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Tue, 26 Oct 2021
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19,000 papers leaked to protest 'war against knowledge'

Prosecution of Reddit founder cited

A critic of academic publishers has uploaded 19,000 scientific papers to the internet to protest the prosecution of a prominent programmer and activist accused of hacking into a college computer system and downloading almost 5 million scholarly documents from an archive service.

The 18,592 documents made available Wednesday through Bittorrent were pulled from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, a prestigious scientific journal that was founded in the 1600s, the protester said. Even though the vast majority of the documents are hundreds of years old, the London-based Royal Society charges from $8 to $19 for each one, and restricts viewing to one person on one computer for only a single month.

Laptop

MacBook batteries susceptible to hack attacks

Default passwords raise bricking threat, maybe more

Now that Apple has endowed the Mac operating system with state-of-the-art security protections, a researcher has devised new attacks that target the machine's battery.

Charlie Miller, well known for his numerous attacks on iPhones and Macs, may not have achieved his ultimate objective of making a Mac spontaneously combust, but he has figured out how to permanently disable the battery. And in time, he said, it also may be possible to remotely hijack a machine by manipulating the firmware on one of the stored power supply's chips.

Display

Want to be more secure? Don't be stupid

The best way to defend against most network vulnerabilities is to deal with the simplest attack vectors, according to Australia's Defence Signals Directorate (DSD).

The DSD's analysis has credibility and clout, because it's based on analysis of real attacks launched against Australian government networks. And according to its latest work, as much as 85 percent of attacks can be addressed with four relatively straightforward defences.

These are, in order: keep applications patched and use the latest version of applications (Flash, the Acrobat PDF viewer, Microsoft office and Java are singled out); patch operating system vulnerabilities; minimize the number of users with administrative access to systems (while making sure that your BOFH doesn't use an admin account for e-mail and browsing); and whitelist your applications.

Display

Hackers leak details of cases vs Palin, hint Obama will be next

Hackers uploaded to the Internet Friday (Manila time) the court documents of at least eight cases against Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

In messages on its Twitter account, hacker group TeaMp0isoN also hinted it will soon leak details of cases against President Barack Obama.

"[Eight] Court Cases against @SarahPalinUSA that have been whitewashed," it said.

The supposed data about the cases against Palin were uploaded to Pastie.org.

A later tweet said "the next bunch of cases that will be leaked will be related to Obama."

The TeaMp0isoN group had been in a rivalry of sorts with Lulz Security, which had also hacked into many government and corporate websites.

Last June, the group vowed to reveal the identities of Lulz Security members, who TeaMp0isoN said were "nothing but a bunch of script kiddies."

Bizarro Earth

Egypt Clashes Increase Tensions with Military

Egypt
© Reuters
Men stand on top of an armoured Egyptian Army vehicle during a protest in Cairo January 29, 2011.
Tensions between pro-democracy groups in Egypt and the ruling military council have risen sharply after weekend violence in which knife-wielding supporters of the council set on thousands of activists determined to march on the defence ministry.

Analysts and activists say the clashes, which lasted for several hours on Saturday night and injured scores of people, mark a deterioration in a relationship that has come under mounting strain in recent weeks.

Several thousand activists from a spectrum of political groups had organised the march to press the military council to speed up trials of officials accused of killing 850 demonstrators during the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak, former president, this year.

Pistol

South Sudan rebel leader Gatluak Gai killed in mysterious circumstances

Image
© SMC
Gatluak Gai
  • SSLA rebels claim SPLA involved in Gatluak Gai's murder
  • South Sudan army (SPLA) deny involvement in Gatluak Gai's killing
A rebel leader in South Sudan's Unity state was shot dead this morning in Koch county, only three days after he signed a peace deal with South Sudan army, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

Citizens and officials from the area told Sudan Tribune that Colonel Gatluak Gai was shot dead on Saturday morning along with some of his bodyguards after a group of people opened fire on him at Pakur where his forces have been temporarily assembled.

Phillip Aguer, the SPLA spokesperson confirmed Gatluak's death, accusing the latter's deputy, Marko Chuol Ruei for allegedly opening killing the former rebel leader after disagreement within the rebel camp.

"As you are aware, the government of Unity state entered into an agreement with Gatluak Gai and his forces leading to the signing of a peace agreement just three days ago. But two days later, differences began emerging within the rebel camps, whereby some soldiers led by Gatluak started disrespecting this peace deal," Aguer told Sudan Tribune by phone.

Bad Guys

US forcing Kashmiris to start armed struggle against Indian illegal occupation: Farooq/ Turabi

Image
United States wanted to impose war on Pakistan in collaboration of India and Kashmiri people are being forced for armed struggle by leaving the peaceful struggle for the independence of Kashmir. US is carrying out character assassination campaign against Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai by putting fake blames on him and he is being forced to take step against the sovereignty of Pakistan.

Pakistan should review its policy regarding the so called American war on terrorism in Afghanistan. Pakistan should think about her friendship with US that how much US is sincere with Pakistan after the arrest of Dr Fai.

Ghulam Nabi Fai
© unknown
Ghulam Nabi Fai
This was said by Former Prime Minister and Chief Organizer PML-N AJK Raja Farooq Haider Khan and Amir Jamaat-e-Islami AJK Abdul Rasheed Turabi while addressing demonstration protest at Muzaffarabad here on Saturday; meanwhile Ghulam Muhammad Safi, Aziz Alvi, Qazi Shahid Hamid and a number of other speakers also addressed the protest demonstration.

They said that it is need of hour to get out of the American war against the terrorism and think about the security and sovereignty of the country.

They said that after defeated in Afghanistan America want to sabotage the independence movement of Kashmir.

MIB

Iran accuses Israel and US of assassinating scientist

Iran's parliamentary speaker has accused Israel and the United States of assassinating a scientist with possible links to the country's nuclear programme.

Image
© Unknown
Daryoosh Rezainejad was killed in Tehran
Darioush Rezainejad's death at the hands of motorcycle-riding gunmen prompted speculation that a violent and covert campaign to slow Iran's development of nuclear materials was again underway.

The 35-year old scientist was shot dead outside a kindergarten in east Tehran where he had gone to pick up his daughter. Mr Rezainejad's wife was wounded in the attack before the motorcyclists sped away.

The method of execution bore similarities to a spate of killings and attempted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists last year that involved assassins on motorcycles.

Ali Larijani, the hawkish speaker of the Iranian parliament, was quick to apportion blame.

"The American-Zionist terrorist attack yesterday against one of the country's scientists is yet another sign of the Americans' degree of animosity," he told MPs.

Bad Guys

Pushing Crisis: GOP Cries Wolf on Debt Ceiling in Order to Impose Radical Pro-Rich Agenda


President Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner are allegedly close to a $3 trillion deficit-reduction package as part of a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. But the deal is coming under fire from both congressional Democrats and Republicans. Part of it calls for lowering personal and corporate income tax rates, while eliminating or reducing an array of popular tax breaks, such as the deduction for home mortgage interest. Some Democratic lawmakers expressed outrage on Thursday because the Obama-Boehner agreement appears to violate their pledge not to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, as well as Obama's promise not to make deep cuts in programs for the poor without extracting some tax concessions from the rich. We're joined by economist Michael Hudson, president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and author of Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.

Sherlock

Mystery of TWA Flight 800 Persists, 15 Years Later

Image
© Unknown
Sunday, July 17th, marked the 15th anniversary of the explosion of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island, New York at approximately 8:30 p.m., 12 minutes after it left New York's Kennedy Airport heading for Paris, killing all 230 people aboard. To commemorate this tragic event, AIM gathered a group of people who have looked into this event, each bringing his own insights and knowledge of the case to the table.

Those participating on AIM's show on BlogTalkRadio, Take AIM, on July 14th included John Clarke, an attorney who has worked on this case in several capacities since 1997; Jack Cashill, a journalist and producer who has co-written a book and produced a documentary on the subject; and retired Captain Mike Larkin, a former Air Force pilot who later became a TWA pilot for more than 30 years, and who often piloted TWA 800 from New York to Paris. I hosted the show, and have produced and written a documentary on the subject called TWA 800: The Search for the Truth.

Comment: Consider the following excerpts from the Cassiopaean Experiment dated November 23, 1996:
Q: (T) About Flight 800. Pierre Salinger claims that the info floating around on the internet is accurate. He says that the Navy downed the flight.
A: Close. Pierre Salinger is an impeccable journalist and not one to "fly off the handle."
Q: (T) Very true. And that is why I am amazed that the rest of the journalism community is attacking him.
A: Why should you be amazed? They are "bought and paid for."
Q: (T) What did happen to flight 800?
A: This was the result of an experiment gone awry. So was KAL "007" in 1983.
Q: (L) What was the nature of the experiment?
A: Testing of secret impulse guidance system using civilian airliner as an arbitrary "bounce" guidance target. Instead, it became the "homing" target, and a different aircraft became the bouncer. This was because the programmers did not anticipate the lower than expected altitude of the 747. Warning: this must stay in this room for the present!!!!!!!!!! The facts will eventually be discussed by others. At that time, the danger is lifted. [At this point, it has been discussed in the exact same terms as described here in a reputable, national magazine.]

Now, about KAL 007... that one is not dangerous to know. The plane was deliberately instructed to fly off course in order to trigger the Soviet's Pacific air defense system, to "see what they were made of" in that area. The plane was lost, but the experiment worked. They did not expect them to shoot down a civilian airliner. Now, all moving targets create electronic impulses. These can be "read" by the proper extremely high tech equipment. Older radar guided systems are subject to malfunctions in weather conditions that are severe, as one example.

Also, the impulse system is an offshoot of the electromagnetic pulse experiments being carried out at Montauk, Brookings and elsewhere as part of the HAARP project! In connection with Pentagon missile tests, HAARP has many interesting tie-ins, not the least of which is your cell phone towers. Now, the homing target can be any moving object. It can be whatever is entered on the computer. It can be a squirrel in a tree, a jogger on the beach, a building, whatever you want. The system looks for any moving target in order to establish recognition to the computer, in order to establish recognition of match pattern of pulse. TWA 800 was flying at the exact same altitude that was supposed to be designated for the "drone" craft. The drone plane was farther out at sea. The "bounce" target was to be any moving object in the air within 400 square miles.
Q: (L) So, TWA 800, through a series of problems, happened to find itself at the right altitude, a restricted altitude, within the parameters of the experiment. Anything further
on this?
A: Not for now.