Malware Wars: Software Vendor Claims CIA and NSA Infiltrated Microsoft

According to Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of antivirus and security software vendor F-Secure, U.S. intelligence infiltrated Microsoft’s core Windows and application development programming teams in order to spread the Stuxnet, Dugu, and Flame viruses.

A screen capture of a Windows error message on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant’s map.

“The announcement that links Flame to Stuxnet and the conclusive proof that Stuxnet was a US tool means that Flame is also linked to the US government,” Hypponen told PC Pro last week.

“This makes you think that this breach of Microsoft’s update system was done by the Americans and most likely a US agency, someone like the NSA,” Hypponen said. “That must make Microsoft mad as hell that its most critical system, used by 900 million of its customers, was breached by fellow Americans.”

Although the NSA has worked with Microsoft in the past, Hypponen does not believe the software giant collaborated with the NSA and the CIA to exploit their own operating system.

“I don’t think Microsoft was in on it, that it was helping the US government and I don’t believe that because it looks very bad for Microsoft. I find it very hard to believe that Microsoft’s top management would have approved that,” he said.

“It’s plausible that if there is an operation under way and being run by a US intelligence agency it would make perfect sense for them to plant moles inside Microsoft to assist in pulling it off, just as they would in any other undercover operation. It’s not certain, but it would be common sense to expect they would do that.”

In 2003, it was speculated that the CIA had worked with Microsoft to build a backdoor for intelligence purposes in its software. In 2009, the NSA and the Defense Department worked with Microsoft on Windows 7 security measures.

“The key problem is that NSA has a dual mission,” Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronics Privacy Information Center, said at the time.

Following the revelation that the NSA was illegally collecting vast amounts of data on American citizens via the internet, Michael McConnell, then Director of National Intelligence, said the U.S. government should have unlimited and warrantless access to U.S. citizens’ Google search histories, private emails and file transfers.

Earlier this week it was reported that the U.S. and Israel collaborated on the sophisticated Flame virus which they unleashed on Iran’s oil industry and its nuclear program. Experts now believe Flame was built by the “same nation-state responsible for the Stuxnet virus that targeted Iran’s nuclear power plant in 2010. Many suspect Stuxnet was the work of Israeli intelligence,” Fox News reported.

The CIA, the NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as well as the Israeli Embassy in Washington, declined to comment.

Kaspersky Lab researchers discovered a link between the two viruses earlier this month. Both take advantage of infected machines by exploiting a Windows flaw to launch the “autorun” feature.

Source: Infowars

Even bigger Big Brother: Facebook purchases Israeli facial recognition company Face.com

Facebook has purchased the facial recognition startup Face.com since Facebook has come under fire from European regulators for revealing a massive facial recognition database and been busted for spying on the text messages of smartphone users, showing a complete disregard for privacy.

If you continue to use Facebook in a state of ignorant bliss, hopefully this will help you wake up to the reality of what this internet giant is really up to.

A Facebook spokesperson put it, this acquisition seems purely logical and perfectly in line with their business model.

“People who use Facebook enjoy sharing photos and memories with their friends, and Face.com’s technology has helped to provide the best photo experience,” said the Facebook spokesperson to VentureBeat. “This transaction simply brings a world-class team and a long-time technology vendor in house.”

It also greatly enhances their facial recognition capabilities which Facebook will also most likely be applying to all photos captured by the other company recently purchased by Facebook: Instagram.

The privacy issues inherent in Faceboook’s move to snatch up Face.com are so blatant and impossible to ignore that even InformationWeek has raised the issue in an article entitled, “Facebook Buys Face.com: At What Privacy Cost?”

The actual terms of the deal between Facebook and Face.com have yet to be disclosed to the public but the previous reports released on the subject have placed the purchase price somewhere in the neighborhood of $80-100 million.

The pending deal is expected to come to be closed at some point in the next few weeks.

Face.com, which is a relatively new company founded in and based out of Israel, boasts some of the most cutting-edge consumer facial recognition technology which can not only identify people but also guess the age of a person in the photo.

One of their products is a camera application for iOS (which runs on iPhones and iPads) called KLIK which uses Face.com’s facial recognition technology to automatically tag their Facebook friends in photographs.

Reuters reports that a third-party Facebook application tracking service called AppData has reported that KLIK boasts 40,000 monthly active Facebook users.

“We love building products, and like our friends at Facebook, we think that mobile is a critical part of people’s lives as they both create and consume content, and share content with their social graph,” said Face.com CEO Gil Hirsch.

“By working with Facebook directly, and joining their team, we’ll have more opportunities to build amazing products that will be employed by consumers — that’s all we’ve ever wanted to do,” he added.

Reuters also reports that Facebook has quickly acted in an attempt to improve their image after the somewhat failed public launch by making some well thought out purchases and hires.

Facebook recently purchased Karma, a mobile “gifting” application, as well as iOS developers Pieceable Software and there have also been reports of Facebook investigating acquiring Opera for their mobile browser.

While all of this might sound fine and dandy, I would encourage my readers to consider the privacy implications as well.

Source: End te Lie

Monsanto Faced with Paying 7.5 Billion Back to Farmers

Monsanto may soon be forced to pay as much as 7.5 billion dollars back to the farmers who say that the mega corporation took their rightfully earned income and taxed their small businesses to financial shambles.

It all started with a monumental lawsuit launched by over 5 million farmers against Monsanto looking to recover financial losses from ridiculous seed taxes that bankrupted many families.

Back in April, a Brazilian court ruled that Monsanto absolutely was responsible for paying back the exorbitant amounts of cash to the farmers, ordering the company to issue back all of the taxes collected since 2004 — a minimum of 2 billion dollars. Afterwards, Monsanto appealed the decision and the case is now suspended until a further hearing is initiated by the Justice Tribune of the local court stationed in Rio Grande do Sul.

Recently, however, the Brazilian Supreme Court declared that any decision reached in a local court case should apply nationally. The result? Monsanto now faces even larger charges, due to the larger legal application on a national level. Now, the charges total or exceed 7.5 billion dollars.

“The values involved could total 15 billion reais ($7.5bn),” said the Superior Tribunal of Justice on its website.

Lawsuits and criminal charges continue to hit Monsanto, scratching away at the financial foundation of the agricultural behemoth.

Monsanto has been found guilty of chemical poisoning in France after their weedkiller product led to neurological problems, and the company has even dished out 93 million to victims of toxic dioxin.

As Monsanto continues to be slammed with lawsuits, many of which are from multitudes of affected farmers and individuals, awareness spreads among the general public regarding the corporation’s true acts.

It was this same corporation that was caught running what has been labeled slave rings, in which workers were forced to work for 14 hours or more per day cultivating the fields, and were not permitted to leave. Monsanto’s crimes are slowly coming to light, and the public is demanding action.

Source: Activist Post

Same Vibration - Yes We Can

I just thought it might be nice to take a break from the various news and issues that we face around the world and offer some entertainment instead. This is a video clip of our new song "Yes We Can", if you like it or have any comments please don't hesitate to post, either on the blog or the youtube.

Facebook buys facial recognition startup Face.com

Facebook has purchased facial recognition startup Face.com, the companies announced Monday morning.

“People who use Facebook enjoy sharing photos and memories with their friends, and Face.com’s technology has helped to provide the best photo experience,” a Facebook spokesperson told VentureBeat. “This transaction simply brings a world-class team and a long-time technology vendor in house.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but previous reports pegged the acquisition price at between $80 million and $100 million. The deal, which is still pending, is expected to close within the coming weeks.

Founded in 2007, Face.com makes technology that can identify people in photos and even guess a person’s age. The company makes mobile-friendly products such as a developer API and an iOS camera application called KLIK that uses facial recognition technology to help users automatically tag Facebook friends in photos. KLIK, according to third-party Facebook app tracking service AppData, has 40,000 monthly active Facebook users.

Face.com’s mobile acumen appears to be the key selling point here. The startup’s alignment with Facebook on mobile strategy was even discussed by CEO Gil Hirsch in a blog post on the news.

“We love building products, and like our friends at Facebook, we think that mobile is a critical part of people’s lives as they both create and consume content, and share content with their social graph,” Hirsch said. “By working with Facebook directly, and joining their team, we’ll have more opportunities to build amazing products that will be employed by consumers — that’s all we’ve ever wanted to do.”

Following a marred public debut, Facebook has wasted no time in filling mobile holes with calculated hires and purchases. The social network purchased mobile gifting app Karma, recruited the design experts behind Bolt Peters and the iOS dev know-it-alls at Pieceable Software, and also may be actively looking at buying Opera for its mobile browser.

Source: Reuters

Competitive devaluation now may engulf Denmark

he head of Denmark's central bank has warned that the Danish krone is coming under intense pressure from investors seeking a haven in Europe and betting that the currency's peg to the euro could be cracked by the crisis.

Nils Bernstein, the governor of the Danish central bank, said that the upward pressure on the krone was the most severe he had seen in his seven years as governor, and warned that negative interest rates could be on the cards if the problem continues.

"You can see from our history that we like to keep the krone within a narrow band, half a percentage point or less," said governor Nils Bernstein. "I think we have to tools to continue to do that, and if it is necessary to move into negative interest rate territory, we will be ready for that."

Investors are pouring money into Danish bonds attracted by the country's narrow budget deficit and current account surplus, leaving it fighting to maintain the very narrow peg with the euro it has held since 1999. Rates were cut twice in the past month to a record low of 0.45 per cent.

Making life harder for the central bank, some hedge funds are taking long positions in the Danish krone as insurance against a collapse of the single currency, according to currency trading desks at investment banks.

"Just because a peg has been in place a long time doesn't mean it cannot break. It just means that it's cheaper," said Stuart Fiertz, president of Cheyne Capital, a London-based hedge fund. "If the euro cracks, the pressure to cut the peg will be overwhelming."

Denmark is in a similar predicament to Switzerland, which has been spending tens of billions of Swiss francs to buy euros and defend its own floor against the single currency after a resurgence in eurozone turmoil led to a spike in demand.

The krone is seen by some investors as a less risky bet than the franc because the Danish central bank has set a peg against a krone, rather than simply a floor, and so there is little danger of it weakening in the event of a recovery in the eurozone.

The Danish central bank spent more defending the krone last month than any time since the start of 2010 and it has seen reserves more than double from about Dkr200 billion ($34 billion) in 2008 to Dkr500 billion today.

The currency market in Danish krone is still relatively small, accounting for just 0.6 per cent of average daily turnover. That compares with 6.4 per cent turnover for the Swiss franc and 39 per cent for the euro.

Other potential currency havens in Europe have been struggling amid the escalation in the eurozone crisis. The pound has fallen in value in recent weeks as investors have priced in the possibility of further monetary easing in the UK.

Source: GATA

Apple’s iOS 6 includes ‘Government Alerts’

Apple’s eagerly awaited iOS 6 update for iPhones and iPads will include controversial ‘government alerts’ that some fear are part of the federal government’s takeover of communications networks. apple iPhone

“In compliance with the National Alerting Program, the WEA will be coming to Apple devices that will run on the new mobile OS once it arrives this fall. The iOS 6-compatible devices include iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod Touch 4G, iPad 2 and the new iPad. This means that users with older iPhone will be able to receive WEA messages once they upgrade their handset to the new mobile software,” reports AMOG.

The federal government is keen to implement a centralized system of control over all communications, with last year’s announcement that all new cell phones will be required to comply with the PLAN program (Personal Localized Alerting Network), which will broadcast emergency alert messages directly to Americans’ cell phones.

Although users can opt out of receiving the alerts from FEMA and the Amber Alert program, messages direct from the president will be mandatory.

“Consumers will have the option….to block all PLAN alerts except for those issued by the president,”the L.A. Times reported last year.

The thought of cellphone users being forcibly targeted with text messages from Barack Obama during the election season has obviously stoked concerns that the emergency alert system could be exploited for political reasons, just as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge claimed he was pressured to artificially raise the national terror alert by the Bush administration to help Bush win re-election.

The system, which went live in the New York and Washington Metro areas last December, caused panic in New Jersey after Verizon customers received text messages warning them that a “civil emergency” was in progress and to “take shelter,” prompting alarmed citizens to flood 911 lines with anxious calls.

Verizon Wireless later apologized to its customers for causing alarm, admitting that the confusion was caused by a “test” of the PLAN emergency alert system.

As we have documented, the PLAN program is part of the wider move on behalf of Homeland Security to create a public environment dominated by a pervasive sense of fear and paranoia, a context in which the safe exercise of constitutional freedoms doesn’t normally thrive.

The emergency alerts are eventually designed to be incorporated into the Intellistreets system which turns all street lights into surveillance hubs that can record conversations and broadcast messages.

For the first time ever the feds will have a direct line to the millions of Americans who use cell phones and be able to use the messages to transmit whatever they like, whether that be genuine safety information, fearmongering about spurious terror alerts, or political propaganda.

Judging by the response in New Jersey, the overwhelming majority of Americans will simply react by panicking, which in a real emergency situation could only make the crisis worse.

Source: Hang the Bankers