Communities of Practice – Page 907 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/01/112013/01/11

Rickard Falkvinge: Nokia (Microsoft) Wire Tapped All of Its Own Encrypted Cell Phones Including Bank Transfer Information

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, IO Impotency, Officers Call

Death Twitches: Nokia Caught Wiretapping Encrypted Traffic from Its Handsets

Nokia, the cellphone manufacturer, has been listening in to all encrypted communications from its handsets. Every connection advertised as secure – banking, social networks, dating, corporate secrets – has been covertly wiretapped by Nokia themselves and decrypted for analysis.

Security researcher Gaurang posted an article on January 5 about some unexpected behavior with their Nokia handset. It would appear that the browser traffic from the handset would get diverted through Nokia’s servers.

Then, a followup article on January 9 dropped the bomb, and the article goes into quite technical detail: It wasn’t enough that Nokia diverted all traffic from its handsets through its own servers, it also decrypted the encrypted traffic, re-encrypting it before passing it on, issuing HTTPS certificates on the fly that the Nokia phone has been instructed to trust as secure.

This means that Nokia has deliberately been wiretapping all traffic that has been advertised as encrypted on Nokia handsets – including but not limited to banking, dating, credit card numbers, and corporate secrets – and looking at your secrets in cleartext.

This means that Nokia puts itself between your bank and you, and presents itself as YourBank, Inc. to your phone. This wouldn’t normally be possible, if it weren’t for the fact that the phone had been specifically designed for this deceptive behavior, by installing a Nokia signing certificate on the phone.

Nokia has confirmed this behavior in correspondence with TechWeek Europe (my highlights):

Read full article.

2013/01/112013/01/11

SmartPlanet: Half of All Food Wasted

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy

Half of all food wasted

By Mark Halper | January 10, 2013

The world throws away up to half of its food according to an alarming report that blames consumers’ fussy preference for cosmetically appealing produce, supermarket promotions that encourage overbuying, and deficient storage, transportation and agricultural practices.

Between 1.2 billion and 2 billion metric tons of food – out of the 4 billion produced annually – never reaches a human stomach, the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers says in Waste Not Want Not – Global Food Waste: Feeding the 9 billion.

“The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering,” says Tim Fox, IME’s head of energy and environment. “This is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population – as well as those in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food.

“The reasons for this situation range from poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage infrastructure through to supermarkets demanding cosmetically perfect foodstuffs and encouraging consumers to overbuy through buy-one-get-one-free offers.”

Continue reading “SmartPlanet: Half of All Food Wasted”

2013/01/112013/01/11

SchwartzReport: Catholic Church Has One Foot in Hell

06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence

SchwartzReport: Three versions of the same story — the Catholic Church is the primary supply, demand, and permissive/dismissive force in pedophelia world-wide.

German Catholic Church Cancels Inquiry

An independent inquiry into sex abuse in the German Catholic Church was supposed to restore faith in the embattled institution. But now the Church has called it off, citing a breakdown in trust with the researchers.

(California) Catholics await release of files identifying abusive clergy

Some documents the Archdiocese must release are memos between top church officials and their attorneys, medical and psychological records, complaints from parents, and even correspondence with the Vatican about accused priests.

Vermont Catholic Church settles abuse cases

Three years after paying more than $20 million to close almost 30 priest misconduct lawsuits, Vermont’s Catholic Church settled a dozen new cases Wednesday just minutes before the first was set for trial.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Catholic Church Has One Foot in Hell”

2013/01/11

SchwartzReport: 1 in 4 US Children on Food Stamps

Corruption, Government

SchwartzReport: I don't know. Maybe it is because today is my birthday, and I woke up this morning and realized I was now 71 years old. Maybe it is because this afternoon, Ronlyn and I, as part of a small group, met with our Representative Rick Larsen, who admitted to us that with 85 teabaggers in the House committed to blocking government it was very possible the 113th Congress would be as bad as the 112th. Or maybe it was those Cat! holic stories people sent me. Whatever the reason this story left me outraged. How is it possible that 25 per cent of American children stand teetering on the edge of hunger? What has happened to us as a people? And why does almost none of this get covered in the corporate media? Why did I find an account of an American report featured only in a British newspaper? And how can any politician defend trying to cut these food programs?

One in four children in America are on food stamps

MailOnline, 9 January 2012

One in four children in the U.S. are on food stamps as participation in the program continues to rise, according to 2011 data from the United States Department of Agriculture and U.S. Census Bureau.

A total of 19.9 million children benefited from the food supplement out of a population of 73.9 million Americans under the age of 18, the Census Bureau estimates in a new report released this week.

Read full story.

2013/01/112013/01/11

NIGHTWATCH: Afghanistan – Panetta Postures, Taliban Waits

08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

Afghanistan: US Defense Secretary Panetta had talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the Pentagon on Thursday. Panetta told the media the two countries were “at the last chapter” in their effort to rebuild Afghanistan's institutions and security. Panetta said, “We've come a long way towards a shared goal of establishing a nation that you and we can be proud of, one that never again becomes a safe haven for terrorism.”

Comment: Panetta was playing to the gallery… or the mainstream American media. The situation in Afghanistan is not so rosy that anyone should be proud or thumping his or her chest or doing a victory lap.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Afghanistan – Panetta Postures, Taliban Waits”

2013/01/102013/01/10

Marcus Aurelius: Pentagon Would Furlough All Civilians Under Revised Sequestration — This Is a Lie Being Told By Mixing Half-Truths and Eschewing Intelligence with Integrity

Corruption, Government, Military

Reading the report, the fine print says sequestration is unlikely to occur.

Pentagon would furlough all civilians under revised sequestration, analyst says

Chalres S. Clark

Government Executive, 9 January 2013

Unless Congress achieves a deal to head off the revised schedule for across-the-board spending cuts, the Defense Department in March will be forced to begin rotating monthly furloughs of all 791,000 of its civilian employees, a prominent budget analyst said on Wednesday.

“This would be a contracting nightmare for DoD because civilian contracting officers would be furloughed for a month,” Todd Harrison, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told reporters.

Using “back of the envelope” calculations interpreting the new American Taxpayer Relief Act, he said the roughly 8.8 percent cut that would kick in under the sequestration penalties would have “a real impact” on the $70 billion a year spent on the civilian workforce — the equivalent of a 15 percent cut over the remaining seven months of the fiscal year.

“There’s no way to avoid it unless Congress changes the law,” Harrison said in releasing a new paper on the impact of the so-called fiscal cliff that projects revised cuts aimed at the Pentagon of about $48 billion in fiscal 2013. “Not all the furloughs would happen at the same time,” he said, but planners should decide soon who would be furloughed in what month and make it public “to help inform public debate so we could make a good decision as a nation on what we are going to do.”

Read full article.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Pentagon Would Furlough All Civilians Under Revised Sequestration — This Is a Lie Being Told By Mixing Half-Truths and Eschewing Intelligence with Integrity”

2013/01/10

Marcus Aurelius: Government Executive Report on Where Congress Stands in the Esimation of the US Public — Like More than Gonorrhea Less Than Root Canals

Cultural Intelligence, Government

14 Terrible Things People Like More Than Congress

By Mark Micheli

Government Executive, January 8, 2013

Here’s your ridiculous poll of the day: Public Policy Polling recently asked people if they had a higher opinion of Congress or a long series of highly unpleasant or unpopular things. As it turns out, people really don’t like Congress. At all.

According to the survey, people prefer root canals and traffic jams to John Boehner and the clown college (no offense to clowns) that is the United States Congress. Below is a sad look at some awful things Americans like more than Congress:

Root canals
NFL Replacement refs
Head lice
Nickelback
Colonoscopies
Washington DC political pundits
Carnies
Traffic Jams
Cockroaches
Donald Trump
France
Genghis Khan
Used-car salesmen
Brussels Sprouts

But it’s not all bad news for Congress. Here are a few things Congress is more popular than:

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Government Executive Report on Where Congress Stands in the Esimation of the US Public — Like More than Gonorrhea Less Than Root Canals”