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Government Misconduct in FCPA Prosecution May Impact Other Cases | National Law Journal

December 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A federal judge’s dismissal of convictions in a high-profile Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case because of prosecutorial misconduct has prompted a defense attorney in a related prosecution to challenge the government’s case against his client.

U.S. District Judge Howard Matz in Los Angeles on Dec. 1 threw out the convictions of Lindsey Manufacturing Co. and two of its senior executives on charges that they paid an intermediary to bribe two officials of a Mexican utility in violation of the FCPA. Matz cited numerous instances of prosecutorial misconduct, including an FBI agent’s false statements to the grand jury and false information in affidavits submitted for search and seizure warrants.

via Government Misconduct in FCPA Prosecution May Impact Other Cases.

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Researchers Hack Voting Machine For $26 | Fox News

September 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Campaigning for the 2012 presidential race has already begun, but what the candidates don’t know is that come election day, hackers could be the ones whose votes have the biggest impact.

Researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have developed a hack that, for about $26 and an 8th-grade science education, can remotely manipulate the electronic voting machines used by millions of voters all across the U.S.

The researchers, Salon reported, performed their proof-of-concept hack on a Diebold Accuvote TS electronic voting machine, a type of touchscreen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting system that is widely used for government elections.

(Diebold’s voting-machine business is now owned by the Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, whose e-voting machines are used in about 22 states.)

In a video, Roger Johnston and Jon Warner from Argonne National Laboratory’s Vulnerability Assessment Team demonstrate three different ways an attacker could tamper with, and remotely take full control, of the e-voting machine simply by attaching what they call a piece of “alien electronics” into the machine’s circuit board.

via Researchers Hack Voting Machine For $26 | Fox News.

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Researchers Hack Voting Machine For $26 | Fox News

September 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Campaigning for the 2012 presidential race has already begun, but what the candidates don’t know is that come election day, hackers could be the ones whose votes have the biggest impact.

Researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have developed a hack that, for about $26 and an 8th-grade science education, can remotely manipulate the electronic voting machines used by millions of voters all across the U.S.

The researchers, Salon reported, performed their proof-of-concept hack on a Diebold Accuvote TS electronic voting machine, a type of touchscreen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting system that is widely used for government elections.

(Diebold’s voting-machine business is now owned by the Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, whose e-voting machines are used in about 22 states.)

In a video, Roger Johnston and Jon Warner from Argonne National Laboratory’s Vulnerability Assessment Team demonstrate three different ways an attacker could tamper with, and remotely take full control, of the e-voting machine simply by attaching what they call a piece of “alien electronics” into the machine’s circuit board.

via Researchers Hack Voting Machine For $26 | Fox News.

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U.S. warns that Anonymous, LulzSec could up their game – Computerworld

August 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Hacker groups such as Anonymous and Lulz Security may need to be monitored more closely in the event they are assisted by other hackers with higher skill levels and decide to strike critical infrastructure.

The warning comes from the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“Some members of LulzSec have demonstrated moderately higher levels of skill and creativity that include using combinations of methods and techniques to target multiple networks,” according to the six-page advisory. “This does not take into account the possibility of a higher-level actor providing LulzSec or Anonymous more advanced capabilities.”

Anonymous and a splinter group known as LulzSec have wreaked havoc against government and business websites and servers, from low-level defacement of websites up to more sophisticated actions such as stealing sensitive data.

The agency categorized the attacks as “rudimentary” and associated with youths known as “script kiddies” for their use of simple tools to hack. But law enforcement agencies in countries such as the U.S., U.K., Spain and the Netherlands have made arrests in attempts to stem their activities.

via U.S. warns that Anonymous, LulzSec could up their game – Computerworld.

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NSA allies with Internet carriers to thwart cyber attacks against defense firms – The Washington Post

June 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The National Security Agency is working with Internet service providers to deploy a new generation of tools to scan e-mail and other digital traffic with the goal of thwarting cyberattacks against defense firms by foreign adversaries, senior defense and industry officials say.

The novel program, which began last month on a voluntary, trial basis, relies on sophisticated NSA data sets to identify malicious programs slipped into the vast stream of Internet data flowing to the nation’s largest defense firms. Such attacks, including one last month against Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, are nearly constant as rival nations and terrorist groups seek access to U.S. military secrets.

“We hope the . . . cyber pilot can be the beginning of something bigger,” Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said at a global security conference in Paris on Thursday. “It could serve as a model that can be transported to other critical infrastructure sectors, under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.

via NSA allies with Internet carriers to thwart cyber attacks against defense firms – The Washington Post.

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PDF: Advance Chapter on BP Well Blowout Investigation | National Oil Spill Commission

January 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment 



http://www.oilspillcommission.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Chapter4.pdf
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DHS, Defense Join Forces to Battle Cyber Threats | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

October 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The federal government is not really known for its effective information sharing between separate departments, but two agencies said Wednesday said they want to change that when it comes to cyber-security issues.

The Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense signed an agreement this week under which they will work together to defend the country’s Internet backbone.

“We are building a new framework between our Departments to enhance operational coordination and joint program planning,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and DOD Secretary Robert Gates said in a joint statement.

Specifically, the two agencies are going to cross-pollinate a bit more when it comes to personnel. DOD will send its cyber analysts to work on DHS’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) – a 24-hour incident response center that opened in October 2009. DHS, meanwhile, will send a senior staffer – as well as a support team of DHS privacy, civil liberties and legal personnel – to work at DOD’s National Security Agency.

via DHS, Defense Join Forces to Battle Cyber Threats | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.

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Official Google Blog: National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2010: Stop. Think. Connect.

October 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Governments, industry and everyday people have been abuzz this year about online security to a larger extent than ever before. People are talking about their information, how they share it with others and how they secure it. With more information moving online, and with cyber attacks on the rise, we think it’s important that we keep the conversation about security flowing.

Google has renewed its commitment to security this year and has pushed industry boundaries to help people better protect their information in new ways. Here are just a few examples: We became the first major email provider to offer default HTTPS encryption for the entire email session, and we introduced an encrypted search option for Google.com. We designed a new system to make Google Accounts more secure, and added suspicious activity detection for our users. Google Apps became the first suite of cloud computing applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification from the U.S. government. We also published new security products, tools and research to help web developers and network administrators make the rest of the web more secure.

via Official Google Blog: National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2010: Stop. Think. Connect..

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Full Federal Circuit Narrowly Applies Patent Misuse Doctrine | National Law Journal

September 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that an anti-competitive agreement between two companies to restrict the availability of one of their patents in favor of two others is not misuse of the favored patents. Applying the patent misuse doctrine narrowly, the court determined that the patents at issue are enforceable.

The Aug. 30 en banc ruling in Princo Corp. v. International Trade Commission was filed with a concurring and a dissenting opinion.

The case involves the technology for recordable compact discs and rewritable compact discs, which was largely developed through a collaborative effort between U.S. Philips Corp. and Sony Corp. The two companies also played the chief role in developing the industry’s manufacturing standard for these products.

via Law.com – Full Federal Circuit Narrowly Applies Patent Misuse Doctrine.

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Panel Recommends the ABA Accredit Overseas Law Schools | National Law Journal

August 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The American Bar Association is already tasked by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit U.S. law schools. Now an ABA committee has recommended that it should seriously consider expanding that power to overseas law schools that follow the U.S. model.

In June, the ABA’s Council of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar appointed the committee of law professors, attorneys, judges and law deans to examine whether foreign law schools should be allowed to seek ABA accreditation. The council is scheduled to consider the committee’s recommendations in December.

The committee cited an earlier ABA report’s conclusion that state supreme courts and bar associations are under more pressure than ever to make decisions about admitting foreign lawyers as the legal profession becomes more globalized.

“Such an expansion would provide additional guidance for state supreme courts when lawyers trained outside the United States seek to be allowed to sit for a U.S. bar examination,” the committee said in its report. “Since that is a key function of the accreditation process generally, the expansion would be consistent with the historic role of the section in aiding state supreme courts in the bar admissions area.”

via Panel Recommends the ABA Accredit Overseas Law Schools.

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