The database included details from many of the most popular social networks
More than two million stolen passwords used for sites such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo and other web services have been posted online.
The details had probably been uploaded by a criminal gang, security experts said.
It is suspected the data was taken from computers infected with malicious software that logged key presses.
It is not known how old the details are – but the experts warned that even out-dated information posed a risk.
“We don't know how many of these details still work,” said security researcher Graham Cluley. “But we know that 30-40% of people use the same passwords on different websites.
In a blog post outlining its findings, the team said it believed the passwords had been harvested by a large botnet – dubbed Pony – that had scooped up information from thousands of infected computers worldwide.
The latest report from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community provides an updated (and largely redacted) snapshot of the IG's investigative agenda.
During the nine-month period from July 2012 to March 2013, the IC IG internal hotline received 70 contacts or complaints from intelligence agency personnel, as well as 77 contacts from the general public.
Investigators conducted 75 investigations revealing some occasionally creative forms of misconduct. In one case, an ODNI employee “was operating a personal website on Government time using Government systems through which he solicited and received donations.” Another ODNI employee “attempted to improperly obtain a security clearance for a private citizen through the use of a no-cost contract.”
Three cases of suspected unauthorized disclosures were closed when they were found to be unsubstantiated. Two investigations of unauthorized disclosures remained open as of March 31.
Last month, IC Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III told Congress that his office could not perform an investigation of NSA surveillance programs because it lacked the resources to do so.
“While my office has the jurisdiction to conduct an IC-wide review of all IC elements using these authorities,” Mr. McCullough wrote in a November 5 letter to Senator Leahy and others, “such a review will implicate ongoing oversight efforts. Therefore, I have been conferring with several IC Inspectors General Forum members in order to consider how such a review might be accomplished given the potential impact to IG resources and ongoing projects.”
Editor's note: Richard Trumka is president of the AFL-CIO. Christine Owens is executive director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for lower-wage workers.
The sad truth is that the rewards for productivity and hard work such as health care coverage, retirement security, opportunity — rewards that used to make America's workers “middle class” — are on the rocks.
All the wage increases over the past 15 years have gone to the wealthiest 10%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. All of them. And almost all, 95%, of the income gains from 2009 to 2012, the first three years of recovery from the Great Recession, went to the very richest 1%.
Something else has happened, too. The bottom has fallen out of America's wage floor. And the erosion of the minimum wage has lowered pay and working standards for all of us.
Is the effort to know and understand what is happening in this huge, complex world just too much to squeeze into the day? Lifehacker points us to another concession to the modern reader in, “Circa News Dishes Out Bite-Sized News Bits to Keep You up to Date.” The app, available for both iPhones and Android-based devices, lets users quickly catch up with news stories they are interested in. Well, the broad strokes, anyway. Writer Thorin Klosowski summarizes:
“Circa is a curated list of news on a variety of topics. It has its own editorial team that uses a wide variety of sources, and those sources are collated into very quick, short news bits with just the essential facts, quotes, or photos about each topic. If you find a story interesting, you can click the follow button and Circa will point you to new information when it’s available. It’s by no means enough information for serious news junkies, but if you’re looking to keep up with what’s happening in the world while waiting in line for a cup of coffee, Circa News is a worth a look.”
I see how this can have its uses. I just hope users will, when they have a little more time and attention, turn to the more comprehensive articles on their subjects of interest. After all, most folks realize that there is more to every story than can be absorbed while waiting for a latte to be prepared. Right?
Some people might say that Google abandons and starts projects on a whim. In the past, the search giant makes provided explanations for projects that could not be completed and promises they were unable to keep. But has the abandonment mentality and prideful hot hair stopped this habit? Marketing Land’s Danny Sullivan further explores this question in, “Google’s Broken Promises And Who’s Running The Search Engine?”
What promises has Google broken? Google Shopping was supposed to index prices of items across the Web, but it only displays results from paying vendors. Google once fought against shopping search engines that only included shopping results, but not the company claims that is the only way to get viable information.
Google also promised it would keep its searches banner free. Guess what they are doing now? Google stated that they are only conducting a US banner tests to allow advertisers to add images to relevant search queries.
Why Google is doing this may be that the company has had to adapt, but it goes against Google’s original philosophy:
“You’d think they caused some internal debate. Was there anyone at Google saying that if giant graphical units at the top of search results are useful to searchers, then maybe Google should be offering those for free, to ensure a consistent experience for those searchers? Was there anyone at Google saying that maybe a shift to paid inclusion was a bad move for shopping and other search products, because it opens up every search product to that possibility?”
Google is not sharing explanations with the public, however. In my opinion, the root of the problem is that no one is officially assigned to run search products. The company is instead focusing on other areas and neglecting its star. What is even worse is that the fuzzy management holds no one accountable for the broken promises. Google’s main search focus is making money and not providing accurate results.
Since Google is the biggest search player, what does this mean for other search components like SEO? Will paid results dwarf SEO? It also begs the question if SEO focuses on search? Money makes the world go around I guess.
Article below appears in today's WaPo. Certainly a controversial issue, but one that should not be dismissed out of hand without a deliberate consideration of issues such as following:
What would be the official purpose of conscription?
What would we ((DO)) with all those people if we had them? Do we have a bunch of simple, shovel-ready projects standing by, awaiting manpower? Do we have enough unpopulated areas in the Nation to support another Civilian Conservation Corps?
Generally speaking, military professionals don't want to deal with conscripts.
What would be the associated financial costs in each of the major force programs?
Where would the money come from? What money would be reprogrammed? Would tax increases be required?
Would draftee pay and benefits be same as volunteers?
Do we want to put DoD in a domestic societal reclamation role?
Do we waive military entry standards to facilitate conscription? Currently, only about 25% of military-age cohort can qualify due to intelligence, derogatory personal information, obesity, physical unfitness, attention deficit disorder, and other causes.
Do we have adequate remaining base structure to accommodate draftees?
What would be the positive and negative impacts on readiness of the Joint Force to conduct global full spectrum operations?
How would we accommodate acquisition of essential professionals such as physicians, lawyers, etc? Temporary deferments followed by conscription into commissioned ranks?
Are we prepared to socially and legally stigmatize a significant fraction on the population with adverse discharges, particularly in the early years, since many of today's military cohort would likely prove unable or unwilling to meet military standards of performance and conduct?
If, after coming to terms with considerations such as those I list above, the Nation were to decide we want to try grand experiment, I propose tasking the Marine Corps to provide the “common core general military subjects” portion of all Services' Initial Entry Training programs. No rose gardens, just making men and women of Johnnie and Janie, fixing what Mommy, Daddy and the American education system failed to accomplish in 18 or so years.
At this time of Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for the U.S. military — not just for the usual reason that it protects us from our foes but also because it has the potential to save us from ourselves.
As I make my rounds each day in the capital, chronicling our leaders’ plentiful foibles, failings, screw-ups, inanities, outrages and overall dysfunction, I’m often asked if there’s anything that could clean up the mess.
My usual answer is a shrug and an admission that there’s no silver bullet. There are many possibilities — campaign spending limits, term limits, nonpartisan primaries, nonpartisan redistricting, a third party — but most aren’t politically or legally feasible, might not make much of a difference or, as with Harry Reid’s rewriting of Senate rules, have the potential to make things even worse.
But one change, over time, could reverse the problems that have built up over the past few decades: We should mandate military service for all Americans, men and women alike, when they turn 18. The idea is radical, unlikely and impractical — but it just might work.
New Report Supplying Details on Corporate Espionage – Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations
From this report's contents, we find it evident that no type of nonprofit, no matter how benign or noble in its aims against injustice and wrong – even nursing home activists! – is exempt from spying by aggressive, malign predator corporations and their spies. Where spies go first, soldiers follow, so we wonder when the next stage will arrive, when corporations decide to execute and assassinate the leaders and members – and their families – in nonprofits and bomb or burn their headquarters and meeting places. Will Obama draw a line in the dirt then, or ignore it, and will this then all get much dirtier than even Ralph Nader below says?
According to Nader (my emphasis below):
“It’s not just the NSA that has been caught spying on Americans. Some of our nation’s largest corporations have been conducting espionage as well, against civic groups. For these big companies with pliable ethics, if they don’t win political conflicts with campaign donations or lobbying power, then they play dirty. Very dirty. That’s the lesson of a new report on corporate espionage against nonprofit organizations, by my colleagues at Essential Information. The title of the report is Spooky Business, and it is apt. Spooky Business is like a Canterbury Tales of corporate snoopery. The spy narratives in the report are lurid and gripping. Hiring investigators to pose as volunteers and journalists. Hacking. Wiretapping. Information warfare. Physical intrusion. Investigating the private lives of nonprofit leaders. Dumpster diving using an active duty police officer to gain access to trash receptacles. Electronic surveillance. On and on. What won’t corporations do in service of profit and power?
Many different types of nonprofit civic organizations have been targeted by corporate spies: environmental, public interest, consumer, food safety, animal rights, pesticide reform, nursing home reform, gun control and social justice. A diverse constellation of corporations has planned or executed corporate espionage against these nonprofit civic organizations. Food companies like Kraft, Coca-Cola, Burger King, McDonald’s and Monsanto. Oil companies like Shell, BP and Chevron. Chemical companies like Dow and Sasol. Also involved are the retailers (Wal-Mart), banks (Bank of America), and, of course, the nation’s most powerful trade association: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Plenty of mercenary spooks have joined up to abet them, including former officials at the FBI, CIA, NSA, Secret Service and U.S. military. Sometimes even government contractors are part of the snooping.
In effect, big corporations have been able to hire portions of the national security apparatus, and train their tools of spycraft on the citizens groups of our nation. This does not bode well for our democracy.”
