NATO Secretary General at Bundespressekonferenz, 14 JAN 2015
Opening remarks by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the press conference with members of the German Federal Press Conference, Berlin, 14 January 2015.
By: NATO
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NATO Secretary General at Bundespressekonferenz, 14 JAN 2015 - Video
Lithuania: US military trucks roll through the Baltics as NATO training resumes
A train loaded with 17 US military vehicles, including Strykers, Humvees, and SUVS was seen rolling through the city of Klaipeda, Thursday, as American troops resume NATO training in the region....
By: RuptlyTV
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Lithuania: US military trucks roll through the Baltics as NATO training resumes - Video
Edward Snowden; Edward Snowden what to do with remaining NSA secrets
Edward Snowden Whistle blower or Patriot : What to do with the remaining NSA secrets. As Edward Snowden ponders on how to unload the remaining Government secrets he has. The value maybe ...
By: BSTV - News Brief
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Edward Snowden; Edward Snowden what to do with remaining NSA secrets - Video
NSA : Orange Valley Meeting (4/5)
National Solidarity Assembly : Nirvan Maharaj : Orange Valley Meeting at the Orange Valley Community Centre . . . : 12th January 2015 : Part 3 of 5.
By: National Solidarity Assembly
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NSA PUA Statements 15.01.2015 (1)
By: Daniel Lcking
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The internet has become almost part of our daily involvement and reality is that it affects every facet of our modern lives. We are increasingly becoming dependent on the Internet, for which reason its availability, functionality, safety, stability and security are now of great and continuing concern to all of us and most importantly to US Congress, who so far has maintained stewardship over these key functions.
As the internet gets new updates, services apps and new technologies, so is the increased threats to the very resource we would like to use and trust. Several issues have become evident and have hit the headlines and drawn us to concerns we must boldly address. In my previous article, "From Wikileaks of 2012 to Snowden's NSA Leaks of 2013: Implications for Global Internet Governance, I covered the trending issue that came to the fore, that whilst Wiki leaks was about US diplomatic cables, the Edward Snowden disclosure of classified NSA information to private media organizations such as the UK Guardian newspaper has had graver implications for global Internet privacy. The NSA leak presented the United States of America as a country that practically spies on everybody in a most indiscriminate manner, including its own allies.
In an interview with CIO East Africa, I gave the African continent's perspective as to why the "The AUCC debate on Cyber Security needs to involve all stakeholders" concerning the NSA issue and that "African governments are still a long way in accepting such technologies as open data African governments can prepare proper legislations and strategize on how to handle private data in a manner that is not intrusive to rights of its citizens. The backlash of the NSA revelations wouldn't be a good experience for any government". Therefore "this emphasizes that internet governance should be a matter that is handled by many stakeholders to avoid giving the governments a monopoly of leadership in policy development"
From a private sector perspective , I wrote a piece on the reality of Emerging Cyber-Security Threats and Implications for the Private Sector, including a case for New gTLDs & Security where I highlighted that "cyber-warfare will be conducted against computers and network resources owned and operated by the private sector who own the utilities, financial corporations, and a lot of intellectual property." As such "The cost of Internet Security protection is bound to sky-rocket in the coming years." As "Private sector organizations that have their information resources compromised as a result of cyber-security attacks will not only suffer huge financial losses, and loss of business good-will, but their stock value could be affected and plummet and suffer degradation of overall market value. Investors stand the risk of losing their money invested in such companies." A case and point that soon exasperated was when Target, a US National Retailer was attacked by hackers who gained access to as many as 40 million credit and debit cards used by customers of Target during the height of the holiday shopping season.
Only at the end of 2014, did we come across deafening noise on the famous Sony Pictures Entertainment cyber hack, as it also took interest of the US political scene. Here there was a release of confidential data belonging to Sony Pictures Entertainment, the hackers who also called themselves the "Guardians of Peace" or "GOP" demanded the cancellation of the planned release of the film "The Interview", a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The US leadership saw it as un-American to recoil to such threat and also an attack on free speech.
As a result of such global cyber crime matters, President Obama Obama signed an order to protect consumers from identity theft by strengthening security features in credit cards and the terminals that process them and also plans to announce legislation that would shield companies from lawsuits for sharing computer threat data with the government in an effort to prevent cyberattacks.
Most recently ICANN the internet gatekeeper announced that it was "investigating a recent intrusion into our systems. We believe a "spear phishing" attack was initiated in late November 2014. It involved email messages that were crafted to appear to come from our own domain being sent to members of our staff. The attack resulted in the compromise of the email credentials of several ICANN staff members". Whilst, this goes to show that no one is safe from these targeted attacks. ICANN's mission is tied to being the gatekeeper over the availability, functionality, safety, stability and security of the global internet, which directly impact Cyber Security. ICANN itself is embroiled in a bid to sever its ties with the US government; therefore, aside from the mainstream accountability concerns, governance of the cyber security has and will form a major part of discussions on designing a new model to oversight ICANN. From the statements and activities, the US congress is not keen to let this separation happen soon, with the budgetary interventions, the IANA transition may just be but a dream.
From an individual perspective, a recent case was reported by Addis Fortune Newspaper where "The Court passed a guilty verdict against Yonas, a member of the Ethiopian diaspora from Germany, and sentenced him to two years in prison (although reversal was made afterwards by a higher court to a 6 months only imprisonment by suspension, based on lack of reasonable prove on aggravating circumstances to delete data from the computer of the victim) and a 5,000-Br fine for the cyber crime he was said to have committed against his business partner lady Akiko Seyoum". This is among the rare cases of prosecution for cyber crime, and a signal that Africa is becoming aware of the need to mitigate the increase of cyber crime and money laundering schemes.
In conclusion, the need to protect the global internet from such implications above as to its availability, functionality, safety, stability and security and using it also as a diplomacy tool to ensure the same, would definitely give a justification by a wide margin to the US status quo over the internet. Whilst, the US would not allow itself to be liable as exemplified during the global financial crisis of 2009 and the 1930, for blowing out its house of cards over its American Exceptionalism, a concept that has its roots from the principle of a country organized around an ideology that includes a set of dogmas about the nature of a good society, especially the one that tied it to a future mission of bringing liberty and democracy to the world.
Therefore, expect nothing less but 2015 to be a year of American Excepionalism over Internet Governance!
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Wikileaks 2012, NSA 2013, NTIA Mishaps & Global Cyber Crime 2014: U.S. Exceptionalism over IG 2015?
Originally published January 15, 2015 at 9:40 AM | Page modified January 15, 2015 at 12:26 PM
A committee of scientific experts has concluded that there is no viable technological alternative to bulk collection of data by the National Security Agency that allows analysts access to communications whose significance only becomes clear years later.
An 85-page report by the National Research Council, commissioned last year in the wake of surveillance revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, did not take a position on the merits of bulk collection of telephone or other records. But asked to look for effective software alternatives to bulk collection, it concluded there weren't any, in cases when, for example, the NSA wants to examine the past communications of new terror suspects.
"Restricting bulk collection will make intelligence less effective, and technology cannot do anything about this," the report says. 'Whether the gain in privacy is worth the loss is a policy question that the committee does not address."
If a particular set of communications becomes significant, the report says, "because of new circumstances such as identifying a new target, a non-nuclear nation that is now pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, an individual that is found to be a terrorist, or new intelligence-gathering priorities_historical events and the data they provide will be available for analysis only if they were previously collected."
The report does suggest ways to mitigate the privacy impact of bulk collection by restricting use of the data, something NSA says it does.
"Although no software can fully replace bulk with targeted information collection, software can be developed to more effectively target collection and to control the usage of collected data," the report says.
It recommends the use of automatic controls on bulk data, with audits that can be publicly shared.
The study was conducted by a committee of the National Academies, which advises the government on scientific matters. The committee was chaired by Robert Sproull, a former Oracle executive and computer scientist now at the University of Massachussetts.
The committee included a variety of experts, including Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counter Terrorism Center.
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The Mexican government is throwing its weight behind a U.S. lawsuit filed by the parents of a Mexican teenager who was killed in his country when a U.S. Border Patrol agent fired his weapon across the border.
When agents of the United States Government violate fundamental rights of Mexican nationals, it is one of Mexicos priorities to ensure that the United States has provided adequate means to hold the agents accountable and compensate the victims, lawyers for the Mexican governmentwrote in a brief filed on Thursday.
The case marks the first time a U.S. appeals court has considered the legal implications of a cross-border shooting. The question before the New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is whether the U.S. Constitution reaches into the Mexican side of the 2,000-mile border with the U.S.
The Fifth Circuit ruled 2-1 in June that the parents ofSergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca could sueU.S. Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa Jr. for alleged violations of the Fifth Amendment, which provides that no person shall be . . . deprived of life,liberty, or property, without due process of law.
The panel threw out claims against the U.S. government and Mr. Mesas supervisors. The Fifth Circuit has agreed to rehear the case, with all active judges participating, at the request of the U.S. government and Mr. Mesa.
The Mexican government sought to assure the court that it had no qualms about the U.S. Constitution nosing into its territory, in this instance at least.
Any invasion of Mexicos sovereigntyoccurred when Agent Mesa shot his gun across the border at SergioHernndez. Requiring Agent Mesa to answer for that action in U.S. courttothe same extent as if Hernndez were a U.S. national or on U.S. soilonly shows respect for Mexicos sovereignty, the brief said.
The lawsuit alleges that in June 2010, Mr. Hernndez was playing with a group of friends in the cement culvert that separates El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The game involved touching the barbed-wire fence on the U.S. side of the border, and then running back down the incline of the culvert into Mexico.
When Mr. Mesa arrived on the scene, he detained one of Mr. Hernndezs friends on the U.S. side of the border. Still in U.S. territory, Mr. Mesa then shot Mr. Hernndez, who had retreated down the culvert back into Mexico, according to the complaint.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said after the incident that Mr. Mesa, who is still a member of the Border Patrol, used force because the group was throwing rocks at him, ignoring his commands to stop.
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Mexican Government Backs Lawsuit Against U.S. Border Patrol Agent
The North Dakota Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a criminal judgment against a man who argued that the state violated his Fourth Amendment rights, as well as the state equivalent of those rights, by charging him for refusing to submit to a chemical test.
The court's decision answered a question asked shortly after North Dakota lawmakers criminalized refusal to submit as part of a broader effort to stiffen the penalties for drunken driving in 2013.
"Driving is a privilege, not a constitutional right, and issubject to reasonable control by the state under its police power," Supreme Court Justice Lisa McEvers wrote in an opinion signed by all five justices.
The justices affirmed the argument offered by the state that one gives implied consent to be searched when one gets behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.
In doing so, the justices upheld the conviction against Danny Birchfield, who drove his vehicle into a Morton County ditch in October of 2013 in a case that would go from the South Central District Court to the North Dakota Supreme Court.
Several states criminalize the refusal to submit to a chemical test, often by making the penalty for refusal the same as that for being convicted of drunken driving.
McEvers cited several court decisions, at the state and federal levels, upholding states' rights to do so.
The North Dakota Supreme Court also ruled the 2013 United States Supreme Court decision in McNeely v. Missouri, rendered shortly before North Dakota criminalized refusal, did not invalidate the legal framework for criminal penalties.
Attorneys for Birchfield and another defendant accused of refusal to submit argued that the McNeely decision, which ruled that the forcible extraction of blood from a suspected drunken driver constituted an unreasonable search and seizure, applied to criminal penalties as well. The attorneys argued that by punishing a person for refusing to be tested, the state effectively removed that person's right to refuse being tested.
McEvers wrote that "since the (United States) Supreme Court's ruling in McNeely, criminal refusal statutes have continued to withstand Fourth Amendment challenges, particularly in Minnesota."
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A South Carolina state lawmaker wants students to celebrate gun rights in schools, so he introduced the Second Amendment Education Act, which designates Dec. 15 as Second Amendment Awareness Day and requires instruction on the right to bear arms for at least three consecutive weeks in the school year.
Rep. Alan Clemmons, a Myrtle Beach Republican, was motivated to write the bill after a 16-year-old South Carolina high school student was suspended and arrested for a fictional essay he wrote about buying a gun and shooting a neighbors pet dinosaur.
One of the stipulations in Mr. Clemmons bill requires schools to conduct essay contests with Second Amendment themes and provide recognition for statewide contest winners.
PHOTOS: Best handguns ever made
Zero-tolerance [gun] policies have squelched discussion and teaching of the Second Amendment in schools, Mr. Clemmons told The Washington Times.
If not addressed, a zero-tolerance attitude could create a generation that doesnt understand the Second Amendment and views firearms as evil even if used by law-abiding citizens, he said.
Not everyone agrees.
PHOTOS: Best concealed carry handguns
Shannon Argueta, a liberal blogger often critical of guns, called the bill alarming and said she doubted a curriculum pushed by NRA supporters Mr. Clemmons is a longtime member would be balanced.
I find the idea of having a school pushing pro-gun propaganda for the NRA to be pretty alarming, said Ms. Argueta, a Florida mom with a 10-year-old son.
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'Second Amendment Education Act' seeks gun rights curriculum in S.C. schools
Beaumont, Texas (PRWEB) January 15, 2015
1st National Reserve (http://www.1stNationalReserve.com), of Beaumont, Texas, one of Americas leading gold, silver and rare coin dealers, has joined the Bellevue, Washington-based Second Amendment Foundation (http://www.saf.org) as a partner in the fight to restore and protect the right of law-abiding persons to keep and bear arms.
In announcing the sponsorship, 1st National Reserve Vice President of Marketing Paul Stein stated: "We have long supported the right to keep and bear arms. Partnering with Second Amendment Foundation, our ongoing commitment to protecting the right to keep and bear arms will greatly expand. The Second Amendment Foundation is a group at the cutting edge of firearms law and on the frontlines protecting the rights of American citizens."
We are proud to partner with 1st National Reserve, The Official Bullion & Rare Coin Partner of Second Amendment Foundation. Our partnership not only provides SAF with immediate benefits that will allow us to continue and expand our important work protecting and restoring the right to keep and bear arms, but offers us a wide array of ways to work together to the benefit of our members and supporters in 2015 and beyond, said SAF Director of Development Ray Carter.
"Because of newly passed and impending anti-gun legislation, SAF must be ready to respond swiftly with meaningful legal action. This new support from 1st National Reserve will substantially increase our effectiveness," Carter explained.
1st National Reserve (http://www.1stNationalReserve.Com) is one of Americas leading gold, silver, and rare coins dealers and is The Official Bullion & Rare Coin Partner of Second Amendment Foundation. Serving SAF members and customers nationwide with an A+ Better Business Bureau rating, 1st National Reserve and Americas Gold Expert, Mike Fuljenz, help clients diversify with gold, silver and rare coins. Known as Americas Gold Expert, Mike is a frequent expert guest on local and national business and personal finance programs including Fox Business Network and CNBC, and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Kiplinger's, Los Angeles Times and many other broadcast, print and online news media.
The Second Amendment Foundation (http://www.saf.org), found in 1974, is the nation's largest and oldest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group fighting to restore the constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms and our nations proud heritage of private firearms ownership. Today, SAF includes more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts both vigorous legal and educational programs. Presently, the Second Amendment Foundation has nearly thirty active lawsuits before state and federal courts across the country and conducts the Preemption Legal Project, demanding cities and counties comply with state and federal gun laws. The Gun Rights Policy Conference, publications and leadership conferences are vital parts of SAFs educational program now joined by the new SAF Training Division. Announced only weeks ago, the Second Amendment Foundation Training Division (SAFTD) offers programs directed at training new and inexperienced shooters in the defensive use of pistols, shotguns and carbines.
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1st National Reserve Joins Second Amendment Foundation as 2015 Gold Sponsor
Know Your Rights: What Isn #39;t Free Speech?
Yes, you have a right to free speech as an American citizen, but where does that right end? AJ+ gives you a cheat sheet on which kinds of speech are NOT protected under the First Amendment....
By: AJ+
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The Age of Cryptocurrency book trailer
A new book by Wall Street Journal reporters Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey, available Jan. 27, 2015, from St. Martin #39;s Press, explains the technology and the cultural movement behind bitcoin,...
By: Paul Vigna
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Post written by Nicholas Weaver
Nicholas Weaver is computersecurity researcherat theInternational Computer Science Institute in Berkeley
Many have quipped that the cryptocurrency known as bitcoin are really prosecution futures, because rather than being anonymous, bitcoins can be remarkably easyto trace since every transaction between pseudonymous addresses ispublicly recorded. With the ongoing trial of Ross Ulbrichtoverallegations that he was the kingpin known as the Dread Pirate Roberts behind the Silk Road onlinedrug marketplace, this may be put to the test.
When the FBI arrested Ulbricht, they also captured his bitcoin stash.For the moment, let us assume that Ulbricht is (or at least asignificant version of) the Dread Pirate Roberts. How can the prosecution seek touse these bitcoin to prove that Ulbricht was the brains behind theSilk Road?
When the FBI seized the Silk Road server and the associated bitcoinwallets, they didnt just gain the ability to movethe bitcoins, they also gained an index into history. The privatekeys contained in this file can generate a near infinite universe ofdistinct public addresses, but capturing the private key enablescomputing all these addresses.This acts as an index into the blockchain, the public ledger whichrecords every bitcoin transaction. By seizing the wallet, the FBInow knows every bitcoin transaction involving the Silk Road wallets:payments sent, payments received, and even internaltransactions designed to confuse outside analysis.
The same applies to Ross Ulbrichts bitcoins. The wallets seized fromUlbrichts laptop not only allowed the FBI to capture 144,000bitcoinsfrom Mr. Ulbricht, but also provides an index to every bitcoin transaction he made, both legitimate and potentially illegal.The final piece of the puzzle is redandwhite, the allegedhitman/scammer who was supposedly hired by the Dread Pirate fora considerable sum.
The first step in tying Ulbricht to either Silk Road or redandwhiteis to search for any direct transactions. Having identified everyaddress belonging to either Ulbricht or Silk Road with the seized wallets, the FBIsimply has to look for all direct payments in the blockchain. If so, the prosecution torpedoes the Good Ship Revengethen and there: Ulbricht has already claimed the bitcoins are his.
Yet for the moment assume that Ulbricht was also careful, and used abitcoin tumbler, also known as a bitcoin money laundering service.Tumblers promise some anonymity: a user deposits a given amount intoone address and a few hours later a supposedly unrelated address thencreates a final payment, deducting the tumblers fee.
Such tumblers do a very poor job of hiding transactions,especially when dealing with a thousand or a hundred thousand bitcoins. The simplest approach is to simply lookfor common flow patterns. If 1.2 bitcoin left Silk Road to anunknown address, and Ulbricht received 1.1752157 bitcoin five hours later, this is suggestive. Add in thousands of such coincidentaltransactions and a pattern will emerge.
Evenmore sophisticated analysesare possible. These tumblers formclusters,a group of independent addresses that are identifiable with a singleowner. Even if a tumbler uses multiple independent pools of bitcoin,each pool can be identified.
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How Prosecutors Might Nail Ross Ulbricht Using The Supposedly Anonymous Bitcoin
Interviews from the road: Coinarch CEO gives Tatiana an overview of Bitcoin trading
I sat down with Jeremy Glaros, CEO of Coinarch. I learned a bit about trading and finance. This is always a trickier topic, though interesting. Luckily, Jere...
By: Tatiana Moroz
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Interviews from the road: Coinarch CEO gives Tatiana an overview of Bitcoin trading - Video
Bitcoin under 250$
http://worldcryptonetwork.com http://twitter.com/worldcryptonetwork Donations: BTC 1AUEW7mtcRGBs5LLVd8mvrkNWxdhUyFhdg.
By: World Crypto Network
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Bitcoin HD-BIP32 Business Multi-Sig wallet Demo 4
USCyberlabs has created the first true commercial grade Bitcoin HD-BIP32 Business wallet system. Today older Bitcoin wallets are not shareable so they become a problem with companies that need...
By: Richard Amores
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Bitcoin lesson from Superman
When ever the price goes up and down wildly. I remember this scene. Learning to go to the moon takes some ups and downs.
By: 1bitbybit
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Bitcoin GitHub History Visualization - Multiple Projects (Jan 2015)
As always, this video was created with the open-source version control visualization software Gource (http://code.google.com/p/gource/). This time, though, I decided that annotations were old...
By: Coding In My Sleep
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Bitcoin GitHub History Visualization - Multiple Projects (Jan 2015) - Video