Friday, December 29, 2006

Hackers fool chump

Awwhh.. that's awsome, I couldn't make this stuff up if I had too.
Congressional aide tries to hire hackers to change college grades - but the joke's on him

Dan Kaplan Dec 28 2006 19:53

A Texas Christian University (TCU) graduate who solicited two hackers to infiltrate the college's database to improve his grade point average - but was instead strung along by the pair in an often humorous exchange of emails - has been fired after it emerged he was the top aide to a Montana congressman.

In August, Todd Shriber, 28, former communications director for Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., began email correspondence with two hackers - using the online aliases "Jericho" and "Lyger" - who run attrition.org, a site featuring computer security resources.

"I need to urgently make contact with a hacker that would be interested in doing a one-time job for me," Shriber said in his first email to Jericho. "The pay would be good."

Jericho and Lyger, who consider themselves "security enthusiasts," never attempted to breach TCU's database, instead choosing to engage in a series of emails with Shriber, who had no idea he was being duped by the hackers. They have since posted the 22-email exchange on their website.

"This was seemingly all a joke played on Mr. Shriber," Tracy Syler-Jones, a spokeswoman for TCU, told SCMagazine.com today. "We would certainly want Mr. Shriber to learn from this experience and move on and do well with the remainder of his career."

But, she said, the university "does take proactive steps….to continuously monitor and update our systems in an effort to prevent security breaches."

Shriber - a 2000 graduate from TCU with a broadcast journalism degree - was unaware that the joke was on him, even after Jericho asked Shriber to shoot a picture of a pigeon to prove that he was legitimate in his request, and not a federal agent.

"Forgive what I assume is (a) dumb question, but what are pigeons?" Shriber asked. "I know you're not talking about the bird."

"Actually I am," Jericho responded.

Using his friend's camera, Shriber shot two photos of a squirrel in a front yard and then emailed them to Jericho. He received permission to photograph a squirrel because he could not locate any pigeons.

Jericho and Lyger said their site - which has dedicated a section called "Going Postal" to chronicle bizarre requests they receive - entertain about two emails per day seeking hacker assistance.

"Some people mail us and seem like they will to any length to get what they want," Jericho told SCMagazine.com today. "We often test that."

The emails with Shriber were not all joking in manner. Jericho and Lyger mixed in some actual computer security jargon to make it appear to Shriber like they were attempting to access the college's network to make changes to Shriber's grades. (He told them he wanted his GPA modified because he was considering a run at graduate school).

"Have had a chance to set up a couple of IDS/IPS evasion bots, perimeter scanning came up clean," Lyger said in one email to Shriber. "Small SQL injection issue merged with XSS shows that the backend database may be either 768-bit encrypted or a simple 3DES matter, but a little more time should take care of that issue."

In addition, Jericho warned Shriber that what he was requesting was illegal.

"First, let's be clear," Jericho said. "You are soliciting me to break the law and hack into a computer across state lines. That is a federal offense and (punishable by) multiple felonies."

The correspondence ended when Lyger told Shriber in a profanity-ridden rant that TCU had discovered the attempted hack.

"I'm going deep underground," he said. "If they (authorities) ask about me or attrition, we don't know each other. You're just as guilty and liable so when they come knocking, don't say anything without a lawyer and when you ask them to put the gun down, say it nice because that (expletive) isn't fun."

Shriber was fired from his role as communications director to Rehberg after a blogger revealed his identity about a week ago and Shriber acknowledged the emails were his. The congressman's office refused to comment today to SCMagazine.com.

"It's a real head-scratcher," Erik Iverson, Rehberg's chief of staff, told the Dallas Morning News on Sunday. "This whole thing was really out of character for Todd, and I believe this was a one-time incident. At the end of the day, the position entails a lot of trust. This was a violation of that trust, and I just felt like we really didn't have any choice at that point (but to fire him)."

Jericho said he was "amused" when learning his victim was a congressman's aide and fired as a result of the stunt.

Click here to email reporter Dan Kaplan.

Related Links
attrition.org

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Marx Cafe tonight.

Hey all, I'll be at marx playing music tonight around 10pm or so. Hope to see you there!

about time!

Interesting development
Monday, December 25, 2006
U.S. Blocks Arms, Technology To Israel (gesture to Saudis)
U.S. Blocks Arms, Technology To Israel

TEL AVIV [MENL] 23 December 2006 -- The Bush administration has blocked
arms and technology transfers to Israel.

Israeli and U.S. sources said the State Department has blocked the
transfer of weapons and technology to the Jewish state over the last three
months. The sources said the halt reflected deteriorating relations between
the two countries since the end of the war in Lebanon in August 2006.

"Nobody will say openly that there is a problem," a government source
said. "But there is a serious problem that reflects the marginalization of
Israel in U.S. strategy."

The unofficial suspension of U.S. arms deliveries began in late
September, the sources said. They said the suspension halted the airlift of
air-to-ground and other munitions conducted during and immediately after the
Israeli war with Hizbullah.

"Several weeks after the war, the U.S. supplies stopped," the source
said. "There was no real explanation."

The sources said the administration has held up a list of weapons
requested by Israel in wake of the Lebanon war. They said the weapons and
equipment -- including the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM -- were
meant to replenish munitions and other stocks in preparation for a larger
war that would include Syria in mid-2007.

"The administration has not rejected any Israeli request," a U.S.
official said. "Instead, the State Department and Defense Department have
said that all requests must be examined."

The administration refusal to approve the Israeli requests has also
hampered military cooperation between the two countries. In November, the
Israel Air Force canceled plans to send delegations to the United States to
examine air systems and munitions.

A U.S. official said the White House was deeply disappointed by the
Israeli failure to defeat Hizbullah. The official said the war undermined
U.S. confidence in Israel's military and government.

"The word in the White House was that Israel lost the war," the official
said. "That alone led to a plummet in Israel's stock in the administration,
particularly the Pentagon."

The U.S. refusals have also hampered Israeli defense programs. The
sources said the State Department has prevented the transfer of data and
technology, even from projects that included Israeli participation.

In one case, State prevented Northrop Grumman from providing details of
its Skyguard laser weapon, which the company has sought to sell to Israel.
The ban led to the suspension of Israeli negotiations to procure Skyguard,
designed to intercept short-range rockets and missiles.

The sources said the halt in U.S. weapons exports to Israel was designed
to assuage Saudi Arabia. They said Riyad has increasingly linked regional
cooperation with Washington to pressure on Israel to halt attacks on
Palestinian insurgency strongholds in the Gaza Strip.

"The White House believes that Saudi help is vital for the United
States in Iraq," a diplomatic source said. "There's nothing like stopping
the weapons flow to Israel to show the Saudis that the United States means
business."

Friday, December 22, 2006

Women's rights in Iraq

Jeez, what a kick in the face.
The Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) recently issued a frightening report documenting the growing practice of public executions of women by Shia Militia. One of the report's more grisly accounts was a story of a young woman dragged by a wire wound around her neck to a close-by football field and then hung to the goal post. They pierced her body with bullets. Her brother came running trying to defend his sister. He was also shot and killed. Sunni extremists are no better: OWFI members estimate that no less than 30 women are executed monthly for honor related reasons.

Almost four years into the Bush Administration's ill fated adventure in Iraq, Iraqi women are worse off than they were under the Baathist regime in a country where, for decades, the freedoms and rights enjoyed by Iraqi women were the envy of women in most other countries of the Middle East.

Before the U.S. invasion, Iraqi women had high levels of education. Their strong and independent women's movement had successfully forced Saddam's government to pass the groundbreaking 1959 Family Law Act which ensured equal rights in matters of personal law. Iraqi women could inherit land and property; they had equal rights to divorce and custody of their children; they were protected from domestic violence within the marriage. In other words, they had achieved real gains in the struggle for equality between women and men. Iraqi women, like all Iraqis, certainly suffered from the political repression and lack of freedom, but the secular -- albeit brutal -- Baathist regime protected women from the religious extremism that denies freedom to a majority of women in the Arab world.

The invasion of Iraq, however, changed the status of Iraqi women for the worse. Iraq's new colonial power, the United States, elevated a new group of leaders, most of who were allied with ultra conservative Shia clerics. Among the Sunni minority, the quick disappearance of their once dominant political power led to a resurgence of religious identity. Consequently, the Kurds, celebrated for their history of resistance to the Iraqi dictator, were able to reclaim traditions like honor killings, putting thousands of women at risk.

Iraqi sectarian conflict has exacerbated violence against women, making women's bodies the battlefields on which vendettas and threats are played out. My organization, The Global Fund for Women, and the humanitarian community has long known that the presence of military troops in a region of conflict increases the rate of prostitution, violence against women, and the potential for human trafficking.

While many believed that interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq would result in greater freedoms for women, international women's rights organizations like the Global Fund for Women were highly skeptical of the Bush administration's claims from the start. US representatives in Iraq failed to even listen to, much less validate, the voices of independent and secular Iraqi women leaders like Yana Mohammed during the process of drafting the constitution. As a result, the Iraqi constitution elevated Islamic law over constitutional rights for matters pertaining to personal and family matters.

For the first time in over 50 years of Iraq's history, Iraqi women's right to be treated as equal citizens has been overturned. This disgrace has happened on the watch of the United States. In many ways, it is no less shameful than the human rights abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib. If left unchallenged, it has the potential to affect many thousands of innocent lives in the years to come.

Since the US has failed to protect Iraqi women's rights, a new Secretary General of the United Nations must demonstrate the courage and conviction to take action. The women of Iraq deserve nothing less. We owe them at least this much.

Digg!

Tagged as: iraq war, iraqi women, violence against women, honor killings

Kavita N. Ramdas, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Global Fund for Women, has won numerous awards for her vision and advancement of an inclusive philanthropy in which donors and grantees are treated as equal partners.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Marx Cafe Tonight!

I'll be at Marx tonight, playing modern 2step and old school garage classics. Come out, mention this blog and I'll buy you a drink. Music starts at 9, goes till 2.

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW



Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Ebay "second chance" scams

Dosen't sound terribly complicated, a simple operation. I wonder how many others involved managed to escape arrest.
Chicagoans held on Internet fraud charges

By Jeff Coen
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 12, 2006, 9:38 PM CST

Eight people were arrested in the Chicago area Tuesday as part of an Internet fraud scheme that allegedly included bogus auctions on eBay and involved millions of dollars, federal authorities said.

Some 2,000 people may have been victimized between November 2003 and last August, authorities said.

Prosecutors charged 21 people with wire fraud in a complaint unsealed Tuesday. In the scheme, which originated in Romania, people who were unsuccessful bidders at Internet auctions were given a "second chance" to buy big-ticket items, according to the complaint.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian Hayes said participants in the ring would contact those who had bid unsuccessfully in the auctions. "Sometimes they would offer the exact item that people had bid on previously, saying that the guy who was going to purchase it had fallen through," Hayes said, adding that the items varied.

"It was cars, ATV's, motorcycles, trailers," he said, "even farm equipment."

The victims were told to send money via Western Union to someone in the Chicago area, the complaint states.

Federal authorities began to unravel the ring in October 2005 when Gary Michael Schneider, 25, of Chicago, was arrested on a fraud warrant out of Minnesota, according to the affidavit of Michael Blessing, an FBI agent in the case.

Schneider had been recruited to join the scheme the prior July by Adrian Florin Fechete, 35, of the 6100 block of North Seeley Avenue in Chicago, the affidavit states. Schneider began cooperating with authorities after his arrest, telling the FBI he had first been directed to make money pickups at Western Union locations, and then recruited friends to help.

Schneider and those he brought into the scheme received fraud proceeds totaling about $356,000, Blessing's affidavit states. Schneider has been given no specific promises for leniency, Hayes said.

No goods were ever provided for the payments, and much of the proceeds wound up going to people outside the United States, authorities said. Those working the scheme in the Chicago area allegedly obtained fake identification to use when receiving money transfers from victims, several hundred of whom have discussed their losses with authorities.

The U.S. attorney's office, the FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Chicago police were involved in the probe, officials said. Investigators were able to determine the identities of many of those who allegedly participated by combing through Western Union records.

Those arrested in the Chicago area Tuesday included Aida Salem, 40; Jessie Vega, 25; Adrian Ianc, 32; Mihai Bledea, 30; and Igor Ashlan, 60; all of Chicago. Also arrested were Gianina Simon, 30, of Addison; Muszka Ladislau, 32, of Glenview; and Radu Rizescu, 31, of Elk Grove Village.

They are scheduled to appear Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez for a detention hearing.

The U.S. attorney's office in Chicago asked anyone who believed they might be a victim of the scheme to e-mail the office at usailn.victim.witness@usdoj.gov and include your name, address and phone number.

Or call the toll-free hot line at 866-364-2621.

Hayes said the best way to avoid being duped in such a scam is to use common sense. "Don't wire transfer money to someone you don't know or someone who's not an established retail presence," Hayes said, warning that doing so can leave consumers with little recourse if the person receiving the funds is not on the up and up.

jcoen@tribune.com

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Monday, December 11, 2006

Father, son die in bizarre incident

My my.. What a tragic and senseless accident, I can't bring myself to joke about it.
By Indo Asian News Service

New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) A mentally-challenged man, jumped off his eight-storey apartment Wednesday, only to fall on his son standing below. Both died.

Police said 74-year-old Kailash Chand Garg, a resident of sector 22 of Dwarka in southwest Delhi, bolted his room from inside and went to the terrace. His 47-year-old son Sudhir Garg, went down and pleaded with his father to come down.

But Kailash Chand jumped and fell on Sudhir. The father died on the spot while Sudhir died in the hospital where he was taken for treatment.

Copyright Indo-Asian News Service

Elderly driver leaves road

awh.. being old sounds like fun, I'll have to wait and see. I wish someone had thought to film this.
About a Dozen Hurt After Car Crashes into Restaurant

Dec 11, 2006 06:01 AM

About a dozen people were injured Sunday night after a car plowed into the dining area of an Sshkosh restaurant.

It happened at about 5:45 p.m. at Mr. Cinders restaurant, ocated on 9th Avenue, near Highway 41 in Oshkosh.

Police say the bizarre incident could have been a lot worse.

They say an elderly man was driving a tan Grand Marques north on Washburn Street when he drove off the road and right into the dining area.

On Sunday night, investigators were reconstructing the scene and interviewing witnesses to get a better grasp on how it happened.

Police say the man's granddaughter was in the car with him.

Police say about a dozen people were hurt and brought to Mercy Medical Center.

When officers arrived the driver was conscious and alert, but his exact condition was not available.

People around town say Mr. Cinders restaurant is a popular establishment, with a very loyal customer base.

But, the restaurant was not very crowded when the crash happened.

Sgt. Steve Weyers of the Oshkosh Police Department said "In just hearing some of the owners that were inside talking, said they think that because the Packers were playing that it may have helped keep the totals down, maybe some of the numbers in the restaurant."

The restaurant owner says he's already talking to construction companines about fixing this place up.

He says he'd like to be back open soon, but a time frame is not known yet.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Iraq in a nutshell

Well, that just about sums it up nicely.
Said Cordesmann: "The U.S. effectively sent a bull in to liberate a china shop, and the Study Group now called upon the U.S. to threaten to remove the bull if the shop doesn't fix the china."