NATO draws a hard line in the cybersand

But the assurances of a military response tied to Article 5 are not easily converted to the digital world, Libicki said.

"In most categories of war, you have to defeat the other guy shooting back, but in the cyberworld you can do a lot just by building up your defenses," he said. "When you put cyberwarfare into the template of conventional warfare, you end up drawing a lot of conclusions that don't make sense."

But Dave Merkel, CTO of cybersecurity firm FireEye, said he isn't surprised by Friday's announcement, given the severe damage that can be caused by a cyberattack. Still, he said, governments may find it difficult to attribute the origin of a digital offensive.

Read MoreNATO: Russia 'attacking' Ukraine as rift widens

While both Libicki and Merkel agreed that many NATO members could determine the origin of an attack, those governments may not be eager to reveal their intelligence and technological capabilities.

Yet even nongovernmental firms are sometimes able to positively identify cyberattacks: In 2013, Mandiant (since acquired by FireEye) released a report detailing a wide body of evidence that a Chinese government group had conducted a widespread cyber-espionage campaign. China denies engaging in cyber-espionage.

NATO's biggest problem with enforcing a hard line against cyberattacks may simply be the wide proliferation of such warfare.

A single hacker can launch hundreds of varied attacks in a short period of time, meaning that governments may find it nearly impossible to identify, attribute and respond to cyberstrikes in a timely manner, Merkel said.

By CNBC's Everett Rosenfeld

See the original post:

NATO draws a hard line in the cybersand

NATO rattles cybersabers-but experts have doubts

But the assurances of a military response tied to Article 5 are not easily converted to the digital world, Libicki said.

"In most categories of war, you have to defeat the other guy shooting back, but in the cyberworld you can do a lot just by building up your defenses," he said. "When you put cyberwarfare into the template of conventional warfare, you end up drawing a lot of conclusions that don't make sense."

But Dave Merkel, CTO of cybersecurity firm FireEye, said he isn't surprised by Friday's announcement, given the severe damage that can be caused by a cyberattack. Still, he said, governments may find it difficult to attribute the origin of a digital offensive.

Read MoreNATO: Russia 'attacking' Ukraine as rift widens

While both Libicki and Merkel agreed that many NATO members could determine the origin of an attack, those governments may not be eager to reveal their intelligence and technological capabilities.

Yet even nongovernmental firms are sometimes able to positively identify cyberattacks: In 2013, Mandiant (since acquired by FireEye) released a report detailing a wide body of evidence that a Chinese government group had conducted a widespread cyber-espionage campaign. China denies engaging in cyber-espionage.

NATO's biggest problem with enforcing a hard line against cyberattacks may simply be the wide proliferation of such warfare.

A single hacker can launch hundreds of varied attacks in a short period of time, meaning that governments may find it nearly impossible to identify, attribute and respond to cyberstrikes in a timely manner, Merkel said.

By CNBC's Everett Rosenfeld

Visit link:

NATO rattles cybersabers-but experts have doubts

Canada says its frigate buzzed by Russian warplanes during NATO drill

Russia has made clear once again that it doesn't want NATO forces on its borders. Or on its shores. Or anywhere near foreign territory it occupies.

Canadian Defense Minister Rob Nicholson has accused the Kremlin of sending three warplanes to buzz its navy frigate Toronto on Sunday while it was taking part in NATO exercises in international waters of the Black Sea.

"While the Russian military aircraft that circled the HMCS Toronto did not in any way pose a threat to the Canadian ship, their actions were unnecessarily provocative and risk escalating tensions even further," Nicholson said Monday in a statement issued in Ottawa.

The tensions he referred to emanate from months of fighting between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine -- a conflict inspired by Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in late February and annexation of the strategic Black Sea peninsula in mid-March.

The United States and its allies in the 28-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of violating international law with the Crimean land grab and of destabilizing southeastern Ukraine by sending Russian soldiers and weapons across the border.

"Canada and its allies are taking part in reassurance measures as a direct result of the Putin regimes military aggression and invasion of Ukraine," Nicholson said in his statement, calling the exercises a message that "Russia's reckless actions must stop."

Russia's Defense Ministry responded with a denial that its warplanes flew around the Canadian vessel and the assertion that they had done nothing wrong.

"The Russian Air Force planes flight path ran through a region where a ship from the Canadian navy, the Toronto, was located but did not approach the foreign warship, ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told the RIA Novosti agency.

The two supersonic Su-24 Fencer fighter jets and an An-26 Curl military transport executed their scheduled flights "strictly in line with international rules," Konashenkov said.

Russian media cast the reported encounter as the result of a NATO buildup of forces around Russia following the Crimea annexation, which the state-run agencies refer to as the result of a local vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.

Go here to see the original:

Canada says its frigate buzzed by Russian warplanes during NATO drill

NATO Creates Spearhead Force to Deter Russia

By John-Thor Dahlburg

The Associated Press

Published: September 10, 2014 (Issue # 1828)

Three NATO ships taking part in the multinational Sea Breeze 2014 military exercise, which started on Monday in the Black Sea. Photo: NATO

NEWPORT, Wales NATOs creation of a rapid-reaction spearhead force to protect Eastern Europe from Russian bullying reflects a cool-eyed calculation that Vladimir Putin and his generals wont risk head-to-head confrontation with the U.S. and its nuclear-capable Western European allies.

The new force will be small, with just a few thousand troops, but its a powerful message from major powers that theyre willing to follow through on NATOs eastward expansion with their own metal and blood.

Why would this be enough? said Gen. Sir Adrian Bradshaw, NATOs deputy supreme European commander. Well, precisely because in becoming embroiled in a conflict with capable combat forces from across the alliance, a potential aggressor recognizes that they are taking on the whole of NATO and all that implies.

I dont think that anyone believes that Russia wants a strategic conflict with NATO, the British army general said. Anybody would be insane to wish that.

The force was ordered into life on Sept. 5 by President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders at a summit meeting in Wales to deter Putin and make NATOs most vulnerable members, such as Poland, Romania and the Baltic republics, feel safer from Russias million-strong armed forces in light of Moscows military involvement in Ukraine.

Ukraine is not a NATO member and not directly under its defense umbrella, but three other former Soviet republics have joined the alliance since the end of the Cold War, as well as the former Soviet satellite states of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia (formerly one country), Romania and Bulgaria.

Excerpt from:

NATO Creates Spearhead Force to Deter Russia

PEPSI BROWN da Nubian don pon microphone// NSA SCANDAL VIDEO WATCHING OFFICIAL VIDEO – Video


PEPSI BROWN da Nubian don pon microphone// NSA SCANDAL VIDEO WATCHING OFFICIAL VIDEO
HERE COMES THE RUDEBOY EP 2014 the ongoing NSA AFFAIR and war on public privacy debate is the frame of this video // 1984-2014= 30 years of surveillance//---the video is a piece of art and...

By: jrPepsiBrown

Originally posted here:

PEPSI BROWN da Nubian don pon microphone// NSA SCANDAL VIDEO WATCHING OFFICIAL VIDEO - Video

Posted in NSA

Texas man's conviction overturned because of Fifth Amendment violation

September 9, 2014 4:45 PM Share with others:

By Torsten Ove / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A federal appeals court today overturned the conviction of a Texas man on drug charges, saying the government violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during his trial here.

Gathon Shannon, 48, of Houston, described by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as a courier in a Texas-to-Beaver County cocaine ring, was convicted by a federal jury and sentenced in 2013 to 20 years.

But a three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals today ruled that the prosecution violated his rights in cross-examining him about his silence following his arrest in 2011.

The circuit judges vacated the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch and ordered that Mr. Shannon receive a new trial.

Mr. Shannon was among a group of accused conspirators targeted by the U.S. attorney's Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force, which said the ring supplied much of Beaver County's cocaine demand from 2009 to 2011.

See more here:

Texas man's conviction overturned because of Fifth Amendment violation

Family of a mentally ill woman files lawsuit against San Mateo Co. after deadly shooting

SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif.

The family of a mentally ill woman filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against San Mateo County Sheriffs Office Tuesday after a deputy shot and killed the 18-year-old last June. The suit alleges that the deputy violated Fourth Amendment limits on police authority.

In late August, San Mateo County Yanira Serrano-Garcia's mother broke down as she announced the suit.

With her attorney acting as translator Carmen Serrano-Garcia said, They not only killed Yanira they killed the entire family and the goal is to prevent any other family from suffering this kind of pain."

Serrano-Garcia battled mental illness and on June 3rd her brother, Tony Serrano, called 911 because she refused to take her medication and was fighting with their parents.

In addition to filing suit the family released 911 recordings from the incident. Tony Serrano asked for medical help.

"This is not really an emergency. I'm calling because my sister she has the schizophrenia, he can be heard saying in the 911 recording.

According to the familys attorney Yanira was diagnosed with schizophrenia at 15 years old.

"The Sheriff's Department was aware of that, they had visited her on three prior occasions without incident, said Arnoldo Casillas, family attorney.

In the time it took Deputy Menh Trieu to reach the San Mateo County home, the family says Yanira had taken her medicine and was in the house.

Here is the original post:

Family of a mentally ill woman files lawsuit against San Mateo Co. after deadly shooting

Defence asks judge in NYC to toss out bulk of evidence in Silk Road case as illegally obtained

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Lawyers for a San Francisco man charged with operating an online marketplace for illegal drugs are asking a judge to toss out most of the evidence against him, saying the Fourth Amendment protects their client from "indiscriminate rummaging" through his entire online history.

The lawyers, Joshua Dratel and Lindsay Lewis, said in court papers that the government violated the ban on illegal search and seizure when it scoured the computers, servers and websites 30-year-old Ross Ulbricht used.

They said applications for search warrants described an investigation that began in early 2013 with a server hosting the Silk Road website in a foreign country.

"The wholesale collection and study of Mr. Ulbricht's entire digital history without limitation expressly sought in the warrants and granted represent the very type of indiscriminate rummaging that caused the American colonists so much consternation," according to the papers filed late Friday in federal court in Manhattan.

Ulbricht has pleaded not guilty to charges of narcotics trafficking, computer hacking, running a continuing criminal enterprise and money laundering. His trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 3.

Prosecutors say Ulbricht went by the online handle the Dread Pirate Roberts, an apparent reference to a character in the movie "The Princess Bride," and turned the underground site into a place where anonymous users could buy or sell contraband and illegal services.

Authorities say Silk Road, which had nearly 1 million registered users by July 2013, generated more than $1 billion in illicit business from January 2011 through September. Federal investigators say Silk Road users anonymously browsed through nearly 13,000 listings under such categories as cannabis, psychedelics and stimulants.

The website used Bitcoin, the tough-to-track digital currency, before it was shut down.

Ulbricht was arrested last year at a public library in San Francisco, where he lived. Authorities said he was chatting online at the time with a co-operating witness. He remains incarcerated without bail.

A prosecutor's spokeswoman declined to comment Monday.

Read more here:

Defence asks judge in NYC to toss out bulk of evidence in Silk Road case as illegally obtained

Shaheen vs. free speech She wants to silence you

Jeanne Shaheen wants you to shut up already. She believes passionately that the First Amendment is too broad. It has to be rewritten to give government the authority to limit the speech of citizens.

Shaheen has promoted this view for years, and on Monday the bill she co-sponsored to amend the Constitution to restrict citizen speech came up for a procedural Senate vote. The American people lose when corporations and special interests can spend limitless dollars trying to sway public opinion and inject themselves in our democratic election process, and we have to take action on the secret money that is growing increasingly prevalent in campaigns, she said

Corporations and special interests, eh? If restricting corporations is the goal, then why does the constitutional amendment that she co-sponsored say, Congress and the States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections?

The phrase candidates and others means you, not corporations and special interests.

The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. Shaheen wants to make a law to do exactly that. But she cannot, because of the First Amendment. So she wants to amend it to give her the power to limit your ability to speak about politics, which means about her. New Hampshire, speak out against this while you still can.

Read more:

Shaheen vs. free speech She wants to silence you

Iowa State asks court to dismiss First Amendment lawsuit

Iowa State University submitted a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against employees by two students who said their rights to free speech and due process were violated.

Paul Gerlich and Erin Furleigh, the president and vice president of ISU NORML an organization that advocates for the reform of marijuana laws filed a lawsuit against President Steven Leath and vice presidents Warren Madden and Tom Hill and Leesha Zimmerman, a program coordinator in the trademark office earlier this summer.

Furleigh and Gerlich said their First Amendment rights were violated when Iowa State did not allow them to use the mascot Cy on some T-shirt designs. According to the motion to dismiss, the two students said Iowa State created overbroad and vague trademark guidelines and then arbitrarily used them to reject some of NORMLs T-shirts.

The 13-page motion to dismiss from Iowa State, that was filed on Sept. 4, requested that the lawsuit against the four university employees be dropped for a number of reasons. According to the document, both Furleigh and Gerlich failed to provide facts that showed their First Amendment right to free speech was violated.

According to the document, the lawsuit should be dismissed because Furleigh and Gerlich did not allege sufficient facts to establish any constitutional right in the use of ISUs marks, that they lacked adequate alternative avenues for communicating their message without ISUs marks, that their proposed uses of the marks were fair uses, or that their proposed uses did not cause confusion.

According to the document, fair use allows others to use a trademark if it is used as something other than a trademark, in a descriptive nature or in good faith. The motion to dismiss said using the ISU trademark on the shirt was not claimed as fair use in the lawsuit.

Look for more coverage of this story on iowastatedaily.com.

View post:

Iowa State asks court to dismiss First Amendment lawsuit

The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin

Who cares about Satoshi Nakamoto? Someone else has made Bitcoin what it is and has the most power over its destiny.

In March, a bewildered retired man faced journalists yelling questions about virtual currency outside his suburban home in Temple City, California. Dorian Nakamoto, 64, had been identified by Newsweek as the person who masterminded Bitcoina story that, like previous attempts to unmask its pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, was soon discredited. Meanwhile, the person arguably most responsible for enabling the currency to swell in value to $7.7 billion, and with the most influence on its future, was hiding in plain sight on the other side of the country, in Amherst, Massachusetts.

That person is Gavin Andresen, a mild-mannered 48-year-old picked by the real Satoshi Nakamoto, whoever he or she is, as his successor in late 2010. Andresen became core maintainerchief developerof the open source code that defines the rules of Bitcoin and provides the software needed to make use of it. The combination of Nakamotos blessing and Andresens years of diligent, full-time work on the Bitcoin code has given him significant clout in Bitcoin circles and stature beyond. The CIA and Washington regulators have looked to him to explain the currency. And it was Andresen who conceived of the nonprofit Bitcoin Foundationestablished in 2013which is the closest thing to a central authority in the world of Bitcoin.

Some Bitcoin enthusiasts offer bombastic predictions that Americans will shake off the shackles of the Federal Reserve and poor nations will rise to prosperity with the low-cost transactions made possible by the stateless virtual currency. Other Bitcoin boosters have the air of salesmen chasing a mark, reeling off reasons you should buy into the currency that make you feel youre not getting the whole story. In contrast, Andresen seems to be in search of quiet personal satisfaction, cheerfully calling himself a geek interested in nuts and bolts things. He can make a pretty good pitch for Bitcoin, but he quickly slides into technical nuances that would be a turnoff for most. We say this is going to be the year of the multisignature wallet, he says when summing up what 2014 holds for Bitcoin.

Still, Andresen has had and maintains more influence than anyone else on the code that determines how Bitcoin operatesand ultimately whether it can survive. Although there is no central bank for the currency, its design needs significant changes if it is to become widely used. How Andresen wields his power over Bitcoin will shape not only its fate but also the prospects for other virtual currencies.

Lucky Bet

Bitcoins origins may be shrouded in mystery, but plenty is known about Andresen and his past. Formerly known as Gavin Bell, he has been a software engineer ever since he graduated in computer science from Princeton in 1988 and took a job with the Silicon Valley computing company Silicon Graphics. He worked there for seven years, and then at a series of startups building products from 3-D drawing software to online games for blind and sighted people to play together. Then he encountered Bitcoin in 2010.

Bitcoins were essentially worthless at the time and extremely finicky to get ahold of and use. But Andresen saw technical elegance in Nakamotos design, and a currency outside the control of any government appealed to what he calls his mostly libertarian politics. Rather than being created by a central bank, bitcoins are mined by people running software that races to solve a mathematical puzzle and win a prize of newly minted bitcoins. The mining process is designed to gradually pay out less and less over time, until 21 million bitcoins exist, and it also serves to verify transactions made in the currency (see What Bitcoin Is and Why It Matters).

Eager to see people start using Bitcoin, Andresen launched a website in 2010 called the Bitcoin Faucet that handed out five free bitcoins to every visitor. (A bitcoin was worth only cents at the time but each one trades for $600 today; Andresen reduced the size of the handout as bitcoins rose in value, then shut the site down in 2012.) He also began sending code tweaks and improvements to Nakamoto. Bitcoins founder liked his work, and soon made his protgs e-mail address the only one on the projects homepage. Andresen formally stepped forward in a December 2010 post on the Bitcoin forum. With Satoshis blessing, and with great reluctance, Im going to start doing more active project management for Bitcoin, he wrote. He has worked full-time on it ever since. The Bitcoin Foundation paid him $209,648 in 2013a salary he received in bitcoins.

His smooth ascent has led to frequent accusations that Andresen is Nakamoto and shed the pseudonym once the currency gained traction. He always flatly denies it. I am not Satoshi Nakamoto; I have never met him; I have had many e-mail conversations with him, he said after giving a talk in April. Nobody knows who he is, I think. If that was a lie, Andresen is a remarkable con man. Throughout hundreds of forum posts, e-mail messages, and lines of code, his style has been distinct from that of Nakamoto.

More here:

The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin