October 16, 2018

DFT told Lesley Stahl what bugs him most

He kept mentioning "Baby" in a derogatory way. It came up three times.
So fly those baby balloons proudly!

October 4, 2018

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies

Source: Bloomberg

In 2015, Amazon.com Inc. began quietly evaluating a startup called Elemental Technologies, a potential acquisition to help with a major expansion of its streaming video service, known today as Amazon Prime Video. Based in Portland, Ore., Elemental made software for compressing massive video files and formatting them for different devices. Its technology had helped stream the Olympic Games online, communicate with the International Space Station, and funnel drone footage to the Central Intelligence Agency. Elemental’s national security contracts weren’t the main reason for the proposed acquisition, but they fit nicely with Amazon’s government businesses, such as the highly secure cloud that Amazon Web Services (AWS) was building for the CIA.

To help with due diligence, AWS, which was overseeing the prospective acquisition, hired a third-party company to scrutinize Elemental’s security, according to one person familiar with the process. The first pass uncovered troubling issues, prompting AWS to take a closer look at Elemental’s main product: the expensive servers that customers installed in their networks to handle the video compression. These servers were assembled for Elemental by Super Micro Computer Inc., a San Jose-based company (commonly known as Supermicro) that’s also one of the world’s biggest suppliers of server motherboards, the fiberglass-mounted clusters of chips and capacitors that act as the neurons of data centers large and small. In late spring of 2015, Elemental’s staff boxed up several servers and sent them to Ontario, Canada, for the third-party security company to test, the person says.


Featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Oct. 8, 2018. Subscribe now.PHOTOGRAPHER: VICTOR PRADO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
Nested on the servers’ motherboards, the testers found a tiny microchip, not much bigger than a grain of rice, that wasn’t part of the boards’ original design. Amazon reported the discovery to U.S. authorities, sending a shudder through the intelligence community. Elemental’s servers could be found in Department of Defense data centers, the CIA’s drone operations, and the onboard networks of Navy warships. And Elemental was just one of hundreds of Supermicro customers.

During the ensuing top-secret probe, which remains open more than three years later, investigators determined that the chips allowed the attackers to create a stealth doorway into any network that included the altered machines. Multiple people familiar with the matter say investigators found that the chips had been inserted at factories run by manufacturing subcontractors in China.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

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Wow- this is a really f-ed up thing. A Security Failure that got into the computer supply chain for the CIA and others.

October 3, 2018

2:18pm Wednesday - we all get a blast from the Mango Molester

Tomorrow we will all get a special alert on our phones. We cannot disable it, and there is nothing you can do to respond. Are you ready for this? Happy about it?

I'm a geek, and I would love to find a way to have my phone automatically react to this "pResidential" notice. To send a tweet to the White House, a text to the Asslick McConnell, maybe a few other items as well.

August 16, 2018

How to Get Alex Jones Off Twitter Once and For All

This article is a potential way to get that nastiness off of Twitter, by hitting back at the advertisers. It is a copy of a viral Twitter post from the 12th.
https://medium.com/@shannoncoulter/how-to-get-alex-jones-off-twitter-once-and-for-all-51b14afc254

July 26, 2018

Papa John's founder sues pizza chain

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - John Schnatter, the founder and ousted former chairman of Papa John’s International Inc (PZZA.O), on Thursday sued the pizzeria chain, complaining that the company had not provided adequate response to an earlier request for internal documents.

The complaint, Schnatter v. Papa Johns International Inc filed in Delaware Chancery Court, comes after a request by Schnatter and his attorneys access to company documents to inspect accusations of inappropriate behavior.

“Mr. Schnatter’s attorneys are seeking to inspect Company documents because of the unexplained and heavy-handed way in which the Company has treated him since the publication of a story that falsely accused him of using a racial slur,” Schnatter’s attorneys said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-papa-john-s-lawsuit/papa-johns-founder-sues-pizza-chain-idUSKBN1KG2ST

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Sigh

July 18, 2018

Standards for Impeachment

I look at a number of legal blogs from time to time because they are largely conservative in the viewpoints given. This one is rather detailed, timely and against Herr Groper.
LawFareBlog

Suppose a president refuses to accept extensive evidence, validated by executive-branch and congressional investigations, that a foreign power has engaged in aggressive subversion of the American electoral process. The actions include hacking into the files of political party organizations and attempts to penetrate the voter registration records maintained by state boards of elections. The intelligence community and Congress each report their conclusions that these attacks will continue.

The president aggressively questions these findings in communications with the American public, and he signals to the leader of the hostile foreign state that he will not join in the condemnation of these aggressive cyberattacks.

The president also fires the official in charge of the investigation into the Russian interventions and reassures representatives of this foreign state in person, in the Oval Office, that he thereby removed a source of “great pressure” on the relationship he wants with that nation. He then launches a series of virulent public attacks on the special counsel who is subsequently appointed to investigate the full extent of this electoral intervention and any collusion that may have taken place with U.S. citizens or organizations.

The president reports that in their direct discussions, the foreign leader denied the well-documented intervention. He then meets with the leader of a foreign power at an internationally televised summit and raises no objection or question when his counterpart repeats the denial. Instead, stressing that the foreign leader “feels strongly” about the falseness of the accusations, he suggests that he sees no reason to accept the findings of American intelligence officials rather than the foreign leader’s denials. The president then reiterates that the inquiry into the electoral interventions is “ridiculous” and a “disaster for the country.” On the eve of this meeting, he had delivered this same message to the American public in a tweet.

The argument that a president is not subject to impeachment for this pattern of conduct is hard to fathom.

June 11, 2018

Canadian Diplomat Suggests U.S. Allies Respond To Tariffs With Targeted Sanctions On Trump

Tired of trade wars? One of Canada's former diplomats is suggesting that the EU flip the Magnitski Act on its backside by placing very targeted fees on the Orange Maggot.

I propose that instead of taxing the import of American serviettes, we tax Trump. In the spirit of the Magnitsky Act, Canada and the western allies come together to collectively pressure the only pain point that matters to this President: his family and their assets. This could take the form of special taxation on their current operations, freezing of assets, or even sanctions against senior staff. Canada could add a tax to Trump properties equal to any tariff unilaterally imposed by Washington. The European Union could revoke any travel visas for senior staff in the Trump organization. And the United Kingdom could temporarily close his golf course.

http://samuel-warde.com/2018/06/tariffs-fixed-by-targeted-sanctions-on-us-president/

He's got a great idea. One the Mango Molester might even be able to understand.

Edited to add a link to the original editorial.

June 7, 2018

Can we mark ONION posts please?

That fine line between sarcasm and reality is getting too narrow. Could we agree to start all Onion posts with ONION: please?

I love seeing their stuff, really. But reality is getting too close to sarcasm IMO. Could we mark it as such just to save us old timers from an occasional coronary? Please?
Thank you.

May 19, 2018

Today's great diversion

The wife and I went to see Deadpool 2 today. It was great! We both laughed our way through it and enjoyed the whole thing. I completely forgot about how fucked up or world is right now, if only for two hours.