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Chinese Espionage: Was the OPM “Hack” Not a Hack, but Treason?

By Selwyn Duke

Despite its importance, there’s a story that’s not getting out to the public — at least not as quickly as data that should be secret is getting out to the Chinese. Many of you have heard about the supposed “hack” of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in which the Chinese were able to obtain personal information on millions of U.S. government employees. But PJ Media’s Richard Fernandez points out that the term “hack” should be used advisedly. He then quotes technology site Ars Technica:

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity Dr. Andy Ozment testified that encryption would “not have helped in this case” because the attackers had gained valid user credentials to the systems that they attacked — likely through social engineering. And because of the lack of multifactor authentication on these systems, the attackers would have been able to use those credentials at will to access systems from within and potentially even from outside the network.

As Fernandez explains, “social engineering” is Internet technology lingo and a euphemism for “Someone gave them the password.” And that means that “hack” here could be a euphemism for something else: Treason.

Read the rest here.

Obama’s Justice Dept. Wants Names of Internet Commenters Who Trashed Judge

By Selwyn Duke

In an age where a British politician was arrested for publicly quoting legendary statesman Winston Churchill, it’s not surprising that a loose Internet comment can get a person in trouble. And this may be what’s happening in the case of six Internet posters whom the federal government believes issued “threats” against a federal judge.

The commenters made their remarks at Reason.com under an article about a letter from libertarian Ross Ulbricht, who found himself on trial for running “Dark Web” website Silk Road, a virtual black market that facilitated illegal drug transactions. In the letter Ulbricht pleaded for leniency from U.S. District judge Katherine Forrest — but it fell on deaf ears. Forrest handed him two concurrent life sentences plus 40 years, with no possibility of parole.

This didn’t sit well with Ulbricht’s supporters, many of whom view him as a “Crypto-anarchist” hero who received a gratuitously harsh sentence from an increasingly despotic government. And, not surprisingly, these passions were reflected in their words.

Read the rest here.

Silicon Valley Girls: Do Women Need Affirmative Action in Tech Industries?

By Selwyn Duke

It was a couple of decades ago now that Mattel got in trouble for making Barbie dolls that exclaimed, “Math class is tough!” The company had done market research, the story goes, and found the aforementioned was one of young girls’ laments. But it appears that changing toys hasn’t changed reality. Because almost a quarter century later, girls still are avoiding the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and math. And the social engineers (already a “diverse” group) are none too happy about it. Writes the AP:

Facebook and LinkedIn want to boost dwindling numbers of women studying engineering and computer science with a collaborative initiative announced Friday that they hope will eventually fill thousands of lucrative Silicon Valley jobs long dominated by men.

In an exclusive joint interview with The Associated Press, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and LinkedIn CEO Jeffrey Weiner said they're launching mentoring and support programs at colleges to get more women involved in studying technology in general, but also as future employees for their companies.

Fifteen percent of Facebook Inc.'s employees working in tech jobs and 31 percent of all employees are women, according to diversity figures the company released last year. At LinkedIn Corp., women comprise 17 percent of its tech employees and 39 percent of employees overall. Most Silicon Valley companies have similar demographics.

In other words, they want to institute more affirmative action and quotas for women. The problem with such initiatives is that they’re medicine forced on a healthy patient. After all, isn’t it possible that different groups have different interests and proclivities? Isn’t it possible that even with a perfectly level playing field, group outcomes will vary?

Read the rest here.

How Facebook Can Manipulate the November Election

By Selwyn Duke

It was the focus of the film The Social Network, but critics say that Facebook has become a political network — one that is two-faced and facing left.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has long been pushing amnesty and targeting politicians who oppose it. Now, warns American Thinker’s Jonathon Moseley, Facebook is going so far as to block Republican activism from its website and may use social-network manipulation to turn out the vote for liberal candidates.

Read the rest here.

Google’s War on Guns

By Selwyn Duke

While its corporate motto is “Don’t be evil,” its critics might say “Don’t be Google.” And this is especially true now that Google is saying “Don’t buy guns.”

The search giant has announced that, starting in September, it will ban advertising of firearms, ammunition, and gun paraphernalia. As Google Support writes on its “Dangerous Products or Services” page, “Our policy: We want to help keep people safe both online and offline, so we don't allow the promotion of some products or services that cause damage, harm, or injury.” Consequently, the ad ban will include, explains the company:

Functional devices that appear to discharge a projectile at high velocity, whether for sport, self-defense, or combat
(Note that we err on the side of caution and apply this policy to sporting or recreational guns that can cause serious harm if misused, or that appear to be real guns.)

 

Examples: Handguns, rifles, shotguns, hunting guns, functioning antique guns, airsoft guns, paintball guns, bb guns

Any part or component that's necessary to the function of a gun or intended for attachment to a gun

Examples: Gun scopes, ammunition, ammunition clips or belts

But it isn’t just that, to Google, love is not a warm gun. It will also ban ads relating to other weapons, such as tactical, fighting, and military knives; throwing axes; throwing stars; brass knuckles; and crossbows. So we can now all rest assured that the next throwing-star massacre will be averted.

Read the rest here.

Soviet Style, Facebook Plants Negative Stories about Google

By Selwyn Duke

Sometimes you just wish that both sides in a contest could lose. Such is the case with respect to the latest revelation about Facebook: that it hired a PR firm to plant negative stories about Google. Writes Dan Lyons at The Daily Beast:

For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like the Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

The plot backfired when the blogger turned down Burson’s offer and posted the emails that Burson had sent him. It got worse when USA Today broke a story accusing Burson of spreading a “whisper campaign” about Google “on behalf of an unnamed client.”

After learning that the unnamed client was Facebook, The Daily Beast subsequently received confirmation from a company spokesman that it had, in fact, hired Burson. And the company is well-suited to the task it was assigned. Lyons also tells us, “Mark Penn, Burson’s CEO, has been a political consultant for Bill Clinton, and is best known as the chief strategist in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.” In other words, Burson could probably disgorge a 25-page analysis on the definition of the word “is.”

Read the rest here.

Online Society, Offline Civilization: How the Internet is Ushering in the End of the Age

By Selwyn Duke

When people discuss the overall effects of the Internet, they will weigh the good and the bad.  On one side, they may mention how the Web, along with talk radio, has broken the stranglehold over public opinion the mainstream media once enjoyed; on the other, they may cite the pernicious effects of pornography, cyber-bullying or the loss of privacy.  Whatever the analysis and verdict, though, it never truly captures how tangled a Web we have woven.  This is because seldom recognized is a simple and profound fact: The Internet is one of the most powerful forces ever unleashed by mankind.

Is YouTube Cooking Stats for Obama?

By Selwyn Duke

News aggregator DrudgeReport.com is currently linking to a YouTube video of a government schoolteacher instructing young students to praise Obama in song. While this is shocking, there is an even bigger story here. Consider this: the video’s “views” counter listed only 363 views as of 1:04 p.m. EST on Sept. 24.

But at the same time it had 2,279 comments.  

What’s wrong with this picture?

Latest Savage Nation Appearance: Talk Show Host Michael Savage’s Website Attacked by Hackers

Talk Show Host Michael Savage’s Website Attacked by Hackers

By Selwyn Duke

Just recently, talk show host Michael Savage had to endure an attack on his character when the British government associated him with terrorists and other criminals and banned him from traveling to the U.K.  But on Saturday the attack — or at least an attack — was brought to his own shores when a computer hacker damaged his website by sneaking into its server through a feedback portal, forcing technicians to shut it down for nearly an hour.