труд и Мария Илиева в самото начало… Никой не им повярва.
  • Второ, може да се опитате да омаловажите проблема, както направи Министерството на икономиката отричайки, че договорът ще има ефект върху България… Оказа се, че това въобще не е така.
  • Трето, може да се злепоставят протестиращите, както се опита да направи Явор Колев твърдейки, че ние блогърите сме подведени от големи телекомуникационни компании и че не действаме от лични подбуди… Eneya и Странгера доста добре обориха и това.
  • Следващата стъпка е да скроите някакво „временно решение“.

    Сега сме на тази четвърта стъпка. Стигнахме до тук доста бързo – темата за ACTA се разви миналия петък, а вече сме във фаза, в която управляващите осъзнават, че няма да минат само с изказвания в медиите. Затова се появиха две тези. Първата е, че дебатът по ACTA тепърва предстои. Учудиха се на това колко сме били невежи в интерпретацията на споразумението и процесът на приемане. Няма значение, че 3 години е било обсъждано тайно – сега, когато влиза в пленарна зала щяло да се говори за него. Някои дори намекнаха, че ще има смисъл да го обсъждаме чак когато депутатите ни го ратифицират, защото преди това нямало как да знаем какво би станало. С две думи – дайте да стане проблем и тогава ще му мислим. Втората част от стратегията е дори по интересна…

    Въпросното „временно решение“

    На някаква среща между Борисов, депутати от ГЕРБ и „представители на неправителствени организации от IT сектора и доставчици на интернет услуги“ се е постигнало джентълменско споразумение. То включва това, срещу което България ще протестира подписвайки ACTA. Тук аз виждам три основни проблема:

  • Все още липсва анализ как ще повлияе ACTA на законодателството ни. Не може просто да повтарят наизуст, че „нищо няма да се промени“, когато е записано в конституцията, че търговските споразумения имат превес.
  • Уговорката е направена между премиера и представители на една индустрия. Както ACTA е прокарана с лобизъм от носителите на авторски права, така и при тази „джентълменска“ уговорка говорим за финансови интереси. На някои от тях вероятно не им пука какви лични данни къде отиват – за тях това е просто допълнителен разход и е напълно нормално да се противопоставят. Да не говорим, че според сегашния вариант на ACTA те също носят наказателна отговорност, ако не съдействат безапелативно.
  • Това е просто една договорка. Помните ли какво Дянков подписа със синдикатите? Имаше добра причина да не спази онази спогодба – рязко задълбочаване на кризата в световен мащаб. Колко струваше онова споразумение тогава? Сега пак са включени много международни фактори и липсва каквато и да е яснота за работата по ACTA. Какво пречи да и тази „честна дума“ да се обезцени?
  • И тази стъпка, както и предишните, цели успокояване на ситуацията. Интернет гръмна с критика по темата, готвят се протести следващата седмица в десетки европейски градове, а като резултат – медиите обръщат все повече внимание. Преди 6 дни писах, че ще чакат думата на Борисов, но не я дочакаха – имаше твърде много шум. Сега като има официална реакция, новината ще е, че проблемът е решен и протестите са ненужни – точно както БТВ скандираше да не ходим на рождения ден на Доби.

    Какво следва?

    Работата е там, че проблемът с ACTA далеч не е решен. Дори се връщаме назад. Скандалът се обърна на политически от опозицията, медиите не правят разследвания и анализи, а само копират каквото намерят в интернет, а обикновените хора не разбират какво става. Диалог няма и няма да има, защото за диалог трябва трибуна, поставен въпрос и някой, който да слуша. Както винаги медийният шум заглушава истинските аргументи, а депутатите разглеждат всичко като игра на влияние и внимание. Групата на ГЕРБ обяви, че ACTA ще бъде ратифицирана и с това изказване се изчерпва прозрачността на процеса.

    Сега можем да очакваме само едно – всички медии ще се втурнат към Борисов да го разпитват докато той не се сепне „Защо всички протестират, като вече има договорка!“ След това или ще заеме слабата позиция на Явор Колев и ще нападне протестиращите, или ще обещае повече дебат и ще възложи на Трайков да направи кръгла маса по въпроса. Такава вероятно ще се организира, ще се кажат някакви неща, ще се чуят някакви мнения и ще се стигне до някакво решение. ACTA ще влезе в пленарна зала и ГЕРБ с Атака ще я приемат. Тихо, без възражение и без промени. Удобно.

    След това ще се окаже, че трябва да се променят някакви закони, че ще се наложат някакви инвестиции и следене. На първо време няма да се промени почти нищо. После ще дойде натиска от мощните корпорации носители на права, ще искат да спазваме това, което сме подписали, ще налагат глоби и ще натискат за още контрол. ACTA не е гилотина, с която се обезглавява свободната култура на мрежата, тя е голямо стъпало към по-строги мерки, следене и контрол.

    явор колев фалшифициране протест интернет джентълменско споразуменит борисов anon acta  technologyandinternet politika bylgariq

    Какво да направим?

    Ако всичко това не ви се нрави, може да направите няколко неща:

  • Прочетете споразумението и се информирайте за аргументите срещу него
  • Разкажете на познатите си за ACTA – какви са проблемите, как е бил обсъждан и как сме го подписали, какви ще са ефектите и къде да намерят информация
  • Посетете протеста на 11 февруари
  • Подпишете се заедно с другите 1.5 милиона борещи се срещу ACTA
  • Пишете или се обадете на депутатите и евродепутатите ни.
  • Споделяйте информация в социалните мрежи и ако имате блог, пишете за ACTA
  • Още по темата от Eneya, Странгера и Асен Ненов.

    Schneier on Security : Prisons in the U.S.

    This post was syndicated from: Schneier on Security and was written by: schneier. Original post: at Schneier on Security

    Really good article on the huge incarceration rate in the U.S., its causes, its effects, and its value:

    Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America — more than six million — than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.

    The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education.

    [...]

    The trouble with the Bill of Rights, he argues, is that it emphasizes process and procedure rather than principles. The Declaration of the Rights of Man says, Be just! The Bill of Rights says, Be fair! Instead of announcing general principles­ — no one should be accused of something that wasn’t a crime when he did it; cruel punishments are always wrong; the goal of justice is, above all, that justice be done­ — it talks procedurally. You can’t search someone without a reason; you can’t accuse him without allowing him to see the evidence; and so on. This emphasis, Stuntz thinks, has led to the current mess, where accused criminals get laboriously articulated protection against procedural errors and no protection at all against outrageous and obvious violations of simple justice. You can get off if the cops looked in the wrong car with the wrong warrant when they found your joint, but you have no recourse if owning the joint gets you locked up for life. You may be spared the death penalty if you can show a problem with your appointed defender, but it is much harder if there is merely enormous accumulated evidence that you weren’t guilty in the first place and the jury got it wrong. Even clauses that Americans are taught to revere are, Stuntz maintains, unworthy of reverence: the ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” was designed to protect cruel punishments — flogging and branding — that were not at that time unusual.

    The author mentions the rise of for-profit businesses increasingly running prisons in the U.S., but I don’t think he makes the point strongly enough. There is now a corporate interest in the U.S. lobbying for such things as mandatory minimum sentencing.

    TorrentFreak : Feds Seize Sports Streaming Domains in New Super Bowl Crackdown

    This post was syndicated from: TorrentFreak and was written by: Ernesto. Original post: at TorrentFreak

    firstrowUS authorities began another round of domain name seizures a few hours ago, targeting several sports streaming sites.

    Thus far, neither the Department of Justice nor Homeland Security’s ICE unit have officially commented on the seizures, but it can’t be a coincidence that sports streaming sites are being targeted a few days before the Super Bowl is due to be aired.

    The targets of today’s seizure round include Firstrowsports.tv, Firstrowsports.com, Firstrowsports.net and Soccertvlive.net, but more may be added in the coming hours (see update below). The former apparently remains operational via Firstrowsports.eu.

    For the first time, seized domains also include the .TV extension as Firstrowsports.tv is now displaying the familiar seizure banner. The .TV domain belongs to islands of Tuvalu, but is operated by the US-based company Verisign.

    Last year there was a similar round of domain seizures during the lead up to the largest American sports broadcast. At the time the feds seized a dozen domains including Firstrow.net and Atdhe.net.

    Both sites continued to operate under different domain names, several of which have been taken down today.

    Seizure Banner

    seizure

    The seizures in 2011 also targeted domains linked to the website Rojadirecta, owned by the Spanish company Puerto 80. Despite being declared legal by two courts in Spain, the US authorities ruled that Rojadirecta was a criminal operation. The company has been fighting in US courts to get the decision overturned, but so far without luck.

    Another target during the seizures last year was ChannelSurfing.net, which was operated by the Texan Brian McCarthy. The 32-year-old McCarthy was later taken into custody on suspicion of criminal copyright infringement, and he is currently awaiting his trial.

    The extent of the fallout of the new “Super Bowl Crackdown” will become apparent in the coming days. It will, however, once again fuel the censorship debate which exploded last month with the SOPA/PIPA protests and the MegaUpload shutdown.

    Update: ICE statement and arrest.

    Source: Feds Seize Sports Streaming Domains in New Super Bowl Crackdown

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    Diaspora* : Rosanna Yau joins Diaspora*

    This post was syndicated from: Diaspora* and was written by: maxwell. Original post: at Diaspora*

    Wizard hat supplied by ohaibbq

    Rosanna Yau is Diaspora*’s new “Design Wizard.” Rosanna has actually been around Diaspora* since the early days, making bodacious hashtags and our original logo which you can see on our stickers, t-shirts and front page. She is going to be focusing how to make the beta of Diaspora* more beautiful, usable and fun. Rosanna is a practicing graphic and interaction designer and a faculty member at the California College of the Arts here in SF. When Rosanna isn’t hacking on D*, you can find her skating around The Mission, designing all the things, teaching people young and old about fonts, colors, zines, skateboarding, and eating bugs.

    Rosanna:
    on Diaspora rosanna@joindiaspora.com
    on IRC: rosanna
    on the web: http://rosannayau.com

    [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова] : Причина

    SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green : ISC StormCast for Thursday, February 2nd 2012 http://isc.sans.edu/podcastdetail.html?id=2299, (Thu, Feb 2nd)

    This post was syndicated from: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green and was written by: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green. Original post: at SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green

    (c) SANS Internet Storm Center. http://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

    [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова] : АСТА: правна природа и ефекти

    This post was syndicated from: [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова] and was written by: nellyo. Original post: at [Медийно право] [Нели Огнянова]

    Кота нула

    Към 23 януари т.г., когато проверявах  какво е положението  с АСТА в България,  официалната информация  за АСТА   се свеждаше до две съобщения в правната информационна система на МС за одобряване на проекта, на решението на Съвета, на споразумението и упълномощаване  (11PR044.14_ ACTA1). При това в съобщенията отсъстваше дата на подписването – 26 януари.  Знаци за евентуалното подписване имаше в реч на полския министър на администрацията и цифровизацията, без изрично да се споменава България.

    Тишината беше също тъй звънка и откъм българските евродепутати, въпреки че на 24 януари АСТА трябваше да се гледа в парламентарната комисия по развитие, където – по-късно става ясно – действа Метин Казак.

    Под натиска на мрежите

    Само за часове АСТА се превърна в тема за социалните мрежи. Може и засегнатият бизнес да се е обадил, макар че е странно защо едва на тази фаза.  И политиците    бързо се позиционираха.  Седмица по-късно, има  гъвкави позиции на евродепутати (Вигенин: протестите ви отиваха в спама, но   ги извадих оттам; Казак: българското правителство не направи необходимото, дебати предстоят).

    Има позиция на държавата. Министър Трайков съобщава, че България е подписала  АСТА със симпатично мастило:  “Той обясни, че страната е парафирала споразумението под условие, като до 1 март 2013 г. парламентът трябва да го ратифицира, за да влезе в сила. По думите на Трайков ако споразумението не бъде ратифицирано, все едно не е било подписвано.”

    Това съобщение на министъра  вече налага наистина неотложно да се каже за каква процедура става дума. Защото той маневрира върху част от истината: самостоятелното присъединяване на България към споразумението.   Стилистичният похват със симпатичното мастило  може да се интерпретира и по друг начин:  действахме  невидимо.

    Ратификацията не е  някакво  благоволение или реверанс на тази власт  към народа, тя е стандартно изискване за влизане в сила. Така че наличието на предстояща ратификация не отменя въпроса за симпатичността на мастилото. По съображения за прецизност, споразумението не е само парафирано, както твърди министърът, то вече е подписано.

    Човек от партията ГЕРБ  казал, че парламентът при ратификацията ще прецизира текста на споразумението. Това, разбира се, е крайно любопитна възможност. Някой трябва да обясни ред въпроси, които биха възникнали от чисто правно естество.

    Обсъждания? Може

    А въпросите са свързани с това, че по какъвто и начин България да реагира (от резерви до неприсъединяване),  има решение Европейският съюз да стане страна по споразумението.

    Комисията предложи и Съветът прие  споразумението ACTA да бъде подписано и сключено едновременно от ЕС и всички  държави от ЕС.  Държавите, включително България, са ангажирани с това решение.  България – по силата на цитираното вече решение на МС.

    Така че  – едно допълнение към казаното от министър Трайков – и да липсва ратификация на национален парламент, ако ЕС стане страна, АСТА ще има обвързваща сила чрез ЕС за държавите.

    Това – по въпроса за обществените обсъждания. С уважението ми към министъра – не са излишни, но са последващи спрямо изготвянето на националната позиция по АСТА.

    Как все пак е изготвена националната позиция по АСТА, преди да се уполномощи  министъра на земеделието да я изрази на Съвета (прессъобщението от 16 декември 2011, стр.43)? Предварителна оценка на съответствието, консултация със заинтересованите страни? Координационен механизъм, граждани, бизнес?

    (Мармалад утре и мармалад вчера, никога мармалад днес.)

    За да се вземе решение Европейският съюз  да стане страна по АСТА,   остава Европейският парламент да вземе положително решение.

    Защо се налага държавите да се присъединяват самостоятелно

    Има защо.  Отделна тема.

    *

    Развитие на ситуацията:  човекът от партия ГЕРБ в сутрешния блок| БНТ 1. От два-три дена знае за АСТА.  Ще иска резерви. Няма проблем, казва. Чете конституцията. Смята, че сега ще изготвим бг позиция. Ще покани експерти в комисия. Ще се анализира трябва ли да се променя бг законодателство. Ще се съобрази с гражданите. Ако обаче стане директива – трябва да го спазваме. Обаче депутатите в ЕП  ще изразят резерви. Да се обединим в усилията си да защитим правата. Не би казал, че има каша.

    Дебат за споразумението АКТА

    Ето и видеото на БНТ  – с участието на Мартин Димитров, СДС.

    LWN.net : [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for February 2, 2012

    This post was syndicated from: LWN.net and was written by: corbet. Original post: at LWN.net

    The LWN.net Weekly Edition for February 2, 2012 is available.

    Dieter Spaar's blog : Running your own Node-B

    This post was syndicated from: Dieter Spaar's blog and was written by: Dieter Spaar's blog. Original post: at Dieter Spaar's blog

    Its now nearly 3 and a half year ago that I wrote the first “Proof-of-Concept”
    code to get the Siemens BS-11 GSM Basestation up and running. So I think it was
    time to start with 3G, now that LTE is being actively deployed. You also can
    sometimes find reasonable priced, used Node-Bs which makes getting access to
    the equipment possible. A Node-B is the 3G equivalent of a GSM BTS.

    So I spent quite a lot of time spread of several months to get a Node-B up
    and running. Compared with the BS-11 this was a lot more difficult
    and required much more time. Of course the Air Interface is completely
    different, in my case I looked at WCDMA FDD so far, there a few more
    standards used in other parts of the world. Then you have to deal with
    a huge, different specification, the most important when dealing with a
    Node-B are NBAP (TS 25.433) and RRC (TS 25.331), around 3000 pages in total.
    NBAP, the Node-B Application Part, is used to configure the Node-B and do things
    like creating Radio Links (communication channels) to the phone. RRC, the
    Radio Resource Control, is the Layer-3 protocol for the control plane between
    the phone and the access network. It is responsible for accessing the network,
    setting up and releasing connections or paging a phone. Both NBAP and RRC make
    use of ASN.1 which makes things not necessarily easier ;-) There are a few
    more protocols on the lower layers involved like MAC (TS 25.321),
    RLC (TS 25.322) and FP (TS 25.435 and TS 25.427).

    The Node-Bs I used can run “Iub over IP” (Iub is the interface between the
    Node-B and the RNC, similar to Abis in GSM between the BTS and BSC). Originally
    Iub is based on ATM which runs over E1/T1 or similar lines with higher data
    rates. However “Iub over ATM” adds a few more protocol layers for dealing with
    ATM and I really wanted to avoid this additional complexity. Not all Node-Bs
    can automatically do “Iub over IP”, usually it requires an additional hardware
    option (interface card). When using “Iub over IP” you have to deal with
    protocols like UDP and SCTP which are much more convenient.

    The current status is a very minimal implementation of something like
    an RNC to run the Node-B so that a phone can register on the network
    and do simple things like SMS on the control plane. No user plane like
    speech or data yet, but this is the next steps I plan to do. The code
    is not yet public but it will be when it gets more evolved.

    There is still a lot left to research and experiment with. For example I
    haven’t looked at things like HSPA yet, I completely ignore handover to
    other cells as there is only one cell in my experimental setup. So I am
    sure 3G will give a few more years of a very interesting field to
    play with before looking at LTE ;-)

    Gatta's Today : Игли за коса с черепи, рози, змии, гранати, нефрит и корали

    This post was syndicated from: Gatta's Today and was written by: GattaNegra. Original post: at Gatta's Today

    Както обещах ето новите игли за коса. Enjoy :D

    Понеже снимките са адски много ще ги групирам лекичко.

    И това фотографията на немърдащи неща било ебаси философията. Евала на екипа с техниката и се извинявам, че не сложих истинскте снимки, а ги намалих така брутално. Тях обаче ги дадох на жабката :D

    И така – змия / змии с черепи, ахати и нефрит, както и подхождаща им змии без черепи и с никакъв нефрит или пък ахати. Това, за да не се лянка и от двете страни нещоси, а само от едната. На първата игла змията мяза на овца. И да, Стефане, змиите нямат такива очи, но тия са анимационни змии и са си им такива :D Следващите ще са с квадратни очички, като павенца :]

    Тема с кръгчета и черепи, и кръгчета без черепи. Пак нефрити и ахати, любим ми е.  С тия кръгчета станаха адски отровни хаха. Вуду изпълнение за вуду-кифли.

     

    Гъзове.. Черепи и Рози – класика. С корали и кървави ахати.

    Розова с череп и турмалини и още разен миш-маш… и мънисто с роза.

    Гранати и ахати с черепи – любими са ми.

    Ахати и черепи и без нищо -отново за да не се мандахерца от две места :D

    Всичко на куп – това са пробни работни снимки – направо от тезгяха :D

    SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green : Apple and Apache security fixes and releases, (Wed, Feb 1st)

    This post was syndicated from: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green and was written by: SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green. Original post: at SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green

    Apple updates released today:

    security update 2012-001 for Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) and Snow Leopard server
    update for Lion and Lion server (Mac OS X 10.7.2 – 10.7.3)
    remote desktop 3.5.2 client
    server admin tools 10.7.3

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

    10.7.3:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5048

    server admin tools:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5050

    Apache HTTP Server 2.2.22 Released

    This version of Apache is principally a security and bug fix release, including significant security fixes:
    http://httpd.apache.org/security/vulnerabilities_22.html

    (c) SANS Internet Storm Center. http://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.