DDoS attack hits U.K. record label and law firm

Denial of service attacks launched by the group Anonymous took down the Web sites of U.K. record label Ministry of Sound and its legal firm Gallant Macmillian on Sunday.

The Anonymous group targeted the two sites as part of its battle against organizations that it believes are using strong-arm tactics to deal with those who share files on the Internet. The Ministry of Sound specifically hired Gallant Macmillian to identify and sue individuals who allegedly uploaded songs from its music catalog, according to The Register. Macmillian has reportedly sent out letters to those suspected of illegal file sharing.
As of Monday, the Ministry of Sound and Macmillian both remain offline. Though some reports say that both sites were brought down by the DDoS assaults, file sharing site Slyck said that Macmillian intentionally took down its site ahead of the scheduled attacks. That move prompted Anonymous to change its plans and hit the Ministry of Sound and the record label's music store payment site.
In a statement from Anonymous that Slyck posted before Sunday's attack, the group said it has targeted companies like Macmillian since "they have declared themselves our enemies by sending out thousands of blackmailing letters against innocents, seeking compensation for copyright infringements that don't exist."
Security vendor Panda Security last week posted a chat session that it conducted with someone reportedly from Anonymous. The unidentified person said the group's mission is to fight back against the antipiracy lobby, claiming that its outdated views on copyright infringement need to be changed in light of the Internet.
These latest attacks follow DDoS hits launched by Anonymous two weeks ago against the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America), the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), and a firm called Aiplex Software, which had been hired by the MPAA to go after sites that illegally share copyrighted content.

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Letter to deadpool

Dear 'pool,
i would gladly take one in the face from you
sincerely,
jill

Stuxnet code hints at possible Israeli origin, researchers say

Security researchers today offered another tantalizing clue about the 
possible origins of the notorious Stuxnet worm, but cautioned against 
reading too much from the obscure tea leaves.

In a paper released today and presented at a Vancouver, British Columbia 
security conference, a trio of Symantec researchers noted that Stuxnet 
includes references in its code to the 1979 execution of a prominent 
Jewish Iranian businessman.

Buried in Stuxnet's code is a marker with the digits "19790509" that the 
researchers believe is a "do-not infect" indicator. If the marker equals 
that value, Stuxnet stops in its tracks, and does not infect the 
targeted PC.

The researchers -- Nicolas Falliere, Liam O Murchu and Eric Chen -- 
speculated that the marker represents a date: May 9, 1979.

"While on May 9, 1979, a variety of historical events occurred, 
according to Wikipedia "Habib Elghanian was executed by a firing squad 
in Tehran sending shock waves through the closely knit Iranian Jewish 
community," the researchers wrote. 

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OH...MY...GO-

ok, listen to me...lord knows i hate reading just as much as the next schmoe...but this book...omg...omg...this book.

i just finished it and let me just say...spectacular.

check it out here http://www.nealstephenson.com/snowcrash/


also you can get it on Audio Book if reading isn't your type of thing. trust me, get this. you won't regret it.

Hacker claims third-party iPhone apps can freely transmit UDID, pose serious threat to privacy

When Apple addressed a congressional inquiry on privacy in July, the company claimed that it couldn't actually track a particular iPhone in real time, as its transactions were anonymous and thoroughly randomized. Bucknell University network admin Eric Smith, however, theorizes that third-party application developers and advertisers may not have the same qualms, and could be linking your device to your name (and even your location) whenever they transmit data. Smith, a two-time DefCon wardriving champ, studied 57 top applications in the iTunes App Store to see what they sent out, and discovered that some fired off the iPhone's UDID and personal details in plaintext (where they can ostensibly be intercepted), including those for Amazon, Chase Bank, Target and Sam's Club, though a few were secured with SSL. Though UDIDs are routinely used by apps to store personal data and combat piracy, what Smith fears is that a database could be set up linking these UDIDs to GPS coordinates or GeoIP, giving nefarious individuals or organizations knowledge of where you are.

It's a scary idea, but before you direct hate Apple's way, it's important to note that Cupertino's not necessarily the one to blame. iOS is arguably the best at requiring users to opt-in to apps that perform GPS tracking; transmitting the UDID and account information together publicly is strictly against the rules; and we'd like to think that if users provide their personal information to an application developer in the first place, they'd understand what they're doing. Of course, not all users monitor those things closely, and plaintext transmission of personal details is obviously a big no-no.

Smith's piece opens and closes on the idea that Apple's UDID is like the unique identifier of Intel's Pentium III processor, which generated privacy concerns around the turn of the century, and we wonder if ths story might play out the same way -- following government inquiries, Intel offered a software utility that let individuals manually disable their chip's unique ID, and removed it from future CPUs.

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Study Shows Some Android Apps Leak User Data Without Clear Notifications

i thought i would post this article because i have an android phone

and am are currently uninstalling everything.

Something as simple as changing your Android phone’s wallpaper or 
downloading a ringtone could transmit personal data about you, including 
your location, without your knowledge.

Sound farfetched? It’s not: About 15 of 30 randomly selected, popular, 
free Android apps sent sent users’ private information to remote 
advertising servers and two-thirds of the apps handled data in ambiguous 
ways, say researchers.

The researchers at Duke, Intel Labs and Penn State University, created a 
tool called TaintDroid that identifies apps transmitting private data to 
distant locations. TaintDroid monitors how applications access and use 
your location, microphone, camera, phone numbers in your contact list. 
The tool also provides feedback once an app is newly installed, letting 
you know if the app is transmitting data.

“This automatic feedback gives users greater insight into what their 
mobile applications are doing and could help users decide whether they 
should consider uninstalling an app,” says Peter Gilbert, a graduate 
student in computer science at Duke University who’s working on the 
project. The TaintDroid program isn’t publicly available yet. 

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ASIO files found in drug raid

A CACHE of secret files stolen from ASIO and police and anti-corruption 
agencies has been discovered during a drug raid in Melbourne, raising 
fears of a major breach of national security and crime intelligence.

Police are investigating whether the former head of intelligence and 
phone tapping at Victoria's Office of Police Integrity stole the 
documents.

The files were discovered on September 10 by detectives searching a 
house in Melbourne's north as part of a drug investigation.

They found boxes containing sensitive national security and law 
enforcement documents, including files from ASIO, the OPI and West 
Australian police.

The suspected criminal whose home was raided is believed to be in a 
relationship with the former OPI official suspected of taking the 
documents. The former official previously worked for the Victoria Police 
and the West Australian Anti-Corruption Commission. It is unclear how 
long the pair have been in a relationship.

The Age believes many of the documents contain information that may pose 
a threat to sources used by the agencies. The files also contain 
specific details on highly sensitive operational matters. 

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