wikileaks

FBI Raids, UK Arrests Target 'Anonymous' WikiLeaks Hacktivists

Ryan J. Reilly | January 28, 2011, 8:40AM

Five men in their teens and 20s were arrested in the United Kingdom on Thursday in raids coordinated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which executed more than 40 search warrants throughout the United States.

The men ranged in age from 15 to 26, and were arrested for alleged violations of the Computer Misuse Act, the Telegraph reported.
They were taken to police stations in the West Midlands, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey and London, according to the newspaper. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment and the equivalent of a $7968.50 fine.

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Computer program

New Computer Program Predicts Likelihood Of Violent Civil Unrest Abroad

Neal Ungerleider | January 26, 2011, 8:49AM

Protesters clash with police in Tunisia.

Scientists working on a project sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory now have a forecasting model that they claim can accurately predict civil unrest against foreign governments.

A team composed of academics at Kansas State University and New York's Binghamton University developed the Predictive Societal Indicators of Radicalism Model of Domestic Political Violence Forecast. The KSU/Binghamton plans to integrate their forecasting model into applications developed by Milcord, a firm that develops web and mobile applications for various government agencies. According to Milcord's Alper Caglayan, the model "will be integrated into strategic planning, early crisis warning and contingency planning-type operations."

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Drones

Air Force's New 'All-Seeing' Drone Has Trouble ... Seeing

Eric Lach | January 25, 2011, 9:51AM

A Predator B drone.

Gorgon Stare, the new airborne surveillance system which officials say is capable of monitoring entire cities in real time, is "not operationally effective" and "not operationally suitable," according to a draft report dated Dec. 30.

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Drones

Utah Mayor Hopes To Use Unmanned Blimp To Fight Crime

Eric Lach | January 19, 2011, 12:23PM

Matthew Godfrey, the mayor of Ogden, Utah, has a lofty goal. Godfrey has proposed that the town employ an unmanned blimp for surveillance and crime prevention.

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Hacking

OECD Says The U.S. Doesn't Get Cyberwarfare, Stuxnet Suggests Otherwise

Neal Ungerleider | January 19, 2011, 10:33AM

Have governments got cyberwarfare all wrong? A new study argues that the United States and United Kingdom have never figured out a proper definition of cyberwar and that a "true cyber war" will never happen.

But it's not all good news: In order to prevent a combination of cyberwarfare, conventional war and other disasters from causing future, the scholars behind the project argue that an internet equivalent of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is needed to protect against worms, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and hackers.

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Israel

Israeli Scientist To Saudi Arabia: Can We Have Our Vulture Back?

Jillian Rayfield | January 7, 2011, 1:21PM

"Cap de Bonne-Espérance" (Cape of Good Hope) by Roland Topor.

An Israeli scientist is calling for Saudi Arabia to return a tagged vulture that Saudi officials reportedly arrested this week on suspicion of being a Mossad spy.

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Drones

Miami Police Could Become First To Use Drones In A U.S. City

Eric Lach | January 7, 2011, 8:42AM

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when drones come for you?

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Israel

Report: Saudi Arabia Captures Israeli Vulture For Being Mossad Spy

Jillian Rayfield | January 4, 2011, 12:04PM

"Cap de Bonne-Espérance" (Cape of Good Hope) by Roland Topor.

Saudi Arabian officials have reportedly arrested a vulture suspected of being a Mossad spy, after the bird, tagged by Israeli scientists, flew into Saudi territory today.

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Air Force

Air Force's New Gorgon Stare Drones Will 'See Everything'

Eric Lach | January 4, 2011, 8:27AM

In a matter of months, the Air Force hopes to start using a new airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which officials say will give soldiers the ability to monitor activity in real time across an entire city.

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Wikileaks

FBI Raids Business In Investigation Of Attacks Against Enemies Of WikiLeaks

Ryan J. Reilly | January 3, 2011, 10:55AM

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

At the same time that the Justice Department is reportedly looking at options for prosecuting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the FBI raided a Texas business as part of a criminal probe into a computer attack against the enemies of WikiLeaks, the Smoking Gun reported last week.

FBI agents seized a computer server that they believed was used to launch a massive electronic attack on PayPal, which cut off payments to WikiLeaks to the dismay of its supporters, according to an FBI affidavit.

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Bush

Bush Audiobook Chapters Now Include "Bush It" For Windows Users

Ryan J. Reilly | December 28, 2010, 9:55AM

George W. Bush signs copies of his book, 'Decision Points'

If you plug your brand-new "Decision Points" audiobook into your Windows computer, you'll get some pretty unexpected track titles. Why? Because in 2007, various artists made a protest album called "George W. Bush," and the online database that Windows Media uses to fill in the track titles thinks your audiobook is their album.

There have been complaints of late -- we're guessing from someone who got a copy for Christmas -- that chapter titles like "Innocent Children Die" and "Bush It" were popping up when they loaded the album on Windows Media Player.

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Wikileaks

Biden: Assange Closer To A 'High-Tech Terrorist' Than A Journalist (VIDEO)

Rachel Slajda | December 20, 2010, 9:26AM

Vice President Joe Biden said on Sunday's "Meet the Press" that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is closer to a terrorist than a journalist.

From the transcript:

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Drones

Border Patrol: This Is The First Mexican Drone Crash We've Had

Rachel Slajda | December 17, 2010, 2:51PM

A spokesman for U.S. Customs & Border Patrol, the agency which found a small Mexican drone after it crashed in an El Paso neighborhood, told CNN today that it's the first time a Mexican drone has crashed on U.S. soil.

Officials confirm the drone, which crashed in residential yard Tuesday, was an unmanned, radio-controlled craft called an Orbiter Mini UAV owned by the Mexican government. Border Patrol was the first to respond to the crash, and has since turned the investigation over the the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates plane crashes.

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Mexico

Unmanned Mexican Drone Crashes Near El Paso, Texas

Eric Lach | December 16, 2010, 5:08PM

A remote-control drone operated by the Mexican government crashed in the United States near El Paso, Texas, this week, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency confirms to TPM.

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Wikileaks

Reports: Air Force Blocks NYT, Other News Sites Over Wikileaks

Rachel Slajda | December 14, 2010, 6:07PM

The Air Force is now blocking the web sites of the New York Times, the Guardian, and other news outlets that have posted diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks.

According to the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, the Air Force ordered the sites blocked from personnel computers last month. An Air Force spokeswoman told Reuters that the Air Force "routinely blocks Air Force network access to websites hosting inappropriate materials or malware (malicious software) and this includes any website that hosts classified materials and those that are released by WikiLeaks."

She said 25 sites have been blocked.

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FEC

FEC Rejects Bid For Text Message Campaign Donations

Ryan J. Reilly | December 13, 2010, 10:02AM

The Federal Election Commission has rejected a leading wireless trade association's request for permission to enable political campaigns to solicit donations via text message, ABC News reports.

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Defense Department

The Army Wants To Put Smartphones On The Battlefield

Rachel Slajda | December 9, 2010, 8:51AM

A promo photo from the Army's app contest

Smartphones may soon be as ubiquitous in Army units stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan as they are on the streets of New York, as the Army works on a program to bring smartphones to soldiers on the ground.

The Army believes that smartphones -- and certain apps developed by and for the Army -- could be a great boon to soldiers on the ground. And the service sees it as inevitable.

"Taking smart-phone technology and bringing them to the battlefield is probably -- I shouldn't say this -- but it is something that we need to do," said Tony Fuiza, a researcher on the program, on a recent call with military bloggers.

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Wikileaks

Wikileaks' Processing Co. Says It Will Sue Visa For Stopping Payments

Rachel Slajda | December 8, 2010, 4:52PM

Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange

DataCell, the Icelandic company that processes payments to Wikileaks, says it will sue Visa for cutting off payments to the organization.

"DataCell, who facilitates those payments towards WikiLeaks, has decided to take up immediate legal action to make donations possible again," the company's chief executive Andreas Fink said in a statement.

"Visa is hurting WikiLeaks and DataCell in high figures," he said. "Visa users have explicitly expressed their will to send their donations to Wikileaks and Visa is not fulfilling this wish."

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Wikileaks

MasterCard And Visa To Stop Processing Wikileaks Donations

Rachel Slajda | December 7, 2010, 10:34AM

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

Mastercard and Visa have announced they will stop processing payments to Wikileaks, following similar moves by Amazon.com, PayPal and other businesses who are cutting ties to the organization.

Mastercard Worldwide "is taking action to ensure that WikiLeaks can no longer accept MasterCard-branded products," a spokesman told CNET late yesterday.

"MasterCard rules prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal," the spokesman said.

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Wikileaks

Columbia U To Students: Never Mind, It's Cool If You Look At Wikileaks

Rachel Slajda | December 6, 2010, 1:32PM

Australian journalist Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks.org

As TPM reported on Friday, Columbia University's School of Public and International Affairs sent an email to its students warning them not to link to or comment on the Wikileaks cables if they plan on trying to get a job at the State Department after graduation.

The email was sent by the office of career services and, not surprisingly, caused a stir. Now Threat Level reports that the school has sent a second email to students reassuring them that Columbia fully supports the freedom of expression.

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Wikileaks

Assange Routing Donations Through Swiss Mail After Cut Off By PayPal

Rachel Slajda | December 6, 2010, 10:40AM

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is reportedly soliciting donations through the Swiss postal service after PayPal closed his account.

According to the Associated Press, Assange is also using "a Swiss-Icelandic credit card processing center and other accounts in Iceland and Germany." Iceland is a Wikileaks-friendly country, where politicians have proposed making the country a "journalism haven" for outlets like Wikileaks.

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Wikileaks

Major Defense Contractor Blocks Anything With 'WikiLeaks' In URL

Ryan J. Reilly | December 3, 2010, 7:38PM

The nation's biggest defense contractors, who employ thousands of people with security clearances, are taking steps to restrict their access to Wikileaks, including one company which is blocking employees from accessing any website, including news stories, with "wikileaks" in the URL.

An employee of one major defense contractor told TPM that she wanted to read our report on the Library of Congress blocking access to WikiLeaks, but was unable to do so because the company blocked the webpage.

"I've clicked on a lot of headlines on many different news sites and any link that includes the dreaded letter sequence ends up displaying the company's 'Access Denied' page," the employee wrote.

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Wikileaks

Columbia U To Students: If You Want A Job At State, Don't Link To Wikileaks

Rachel Slajda | December 3, 2010, 6:54PM

Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange

Students of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs were warned this week not to spread the Wikileak cables online if they ever wanted a job at the State Department.

The warning came through the office of career services, from an unnamed alumnus who now works at State and wanted to pass along the message.

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Wikileaks

White House Tells All Federal Agencies To Prohibit Unauthorized Employees From Wikileaks Site

Rachel Slajda | December 3, 2010, 5:26PM

The Office of Management and Budget today directed all federal agencies to bar unauthorized employees from accessing the Wikileaks web site and its leaked diplomatic cables.

In an email to federal agencies obtained by TPM, the OMB's general counsel directed the agencies to immediately tell their employees to "safeguard classified information" by not accessing Wikileaks over the Internet.

Classified information, the OMB notes, "remains classified ... until it is declassified by an appropriate U.S. Government authority." Employees may not view classified info over a non-classified system (i.e., the Internet), the OMB says, "as doing so risks that material still classified will be placed onto non-classified systems."

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Wikileaks

Library of Congress Blocks Access To Wikileaks

Rachel Slajda | December 3, 2010, 1:19PM

Inside of the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has blocked access to the Wikileaks site on its staff computers and on the wireless network that visitors use, two sources tell TPM.

The error message reportedly reads:

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Wikileaks

Amazon: We Didn't Pull Down WikiLeaks Because Of Government

Ryan J. Reilly | December 2, 2010, 9:49PM

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT)

Say it ain't so, Joe. Amazon's web hosting service on Thursday said they didn't stop hosting WikiLeaks just because Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) asked them to.

The Lieberman camp said this week that Amazon stopped hosting WikiLeaks after inquires from the Connecticut Senator's office. But Amazon said late Thursday that reports that government inquires caused the pulldown were "inaccurate."

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Joe Lieberman

After Getting Amazon To Boot Wikileaks, Lieberman Eyes Other Firms (VIDEO)

Rachel Slajda | December 2, 2010, 5:33PM

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, yesterday succeeded in getting Amazon.com to boot Wikileaks off its servers.

Now, Lieberman says he's widening his scope.

"We've gotta put pressure on any companies -- like Amazon, [which] just cut Wikileaks off from its servers to distribute -- there's a company now in Sweden, I think it's called Bahnhof, which is providing that kind of access to the Internet to Wikileaks," he said on MSNBC this afternoon. "We've got to stop them from doing that."

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Wikileaks

How Lieberman Got Amazon To Drop Wikileaks

Rachel Slajda | December 1, 2010, 5:56PM

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT)

Early this week, after hacker attacks on its site, Wikileaks moved its operation, including all those diplomatic cables, to the greener pastures of Amazon.com's cloud servers. But today, it was down again and mid-afternoon we found out the reason: Amazon had axed Wikileaks from its servers.

The announcement came from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Lieberman said in a statement that Amazon's "decision to cut off Wikileaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies Wikileaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material."

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Wikileaks

With Russia In Assange's Sights, Is He In Theirs?

Megan Carpentier | December 1, 2010, 2:15PM

Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange

Yesterday, The Daily Beast reported that the National Security Agency is aware that the FSB -- the post-Soviet KGB -- is closely monitoring Wikileaks, though the U.S. has no "direct evidence" that the Russians are behind the days-long denial-of-service attacks that have brought down the Wikileaks website over and over again.

But why would the Russians care that much? In part, because Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has said that between the leaked cables and other information he got separately, high-level corrupt Russian officials should be worried. And some observers think that Assange's efforts to expose corruption in Russia could be more harmful to his site and himself than exposing America's secrets have been. One law enforcement source told The Daily Beast, "The Russians play by different rules," adding that they would be "ruthless" in their attempts to stop him.

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Conservapedia

Conservapedia: E=mc² Is A Liberal Conspiracy

Megan Carpentier | August 9, 2010, 5:01PM

Andy Schlafly and Albert Einstein

To many conservatives, almost everything is a secret liberal plot: from fluoride in the water to medicare reimbursements for end-of-life planning with your doctor to efforts to teach evolution in schools. But Conservapedia founder and Eagle Forum University instructor Andy Schlafly -- Phyllis Schlafly's son -- has found one more liberal plot: the theory of relativity.

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FCC

Google Pushes Back On Times' Report Of Verizon Deal

Eric Lach | August 5, 2010, 5:20PM

Google is disputing a New York Times report that the company is close to a private deal with Verizon in which Google could pay Verizon to ensure that its content received priority in reaching web users.

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