Posts by thedailyjournalist:
- DNI Negroponte 2006 Hepting State Secrets Declaration (798KB)
- DNI Negroponte 2006 Hepting Supplemental State Secrets Declaration (111KB)
- DNI McConnell 2007 MCI & Hepting State Secrets Declaration (763KB)
- DNI Clapper 2013 Jewel/Shubert State Secrets Declaration (1.3MB)
- NSA Alexander 2006 Hepting Declaration (1.2MB)
- NSA Black 2006 Hepting Declaration (81KB)
- NSA Alexander 2007 MCI & Verizon Declaration (1.2MB)
- NSA Fleisch 2013 Jewel/Shubert Declaration (1.9MB)
- NSA Shea 2014 Jewel/First Unitarian Declaration (626KB)
- AG Mukasey 2008 Declaration (1.0MB)
- Recon
- Lure
- Redirect
- Exploit Kit
- Dropper File
- Call Home
- Data Theft
NSA face and email strategies
June 1st, 2014
By The Daily Journalist.
Click to see documents: NSA email and NSA Face
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Privacy versus government surveillance: Where network effects meet public choice
June 1st, 2014
By Ross Anderson.
To read report click here: Privacy versus government surveillance: Where network effects meet public choice
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Credit Suisse and the IRS settle dispute
May 26th, 2014
By The Daily Journalist.
Click to read report: Credit Suisse and the IRS settle dispute
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Carnegie Mellon, Microsoft research automate privacy compliance for big data
May 21st, 2014
By the National Science Fundation.
Advertisement for dial telephone service available to delegates to the 1912 Republican convention in Chicago. A major selling point of dial telephone service was that it was “secret”, in that no operator was required to connect the call.
The researchers developed a prototype automated system that is now running on the data analytics pipeline of Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. According to Saikat Guha, researcher at Microsoft, it’s the first time automated privacy compliance analysis has been applied to the production code of an Internet-scale system and is a reflection of Microsoft’s commitment to creating the technology necessary to further safeguard the privacy of customers.
Employing a new, lawyer-friendly language to specify privacy policies and using a data inventory to annotate existing programs, the researchers showed that a team of just five people could manage a daily compliance check on millions of lines of code written by several thousand developers.
They presented their research findings at the 35th IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy, May 18-21, in San Jose, Calif.
“Companies in the United States have a legal obligation to declare how they use personal information they gather and it’s also good business to establish a bond of trust with customers,” said Anupam Datta, associate professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering. “But these systems are constantly evolving and their scale can be daunting. The manual methods typically used for checking compliance are labor intensive, yet too often fail to catch all violations of policy.”
“Tens of millions of lines of code are already in the pipeline,” noted Shayak Sen, a Ph.D. student in computer science who interned at Microsoft Research India and the lead student author on the study. “And during our implementation on Bing, we found that more than 20 percent of the code was changing on a daily basis.” At these large scales, automated methods offer the best hope of verifying compliance.
“One reason that gaps exist between policies set by a company’s privacy team and the code written by software developers is that the two groups don’t speak the same language,” Datta said. Lawyers and privacy champions typically have little experience in programming and developers attempting to translate policies into code can get tripped up by ambiguities in the language of the privacy policies.
So the researchers developed a language – Legalease – that could be easily learned and used by privacy advocates. It employs allow-deny rules with exceptions, a structure that is found in many privacy policies and laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and is expressive enough to capture the real policies of an industrial-scale system such as Bing.
In preliminary usability testing, a dozen Microsoft employees were given a one-page document explaining Legalease and spent an average of under 5 minutes studying it. They then took an average of less than 15 minutes to encode nine Bing policy clauses regarding how user information can be used. “They were able to perform this task with a high degree of accuracy, which is encouraging,” Sen said.
But encoding privacy policies correctly means little if it cannot be applied to large codebases written by large teams of programmers. To solve this dilemma, the researchers leveraged Grok – a data inventory that annotates existing programs written in languages typically employed by MapReduce-like systems, such as those used by Bing and Google – for their backend data analytics over user data.
Grok performs this automated annotation by combining information from different sources with varying levels of confidence. For instance, automated pattern-matching to column names can be performed across an entire database, but with low confidence, while annotations by developers have high confidence, but low coverage.
Grok had been developed by Microsoft Research and deployed by Bing for the express purpose of automating privacy compliance checking the previous year, but writing policies for Grok was cumbersome.
“Legalease was the final piece of the automated privacy compliance jigsaw puzzle,” Guha said. “Developed over Sen’s internship and subsequent collaboration with CMU, Legalease bridged privacy teams with Grok, and through Grok, with the developers.”
Datta said automating the process of compliance checks could push the industry to adopt stronger privacy protection policies.
“Sometimes, companies want to make their policies stronger, but hesitate because they are not sure they can ensure compliance in these large systems,” he explained, noting that online privacy policy compliance is enforced in the United States by the Federal Trade Commission.
The research team included Sriram K. Rajamani of Microsoft Research in Bangalore, India; Janice Tsai of Microsoft Research, Redmond, and Jeannette Wing, corporate vice president of Microsoft Research and former head of CMU’s Computer Science Department.
This research was supported, in part, by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation.
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China vs Russia the alternative future war?
May 20th, 2014
Contributor Opinion.
Vladimir Putin’s most recent move in Eastern Ukraine has sound the alarms in Rumania and other eastern European countries, that don’t like what they observe from Russia. But Russia’s creation of the Euro Asian Union, might not welcome good news for China, as expanding eastward of Turkey into the orient could eventually collide with China’s strategical and territorial interest. Most military analyst fear a war between the US and Russia or the US with China, but China (in my opinion) is way too dependent on the US dollar to not remain financially stable.
China and Russia are ‘quote’ regional allies that once upon a time shared the same communist bounds. But studying the history of the region, a few question come into mind. Few analyst forget that China and Russia engaged in 1969 on the Sino-soviet conflict because of border tensions. In fact, they also disputed the Zhembao Islands and the Kuril Islands, just as China today demands the Sensaku Islands from Japan.
The Uygur feel more identified with Siberia, than China. Pakistan is the ally of Russia, but Pakistan does not really get along with China. India is friends with China because of trade, but since it’s also a US ally, the country does not really get along with Russia. Pakistan and India have regional tensions, but could get many other countries involved into a bigger conflict.
Here we observe possible conflicts from China and Russia if they ever decided to regain more territory violating western treaties, especially if China ever expands west. Here is the question.
1) China and Russia, do they ‘really’ get ‘along’? Do they fear each other?
2) If you look at both countries and their military power, would it be reasonable to assume that if one or both decided to expand (like in the case of Russia) could they potentially collide in a war considering certain regions border each other’s country?
3) Is there a higher and less observed risk in predicting a future war between China and Russia, than the US?
‘4) What could potentially trigger a war between China and Russia, considering they have a lot of interests in South Asia, Central Asia, South East Asia, and the Middle East?
Jose Luis Chalhoub Naffah.
“Well regarding your interesting questions, Russia and China apart from having differences on border and geopolitical issues such as the Uighur and Islamic extremism on what could spill and inflame Russian borders from China’s soil, act differently from the cold war era.
Both countries entice now, in a love hate relationship which has become their common counterbalance goal towards the US. China is less ostensibly and aggressive in its global ambition for power as opposed to Russia that feels threatened by Washington on its boders.
One main point in common in the Sino-Russian relationship is energy. Russia has all the oil and gas China needs, both are geographical contiguous and close, both are members of a common geopolitical bloc such as the Shanghai Organization and the BRICS.
That gives us the idea, of at least a very close mutual interest relationship, asymmetrically different than the one between Washington- Beijing or Washington-Moscow.
Regarding a possible confrontation, my thought goes directly to Central Asia’s former belongings, to the so called Near Abroad for Russia now aggressively courted by Beijing in terms of energy alliances and business.
But in my point of view Russia and China are the two most important pivot states in the Euro Asian landmass leading the bipolar world currently on the making process.
If they are seriously planning to reach a point where they can establish, and even an alter system of world currency different than the dollar, then confrontation at least in the short term is totally discarded.
The term of this could be contention and balance. Both countries have strength on the military field, so as far as I can see there wont be a confrontation between Moscow and Beijing unless provoked by the White House on a already known divide and conquer strategy.”
Mr. Iván Gómez.
(Spanish-born political risk analyst, freelance researcher and writer. has been appointed to high responsibility positions in several multinational corporations such as the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ and Zurich Insurance.)
“1) China and Russia are two huge emerging powers at the begining of the 21st century with both making their way through in boosting themselves as very relevant geopolitical powers.
On one side, it is true that Putin’s Russia and China are not liberal democracies and, therefore, are limited in checks and balances that liberal democracies feature, and that help to contend warfare solutions. It is also true that both military clouts are huge and on the rise and already present a potential risk for neighboring countries.
However, on the other hand, Russia and China has just signed a gas pipeline contract for 30 years which means a great deal for both parties; while Russia can expand commercially eastwardly servicing one of the biggest demands of gas in the world and making lots of money (getting richer). China, on its side, meets the offer of a less pollutant energy source in their desperate efforts to substitute the highly pollutant energy source that it currently uses (coal) that is already taking a toll on Chinese environmental issues. (especially in cities).
The point is that they no longer compete, unlike in the 20th century, for developmental resources in the sense of controlling one territory bearing in mind the potential of that territory to become an industrial site.
Both countries compete in the 21st century for the control of natural resources. And, in this case, I assume that commerce triumphs over other expansionist adventures of Russia or China. It makes no sense to disturb current political boundaries that were “revised” as early as in 2008 by both countries.
Despite all this, they don’t have any reason to fear each other further than the observance of both routinary military operations that both countries might exercise together or separately. Good examples of this military cooperation is as old as 2005 and framed within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and several other bilateral operations that have taken place in 2012.
2) The military power of both countries is immense. China provides to its military more troops than Russia does, but, technologically speaking, both countries are very well endowed to control the Eurasia region themselves and share the cake themselves too.
It is very unlikely that both countries confront each other over borders disputes: First, because, by behaving like that have lots to loose in terms of economic and commercial issues in the current era when governments, not even the most autocratic ones, follow economic and commercial issues more than specific ideologies.
Russia is currently undertaking a “controlled” expansionism which circumscribes within the USSR former satellite states and is only affecting Eastern Europe. I don’t see any move towards Central Eurasia nor to the Pacific.
3) A risk of war between Russia and China today is nearly negligible. It is more likely that the “still” hegemon, the United States is sooner or later draged into deffend NATO allies in Europe or Japan in the Pacific or the middle East. China and Russia keep a strong diplomatic axis in most geopolitical debates such as that of Syria.
4) I do not consider such possibility in the short-to-mid-term.”
Allen Schmertzler.
(He is an award winning and published political artist specializing in figurative, narrative and caricatured interpretations of current events.)
“The 21st century is hardly developed to the point that war is anything but eminent. What kind of war/s and how do parties not directly bordered react becomes the more pressing issue. I do not believe the United States is up for another war soon, and certainly not with a superpower. The U.S. is having a love affair with playing military surgeon.
That is, using drones or agents living in the underbelly to agitate, organize, or directly strike with a surgeon’s approach to take out individuals or pockets of militarized groupings desirous and capable enough to make trouble and hurt U.S. interests. This resembles the policing under former New York Mayor Giuliani, a zero tolerance broken windows strategy. The U.S. will not directly engage in war with Russia or China unless the world enters the worst scenario of world war engagement.
That being said, there is every reason to believe that localized regional conflicts will continue. India and Pakistan are too heavily equipped with nuclear weapons to cross that red line of doom, but very likely brinkmanship games of small border and land claim altercations that fleck muscle and can serve to keep inside oppositional threats of leadership at bay during “national crises” will game on. This is also likely to play out similarly with Russia and China.
Russia is no longer a big global player or military threat. China can and will kick the vodka out of Russia. But for sure, a bear poked, a bear provoked, a bear hungry, can and will calculate the win versus the loss of regional geopolitics. We have already seen how clever and wanton Putin can be. Small land grabs without provoking major military retribution will continue around regional hot spots. The ebb and flow of power, perceived power, availability of cherished resources, energy and star power will egg on those desirous to fill available and or a perceived vacuum of power.
There currently are enough warning signs in the global arena for concern and careful treading that a war can engulf a weary world. The world is absorbing negatives of unemployment rates, millions of youth around the globe with feelings of nihilism, masses with a sense of disaffection over the failed promises of a greater economic future with the Euro, accelerated and heightened passions of ethnic pride, nationalism, regionalism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, jingoism, and competitiveness over resources, energy, and a dynamic changing climatic uncertainty threatening lifestyles and densely populated coastal areas is more than enough to trigger a war.
Reading history, we can see a repeat of conditions that fueled previous world wars. All the ducks are aligned. Only if the greater loss is perceived to be greater than the greater gain will somewhat prosperous nations abandon playing the global community role. Developing and de-evolving nations are completely unpredictable regarding what they are willing to do. When the consequences are no worse than the reality why would the global community expect a commitment of peaceful status quo.
We are early into this new century but the global realignments are very much at play. That in of itself can spark nations to throw elbows. China may just believe its time has arrived to sit on The Game Of Thrones. Their long game must include re-incorporating Taiwan. Can that occur without global convulsions that rip long standing alignments? Will Russia quench its thirst to reclaim world player without absorbing previous satellite nations?”
Aditya Pandey.
(Working part-time as an activist for PETA in Bhopal. Also involved in social upliftment through innovation by being a part of UNICEF.)
“I think by asking such questions, you are extrapolating the situation into unreal boundaries. You are building your argument based on a false assumption that Russia is the sole architect of Ukraine Crisis. We need to dig deeper to understand the crisis. First, we need to understand that the ground situation is quite different from what has been projected by the Western media. Not everything being shown is true.
Secondly, military analysts who are conjuring up the idea of a war between Russia and the U.S are no more than fanning the spark caused by EU and United States’ flawed foreign policy, aimed at isolating Russia by attracting Ukraine into its’ orbit.
Talking about a war between China and Russia reflects naivete on your part. Their interests are highly uncorrelated. Moreover, China has always patiently lend its’ ears to Russia. It’s ironical that U.S, the master of expansionist policies, frets Russia and China’s expansionist plans. It seems U.S wants to establish monopoly in this field too.
Although, in South East Asia, China has tried to use its’ military as a conduit to represent its’ dominance and aggression, Russia has not displayed any interest in these regions. India is a key ally and one of the largest defense partner of Russia.”
AndreVltchek.
(Novelist, filmmaker, investigative journalist, poet, playwright, and photographer, Andre has covered dozens of war zones and conflicts from Bosnia and Peru to Sri Lanka, DR Congo and Timor Leste.)
“1) Of course they get alone very well and they do not fear each other. Both powerful nations fear only one thing: Western imperialism and its final assault on our planet. This assault is taking place right now. Both countries suffered numerous attacks from the West. China was colonized and plundered.
Russia lost some 30 million people in one single century, being attacked by German Nazis, by the US and UK forces right after the Great October Revolution, and during the WWI, to name just a few European and the US atrocities.
China, Russia and many countries of Latin America are now forming great front, great opposition to the Western Fascism.
2) First of all, Russia is not ‘expanding’. Let us not use the language of Western regime and its propaganda, at least here, on the pages of journalist forum. Don’t we, at lest most of us, know, what is really going on?
Of course the West and its client states (including Georgia and Philippines, but also Japan) are doing all they can to ‘divide and rule’ the coalition that I described above.
However, this time there is very little chance that two allies would fight against each other. All their small disagreements are nothing compared to a horror that is being spread by Western regime all over the world. It is clear to those in Beijing and Moscow.
3) Definitely not. The US is antagonizing all independent/free nations of the world. The West is provoking China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, just to mention few nations. China and Russia are two peaceful countries. But they will not tolerate aggressions.
They will defend themselves and hopefully, defend each other. Russia was attacked by the West again and again, and it always managed to defeat invaders. As the old saying goes: “Those who will come to Russia with a sword, will die from a sword!” China and Russia will never attack each other. They know perfectly well who their real enemies are. As they know it all over Latin America and increasingly, all over Africa.
4) Absolutely nothing. Hypothetically, only if Western manipulations and propaganda and intrigues could succeed. But I don’t think at this point there is much chance that it would happen.”
Shermineh Salehi Esmati.
(Specializing in Political Science and History with a focus on International Affairs. Her most recent experience researching was for the International Center on Human Rights.)
“In my observation it appears as though China would have great interest in increasing investment into Iran once the negotiations have finished.
I do sense that Russia and China will have a military conflict in the future concerning energy.
My hope is that Iran will have a liberal democratic government at this point when Russia threatens China so that Tehran can appropriately support its ancient Asian ally.”
Themistocles Konstantinou.
(Present Military data Analyst. Hellenic National Defense General Staff, Athens Greece.University degree on European studies EQF level 6.)
“With the situation nowadays, I can assure you that either Russia or China don’t want to become enemies at all.
The last month they had common naval drills and they shared their experiences. I believe that the disputed areas will be “disputed” for a long time.
Secondly the Russian foreign policy is only focused against NATO. Personally, I believe that the “GAME” is in the energy field and not in the sphere of military.
Military actions are the “key” and not the result. I cannot say more, but as far as I know, nobody is able to be sure about Russia’s next move.
Vladimir Putin focus is now in Ukraine, China and possibly other nations. The Middle East is another problem. I have issued the problem of Syria in the past with a special article http://thedailyjournalist.com/theinvestigative/is-syria-the-end-of-the-game/
On the other hand nobody is able to be sure about Ukraine’s situation. The only thing that could possibly happen, is another “cold-war” between Russia and West, nothing more….”
Frank Palatnick.
(Frank’s educational and personal philosophy includes empathy,compassion and humanism. was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2008 for ” networking global education administrators in order to understand other countries, cultures and specifically studentsin order to create a pathway to a sustained peace .“)
Jaime Ortega
“First, most analyst fail to understand the inner clockwork on how these two countries function when discarding a possible confrontation. Before jumping into any conclusions, we must understand these two are unstable giants that depend on others to subsist as an economy, which interest can and will fluctuate to any direction on any given point in time.
The Russian political system is one of the more recent to embrace democracy but remains deeply flawed in terms of its democratic credentials, overwhelmingly tainted by corruption, and massively influenced by the power and personality of one man, Vladimir Putin. I would not trust a country nor a leader, that kills and prosecutes its own journalist and shows only financial growth in one tinny section in Moscow leaving 90% poverty on float.
China has become the mixture of two separate ideals, the communistic-capitalist run government controlled by the People’s Republic of China and the CPC. Yes, they allow growth for the private Chinese sector (nothing different from the Oligarchs which represent 1%, and control Russia’s brute wealth), but just alike Moscow, 80% of China’s funding goes directly to their military growth. The Chinese private sector has grown significantly better than its Russian counterpart, but still a flawed democracy.
Russia’s economy depends on the Energy the Europeans consume, whereas China depends on the U.S. resource industry to keep their high manufacturer ratio stable. Only China alike India invests money, on East African soil to secure agricultural productivity, since farmers all across china suffer from the insecticides that have exterminated a significant percentage of the ‘bee’ population in villages across the country.
One underestimated factor, is that China needs to desperately expand their agricultural resources given the increasing population growth. China is not adequately stable, it needs more fertile lands which is why Eastern Africa is for now a viable option. But proximity plays a major problem, so China in the near future has to propose other possible alternatives to keep strong.
To expand east means a possible confrontation with Taiwan, Japan, Philippines and other U.S. and western allies. Going south would be a viable option, but again stepping inside U.S. friendships. Expand North to Mongolia and Russia, or try westward.
There is a lot of fertile lands in countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan which are NOT been used… Analyst do not take into account that China has already considered such moves. These countries, also seek financial prosperity. Would they be better off with China or Russia’s influence? One offers energy, the other offers better industrial capital and overall financial growth backed by the U.S. dollar.
Russia on the other hand, cannot expand west without military and financial confrontations. Russia’s only option is to go east and create a union of member states that will help the ruble grow.
China and Russia are unfortunately interlocked in the future on a “must move” situation if they want to expand their regional power, and transform it into a U.S. like country with global financial governance.
Both share similar strategic plans. Both spend 70-80% to keep a strong regional military. Both depend on other players to subsist and keep their economies strong to fund military developments. Both admire globalization and share anti-western ideals and are not believers in NATO, despite what some analyst want to believe. They both have expansive mindsets, and that makes for a problematic and uncertain future on the eyes of border nations.
The problem for both countries is that necessity holds the two beast chained. As of today, the US military apparatus is the key that holds both beast chained on a pole.
We have to understand both countries already had conflict in the past, during the Sino-soviet war as a show off, for regional dominance. Yes, they respect each other as of today because they both share the same enemy, the west. But that does not mean both countries would “NOT” conflict on interest in parts of central Asia or oil supplies down in the Middle East.
Let’s not forget the word “friends” has become a diplomatic mirage of uncertainty, rather than an actual term for friendship. Putin and the EU became synergistic partners not long ago to help each other, to exchange energy for financial benefits. The EU has now given Russia financial sanctions that the Oligarchs have to cope with, thanks to Putin’s Soviet dream. Russia two months ago was part of the G8, and now is considered by the west as the new Judas after the annexation of Crimea. As I see it, friendships are nothing more than casual terms to discredit the real intentions that bound interest between temporary partners.
Russia’s problem is that its reemergence as a world power, came at a time where China has experienced the same opportunity. I foresee future problems between the two countries, given their instability and dependence on others to subsist.
This is a excerpt from Richard Weitz, on Russia’s fear of China. With this I end.
“So what are the Russians worried about? Defense leaders seemed more focused on Central Asia, believing that instability in there will increase from the contagion effects of the social, economic and political disturbances in North Africa and from the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in the coming years. Those I heard from are especially worried about renewed civil strife in Kyrgyzstan, the rise of Islamist militarism in Tajikistan, and the failure of the United States and NATO to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan before they withdraw their combat troops. Russian policymakers fear that complications resulting from these changes will increase the threat of terrorism and narcotics trafficking to Russia, as well as challenge Russian economic interests there, such as access and control over Central Asian oil and natural gas supplies.
To address the very real fears of chaos in Central Asia, Russia is relying heavily on the seven-member Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). One senior general responsible for Russian military planning and operations argued that member states, which include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, had overcome many of the deficiencies that he confirmed the CSTO experienced last summer, when it was paralyzed during the Kyrgyzstan crisis. He said that the CSTO now has the military capacity, the operational plans and the legal foundation to undertake rapid interventions in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, or even possibly Afghanistan under the rubric of anti-terrorism, peacekeeping, or other justifications.
He said he also felt the military leaders of the CSTO members had achieved a genuine meeting of minds about the organization. Kazakhstan, for example, had become an especially close partner of Russia in the building of a new and more effective CSTO, and the general said he is looking forward to the major exercise the CSTO plans to hold this summer and early autumn to confirm this progress. He and other Russians urged NATO to develop relations directly with the CSTO given the likelihood that it will play a greater role in Central Asia when Western troops leave Afghanistan.
Interestingly, though, it became increasingly clear from our meetings that Russia’s military and civilian leaders view the CSTO’s potential quite differently. In contrast to the optimism expressed by Russian military leaders regarding the organization’s future coherence and capabilities, Russia’s civilian defence policy makers and analysts consider the divergent security perspectives of member states a major problem. For example, CSTO members Belarus and even Armenia are preoccupied with fundamentally different security problems from the four Central Asian members. For this reason, they see the CSTO primarily as a ‘political’ organization confirming Moscow’s primacy in Central Asia, rather than as a major military force.
They likewise downplayed the military potential of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which unlike the CSTO includes China but not Armenia and Belarus. They said they believed it would continue to focus on countering terrorism rather than developing the capabilities for joint military operations among its member states. In their view, the SCO also had a primarily political function, dampening a potential rivalry between China and Russia for control over Central Asia.””
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Putin, China, and the US for a new route
May 19th, 2014
By The Daily Journalist.
The visit of the Russian President Vladimir Putin to China is seen as a landmark event in terms of changing the vector of Russia’s development towards Asia. State Duma deputy Mikhail Emelyanov explained in an interview with Pravda.Ru why the United States tried to prevent Russia’s initiative to move closer to China and how the States “accidentally” accelerated this process.
“Today, Russia and China actively discuss opportunities to build the new Silk Road, Vladimir Putin is expected to pay a visit to China, during a variety of vital questions will be discussed, including the issues of gas supplies to China. What do you think are the prospects of relations between Russia and China? Is there a danger of such an association for the U.S.?”
“The United States had been trying to put obstacles of the way of Russian-Chinese cooperation. There was this G2 formula during George Bush’s presidency.
It was about two great states that will rule the world. That is what they offered to China. The United States and China were to become the two great nations. But the Chinese are farsighted, they declined the offer.
“The United States and its allies actively worked against Russia and the Russian elite, fanning up the idea about the alleged Chinese threat to our eastern borders, thereby trying to alienate Russia from China.
“Without understanding our interests in the West, not knowing our interests in Ukraine, they broke the balance of power in Eastern Europe, trying to bring openly pro-Western politicians to the throne in Ukraine, they, of course, push Russia straight into the arms of China, making it a very fast process. After all, the cooperation between Russia and China has been developing by leaps and bounds recently.
“We very quickly resolve our gas problems, our oil problems and many more. We will work closely in the field of armaments. Naturally, there is a continental block appearing, if you like, although President Putin said that we do not seek military- political alliance with China. But the statement itself is indicative.”
“Is cooperation in this field possible?”
“Very often, if politicians even mention this possibility, it says that it is possible. Even in denial. If this question was not on the political agenda, perhaps one would neither ask nor answer it. But there is such an option. If we take Iran into account, we will have a very interesting geopolitical combination. In Russian classical geopolitics, this is land power against maritime powers. This is not the best scenario for the world. But again, we were not the attacker. They are trying to drag Ukraine into the Western bloc. Following this, following the association with the EU, they would drag it into NATO. In the long run, all Eastern European countries have experienced this classic combination. Accordingly, Russia had no choice, and our political leadership made the right decision.”
“Can Russia compensate China’s huge demand that it gets from the United States – a huge sales market? Is it possible for the United States and China to estrange themselves?”
“The United States has not raised a question of sanctions against China yet. This is a matter of remote future. If the Americans go the way of expanding sanctions, they will take the world to World War III. Therefore, they do not touch China and they hardly ever will. The Americans are afraid of China. This can be seen from their low-key response to China’s actions in the Pacific theater of political action, in the case of the Senkaku Islands, for example. They just dumped the Japanese and told them that they would not be protecting them, in spite of the agreement between Japan and the United States.
“The U.S. is very cautious when it comes to China; and Russia, too. I think that the States will take effort to blow up Russia from the inside. John Tefft is supposedly coming to us as an ambassador – this is very revealing. He was in Lithuania, he was in Georgia, he was in Ukraine, by the way, as an ambassador. He arranged all these orange, white ribbon and other revolutions. I think that the United States will stake on the work with the so-called civil society in Russia. They will try to play on our internal contradictions and take people to the streets.”
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Statewatch Analysis: GCHQ Lawful World Spy
May 17th, 2014
By Statewatch.
To Click here to read report: Statewatch Analysis: GCHQ Lawful World Spy
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Whistle blowing techniques
May 12th, 2014
By Brian Martin.
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UK Intercept of Comms Commissioner on Snowden
May 12th, 2014
2014 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
5.1 During the second half of 2013 (and since then) there were a series of disclosures in the media said to be derived from Edward Snowden, who was a contractor working at the United States (US) National Security Agency (NSA). Much of what has been reported concerned the alleged operational practices and activities of the NSA or other agencies in the US. Other disclosures concerned alleged UK operational activities, in particular by or relating to GCHQ. Relevant public and parliamentary debate followed and raised a number of legitimate questions.
5.2 Some of the media disclosures and questions concern the interception of communications and, to that extent, I have regarded these matters as within the scope of my statutory oversight responsibility. Obviously, if interception agencies or others are acting unlawfully under RIPA 2000 Part I, I have a duty to report it to the Prime Minister. Other questions may have overtones of policy, which is not perhaps within the literal terms of my statutory function, but there are instances where the borderlines are blurred.
5.3 I have undertaken extensive investigations into the subject matter of the media disclosures with two objectives in mind:
• to investigate and be able to report on the lawfulness (or otherwise) of relevant interception activities which UK interception agencies may undertake or have undertaken.
• to address and report on a variety of concerns which have been expressed publicly in Parliament or in the media arising out of the media disclosures. I have distilled my understanding of a number of those concerns and will address them in this report. Before doing that there are a few introductory matters.
5.4 Report to President Obama. I have read in full the Report and Recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies “Liberty and Security in a Changing World” of 12 December 2013. The Group was established and their review commissioned on 27 August 2013 in the wake of Snowden disclosures. It addresses issues some of which are generically much the same as some of those which I have addressed in this report.
5.5 The United States (US) Report necessarily addresses concern in the US with reference to US law and statute and to US intelligence and law enforcement agencies. It is clear that the relevant circumstances in the US are substantially different from those in the United Kingdom. Unsurprisingly, the broad approach to safeguarding freedom and privacy in a democratic society, and at the same time protecting national security and preventing and detecting crime, correspond in each country. But the detailed manifestation and application of these broad requirements diverge, such that it is not appropriate to extrapolate recommendations from the US report into UK circumstances. This is not to detract in any way from the value and interest of the report: rather to acknowledge that relevant UK questions need to be addressed in a UK context.
8. Do British intelligence agencies receive from US agencies intercept material about British citizens which could not lawfully be acquired by intercept in the UK and vice versa and thereby circumvent domestic oversight regimes?
6.8.1 No. I have investigated the facts relevant to the allegations that have been published, as to the details of which I am unable to comment publicly. However, the principles that I have applied in reaching this conclusion are as follows.
6.8.2 An intelligence agency in country A is entitled to share intelligence with an intelligence agency in country B if:
(i) the intelligence is lawfully acquired in country A; and (ii) it is lawful in country A for its intelligence agency to share the intelligence
with the intelligence agency in country B; and (iii) it is lawful in country B for its intelligence agency to receive the intelligence; and for good measure(iv) it would have been lawful for the intelligence agency in country B to acquire the intelligence in country B, if it had been available for lawful acquisition in that country.
6.8.3 As to (i) and (ii) and generally, I have no expertise in US law and have not personally investigated so much of it as might be relevant. I have however received appropriate assurances in this respect.
6.8.4 As to (ii), if country A is the UK, I have had particular regard to section 15(2) of RIPA 2000 which strictly limits the lawful dissemination of intercept material to the minimum that is necessary for the authorised purposes.
6.8.5 As to (iii), I know of no principle that an intelligence agency is disentitled from receiving intelligence information offered by a third party which a third party lawfully has, provided that its receipt is within the established statutory function of the intelligence agency, as to which see the Intelligence Services Act 1994. It happens all the time.
6.8.6 As to (iv), information lawfully obtained by interception abroad is not necessarily available by interception to an interception agency here. In many cases it will not be available. If it is to be lawfully provided from abroad, it is sometimes appropriate for the interception agencies to apply explicitly by analogy the RIPA 2000 Part I principles of necessity and proportionality to its receipt here even though RIPA 2000 Part I does not strictly apply, because the interception did not take place in the UK by an UK agency.
This is responsibly done in a number of appropriate circumstances by various of the agencies, and I am asked to review the consequent arrangements, although this may not be within my statutory remit.
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DNI Announces release of additional documents after 9-11
May 7th, 2014
DNI Announces the Release of Additional Documents Related to Collection Activities Authorized by President George W. Bush Shortly After the Attacks of Sept. 11
Yesterday the Director of National Intelligence released additional documents related to the intelligence-gathering activities authorized by President George W. Bush shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11 and subsequently transitioned to authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
On Dec. 20, 2013, the DNI declassified and acknowledged the presidentially-authorized activities, and his public statement on Dec. 21, 2013, provided the previously classified history of the program, which authorized the National Security Agency to collect: (1) the contents of certain international communications, a program that was later referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, and (2) telephony and Internet non-content information (referred to as “metadata”) in bulk, subject to various conditions.
After President Bush acknowledged the TSP in December 2005, two suits were filed against the United States and U.S. government officials challenging alleged NSA activities authorized by President Bush after 9/11. Those suits are still pending in the Northern District of California. In response, the U.S. government, through classified and unclassified declarations by the DNI and NSA, asserted the state secrets privilege and the DNI’s authority under the National Security Act of 1947, as amended, to protect intelligence sources and methods. Following the unauthorized and unlawful release of classified information about the Section 215 and Section 702 programs in June 2013, the court directed the U.S. government to explain the impact of declassification decisions since June 2013 on the national security issues in the case, as reflected in the U.S. government’s state secrets privilege assertion. The court also ordered the U.S. government to review for declassification prior classified state secrets privilege and intelligence sources and methods declarations in the litigation, and to file redacted, unclassified versions of those documents with the court.
On Dec. 20, 2013, the DNI declassified and publicly released eight previously classified DNI and NSA declarations that were filed in support of the U.S. government’s prior assertions of the state secrets privilege and sources and methods privilege in the above-mentioned litigation. Yesterday the DNI released an additional 10 previously classified DNI, NSA, and attorney general declarations, which are posted on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence website and ICOntheRecord.tumblr.com, the public website dedicated to fostering greater public visibility into the intelligence activities of the U.S. government. Some information has been redacted from the declarations to protect information that remains properly classified for national security reasons and because of the great harm to national security if disclosed.
Office of the Director of National Intelligence Public Affairs
Documents:
[Cryptome: Documents provided by DNI have been replaced below with court filings which have smaller file sizes. Documents are identical except pages of the DNI documents have a notation at top: “Approved for public release May 5, 2014” The 10 DNI files:http://cryptome.org/2014/05/dni/dni-14-0505.zip (32.7MB)]
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Abe visits Merkel for EU trade agreement
April 30th, 2014
By The Daily Journalist.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Wednesday to push ahead with negotiations on a European Union (EU)-Japan trade agreement.
They made the remarks at a joint press conference after their meeting. Abe paid a visit to Germany on Wednesday, kicking off his 10-day Europe tour.
Merkel said both leaders showed willingness to strengthen bilateral economic cooperation and push ahead with negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement (FAT) between Japan and the EU, expressing hope that the deal can be signed in 2015.
The chancellor told reporters that a trade agreement with Japan would greatly improve trade relations and also be of great importance for Germany as an export nation.
Japan is the EU’s seventh largest trading partner globally, and the EU is Japan’s third largest trading partner. Brussels and Tokyo held the first round of FAT talks in April 2013.
According to an EU press release, an agreement between the two economic giants is expected to boost Europe’s economy by 0.6 percent to 0.8 percent of its GDP and will result in creation of 400,000 jobs.
It is expected that the EU exports to Japan could increase by 32.7 percent, while Japanese exports to the EU would increase by 23.5 percent.
Merkel and Abe also pledged to strengthen bilateral cooperation in fields such as security and energy.
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Professor Grant Reeher answers questions about Obama care
April 18th, 2014
Interview conducted by Jaime Ortega.
Grant Reeher
Professor, Political Science
1) Without Obama Care, how does U.S. healthcare compare with other wealthy westernized countries?
Comparatively, the U.S. health care system is more private sector-oriented, more corporately-organized, more expensive overall and less inclusive. Note that this is still truth with Obama care as well.
2) For many conservatives representing the Tea Party and GOP, Obama’s health care program sounds to much like socialism. But is it fair to call Obama care, a socialist program?
Like a lot of large-scale western public policies, this program is a mix of “socialism” and “capitalism.” The U.S. approach on public policy often tends to tilt more toward the capitalistic, corporate, and privately-oriented end of the axis.
That’s certainly the case when it comes to American health care, in comparison with other western nations, and Obama care doesn’t change that basic fact about the U.S. system. It arguably nudges it a little toward socialism than it previously-largely because of the expansion in Medicaid– But it doesn’t change the essential equation.
3) How will the FDA, Pharma, Medicare and Medicaid be affected by the new health-care law?
This is a huge set of questions beyond the scope of a brief interview briefly, Medicare is getting a slight reworking around the edges, and Medicaid is getting a significant national expansion– But that expansion is up to individual states, and some are not going forward with it at this point. More people, and in some areas more money, are going into the system, and that may help Pharma.
4) Its seems fair for the wealthy sector who can afford private health to think of Obama Care as a disaster program because it will result into a “waiting list” as observed in other socialist countries where people get treated according to the severity of their problem. The sickest get first priority, creating a waiting waiting list for those who need also attention but are not as severely bad. But is it fair for those whom cannot afford private Insurance premiums and not get benefits based on a system where paying more money gets you better health care ? Is Obama Care really more beneficial for some and not for others?
The premise of the question exaggerates the effects of Obama care on the overall system. It is not going to create a single payer, socialized system. It is adding, at last count, about 10 million people into the insurance system, in addition of 300 million. Most of those are going to have private insurance plans. They will be as entitled to health care as any other person in a similar system. It doesn’t change the way that insured patients will be treated, in any dramatic fashion. The wealthy will be largely unaffected by this, in terms of the way they receive their health care. Also bear in mind that the overall system in the U.S. prior to Obama Care, had about a 50-50 split between private and public funding. Medicare and Medicaid are huge programs. So the system was not wholly private beforehand. A I said previously, it is a blend o the private-corporate, and public-socialistic.
In terms of who it helps, if it improves the overall health of the nation, everyone benefits. In the short term, it provides more help to the middle class and the poor, because they now have more access to health insurance. It also helps those who work in the health care system who will benefit from having more people with access to health insurance.
5) If the private sector already rules the health system, aren’t they also the ones lobbying hard to take Obama Care out of our system for their own interest rather than for the overall public health? Would the private health sector lose money if Obama Care gets very big?
That’s not necessarily the case, and the Obama administration worked hard early on to get “buy in” by the insurance industry for this new program. The industry stands to benefit by having more customers, more patients also mean more demand for the health care professionals. On the other hand, the regulatory effort to create a more efficient and less costly system could put some downward pressure on insurance companies, and could put some additional constraints on health care professionals. Some from their perspective, It’s a mixed bag.
6) How will Obama Care play with doctors pay rate? Will it possibly lower it?
It’s possible to see how it might serve to lower rates in the long term, relative to what they would have been otherwise. This would be due to have been otherwise. This would be sue to having more large-scale buyers of their services in the system, with more power over rates. But that’s not clear at this point.
7) Will Obama Care improve or lower the health care system? ‘
It’s really impossible to answer that question, without a prior statement about the values that one uses to judge whether something has been improved. I believe it’s fair to say that the consensus among health care researchers is that this program will bring more good than harm, on balance. And It’s also fair to say that this program will result in more people having some king of mainstream health care coverage.
Some worry, that this new program is a stop on a long journey toward a single-payer system that more closely resembles a European model, and others hope that this is the case. In the short-term, I think that neither the worry nor the hope is justified.
Many believe , that Pharma should be regulated during the health reform because prescription drugs have very bad side effects that affect thousands of peoples each year. Natural private health companies blame Pharma for lobbying against natural products and giving natural remedies a bad name, so they can sell new prescriptions. These companies see Obama as health reformist that will push for more natural care. If Obama Care pushes forward, will the Government promote more health products and regulate prescription medications?
8) Many believe , that Pharma should be regulated during the health reform because prescription drugs have very bad side effects that affect thousands of peoples each year. Natural private health companies blame Pharma for lobbying against natural products and giving natural remedies a bad name, so they can sell new prescriptions. These companies see Obama as health reformist that will push for more natural care. If Obama Care pushes forward, will the Government promote more health products and regulate prescription medications?
I am unaware that a major toward alternative therapies and natural remedies is part of Obama Care. I do not think this is an issue, regarding Obama care per say.
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State of Journalism in China
April 17th, 2014
By the Nieman Report.
Click here to read report: State of Journalism in China
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China’s worrisome cyber activities
April 17th, 2014
The Daily Journalist.
Click to read report: China’s worrisome cyber activities
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Putin: Ukraine’s radical escalation puts it on edge of civil war
April 16th, 2014
Russian President Vladimir Putin.(RIA Novosti / Aleksey Nikolskyi)
The sharp escalation of the Ukraine crisis virtually puts the country on the brink of civil war, Russian President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a telephone call.
Putin and Merkel discussed the upcoming Ukrainian crisis talks between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and the US, scheduled to be held on Thursday in Geneva.
Merkel’s press office noted that, despite some differences of opinion, the upcoming talks were the main focus of the telephone conversation.
“While there were differences in the interpretation of current events, preparations for the planned meeting in Geneva…were the focus of the talks,” Merkel’s office said in a statement.
Putin meanwhile expressed hope that the Geneva talks will help to de-escalate the situation, and return it to peaceful cooperation.
The president also reiterated the importance of stabilizing the Ukrainian economy, and ensuring the supply and transportation of Russian natural gas to Europe.
On Tuesday, Moscow urged international partners to condemn Kiev’s recent “anti-constitutional”actions in southeastern Ukraine, which it believes may lead to catastrophe.
“We are deeply concerned over the military operation launched by the Ukrainian special forces with support by the army. There have already been victims,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Russian diplomats called it a criminal offense for Ukraine to fight against its own people who demand that their lawful rights are preserved. “Current events demonstrate persistent unwillingness of Kiev’s authorities to organize a dialogue with Ukrainian regions, which is necessary for the country,” the statement reads.
The US has approached the situation from a different angle, justifying Kiev’s actions against anti-government protesters in the country’s eastern region.
“The Ukrainian government has the responsibility to provide law and order and these provocations in eastern Ukraine are creating a situation in which the government has to respond,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Tuesday.
Annie Machon, an analyst and former MI5 agent, believes the US has contributed to the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine.
“State Department official Victoria Nuland boasted that since the fall of the Soviet Union, America has pumped about $5 billion into Ukraine to try and peddle influence in that country. So I don’t think there’s any doubt that Washington has been meddling with the internal politics of Ukraine and continues to do so. But I think this time they’ve miscalculated the wishes of the Ukrainian people,” Machon said.
The US has not been alone in supporting the military operation against anti-government protesters in Ukraine. Giving his reaction, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorskii said that Warsaw agrees fully with the military operation in eastern Ukraine, RIA Novosti reports. He believes the Kramatorsk actions against “armed people” who “occupy airports” to be in line with the law.
Giving his reaction, Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslav Sikorskii, has said that Warsaw agrees fully with the military operation in eastern Ukraine, RIA Novosti reports. He believes the Kramatorsk actions against “armed people” who “occupy airports” to be in line with the law.
Earlier in the day, Putin also spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During the call Putin stressed that the escalation of the Ukraine crisis was the result of Kiev’s irresponsible politics, which ignored legitimate rights and the interests of the Russian-speaking population.
The two also discussed bilateral cooperation and other topics on the international agenda, including the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
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Forgotten Legends: Gonzalo De Cordoba, The Great Captain
April 16th, 2014
By University of Granada.
The story of a Jewish convert to Catholicism, and how he revolutionized modern warfare
using tactics later copied by none other than Napoleon.
To read Article: Forgotten Legends: Gonzalo De Cordoba, The Great Captain
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Weekly stories from around the world
April 11th, 2014
The Malaysia government is purposefully concealing information on MH370
Malaysia’s sophisticated radar system would have immediately detected Flight MH370 as it crossed the country’s mainland after changing course and should have alerted the air force, Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader, has claimed Malaysia’s government is deliberately concealing information that would help to explain what happened to missing Flight MH370, the country’s opposition leader has claimed.
In a wide-ranging interview that cast doubt on the official investigation into the disappearance of the plane, Anwar Ibrahim said the country’s “sophisticated” radar system would have identified it after it changed course and crossed back over Malaysia.
Anwar, who personally knew the pilot of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that went missing in the early hours of March 8 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, called for an international committee to take over the Malaysian-led operation because “the integrity of the whole nation is at stake”.
He indicated that it was even possible that there was complicity by authorities on the ground in what happened to the plane and the 239 people on board.
US Control of Cuban Social Media
The mobile network called ZunZuneo, which had been in use in Cuba from 2009 until 2012, was funded by the US Agency for International Development and monitored by US Intelligence.
Back in January 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had suggested this type of action, in her DC Newseum speech, when she called for “a coordinated response by all governments, the private sector, and the international community” to promote Internet freedom.
“The spread of information networks is forming a new nervous system for our planet. When something happens in Haiti or Hunan, the rest of us learn about it in real time – from real people. And we can respond in real time as well. Americans eager to help in the aftermath of a disaster and the girl trapped in the supermarket are connected in ways that were not even imagined a year ago, even a generation ago. That same principle applies to almost all of humanity today. As we sit here, any of you – or maybe more likely, any of our children – can take out the tools that many carry every day and transmit this discussion to billions across the world.
“Now, in many respects, information has never been so free. There are more ways to spread more ideas to more people than at any moment in history. And even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable.”
ZunZuneo is Cuban slang for a hummingbirds twittering and suggests local gossip. The US put over a million dollars into creating the system which locals used to chat about music, relationships sport and the weather.
However the data was being collected and researched for political analysis and trends and was used to put forward ideas and propaganda into Cuban society.
“The euphoria around social networks coexists with the risk of regime change operations, which have increased, as well as the threat to peace. These hazardous conditions make it necessary and urgent that we appropriate these platforms,” Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez said in 2011, according to a report in the Havana Times.
“Cuban authorities seem willing to embark on the path of social networks, but they’ll do so in their own style. They propose creating internal networks on the island that will enable them to maintain control over their operation and content, according to the explanation given in a workshop on the topic.”
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=56922
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=102803
And with similar issues in the UK, Baroness Miller of Chithorne Domer (LD) said in the Lords last week that she was attempting to address the problem of government intervention through social media, which is running ahead of the regulations governing spy activity. She said that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act should to be reviewed and up-dated.
“The capacity and scale of interceptions from the RAF bases used by our allies, the Americans, under the Visiting Forces Act means that Parliament must put something in place to be confident of a statutory basis for these interceptions. However, I emphasize that in no way should the amendment be seen as undermining of our relationship with our NATO allies or of the intelligence agencies-quite the reverse. It seeks to increase confidence among UK citizens that we are in compliance with international law and have a national legislative framework that respects citizens’ right to privacy while keeping abreast of threats and technological developments,” she said to the Lords.
And she added. “I welcome particularly my right honorable friend Nick Clegg’s announcement that the Royal United Services Institute-RUSI-has agreed to establish an expert panel to review the use of Internet data for surveillance purposes.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/140324-0001.htm#14032410000829
This issue is not going to go away and is going to get larger and more complicated as we go forward into social networks connected to more complex cognitive computing.
Recently Julian Assange, who since 2012 has been living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London – still not having been charged with any offence – was asked in a BBC interview his opinion on a European Internet, which in principal he thought was a good idea, but like other networks it would be under threat and review by corporate and intelligence organisations unless some form of independent secure process could be built – a problem we have all been under since the beginning of social intelligence observation.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26884474
A Jagged Little Pill : Google want to Microchip the Human Race
Former DARPA director and now Google executive Regina Dugan is pushing an edible “authentication microchip” along with an electronic tattoo that can read your mind.
Regina E. Duncan, has unveiled a super small, ingestible microchip that we can all be expected to swallow by 2017. “A means of authentication,” she calls it, also called an electronic tattoo, which takes NSA spying to whole new levels. She talks of the ‘mechanical mismatch problem between machines and humans,’ and specifically targets 10 – 20 year olds in her rant about the wonderful qualities of this new technology that can stretch in the human body and still be functional.
Hailed as a ‘critical shift for research and medicine, ’ such biochips would not only allow full access to insurance companies and government agencies to our pharmaceutical med-taking compliancy (or lack thereof), but also a host of other aspects of our lives which are truly none of their business, and certainly an extension of the removal of our freedoms and rights.
“These biochips look like the integrated circuits in a personal computer, but instead of containing tiny semiconductors, they are loaded with bits of actual DNA that make up genes or fragments of genes. Inserted in a PC-sized analytical instrument, the chips allow scientists to perform thousands of biochemical experiments at a fraction of the cost and time required for traditional tests.”
With biotech’s track record of hybridizing genes in our food and trees as GMO, why should we give them full access to our entire genetic makeup? With a satellite or the click of a button, these tiny microchips could also be set to begin our own demise, or even control our minds.
http://naturalsociety.com/getting-ready-microchip-entire-human-race/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iO7yYv1B5Y
Advanced Cyber Attacks are now The Norm says Websense!
Sophisticated cyber attacks are now far more frequent according to the Websense 2014 Threat Report. This Report is an analysis of the market from Websense TRITON’s commercial perspective and provides a very useful, if slightly partial, understanding of the cyber attack and prevention space.
A lot of cyber attackers take into account the costs that apply to their ‘craft’ and they reuse and reinvent their malware to suit the next attack.
“The overall success of last year’s threats is proof that “advanced attacks” and “targeted attacks” are now the norm, not the exception. The data and numerous examples within this report make it clear – of the more than 4.1 billion live attacks that Websense technology prevented in 2013, nearly all exhibited techniques to bypass traditional defenses, compromise systems, and persist throughout infected networks in pursuit of confidential data.”
Stealing money is still the most frequent crime but corporate data theft, changes to information and embedding faults and malware into the opponents system are also high on the list
Though data theft was a common goal of many attacks, attacker motivation varied greatly. Financial gain remained a highly motivating factor, yet some attackers attempted to compromise data for reasons other than making money – to destroy a company’s data and impair its competitive advantage, for example, or to disrupt civic infrastructure or steal state secrets.”
“Eighty-five percent of malicious links used in Web or email attacks were located on compromised legitimate websites, rather than more easily recognizable malicious sites, Websense says. Thirty percent of malicious executable files sampled included custom encryption of command-and-control communication or data exfiltration.
Websense detected more than 67 million exploit kit events in 2014, the study says. The Magnitude and Neutrino Exploit Kits experienced the largest surge in adoption following the arrest of Blackhole’s creator in 2013.”
To protect your organisation the Report recommends a seven stage viewing system of the threat landscape and, of course, recommends some software protection systems.
“To better understand how an attacker translates motivations into methods, one must understand the apparatus that they create in order to launch and re-launch their campaigns. To this end, the “kill chain” – that set of activities executed by threat actors to penetrate organizations, expand their footprint within these compromised networks, and steal valuable data – is a useful model. The kill chain can be segmented into seven discernible stages to help organizations determine the most effective defense strategies.”
These seven stages are:
This provides a very good starting point for many organisations to understand threat issues more clearly.
UDP – User Datagram Protocol – Attacks
Another view on the protection of information and data and technology security comes from ENSIA – the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security.
http://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/flash-notes/large-scale-udp-attacks-the-2014-trend-and-how-to-face-it
According to Wikipedia “The objective of ENISA is to improve network and information security in the European Union. The agency has to contribute to the development of a culture of network and information security for the benefit of the citizens, consumers, enterprises and public sector organisations of the European Union, and consequently will contribute to the smooth functioning of the EU Internal Market.
ENISA assists the Commission, the Member States and, consequently, the business community in meeting the requirements of network and information security, including present and future EU legislation. ENISA ultimately strives to serve as a center of expertise for both Member States and EU Institutions to seek advice on matters related to network and information security.”
ENSIA says that recent news show the increase of large scale attacks exploiting specific vulnerabilities of the Internet core protocols. In the latest cases, the Network Time Protocol (NTP), which allows synchronizing devices to the coordinated universal time (UTC), has been misused. Specifically, in December 2013, vulnerability in this UDP protocol became mainstream and started to be exploited for large-scale reflection attacks leading to a dramatic increase of the size of denial of services. Luckily, network providers can already put in place a series of known countermeasures to mitigate these threats, as ENISA underlined also for amplification attacks in April last year.
The potential of using NTP in attacks is not new: NTP misuse and abuse have been around since the late nineties, nevertheless the possibility to use the monlist vulnerability as an attack vector against specific targets was first publicly underlined in 2010 and early attempts to use this vulnerability can be traced back to 2011.
Unfortunately this specific vulnerability started to be exploited for highly recognizable objectives at the end of 2013, first on gaming sites and recently to target a content delivery network reaching enormous volumes per second. NTP allows synchronizing the time for any services between client and server and this attack exploits a functionality to retrieve a list of IP addresses that queried the server before the request. When addressing this specific request (monlist) using a spoofed victim IP address, the victim receives back the list of up to 600 IP addresses that queried the server before. Due to the large size of incoming packets for a small request packet, the response can generate a denial of service as in the recent attack to a content delivery network where the attacker used 4,529 NTP servers running on 1,298 different networks generating approximately 400Gbps of traffic.
It is clear that the trend of amplification and reflection attacks exploiting network core protocols is not going to stop.
New tool makes scanning the Internet for illegal images possible
Researchers have developed a system that makes it possible to scan traffic on the Internet for illegal photographs. The system can, for example, help trace child pornography on the Internet without infringing on the privacy of Internet users. Internet service providers could use the tool to keep their network “clean.”
Researchers at the University of Twente have developed a system that makes it possible to scan traffic on the Internet for illegal photographs. The system can, for example, help trace child pornography on the Internet without infringing on the privacy of Internet users. Internet service providers could use the tool to keep their network “clean.”
The police use a standard database to detect illegal photographs, like child pornography, on equipment they seize, such as computers or USB sticks. For security reasons, the database cannot be used to scan networks such as the Internet. Were the database to end up in criminal hands, criminals could use it to make their own illegal photographs untraceable.
An UTwente release reports that with the system of the University of Twente, the police database can, from now on, be used to scan a network as well. This makes it possible to search for illegal photographs without the risk of the database ending up in wrong hands. Another advantage of this system is that the police can only see the number of illegal photographs to be found on the Internet; they cannot see the actual photographs. Therefore, the privacy of the owner of the photographs remains safeguarded.
Despite the technical possibilities of the system, it is not yet clear what the consequences are in terms of current Dutch legislation. The researchers still want this verified from a legal point of view.
The standard police database does not contain any truly illegal photographs but only features of these photographs expressed in numbers (hash values). When the police seize equipment, such as a PC, the database is brought into action to compare the known hash values with those of the photographs on the PC. In this way, the police are able to verify whether the equipment contains any illegal photographs.
The new system is a special encryption version of the police database. Researcher Andreas Peter says:
“You can compare it with a sort of safe, the contents of which you cannot see but in which you can place photographs. Subsequently, it is the ‘safe’ alone that scans the photographs and then sends a confidential report to the police. The police can open this report with a special key. The report indicates how many illegal photographs are in the safe.”
With this new system, Internet service providers can also use the police database to scan their network for illegal photographs. The release notes that at this time the University of Twente is consulting with companies that are interested in starting to work with the system. A scientific article about the prototype will soon be published during ICASSP 2014, an international conference on signal processing, to be held in Florence, Italy, 4-5 May.
The system is a part of Christoph Bösch’s doctoral research. He has conducted his research at the University of Twente’s CTIT research institute departments of Services, Cybersecurity and Safety and Databases. Bösch hopes to graduate by the end of 2014. His Ph.D. thesis is entitled “Cryptographically Enforced Search Pattern Hiding.”
Researchers of the University of Twente have also developed a unique, autonomous tour-guide robot as part of the project Fun Robotics Outdoor Guide (FROG): the campus robot.
The robot is capable of exploring the environment and independently guiding groups of people around cultural places. At the same time he monitors the behavior of his audience and adapts accordingly. This type of tour-guide robot is unique in the world.
http://www.utwente.nl/en/newsevents/2014/4/324410/meet-the-campus-robot-at-the-hannover-messe
Einstein theory suggests Quantum Mechanics offers an ultra-secure Internet
Back in 1935 Einstein highlighted a theory in quantum mechanics, suggesting that entangled particles stay connected even when they are large distances apart.
Einstein’s skepticism about quantum mechanics may lead to an ultra-secure Internet, suggests a new paper by researchers from Swinburne University of Technology and Peking University.
Associate Professor Margaret Reid from Swinburne’s Center for Quantum and Optical Science said Einstein’s reservations about quantum mechanics were highlighted in a phenomenon known as “‘spooky’ action at a distance.”
“Until now the real application of this has been for messages being shared between two people securely without interception, regardless of the spatial separation between them,” Professor Reid said. “In this paper, we give theoretical proof that such messages can be shared between more than two people and may provide unprecedented security for a future quantum Internet.”
Sending Einstein’s entanglement to a larger number of people means the key can be distributed among all the receiving parties, so they must collaborate to decipher the message, which Professor Reid said makes the message even more secure.
“The message will also remain secure if the devices receiving the message have been tampered with, like if an iPhone were hacked, because of the nature of Einstein’s spooky entanglement. Discovering that it can be applied to a situation with more parties has the potential to create a more secure Internet – with less messages being intercepted from external parties.”
Spritz gets you reading faster
A new reading system known as Spritz has been developed to enable faster reading on devices with smaller screens.
The developers of the app say reading time is mostly spent moving your eyes from one word to the next, but Spritz displays the most important part of each word in exactly the same place on the screen, keeping your eyes in the same place.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26577462
Facebook Face Recognition
Facebook is developing a programme that can recognise a face before it has been tagged. It is claimed that DeepFace can recognise whether two photographs are the same person with a 97% accuracy rate. Facebook’s facial recognition software is quite advanced; probably something only the military or the NSA has access to.
According to a new report from Facebook, the technology researchers are looking into has the ability to recognize a person’s face just as accurate as a human being. If this is real, then the social network is turning into a scary place, and only a drastic change in Facebook’s privacy policy and options could allow such software to move forward.
Asked whether two unfamiliar photos of faces show the same person, a human being will get it right 97.53 percent of the time. New software developed by researchers at Facebook can score 97.25 percent on the same challenge, regardless of variations in lighting or whether the person in the picture is directly facing the camera.
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Certified Bit Coins
April 11th, 2014
By Giuseppe Ateniese, Antonio Faonio,
Bernardo Magri, and Breno de Medeiros.
To read report click here: certified bit coins
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NATO’s Russian troop build-up satellite images ‘show 2013 drills’
April 11th, 2014By AFP.
AFP Photo / Digital Globe
The satellite images released by NATO that allegedly show a current build-up of Russian troops near Ukrainian border were taken in August 2013 amid military drills, a source in the General Staff of the Russian Army has said.
NATO’s top military commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, on Wednesday claimed that there is evidence of what he says are 40,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, tweeting a link to satellite images.
The images, some of them colored and some black and white, appear to show multiple Russian tanks, helicopters, fighter jets and a “special forces brigade” with locations and dates added to them. The dates marked range from March 22 to March 27, 2014. Another image not available on the original webpage but used by some Western media has “April 2, 2014” stamped on it.
Upon looking at the photos, a senior official at the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces has confirmed to RIA Novosti the troops shown are indeed Russian ones and that they were photographed in the south of Russia.
There is one problem, though: the images were taken some eight months before the stated date, the source said.
“These shots, which were distributed by NATO, show Russian Armed Forces units of the Southern Military District, which in the summer of last year were taking part in various drills, including near the Ukrainian border,” the General Staff official told RIA Novosti.
AFP Photo / Digital Globe
Large military drills held in the south of Russia last year included Combat Commonwealth 2013 – a joint air defense exercise of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Back then, Ukrainian troops participated in the international drills.
NATO on Thursday continued ramping up allegations of possible “Russian invasion” into Ukraine, with NATO General Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen claiming that 40,000 Russian troops are still amassed on the Ukrainian border “not training but ready for combat.”
Rasmussen’s “message to Russia” was then “to stop blaming others for your own actions, to stop massing your troops, to stop escalating this crisis and start engaging in a genuine dialogue.”
Meanwhile, General Breedlove on Wednesday said that US troops may soon be deployed to Europe to“reassure” the NATO allies – a notion, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called a flagrant breach of the bloc’s international obligations.
AFP Photo / Digital Globe
The Ukrainian coup-imposed government has also stepped up its rhetoric on Russia’s military presence, even claiming there is “military activity on behalf of the Russian Federation… on the territory of Ukraine”in an invitation to the Netherlands via OSCE network.
Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich on Thursday responded to the allegations by stressing that “on the territory of Ukraine, there is no military activity conducted by Russia.”
“This has been confirmed by the group of inspectors from Denmark, Germany, Poland, Austria and Sweden, who were in Ukraine from March 20 to April 2 and visited Kharkov, Donetsk, Mariupol, Nikolaev and Odessa regions,” Lukashevich stated.
Suggesting the territory mentioned in the diplomatic note might have been that of the Crimean Republic, the spokesman said the related activity there has to do with transferring of the ships and military hardware to Ukraine, as well as with the “inventorying of the military installations.” As soon as this process is finished, the international inspectors are welcome to the territory of the peninsula – provided they send a request to Moscow, not to Kiev, he stressed.
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The Most Deadly Gunslingers of the Old West
April 10th, 2014By James R. Coffey.
The gunslingers of the American Wild West have become as famous as any figures in American history. In fact, names like Jessie James, Wyatt Earp, and Billy the Kid are more easily recognizable than the names of many U.S. Presidents. And while many of the most notorious men (and women) of this era are remembered for their fast tempers and even faster guns, they have come to represent not just what many consider the most violent period of American history, they represent the pioneering spirit that tamed a frontier fraught with inherent dangers. A romantic spirit that lives on in the hearts and minds of millions of Old West enthusiasts even today.
But, who can be said to have been the “deadliest” gunslinger of them all? The one with the most kills?
The one said to have been the fastest?
Or perhaps, the one with the reputation for being the most ruthless?
Whatever the measure, here are ten men and women who came to define what it meant to be “bad to the bone” during this age when men (and women) lived by the gun.
1. Thomas “Tom” Horn, Jr. (37 to 50 kills) November 21, 1860–November 20, 1903
Respected lawman and Pinkerton detective Thomas Horn was in actuality one of the most cold-blooded killers of the Old West. After making a name for himself as a scout and tracker in the late 1880s, Tom was hired as a tracker, bounty hunter, and then promoted to detective by the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency. Quickly becoming known for his volatile temper and propensity for violence, he was forced to resign his position with the Agency after becoming linked to the murders of 17 people. Following his resignation, Horn quickly developed a reputation as a killer-for-hire, and is said to have been responsible for killing some 20 cattle rustlers over the course of several years. Horn was finally caught and hanged in 1901 after being linked to the murder of a 14-year-old boy, who, ironically, some historians believe he was actually innocent of killing. Even so, Tom Horn is believed to have committed as many as 50 murders in his 43 years of life.
2. James B. “Killer” Miller, aka “Deacon Jim” (14 to 50 kills) October 25, 1866–April 19, 1909
One of the darkest and most sadistic figures of the Old West was James “Killer” Miller, a paid assassin and gunslinger known to have killed at least 14 people, though legend has that number closer to 50. Also known as “Deacon Jim” because he regularly went to church and did not smoke or drink, Miller openly stated that he would kill anyone for money, his rate reportedly somewhere between $150 to $2,000 per kill, and is rumored to have gunned down everyone from political figures to famed Sheriff Pat Garrett. One legendary tale involves a confrontation with Sheriff Bud Frazer over Miller’s alleged involvement in the assassination of a cattle rancher. Though Frazer is said to have fired first, Miller proceeded to shoot him six times. It was later reported that the clever Miller had been wearing a metal plate under his shirt, which had blocked Frazer’s bullets. Described as “cold to the core,” Miller’s murderous days finally ended in 1909 when he was arrested in Oklahoma for the murder of A. A. “Gus” Bobbitta, a U.S. Marshall. After a lynch mob of some 40 people stormed the prison, Miller and three other outlaws were dragged to a nearby barn and hanged. Prior to being hanged, Miller–who insisted on being allowed to wear his hat–is said to have shouted, “Let ‘er rip!” and voluntarily jumped off the box to his death. His body and the bodies of the other three men lynched that night were left hanging for hours until a photographer could be found to immortalize the event.
3. John Wesley Hardin (5 to 42 kills) May 26, 1853—August 19, 1895
The son of a Methodist preacher, John Wesley Hardin was named after the founder of the Methodist faith, but from the very beginning of his life, was anything but pious. At age 14, John stabbed a boy in the schoolyard for taunting him. A year later, he shot and killed an ex-slave who had been his friend, but who had sought revenge after Hardin allegedly scratched his face during rough-housing. To avoid arrest, he then went into hiding and though warned by his brother that authorities knew his whereabouts, chose not to run, killing all the Union soldiers who tried to take him into custody. Becoming known for carrying two pistols in holsters strapped to his chest (which enabled him to be one of the fastest guns in history), he then shot down three more men in various gunfights while on the lam. Several arrests and subsequent escapes later, he ended up in Abilene, Kansas, where he befriended “Wild Bill” Hickok. While in Abilene, one of the most notorious of his escapades took place while staying at the American House Hotel. Reportedly, when the stranger in the next room wouldn’t stop snoring, John fired twice into the ceiling; the first shot merely waking the man, the second one killing him. After many skirmishes with the law, Hardin was finally captured in 1878, convicted, and sent to jail for seventeen years. During his time incarcerated, ironically, he earned a law degree and even practiced as a lawyer after his release. Shot in the back of the head while playing dice in El Paso, Texas, Hardin died August 19, 1895. In his relatively short life, John Wesley Hardin is credited with killing of no fewer than 42 people.
4. Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (8 to 30 kills) March 19, 1848–January 13, 1929
One of the most famous lawman of all time, Wyatt Earp was also an accomplished gunslinger who was greatly feared by the outlaws of the era. After traveling the boomtowns of Wichita, Dodge City, and the famous city of Tombstone–where he became one of the most feared and respected lawmen of all time–he then participated in some of the most legendary shootouts of the Old West, most notably the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881, where he and brothers Morgan and Virgil, and close friend Doc Holliday confronted a group of cowboys who’d recently robbed a stagecoach. Three of the cowboys were killed in the fight, and everyone but Wyatt was wounded. The gunfight caused a huge scandal, with compadres of the cowboys soon retaliating, wounding Wyatt’s brother Virgil and killing Morgan. Earp and Holliday then led a team of gunfighters on what has become known as their “Vendetta Ride,” during which they killed an estimated 30 men connected with the murders. All told, Earp is credited with killing between 8 to 30 outlaws (depending on the source), and his exploits remain among the most famous stories in the annals of the American Old West.
5. Henry McCarty, aka “Billy the Kid,” Henry Antrim & William H. Bonney (21 kills) November 23, 1859–July 14, 1881 (reportedly)
The most legendary of all gunslingers, Henry “Billy the Kid” McCarty started his life of crime with petty theft and horse thievery, but is said to have made his first kill at the age of eighteen. Though often portrayed as a cold-blooded killer, history shows that he actually entered a life of crime out of necessity, not meanness. In fact, people who knew him called him brave, resourceful, loyal, and possessing a remarkable sense of humor. In 1877 during the so-called “Lincoln County War,” Henry was deputized and rode with lawmen seeking to arrest a group of corrupt businessman including Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, known to be responsible for the murder of an innocent rancher, John Tunstall. Billy’s group “the Regulators,” however, soon became known for their unprovoked violence, and were themselves labeled outlaws. Unaffected by their new status, the Regulators then proceeded to go on a killing spree during which three people were mercilessly gunned down in the course of just three days, including a sheriff and his deputy. Hounded by law enforcement, the group was eventually disbanded, with Billy managing to elude capture. A short time later he formed a gang and increased his notoriety by shooting down a gambler in a New Mexico saloon. After a number of run-ins with authorities, Billy was finally captured and sentenced to death, but managed to escape after getting hold of a weapon and gunning down the two men guarding him. After three months on the lam, he was killed in 1881 by the equally famous, Sheriff Pat Garrett. All told, Billy the Kid is said to have killed a total of 21 men, one for each year of his life, though this number is often regarded as exaggerated. After his death, such a mystique had surrounded this famous gunslinger that numerous men claimed to be him in hopes of garnering celebrity–even at the risk of being gunned down themselves.
6. John King Fisher (16 kills) 1854–March 11, 1884
One the lesser-known but more violent pistoleros of the Old West, gunfighter and one-time lawman John King Fisher was in and out of prison from the age of sixteen. By the early 1870s, Fisher become known as a bandit when he joined a group of outlaws whose specialty was raiding ranches in Mexico. Though quickly becoming known for his flamboyant style of dress, (always seen wearing brightly colored clothes), and signature twin ivory-handled pistols, it was his propensity for aggression that singled him out. Among his many exploits, he was known for gunning down three members of his own gang during a dispute over money, and then killing seven Mexican bandits a short time later. In his most famous gunfight, Fisher is said to have taken on four Mexican cowboys single-handedly, which after hitting one with a branding iron, outdrew another. Then in his well-documented sadistic style, then shot the other two who were unarmed. In 1884 Fisher was ambushed and killed, along with gunslinger Ben Thompson, by friends of a man Thompson had previously killed in a gunfight.
7. Dallas Stoudenmire (10 kills) December 11, 1845–September 18, 1882
Although not as well known as many of the others, Dallas Stoudenmire was a feared lawman in his day, and is known for participating in more gunfights than most of his better-known contemporaries. After serving in the Civil War, during which he was wounded several times, Stoudenmire moved to El Paso, Texas to serve as sheriff, a town famous for having no law whatsoever. Only three days after signing on, Dallas was involved in one of the West’s most legendary gunfights, the infamous “Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight,” in which he shot four men dead–demonstrating his extraordinary prowess with a six-shooter. A few days later friends of the men Stoudenmire had gunned down, hired the town drunk to assassinate him. Dallas, who by some accounts had foreknowledge of the plan, got the drop on the man and shot him eight times. This marked the beginning of what would become a blood spree perpetrated by Stoudenmire, killing six more men in gunfights over the next year, gaining a reputation as one of the most fearless lawmen in all Texas. In 1882 Stoudenmire was shot to death by group of outlaws during a verbalconfrontation.
8. Myra Maybelle Shirley-Reed-Starr, aka “Belle Starr” (3 to 5 kills) February 5, 1848–February 3, 1889
Born in Carthage, Missouri, Myra Maybelle Shirley grew up with Cole Younger and later befriended the James brothers. When the James-Younger gang needed a place to hide out, they often stayed at the Shirley family farm, earning her the nickname “The Bandit Queen.” In 1866, Belle married Jim Reed, a former Confederate Army guerrilla, who tried to live the respectable life of a farmer, but when that failed, fell in with the Starrs, a Cherokee Indian family known for horse-stealing. Along with his wife’s friends the Jameses and Youngers, Myra and Jim planned and executed many successful heists. Jim, however, was killed while trying to escape from a deputy sheriff who had arrested him for one such robbery. After the loss of her husband, Belle made her living organizing and planning robberies, as well as fencing stolen goods, and is said to have shot at least three men during these years. Known for seducing law enforcement officers to get what she wanted–when she couldn’t bribe them, she then married Sam Starr in 1880, who after two years of horse rustling, were caught and convicted of stealing horses. Released a year later, the two went right back into crime, with Belle said to have murdered at least two more men who got in her way. Belle was herself shot to death on Feb. 3, 1889, two days before her 41st birthday, while riding home from the general store. Her killer has never been found.
9. James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok (4 kills) May 27, 1837–August 2, 1876
One of the most legendary figures of the Old West, James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok was an actor, gambler, lawman, and gunfighter who was regarded as one of the most skilled gunslingers of all time. After making a name for himself as a constable and rider for the Pony Express, Hickok gained a reputation for being handy with a gun after he killed outlaw David McCanles with a single bullet from 75 yards away. More accurately called a “shootist,” Hickok was one of the very few gunslingers who participated in actual, out-in-the-street “Western-style” quick-draw duels, the first of which killed a man named Davis Tutt, Jr., following a dispute over gambling debts. In 1869, Hickok was elected sheriff of Ellis County Kansas, and is said to have killed two men in his first month on the job–giving each a chance to draw against him. Acclaimed as much in death as in life, Wild Bill was killed in 1876 in Deadwood, South Dakota, while playing poker, shot in the back of the head by a gambler named Jack McCall, supposedly in retaliation for a prior insult. Hickok is said to have been holding a pair of Aces and Eights at the time, a combination forever known as the “Dead Man’s Hand.” Despite his notoriety as one of the fastest guns of the Old West, Wild Bill is believed to have only killed four men in all his career, and all in fair fights.
10. Ben Thompson (3 kills) November 2, 1843–March 11, 1884
Gambler, (reluctant) gunfighter, and sometimes lawman, though lesser known than many of his contemporaries, Ben Thompson was well acquainted with most of the famous gunslingers of the Old West. Starting his criminal career at the age of 17, he stabbed and killed a fellow gambler whom he caught cheating him at poker. Known for being lightning fast on the draw, Thompson gained a reputation as a gunfighter after killing two men in a shootout on Christmas Eve, 1876. Trying to escape this reputation, he then tried to go straight, taking a job as marshall of Austin, Texas, but was forced to resign after killing a local theater owner named Jack Harris during an argument. Thompson was himself killed in 1884, along with gunfighter John King Fisher, when friends of Harris gunned the two down while watching a performance at an opera house.
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