Karmic Koala FAIL
So I downloaded and installed Karmic Koala on my ol’ Dell GX box and all went well, til the reboot. After the reboot the display settings would NOT go over 800×600 and the monitor type could “not be found” by the system.
FTW?
So I did some Googling today and it seems many others are having the very same issue. For some reason people are not able to get out of the mobius loop of poor resolution. YAY Koala!
Well, I surmised that perhaps my problem stemmed from my KVM, so this evening I put in some more RAM, and hooked the flat screen directly to the box.
VIOLA! Suddenly I could set it to 1280!
However…
Once back on the KVM and rebooted NO JOY, its back to 800×600.
Anyone else run into this and perhaps find a fix? Maybe I need to just hard code the make/model/rez into the Xconf? Maybe download Xorg?
Mossad Hacked Syrian Official’s Computer Before Bombing Mysterious Facility
I guess that the “Evil Maid” attack is just one of many that might be employed by a foreign intelligence service. This is a classic attack that really only required physical access to the box. No need for the Tom Cruise wires and black suit either.
I for one, really enjoyed this little article. If anyone ever needed a laptop p0wn3d it was this Syrian. Of course now with the whole hard drive encryption movement, it might be more difficult in the future to get one of Iran’s laptops and do the same…
Mossad Hacked Syrian Official’s Computer Before Bombing Mysterious Facility
“Being Human”
Being Human, a new (sorta) show on BBC that has yet to make it over the pond, has me. A werewolf, a Vampire, and a Ghost live together in a Bristol flat. They strive to all be more “human” in nature than their respective monsters or spirit as the case may be.
There are elements of many different mythos within this show. The Vampires though call bringing someone over “recruiting” and the blood lust is more an addiction than anything else that can be controlled.
The Werewolf is a bit of a sad sac with an inner strength and humanity that not even the wolf can diminish.. And the ghost is truly a lost soul.
This show is a nice balance of horror, comedy, and drama… Check it out.. That is when it gets to the US.
Googling OPSEC FAIL
While Googling the .gov today I came across an interesting little document that contained the following pages.
What are they? They are the code names and proposed dates for 2009/2012 DoD and government terrorism drills. One might ask, “umm how come this is available online and why is it marked as UNCLASSIFIED?” I certainly did…
Of course it could be that this is all harmless and not something to worry about, but, usually when code word operational (even drills) plans are out there to be Googled, one has to wonder just how much a Jihadist might like to have the data.
Well, I guess the next step is to start Googling all those code words and see what comes up… I should think that this stuff at least should be FOUO.
CoB
Nuclear OPSEC FAIL
While surfing the intertubes today I came across this little piece of OPSEC FAIL on the DOE.gov site. I believe it is a planned site per the document, but, this is rather detailed even for a plan to just be out there for any Jihadist to download.
This brings up the whole OPSEC issue. Too many places just fail to understand the precepts of OPESEC even within the rarefied air of the DOE where super mental genius’s work on the next generation transwarp drive. It seems especially these folks fail to understand the needs for secrecy.
Of course looking toward the private sector, I see way too many places that fail to comprehend OPSEC never mind try to implement and enforce the rules surrounding it to protect their data.
Even defense contractors… Now there’s a scary thought huh?
Oh well.. Lets just hope the next wave of homegrown jihadi’s can’t read or use Google.
… Now where is that zombie apocalypse we were promised?
The Virus and the Swine
The Virus and the Swine
Influenza A viruses have segmented, negative-sense RNA genomes that encode up to 11 proteins. These include the surface glycoproteins hemagglutinin and neuraminidase and the virulence factors NS1 (host interferon antagonist)and PB1-F2 (proapoptotic factor). The viruses are grouped according to theexpression of 1 of 16 hemagglutinin subtypes and 1 of 9 neuraminidase subtypes (Palese and Shaw, 2007).
The elusive nature of influenza viruses as targets of adaptive immunity is mostlya function of the hemagglutinin molecule, the major surface antigen eliciting protectiveantibodies. The hemagglutinin is a remarkable structure, accommodatingsignificant morphological changes while maintaining its crucial functions in attachingthe virus to the host cell and mediating fusion of the viral and host membranes.Entry of influenza viruses into cells depends on the presence of a functional hemagglutinin molecule and expression of the host cell receptor for hemagglutinin, sialic acid.
Humans and avian species differ in the expression of sialyltransferases in mucosal and respiratory tissues resulting in N-glycans with either α2,6 (human) or α2,3 (avian) linked sialic acids. The ability of a particular virus to bind to either of these two conformations of terminal sialic acid is thought to be the basis for the host restriction that is characteristic of influenza viruses.
An avian virus that acquires the ability, via mutation or reassortment, to bind to α2,6-linked sialic acids may cross the species barrier and become infectious in humans. Infections in swine are thought to mediate virus reassortment because swine tissues express both forms of sialic acid, enabling cells to be coinfected with avian and human viruses (Olsen, 2002).
Viruses adapted to swine can also combine with human and avian viruses to produce triple reassortants that may have the ability to infect humans. The 2009 H1N1 swine influenza virus is an example of a triple reassortant
Influenza viruses demonstrate variations in their ability to be transmitted between humans. Molecular markers predicting the ability of a virus to be transmitted have not yet been determined. However, low temperature and low humidity are known to be environmental conditions that favor aerosol transmission, explaining the seasonal nature of normal influenza
(Lowen et al.,2007).
This morning I finished watching “The Time Is Now” Season 2 of MillenniuM and got to thinking about the swine, avian, and other pandemics out there that might happen. As we are in the midst of the H1N1 pandemic I thought it appropriate to give it a closer look.
Turns out that the H1N1 is a close relative of the 1918 H1N1 that only lack a couple of protein sectors to make its lethality and transmissibility nastier. Sure, you think “whew we’re good!” but the reality is that these two proteins could easily pop up because of the nature of the swine flu and the nature of the swine themselves that allow for easy re-assortant.
Simply, this bug, because it is from swine, and swine express both the vectors of avian protease areas as well as human.
Thus the likelihood of another shift to allow for these proteins to be installed within the virus is much higher a probability than one might think. It’s just a matter of time really before this happens and really, I think that the avian portion of the picture will re-assert itself and we will see the full effect of a triple reassortant virus.
This week the President declared an emergency, the WHO declared pandemic a while ago, and the press ran away with the ball like chicken little. The populace though, seem to be rather lax about the whole thing because they fail to understand the dangers I think. The following things make you more likely to have real problems should you contract this virus.
- Asthma
- Heart Disease
- Pulmonary diseases
- Immunocompromised individuals
- Obesity
- Pregnancy
Never mind that this virus has been striking people in their teens and 20’s who do not have any of these problems with their health. Because this is a respiratory illness that causes pneumonia, it is more likely to actually kill you than the average flu, and yes, the average flu kills about 200K people a year. H1N1 thus far has killed 246K people. It’s a bit more virulent. And yet, it is not 1918 virulent yet. In 1918 in 25 weeks approximately 25 million died from its effects. Swine flu is it’s tamer but mutation friendly cousin.
And you wonder why officials get spooked about this one?
So, yeah, I am kinda worried about this bug. I have the asthma and have to wonder about getting the shot or nasal swab to hopefully prevent getting sick. I also have to wonder about the CDC’s page that says that CT has “widespread” cases of Swine. Not pockets, its just all the hell over the place. Of course people are not dropping dead of it as I have heard… But, I don’t want to be in ICU with acute respiratory issues because I got it and have asthma. That would be bad. Guess I will have to talk to the doctor.
This all got me thinking though about BW and just what’s been going on since our last episode with the Anthrax that was sent to Tom Delay and others. Which, whatever happened to that case huh? Is it closed now because that guy committed suicide after they hounded him? Last I had heard there was no concrete evidence that he had in fact manufactured the Anthrax to the BW level and sent it. This got me thinking though about the old Sov program in BW.
I took a stroll though Google and came up with an interesting story back in 2004 by the CBC on Biopreparat and VEKTOR. Evidently even in 04 there was monkey business going on in the old Sov state. They had allegedly moved their BW programs to the military area and went completely black. To give you perspective, the defection of two high ranking doctors back in the late 80’s pretty much put a crimp in the Sov’s bioweapons programs… But, evidently not enough of one to stop them.
Nope, they have kept on making new and improved weapons. In fact, they came out back in 2001 with a report that they had “accidentally” created a vaccine resistant strain of anthrax. A strain they refused to give any data or samples about when asked by the rest of the world to assure that it was indeed resistant to not only the Sov vaccine, but also the US and others.
They just said nyet. So who knows what they have now.
But Putin is our friend! W looked into his soul!
Right.
Oh well, I have dug up a bunch of docs for you to peruse. I guess the real thing for me here:
What’s your labile swine flu pandemic plan?
Maranatha
Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov (Russian: Вячесла́в Кири́ллович Иванько́в) (January 2 1940 – October 9, 2009) was a notorious member of the Russian Mafia who was believed to have connections with Russian state intelligence organizations and their organized crime partners.[1] He has operated in both the Soviet Union and the United States. His nickname, “Yaponchik” (Япончик) translates from Russian as “Little Japanese”, due to his faintly Asian facial features.[2]
2009 assassination
On July 28, 2009, at around 19:20 Moscow time (1520 GMT), Ivankov was shot while leaving a restaurant on Khoroshevskoye Road in Moscow. A sniper rifle was found abandoned in a nearby parked vehicle.[4]
Having died from his injuries seventy-three days later, on October 9, 2009,[5] Ivankov was buried in Moscow on October 13, 2009.[6]
This is just kind of weird. I awoke this morning wanting to watch “Maranatha” and while its been on, I decided to look up the name “Yaponchik” What I found was this Wiki entry that includes the above assassination report.. From this month… DAYS ago.
Here’s the summary from Millennial Abyss:
Summary: Frank Black and Peter Watts investigate a series of brutal killings in the Brighton Beach Russian community of New York City, killings that are linked to the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. The shotgun slayings seem to be the work of mysterious Russian diplomat Sergei Stepanovich, a man recognized by the local immigrants as Yaponchik, a mythical Russian figure destined by prophecy to be revealed as the Antichrist.
In the story line, Yaponchik is shot by Yura and survives to tell him that he cannot be killed by Yura, he is not the one who can kill him, he in fact is to be Yaponchik’s servant… The father of lies… Yura feels he has no control.. It is fate…
One of the great episodes of the first season.
And then this revelation of Yaponchik.
Creepy.
“The code is mightier than the sword”
Sophisticated technology has an important role to play in countering the terrorist web. While some portions of the terrorist web are out in the open, other parts operate in an area of the Internet commonly referred to as “the Deep Web.” Akin to an ocean, the Internet has surface pages, but a significant portion lies beneath that surface, out of reach of most popular search engines.
A handful of companies have developed data intelligence technologies that give access to sites traditional search engines cannot find. The U.S. intelligence community and military use these technologies to transform web data from terrorist sites into actionable intelligence.
For example, certain applications can crawl millions of domains simultaneously, a task impossible for human analysts alone. Since this volume of data, including dynamic content from the most complex websites, can be overwhelming for intelligence analysts, applications automatically extract and analyze only the data of higher intelligence value. They also use “anonymizer” tools to hide the computer user’s identity to try and keep the intelligence analyst from being shut out by terrorist web masters.
Absolutely true. There’s a lot out there and much of it has been more craftily hidden lately. The Jihadists have hired on hackers and coders who have been creating websites, hiding websites, and generally creating venues of communication and propagation of videos etc.
The paradigm for getting new recruits has changed too. These sites and their videos are the new Mosques where you need not know the Quran by heart. In fact, have Google will travel! So imagine how many youths can be reached by the internet…
You should also ponder how much money the Jihadists can make with the internet. Hacking, donation collection, etc. All of these things help them fund themselves and transfer funds quickly.
It’s a brave new world kids…
CIA Blog Watch
America’s spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon.
In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ”open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.
So HI CIA!
//BEGIN TRANSMISSION
BOMB/NUKE/QAEDA/HOPSCOTCH/CODE WORD/SIGINT/MASINT/CLASSIFIED
//END
Did you get all that? Hmmm ponder ponder.. Anyway, I understand the needs for datamining to a certain extent, but I really think you’re going to be bored by a lot of the content out there.
Ho hum… Welcome to the panopticon.
