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| 91 | Numerous Web sites remained shut down [in China] as the Communist government sought to penalize popular social media sites for circulating rumors of a coup.
The state-run Xinhua News Agency said Beijing police questioned and admonished an unspecified number of Internet users and detained six people for "fabricating or spreading" online rumors.
The government shut down 16 Web sites, including two Twitter-like services that have more than 250 million users.
The microblogging services -- known as weibo in Chinese -- Sina and Tencent had their comment functions disabled to "clean up" rumors that included talk of "military vehicles entering Beijing and something wrong going on in Beijing," the state Internet Information Office told Xinhua.
Twitter, like Facebook and YouTube, is banned because the Chinese government wanted more control over the services.
The Chinese Web sites went wild with rumors after the unexplained dismissal March 15 of Bo Xilai, the party chief of Chongqing city, who was rising high within the party ranks but has not been seen in public since then.
The ambitious son of a revolutionary Maoist leader, Bo had hopes, now dashed, of an appointment this year to China's top decision-making body, the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee.
His fall came soon after a scandal made unusually public by Chinese Internet users: the attempted flight of Bo's onetime police chief. Wang Lijun spent a night in a U.S. Consulate in Chengdu in March but was refused asylum and handed over to China's feared state security. Wang, who built a reputation for busting organized crime, also disappeared. The Chinese government said he left his job to relieve "stress."
The government's actions this weekend indicate its difficulty operating with its traditional secrecy because of the explosion of Internet and cellphone use in China.
Internet users top half a billion, and mobile phone accounts now exceed 1billion, according to government data.
For... newsfactor.com » | | 92 | Research In Motion is reporting a silver lining in the dark cloud that's been hanging over its smartphones: Sales to government agencies are on the rise. In fact, there are plenty of BlackBerry sightings in the White House.
RIM will take any encouragement it can get in its battle against the iPhone and Android-powered devices. RIM saw sales decline a whopping 57 percent last quarter as consumers opted for devices with faster browsers and larger touchscreens than the BlackBerry currently offers.
"Compared to the enterprise over the last year and a half or so, the federal business on whole is up," said Scott Totzke, senior vice president of BlackBerry security, told Bloomberg. "The employee base is shrinking, so if we're looking at a market with fewer employees and our install base is stable to slightly up, that would seem to indicate that we have an increasing market share."
Innovating MDM
One of the ways RIM is working to hold on to government clients is via a new Mobile Device Management solution aimed at the market. Last week, RIM announced Mobile Fusion, which integrates the government-friendly features and security architecture of BlackBerry Enterprise Server with other IT management tools and enforceable IT policies.
"For businesses and government, managing a mix of mobile devices on any scale is chaotic. Organizations face pressure to allow employees to bring their own devices into the workplace," said Alan Panezic, vice president of Enterprise Product Management and Marketing at Research In Motion.
Panezic said BlackBerry Mobile Fusion allows organizations to manage a mixed environment of devices in a secure and cost-efficient manner without having to move to the lowest common denominator on security for all managed devices. That should be good news for 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies using BlackBerry smartphones -- and government agencies.
Pirated Android Apps
Michael Disabato, managing... newsfactor.com » | | 93 |  BEIRUT (Reuters) - A group calling itself "Raise Your Voice" hacked into 15 Lebanese government websites on Tuesday, demanding an improvement in living standards and an end to widespread electricity and water shortages.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 94 | The FBI's former top cyber cop has taken a job with a startup company to help protect private-sector computer networks that he says are already under constant attack with intrusions.
Shawn Henry recently left the FBI after more than 20 years with the bureau. He said he decided to work at California-based CrowdStrike to fill a void in protecting private sector networks. The federal government is responsible for protecting military and government networks, but there is no one -- except CrowdStrike's business rivals -- charged with protecting the private sector dot-com domain, Henry said.
"The government's not doing anything, that's the problem," Henry said in an interview with The Associated Press. "There's no authority for the government to monitor the traffic in the dot-com space."
In his role as the executive assistant director of the criminal, cyber, response and service branch of the FBI, Henry said he saw intelligence about private networks constantly under attack.
"Every single private sector entity that has any intellectual property, any (research and development), that has any type of business" is either currently being probed by people who shouldn't have access to the information or will soon be breached," Henry said. "That's absolutely happening."
CrowdStrike was founded by George Kurtz, the former chief executive officer of Foundstone, which was acquired by McAfee, a computer security company.
Congress is considering several proposals to enhance the security of cyber networks. Proposals would bolster the government's ability to regulate the computer security of companies that run critical industries. The bills are designed to boost cyber security against the constant attacks that target U.S. government, corporate and personal computer networks and accounts. Authorities are increasingly worried that cybercriminals are trying to take over systems that control the inner workings of water, electrical, nuclear or other power plants. newsfactor.com » | | 95 | The mysterious caller claimed to be from Microsoft and offered step-by-step instructions to repair damage from a software virus. The electric power companies weren't falling for it.
The caller, who was never traced or identified, helpfully instructed the companies to enable specific features in their computers that actually would have created a trapdoor in their networks. That vulnerability would have allowed hackers to shut down a plant and thrown thousands of customers into the dark.
The power employees hung up on the caller and ignored the advice.
The incident from February, documented by one of the government's emergency cyber-response teams, shows the persistent threat of electronic attacks and intrusions that could disrupt the country's most critical industries.
The House this week will consider legislation to better defend these and other corporate networks from foreign governments, cybercriminals and terrorist groups. But deep divisions over how best to handle the growing problem mean that solutions are a long way off.
Chief among the disputes is the role of the government in protecting the private sector.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups oppose requiring cybersecurity standards. Rules imposed by Washington would increase their costs without reducing their risks, they say.
Obama administration officials and security experts say companies that operate power plants, communication systems, chemical facilities and more should have to meet performance standards to prove they can withstand attacks or recover quickly from them.
The rift echoes the heated debate in Washington over the scope of government and whether new regulations hamper private businesses.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday that without standards for critical industries, there will be gaps that U.S. adversaries can exploit. "That system, which is mostly in private hands, needs to all come up to a certain baseline level," she said.
The proposed formation of a system that allows U.S. intelligence agencies and the... newsfactor.com » | | 96 | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The activist hacker group Anonymous said on Friday it planned to attack Russian government websites in order to support opposition protests ahead of Vladimir Putin's inauguration as president.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 97 | Salesforce.com hopes to cozy up with the government with its latest solution: Government Cloud. The customer relations management cloud computing company rolled out its latest product to help government hasten its move to the so-called social era.
As its name suggests, Government Cloud is designed for the unique -- and the social -- needs of government agencies. The customized Software-as-a-Service product will offer dedicated, multi-tenant instances of Salesforce.com's cloud infrastructure. That approach paves the way for U.S. federal, state, and local agencies to deploy the latest social and mobile technologies in compliance with Federal Information Security Management Act requirements.
"The bureaucracy of legacy government IT is preventing agencies from embracing innovative technologies that deliver immediate value," said Vivek Kundra, executive vice president of emerging markets at Salesforce.com. "We must end the era where government spends millions of dollars and waits years for IT projects that never work."
Welcoming CRM?
Salesforce.com is making a bold move with its Government Cloud. Certainly, government agencies are not known for strong customer service. But will governments invest in the technology it takes to meet the demands of customers who are increasingly used to social and mobile customer service? That's what we asked Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
"The difficulty with government is the lack of funding right now to make changes. Right now, a lot of the agencies are just treading water," Enderle said. "Having said that, probably the only way government agencies can do deployments right now is through some sort of Software-as-a-Service capability. From that perspective, this solution is well timed."
As Enderle sees it, a social and mobile CRM solution in the government would drive higher citizen satisfaction rates and could streamline customer service. Still, he said, getting the government to implement CRM would be an amazing accomplishment.
AppExchange for Government
Salesforce.com is working to... newsfactor.com » | | 98 | Salesforce.com hopes to cozy up with the government with its latest solution: Government Cloud. The customer relations management cloud computing company rolled out its latest product to help government hasten its move to the so-called social era.
As its name suggests, Government Cloud is designed for the unique -- and the social -- needs of government agencies. The customized Software-as-a-Service product will offer dedicated, multi-tenant instances of Salesforce.com's cloud infrastructure. That approach paves the way for U.S. federal, state, and local agencies to deploy the latest social and mobile technologies in compliance with Federal Information Security Management Act requirements.
"The bureaucracy of legacy government IT is preventing agencies from embracing innovative technologies that deliver immediate value," said Vivek Kundra, executive vice president of emerging markets at Salesforce.com. "We must end the era where government spends millions of dollars and waits years for IT projects that never work."
Welcoming CRM?
Salesforce.com is making a bold move with its Government Cloud. Certainly, government agencies are not known for strong customer service. But will governments invest in the technology it takes to meet the demands of customers who are increasingly used to social and mobile customer service? That's what we asked Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
"The difficulty with government is the lack of funding right now to make changes. Right now, a lot of the agencies are just treading water," Enderle said. "Having said that, probably the only way government agencies can do deployments right now is through some sort of Software-as-a-Service capability. From that perspective, this solution is well timed."
As Enderle sees it, a social and mobile CRM solution in the government would drive higher citizen satisfaction rates and could streamline customer service. Still, he said, getting the government to implement CRM would be an amazing accomplishment.
AppExchange for Government
Salesforce.com is working to... newsfactor.com » | | 99 | A federal appeals court has turned down a Freedom of Information Act request to disclose National Security Agency records about the 2010 cyberattack on Google users in China.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, which focuses on privacy and civil liberties, sought communications between Google and the NSA, which conducts worldwide electronic surveillance and protects the U.S. government from such spying. But the NSA refused to confirm or deny whether it had any relationship with Google. The NSA argued that doing so could make U.S. government information systems vulnerable to attack.
A federal district court judge sided with the NSA last year, and on Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the ruling.
In 2010, Google complained about major attacks on its Web site by Chinese hackers and suggested the Chinese government may have instigated them. The Chinese government denied any involvement. Soon after, there were news reports that Google was teaming up with the NSA to analyze the attack and help prevent future ones.
The privacy center's FOIA request drew a "Glomar" response, in which an agency refuses to confirm or deny the existence of records. The term refers to a case in the 1970s, when the CIA refused to confirm or deny the existence of the Glomar Explorer, a ship disguised as an ocean mining vessel that the CIA used to salvage a sunken Soviet submarine. Courts consistently have upheld Glomar responses.
"In reviewing an agency's Glomar response, this court exercises caution when the information requested" involves national security, Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote in the unanimous appeals court panel's ruling. "NSA need not make a specific showing of potential harm to national security in order to justify withholding information" under one of the law's exemptions because Congress has already, in enacting the FOIA statute,... newsfactor.com » | | 100 | Monday Mail Mayhem. That's how Anonymous is describing its latest hack. The "hacktivist" group broke in to a 1.7-GB archive of data it says "used to belong to the United States Bureau of Justice, until now."
"Within the booty you may find lots of shiny things such as internal e-mails, and the entire database dump," Anonymous said in a statement. "We Lulzed as they took the Web site down after being owned, clearly showing they were scared of what inevitably happened."
Why the Bureau of Statistics?
Anonymous apparently also uploaded a BitTorrent file of the stolen data to Pirate Bay. That's a potentially serious leak, considering that the Bureau of Justice Statistics' stated mission is to collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government. The bureau describes the data as "critical to federal, state, and local policymakers in combating crime and ensuring that justice is both efficient and evenhanded."
With that in mind, why is Anonymous targeting the Bureau of Justice statistics? Anonymous answered that question with a mouthful of hacktivist-speak reminiscent of WikiLeaks.
"We do not stand for any government or parties, we stand for freedom of people, freedom of speech and freedom of information. We are releasing data to spread information, to allow the people to be heard, and to know the corruption in their government," according to the Anonymous statement. "We are releasing it to end the corruption that exists, and truly make those who are being oppressed free."
The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the breach and published reports say the government is investigating the hacks. In a statement, a spokesman said the department is looking into the unauthorized access of a Web site server operated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that contained data from... newsfactor.com » |
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