Threat Chaos

Moving on

Richard Stiennon — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:00:23 +0000

I travel a lot. It has been almost ten years since I had a job that was based in the same place I live. Whenever I get a call from friends and family the first question I get is “where are you?” People who have known me for years but do not stay [...]

Judge releases Wikileaks

Richard Stiennon — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:46:15 +0000

All it took was a little representation. That is one trouble with the US legal system. You have to show up to defend yourself. The guys at Wikileaks.org were effecitvely put out of business by aggressive swiss bankers because they did not show up in court. At a federal appeal today in San [...]

Oil field data loss just common theft

Richard Stiennon — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:55:02 +0000

Sighs of relief can be heard coming from Brazil this week as police arrested four men (port security guards) responsible for heisting some computers that had lots of data from the newly discovered mega-oil-patch off the coast of Brazil. Way back when I was an industry analyst I remember fighting the battle against universitites about [...]

Declan on Wikileaks

Richard Stiennon — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:02:53 +0000

The news today is that several free speech advocates are stepping into the fray over Wikileaks. See Declan McCullagh’s coverage. I love his syllogism: [Shutting down Wikileaks is] like Apple not liking CNET News.com’s scoop a few years ago (which it was) about the switch to Intel microprocessors–and then trying to yank our domain [...]

Only 8,700 insecure ftp servers?

Richard Stiennon — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:51:40 +0000

According to ComputerWorld coverage Finjan is publicizing a source in Hong Kong they have discovered that offers to sell access to hacked ftp servers. The idea is that a malware purveyor or phisher would want ftp access with admin credentials so they can quickly and easily upload there wares to the web sites served by [...]

You can keep on asking…

Richard Stiennon — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:55:16 +0000

But you have to ask the right questions. Two senators have sent a letter to 24 US agencies asking them to report on their progress in data protection. This article at Federal Computer Week highlights the woeful state of security compliance at most US agencies. This is great. There can be no change without someone [...]

Pakistan removed from the Internet

Richard Stiennon — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:40:08 +0000

4:30 PM Eastern (US). The telecom company that carries most of Pakistan’s traffic, PCCW, has found it necessary to shut Pakistan off from the Internet while they filter out the malicious routes that a Pakistani ISP, PieNet, announced earlier today. Evidently PieNet took this step to enforce a decree from the Pakistani government that ISP’s [...]

Pakistan declares war on YouTube

Richard Stiennon — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:36:48 +0000

What could at first have been just one of those days on the Internet where some newbie engineer accidentally announces a spurious route and takes out a segment of the network has turned into an international fiasco. But no, Pakastan has ordered all ISP’s to block YouTube. From Yahoo news: ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan has [...]

Pakistan takes out YouTube

Richard Stiennon — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:16:14 +0000

Like I said in a recent post, the Internet is a series of tubes. Sometimes that helps route around malicious legislation and regulators, sometimes it causes big problems. Like today at 2 PM eastern when someone in Pakistan announced a more specific BGP route announcement for the block of IP addresses that YouTube [...]

Get a clue Morocco

Richard Stiennon — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 06:38:03 +0000

Do you ever get the feeling that the people around you are missing out on a major shift in the way the world works? Try explaining lolcats to your grandfather for instance. I feel sorry for the powers that be in Morocco who have sentenced Fouad Mourtada, a guy with a clue, to three [...]