South Korea's View on China's Media Control and Censorship

Got bored of China's Internet censorship efforts, and its interest to control mobile communications as well? I haven't, and I doubt I ever will given China is among the many other countries on the world's map actively restricting access to information, and, of course, controlling the way it reaches the final audience -- if it does.

A recent article at The Korean Times, makes some very good points on the cons of censoring the reporting of "sudden events", and the typical for a (modern) communist type of government, total centralization. It emphasises on how :

"Beijing's approach is fundamentally flawed. The news media is a positive force in society. A free press is necessary to keep the government on its toes, especially when the government itself is not accountable to the public. Restricting the press will result in a public that is kept in the dark and in local governments whose excesses will no longer be subject to scrutiny.

Beijing should understand that many of today's problems today stem from abusive local officials. Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledged at a press conference in March that some local governments have infringed upon the legitimate rights and interests of the people, and social conflicts have subsequently occurred.

In this struggle between victimized farmers and avaricious officials, the press—and the central government—are on the same side. Muzzling the press will only deprive the victims of a powerful champion while enabling grasping officials to line their pockets without fear of being exposed. Surely, this cannot be what the Chinese government wants."

In case of a "sudden event" I feel they'd rather be winning time compared to keeping it quiet, then again I guess ruling one of the largest nation in the world while trying to maintain stability -- FDI matters folks -- is a dauting task, but one not necessarily having to do with ignoring the situation. Government accountability and possible changes in voting attitudes in China don't exist, mainly because there isn't any other party, but THE party, therefore historical (under)performance doesn't count at all.

In comparison, whereas Chinese citizens suffer from the lack of information or the blocked access to it, in the U.S there's a controversial debate going on regarding over-performing investigative journalists revealing details thought to be sensitive to national security, and the overall availability of potentially sensitive information to the general public. The problem isn't the "leak" as it's a common sense practice, but the publicity it got in the post 9/11, privacy-preserving society -- or at least one trying to. Doesn't really matter if the FOIA turned forty, "redacting" is often misspelled for censorship, in between the lines of personal and sensitive information.

At the bottom line, government practices' transparency with the help of the media watchdogs, a government incapable of knowing the exact state of a situation by itself, or the notion of too much publicly available information in today's OSINT world, up to you to decide, just don't rule, run business, or blog, by excluding the middle, or you'll sooner or later face with it in one way or another. Continue reading →

Security Research Reference Coverage

I’ve recently started getting more requests on participating or guiding to a certain extend, student theses and various other research papers. There's nothing more pleasant than exchanging points of view, don't preach, but teach and question everything is what I have in mind. So, I've decided to share some publications featuring some of my previous papers, and by the way, I'm very near to releasing two research papers on hot topics that emerged during 2006, so stay tuned!

Online Media
- Quoted in an article by Arthur G. Insana for ImediaConnection.com back in 2004, discussing the various threats posed by trojan horses. Trouble is, I'm no longer affiliated with the company. Respect the individual!
- Quoted in an article by Bill Brenner on the "Storm Worm" and social engineering when it comes to malware in general
- My paper on the future trends of malware got Slashdotted
- Security.nl covered the International Exploits Shop in an article
- Yet another article at Security.nl this time regarding my future trends of malware paper.
- Marc Olanié at Reseaux-Telecoms.net has been writing lots of articles regarding my research worth going through
- Microsoft, concepteur de virus
- Des truands, des failles, du business...
- Danchev sur l'Achat de failles
- Bientôt, le virus et l'attaque DoS on demand
- Encore et toujours F-Secure/Kaspersky...
- Clusif : le rapport criminalité 2005, chantages et escroqueries
- Le Cyber-Jihad fait trembler l'Amérique
- La vie secrète du phishing : 20/20 en éco et géographie
- Symantec : Boulevard du crime... et au delà

Research Papers/Academic
- Future of Malicious Code references my future trends of malware paper. Here's the French version
- Entwurf eines Kunstlichen Immunsystems zur Netzwerkuberwachung auf Basis eines Multi-Agenten-Systems references future trends of malware
- Limiting Vulnerability Exposure through effective Patch Management: Threat Mitigation Through Vulnerability Remediation references my best practices on security policies
- Developing a Security Policy refences my paper on security policies
- Policy Review references my paper on security policies

- Hu Xiaodong, “Security Centre for an Enterprise thesis”, CS Department, Stockholm’s University, references Building and Implementing a Successful Information Security Policy

- Jinqiao Yu, "TRINETR: An Intrusion Detection Alert Management and Analysis System dissertation", College of Engineering and Mineral Resources at West Virginia University, references Building and Implementing a Successful Information Security Policy

- Philippe Farges and Annick Tremblet, "Project on Trojans", Department of Computer Science Linkoping Institute of Technology, Sweden, references The Complete Windows Trojan Paper
- Fausi Qattan & Fredrik Thernelius, "Deficiencies in Current Software Protection Mechanisms and Alternatives for Securing Computer Integrity", Department of Computer and Systems Sciences
Stockholm University - Royal Institute of Technology, references The Complete Windows Trojan Paper
- Computer Knowledge, "Virus Tutorial" references The Complete Windows Trojan Paper
- Reyes, Juan Carlos, "Una Aproximación Teórica a la Prevención del Factor Humano en la Seguridad Informatica", references Reducing "Human Factor" Mistakes
- Rezan Fisli, "Secure Corporate Communications Over VPN-Based WANs", references Building and Implementing a Successful Information Security Policy
- Vo Khac Thanh, "An IT security policy framework", Asian Institute of Technology SAT : School of Advanced Technologies, references Building and Implementing a Successful Information Security Policy
- Rohmadi Hidayat, "Deteksi Trojan Dan Penanganannya", references The Complete Windows Trojan Paper
- Robert J. Kaufman III, "Susceptibilities Policy Review (Top-Down Methodology) Lesson 7 PPT", The University of Texas at San Antonio, College of Business, references Building and Implementing a Successful Information Security Policy
- "Trends of Spyware, Viruses and Exploits", references Malware - it's getting worse
- Steven M. Michnick, "Information Security Framework for Small and Medium Sized Businesses", references Passwords - Common Attacks and Possible Solutions
- Samer Catalan, "Trojan Horses", RWTH Aachen University, references The Complete Windows Trojan Paper
- Stephen M. Specht and Ruby B. Lee, "Distributed Denial of Service: Taxonomies of Attacks, Tools, and Countermeasures", Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems, International Workshop on Security in Parallel and Distributed Systems, references The Complete Windows Trojan Paper

- Delwyn Lee, Adam Marks, David Bell, “Student Residence Secure Solutions Analysis of ResNet Security”, references Building and Implementing a Successful Information Security Policy

- Clarissa L. Evans Brown, “A Policy to prevent outsider attacks on the local network”, GSEC Practical Assignment, references Building and Implementing a Successful Information Security Policy

- Hatim Ali Badr, “Online home users Defense in Depth”, GIAC Practical Assignment, references The Complete Windows Trojan Paper

- Tim Strong, “PestPatrol in a Corporate Environment: A Case Study in Information Security” – GIAC Practical Assignment, references The Complete Windows Trojan Paper's Future of Trojans section

- Sorcha Canavan, "An Information Policy Development Guide for Large Companies" – GSEC, Practical Assignment, references Building and Implementing a Successful Information Security Policy

- Gregory R. Panakkal, “Advanced Survival Techniques in Malware”, Cochin University of Science and Technology, references The Complete Windows Trojan Paper

- Michael D. Thacker, "Effective Security Policy Management” – Virus Bulletin 2005 Conference, references Building and Implementing a Successful Information Security Policy

- My paper regarding security policies has been discussed in a network security course at the George Mason University

- University of Melbourne’s Network Security Course teaches on my security policies publication

- University of Houston are giving assignments on my security policies publication

- Tim Lackorzynski, "Future Trends of Malware PPT", Fakultät Informatik, Technische Universität Dresden, Proseminar Dependable Systems is discussing my "Malware - Future Trends" research
- Widener University have included my "Steganography and Cyber Terrorism Communications" in their forensics course reading materials Continue reading →

Delicious Information Warfare - 27/07

Given the interest in the perspective, I'm continuing to share my daily reads for the last week and a half. Catch up with previous summaries, and see the big picture as well.

01. The fine art of shoulder surfing - Many hackers download their tools but traditionalists skilled in shoulder surfing still pose a threat. to Security on july 2

02. VCs discuss the next big things - Cell phone gambling in China and other wireless trends are what venture capitalists at Brainstorm were talking about. to Investing Mobile on july 2

03. Life After Privacy - Personal information is no longer personal. The only question is: who gets to see it? to Security Privacy on july 2

04. Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say - The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court. to Intelligence Surveillance Wiretapping Terrorism NSA on july 2

05. MySpace, a place without MyParents - Scott Granneman looks at the mass hysteria surrounding MySpace social security issues, examines a collection of frightening reports, and then discusses the real issue of parenting and parental supervision behind keeping our children safe. to Security NewMedia MySpace on july 2

06. Limiting Vulnerability Exposure through effective Patch Management: threat mitigation through vulnerability remediation - This document aims to provide a complete discussion on vulnerability and patch management. It looks first at the trends relating to vulnerabilities, exploits, attacks and patches. These trends provide the drivers of patch and vulnerability management. to Vulnerabilities 0day on july 2

07. 'Blue Pill' Prototype Creates 100% Undetectable Malware - Joanna Rutkowska, a stealth malware researcher at Singapore-based IT security firm COSEINC, says the new Blue Pill concept uses AMD's SVM/Pacifica virtualization technology to create an ultra-thin hypervisor that takes complete control of the underlying.. to Malware Rootkit Technology on july 2

08. Hacker attacks hitting Pentagon - "This stuff is enormously important," said John P. Stenbit, the Pentagon's chief information officer until 2004. "If the keys get into the wrong hands, all kinds of bad things happen. to Defense InformationWarfare on july 2

09. Data Mining Myspace Bulletins - I was able to whip together a small C program that generates urls, retrieves the bulletin, and saves the html to a file. Once all of the data has been downloaded, it's easy to parse through using a tool like grep. to Security NewMedia MySpace on july 2

10. How A Trigger Set Off A Logic Bomb At UBS PaineWebber - A forensics investigator testifying at the computer sabotage trial of a former systems administrator for UBS PaineWebber detailed how each line of code in the trigger helped set off a devastating logic bomb. to Insider Malware on july 2

11. On the Economics of Information Security - Papers - The Fifth Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS 2006). to Security Leadership on july 2

12. What's Wrong with This Picture? - A messy desk is a vulnerable desk. We've created one with 20 egregious violations of a good policy. See if you can find them. to Security Workplace on july 2

13. Space attack on satellites could be devastating - If the US does not protect its Earth-orbiting satellites, the equivalent of a car bomb in space could take the economy back to the 1950s, according to witnesses testifying in Washington DC earlier this week. to Military Satellite Space SPAWAR on july 2

14. Air Force to spend $450K datamining blogs for war on terror - The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism. to Intelligence Terrorism Surveillance Technology on july 2

15. How Did U.S. Assess Iraqi Bioweapon Production? - One of the most vivid allegations made by the U.S. government regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was the claim that Iraqi had developed mobile laboratories for the production of biological weapons. to Intelligence on july 2

16. Month of Browser Bugs - I will publish one new vulnerability each day during the month of July as part of the Month of Browser Bugs project. to Vulnerabilities 0day Metasploit on july 3

17. IM's Hidden Dangers - But unlike water-cooler chatter, IMs leave a trail—one that can be tracked by employers, regulators, and law-enforcement officials. And like e-mail, IMs are considered legal documents. to IM Compliance on july 6

18. Trend Micro Execs Face Probe - Agency may charge CEO and her husband with trading in shares of his former company, SINA. Trend Micro reported revenues of $621.9 million in 2005, compared with $587.4 million in 2004. The company currently has nearly 3,000 employees around the world. to Investing AntiVirus on july 6

19. Blast from the past: '50s Nevada A-bombs light LA's night sky - In the early 1950s, several above-ground atom bomb tests at the Nevada Proving Ground were visible in Los Angeles. This photo and five similar ones from 1951-1955 are from the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Database. to Defense Nuclear Technology on july 6

20. FOIA at Forty - The fortieth anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act, signed into law by President Johnson on July 4, 1966, was marked with the release of several interesting and informative publications.
to FOIA on july 6

21. Early Days On The Anti-Virus Front: A Personal Perspective - An anti-virus programmer reminisces about the people and the organizations that were pivotal in the earliest days of the war against computer viruses.
to Malware AntiVirus on july 6

22. The Blue Pill Hype - The working prototype I have (and which I will be demonstrating at SyScan and Black Hat) implements the most important step towards creating such malware, namely it allows to move the underlying operating system, on the fly, into a secure virtual machine. to Malware Rootkit Innovation on july 6

23. New PoC virus can infect both Windows and Linux - The virus is interesting, said analysts on Kaspesky's Viruslist website, because it is capable of infecting ELF, the file format used for Linux systems, and PE, Windows' file format. to Malware on july 6

24. Iranian intelligence services ban access to Azerbaijani websites - He reported that the ban aims at depriving Iranian Azerbaijanis of the contact with the international community. to Censorship Intelligence Iran on july 6

25. Can the N.Y. Times Be Charged Under the Espionage Act? - Can The New York Times be prosecuted for their story about the government's secret terrorist finance tracking program? to Intelligence Espionage Terrorism FreeSpeech on july 6

26. Text messaging censorship: PITA, BFD, or BTHOM? - Text messaging and the first level of censorship begins at the phone. While it's certainly possible to enter any word using the alphabetic method in which a=2, b=2-2, c=2-2-2, d=3 and so on, it isn't very convenient. to Censorship Mobile on july 6

27. Iran Accuses Academic Of Espionage For U.S. - Iran today accused jailed academic Ramin Jahanbegloo of having spied for the United States, with the aim of toppling the ruling Islamic system. to Intelligence Espionage Iran on july 6

28. Italian intelligence officials arrested over CIA kidnap - Italian police arrested two officials with Italy's military intelligence agency on Wednesday on suspicion of helping the CIA in the alleged kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in Milan, judicial sources said. to Intelligence Espionage CIA on july 6

29. New York Times Draws Criticism Over Decision to Reveal Intelligence Program - Executive editor of the New York Times Bill Keller and former director of the NSA Admiral Bobby Inman debate the newspaper's publication of the Bush administration's surveillance of banking records and the process in deciding what is fit to print. to FreeSpeech on july 6

30. Hackers May Lose Nuclear Option - The risk was illustrated in 2003, when the Slammer worm penetrated a network at the idled Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio, disabling a safety monitoring computer for nearly five hours. to SCADA Nuclear Cyberterrorism Malware on july 7

31. 3 arrested in Coca-Cola trade secret scheme - "As the health of our enterprise continues to strengthen and the breadth of our innovation pipeline continues to grow, our ideas and our competitive data carry increasing interest to those outside our business." to Insider Espionage on july 7

32. Proactive Protection: a Panacea for Viruses? - The first in a series of articles that discuss the newest technologies used by antivirus companies which focuses on proactive technologies. to Malware Innovation on july 7

33. Japan to speed up installation of missile defense system - The envisioned missile defense system will detect launches of ballistic missiles with Aegis and other sophisticated radar systems and shoot them down with the sea-based Standard Missile-3 and the land-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3. to Defense Military on july 7
34. FCC CALEA Wiretap Rule for Broadband and VOIP - This document addresses the assistance capabilities required, pursuant to section 103 of the (CALEA- for facilities-based broadband Internet access providers and providers of interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). to Security Terrorism Intelligence Wiretapping CALEA VoIP Compliance on july 7
35. Tensions Ramping up with North Korea - "The U.S. was hell bent on espionage over military objects of the DPRK in March when it staged large-scale RSOI and "Foal Eagle" joint military exercises, bringing about the dark cloud of nuclear warfare." to Defense Military Reconnaissance on july 7
36. Over 1,200 Cases of U.S. Aerial Espionage - Translated 2004 News Items - Involved in the aerial espionage were latest reconnaissance planes of different missions including U-2, RC-135, E-8C, E-3, RC-7B, RC-12, RF-4, P-3 and EP-3. to Espionage Military Reconnaissance on july 7
37. Interview : An Ethical Hacker Protects the World Cup Network - Dr. Tom Porter is the mastermind behind the security for the World Cup network and a lifetime hacker himself. He shares his thoughts about network security, hacking and protecting the World Cup network. to Security Interview Leadership on july 7
38. Google’s Microsoft Syndrome - Google has fixed a security flaw in its RSS reader that could have allowed hackers to steal users’ personal information, but experts warned Thursday that the online giant could increasingly become a magnet for hackers, displacing Microsoft as the No. 1 target to Vulnerability Google NewMedia Web on july 7
39. Hefty bill for online click fraud - Online advertisers paid more than $800m last year for fraudulent clicks on their ads and more than a quarter of them have reduced their spending as a result, according to a study by the Outsell media research firm. to NewMedia Advertising Investing on july 7
40. BitDefender Ships Anti-Rootkit Beta - The anti-virus vendor, based in Bucharest, Romania, on July 7 lifted the wraps off a new anti-rootkit utility that promises to spot and delete stealthy software programs that are used by malicious hackers to hide malware. to Malware AntiVirus Rootkit Technology on july 7
41. VPN market to hit $29bn by 2009 - The virtual private network (VPN) services market was worth $23bn (£12.5bn) in 2005 and is expected to grow another 22 per cent to hit $29bn (£15.8bn) by 2009, according to an industry analyst. to Security VPN Investing on july 7
42. US managers accused of industrial espionage - Three former US car industry executives have been accused of selling trade secrets to the Chinese. to Espionage Insider on july 7
43. Mod terror documents found in ditch - According to the newspaper, it includes phone numbers for the UK's most important military figures, such as the Defence Secretary, Chief of Defence Staff and Director of Special Force. to Security on july 7
44. Authorities say gangs using Internet - Some of the country's most notorious street gangs have gotten Web-savvy, showcasing illegal exploits, making threats, and honoring killed and jailed members on digital turf. to PSYOPS on july 7 Continue reading →

$960M and the FBI's Art of Branding Insecurity

In previous posts "Are cyber criminals or bureaucrats the industry's top performer?", and "Insiders - insights, trends and possible solutions" I emphasized on how bureaucracy results in major insecurities, and provided further info on various issues related to insiders and risk management solutions -- ones the FBI is obviously far from implementing given the access control issues they have in place. It seems like two years ago, a Consultant Breached FBI's Computers :

"A government consultant, using computer programs easily found on the Internet, managed to crack the FBI's classified computer system and gain the passwords of 38,000 employees, including that of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. The break-ins, which occurred four times in 2004, gave the consultant access to records in the Witness Protection Program and details on counterespionage activity, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. As a direct result, the bureau said it was forced to temporarily shut down its network and commit thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars to ensure no sensitive information was lost or misused."

How he did it? With access to hashes and 90 days password expiration period, he had all the time in the world, excluding the fact that according to the article a FBI agent even game him his password.

Passwords are a hot topic, and so are the insecurities posed by them. Moreover, spending near $1B for a non-existent case system, while dealing with access control issues is rather unserious for thought to be serious institution -- have you guys considered an open source alternative? You wouldn't come across lots of developers with top-secret clearances applying for the top, but obviously a top-secret clearance cannot prevent insider behavior as well. Continue reading →

Travel Without Moving - North Korea Missile Launch Pad

Seems like it's North Korea's most active PR month given the public outbreak due to their unsuccessful launch of an intercontinental missile, so in these Travel Without Moving series I decided to feature the launch pad, originally came across it, nowhere else but at Cryptome's well sorted photo gallery of the event. Whereas the U.S is activating diplomatic ties in order to put more pressure on North Korea's tests, China and Russia among the rest of the superpowers seems to be teasing the U.S in a way only they can afford to -- let's don't forget the financial incentives for Russia to enrich Iran's uranium altogether. As far as Kim Jong Il is concerned, in between fueling growth in the infrastructure necessary to maintain a regime, he enjoys making secret meetings with ex-comrades while travelling to Moscow with his armoured train, as he's afraid of flying.

Previous series, related posts :
Travel Without Moving - Typhoon Class Submarines
Travel Without Moving - Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center
Travel Without Moving - KGB Lubyanka Headquarters
Travel Without Moving - Korean Demilitarized Zone
Travel Without Moving - Georgi Markov's KGB Assassination Spot
Travel Without Moving - Scratching the Floor

North Korea - Turn On the Lights, Please
Who Needs Nuclear Weapons Anymore?
Who's Who in Cyber Warfare?
Is a Space Warfare Arms Race Really Comming?
EMP Attacks - Electronic Domination in Reverse Continue reading →

How to Win the U.S Elections

Juicy barbecues, hugging babies, in between offering, and asking for the Moon days are over. E-voting is the future of technological political engineering. So, how can you win the U.S Elections?

01. Ensure one company holds a virtual monopoly in E-voting systems, thus contributing to yet another monocultural insecurity. If it naturally has some competition, insist its systems are placed in key regions, where barbecues wouldn't work.

02. Start a nation-wide PR campaign emphasizing on the benefits of E-voting. Mention it's innovative, it's going to cut costs while providing you with flexibility, the way it provides flexibity to citizens abroad, moreover, also emphasize on the increased speed of the results.

03. Make sure the rural areas where the masses of technologically unsophisticated citizens are the ones taking advantage of this immature concept. The point is that, even if there's an error, they got no chance of defining it.

04. If something "goes wrong" forward all the responsibility to the virtual monopolist, and promise pracautions against future possiblities for modifying the results -- anyway, sorry folks the elections are over, so till next time keep on speculating what actually happened.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the universe, where we should perhaps thank Jessus for coming up with more colours in live, than black and white only, I stumbled upon an Unredacted Diebold Black Box Voting Hack Reports with quite some disturbing images. Make sure the efficincy that you wish for, doesn't actually happen. A friend also tipped me on this quite longish report on the topic, and didn't forget to warn me to remove my 3D glassess before reading it either.

UPDATE : Interesting political reading related to veto power.

Clippy votes courtesy of the EFF. Continue reading →

BBC under the Intelligence Shadow

Nothing is impossible, the impossible just takes a little while. A relatively typical practices for the ex-USSR, namely controlling the media and profiling the journalists including the readers, seem to have been going on in London during the same period as well. According to the Sunday Telegraph, the BBC let intelligence agents vet staff :

"Confidential papers obtained by the Sunday Telegraph reveal that the British Broadcasting Corp. allowed intelligence agents to investigate the backgrounds and political affiliations of thousands of its employees, including newsreaders, reporters and continuity announcers. The files, which shed light on the BBC's hitherto secret links with the counter-espionage service known as MI5, show that at one stage it was responsible for vetting 6,300 BBC posts -- almost a third of the total work force. The procedure was phased out in the late 1980s. The files also show that the corporation maintained a list of "subversive organizations" and that evidence of certain kinds of political activity could be a bar to appointment or promotion."

If you can spell the name of the party while sleeping, and have subscribed to its periodical propaganda, only then you have the chance to unleash your career potential. I guess what they were worried about was an undercover Red reporter, taking advantage of live events and directly broadcasting a subvertive message -- remember when a guy invaded Truman's world in the "Truman show", and tried to warn the little kid he's on TV all the time? The interesting part is how even the spouses of applicants were subject to scrutiny.

There you go with the freedom of the press, I guess China must have had something in mind when blocking access to the BBC's web site. Continue reading →

China's Interest of Censoring Mobile Communications

Just came across to a great article at the IHT on China's interest of tightening control of cellphones :

"The new measures being contemplated for tightening control of cellphone use reportedly include mandatory user registration. Users now can easily buy cellphone cards at any convenience store, instantly obtaining a new phone number without identifying themselves. Whether through speech or short messaging, cellphones have played a major role in a wave of social unrest that has swept China in the last two years, allowing people to organize quickly and to spread news of police actions and other developments. Anonymous use of cellphones is a major loophole at a time when the state is investing heavily on monitoring communications of all kinds, and the authorities appear determined to close it"

Whereas there's been quite some media coverage on China's Internet censorship efforts, the country's under-developed income distribution model results in more people having access to plain simple cellphone communications compared to owning a PC. And even if they own a PC, or use public ones to access the Internet, information from China's provinces where the real China is, often breaks out through SMS messages -- or comes in. Venus Info Tech's Cybervision SMS Filtering System is what they've been using, and it seems it's the government's long-term partner. The article also points out on the illegality of reporting or broadcasting information on "sudden events", consider the SARS virus as one of these. Yet another in-depth article, indicates the only usefulness out of this censorship, or let's use a more friendly term, such as content monitoring/filtering, which is the detection of banking frauds and other scams -- can you censor "Bware, SMS unda ctrl" or learn to encode in such a way?

From a business perspective, the Chinese Internet population represents a hot opportunity for companies offering censorship-circumvention services -- IP cloaking and competitive intelligence among the other needs. It's interesting to note U.S government's interest in Chinese citizens having access to more information :

"Ultrareach and Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT) in North Carolina, both connected to Falun Gong, receive U.S. government funding through the International Broadcasting Bureau to help it get Voice of America and Radio Free Asia to Chinese Web surfers. Each day, DIT sends out millions of emails and text messages containing proxy links to Chinese citizens. About one million users have downloaded DIT's circumvention software, which automatically links to the firm's proxy servers, while ``hundreds of thousands'' directly access the proxy Web sites daily, said founder Bill Xia. UltraReach, claims 100,000 users use its proxies.All told, the IBB spends about $5 million a year on contracts with hacktivists and firms on censorship-busting efforts in countries such as China and Iran."

I also came across to an informative research on the topic, "The Wireless Leash : Mobile Messaging Service as a Means of Control". Recommended reading in case you want to know more on the topic from a social and political perspective, as well as go through many relevant cases.

UPDATE : China restricts Internet cafe access - "Rules on children in Internet cafes were imposed after Chinese officials warned that students were spending too much time playing online games and were getting access to violent and obscene material."

Related resources:
Censorship
China
2006 = 1984?
Anonymity or Privacy on the Internet?
World's Internet Censorship Map
China - the biggest black spot on the Internet’s map
Chinese Internet Censorship efforts and the outbreak
Securing political investments through censorship Continue reading →

Hacktivism Tensions - Israel vs Palestine Cyberwars

Oops, they did it again. The most recent case of hacktivism recently occurred :

"Shortly after IDF tanks rolled into Gaza, another old front of conflict was reopened early Wednesday morning, but in this battle Kassam rockets and artillery shells were replaced by worms and viruses as pro-Palestinian hackers shut down approximately 700 Israeli web domains. A range of different Web sites were targeted by the group, including Web sites of banks, medical centers, car manufacturers and pension funds.Well-known companies and organizations, including Bank Hapoalim, the Rambam Medical Center, Bank Otsar Ha-Hayal, BMW Israel, Subaru Israel and Citr en Israel, real estate company Tarbut-Hadiur and the Jump fashion Web site all found their Web sites shut down and replaced by the message: Hacked by Team-Evil Arab hackers u KILL palestin people we KILL Israel servers."

Zone-H has naturally covered the event and mirrored it, in between receiving an official PR release from the defacement group -- guess it's not just terrorists with cheap marketing teams given the badly structured press release. What these folks don't seem to be able to realize is that if they were to deface every web site hosting the infamous Muhammad cartoons, they would end up with a full-time job doing so. What's worth mentioning is the nature of defaced servers, banks, hospitals, private sector companies, my point is that if they were really up to causing havoc, they had the necessary privileges to do so. Let's not think on loud on worst case "what if" analysis though.

Defacements are a great example of PSYOPS , most importantly the indirect way of undermining a country's population confidence in their abilities to win any war or political campaign. During WWII brochures were laying around everywhere, and planes were dropping them across various cities to, either undermine, of influence the opinion of the locals towards their vision. The power of the Internet echo is what they're aiming to achieve, and while I may be whispering their "achievements" even further, the visitors of the affected sites partly got exposed to their propaganda. It's also to interesting to think of PSYOPS in reverse, that is users in countries with restrictive regimes trying to reach out the rest of world through malware -- beneficial malware, or beneficial PSYOPS?

What the current, emerging and future state of Hacktivism? In her outstanding research titled "Hacktivism and the Future of Political Participation", Alexandra Samuel points out some of the key points to keep in mind, and constructively speculates on the future trends.

At the bottom line, what's all the fuss about? No, it's not because an Israeli covert operative was kidnapped and held hostage, but because of an 18 years old "destruction machine" which reminds me of the way we used to argue and wage wars on the sand around the same age. The type of, "the wind has just blown your soldier way beyond the DMZ, and therefore we have no other choice but to attack you with all our forces. Resistance is futile!" conflicts.

Go to school, hell, even go to an ethical hacking one, or else you'll end up like a walking sausage having to squeeze yourself with a belt so tight in order not to have your pants fall down! Automated defacement tool shot courtesy of WebSense. And btw, how was your July Morning?

Related resouces :
Israeli-Palestinian Cyberconflict (IPCC) - the complete coverage back in 2001!
The Israeli-Palestinian Cyberconflict
Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism : The Internet as a Tool for Influencing Foreign Policy
The Cycle of Cyber Conflict
Cyber Attacks During the War on Terrorism
Examining the Cyber Capabilities of Islamic Terrorist Groups
Cyberprotests : The Threat to the U.S Information Infrastructure
Analysis: U.S.-China 'cyberwar' fires blanks
Techno Imperialism and the Effect of Cyberterrorism
Cyberterrorism - don't stereotype and it's there!
Cyberterrorism - recent developments Continue reading →

Real-Time PC Zombie Statistics

Zombies inevitably turning into botnets represent a huge, automated and efficient advantage to malicious attackers, I topic and most of its dimensions I covered in my Future trends of malware research. CipherTrust's Zombie Stats help you measure the approximate population of infected zombie PCs according to the vendor's TrustedSource. Not surprisingly, China's steadily increasing novice Internet population, both represents a growing menace to the entire Internet, and a market development opportunity for AV and security vendors. The situation is getting of hand with ISPs upgrading Internet connections, while still not putting enough efforts when it comes to dealing with botnets. And while some are taking actions under enforcement, major ISPs are still reluctant to face the issue -- ISPs still prefer to offer security services on a license basis or through reseller partnerships, though I'm certain there's an entire market segment waiting to be discovered by them if they manage to reset their position in this space.

Moreover, Prolexic's Zombie report for Q1-Q2 2005, provides even more detailed info, and a neat visualization of the routes involved with DDoS attacks, where the blue represents the U.S, and the red China. For the the time being, the ShadowServer guys keep on enthusiastically dealing with the problem, for no profit at all. Continue reading →

The WarDriving Police and Pringles Hacking

These days you never know where the next hacking attempt on your wireless network may come from. In this case, it's from the police, as authorities start mimicking wardriving behavior :

"The Douglas Country Sheriff's DOffice says it's going to start warning computer users that their networks may be vulnerable to hackers. The Sheriff's Department plans to equip several of its community service and patrol cars with devices that detect unprotected computer networks. In cases where investigators can figure out who owns the networks, they'll try to warn of potential security issues. They'll also drop off brochures with instructions to computer users on how to password protect their networks."

Back in 2004, Kelly Martin wrote a very pragmatic article on Catching a virus writer, empasizing on how "with the consumer WiFi explosion, launching a virus into the wild has never been easier and more anonymous than it is today." Moreover, Kaspersky labs recently assessed the situation in England, and you can easily see the need of basic awareness there.

I don't feel it's a good idea mainly because it generates more noise for the end user to sort through. They'd rather assess and position on a map the regions with most vulnerable networks and figure out a cost-effective ways of spreading awareness in these regions, instead of taking the role of an ethical wardriving. On the other hand, if they start taking care of wireless, would they start taking into consideration Bluetooth as well? There're just too many ethical wardrivers to deal with and deceive these days, and creative end users tend to multiply themselves or, of course, use common sense protection.

WarDriving Awareness brochure courtesy of Tom Hayward. Recommended reading - "War, Peace, or Stalemate: Wargames, Wardialing, Wardriving, and the Emerging Market for Hacker Ethics". Continue reading →

North Korea - Turn On the Lights, Please

North Korea's recent missile launch furor, and the obvious conventional weaponry doctrine in place, as well as my comments in the Travel Without Moving series - Korean Demilitarized Zone, reminded me of a how they tend to fuel growth in military spending/the regime, where the trade-off is a developing economy, or any economy at all. I feel North Korea is still quite dark these days, very impressive imagery showing that :

"South Korea is bright, North Korea is dark. This amazing image is included in the standard US Department of Defense briefings on North Korea. It was mentioned in a news briefing on 23 December 2002 by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, who stated that "If you look at a picture from the sky of the Korean Peninsula at night, South Korea is filled with lights and energy and vitality and a booming economy; North Korea is dark." There are a number of versions of this image in circulation, with visible differences that vary according to the conditions at the time the imagery was acquired."

Rich Karlgaard's comment on lifting North Korea sanctions, and Quentin Hardy's argument that "Capitalism has corrupted other authoritarian regimes, why not North Korea?”are worth taking into consideration. Continue reading →

Tracking Down Internet Terrorist Propaganda

I always knew there's a team of cheap marketers behind every terrorist organization trying to market yet another multimedia killing, or put it simple fear, treats, and no respect for life. Why cheap? Mainly because there's no segmentation or niche issues to deal with, but mostly mass marketing, while harnessing the power of the never ending resonation from the media echo.

Rather biased, today's opinion on Cyberterrorism always has to do primarily with destruction as the core of the problem. Active research is already conducted on "Arabic Extremist Group Forum Messages' Characteristics" and "Terrorist Social Network Analysis", and the real issues still remain communication, research, fundraising, propaganda, recruitment and training -- I wish Dorothy Denning was also blogging on the topic!

iDefense, being the masters of CYBERINT, recently found jihadist web sites related to Zarqawi's "Successor". The interesting part :

"This website contains forums with a mix of threads covering items from the latest information on the militants in the Middle East, such as a video of militants in Syria, to hacker education, such as Microsoft Word documents available for downloading that detail CGI, unicode and php exploits. The members appear to be interested in physical and cyber-related threats. The membership of the site is growing and is already over 10,000+ members. Plus, we at iDefense/VeriSign are very interested to see what hacking issues or levels of cyber expertise may be covered on this site."

By the way, I just came across to an outstanding list of Islamic sites at Cryptome. These are definitely about to get crawled, analyzed, and for sure, under attack in the future. For instance, the most recent example of hacktivism tensions, are the hundreds of hacked Israeli web pages, in the light of Israel's military action in Gaza.

Further reading on:
Terrorism
Cyberterrorism
How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet
Jihad Online : Islamic Terrorists and the Internet
Right-wing Extremism on the Internet
Terrorist web sites courtesy of the SITE Institute
The HATE Directory November 2005 update
Recruitment by Extremist Groups on the Internet Continue reading →

Delicious Information Warfare - 24/27 June

Go through my daily reads for 13/24 June as well.

01. Meteorite Collision - "Japanese animation showing what would happen if a giant meteor hit the Earth." to Space on june 25

02. Should We Lift North Korean Sanctions? - "Quentin Hardy summed up his side’s argument: “Capitalism has corrupted other authoritarian regimes, why not North Korea?”to Investing on june 25

03. The ABCs of New Security Leadership - "Maintaining the right level of boardroom and employee awareness is a consequence of leadership. And more effective ideas and tactics are replacing the old, reactive security leadership paradigm. Below, CSO looks at what's Out and what's In." to Security Leadership on june 27

04. Blackmailer : the story of Gpcode - "Analysts at Kaspersky Lab had successfully cracked a 660 bit RSA encryption key. This was the latest victory against a cyber blackmailer that had been plaguing users in Russia for over a year and a half." to Malware Ransomware on june 27

05. My Anti-Virus Revolving Door - "I'm the Donald Trump of anti-virus software testing. It won't be long before they're all fired." to Malware AntiVirus on june 27

06. Eyeballing Israel Signal Facilities - "Israeli Signal Facilities, courtesy of the Eyeball Series." to Security Defense Reconnaissance Satellite GEOINT on june 27

07. DHS Special Report Can DHS meet IT cybersecurity expectations? - “In the Defense budget we have put hundreds of millions of dollars in for info. dominance,” Weldon said. He cited Pentagon programs to fund universities to launch cybersecurity studies centers and to expand the military’s own cybersecurity programs." to Security Defense Cyberterrorism Leadership on june 27

08. Tampa GOP Cyber-Attack - "As the global Islamist war heats up, technically savvy cyber-terrorists will continue to look to find weaknesses in the Internet infrastructure of the West." to InformationWarfare Cyberterrorism Hacktivism PSYOPS on june 27

09. Analysis Warns U.S. of Cyber Security Weaknesses - "If our nation is hit by a cyber Katrina that wipes out large parts of the Internet, there is no coordinated plan in place to restart and restore the Internet," said John J. Castellani, President of the Roundtable." to Security Defense Cyberterrorism Leadership on june 27

10. Ignoring the Great Firewall of China - "The so-called "Great Firewall of China" operates, in part, by inspecting TCP packets for keywords that are to be blocked. If the keyword is present, TCP reset packets (viz: with the RST fag set) are sent to both endpoints of the connection.." to Censorship China FreeSpeech on june 27

11. Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security - "Espionage information." to Intelligence Espionage on june 27

12. China-Led Group to Fight Web Fraud, Cyber Terrorism - "A Russian and Chinese-led bloc of Asian states said Thursday it plans to set up an expert group to boost computer security and help guard against threats to their regimes from the Internet." to Security on june 27

13. Immunizing The Internet, Or : How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Worm - "In a 1997 exercise, NSA teams hacked into computer systems at four regional military commands and the National Military Command Center and showed that hackers could cause large-scale power outages and 911 emergency telephone network overloads." to Security Defense InformationWarfare Cyberterrorism on june 27

14. Five Questions For Martin Roesch, Founder and CTO of Sourcefire - "In 1998, Roesch created Snort, an app that sniffs out malicious traffic trying to enter a network. Snort's free source code has been downloaded more than 3 million times." to Interview on june 27

15. Firms Eye Video Surveillence - "And as the technology shrinks, the cameras slip deeper into the background, hardly noticed, streaming more than 4 billion hours of footage a week—footage that usually ends up lost, and never seen." to Surveillance CCTV Technology on june 27

16. How big is Earth compared to other planets and stars? - "Fun series of photos comparing Earth's size to that of other planets and stars." to Space on june 27

17. All-Seeing Blimp on the Rise - "The problem with the American military today is that it doesn't have a giant, robotic airship, two-and-a-half times the size of the Goodyear blimp, that can watch over an entire city at once.The idea is to park an unmanned airship over a hot zone. to Military Surveillance Privacy on june 27

18. Malware in Popular Networks - "Some of the other popular means of computer supported collaboration are USENET, IRC, P2P, IM. We have seen a consistent uprise of malware targeting these collaborative systems."
to Malware on june 27

19. Word macro trojan dropper and (another) downloader - "We've seen a lot of new malware being spammed in last couple of hours." to Malware on june 27 Continue reading →

Malicious Web Crawling

SiteAdvisor indeed cashed for evaluating the maliciosness of the web, and New Zealand feels that nation wide google hacking initiatives are a more feasible solution to the problem of google hacking, compared to the Catawba County Schools Board of Education who blamed Google for indexing student test scores & social security numbers. It's like having a just-moved, 25/30 years old neighbors next to your place, who didn't know you have thermal movement detection equipment and parabolic microphones, in order to seal the house by using robots.txt, or assigning the necessary permissions on the web server asap.

Tip to the Board of Education, don't bother Google but take care of the problem on your own, immediately, through Google's automatic URL removal system, by first "inserting the appropriate meta tags into the page's HTML code. Doing this and submitting via the automatic URL removal system will cause a temporary, 180-day removal of these pages from the Google index, regardless of whether you remove the robots.txt file or meta tags after processing your request."

Going back to the idea of malicious web crawling, the best "what if" analysis comes from Michal Zalewski, back in 2001's Phrack issue article on "The Rise of the Robots" -- nice starting quote! It tries to emphasize that "Others - Internet workers - hundreds of never sleeping, endlessly browsing information crawlers, intelligent agents, search engines... They come to pick this information, and - unknowingly - to attack victims. You can stop one of them, but can't stop them all. You can find out what their orders are, but you can't guess what these orders will be tomorrow, hidden somewhere in the abyss of not yet explored cyberspace. Your private army, close at hand, picking orders you left for them on their way. You exploit them without having to compromise them. They do what they are designed for, and they do their best to accomplish it. Welcome to the new reality, where our A.I. machines can rise against us."

That's a far more serious security issue to keep an eye on, instead of Google's crawlers eating your web site for breakfast. Continue reading →

Shots From the Wild - Terrorism Information Awareness Program Demo Portal

A lot has changed since my last post on "Data mining, terrorism and security", namely NSA's warrantless surveillance efforts. So, in the spirit of a second possible NSA facility, I've decided to post a shot from the TIA's early stages of development obtained though the most detailed, conceptual, and from a developer's point of view description of the program.

There've also been speculations on the severity of NSA wiretapping program compared to the Watergate scenario, while I feel that besides political engineering through infowar, it also occurs relatively more often over a juicy barbecue.

Related resources on Intelligence, NSA, Surveillance, Wiretapping. Continue reading →

Dealing with Spam - The O'Reilly.com Way

While China feels that centralization is the core of everything, and is licensing the use of mail servers to fight spam, thus totally ignoring the evolution of spam techniques, the other day I came across to some recent Spam Statistics from Oreilly.com -- scary numbers!

"Our mail servers accepted 1,438,909 connections, attempting to deliver 1,677,649 messages. We rejected 1,629,900 messages and accepted only 47,749 messages. That's a ratio of 1:34 accepted to rejected messages! Here is how the message rejections break down:

Bad HELO syntax: 393284
Sending mail server masquerades as our mail server: 126513
Rejected dictionary attacks: 22567
Rejected by SORBS black list: 262967
Rejected by SpamHaus black list: 342495
Rejected by local block list: 5717
Sender verify failed: 4525
Recipient verify failed (bad To: address): 287457
Attempted to relay: 5857
No subject: 176
Bad header syntax: 0
Spam rejected (score => 10): 42069
Viruses/malware rejected: 2575
Bad attachments rejected: 1594"

Draw up the conclusions for yourself, besides shooting into the dark or general syntax errors, total waste of email traffic resulting in delayed email is the biggest downsize here, thankfully, non-commercial methods are still capable of dealing with the problem. At the bottom line, sending a couple of million email messages on the cost of anything, and getting a minor response from a "Hey this is hell of a deal and has my username on the top of it!" type of end users seems to keep on motivating the sender. Localized spam is much more effective as an idea, but much easier to trace compared to mass-marketing approaches, though I feel it would emerge with the time.

Browse through Spamlinks.net for anything anti-spam related, quite an amazing resource. Continue reading →

Big Brother in the Restroom

Wikes! This is nasty, and while the porn industry has commercialized the idea a long time ago, I never imagined the levels of crime in public restrooms would "reach" levels requiring CCTVs to be installed -- if there's so much vandalism going on in public restrooms, these will definitely get stolen as well, picture the situation! Norway installs surveillance cameras in park restrooms.

Hint : once you get involved in the CCTV irony, I say irony mainly because the dude behind the 40 motion detection and face recognition wall is having another CCTV behind his back, you end up spending tax payers money to cover "blind spots", and end up with a negative ROI while trying to achieve self-regulation, if one matters!

Surveillance and Society's journal still remains the most resourceful publication on surveillance studies and its impact on society.

Further reading and previous cases:
The Hidden Camera
Iowa Judge Says Hidden Restroom Camera Case Can Proceed to Trial Continue reading →

World's Internet Censorship Map

While it seems rather quiet on the Internet's censorship front, the media coverage on the topic represents a cyclical buzz that reemerges with the time.

Thankfully, initiatives as the OpenNet one, and organizations such as Reporters Without Borders never stop being the society's true watchdogs when it comes to Internet censorship. ONI's neat visualization of the Internet filtering map is a great way of pin pointing key locations, and provide further details through their in-depth reports, take a look for yourself!

Censorship is capable of running entire governments, maintaining historical political power, and mostly ruling by "excluding the middle". Recently, two of China's leading Internet portals were shut down due to maintenance issues acting as the excuse for improving their filtering capabilities. Reporters Without Borders conducted an outstanding analysis of the situation, coming to the conclusion "that the search engines of China’s two leading Internet portals, Sina and Sohu, after they were shut down from 19 to 21 June for what they described as a “technical upgrade” but which in fact was designed to improve the filtering of their search results."

What is Google up to? Making business compromises in order to harness the power of the growing Chinese Internet population. And while the Wall is cracking from within, the world is also taking actions against the fact that there're currently 30 journalists behind bars in China. Continue reading →