Welcome to Sott.net
Thu, 04 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Eye 1

Security company finds 700 million Android phones have spying firmware pre-installed

robot eating apple
© Flickr/asgw
The term "mobile phone security" is something of a joke these days, with the number of exploits, bugs, and breaches that are endlessly assaulting us and putting our personal information at risk. So, when security outfit Kryptowire sounded the alarm on Chinese company Adups for using its preinstalled apps to spy on Android users with Blu smartphones, it wasn't exactly a shock. Now, however, the impact of Adups alleged spying is growing in magnitude, and it's dragging other Android device manufacturers into the quagmire.

Adups is a company that facilitates over-the-air updates for mobile devices, so its firmware is preinstalled on lots of devices. However, the firmware does much more than it claims, and has the ability to snoop in areas that it shouldn't, and without the user ever knowing. That information can then be collected by Adups for whatever purposes it desires.

Trustlook, another digital security firm, dug deeper on what devices utilize Adups and could be used by the Chinese company to scrape your private information, and the list is absolutely massive. Trustlook says that over 700 million Android smartphones have Adups firmware installed that puts the user at risk of having text messages, call histories, and device information collected without their knowledge or consent.

Many of the manufacturers who utilize Adups are smaller companies who only release their devices in Asia or specific smaller markets. However, there are a few notable names on the list, including Lenovo, ZTE, and the aforementioned Blu.

The Blu R1 HD was the first device found to be relaying this sensitive information back to Adups, and the company took action to halt the app's nefarious habits, but it's now up to the rest of the dozens and dozens of manufacturers on the list to do the same. The best course of action right now seems to be keeping the phone as updated as possible, and installing any security patches that come down the pipeline.

Sheriff

Attorney General investigation opened on 2 'deadliest' police departments in California

police tape
© Kevork Djansezian/Reuters/File
Kern County earned itself the dubious honor of being home to the two most lethal police departments in the country. Now, California Attorney General Kamala Harris is opening a non-criminal investigation into them.

Kern County, California, has a population of less than one million residents, but their two largest police forces killed more people in 2015 than the New York City Police Department (NYPD), despite the Big Apple's population being 10 times larger.

After the pair were deemed the deadliest local law enforcement agencies nationwide by the Guardian, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced Thursday that media reports and citizen complaints had given her cause to investigate both Kern County Sheriff's Office and the Bakersfield Police Department.

"Excessive use of force and police misconduct erode and undermine the public's trust in our law enforcement agencies," Harris said in a statement.

Comment: It would be interesting to know if the police departments in question have received training from Israeli police.


Eye 1

Employee files lawsuit against Google over 'spying'

google logo
© AP Photo/ Virginia Mayo, File
A Google employee has filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that its internal confidentiality policies breach California labor laws by running an internal "spying program."

Google is often accused of violating the privacy of users, but according to the new lawsuit filed in the California Superior Court in San Francisco under California's Private Attorneys General Act, it is even worse for employees.

The employee says in his complaint that their "internal spying program" encourages employees to report their coworkers if they believe that the person is leaking information to the press. The company also allegedly warned their staff not to write about any potentially illegal happenings within the company — even to their own attorneys.

Bomb

Germany conducting its biggest evacuation during Christmas due to huge British WWII bomb

unexploded WWII 1.8-ton bomb in Germany
© AugsburgerAllgemeine / Twitter
The 54,000 residents of Augsburg, Bavaria, will not spend Christmas at home, but as evacuees, while sappers defuse an unexploded 1.8-ton bomb dropped by the British in WWII. It will be the biggest evacuation in post-war German history.

The bomb dropped by the British Air Force back in the 1940s was found during construction work, Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper reported, citing a spokesman from the city council.

The evacuation and defusing of the device will take place during Christmas, which falls on the weekend this year. Authorities say the hazardous area has a radius of 1.5km, meaning that about 54,000 people from 32,000 households will have to spend Christmas away from home.

Dominoes

Electors in Washington state fined $1,000 for going against pledge after not voting for Killary

electoral college
© Jonathan Drake / Reuters
Four Washington state electors who broke their pledge to vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton are each being fined $1,000, after 3 chose to vote for ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one for Native American tribal elder Faith Spotted Eagle.

They will all be fined next week, and have 60 days to pay, according to the spokesman for Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, who spoke to the AP. He added that an appeals process is being formulated in case of a challenge.

This is the first time anything like this has happened in the state in 40 years, when one elector went rogue and voted for Ronald Reagan instead of Gerald Ford, who won in Washington but lost the general election to Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976. It was that year that the penalties for going rogue were signed into law, but 2016 is the first year they will be enforced.

This time, one third of the electors went rogue in an act of symbolic protest, giving Clinton eight votes, instead of the 12 she had secured, thus making Washington the leading state in so-called 'faithless electors.' The vast majority of the Electoral College voted as expected, sealing Donald Trump's victory, with 304 but two votes to Clinton's 227. It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.

Bad Guys

Afriqiyah Airways plane hijacked, lands in Malta, hijackers release 109 passengers and demand creation of 'pro-Gaddafi party'

malta airport hijacking
© Darrin Zammit-Lupi / Reuters
Maltese troops survey a hijacked Libyan Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A320 on the runway at Malta Airport, December 23, 2016
At least 109 passengers have been released from the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A320 in Malta, after two hijackers from the pro-Gaddafi group Al Fatah Al Gadida seized control of the plane in Libya.

It's understood the plane was making an internal flight from Sebha to Tripoli before it was diverted to Malta International Airport. Armed soldiers then surrounded it on the runway.

Libyan and Maltese authorities are continuing negotiations with the hijackers, while Malta-based journalist Saviour Balzan tweeted that the hijackers agreed to let the passengers go and to give up their weapons.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat confirmed in a series of tweets the gradual release of the 118 passengers and crew from the plane. It remains unclear at this stage, however, the exact number of people still on board.

Handcuffs

Melbourne: Christmas terrorist plot foiled, ISIS-inspired suspects arrested

Melbourne, Australia
© David Gray / Reuters / Reuters
Melbourne, Australia
Australian authorities have foiled a "very substantial terrorist plot", arresting a number of suspects who allegedly plotted a "multi-mode attack" involving guns and improvised explosives in central Melbourne over the Christmas holidays.

Seven people were detained following overnight raids by Victoria Police, the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) on Friday. Five people are still in custody and are answering questions about the alleged terrorist plot.


"Overnight our police and security agencies have disrupted a very substantial terrorist plot," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said at a press conference.

Police believe that Islamic State/(IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)-inspired terrorists wanted to use explosives and other weapons on Christmas Day to target locations in the city, including St Paul's Cathedral, Federation Square and Flinders Street Station.


"What they have uncovered is a plot to explode improvised explosive devices in central Melbourne in the area of Federation Square, on or about Christmas Day," Turnbull noted.

Cardboard Box

Millennials refuse to grow up: Number of young adults living at home with mom reaches 75-year high

economic recovery
Millennials finally get to claim a trophy for an achievement they actually earned (no participation medals here)...that's right, Millennials have officially set a 75-year record for highest percentage of young adults living at home with mom. At just under 40%, Millennials are barely shy of the all-time record of 40.9% set in 1940, after the end of the Great Depression. For once, we have every confidence that our young snowflakes will excel in crushing this longstanding record. Per the Wall Street Journal:
Almost 40% of young Americans were living with their parents, siblings or other relatives in 2015, the largest percentage since 1940, according to an analysis of census data by real estate tracker Trulia.

Despite a rebounding economy and recent job growth, the share of those between the ages of 18 and 34 doubling up with parents or other family members has been rising since 2005. Back then, before the start of the last recession, roughly one out of three were living with family.

The trend runs counter to that of previous economic cycles, when after a recession-related spike, the number of younger Americans living with relatives declined as the economy improved.

Gold Seal

East Aleppo Diaries: Testimony from Hanano Shatters Corporate Fake News

hanano
© Vanessa Beeley
Clean water supplies are replenished in recently liberated East Aleppo district of Hanano.
"Before it was hell, now we can move forward and breathe again" ~ Mohammed, from Hanano

On the 11th December 2016 I visited Hanano in East Aleppo. Hanano had been liberated days previously by the Syrian Arab Army and allies including Hezbollah and Russia. Hanano had been under a Nusra Front [Al Qaeda] terrorist regime for the last, almost, five years.

The testimonies we filmed testified to starvation, wholesale deprivation of humanitarian aid, summary executions, torture and the use of civilians as human shields. Nusra Front were the overlord of the district, controlling an estimated 22 militant brigades funded, equipped and armed by NATO and Gulf states and condemning the Syrian civilians to a life of fear and imprisonment in their own homes.

Women were married, raped and discarded en masse, children were imprisoned and anyone caught supporting the Syrian Government could be executed or imprisoned & tortured. The very antithesis of the narrative being run by the corporate media for the entire duration of the almost five years of wholesale suffering endured by both West and East Aleppo, carved into two and targeted by the Nusra Front-led terrorists and militants.

Stop

Stop blaming the Russians: Knee-jerk reactions of 'progressives' are stampeding the US toward McCarthyism 2.0

putin blaming, russian hacking
This week began with a mass email from the head of the Democratic National Committee, who declared: "By now, Americans know beyond any reasonable doubt that the Russian government orchestrated a series of cyberattacks on political campaigns and organizations over the past two years and used stolen information to influence the presidential campaign and congressional races." DNC chair Donna Brazile went on: "The integrity of our elections is too important for Congress to refuse to take these attacks seriously."

The importance of election integrity had eluded Brazile when she was a regular on CNN, posing as neutral in the Clinton-Sanders battle. "Brazile is not apologizing for leaking CNN debate questions and topics to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary," the Washington Post reported last month. "Her only regret, it seems, is that she got caught."

Many big factors affect any presidential race, and the Russian government may have tried to be one of them for the 2016 election — though it's hardly the slam dunk that agencies like the CIA and U.S. mass media are now claiming. But in any event, this month it has become routine for a lot of progressive organizations and individuals to descend into a dangerous mode of partisan flackery.