Eagle: Facebook & Yahoo Lose Millions of Passwords
Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, IO Impotency, Military
Stolen Facebook and Yahoo passwords dumped online
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.
“That's certainly something people shouldn't do.”
Criminal botnet
The site containing the passwords was discovered by researchers working for security firm Trustwave.
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.
Mini-Me: $7.25 an Hour? That’s $15,000 a Year – NOT a Living Wage!
01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government
Huh?
$7.25 an hour is not a living wage
By Richard Trumka and Christine Owens
CNN, December 2, 2013
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.
(CNN) — For the first time since the Great Depression, the U.S. Census Bureau tells us, middle-class family incomes have lost ground for more than a decade.
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.
Stephen E. Arnold: Google Letting Us All Down?
Commerce, Corruption, Ineptitude, IO Impotency
Why Google is Letting People Down
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.
Whitney Grace, December 01, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Owl: Corporate Dirty Tricks Against Non-Profits – Hiring Portions of National Security Enterprise Against Activists
07 Other Atrocities, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government
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.”
More:
Corporate espionage undermines democracy
PDF (54 Pages): Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations
Countermeasures:
Chuck Spinney: Patrick Cockburn Interviews Muqtada al-Sadr on Iraq — Toxic Mix of Sectarianism, Incompetent and Corrupt Government, and Interference by US, UK, and Iran
02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 05 Iran, 07 Health, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
The United States bears a moral responsibility for the murderous state of affairs in Iraq, but contemporary American grand strategy has become a self-referencing mix of arrogance, narcissism, and exceptionalism; so it is not surprising that most Americans have dismissed Iraq their minds (as they are now dismissing Afghanistan). Below is an excellent reminder of the situation in Iraq.
Patrick Cockburn, one of the very best journalists now covering conflicts in the Arab World and Central Asia interviews Muqtada al-Sadr, one of the most influential Shia clerics in Iraq and leader of the Mehdi Army, a powerful Shia faction. Sadr is now a member of the Shia dominated Iraqi government, but he is becoming increasingly alienated from its leader, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Sadr argues that a toxic mix of (1) sectarianism, (2) governmental incompetence and corruption, and (3) external interference by the U.S. and U.K. and Iran is plunging Iraq into an ever-deepening state of chaos, with no light at the end of the tunnel. (Note: I inserted a few clarifying comments in red.)
Chuck Spinney
(h/t Antiwar.com)
“The near future of Iraq is dark”
Warning from Muqtada al-Sadr – the Shia cleric whose word is law to millions of his countrymen
In a rare interview at his headquarters in Najaf, he tells Patrick Cockburn of his fears for a nation growing ever more divided on sectarian lines.
The future of Iraq as a united and independent country is endangered by sectarian Shia-Sunni hostility says Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia religious leader whose Mehdi Army militia fought the US and British armies and who remains a powerful figure in Iraqi politics. He warns of the danger that[1] “the Iraqi people will disintegrate, [2] its government will disintegrate, and [3] it will be easy for external powers to control the country”.
In an interview with The Independent in the holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south-west of Baghdad – the first interview Mr Sadr has given face-to-face with a Western journalist for almost 10 years – he expressed pessimism about the immediate prospects for Iraq, saying: “The near future is dark.”
Marcus Aurelius: Marine Corps Commandant “Re-Awakening” Garrison Standards — Deja Vu Post-VN
Corruption, Ineptitude, Military, Officers Call
The Army is talking about a similar program for similar reasons. Army senior leaders feel that 10+ years of operational experience has denied soldiers and leaders essential garrison experiences. Manufacturers of shoe polish, edge dressing, floor wax, floor buffers, and cleaning products, as well as barbers, should have enhanced economic prospects due to these perspicacious decisions.
Corps preparing PR blitz for commandant's garrison ‘reawakening' campaign
By Hope Hodge Seck Staff writer
Army Times, Nov. 27, 2013
The reawakening poster campaign for the United States Marine Corps.
The commandant’s campaign to “reawaken” the Marine Corps will be branded across the service via a promotional poster campaign set to debut soon.
Gen. Jim Amos has called for tighter standards and better behavior among Marines in garrison, appealing to those in leadership positions — especially the service’s noncommissioned officers — to “reawaken the soul of our Corps against an enemy emerging within our ranks.” The posters will be distributed to bases and air stations throughout the world, according to Marine administrative message 607/13, published Nov. 18.
A Marine source sent Marine Corps Times copies of two of the posters, which have been posted in garrison at Okinawa. One features a Marine wounded warrior with prosthetic legs built for running. He’s identified in a caption as Cpl. Anthony McDaniel, a survivor of an improvised explosive device. The caption indicates McDaniel participated in last year’s Marine Corps Trials hosted by the Wounded Warrior Regiment.
Another poster shows rows of Marines in desert combat gear, woodland camouflage, and dress blues looking into the distance.
