Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by Hunter » Tue Aug 11, 2015 10:10 pm
stickdog99 » Tue Aug 11, 2015 4:15 pm wrote:Nordic » 21 Jul 2015 20:05 wrote:Thanks. Just came here to post the same thing.
Would be NICE if the fine folks at, say, WIRED, would point out that this is precisely how Hastings was assassinated.
And perhaps 9/11, Wellstone, etc.?
by elfismiles » Wed Aug 03, 2016 9:42 am
by elfismiles » Thu Aug 04, 2016 9:25 am
No.overall 47
No. in season 2
Title "Nothing to Hide"
Directed by Frederick E. O. Toye
Written by Erik Mountain
Original air date October 1, 2013
Prod. code 2J7602
U.S. viewers (millions) 12.35[48]
Wayne Kruger (David Alan Basche) is the owner of a business company known as Lifetrace, which specializes in revealing members' privacy on their profile pages and selling it to various organizations. Reese, Finch, and Shaw monitor Kruger's activities in the company, which is currently making a deal with another large retail company called Riverton. Though the site is deemed harmless by Kruger, Finch discovers that there is a class-action suit against Kruger involving various victims of the site whose privacy has been eliminated. Members of the suit receive anonymous packages containing information on how to humiliate and attack Kruger in revenge for their lives being destroyed thanks to Lifetrace. One of these people is Stu Sommers, a man whose daughter was stalked and killed by her ex-boyfriend after he used Lifetrace to follow her.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_P ... 80.9314.29
by elfismiles » Sat Feb 04, 2017 10:07 am
by Spiro C. Thiery » Fri Mar 03, 2017 1:20 pm
by Elvis » Fri Mar 03, 2017 2:29 pm
by Nordic » Sun Mar 05, 2017 4:38 am
Elvis » Fri Mar 03, 2017 1:29 pm wrote:Maybe RI should raise the $3200 and send someone to take the class. I'd pitch in $10, maybe more in a good week.
by Spiro C. Thiery » Sun Mar 05, 2017 8:53 am
Nordic » Today, 10:38 wrote:Elvis » Fri Mar 03, 2017 1:29 pm wrote:Maybe RI should raise the $3200 and send someone to take the class. I'd pitch in $10, maybe more in a good week.
Yeah. This is worth diving into.
by 82_28 » Tue Mar 07, 2017 4:21 pm
The death of investigative journalist Michael Hastings has always been viewed with scrutiny — and fear that it was not a typical car accident that claimed his life in 2013. Now, the massive trove of secrets revealed by WikiLeaks may provide more weight to the skepticism.
Hastings, 33, was no stranger to controversial stories, with some of his most sensational work including bringing down US Army General Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, in a profile that was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine — and the revelation that Bowe Bergdahl had abandoned his post in Afghanistan.
His work on the Bergdahl story was on the radar of the FBI, according to a heavily redacted 22-page document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed on the day of Hastings’ death by journalists Jason Leopold and Ryan Shapiro.
It was later revealed by his widow Elise Jordan that he was working on a profile of CIA Director John Brennan at the time of his death.
The morning of his death, Hastings went to his neighbor Jordanna Thigpen and asked to borrow her car, in fear that his own had been tampered with, USA Today reported. She declined to let him borrow it, citing mechanical problems.
by elfismiles » Tue Mar 07, 2017 5:01 pm
Also cars, suggesting that the CIA may have a role in the death of Michael Hastings:
As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks.
The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.
82_28 » 07 Mar 2017 20:21 wrote:WikiLeaks Latest Release Gives Weight to Michael Hastings Assassination Theories
<snip>
Continues. Not much and I have never heard of the site and nor have I ever checked out wikileaks. This is a mystery. I really wish somebody would totally cover it from top to bottom. I would imagine any one who would does not want to be offed.
https://wearechange.org/wikileaks-lates ... -theories/
by Grizzly » Tue Mar 07, 2017 8:03 pm
by RocketMan » Thu Mar 09, 2017 9:06 am
WikiLeaks revelations raise new questions about the death of journalist Michael Hastings
One of the the 8,761 internal CIA documents leaked by WikiLeaks on Tuesday reveals that the agency’s Center for Cyber Intelligence has been exploring methods to hack into vehicle systems since at least 2014. As WikiLeaks noted in its release accompanying the documents, “The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.”
While the anti-secrecy organization makes no specific charges in this regard, this information raises new troubling questions about the car crash that killed journalist Michael Hastings in June of 2013.
Hastings, who was 33 when he died, was the Rolling Stone reporter who wrote an article in 2010 that led to the removal of General Stanley McChrystal from his post as ranking US commanding officer in Afghanistan. Hastings perished at around 4:30 a.m. after losing control of his car and crashing into a tree while traveling at about 100 mph.
At the time of his death, Hastings was investigating another major figure within the Obama administration’s military and intelligence apparatus, then-CIA Director John Brennan. At the time, police declared that there was no “foul play” involved in the accident. Before the accident, however, Hastings had informed his colleagues that he was under government surveillance. He also suspected that his own vehicle had been tampered with, having asked a neighbor to lend him a car.
What the WikiLeaks documents show is that Hastings’ suspicions about his vehicle could very well have been justified. Meeting notes dated October 2014 show that the CIA has a division known as the Embedded Development Branch which lists “potential mission areas,” such as software and networking devices, as targets for hacking. One of the targets listed is “vehicle systems (e.g. VSEP),” likely referring to the embedded computer systems that play a major role in the operation of modern cars (though the acronym is not spelled out).
Embedded systems are computers designed and built to solve only a few specific problems. They are not designed to take human input, but rather are a combination of hardware and software that is designed to do a specific task as a permanent part of a larger system, such as traffic lights, airplane controls or assembly lines in a factory. While in general the software of embedded systems is hard to change by design, the CIA memo indicates that gaining the ability to control many types of these sorts of computers is one of the goals of the agency.
One piece of software in embedded systems specifically mentioned by the CIA memo is the operating system QNX, which the memo states is a “big player in VSEP.” Indeed, according to QNX Software Systems Limited, the software has been deployed in more than 50 million vehicles across at least 14 different brands, more than 50 percent of the market share of modern cars.
While QNX is generally advertised as an infotainment system—regulating things such as Bluetooth connectivity, GPS, and music—it has been increasingly used to operate more critical systems of the car, such as the safety and navigation systems, which include things like power steering and acceleration. Thus, if a person or an agency were able to hack a car equipped with QNX, it is possible that they could force the car to crash by disabling brakes, causing uncontrolled acceleration and depriving a driver of steering. And since recovering software commands after the hardware has caught on fire is difficult at best, such hacks would be very hard to detect.
Though there is not a clear indication that the CIA developed these tools beyond the “potential” for them to exist, one tool mentioned in the memo, “Weeping Angel,” has been developed and deployed. Weeping Angel is designed to infest smart TVs and transform them into microphones that covertly record nearby conversations and send what was said back to the CIA. No doubt other tools in the list of hacks wanted by the agency have also been developed.
Moreover, if the CIA has developed the ability to hack the QNX operating system, it would give it control over more than just automobiles. In January, the company announced a new version of its software that is available for tasks that involve “surgical robots, industrial controllers and high-speed trains,” raising the potential for sabotage on an international scale.
Going further, it would apparently also be possible for the CIA to attack a car (or a factory, or a train) and make it seem as if another country did it. Part of the WikiLeaks revelations include a program known as “Umbrage,” which is a library of cyberattack techniques developed in other countries, including Russia. If one of these is designed to attack embedded systems, or if the CIA can make it look as if their code was developed in another country, the next time that a journalist investigating the CIA dies in a car crash, it might be claimed that it was the “Chinese” or the “Russians” who did it.
by elfismiles » Thu Mar 09, 2017 10:28 am
CIA 'mission' on cars shows concern about next-generation vehicles
[Reuters]
By Alexandria Sage
Reuters March 8, 2017
The lobby of the CIA Headquarters Building is pictured in Langley, Virginia, U.S. on August 14, 2008. REUTERS/Larry Downing/Files
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - WikiLeaks documents showing the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency considered a "mission" against connected car technology underscores auto industry concern that the science behind the next generation of vehicles could be turned against them.
Cyber security is considered key to the rollout of tomorrow's self-driving and today's connected cars, which resemble computers on wheels with a host of communications routes that hackers could target.
If consumers are to trust smart vehicles, they must deem them safe from attack. Security experts cite the terrifying hypothetical example of a remote attack on a fully autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel or brakes, in which the passenger would have no recourse to regain manual control of the car.
"You have a lot of car companies trying to design cars to be better suited to automation, which means they're more attractive to hackers," said auto consultant Roger Lanctot of Strategy Analytics.
A major strategy for automakers is to reduce the number of communications gateways to crucial systems and to require services offered by third parties to go through a single secure path.
WikiLeaks documents show the CIA citing "vehicle systems" and a car operating system from QNX, owned by Blackberry Ltd, as "potential mission areas" for the CIA's "Embedded Devices Branch" to consider.
The QNX operating system, which is used by most global automakers, provides a "a comprehensive, multi-level, policy-driven security model ... to mitigate attacks," the company said in a statement to Reuters. But given the collection of software, hardware and network components that make up a connected car, "security is only as strong as its weakest link," it said.
While the CIA's interest in cars brought widespread attention, the industry has already received wakeup calls about cars' potential to be hacked.
Researchers in 2015 used a wireless connection to turn off a Jeep Cherokee's engine, prompting a recall of 1.4 million vehicles by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
In September last year, Chinese cyber security researchers hacked a Tesla Inc Model S sedan, remotely tapping the brakes and popping the trunk. The electric carmaker subsequently patched the bugs using an over-the-air fix. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on its cyber security protocol.
The hacking of the Jeep and the Tesla "brought it home to the industry that even if its improbable it's technically possible," said Mark Wakefield, global co-head of the automotive practice at AlixPartners.
If a car was seen as vulnerable, it "could be a big brand problem," Wakefield said. Hacks could also expose private information shared between car and third parties - credit card numbers, account numbers or passwords - to theft.
A January survey by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute found that 33 percent of respondents said they were "extremely concerned" over hacking of full self-driving cars to cause crashes.
CLOSING DOWN THE WAYS IN
The number of ways into cars has proliferated, from cell phone signals to dongles. One such gateway is the standard OBD-II port found under the steering wheel historically used for onboard diagnostics. Today, hundreds of after-market devices use the port, whether to monitor driving for insurance needs or provide conveniences like safety alerts.
"The security of these devices is important, as it can provide an attacker with a means of accessing vehicle systems and driver data remotely," warned the FBI in a March 2016 bulletin on cyber security risks to motor vehicles.
Carmakers are also building walls between non-crucial infotainment systems and driving controls so that any breach is blocked before it could compromise key functions like brakes.
The first step the industry is tackling is intrusion detection, said Lanctot. But what to do when a breach is detected is complicated, because shutting off parts of a car could be unsafe, he said.
Tesla was first to champion "over-the-air" technology in which wireless software updates are sent remotely to cars. Although some have argued such updates are a way in for hackers, Tesla and others see them a key protection to upgrade security and repair vulnerabilities quickly.
In January, U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill calling for cyber security standards for new cars but so far U.S. regulators have issued recommendations, not rules, on how carmakers should shield their computer systems from hackers.
The industry is "years away" from solving the cyber security problem, Lanctot said, noting that the first generation of cars built after the Jeep hack that include some kind of detection capabilities will not be seen until early in 2018.
(Reporting By Alexandria Sage; editing by Peter Henderson and Bill Rigby)
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/cia-mission- ... nance.html
by 82_28 » Thu Mar 09, 2017 11:32 am
by elfismiles » Thu Mar 09, 2017 12:26 pm
82_28 » 09 Mar 2017 15:32 wrote:Yeah, we're fucked as far as cars. I don't drive as it is. I have 1971 VW Bus. But I look at all these cars and ads and shit about the automation and it scares me. Nobody is going to learn how to drive. Just leave it to the computer. Once it breaks down you take it in to get your software upgrade.
I remember my granny getting pissed at me as I was backing her car out of the driveway (I had just gotten my license) because I looked over my shoulder. She said always use the mirrors. She was also a school bus driver.
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