May 10
May 08
In a growing list of various locales that Google Glass has already been banned before its public release, casinos are starting to add on to that list. Caesers Palace in Las Vegas is the first major casino to prohibit Google Glass from being worn on the gambling floor to prevent cheating during casino games.
Caesars Palace says that they won’t allow anyone gambling to use Google Glass, but it seems that casino officials will let you at least wear it when simply wondering around, as long as you’re not recording — casinos usually frown on taking pictures or video, even if you’re not gambling. Casinos see recording devices as a means to get an unfair advantage at the tables.
Recently, within the last few months, establishments have been popping up saying that they will not allow Google Glass inside their facilities, including a bar in Seattle, as well as movie theaters and other places where taking photos and recording videos is already prohibited. Lawmakers are even wanting to ban Google Glass while driving, saying that the spectacles can be a distraction while behind the wheel.
Of course, this isn’t surprising by any means. Many luddites believe that Google Glass is an invasion of privacy, allowing Glass users to secretly take photos and record video, but in a world where it’s increasingly more difficult to keep your privacy while out in public, is this really anything new? Does Google Glass offer anything that we haven’t already seen in surveillance equipment and such?
[via Computerworld]
Casinos banning Google Glass over cheating threat is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
May 08
On Monday, Anonymous and various extremist Islamic hacking collectives announced their OpUSA mission, which was a planned cyberattack against nine big-name US agencies/institutions that the hackers wanted to take down. The attack was announced in a manifesto of sorts on Pastebin, which you can read here if poor grammar is of no bother to you. Not surprisingly, the attack appears to have fizzled out with little effect.
The OpUSA cyberattack was set to take place on May 7, which has come and gone for most of those in the US, and thus far no reports have surfaced regarding cyberattacks against the intended targets, among which was the Pentagon, NSA, FBI, the White House’s website, Capital One, Bank of America, and many more banks. A YouTube video was also specified as a target.
YouTube hosted a video titled “Innocence of Muslims,” which Islamist hacking collective Izz al-Din Qassam Cyber Fighters would remove from the website, said Anonymous. Several other Islamic hacking collectives were also specified in the cyberattack’s announcement. For all the grand talk, however, little came of it and websites were by-and-large unaffected.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement earlier this week akin to an amused pat on the head, stating that the attack, at the most, would temporarily disrupt websites and nothing else. According to Mashable, the Honolulu Police Department and one hundred or so obscure small businesses had their websites hacked. That took place on May 6, however, and may have been unrelated.
[via Mashable]
Anonymous OpUSA cyberattack plan goes out with a fizzle is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
May 07
The hacking collective Anonymous was in the news last month for “Operation Free Korea,” in which it hacked North Korea’s Flicker and Twitter account as well as launched an attack on a number of North Korean websites. Their next target isn’t some heavily sanctioned, allegedly rogue nuclear state. It’s actually the United States of America, and Anonymous is threatening to wipe it “off the cyber map.” (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: YouTube Trends Map Displays Most Popular Videos Based On Region, Gender, Age, YouTube Could Be Launching Subscription Service Soon [Rumor], 
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May 07
Can you still steal a car and drive away with it by jamming a screwdriver into the ignition? I’m not sure about that, but what I’m sure of is that you can drive a car with a screwdriver jammed into the ignition – provided a duplicate of your car key has been soldered right at the very end of the aforementioned tool.
The man behind this creative hack is Nathan of HaHa Bird, who admits that he came up with it with “no practical purpose at all.” That doesn’t make it any less fun, though.
You’ll clearly need basic metal working skills to pull this off, so don’t attempt to make your own screwdriver key if you’re not sure what you’re doing. You also run the risk of damaging your ignition if you don’t do it properly, so you have been warned.
That said, Nathan has provided how-to instructions on his site if you’re interested in making one for yourself.
[via Gizmodo]
May 07
The US Department of Defense has taken the unusual step of singling out China’s cyber-spying activities in its annual report. Though the government has tacitly chided such deeds before and even threatened sanctions, yesterday’s document marks the DoD’s first direct allegation of Chinese espionage. It said that hacks directed toward government and business “appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military” for the purpose of “exfiltrating information” to benefit its defense and industry. The paper also highlighted China’s “lack of transparency” with regard to its military, saying that expenditures on cyber-military operations and other defense spending were likely far in excess of the $114 billion it reported. Meanwhile, China denied the accusations, saying it was equally the victim of similar breaches, and suggested that the two nations work together to resolve the problem.
Filed under: Misc
Via: BBC
Source: US Department of Defense
May 07
After months of suggesting that China is behind high-profile hacking attempts on businesses and the US government, the US has finally laied some blame for cyber attacks directly at the feet of the Chinese government and military. The Pentagon issued a report Monday making a more direct accusation of cyberespionage perpetrated by China than it’s ever issued in the past.
The United States has long suggested that China is one of the top sources of cyber attack on the planet. China has continually denied these accusations. However, the new Pentagon report directly attributes some cyber attacks to the Chinese government and the Chinese military. The technologies that cyber attacks carried out by China target are designed to both benefit China’s defense and technology industries and to give an insight into the thought process of US policymakers.
The report says that China is using cyber attacks to support intelligence collection against the United States’ diplomatic, economic, and defense industrial base. Chinese officials have responded to the Pentagon report reiterating that the Chinese government opposes any form of cyberespionage. Chinese officials also said that the United States has a history of criticizing its “legitimate and normal defense building.”
The report issued by the Pentagon also claims that China has deployed anti-ship cruise missiles on its naval vessels. Those anti-ship missiles pose a threat to American naval vessels according to the report. Defense analysts also say that the report shows China’s military modernization is allowing it to expand its focus from Taiwan to the wider region in Asia.
[via Wall Street Journal]
US directly accuses Chinese government of cyberespionage is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
May 06
Los Alamos National Lab has had quantum-encrypted internet for over two years
Posted in: Today's Chili
Nothing locks down data better than a laser-based quantum-encrypted network, where the mere act of looking at your data causes it to irrevocably change. Although such systems already exist, they’re limited to point-to-point data transfers since a router would kill the message it’s trying to pass along just by reading it. However, Los Alamos National Labs has been testing an in-house quantum network, complete with a hub and spoke system that gets around the problem thanks to a type of quantum router at each node. Messages are converted at those junctures to conventional bits, then reconverted into a new encrypted message, which can be securely sent to the next node, and so on.
The researchers say it’s been running in the lab for the last two and a half years with few issues, though there’s still a security hole — it lacks quantum integrity at the central hub where the data’s reconverted, unlike a pure quantum network. However, the hardware would be relatively simple to integrate into any fiber-connected device, like a TV set-top box, and is still more secure than any current system — and infinitely better than the 8-character WiFi code you’re using now.
Filed under: Science, Internet, Alt
Source: Cornell University Library
May 04
The Syrian Electronic Army strikes again, and this time, their target was both E! Online and Justin Bieber. In a series of tweets, the SEA stated that Justin Bieber was coming out of the closet and admitting to his homosexuality in an E! Online exclusive. The group provided links following those tweets, presumably to malware infested sites. The SEA finished up their practical joke with the tweet, “The Syrian Electronic Army was here! Fans of @justinbieber, you have been trolled.”
The fake tweets resulted in a huge wave of responses from Justin Bieber’s followers. Many were shocked, many were “not surprised”, and many were indifferent. Hacking E! Online is a strange change of pace for the Syrian Electronic Army, who normally goes after news publications and human rights organizations. But its attack was foreshadowed with a recent tweet dated May 1st that said, “The next target will be different…”
E! Online is the latest victim in the Syrian Electronic Army’s attacks, but it most certainly isn’t the last. Twitter knows that as well, and has informed everyone to make sure their password is complicated and secure, and that news publications keep their passwords out of their emails. Twitter recently went to battle with the SEA by deleting their Twitter accounts, but seeing as Official_SEA12 is still up, Twitter probably assumed their attempts were futile.
Twitter is also in the process of developing a two-factor authentication system that should dramatically reduce the amount of account hacks, but the company has yet to reveal a launch date for the service. The SEA has already targeted many other accounts, such as several of CBS’s accounts, BBC’s accounts, NPR’s accounts, The Guardian’s accounts, and many more. It won’t be too long now before another group is added onto the list.
[via Business Insider]
Syrian Electronic Army takes over E! Online’s Twitter Account is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
May 03
Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 has been cleared for secure government use by the US Department of Defense (DoD), with the Knox security system deemed appropriately safe for military purposes. Word that the DoD had been testing Knox – which launches first on the Galaxy S 4, but which Samsung says will eventually spread to all its high-end phones and tablets – broke earlier this week, though final clearance for Samsung wasn’t expected until later in May.
The approval came sooner than predicted, however, and hot on the heels of BlackBerry 10 being given the green light for DoD usage. Samsung’s win is the first time an Android phone has been approved for this type of high-security functionality, and the South Korean firm says it will continue to hunt government and large enterprise clients in future.
Knox was revealed back at Mobile World Congress, Samsung’s take on the growing issue of smartphone users wanting to take advantage of their handset’s features for both work and personal purposes. Built on top of NSA-developed security features, Knox can encrypt certain portions of data – such as work email and documents – with support for remote management, while leaving personal files like photos and music separate from administrator control.
The promise is that the work side of a mobile user’s life is protected from malware and the like, while the user is free to do what they want with the rest of the phone without it being inspected by their employer or, indeed, the employer being considered liable for whatever sites the employee visits or non-work messages they send. It’s a similar strategy that BlackBerry took with BlackBerry 10, in effect having two distinct environments on the same device, that are pretty much seamless to the end-user.
Initially only the Galaxy S 4 supports Knox, but that will change as Samsung continues to build out the range. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone is also believed to be undergoing DoD security testing, with an answer on governmental use expected in the coming weeks.
Samsung Galaxy S 4 beats iPhone to DoD security approval is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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