The OPM hack is the most talked about cyber incident in recent history.
The loss of Intellectual Property is one thing. The theft of money from accounts is yet another. But the OPM hack has the potential of directly affecting 21 million current and former government employees and those with a government security clearance, to a lifetime of potential backmail and abuse by China or whomever they sell the data to. Plus, if this data reveals someone was a threat to China (or whomever they sell the data to), that person’s life may be at risk.
OPM Director Katherine Archuleta has resigned under fire. So she quits and from now until forever she will be blamed for the loss of data, potential loss of money to these individuals and the possible loss of life. In other words, nobody is being held accountable.
Is there no accountability in the US government?
OPM’s “fan club” continues to grow in the wake of the two recent data breaches that hit the agency’s computer systems which left the personal data of nearly 26 million individuals exposed.
The American Federation of Government Employees took out a full page ad in Politico in which it said the Office of Personnel Management is keeping federal employees “in the dark about the data breach.”
Furthermore, AFGE demanded in the ad that OPM provide details to federal workers about the scope of the breach and what types of personal data were compromised, and it also said that OPM has to give impacted feds free lifetime credit monitoring, saying the 18 months being provided was inadequate.
Oooh! It sounds like things are heating up in the DNR!
“The so-called prime minister, “DNR” Alexander #Zakharchenko will soon be sent into honorable exile ….” (in Russian) – “The “DNR” is preparing a coup: Zakharchenko was summoned to Moscow – a journalist “ (in Russian)
This is curious.
– ““LPR militia begins withdrawing weapons under 100mm calibre” – “DPR Asks OSCE to Monitor Withdrawal of Less Than 100mm Weapons in E Ukraine”
– If taken literally, that would mean ALL weapons would be withdrawn from LNR and DNR… They’re playing games again.
Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters A man, who according to Ukraine’s state security service (SBU) is named Alexander Alexandrov and is one of two Russian servicemen detained by Ukrainian forces, speaks during an interview with Reuters at a hospital in Kiev, Ukraine, May 28, 2015.
This article, from The Moscow Times, says more about Russia than any other propaganda or counter-propaganda out there.
The Moscow Times is Russian owned now, it is no longer a free speech publication. For a Russian owned newspaper to print this means Russia really is making a lot of Russians angry.
Russia sends elite troops to Ukraine and, when captured, denies they are in the military. This should send shock waves through the Russian army, nobody will want to serve in Ukraine while in the Russian army. It is simply a losing proposition.
If a common person in Russia seeks to join the military, they may now lose the incentive to join, Russia does not have their best interests at the forefront.
This should also speak to the rebels in Donbass, Russia will not support you when you need their support the most.
This should speak to the common Russian citizen. Russia does not mean what they say. Russia treats soldiers like chattel, ordinary citizens must be the equivalent of less.
To those outside Russia this indicates that Russia cannot be trusted, they lie to their own citizens, they must lie to outsiders without reservation.
To diplomats, why should you ever trust a Russian giving his word?
Russia’s Defense Ministry has formally disowned two soldiers captured in eastern Ukraine, saying the men had resigned from the army before crossing the border and their mission had “no connection” with Moscow’s armed forces.
The soldiers, Alexander Alexandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev, have both insisted that they were on active duty in the Russian military when Ukrainian government forces captured them in the separatist-controlled Luhansk region in May. In a letter to a human rights advocate published by the Gazeta.ru news portal Tuesday night, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that the men had been contract soldiers, but said they had resigned.
“Events connected with their departure from the Russian Federation and their presence on the territory of Ukraine took place after their resignation from military service and have no connection with it,” the letter read.
The letter came in response to a query by Sergei Krivenko, a member of the Kremlin’s human rights council who heads the council’s citizen and army group for monitoring Russian military affairs and protecting soldiers’ rights.
Russia has repeatedly denied accusations by Ukraine and Western governments that it has supplied troops and weapons to separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine.
Shortly after Alexandrov and Yerofeyev were captured on May 16 and identified themselves as Russian soldiers on active duty, a Defense Ministry spokesman claimed that the men had resigned from the army. Prominent soldiers’ rights group, the Union of Soldiers’ Mothers’ Committees, cast doubt on that account while, the soldiers themselves, who are being charged with terrorism in Ukraine, insisted in subsequent interviews that they were on military duty.
Alexandrov has also said that he would like to be treated as a prisoner of war, but that designation is difficult to receive unless Moscow recognizes him as an active-duty soldier.
Alexandrov and Yerofeyev were both injured before their capture, and were treated in a Ukrainian hospital. During interviews with Russian and foreign media and envoys from international organizations, they maintained they had no complaints about their treatment or the conditions of their detention.
Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, head of the Russian think tank Academy of Geopolitical Problems, said that if the men were on active duty, Moscow should have done a better job standing behind them, Gazeta.ru reported.
“When we disown our soldiers, if they were indeed ours, that’s not good,” Ivashov was quoted as saying.
Instead, he suggested, the Defense Ministry “should have said that we are conducting intelligence operations, because there is a civil war going on and military action continues near Russia’s borders,” Gazeta.ru reported.
In videotaped interviews after they were captured, Alexandrov and Yerofeyev said they were part of a Russian special forces’ spying mission in eastern Ukraine.
Russian government-backed hackers who penetrated high-profile U.S. government and defence industry computers this year used a method combining Twitter with data hidden in seemingly benign photographs, according to experts studying the campaign.
In a public report Wednesday, researchers at security company FireEye Inc (FEYE.O) said the group used the unusual tandem as a means of communicating with previously infected computers. FireEye has briefed law enforcement on what it found.
The technique, uncovered during a FireEye investigation at an unnamed victim organization, shows how government-backed hackers can shift tactics on the fly after they are discovered.
“It’s striking how many layers of obfuscation that the group adopts,” said FireEye Strategic Analysis Manager Jennifer Weedon. “These groups are innovating and becoming more creative.”
The machines were given an algorithm for checking a different Twitter account every day. If a human agent registered that account and tweeted a certain message, instructions for a series of actions by the computer would be activated.
The tweeted information included a website address, a number and a handful of letters. The computer would go to the website and look for a photo of at least the size indicated by the number, while the letters were part of a key for decoding the instructions in a message hidden within the data used to display the picture on the website.
Weedon said the communication method might have been a failsafe in case other channels were discovered and cut. Vikram Thakur, a senior manager at Symantec Corp (SYMC.O), said his team had also found Twitter controls combined with hidden data in photos, a technique known as steganography.
FireEye identified the campaign as the work of a group it has been internally calling APT29, for advanced persistent threat. In April, it said another Russian-government supported group, APT28, had used a previously unknown flaws in Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash software to infect high-value targets.
Other security firms use different names for the same or allied groups. Symantec recently reported another data-stealing tool used in tandem with the steganography, which it calls Seaduke. Thakur said both tools were employed by the group it knows as the Duke family.
Thakur said another tool in that kit is CozyDuke, which Russian firm Kaspersky Lab says is associated with recent breaches at the State Department and the White House.
Almost two thirds of the Ukrainian public is ready to vote in favor of joining NATO, and more than half of Ukrainians support joining the EU, according to a poll conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with the sociological service of the Razumkov Center .
“Right now we’re seeing serious changes: if a referendum was held now, it would be obviously won [by the pro-NATO side],” Director of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation Iryna Bekeshkina said at a press conference on Monday.
According to the poll, if a referendum on Ukrainian membership of NATO was held on Sunday, a total of 63.9% of respondents would vote in favor, 28.5% would vote against, and 7.6% were undecided.
Bekeshkina said that in June 2010 only 24.6% would have voted for joining NATO, 67.7% – against, and in June 2014 – 45.4% would have voted in favor and 36.4% – against.
“These are very important changes” the expert said, adding that the issues still divides Ukraine.
In particular, she noted that there were much less support for NATO in Donbas compared to other regions, even though the number of those opposed to joining NATO is now about 60% compared to 95% five years ago.
According to the poll, 51.2% of the respondents considered joining the EU a priority, 17.4% – support joining the Customs Union with Russia. Belarus and Kazakhstan, 31.3% wee undecided.
The poll was conducted through July 22-27, and 2,011 respondents over 18 years old were surveyed in various regions of Ukraine except for Crimea and areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions uncontrolled by the Ukrainian government. The poll ‘s margin of error was 2.3%.
A Pew Research Center survey released August 5 reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t popular outside Russia. | Credit: Alexei Druzhinin/RIA-Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via Associated Pres
So far there have been no responses, but the forum is rabidly pro-Putin. Rabidly.
I believe perhaps two people there are paid Russian trolls, they sure do have the paid Russian troll techniques down cold. These are the two I most expect “whataboutisms” from, dismissive comments about the source, and personal attacks.
Since this is a Pew Research Center survey, most of us in the West accept the results as legitimate. Not these folks. If the survey does not originate in the Levada Center, they will say there is a built-in anti-Russian bias. The results are, of course, sponsored by the CIA and the US State Department, they’ll say, and is obviously a product of the great Western propaganda machine. Since this is not true, obviously, almost the only way to counter is normally to first, say it is not true, and then to shut their mouths, challenge them to tell me which person or office is in charge of this great propaganda office in the US. The trolls do try to respond, normally answering with “Secretary Kerry” or even Victoria Nuland (oh, they hate her), but then I will I challenge them to tell me exactly which office in the State Department (they’ve never gotten that far). Honestly, it would take someone only a few seconds to find this out, but somehow they never know how. This, in turn, would be followed by a flat-out denial, stating that the US government does not engage in propaganda, because it’s unethical.
I’ve located the legal basis for propaganda being illegal in DoD but I lack the legal citations for State, etc. Can anyone help me there?
The funding for the “coup” always is somehow related to the $5 billion used by the US to sponsor and incite the coup in Ukraine, thus destroying the last democratically elected government in Ukraine – another troll favorite accusation – all probably untrue (I reserve judgement of possible CIA involvement).
Forever after, the Ukraine government is labeled a junta, despite the 25 May 2014 democratic election. Also, the Russian trolls are fond of broadly accusing the Kyiv – Poroshenko – government of being Fascist, despite mountains of examples of greater Russian government Fascist affiliation. The bad news is Right Sector either actually staged a semi-coup in Ukraine on 21 July or Russia set it up to look that way.
I admit a certain perverse delight in rubbing the results of this survey in their face.
Bottom line, I wanted to get their opinion about this survey, but so far nobody has risen to the bait. Gee, I wonder why?
Most countries don’t trust Putin to do the right thing when it comes to world affairs.
Lydia O’ConnorAssociate News Editor, The Huffington Post
Posted: 08/05/2015 05:54 PM EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t winning any popularity contests, at least not outside his country.
According to a Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday, both Russia and its leader are held in low regard around the world. The poll, which surveyed 45,435 respondents from 39 countries, found that a median of only 30 percent view Russia favorably, while a median of just 24 percent have faith in Putin to “do the right thing regarding world affairs.”
The strongest opposition to Putin is in Spain, where 92 percent of respondents said they had no confidence in his handling of world issues. Poland, France and Ukraine are also very critical of the Russian president. In the U.S. 75 percent of respondents view Putin unfavorably.
International human rights groups have criticized Russia’s harsh anti-LGBT laws that Putin enforces, which include a ban on promoting “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships” to children.
Only in Vietnam — which recently joined the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union — and China did more than half of respondents (70 percent and 54 percent, respectively) report having confidence in Putin to do the right thing on the global stage.
The OPM hack is the most talked about cyber incident in recent history.
Almost two thirds of the Ukrainian public is ready to vote in favor of joining NATO, and more than half of Ukrainians support joining the EU, according to a poll conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with the sociological service of the Razumkov Center .
