The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Huh?
The US Is Hosting A Giant Military Yard Sale In Afghanistan
It is a January sale with a difference. The American military is auctioning off millions of pounds of tankers, accommodation blocks, tents, generators and other “white goods” in Afghanistan ahead of next year’s deadline for the end of combat operations.
In a tender document published on Friday, buyers are invited to offer a percentage of the equipment’s original value by January 10 when sealed bids will be opened.
Huh?
Researchers Break RSA 4096 Encryption With Just A Microphone And A Couple Of Emails
As if it wasn’t enough that the NSA paid RSA $10 million to adopt an algorithm that wasn’t entirely secure, researchers have now demonstrated that they can break even RSA 4096 bit encryption with little more than a few emails and a microphone. And that microphone can indeed just be one in a smartphone sitting on the desk.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science discovered that they could steal even the largest, most secure RSA 4,096-bit encryption keys simply by listening to a laptop as it decrypts data.
To accomplish the trick, the researchers used a microphone to record the noises made by the computer, then ran that audio through filters to isolate the vibrations made by the electronic internals during the decryption process. With that accomplished, some cryptanalysis revealed the encryption key in around an hour.
Well, no, pace Engadget it is a little more complex than that. You can’t just listen to a computer and break the algos just like that.
Below, Seumas Milne well summarizes the calamitous results of our misbegotten GWOT* crusades in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The result is not pretty, but that is hardly surprising.
While Milne's call for accountability applies to the British contribution to the GWOT, it bespeaks volumes for the United States — a country that prides itself on its Constitutional system of Checks and Balances. Our self-referencing image begs the question: Given our sorry performance in the GWOT, what kind of checks in balances have been put into play on Capital Hill? Who in America is being held accountable for this debacle?
Certainly not the Pentagon or the Military-Industrial-
That is because the GWOT disaster has a golden lining — at least for some — it ratcheted up the cash flowing into the MICC to record levels, and more importantly, the long duration of GWOT provided time need by the MICC to weave its social safety net more deeply into our political economy via the time honored expedient of politically engineering the flow of dollars, jobs, and profits to virtually every congressional district in the United States and, let us not forget, Puerto Rico. Traditionally, political engineering has been the province of major weapons procurement, like the F-35; but the massive shift to privatization in the Pentagon's the Operations and Maintenance budget quietly opened a cornucopia of new political engineering opportunities for insinuation into heretofore unexploited fiscal regions, making the GWOT the gift that will keep on giving — at least until Obama's pivot to Asia solidifies a sufficiently solid budgetary foundation for a new Cold War.
DNI Directive on Supply Chain Risk Management
Because the Intelligence Community utilizes commercial products including those that may be manufactured abroad, it could be vulnerable to threat or compromise through its supply chain. Intelligence Community Directive 731 issued by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on December 7 establishes IC policy on “Supply Chain Risk Management.”
“Many IC mission-critical products, materials, and services come from supply chains that interface with or operate in a global marketplace. A greater understanding of the risks inherent in the IC's participation in the global market place is crucial to safeguarding our nation's intelligence sources, methods, and activities,” the Directive said.
“Supply chain risk management is the management of risk to the integrity, trustworthiness, and authenticity of products and services within the supply chain.”
Continue reading “DNI Directive on Supply Chain Risk Management”
I am not an Obama fan, as anyone who reads SR regularly knows. I find the disconnect between the soaring language in his speeches and the reality of how his Executive Branch operates — an issue distinct from the problems of his having to deal with a corrupt Theocratic Rightist House — very alarming. Two of the most disturbing aspects are the rise of the Orwelli! an surveillance under Obama's Administration, and, concurrently, the suppression of freedom of the press. A democracy without a free aggressive press very quickly ceases to be a democracy. History is quite clear on this. Here is an excellent essay on the relevant issues. This special report originally appeared on the Committee to Protect Journalists website, and is reprinted here with their permission.
“This is the Most Closed, Control Freak Administration I've Ever Cover”
LEONARD DOWNIE and SARA RAFSKY – AlterNet (U.S.)
EXTRACT:
This report will examine all these issues: legal policies of the Obama administration that disrupt relationships between journalists and government sources; the surveillance programs that cast doubt on journalists’ ability to protect those sources; restrictive practices for disclosing information that make it more difficult to hold the government accountable for its actions and decision-making; and manipulative use of administration-controlled media to circumvent scrutiny by the press.
NSA Spies, Brazil Shuns Boeing, Selects Saab
Saab wins Brazil jets deal after NSA spying sours Boeing bid
Until earlier this year, Boeing had been considered the frontrunner for the purchase. But revelations of spying by the U.S. National Security Agency in Brazil, including the personal telephone calls and emails of President Dilma Rousseff herself, led Brazil to believe that it could not trust a U.S. company.
The revelations by Edward Snowden triggered an immediate exit from U.S. hosted service providers, then a rapid decline in the prospects for U.S. communications equipment vendors, and Boeing just lost a $4.5 billion dollar sale to Sweden’s Saab. Instead of the F/A-18 Hornet the JAS-39 Gripen will grace the skies of South America’s regional power.
Don't kill the Leaker, Kill the Leaker's Information
The particularly nasty end of the spear of IC clandestine services, the part that kills people, may be out of a big part of their job thanks to technology, in the light of the terrifying but deeply interesting article by Peter Van Buren. They don't don't have to kill Snowden or any other whistle blower who leaks information critical for the public to know. They just have to get Google and others to automate the deletion and deep-sixing of any new or old leaked information: don't kill the leaker, kill the leaker's information.
“What if Edward Snowden was made to disappear? No, I’m not suggesting some future CIA rendition effort or a who-killed-Snowden conspiracy theory of a disappearance, but a more ominous kind.What if everything a whistleblower had ever exposed could simply be made to go away? What if every National Security Agency (NSA) document Snowden released, every interview he gave, every documented trace of a national security state careening out of control could be made to disappear in real-time? What if the very posting of such revelations could be turned into a fruitless, record-less endeavor?”
Some examples of what he is talking about:
