Andrew Hennells, 32, posted a comment on his profile which read: “Doing. Tesco. Over” at 19:25 GMT on 13 February. Just 15 minutes later, after he had held up the King’s Lynn store, police caught Hennells with a knife and £410.
Tag: UK
New Zealand Used NSA System to Target Officials, Anti-Corruption Campaigner
New Zealand’s eavesdropping agency used an Internet mass surveillance system to target government officials and an anti-corruption campaigner on a neighboring Pacific island, according to a top-secret document.
Analysts from Government Communications Security Bureau, or GCSB, programmed the Internet spy system XKEYSCORE to intercept documents authored by the closest aides and confidants of the prime minister on the tiny Solomon Islands. The agency also entered keywords into the system so that it would intercept documents containing references to the Solomons’ leading anti-corruption activist, who is known for publishing government leaks on his website.
XKEYSCORE is run by the National Security Agency, and is used to analyze billions of emails, Internet browsing sessions and online chats that are collected from some 150 different locations worldwide. GCSB has gained access to XKEYSCORE because New Zealand is a member of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
A number of GCSB’s XKEYSCORE targets are disclosed in a top-secret document that was obtained by The Intercept and New Zealand newspaper the Herald on Sunday. The document raises questions about the scope of the surveillance and offers an unprecedented insight into specific people monitored by New Zealand’s most secretive agency.
The targets list, dated from January 2013, was authored by a GCSB analyst. It is contained in a so-called “fingerprint,” a combination of keywords used to extract particular information from the vast quantities of intercepted data swept up by XKEYSCORE. None of the individuals named on the list appear to have any association with terrorism.
Most of the targets, in fact, had a prominent role in the Solomon Islands government. Their roles around the time of January 2013 suggest GCSB was interested in collecting information sent among the prime minister’s inner circle. The targets included: Barnabas Anga, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade; Robert Iroga, chief of staff to the prime minister; Dr Philip Tagini, special secretary to the prime minister; Fiona Indu, senior foreign affairs official; James Remobatu, cabinet secretary; and Rose Qurusu, a Solomon Islands public servant.
The seventh person caught up in the GCSB’s surveillance sweep is the leading anti-corruption campaigner in the Solomon Islands, Benjamin Afuga. For several years he has run a popular Facebook group that exposes corruption, often publishing leaked information and documents from government whistleblowers. His organization, Forum Solomon Islands International, has an office next door to Transparency International in Honiara, the capital city of the Solomon Islands. GCSB analysts programmed XKEYSCORE so that it would intercept documents sent over the Internet containing the words “Forum Solomon Islands,” “FSII,” and “Benjamin Afuga.”
Virgin Customers Targeted in New Porn Piracy Shakedown
On Tuesday TorrentFreak revealed that Sky Broadband were handing over the details of an unknown number of customers to TCYK LLC, a US-based outfit aiming to extract cash payments from alleged pirates of the Robert Redford movie The Company You Keep.
And today we have news of another attempt, this time executed by the masters of copyright trolling – the porn industry.
The case dates back to last year when TF discovered that several porn producers had teamed up in an effort to force ISP Virgin Media to hand over the names and addresses of an estimated 1,500 subscribers said to have downloaded and shared adult content without permission.
The companies (Sunlust Pictures, Combat Zone Corporation and Pink Bonnet, Consultores de Imagem LDA), none of which appear to be based in the UK, worked with Wagner & Co, a London lawfirm previously known for working with another troll, GoldenEye International.
Sunlust Pictures, an adult movie company founded in 2009 by former porn actress Sunny Leone, has previously been involved in US-based trolling. Combat Zone Corporation (CZN) is an adult movie company based in California. They’re no strangers to the cash settlement model either.
To keep things centralized these companies hired Mircom International Content Management & Consulting Ltd (MICM), a company already demanding cash payments from Internet users elsewhere in Europe. It is Mircom that are now sending out letters to Virgin Media customers.
Copies received by TorrentFreak highlight the company’s case. One reads as follows:
“It is with regret that we are writing this letter to you. However, the Claimants are very concerned at the illicit distribution of films over the internet,” the letters begin.
“CZN is the owner of the copyright in the film sold under the name “SEXY BRAZILIAN LESBIAN WORKOUT (“the WORK”). The Work has been made available for sale in the United Kingdom. MICM has a license to act for CZN in relation to these claims.”
The Orwellian Re-Branding of “Mass Surveillance” as Merely “Bulk Collection”
Just as the Bush administration and the U.S. media re-labelled “torture” with the Orwellian euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” to make it more palatable, the governments and media of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance are now attempting to re-brand “mass surveillance” as “bulk collection” in order to make it less menacing (and less illegal). In the past several weeks, this is the clearly coordinated theme that has arisen in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand as the last defense against the Snowden revelations, as those governments seek to further enhance their surveillance and detention powers under the guise of terrorism.
This manipulative language distortion can be seen perfectly in yesterday’s white-washing report of GCHQ mass surveillance from the servile rubber-stamp calling itself “The Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament (ISC)”(see this great Guardian editorial this morning on what a “slumbering” joke that “oversight” body is). As Committee Member MP Hazel Blears explained yesterday (photo above), the Parliamentary Committee officially invoked this euphemism to justify the collection of billions of electronic communications events every day.
The Committee actually acknowledged for the first time (which Snowden documents long ago proved) that GCHQ maintains what it calls “Bulk Personal Datasets” that contain “millions of records,” and even said about pro-privacy witnesses who testified before it: “we recognise their concerns as to the intrusive nature of bulk collection.” That is the very definition of “mass surveillance,” yet the Committee simply re-labelled it “bulk collection,” purported to distinguish it from “mass surveillance,” and thus insist that it was all perfectly legal.
Maybe Obama’s Sanctions on Venezuela are Not Really About His “Deep Concern” Over Suppression of Political Rights
Oil. The answer is always oil.
The White House on Monday announced the imposition of new sanctions on various Venezuelan officials, pronouncing itself “deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents”: deeply concerned. President Obama also, reportedly with a straight face, officially declared that Venezuela poses “an extraordinary threat to the national security” of the U.S. — a declaration necessary to legally justify the sanctions.
Today, one of the Obama administration’s closest allies on the planet, Saudi Arabia, sentenced one of that country’s few independent human rights activists, Mohammed al-Bajad, to 10 years in prison on “terrorism” charges. That is completely consistent with that regime’s systematic and extreme repression, which includes gruesome state beheadings at a record-setting rate, floggings and long prison terms for anti-regime bloggers, executions of those with minority religious views, and exploitation of terror laws to imprison even the mildest regime critics.
Absolutely nobody expects the “deeply concerned” President Obama to impose sanctions on the Saudis — nor on any of the other loyal U.S. allies from Egypt to the UAE whose repression is far worse than Venezuela’s. Perhaps those who actually believe U.S. proclamations about imposing sanctions on Venezuela in objection to suppression of political opposition might spend some time thinking about what accounts for that disparity.
That nothing is more insincere than purported U.S. concerns over political repression is too self-evident to debate. Supporting the most repressive regimes on the planet in order to suppress and control their populations is and long has been a staple of U.S. (and British) foreign policy. “Human rights” is the weapon invoked by the U.S. Government and its loyal media to cynically demonize regimes that refuse to follow U.S. dictates, while far worse tyranny is steadfastly overlooked, or expressly cheered, when undertaken by compliant regimes, such as those in Riyadh and Cairo (see this USA Today article, one of many, recently hailing the Saudis as one of the “moderate” countries in the region). This is exactly the tactic that leads neocons to feign concern for Afghan women or the plight of Iranian gays when doing so helps to gin up war-rage against those regimes, while they snuggle up to far worse but far more compliant regimes.
Any rational person who watched the entire top echelon of the U.S. government drop what they were doing to make a pilgrimage to Riyadh to pay homage to the Saudi monarchs (Obama cut short a state visit to India to do so), or who watches the mountain of arms and money flow to the regime in Cairo, would do nothing other than cackle when hearing U.S. officials announce that they are imposing sanctions to punish repression of political opposition. And indeed, that’s what most of the world outside of the U.S. and Europe do when they hear such claims. But from the perspective of U.S. officials, that’s fine, because such pretenses to noble intentions are primarily intended for domestic consumption.
As for Obama’s decree that Venezuela now poses an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States, is there anyone, anywhere, that wants to defend the reasonability of that claim? Think about what it says about our discourse that Obama officials know they can issue such insultingly false tripe with no consequences.
But what’s not too obvious to point out is what the U.S is actually doing in Venezuela. It’s truly remarkable how the very same people who demand U.S. actions against the democratically elected government in Caracas are the ones who most aggressively mock Venezuelan leaders when they point out that the U.S. is working to undermine their government.
The worst media offender in this regard is The New York Times, which explicitly celebrated the 2002 U.S.-supported coup of Hugo Chavez as a victory for democracy, but which now regularly derides the notion that the U.S. would ever do something as untoward as undermine the Venezuelan government.
The real question is this: if concern over suppression of political rights is not the real reason the U.S. is imposing new sanctions on Venezuela (perish the thought!), what is? Among the most insightful commentators on U.S. policy in Latin America is Mark Weisbrot of Just Foreign Policy. Read his excellent article for Al Jazeera on the recent Obama decree on Venezuela.
In essence, Venezuela is one of the very few countries with significant oil reserves which does not submit to U.S. dictates, and this simply cannot be permitted (such countries are always at the top of the U.S. government and media list of Countries To Be Demonized). Beyond that, the popularity of Chavez and the relative improvement of Venezuela’s poor under his redistributionist policies petrifies neoliberal institutions for its ability to serve as an example; just as the Cuban economy was choked by decades of U.S. sanctions and then held up by the U.S. as a failure of Communism, subverting the Venezuelan economy is crucial to destroying this success.
Ebook Library Punishes Anti-Piracy Outfit For Wrongful DMCA Notices
Like many other Internet-based services, The Ultimate Ebook Library (TUEBL) has to process numerous takedown requests to make sure that pirated content is swiftly removed from the site.
Unfortunately, not all requests they receive are legitimate. According to TUEBL there’s one company that stands out negatively, and that’s the London-based outfit MUSO.
When browsing through the takedown notices TUEBL founder Travis McCrea stumbled upon several automated requests that were submitted by MUSO, each listing inaccurate information.
The takedown notices were not merely incorrect, according to McCrea. They also circumvented the site’s CAPTCHA system, which is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
This isn’t the first time TUEBL has noticed problems with MUSO’s takedown tactics. The company previously tried to remove several legitimately hosted titles, including a Creative Commons licensed book by Cory Doctorow.
“A year ago, after another issue where they were sending requests without any of the required information, they had filed a wrongful DMCA request for one of our featured authors Laurel Russwurm, and we sent them a warning,” McCrea tells TF.
“They further used our system to send a DMCA request for a book by Cory Doctorow. At that time we sent them an $150 invoice for our time reverting their improper DMCA request. When they didn’t reply, we let it slide… not wanting to make waves.”
MUSO never paid the $150 ‘fine’ and TUEBL initially let them get away with that. But after the recent mistakes McCrea decided that enough is enough.
On Sunday evening TUEBL sent the anti-piracy company an ultimatum. If MUSO fails to pay up, the company will be banned from sending further notices. In addition, hundreds of previously removed books will be restored.
“Today we are going to insist that your $150 fine be paid, or we will cut off all MUSO IP addresses, computers, and/or servers from accessing our DMCA page. Emailed requests will also be rejected as SPAM and all requests to be removed will have to come directly from the copyright holder instead of MUSO,” TUEBL wrote to the company.
MUSO has until 10PM PST today to respond, but thus far TUEBL hasn’t received a reply. The ebook library is still holding out for a peaceful resolution, but as the hours pass by this becomes less likely.
UK ISPs Quietly Block Sites That List Pirate Bay Proxies
Following a series of High Court orders, six UK ISPs are required to block access to many of the world’s largest torrent sites and streaming portals.
The blocks are somewhat effective, at least in preventing subscribers from accessing the domains directly. However, there are also plenty of workarounds.
For many sites that are blocked one or more proxy sites emerge. These proxies allow people to access the blocked sites and effectively bypass the restrictions put in place by the court.
The copyright holders are not happy with these loopholes and have asked ISPs to add the proxies to their filters, which they have done on several occasions.
However, restricting access to proxies did not provide a silver bullet either as new ones continue to appear. This week the blocking efforts were stepped up a notch and are now targeting sites that merely provide an overview of various Pirate Bay proxies.
In other words, UK ISPs now restrict access to sites for linking to Pirate Bay proxies.
Among the blocked sites are piratebayproxy.co.uk, piratebayproxylist.com and ukbay.org. Both sites are currently inaccessible on Virgin Media and TalkTalk, and other providers are expected to follow suit.
Sky Will Hand Over Customer Data in Movie Piracy Case
Any regular reader of these pages will be familiar with the term “copyright troll”. These companies have made a business model out of monitoring file-sharing networks for alleged copyright infringements, tracking down alleged offenders and then demanding hard cash to make supposed lawsuits go away.
The practice is widespread in the United States but also takes place in several countries around Europe. Wherever the location, the methods employed are largely the same. ‘Trolls’ approach courts with ‘evidence’ of infringement and demand that ISPs hand over the details of their subscribers so that the copyright holder can demand money from them.
During September 2014, TorrentFreak became aware of a UK court case that had just appeared before the Chancery Division. The title – TCYK LLP v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd – raised eyebrows. From experience we know that TCYK stands for The Company You Keep and is the title of the film of the same name directed and starring Robert Redford, appearing alongside Susan Sarandon and Shia LeBeouf.
While the movie itself is reportedly unremarkable, the response to it being unlawfully made available on file-sharing networks has been significant. In the United States TCYK LLC has filed dozens of copyright infringement lawsuits against Internet subscribers in many states including Illinois, Colorado, Ohio, Florida and Minnesota, to name a few. Those interested in their U.S-based activities can read about them extensively on ‘troll’ watching sites DTD and Fight Copyright Trolls.
The big news today, however, is that TCYK LLC is about to start demanding cash from customers of the UK’s second largest ISP, Sky Broadband. TorrentFreak approached Sky back in September for information on the case but after several emails back and forth the trail went cold. We can now reveal what has transpired.
Is 10 Years in Jail the Answer to Online Pirates?
A new study commissioned by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) examines whether the criminal sanctions for copyright infringement available under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) are currently proportionate and correct, or whether they should be amended.
While the Digital Economy Act 2010 increased financial penalties up to a maximum of £50,000, in broad terms the main ‘offline’ copyright offenses carry sentences of up to 10 years in jail while those carried out online carry a maximum of ‘just’ two.
In 2014, Mike Weatherley MP, then IP advisor to the Prime Minister, said that this disparity “sends all the wrong messages”, a position that was supported by many major rightsholders. The current report examines data from 2006 to 2013 alongside stakeholder submissions, both for and against a change in the law.
“Many industry bodies argue that higher penalties are necessary and
desirable and that there is no justification for treating physical and online crime differently. Other stakeholders suggest that these offenses are in fact different, and raise concerns about a possible ‘chilling effect’ on innovation,” the report reads.One key finding is that court data from 2006-2013 reveals that prosecutions under the CDPA have actually been going down and that online offenses actually constitute “a small, and apparently decreasing, fraction of copyright prosecution activity as a whole.” In fact, the Crown Prosecution Service didn’t bring a single case under the online provisions of the CDPA 1988 during the period examined.
“While there have been prosecutions during recent years, these have either used alternative legislation (such as common law conspiracy to defraud) or been directed at clarifying the civil law position in the European Court,” the report notes.
“It is not clear that alternative legislation provides a satisfactory solution. By definition it does nothing to improve case law or understanding of the copyright issues.”
This lack of case law is seen as problematic by the Federation Against Copyright Theft. In recent years FACT has stepped away from public prosecutions under copyright law in order to pursue private prosecutions under other legislation such as the Fraud Act.
Give biometrics the FINGER: Horror tales from the ENCRYPT
The FREAK (Factoring RSA Export Keys) flaw allows bad men to exploit those secret intimate moments shared between certain web browsers and HTTPS websites. Just when your copy of Safari begins rubbing the website’s knee and mumbling “you know you want it” in its ear, FREAK allows the hooligan element of the online world to tip-toe unnoticed into the room. By the time Safari has finished sweet-talking the website and is fumbling with its zip before establishing a “safe connection”, the rascals have stolen its johnnies.
The weakness in the connection security at this stage was the result of a governmental directive some 20 years ago that good encryption should not be exported to that dark and dangerous place outside the US known as “the rest of the world” (AKA “terrorists”).
In many cases, security flaws are loopholes left behind due to the complexity of the digital antagonism between trying to enable a thing while preventing that thing. FREAK, on the other hand, was created as a deliberate act of self-sabotage, determined by the Powers That Be in full knowledge of the potential consequences.
Blame politicians for their lack of long-term vision if you like, but this is hardly the point. Politicians come and go and fill their pockets and die: this is what we expect politicians to do and we vote them into office so that they can do it. If there’s any lack of forward-thinking involved, it starts at the ballot box.
But in this instance, lots of people at the time said that relaxing encryption was A Stupid Idea. So the politicians and their advisers knew it was daft and still went ahead.
Consider the Y2K bug or the 2038 bug or whatever. The very fact that these things have names suggests that someone somewhere had the foresight to think about them in advance. They began as oversights and go on to be exploited, and then go on to be fixed.
It strikes me that the IT industry enjoys watching security go titsup time and time again, simply so that it can fix it.
Despite what we already know, not least what we have learnt this FREAK week, someone somewhere is probably still advising the British prime minister that message encryption was invented by Osama bin Laden and should be zero-dark-thirtied at the first opportunity. National security, he is being advised, can only be achieved by criminalising er… security. Duh.
I blame these same advisors for the reckless re-emergence of biometric checks as a form of authentication. Surely it’s obvious to everyone that the fingerprint login on iPhones 6 and iPad Air devices is just a bit of fun, not a serious stab at effective security. Yet RBS and NatWest banks are introducing fingerprint access for accounts via mobile devices, and the scary bit is that they’re not laughing.
Biometrics are bollocks. Some El Reg readers may recollect Steve Jobs years ago demonstrating VoicePrint verification in Mac OS 9: “My name is my password”. It was just a little joke, though: a laugh, a trick to delight the kids. It certainly wasn’t secure.
By the way, if you do remember this short-lived feature, well done: most long-time Mac users have already forgotten this turd of biometric nonsense.
In sci-fi action films, when a retina scan or a fingerprint is required to gain access to the high-security lab of an evil genius, the hero plucks out or hacks off that item from an unsuspecting minion in a lab coat and simply waves the relevant bloodied body part in front of the clichéd scanner thingy. For voice-activation, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a cinematic hero trying to blow though the vocal cords he’d ripped out of the chief scientist’s neck.
Of course, for voice activation, all you’d need to do is to hire a voice actor for your crack team, or invite that bloke down the pub who can do impersonations. Just imagine if James Earl Jones had voice activation on his bank account: you could break into it using a Darth Vader voice-changer from a toy shop.