The document, which the two bloggers published within minutes of each other Dec. 27, was sent by TSA to airlines and airports around the world and described temporary new requirements for screening passengers through Dec. 30, including conducting “pat-downs” of legs and torsos. The document, which was not classified, was posted by numerous bloggers. Information from it was also published on some airline websites.
“They’re saying it’s a security document but it was sent to every airport and airline,” says Steven Frischling, one of the bloggers. “It was sent to Islamabad, to Riyadh and to Nigeria. So they’re looking for information about a security document sent to 10,000-plus people internationally. You can’t have a right to expect privacy after that.”
Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said in a statement that security directives “are not for public disclosure.”
“TSA’s Office of Inspections is currently investigating how the recent Security Directives were acquired and published by parties who should not have been privy to this information,” the statement said.
from forbes: After 10 months of delays, President Obama has finally chosen a cybersecurity coordinator, filling the so-called "cyber czar" position he had long promised to create to shore up the nation's defenses against hackers and cyberspies. His pick: Howard Schmidt, head of the Information Security Forum, a non-profit cybersecurity research consortium. Schmidt has an impressive resume, with stints in government cybersecurity as well as at large corporations like eBay and Microsoft. But the last ten months weren't necessarily spent finding the perfect candidate for Obama's top cybersecurity job so much as finding someone willing to accept it. At least three other candidates had been privately offered the position and turned it down, as Forbes reported in July (see: "Obama's Unwilling Cyber Czars"). Cybersecurity industry watchers told Forbes at the time that was because the position had been stripped of much of its power in an effort to ensure that new cyber regulations didn't hamper economic recovery.
it's like salt for hackers... from the register: The US and Russia have begun talks on limiting the the military use of cyberspace. Entry into the cyber arms reduction talks - convened by a United Nations arms control committee - represents a significant shift for the US, which has resisted entering such talks for years, the New York Times reports. The change of tack came after the US decided that the cyberwarfare capabilities were spreading across the globe to countries such as North Korea and China.
The Russians have long called for talks on spreading the spread of cybermunitions along the lines of treaties limiting the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare forged during the cold war era. The US has resisted such moves for a long time but is now coming around to the view that regulations do have some role to play.
The US wants the talks to cover greater international co-operation in the fight against cybercrime, while Russia is keen to discuss the supposed risks to national sovereignty posed by cyberterrorism. The Obama administration ordered a review of US internet security strategy in February but is yet to appoint anyone to the cybersecurity czar role established as part of the review.
from dark government: A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night [dec9] has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled. Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing sight to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or a shock wave – although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet. The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, then began to circulate. Within seconds a giant spiral had covered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out from its centre – lasting for ten to twelve minutes before disappearing completely. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute was flooded with telephone calls after the light storm – which astronomers have said did not appear to have been connected to the aurora, or Northern Lights, so common in that area of the world. The mystery deepened tonight as Russia denied it had been conducting missile tests in the area.
Problem is they attempted to do this with a PDF editor and blew it big time. Instead of printing the document and marking out the areas by hand, they merely placed black boxes over the text in the editor. Call it laziness or stupidity. Either way, the boxes were easily defeated because they are not part of the document. Even a sixth grader with rudimentary knowledge of Acrobat or other PDF editors knows this.
At any rate, the document reveals a few things the feds don’t want us to know. For instance, Section 2A-2 (C) (1) (b) (iv) addresses which twelve passports will instantly get you moved to secondary screening. Other juicy details include the procedure for CIA-escorted passengers to be processed and the calibration process of airport metal detectors.
from raw story: The Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against several government agencies hoping to force the revelation of how the U.S. utilizes social networks like Facebook and MySpace to collect intelligence.
"Millions of people use social networking sites like Facebook every day, disclosing lots of information about their private lives," said James Tucker, a student working with EFF, in a media advisory. "As Congress debates new privacy laws covering sites like Facebook, lawmakers and voters alike need to know how the government is already using this data and what is at stake."
However, when EFF went looking for that information by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, they ran into a stone wall of silence.
"Internet users deserve to know what information is collected, under what circumstances, and who has access to it," said Shane Witnov, a law student working on the case, according to the EFF's release. "These agencies need to abide by the law and release their records on social networking surveillance."
The EFF's full complaint, which encompasses the Central Intelligence Agency, Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security, the Treasury and Director of National Intelligence, can be read here [136kb PDF].
from threat level: Two bloggers received home visits from Transportation Security Administration agents Tuesday after they published a new TSA directive that revises screening procedures and puts new restrictions on passengers in the wake of a recent bombing attempt by the so-called underwear bomber.
