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NWCorona's JournalLouisiana renews private prison contracts, as federal government cuts them
Source: Nola
As the federal government was announcing it will phase out its use of private prisons , Louisiana was going in the opposite direction -- renewing its contracts with two private prison operators.
The state has renegotiated contracts over the past few weeks with privately run correctional facilities in Winn and Allen parishes. The Legislature's joint budget committee approved a new arrangement for the Allen Correctional Center on Aug. 18, a few hours after the federal government said it would be ramping down its use of private prisons significantly .
Under an arrangement approved by the committee, The GEO Group Inc. will continue to operate the Allen facility until June 30, 2020. The prison company, based in Florida, also runs private federal prisons the Obama administration announced last week it intends to shut down.
The federal government's move away from private prisons comes after a U.S. Department of Justice audit showed private facilities had more safety and security problems than their government-run counterparts.
Read more: http://www.nola.com/articles/19172786/louisiana_private_prisons.amp
Some things shouldn't be privatized. Especially with minimum occupancy guarantees.
North Korea 'fires missile from submarine'
Source: BBC 
North Korea has fired a submarine-based ballistic missile, South Korea's Yonhap news agency says.
The reported test follows an attempted launch last month that South Korea said failed in its initial flight stage.
North Korea, believed to be developing nuclear weapons, is banned by the UN from any use of ballistic missiles.
The latest launch comes after Pyongyang threatened retaliation for joint US-South Korea military exercises that it sees as a rehearsal for invasion.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/37171608
Remember when people made fun of Bernie when he called out NK as a threat?
Philippines drug war deaths climb to 1,800, president spars with U.N.
Source: Reuters
The Philippines has recorded about 1,800 drug-related killings since President Rodrigo Duterte took office seven weeks ago and launched a war on narcotics, far higher than previously believed, according to police figures.
Philippine National Police Chief Ronald Dela Rosa told a Senate committee on Monday that 712 drug traffickers and users had been killed in police operations since July 1.
Police were also investigating 1,067 other drug-related killings, Dela Rosa said, without giving details. The comments came a day after Duterte lashed out at the United Nations for criticizing the wave of deaths.
As recently as Sunday, the number of suspected drug traffickers killed in Duterte's war on drugs had been put at about 900 by Philippine officials. But this number included people who died since Duterte won the May 9 presidential election.
Read more: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN10X0IS
1,800 people killed since May 9th!
Eight women slashed in suspected knife attack at Tokyo amusement park pool
Source: Japantimes
Eight women were slashed Sunday afternoon in a suspected knife attack at an amusement park pool in western suburb of Akiruno, the Tokyo Fire Department said.
The victims, all around 20 years old, sustained only light injuries but were taken to a hospital for treatment. All were wounded in the buttocks, firefighters said.
The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the attack, which occurred at a large wave pool at Tokyo Summerland, an amusement park with indoor and outdoor pools.
Read more: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/21/national/crime-legal/eight-women-slashed-suspected-knife-attack-tokyo-amusement-park-pool/#.V7mtaRllDqA
T-Mobile ends cheaper plans and imposes new limits on unlimited data
Source: Arstechnica
T-Mobile USA has announced a $70 unlimited data plan, but in reality the plan has a lot of limits. And T-Mobile said it will stop offering cheaper plans to new customers.
The $70 unlimited "T-Mobile One" plan caps hotspot usage to 2G speeds, which T-Mobile defines as up to 128kbps. Normal-speed mobile hotspot usage will cost $15 for each 5GB allotment.
The new unlimited plan also throttles video to 480p, similar to the carrier's Binge On promotion that throttles video and exempts it from data caps. On the new unlimited plan, customers who want HD video must pay an extra $25 a month per line. The unlimited plan also throttles customers who use more than 26GB a month if they are connected to a congested cell tower.
Despite all these limits, T-Mobile CEO John Legere boasted that "Verizon and AT&T could never do this because their outdated and overcrowded networks flat-out cannot handle it."
Read more: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/t-mobile-ends-cheaper-plans-and-imposes-new-limits-on-unlimited-data/
That unlimited plan sure does sound limited.
And we wonder why we lag behind the rest of the world.
Wikileaks Published Dozens of Malware Links in Email Dump
Source: Gizmodo
WikiLeaks published more than 80 variants of malware in the second email dump from Turkey’s ruling political party (AKP), according to security expert Vesselin Bontchev, who is also known by the pseudonym Dark Avenger.
Bontchev published his research on his GitHub page, which shows just how extensive the threats inside Wikileaks AKP email dump were. This is just the latest example of unethical leaking to come from the whistleblowing organization. In July, the site was criticized for “putting women in danger” by publishing sensitive information of every female voter in 79 of 81 Turkish provinces. Now, there is yet another reason to refer to the AKP email dump and dangerous and poorly executed.
Anyone searching the Wikileaks database can easily download malware attachments by clicking on the wrong link. Dr. Bontchev disclosed the links safely in his report, and also said his findings were “by no means exhaustive.” He said most of the malware discovered was “run-of-the mill” spam, scam, phishing attacks inciting you to click on the attachment, which is terrible news for journalists and anti-censorship advocates investigating the leak.
The published report breaks the findings into three pieces: Links to the original email in the Wikileaks database, one to the malicious attachment hosted on the Wikileaks website, and a VirtusTotal analysis of the attachment. A vast majority of the malware links appear to deploy ransomware or remote access trojans. Neither would be good for an ordinary citizen to download.
Read more: http://gizmodo.com/wikileaks-published-dozens-of-malware-links-in-email-du-1785293372?rev=1471274110129&utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
New air-gap jumper covertly transmits data in hard-drive sounds
Source: Arstechnica
Researchers have devised a new way to siphon data out of an infected computer even when it has been physically disconnected from the Internet to prevent the leakage of sensitive information it stores.
The method has been dubbed "DiskFiltration" by its creators because it uses acoustic signals emitted from the hard drive of the air-gapped computer being targeted. It works by manipulating the movements of the hard drive's actuator, which is the mechanical arm that accesses specific parts of a disk platter so heads attached to the actuator can read or write data. By using so-called seek operations that move the actuator in very specific ways, it can generate sounds that transfer passwords, cryptographic keys, and other sensitive data stored on the computer to a nearby microphone. The technique has a range of six feet and a speed of 180 bits per minute, fast enough to steal a 4,096-bit key in about 25 minutes.
"An air-gap isolation is considered to be a hermetic security measure which can prevent data leakage," Mordechai Guri, a security researcher and the head of research and development in the cyber security labs at Israel's Ben-Gurion University, told Ars. "Confidential data, personal information, financial records and other type of sensitive information is stored within isolated networks. We show that despite the degree of isolation, the data can be exfiltrated (for example, to a nearby smart phone)."
Besides working against air-gapped computers, the covert channel can also be used to steal data from Internet-connected machines whose network traffic is intensively monitored by intrusion prevention devices, data loss prevention systems, and similar security measures. The technique is documented in a technical paper titled DiskFiltration: Data Exfiltration from Speakerless Air-Gapped Computers via Covert Hard Drive Noise, which was published Thursday night. Guri and the other Ben-Gurion University researchers who devised the covert channel created the video demonstration below.
Read more: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/new-air-gap-jumper-covertly-transmits-data-in-hard-drive-sounds/
Top Clinton State Department aide helped Clinton Foundation
Source: CNN
A top aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department traveled to New York to interview job candidates for a top job at the Clinton Foundation, a CNN investigation has found.
The fact that the aide, Cheryl Mills, was taking part in such a high level task for the Clinton foundation while also working as chief of staff for the secretary of state raises new questions about the blurred lines that have dogged the Clintons in recent years.
On June 19, 2012, Mills, then the chief of staff for Clinton at the State Department, boarded a New York City-bound Amtrak train in Washington's Union station.
The next morning, at the offices of a New York based executive search firm, Mills would interview two high-level business executives. Her mission was to help the Clinton Foundation find a new leader, a source told CNN.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/hillary-clinton-cgi-cheryl-mills/index.html
Researchers crack open unusually advanced malware that hid for 5 years
Source: Arstechnica
Security experts have discovered a malware platform that's so advanced in its design and execution that it could probably have been developed only with the active support of a nation state.
The malware—known alternatively as "ProjectSauron" by researchers from Kaspersky Lab and "Remsec" by their counterparts from Symantec—has been active since at least 2011 and has been discovered on 30 or so targets. Its ability to operate undetected for five years is a testament to its creators, who clearly studied other state-sponsored hacking groups in an attempt to replicate their advances and avoid their mistakes. State-sponsored groups have been responsible for malware like the Stuxnet- or National Security Agency-linked Flame, Duqu, and Regin. Much of ProjectSauron resides solely in computer memory and was written in the form of Binary Large Objects, making it hard to detect using antivirus.
Part of what makes ProjectSauron's so impressive is its ability to collect data from air-gapped computers. To do this, it uses specially prepared USB storage drives that have a virtual file system that isn't viewable by the Windows operating system. To infected computers, the removable drives appear to be approved devices, but behind the scenes are several hundred megabytes reserved for storing data that is kept on the air-gapped machines. The arrangement works even against computers in which data-loss prevention software blocks the use of unknown USB drives.
Kaspersky researchers still aren't sure precisely how the USB-enabled exfiltration works. The presence of the invisible storage area doesn't in itself allow attackers to seize control of air-gapped computers. The researchers suspect the capability is used only in rare cases and requires use of a zero-day exploit that has yet to be discovered. In all, Project Sauron is made up of at least 50 modules that can be mixed and matched to suit the objectives of each individual infection.
Read more: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/researchers-crack-open-unusually-advanced-malware-that-hid-for-5-years/
The ability to jump the gap is crazy stuff.
Error puts Chinese tourist in German migrant hostel
Source: BBC
German media say the 31-year-old backpacker, who spoke neither German nor English, underwent a medical check and his fingerprints were taken.
A Red Cross worker later found out that the man's wallet had been stolen in Stuttgart. But instead of going to the police the man registered as a migrant.
A translation app confirmed Mr Schluetermann's suspicions that the tourist had got entangled in the asylum system by mistake.
"It came up with phrases like 'I want to go on a trip abroad'," he said. It emerged that the tourist had plans to visit Italy and France.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37013007
Odd story. Was the hostel on lock down?
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