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by 8bitagent » Wed Nov 26, 2014 7:50 am
by elfismiles » Wed Nov 26, 2014 11:27 am
Nordic » 26 Nov 2014 07:30 wrote:I recently visited family for my dad's 80th birthday.
My brother in law had some interesting stories to tell. He works, and has worked for 30 years, for one of the major semiconductor companies in the world. This is a company who recently lost several of its employees in a high profile passenger jetliner disappearance.
Without talking about Michael Hastings at all, he was telling us that they were being approached by all the major car manufacturers rather aggressively in a bid to acquire chips for the car's computers that COULD NOT BE HACKED.
That it was a major pressing concern for the car manufacturers.
I couldn't help but think this urgency is because of the Hastings murder, that they all knew damn well that he had been hacked and killed.
Obviously they know it's a problem.
The rather surprisingly good news is they actually want to stop it. Perhaps due to liability rather than not wanting to be in bed with Psychotic Big Brother.
by Hunter » Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:56 pm
by justdrew » Thu Nov 27, 2014 7:29 am
A team of hackers is collaborating with military and industry groups to develop cyber security defenses for commercially available cars, in response to a growing threat from criminals and terrorists. In the U.K., hackers are now responsible for a third of car thefts in London and there are fears that while technology is progressing, older models will remain vulnerable to attack. Although there have been no reported instances of a car being completely commandeered outside of controlled conditions, during tests hackers come out on top every time – unlocking car boots, setting off windscreen wipers, locking brakes, and cutting the engine.
by seemslikeadream » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:53 am
Wikileaks: CIA's Brennan on 'witch hunt' when Hastings was killed
By Ralph Lopez Dec 26, 2014 in World
A 2010 email released by Wikileaks from a top-level CIA contractor asserts that CIA Director John Brennan, the subject of a story by now deceased journalist Michael Hastings, was on a "witch hunt" against "investigative journalists" perceived as hostile.
Hastings, a reporter for the Rolling Stone who ruffled many feathers in his career, was killed in an unusual high-speed car accident in which the vehicle exploded on impact with a tree, and perhaps before. Hastings' wife confirmed to San Diego 6 News Television, soon after the uncharacteristic high-speed automobile crash, that Hastings' next "big story," as he called it, was to be on Brennan.
The email, written by Stratfor President Fred Burton and reported by San Diego 6, reads:
Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.
Note -- There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode...
The story on Brennan was never published.
Stratfor was once called "The Shadow CIA" by Barron's. In 2012 WikiLeaks began publishing “The Global Intelligence Files,” over five million e-mails from the Texas-based company.
The email has never been disavowed by Stratfor. When San Diego 6 reporter Kim Dvorak asked the CIA for comment on the email in the context of the Hastings' death, in an August, 2013 report, a CIA spokesman responded:
“Without commenting on information disseminated by WikiLeaks, any suggestion that Director Brennan has ever attempted to infringe on constitutionally-protected press freedoms is offensive and baseless.”
Michael Hasting was killed on June 18, 2013, when the new Mercedes C250 SUV he had just leased hit a tree after running numerous red lights at over 100 mph in Los Angeles. A surveillance video at a pizza shop captured a fiery, violent explosion, which is uncharacteristic of high-speed impacts. Generations of advances in safety design have made accidents exhibiting these characteristics unheard of.
Typically, high speed impacts, even in past generations of automobiles, are characterized by a violent, horrific-sounding crunching of metal and glass, but no gas explosion. Fire can follow, but ignition usually takes place after the initial impact, as fuel vapors heat up and come into contact with hot surfaces. According to the National Fire Protection Association, only 3% of cars catch on fire as the result of crash impacts, and impact explosions are not a statistical category.
The pizza shop video shows a fireball which explodes outward for hundreds of feet in all directions and immediately lights up the night sky. Skeptics of the official LAPD conclusion, that no foul play was involved, cite a witness who said that "It sounded like a bomb going off in the middle of the night."
Witnesses also reported the car was already on fire before it hit the tree.
Hastings crash video taken from pizza shop surveillance camera
Hours before he died, Hastings sent out a series of frantic emails to friends and colleagues, indicating that be believed he was being investigated by the FBI and sounding "panicked," according to his friend Sgt. Joe Biggs, whom he had met in Afghanistan.
In an in-depth interview with San Diego 6 reporter Kim Dvorak, and Hastings friend Sgt. Biggs, Biggs tells RT interviewer Abby Martin that he had received an email indicating that police had been present at Hastings' house that day, and that Hastings had been seen looking underneath his car. The San Diego journalist Kim Dvorak expresses her belief, after extensive investigation, that the Hastings crash was not a simple one-car accident, and may have involved foul play. She notes the police are withholding evidence such as the "black box" onboard the vehicles, which would have recorded all electronic events involving the car's controls.
San Diego 6 report
After Hastings' death, his notes on the Brennan story were suppressed, according to WesternJournalism.com, and in any event the Rolling Stone never published the story despite pledges to do so.
After at first saying that “At no time was Michael Hastings, or anything related to his work as a journalist, ever under investigation by the FBI,” the FBI subsequently revised its statement to: “At no time was journalist Michael Hastings ever under investigation by the FBI.” Freedom of Information Act requests from reporters revealed that the FBI had indeed cataloged some of Hastings' articles, and discussed him in heavily redacted documents.
Brennan was architect of CIA "Disposition Matrix" capture/kill list
CIA Director Brennan made news during his confirmation hearings in early 2013, when he was nominated for the position by Obama. Of particular concern to some senators was Brennan's role in creating the “Disposition Matrix,” an Obama administration project started in 2010, described by government officials as a "next-generation capture/kill list."
Brennan also served under the George W. Bush administration, first as chief-of-staff to CIA Director George Tenet, then as deputy executive director of the CIA.
Of the “Disposition Matrix” run by the executive branch National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC,) and heavily shaped by Brennan in his role as Obama National Security Advisor, Glenn Greenwald for the UK Guardian wrote:
What has been created here - permanently institutionalized - is a highly secretive executive branch agency that simultaneously engages in two functions: (1) it collects and analyzes massive amounts of surveillance data about all Americans without any judicial review let alone search warrants, and (2) creates and implements a "matrix" that determines the "disposition" of suspects, up to and including execution, without a whiff of due process or oversight.
Before his Senate confirmation vote for CIA Director, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul mounted a filibuster against Brennan's confirmation, saying:
“No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our country."
Brennan was eventually confirmed by a vote of 63-34.
RT interview of San Diego 6 reporter Kim Dvorak and Hastings friend Sgt. Joe Biggs
Similar concerns moved Oregon Senator Ron Wyden to write a letter to Brennan asking him to clarify if he believed the extrajudicial assassination system, deemed unconstitutional by civil libertarians, applied to American citizens on American soil. Brennan wrote back that he believed it did not. This did not assuage the concerns of many on this issue, however, since the Obama administration gave a different answer when US Attorney General Eric Holder refused to rule out the assassination of American citizens within the United States.
Brennan has become controversial on other issues. Right-leaning sources accuse Brennan of being behind the US policy of running arms to Al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels.
In an unusual public comment on the case, former Bush national counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke told the Huffington Post:
it's relatively easy to hack your way into the control system of a car, and to do such things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn't want acceleration, to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn't want the brakes on...
After denying he was a "conspiracy guy," the former top US counter-terrorism official went on to say:
...in the case of Michael Hastings, what evidence is available publicly is consistent with a car cyber attack.
Typical high-speed crash
by Nordic » Fri Jan 02, 2015 4:54 pm
UPDATE: Woman Killed In Crash Was John Crawford's Girlfriend
DAYTON -- We've learned that the woman who was killed in Thursday's crash was the girlfriend of John Crawford III, the man fatally shot by police in a Beavercreek Walmart.
Tasha Thomas, 26, of Fairborn and 30-year-old Frederick Bailey of Dayton died in a crash on North Broadway Street about 3 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 1, 2015.
Thomas had been interrogated by police following Crawford's death. ABC 22/FOX 45 reported recently about those interviews.
Montgomery County Coroner's Office records and police reports from the Aug. 5 incident at Walmart show the same address and birth date for Thomas.
According to police, the car in which Thomas and Bailey were riding was traveling between 90 and 100 mph when it crashed into a pole and overturned several times. Officers say Bailey was the driver. Both were ejected from the car.
Related coverage:
Police Interview with Crawford Girlfriend Getting National Attention
Crawford's Girlfriend on Grand Jury Ruling: "It's not fair"
Earlier coverage:
Two Dead After Violent Crash
DAYTON -- Two people are dead after a fatal car crash on New Year's Day.
Police believe excessive speed was the cause.
The crash happened on North Broadway Street between Holt Street and Edgewood Avenue just after 3 p.m.
"For it to be New Year's Day it's a tragedy for the family who lost a loved one," said Joe Lewis, a witness to the crash.
Residents crowded around the police tape blocking off the crash scene while Police were investigating.
"We very seldom have any accidents of this nature at this location," said Sgt. Creigee Coleman with the Dayton Police Department.
Witnesses told Dayton Police that the driver was headed south at an excessive rate of speed, between 90 and 100 miles per hour.
The driver then crashed into an RTA pole, which caused the driver's side of the car to be sheered off, and the car to flip several times.
The male driver and female passenger were then ejected from the car.
"When I came over the one lady was still breathing," said Lewis, "I tried to use a towel to cover her up but the police got here and the ambulance was already here."
"They did a great job at trying to save that person but we were later told that that person did pass away at the hospital," said Sgt. Coleman about the work done by first responders.
Both police and neighborhood residents said they were thankful their New Year's Day didn't have even more tragedy than the two lives lost because of reckless speeding.
"With the playground and the kids this could have been a whole lot worse than it is now," said Lewis about the family neighborhood.
"This is a very delicate scene, very troubling scene with being the holiday and two people passed away on the holiday at a careless act of excessive speed," said Sgt. Coleman.
Police were not able to determine if both victims were wearing seat belts because of the state of the wreckage.
Their identities will be released pending notification of next of kin.
PREVIOUS:
UPDATE -- The two people are dead after a violent car crash that happened on Broadway Street and Edgewood Avenue just after 3 p.m. Thursday, Jan.1, 2015.
Witnesses told us the driver was speeding when he lost control and flipped several times, both people were thrown from the vehicle.
"That car was coming 100 mph and it started to flip continuously and as it started to flip, people came flying out," said Joe Lewis.
Broadway remains shutdown as crews work to investigate the accident. No word on when the street will reopen.
DATYON-- North Broadway Street has been closed following a violent crash Thursday afternoon.
The accident happened just after 3 p.m. at the intersection of N. Broadway street near Edgewood Avenue.
A witness said the car appeared to be speeding when it lost control and flipped several times.
That witness said two people were ejected after the crash. At least one has been removed from the scene by ambulance.
We have a crew on the scene and will continue to update the story.
by Nordic » Fri Jan 02, 2015 5:14 pm
by Grizzly » Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:19 am
by elfismiles » Thu Feb 05, 2015 10:07 am
by Elvis » Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:16 pm
by 82_28 » Mon Feb 09, 2015 8:11 am
by elfismiles » Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:23 am
Belligerent Savant » 09 Feb 2015 23:41 wrote:.
Surprising to no one here.
[DARPA Hacks GM's OnStar To Remote Control A Chevrolet Impala]
http://jalopnik.com/darpa-hacks-gms-ons ... 1684593523
by elfismiles » Sat May 16, 2015 4:44 pm
Kim Zetter Date of Publication: 05.15.15.
Time of Publication: 10:14 pm.
Feds Say That Banned Researcher Commandeered a Plane
A security researcher kicked off a United Airlines flight last month after tweeting about security vulnerabilities in its system had previously taken control of an airplane and caused it to briefly fly sideways, according to an application for a search warrant filed by an FBI agent.
Chris Roberts, a security researcher with One World Labs, told the FBI agent during an interview in February that he had hacked the in-flight entertainment system, or IFE, on an airplane and overwrote code on the plane’s Thrust Management Computer while aboard the flight. He was able to issue a climb command and make the plane briefly change course, the document states.
“He stated that he thereby caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane during one of these flights,” FBI Special Agent Mark Hurley wrote in his warrant application (.pdf). “He also stated that he used Vortex software after comprising/exploiting or ‘hacking’ the airplane’s networks. He used the software to monitor traffic from the cockpit system.”
Hurley filed the search warrant application last month after Roberts was removed from a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Syracuse, New York, because he published a facetious tweet suggesting he might hack into the plane’s network. Upon landing in Syracuse, two FBI agents and two local police officers escorted him from the plane and interrogated him for several hours. They also seized two laptop computers and several hard drives and USB sticks. Although the agents did not have a warrant when they seized the devices, they told Roberts a warrant was pending.
A media outlet in Canada obtained the application for the warrant today and published it online.
The information outlined in the warrant application reveals a far more serious situation than Roberts has previously disclosed.
Roberts had previously told WIRED that he caused a plane to climb during a simulated test on a virtual environment he and a colleague created, but he insisted then that he had not interfered with the operation of a plane while in flight.
He told WIRED that he did access in-flight networks about 15 times during various flights but had not done anything beyond explore the networks and observe data traffic crossing them. According to the FBI affidavit, however, when he mentioned this to agents last February he told them that he also had briefly commandeered a plane during one of those flights.
He told the FBI that the period in which he accessed the in-flight networks more than a dozen times occurred between 2011 and 2014. The affidavit, however, does not indicate exactly which flight he allegedly caused to turn to fly to the side.
He obtained physical access to the networks through the Seat Electronic Box, or SEB. These are installed two to a row, on each side of the aisle under passenger seats, on certain planes. After removing the cover to the SEB by “wiggling and Squeezing the box,” Roberts told agents he attached a Cat6 ethernet cable, with a modified connector, to the box and to his laptop and then used default IDs and passwords to gain access to the inflight entertainment system. Once on that network, he was able to gain access to other systems on the planes.
Reaction in the security community to the new revelations in the affidavit have been harsh. Although Roberts hasn’t been charged yet with any crime, and there are questions about whether his actions really did cause the plane to list to the side or he simply thought they did, a number of security researchers have expressed shock that he attempted to tamper with a plane during a flight.
“I find it really hard to believe but if that is the case he deserves going to jail,” wrote Jaime Blasco, director of AlienVault Labs in a tweet.
Alex Stamos, chief information security officer of Yahoo, wrote in a tweet, “You cannot promote the (true) idea that security research benefits humanity while defending research that endangered hundreds of innocents.”
Roberts, reached by phone after the FBI document was made public, told WIRED that he had already seen it last month but wasn’t expecting it to go public today.
“My biggest concern is obviously with the multiple conversations that I had with the authorities,” he said. “I’m obviously concerned those were held behind closed doors and apparently they’re no longer behind closed doors.”
Although he wouldn’t respond directly to questions about whether he had hacked that previous flight mentioned in the affidavit, he said the paragraph in the FBI document discussing this is out of context.
“That paragraph that’s in there is one paragraph out of a lot of discussions, so there is context that is obviously missing which obviously I can’t say anything about,” he said. “It would appear from what I’ve seen that the federal guys took one paragraph out of a lot of discussions and a lot of meetings and notes and just chose that one as opposed to plenty of others.”
History of Researching Planes
Roberts began investigating aviation security about six years ago after he and a research colleague got hold of publicly available flight manuals and wiring diagrams for various planes. The documents showed how inflight entertainment systems one some planes were connected to the passenger satellite phone network, which included functions for operating some cabin control systems. These systems were in turn connected to the plane avionics systems. They built a test lab using demo software obtained from infotainment vendors and others in order to explore what they could to the networks.
In 2010, Roberts gave a presentation about hacking planes and cars at the BSides security conference in Las Vegas. Another presentation followed two years later. He also spoke directly to airplane manufacturers about the problems with their systems. “We had conversations with two main airplane builders as well as with two of the top providers of infotainment systems and it never went anywhere,” he told WIRED last month.
Last February, the FBI in Denver, where Roberts is based, requested a meeting. They discussed his research for an hour, and returned a couple weeks later for a discussion that lasted several more hours. They wanted to know what was possible and what exactly he and his colleague had done. Roberts disclosed that he and his colleague had sniffed the data traffic on more than a dozen flights after connecting their laptops to the infotainment networks.
“We researched further than that,” he told WIRED last month. “We were within the fuel balancing system and the thrust control system. We watched the packets and data going across the network to see where it was going.”
Eventually, Roberts and his research partner determined that it would take a convoluted set of hacks to seriously subvert an avionics system, but they believed it could be done. He insisted to WIRED last month, however, that they did not “mess around with that except on simulation systems.” In simulations, for example, Roberts said they were able to turn the engine controls from cruise to climb, “which definitely had the desired effect on the system—the plane sped up and the nose of the airplane went up.”
Today he would not respond to questions about the new allegations from the FBI that he also messed with the systems during a real flight.
The Tweet Heard Round the World
Roberts never heard from the FBI again after that February visit. His recent troubles began after he sent out a Tweet on April 15 while aboard a United Airlines flight from Denver to Chicago. After news broke about a report from the Government Accountability Office revealing that passenger Wi-Fi networks on some Boeing and Airbus planes could allow an attacker to gain access to avionics systems and commandeer a flight, Roberts published a Tweet that said, “Find myself on a 737/800, lets see Box-IFE-ICE-SATCOM,? Shall we start playing with EICAS messages? ‘PASS OXYGEN ON’ Anyone?” He punctuated the tweet with a smiley face.
The tweet was meant as a sarcastic joke; a reference to how he had tried for years to get Boeing and Airbus to heed warnings about security issues with their passenger communications systems. His tweet about the Engine Indicator Crew Alert System, or EICAS, was a reference to research he’d done years ago on vulnerabilities in inflight infotainment networks, vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to access cabin controls and deploy a plane’s oxygen masks.
In response to his tweet, someone else tweeted to him “…aaaaaand you’re in jail.”
Roberts responded with, “There IS a distinct possibility that the course of action laid out above would land me in an orange suite [sic] rather quickly
When an employee with United Airlines’ Cyber Security Intelligence Department became aware of the tweet, he contacted the FBI and told agents that Roberts would be on a second flight going from Chicago to Syracuse. Although the particular plane Roberts was on at the time the agents seized him in New York was not equipped with an inflight entertainment system like the kind he had previously told the FBI he had hacked, the plane he had flown earlier from Denver to Chicago did have the same system.
When an FBI agent later examined that Denver-to-Chicago plane after it landed in another city the same day, he found that the SEBs under the seats where Roberts had been sitting “showed signs of tampering,” according to the affidavit. Roberts had been sitting in seat 3A and the SEB under 2A, the seat in front of him, “was damaged.”
“The outer cover of the box was open approximately 1/2 inch and one of the retaining screws was not seated and was exposed,” FBI Special Agent Hurley wrote in his affidavit.
During the interrogation in Syracuse, Roberts told the agents that he had not compromised the network on the United flight from Denver to Chicago. He advised them, however, that he was carrying thumb drives containing malware to compromise networks—malware that he told them was “nasty.” Also on his laptop were schematics for the wiring systems of a number of airplane models. All of this would be standard, however, for a security researcher who conducts penetration-testing and research for a living.
Nonetheless, based on all of the information that agents had gleaned from their previous interview with Roberts in February as well as the Tweets he’d sent out that day and the apparent signs of tampering on the United flight, the FBI believed that Roberts “had the ability and the willingness to use the equipment then with him to access or attempt to access the IFE and possibly the flight control systems on any aircraft equipped with an IFE systems, and that it would endanger public safety to allow him to leave the Syracuse airport that evening with that equipment.”
When asked by WIRED if he ever connected his laptop to the SEB on his flight from Denver to Chicago, Roberts said, “Nope I did not. That I’m happy to say and I’ll stand from the top of the tallest tower and yell that one.”
He also questions the FBI’s assessment that the boxes showed signs of tampering.
“Those boxes are underneath the seats. How many people shove luggage and all sorts of things under there?,” he said. “I’d be interested if they looked at the boxes under all the other seats and if they looked like they had been tampered. How many of them are broken and cracked or have scuff marks? How many of those do the airlines replace because people shove things under there?”
Regardless of whether the authorities have a case against him, however, there has already been some fallout from the incident. Roberts told WIRED that today investors on the board of directors of One World Labs, a company he helped found, decided to withdraw their investments in the company. As a result, One World Labs had to lay off about a dozen employees today, half of its staff.
Roberts said there were other factors contributing to the board’s decision but his legal situation “was probably the final straw.”
“The board has deemed it a risk. So that was one factor in many that made their decision,” he said. “Their decision was not to fund the organization any further.”
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/feds-say-b ... red-plane/
by Lord Balto » Thu May 21, 2015 10:08 pm
by Nordic » Thu May 21, 2015 11:49 pm
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