CISPA - US Internet Survalience Bill

Customers voice their opinion to supporters of the newest dangerous Internet bill, CISPA (H.R. 3523).

Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), also known as H.R. 3523, is not just another horribly irresponsible SOPA / PIPA. This bill focuses on a real issue, but does it the most horrible and irresponsible way possible.

CISPA is meant to lay the foundation for private companies and Internet service providers to share information with the US Government about cyber security threats. The main problems are the lack of any real definition to what a threat is, the bypassing of all existing laws to protect collection and sharing of your personal data by private companies, the lack of restriction of what information can be shared and with who, the warrant-less unrestricted sharing of data with the NSA, DHS, and other government agencies, and encouragement of heavy broad surveillance of citizens.

This bill will directly encourage private companies such as your cellular carrier (Verizon / AT&T), your operating system (Microsoft), your anti virus scanner (Symantec), and your Internet service provider (ISP) to collect huge amounts of your personal data to a level that would previously be illegal. This CISPA authority would override privacy protection laws (such as protecting of your medical records), local eavesdropping and wiretapping laws, and allow collection of almost any data based on recklessly vague "cybersecurity" purposes. This private companies would be able to collect this data anonymously without ever having to tell you they collected it or what they collected. They would be free to share the data with any company they want, possibly even selling the data, with complete immunity to legal actions such as lawsuits of criminal charges for privacy violations. They would be allowed to dump all this data on any US Government agency without requiring a warrant.

This is at the wake of the NSA beginning building the country's biggest spy center in Utah. As well as a recent NSA whistle-blower's claim that the US Government has illegally been engaged in wide spread Internet surveillance for quite some time having intercepted 20 Trillion communications and has copies of "most of your Emails". Again, illegally and therefor with no oversight, I might add.

CISPA (H.R. 3523) is another horrible dangerous and irresponsible bill that will erode all existing personal data and privacy protection laws, and give ALL your data to private companies to use and abuse under the table with complete immunity from legal repercussions.

Verizon disgustingly supports this bill. We call on you, Verizon, to change your stance away from this strong-arm theft and abuse of citizens personal data!

Verizon's letter of support for CISPA:
http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/Verizon113011.pdf


More Information:

Electronic Freedom Foundation:
http://cyberspying.eff.org/

TIME Magazine:
http://techland.time.com/2012/04/19/5-reasons-the-cispa-cybersecurity-bill-should-be-tossed/

Source: Verizon Wireless Community Forum
April 22, 2012 12:00PM
(The original text has been modified for formatting, linking, and alignment.)

Some other supporters:

• AT&T
• Boeing
• BSA
• Business Roundtable
• CSC
• COMPTEL
• CTIA - The Wireless Association
• Cyber, Space & Intelligence Association
• Edison Electric
• EMC
• Exelon
• Facebook
• The Financial Services Roundtable
• IBM
• Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance
• Information Technology Industry Council
• Intel
• Internet Security Alliance
• Lockheed Martin
• Microsoft
• National Cable & Telecommunications Association
• NDIA
• Oracle
• Symantec
• TechAmerica
• US Chamber of Commerce
• US Telecom - The Broadband Association
• Verizon

Microsoft Extends Windows 7 Beta Download Availability

  Microsoft Extends Windows 7 Beta download availability until February 10th. If you start your download on the 10th, then you have until the 12th to finish downloading.

<Windows 7 Team Blog - General availability for the Windows 7 Beta to end>

<Download Windows 7 Beta>

Unlimited Microsoft Windows 7 Beta Downloads

“Windows 7” by <xkcd>

  You've probably heard that <Microsoft> was allowing 2.5 million downloads of the Windows 7 Beta, which already started on January 9th and only lasts until January 24th, 2009. You may also have heard of the problems Microsoft's site had providing downloads to the massive surge of people interested in the beta.

  Because of the previous download issues, <Microsoft is removing the 2.5 million download limit.> So, if you think you may want to give Windows 7 a try sometime before the beta test period runs out on August 1, 2009, then you better go <download Windows 7 Beta> before January 24th.

  There is a 32 and 64 bit beta download, with 5 and 4 different languages to choose from respectively. Apparently Hindi speakers aren't expected to be running 64 bit machines. In general, the Windows 7 Beta requires a 1 GHz processor, 1GB of ram, 16 GB of available disk space, to be burnt to a DVD for installation, and 128 MB DirectX 9 graphics to enable the Aero theme.

  You should remember that the Windows 7 Beta will stop working on August 1, 2009. It's also been mentioned that the Beta version being released is an upgrade version, that can only be installed on top of Vista. (EDIT: reported incorrect) Although, there's not a single mention of that on the download page and its tabs, unless it's hidden very well.

<Download Windows 7 Beta>

Zune Bug Source Code

A bug in 30GB Zunes caused them to freeze on December 31st became the <big news of the holidays> (Gizmodo Dec 31 2008). This was dubbed the 'Z2K9' bug while Zune users flooded <Zune support forums> with pleas for help.

It was quickly realized that by disconnecting both the battery and the hard drive that the time/date would be reset unfreezing your Zune. Microsoft's response to the bug was that it is a leap year handling bug and their official fix was to wait until New Years, for the bug to resolve it's self.

Source code of the bug has apparently been been released. A hardware component manufacturer, <Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.>, is apparently the manufacturer of the <RTC (Real Time Clock)> used in these Zunes. Source code for the Freescale RTC driver module has turned up online. This code has an obvious bug related to line #263, in the 'ConvertDays' function.

Multiple source code mirrors for rtc.c:

http://paste.exstatica.net/7 - (Line #'s + Highlighting)

http://pastie.org/349916 - (Line #'s)

http://tinypaste.com/pre.php?id=53c3996 - (Neither)

The problem appears to be with the date December 31st, on leap year, being day 366. You can see on line #263, an if statement testing 'days > 366' inside a while loop testing 'days > 365'. It seems apparent that if days was 366 this would be and endless loop, at least until the next day.

Update: <The official Zune workaround instructions>

[Link] Windows 7 is , You Guessed it, Vista Rebranded

Kernel process profiling shows it looks like a Vista; performance testing shows is walks like a Vista; claims of being a high performing Linux-laptop-killer falling flat on it's face, make it sound like a just another disappointing Vista.

InfoWorld 5 pages (Nov 10, 2008)

<InfoWorld - Test Center benchmarks: Windows 7 unmasked>

[Link] Windows 3.x Still Dying

Microsoft ended support for Windows 3.x at the end of 2001, but 3.x continued on as an embedded operating system. Windows 3.x continued to power cash registers, ticket systems, and even in-flight entertainment systems.

"On 1 November Microsoft stopped issuing
licences [for Windows3.x]"(Ward)


BBC News (Mark Ward) (Nov 5, 2008)

<BBC News - The end of an era - Windows 3.x>

[Link] Introducing Windows 7 (the official name)

Windows Vista Blog (Oct 13, 2008)

<Introducing Windows 7>

Microsoft's open source multi-touch SDK

  Microsoft released (Oct 6 2008) <Microsoft Office Labs: Touchless>. Touchless is a multitouch software that uses a regular webcam to track color based markers (like on a dry erase marker board). It's sort of a low-end version of <Microsoft's Touchwall technology> you may have seen <demo videos> of.

  The project has <4 demos and the SDK>. The project is open source (at quick glance it looks to be mostly C#) and isn't a revenue-bearing product. This is a significant change of pace for the maker of proprietary software solutions, although Microsoft has been expressing interest in open source recently. Some people argue that the term 'open source' implies more than just the availability of source code which isn't consistent with the restrictive nature of the <Microsoft Public License> it's released under.

[Link] Microsoft programming contest hacked, defaced

iTWire [3 pages] (Oct 6, 2008)

<Microsoft programming contest hacked, defaced>

DNS Design Flaw Allows Spoofing

DNS
(July 8, 2008) United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) Vulnerability notice <#800113> regarding a DNS Cache Poisoning Issue.

"It is a fundamental issue affecting the design. Because the system is behaving exactly like it is supposed to behave, the same bug will show up in vendor after vendor after vendor.", says Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing, at the <IOActive> security firm. Kaminsky found this flaw more than six months ago while doing non-security related research of the DNS system.

A number of software vendors released patches Tuesday, July 8th. A patch <was released>(July 8, 2008) by Microsoft, being it's scheduled update day, and a patch <was also released> (July 8, 2008) for the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) server. The <Security Focus article> (July 8, 2008) claims both Cisco and Juniper also acknowledged flawed systems (but haven't released patches).

Programming Salaries Compared

I came across a great post from <The Unix Geek - Blogspot>. He had grabbed average pay for different programming languages, operating systems, and API's from <Indeed> and listed them in order. I've used his findings and the same method to expand on them.

Programming Languages

$82,000 - Objective-C
$80,000 - C++
$80,000 - TCL
$79,000 - C#
$79,000 - Java
$78,000 - Python
$77,000 - Perl
$74,000 - Ruby
$72,000 - JavaScript
$64,000 - Delphi
$64,000 - PHP
$64,000 - Visual Basic
$60,000 - C
$54,000 - Smalltalk

Operating Systems (generic average)

$86,000 - GNU/Linux
$55,000 - Microsoft Windows
$51,000 - Mac OS X

API's

$86,000 - Win32
$81,000 - Tcl/Tk
$76,000 - Qt
$75,000 - GTK+
$71,000 - .NET ($75,000 for "Visual Studio")
$43,000 - Cocoa ($60,000 for "Mac Programming")

Embedded (Various)

$71,000 - AVR
$70,000 - RFID
$67,000 - PIC

Automated SQL Injection Mass Attack Hits IIS Websites

“Exploits of a Mom” by <xkcd>

  An automated attack against Microsoft’s IIS servers has hit some 500,000 websites. Websites affected include the United Nations, UK Government sites and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

  These attacks targeted Microsoft IIS servers which allow generic SQL commands that don’t require specific table-level arguments. The attack targets IIS servers which run ASP allowing them to pollute database servers in a generic way that doesn't require prior knowledge of the database's table and field structure.

  The attacking script injects malicious JavaScript code into every text field of the database. The JavaScript then loads an external script that can compromise a user’s PC. So far there have been no details about who is behind the attacks.

<Wired Blog - Massive Attack: Half A Million Microsoft-Powered Sites Hit With SQL Injection> (4/28/2008)
<Hackademix - Mass Attack FAQ> (4/26/2008)

Microsoft Works SE (Sponsored Edition) Marketing Trials

  Microsoft is silently trying it's hand at ad-funded software with Microsoft Works SE (Sponsored Edition). The trials are being kept secretive, but United States, France, Canada, Poland and the United Kingdom are said to be involved. It is available only through select computer makers and Microsoft won't say which computer makers those are. Some searching has showed <Sony offering it in the U.S.> and <Packard Bell offering it to the U.K.>, both bundled with notebooks.

Microsoft Vice President Chris Capossela, on this and the some subscription based announcements: "These are all experiments."

Read more at:
<CNET News - Microsoft quietly offering ad-funded Works> April 18, 2008

Microsoft Vista Users: Bend Over

  Didn't listen to all those Vista bashers? Chances are your already kicking yourself over issues your having with Vista. Since you're all waiting for some reassuring words from Microsoft, you've got it.
  Last Thursday, at an annual Seattle event Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, called the Vista OS "a work in progress"! I hope they warned you about this when you dropped $200-300 or more on a copy.

You could petition:
<Info World's Save XP Petition>

You could jump on the Linux bandwagon:
<Ubuntu>

Or you could keep your hopes up waiting for the next Windows:
<Windows 7 (Wikipedia)>

Anyone think a Mac is an option? (comments are wide open, as always)

Hotmail CAPTCHA Massacre

<Recent reports> of streamlined Windows Live CAPTCHA bot attacks are slamming Hotmail. <New reports> show this process in action with success rates purported one in 8 to 10 attempts being successful (10 - 15%). One bot can <reportedly> create at least 1,440 accounts a day. These accounts are then used for mass mail spamming.

Internet Explorer 8 beta availible for download

Microsoft has made the IE8 betas available for download.
<Internet Explorer 8 beta Download>

To help developers with compatibility testing, Microsoft has made <Virtual PC> images preloaded with XP-SP2 or Vista available with IE6, IE7, or IE8 beta. Microsoft claims they will expire on July 3, 2008.
<VPC Image Dowloads>

Microsoft Developer Tools Free To Students

Microsoft Corp. is giving students free access to download Visual Studio Professional Edition, Expression Studio, XNA Game Studio 2.0, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition, and Windows Server Standard Edition. The program is called Dream Spark.

"We give up some revenue, but we gain the fact that we'll get the feedback of these students, get more courses to incorporate our tools into the programs and get more startups where kids are familiar with [ Microsoft development software]" said Bill Gates.

<Associated Press Article>

<Announcement (Channel 8-MSDN)>

<Sign up info and Download>

[rumor] Vista SP1 to be released Monday

<This site> is claiming that they 'received word' (without mentioning from where) that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will be released on Monday, February 4, 2008. This report is being echoed by many other Vista fan-boy sites as being accurate.

It's been let on by Microsoft for a couple years now, and later confirmed, that they planned to ship SP1 alongside Windows Server 2008, which is now due in February 2008.

<For quick info check out this knowledgeable SP1 FAQ>

[BBC News] Microsoft offer to buy Yahoo

Microsoft has offered to buy the search engine
company Yahoo for $44.6bn (£22.4bn) in cash and shares.
...62% above Yahoo's closing share price...
There has not yet been any comment from Yahoo.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7222114.stm>