January 2004 Archives

The RCMP launched a massive and highly unusual search of the home and office of an Ottawa reporter yesterday in a bid to find leaked material in the Maher Arar case.


The raid was condemned by organizations representing journalists.


"I think this is a black, black day for freedom in this country, and I'm absolutely outraged," said Scott Anderson, editor-in-chief of the Ottawa Citizen.


At 8 a.m. yesterday, 10 RCMP officers arrived at the home of Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill with a search warrant. Over the next 5 1/2 hours, they searched her house, went through her personal belongings, downloaded her computer's hard drive and took away files, spiral notebooks, address books and phonebooks. A similar search took place at her office at the Citizen's city hall bureau.


O'Neill, looking drained, emerged from her house with criminal defence lawyer Wendy Montgomery, who held up a copy of the warrant for a crowd of photographers and reporters.


Police were seeking the source of an alleged information leak stemming from a Nov. 8 story O'Neill wrote on Arar, a Canadian citizen from Syria who was deported to his native country by U.S. authorities after being stopped in New York in 2002.


Check out the Story here.

Lawyers for a Canadian who was deported to Syria by American authorities in 2002 say they will formally file a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in New York on Thursday.


Maher Arar, a 33-year-old computer engineer who lives in Ottawa, will participate by telephone in a New York news conference announcing the filing.


The American Centre for Constitutional Rights, which announced last year that it would oversee Arar's suit, said the legal papers will be filed in the U.S. District Court for the eastern district of New York.


The centre would not comment on the details of the suit before the news conference.


Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, was detained by American authorities in New York in the fall of 2002 while on his way home from a visit to Tunisia. Because he holds dual citizenship, he was deported to Syria, where he says he was tortured before being released without explanation last October.


The Americans said he was an Al Qaeda terrorist suspect, although he has never been charged with a crime in any country.
Check out the Story here.

Could this be an antenna for WiFi? Could you go wardriving with a can of stew? These and other questions can now be answered thanks to these guys:





http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

Cutting-edge technology was used at Canada's largest indoor marijuana factory to avoid detection and to grow thousands of illicit plants inside a former Molson brewery, police say.


An estimated 30,000 plants . estimated to be worth $30 million . in various stages of production were discovered by police in the raid at the landmark for southern Ontario commuters. Many of the plants were blossoming inside 25 beer vats that had been converted for incubation.


The operators used an "extremely sophisticated" and professional growing system that turned the giant vats into hot houses filled with hundreds of hydroponic plants, police said.


They used a filtration system that pumped air into the vats and also sucked out the scented air, filtering it and sending it into a self-contained room so the unmistakable aroma was not noticeable.





Check out the article Here.

The FBI has issued a terror warning to police to look out for individuals carrying almanacs or maps, reports AP.


The warning was sent to 18,000 officers before Christmas. Almanacs, warns the FBI, may be used "to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning." The Bureau acknowledges that there may be "legitimate recreational or commercial activities" that justify an individual carrying around a map or reference book.


Good thing the U.S. government doesn't make a lot of this information freely available on the CIA website...





http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

At the White House, Homeland Security officials and their British counterparts agreed to develop procedures to handle terrorist threats against international flights. The meeting followed a chaotic week at London's Heathrow airport. British Airways Flight 223 to Dulles International Airport outside Washington was delayed or canceled several times over terrorism concerns and also because British Airways pilots objected to U.S. demands that armed marshals be on board.


Among the policies causing concern abroad:


. Armed marshals must be placed on any flight into the USA at the direction of U.S. officials. The British government agreed, but other governments - including Sweden, Portugal and South Africa - objected.


Homeland Security officials say the demand will only be made based on specific intelligence about a flight.


. Foreigners who need visas to enter the USA must be fingerprinted and photographed as part of a new government program to keep terrorists out and track foreigners allowed in. "We're not doing it to harass anybody," Powell said. "We're not doing it to keep anyone but the wrong (people) out of the country."


. Countries such as Great Britain and Japan, whose citizens are not required to get visas to enter the USA, must put chips in all new passports by Oct. 26 containing digital photos and fingerprints. U.S. officials acknowledge that the countries won't be able to meet the deadline.


Asa Hutchinson, the Homeland Security Department's border security chief, said that despite the complaints, the United States is working in "close cooperation" with foreign governments on new security mandates.


But critics say the U.S. government has been heavy-handed in implementing the new policies. By announcing them during a high-alert crisis, it appears that the United States is "using fear about the possibility of an attack as a substitute for diplomacy," said Ivo Daalder, a national security aide in the Clinton White House.


Steve Flynn of the Council on Foreign Relations said, "The tool we need more than anything else (to fight terrorism) is greater international cooperation in finding who the bad guys are. That requires carrots, not sticks."


Check out the link Here.

Bush administration officials "systematically misrepresented" the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to war, according to a new report to be published on Thursday by a respected Washington think-tank.


These distortions, combined with intelligence failures, exaggerated the risks posed by a country that presented no immediate threat to the US, Middle East or global security, the report says.





Check out the link Here.

Foreigners entering U.S. airports and seaports from all but 27 nations were having their fingerprints scanned and their photographs taken beginning Monday as part of a new program to tighten border security.


Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who was in Atlanta to help launch the program at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, said Monday on NBC's "Today" show that the pilot program before the formal launch had led to 21 foreigners' being denied entry because they had earlier been deported for criminal or other legal issues.


"We want to keep our borders open. We are a welcoming country, but we want to secure the country as well," Ridge said. "We want them to come to the United States to work and to visit and to study, but we also need to make sure we have a record of who comes into the country and when they leave."


Most passengers breezed through the fingerprinting and picture-taking Monday, spending only a few seconds more than they normally would at the Customs station where they were asked about their visits.


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3875747/

A Chinese court has ordered an online video game company to return hard-won virtual property, including a make-believe stockpile of bio-chemical weapons, to a player whose game account was looted by a hacker. Li Hongchen, 24, had spent two years, and 10,000 yuan ($1,210) on pay-as-you-go cards to play, amassing weapons and victories in the popular online computer game Hongyue, or Red Moon, before his "weapons" were stolen in February, the Xinhua news agency said on Friday. Li asked the company, Beijing Arctic Ice Technology Development Co Ltd, to identify the player who stole his virtual property, but it declined, saying it could not give out a player's private details, it said.


Police also gave Li no satisfaction, so he took his case to court, demanding 10,000 yuan in compensation, Xinhua said. "I exchanged the equipment with my labor, time, wisdom and money, and of course they are my belongings," it quoted him as saying of the virtual property he collected online. The company argued that the value of the virtual property only existed in the game and was "just piles of data to our operating companies." In the end, Beijing's Chaoyang District People's Court ruled on Thursday that the firm should restore the player's lost items, finding the company liable because of loopholes in the server programs that made it easy for hackers to break in.


http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/fun.games/12/19/china.gamer.reut/index.html

The new year in Japan is a time for fresh starts and spiritual cleansing for not only the residents of Tokyo, but also their computers. At the Kanda Myojin shrine in downtown Tokyo, IT businesses and the nearby electronic shops association of Akihabara have gathered to purify their computers and protect them from common electronic evils. For most, that meant warding off computer viruses and hackers. "I work in software development and we faced many threats such as computer viruses and hackers, and if our computers breakdown we can't work anymore. So that is why it's important to me to pray for a year of safe business," said 30-year old Katsutoshi Honma whose computer was blessed according to the ancient Shinto traditions.


http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/technologynews/view/65162/1/.html

A Chinese man jailed for hacking into cable television and broadcasting footage of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement has died in prison, according to the group's website. The group said that Liu Chengjun had suffered "cruel torture" and that eyewitnesses described blood stains all over his body. Liu was serving 19 years in prison in the northern province of Jilin for his part in the 2002 protest. He was one of 15 Falun Gong members who illegally broadcast around 40 minutes of pro-Falun Gong material on a cable TV station in Changchun, capital of Jilin. The Falun Gong website said that he died on 26 December in a civilian hospital. It said that his body had been cremated on the same day without an autopsy.


The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement that Liu had been severely beaten after his detention in March 2002, and had also been ill. Falun Gong was banned by the Chinese government in 1999, after thousands of the group's followers demonstrated in Beijing demanding recognition for their faith. Their beliefs blend the ideas of the founder, Li Hongzhi, with traditional Chinese exercises and the Taoist and Buddhist faiths. Li Hongzhi is wanted by the Chinese authorities, but is currently living in the United States.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3356699.stm

Famed hacker and master social engineer Kevin Mitnick has been commissioned to write a new book following the success of his first text The Art of Deception. The new book, tentatively titled The Art of Intrusion will tell the stories of real hacks, with the names of attackers obscured to protect them from the authorities and their victims. Mitnick has called on retired hackers to come forward with their stories, offering a $500 (�283) prize for the best story that makes it into the book, and a $200 payment for all stories that make the final draft. "I'm going to tell the true stories of some of the untold most salacious hacks in cyberspace. The sexy, the ingenious, the innovative and the clever," he told ZDNet Australia by phone from the US "The stories are not going to be the same attack vector or the same class of vulnerability. I'm looking for stories that will include a variety of attack methods exploiting physical, operational, network host, and personnel security vulnerabilities."


Conceding his notoriety is at least in part responsible for his "reversal of fortune" -- he claimed he was worried that the initial conditions of his release would make it difficult for him to find a job -- Mitnick says his well-known name is useful in getting his foot in the door. "My demand in the speaking arena -- my name value or my branding -- is really a product of the sensationalism that was attached to the 'Kevin Mitnick' case... if that never happened I might be a fantastic author, a fantastic consultant, and a world renowned security professional, but by name I might not be known," Mitnick argued. "I do attribute the trials and tribulations that I experienced in the past to why my name is so well known, and... this notoriety -- it does drive some business."


http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39118685,00.htm

Looks like Micro$oft launched a big anti-Linux campaign. Checkout the latest info from 3rd-party experts on Micro$oft's website.


http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/facts/default.asp