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Employees Hailed for Halting Workplace Shooting
San Francisco Chronicle (09/24/09)
Four employees of Fresno Equipment Co. in Fresno, Calif., are being praised for stopping a coworker who killed a fellow worker from committing additional violence on Tuesday. After the shooter, 46-year-old Jim Badasci, shot and killed 33-year-old Ralph Wallis, the four employees confronted Badasci and urged him "not to make it any worse" by shooting anyone else. The four employees were able to convince Badasci to stop shooting, though he took his own life by turning the gun on himself. Meanwhile, the investigation into the incident is continuing. Investigators are looking into whether Badasci targeted Wallis, though Fresno Equipment Co. owner Steve Vucovich said that the two men did not have any problems with one another. Vucovich added that Willis' death was likely the result of him being "in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Killer Removed from Taxi Course
BBC News (09/24/09)
A 38-year-old paranoid schizophrenic British man who was convicted of strangling his wife to death in 2000 will be forbidden from taking the exam that will allow him to become a black-cab driver in London. The decision to prevent the man from taking the exam was made after taxicab drivers, including members of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, protested an earlier decision to allow him to take the test by blocking streets outside the Public Carriage Office in London. In the aftermath of the controversy, Transport for London has announced that it plans to tighten the guidelines for licensing taxi and private hire drivers in London. Under those new guidelines, anyone who has been convicted of a violent offense or another type of serious offense will not be given a taxicab or private hire license unless there are exceptional mitigating circumstances.
Deutsche Bank Spy Saga Turns to New Chapter
Wall Street Journal (09/22/09) Crawford, David; Karnitschnig, Matthew
Deutsche Bank AG Chairman Clemens Borsig had more knowledge of the company's efforts to spy on former shareholder Michael Bohndorf, according to a report by the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton by Deutsche. The company had hired private investigators to dig up information on Bohndorf after he voiced objections to Borsig being named chairman and given a $26.5 million severance package for leaving his former position as the bank's CFO and taking up the post. The new report does not contain definitive answers, as written notes for many of the meetings surrounding the decision to spy on Bohndorf no longer recall and participants have said they cannot recall the exact details of specific meetings. However, it does indicate that Borsig was aware of the investigation as early as July 5, 2006. This finding is in direct contrast to the board's own investigation, which concluded in a statement released July 28, 2009, that "questionable methods used were not authorized by members of the supervisory board." The report also indicates that Borsig was informed that private investigators had rented his home in Spain. During their time there, the investigators monitored Bohndorf, took photos of his home, and collected other information about him.
French Parliament Approves 'Three-Strikes' Anti-Piracy Law
IDG News Service (09/22/09) Sayer, Peter
The French National Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve a law that would criminalize file sharing. Under the legislation, which still needs to be signed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy before it can become law, an organization would be created to handle accusations against illegal file sharers. The organization, which is known as the High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protections of Rights on the Internet (Hadopi), would also be responsible for sending out warnings via e-mail or registered mail to those accused of illegal file sharing. If someone is accused of file sharing three times, a court will be able to suspend their Internet access. However, the legislation could allow Hadopi to ask for the decision to suspend a file sharer's Internet access to be made by a single judge without the cross-examination of witnesses. That provision makes the new legislation very similar to a previous bill that gave the administrative authority the ability to automatically suspend file sharers' Internet access. That bill was struck down by France's Constitutional Council last spring on the grounds that it violated the French constitution. It remains unclear whether there will be another constitutional challenge to the new version of the legislation.
Workplace Violence: A Growing Problem
ABC Action News (Tampa) (09/20/09) Dinh, Elizabeth
The arrest of Raymond Clark III for the murder of a fellow Yale student has drawn attention to the issue of violence in the workplace. Following the arrest, New Haven Police Chief, James Lewis, declared that the murder was "not about university crime, not about domestic crime, but an issue of workplace violence." Chief Lewis went on to say that workplace violence is an increasing problem throughout the country. St. Peter's College Prof. Dan Bates, who has taught workplace violence prevention classes for 10 years, said that it is important to know the warning signs of workplace violence including "when a person actually starts to manifest some overt behaviors and starts to scream, shout, threaten, things of this nature. Sabotage work products." According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), homicide is the fourth-leading cause of work-related deaths in the United States. OSHA statistics indicate that nearly 1,000 workers are murdered and 1.5 million are assaulted every year. Although some professions have a higher risk of violence than others, experts recommend that all employees should be aware that if they are concerned about a coworker's behavior, they can always contact someone in the Human Resources department.
Suspect Used Web To Find Bomb Supplies
Associated Press (09/25/09) Hays, Tom; Barrett, Devlin
Prosecutors have released a 12-page memorandum detailing the alleged involvement of Afghan-born Najibullah Zazi in a plot to use weapons of mass destruction on U.S. targets. Zazi was initially arrested on charges of lying to terrorism investigators, but new evidence has shown that Zazi searched the Web to identify bomb-making strategies and bought large amounts of chemicals from beauty supply stores as ingredients for the bomb. Since his arrest, investigators have scoured New York City and Denver for his possible associates, and the government has issued national terrorism warnings for sports complexes, hotels, and transit systems. Despite the warnings, Attorney General Eric Holder said that "we believe any imminent threat arising from this case has been disrupted." Zazi has denied being a terrorist but said nothing during his hearing in a Denver court on Sept. 24. The government asked the court to deny Zazi bail, and their motion laid out the scheme, which prosecutors allege has been developing for over a year. Zazi's father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, and Ahmad Wais Afzali, a New York City imam, were also arrested on charges that they lied to investigators.
From Calm To Storm in Pittsburgh
Wall Street Journal (09/24/09) Hagerty, James R.
There were several clashes between police and protesters on the first day of the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, and three protesters were arrested. The majority of the clashes were primarily in the city's outlying neighborhoods, with much of downtown near the actual summit meetings remaining undisturbed. The trouble started on the afternoon of Sept. 24 as several hundred protesters, who lacked a permit for their demonstration, attempted to march toward the convention center from a neighborhood several miles away. Initially, police asked participants to disperse and the protesters broke up into smaller groups. At that time some protesters began rolling trash bins toward police and throwing rocks, including one that smashed the windshield of a police cruiser and another that broke windows of a local bank branch. Protesters also attempted to block streets with pallets and corrugated steel. At that time police returned fire with pepper spray and smoke canisters. Some onlookers and reporters were also caught up in clouds of pepper spray. Protesters then largely began to disperse, many changing out of masks and black clothes into other colors in an attempt to elude police and blend in with less-militant marchers. The clashes largely ended less than two hours after they started.
White House Regroups on Guantanamo
Washington Post (09/25/09) Kornblut, Anne E.; Linzer, Dafna
In an effort to recover from some of the setbacks that have plagued the effort to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the Obama administration has made a change to the leadership team that is handling the issue. As part of that change, White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, who guided the effort to close the prison shortly after President Obama took office, is no longer in charge of efforts to shutter the facility and move its detainees elsewhere, according to two senior administration officials. Craig, who oversaw the development of the executive order that required Guantanamo to be closed by January 22, 2010, has been criticized by some who say that he failed to keep congressional staff members apprised of efforts to shut the detention facility down. The White House's failure to present Congress with a plan for handling the remaining detainees has been blamed with causing a loss of support for closing Guantanamo among many in Congress. Craig and other Obama administration officials have also been criticized for transferring for Chinese Muslims, or Uighurs, from the Guantanamo detention facility to the British territory of Bermuda after giving the British government just two hours' notice. Whoever takes over the effort to close Guantanamo will have to address some of the setbacks that have occurred over the last several months. For example, the Obama administration will need to convince Congress to provide funding for the closure process, find countries willing to take in detainees, and transfer other inmates to federal and military courts for trials.
Plan To Seek Detainee Law Is Dropped
Wall Street Journal (09/24/09) Perez, Evan
The Obama administration has reportedly backed off of plans to seek legislation that would allow the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects who may not be put on trial. The decision follows a Justice Department brief that new authority would not be necessary, and that the administration could legally rely on the post-9/11 congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force in response to terror attacks. Using the military force authorization as justification for permanent detention of potentially dangerous terror suspects still makes the Obama administration distinct from the Bush presidency, which claimed that the power to detain prisoners indefinitely in the interest of national security was an inherent part of the president's constitutional powers. This move by the Obama White House continues the president's move away from claiming broad constitutional authority. Thus far, the majority of courts appear to agree with Obama's reasoning by deferring to the government's detention claims based on the laws of war and the congressional post-9/11 declaration. As the Obama administration continues to work to determine the fate of Guantanamo detainees, the administration has also asked Congress to pass legislation granting additional due process rights to prisoners set to be tried in military commissions. However, at this time, the White House has not announced whether it plans to detain any prisoners without trial.
Terrorism Security Alerts Add Stadiums, Hotels
San Francisco Chronicle (09/23/09) Barrett, Devlin; Sullivan, Eileen
Counterterrorism officials have issued approximately half a dozen security alerts, advising law enforcement officials around the country to step-up vigilance at hotels, stadiums, and entertainment complexes, as well as mass transit locations. These alerts may be related to separate announcements made by officials that said Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghanistan-born immigrant, was involved in a plot to detonate backpack bombs in the New York City subway system. Zazi, who lives in Denver, Colorado, is a shuttle van driver at the Denver airport. The plot reportedly unraveled after a 1,600-mile trip from Denver to New York around the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. In response to these warnings, New York City's transit agency said that it has increased police presence around the city. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, officials have announced that BART and the city's Muni continue to conduct security measures that include random sweeps of trains and the use of bomb-sniffing dogs.
Social Networking Sites Leaking Personal Information to Third Parties, Study Warns
Computerworld (09/23/09) Vijayan, Jaikumar
Third-party advertisers and tracking agencies are getting hold of data from popular social networking sites to tie users' Web-browsing habits to individuals, concludes AT&T Labs and Worcester Polytechnic Institute's recent study on personally identifiable information on social networks. The data, which has received little public attention so far, was discussed by the study's head researchers at an August conference in Barcelona. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a civil liberties organization, cited the study recently on its blog. Researchers Craig Wills of Worcester Polytechnic and Balachander Krishnamurthy of AT&T present "some interesting technical details" on how the sites are releasing personal information, according to the EFF blog. "In some cases, the leakage may be unintentional, but in others, there is clever and surreptitious anti-privacy engineering at work," the EFF says. Wills told reporters that he and Krishnamurthy queried a dozen of the largest social networks for their research. All but one of them were releasing personally identifiable information to data aggregators and other third parties. The study highlights that the majority of social networking site users are susceptible to having their personal identity information tied to tracking cookies utilized by data aggregators, Wills said.
TIC Initiative Gathers Speed
Federal Computer Week (09/23/09) Lais, Sami
Federal CIO Vivek Kundra called on all agency CIOs to report to the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by Sept. 25 on the progress they have made in implementing the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative, which aims to reduce the number of secure Internet portals from roughly 400 to 100. Agencies can meet TIC requirements in one of three ways: either by obtaining a certification as a TIC access provider (TICAP) and handling their own services, contracting for the services from an agency that is certified as a multiservice TICAP, or by purchasing Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Service (MTIPS) through the General Services Administration's Networx Enterprise and Universal contracts. By Sept. 25, all agencies must update their TIC implementation status with DHS, while the 20 agencies that have been certified as TICAPs must update DHS on their progress in implementing the initiative. In addition, TICAPs are required to schedule initial TIC compliance on-site assessments with DHS. Agencies also must perform due diligence for integrating the National Cyber Protection System Einstein Enclave intrusion detection system deployments and synchronizing with US-CERT. By Sept. 30, agencies that want to implement TIC by purchasing MTIPS must submit their estimated costs of using those services. Finally, the memo calls on all non-TICAP agencies to work with DHS to complete their initial TIC compliance self-assessments by the end of the year.
Spammers Auto-Generate Twitter Accounts to Spread Scareware
Computerworld (09/22/09)
Security researchers from F-Secure and Sophos said Sept. 21 that cybercriminals are increasingly using machine-generated Twitter accounts to trick people into downloading "scareware," or fake antivirus software. According to Sean Sullivan, a security advisor with F-Secure's North American labs, the tweets from these accounts are automatically-generated messages that try to take advantage of Twitter's "Trending Topics" list, which contains 10 keywords that are most often used in tweets. Other tweets from these accounts are simply repeats of tweets posted from legitimate accounts. All of them include links to sites that display fraudulent pop-up messages that say that the user's computer is infected with a virus. The same pop-ups also instruct users to pay $40 or $50 for a antivirus program that is supposedly capable of cleaning up the infection, though in reality the application does nothing. What makes the attack particularly effective is the fact that the links contained in the tweets are shortened with a URL shortening service, which means that users cannot tell where the link will take them before they click on them. To make matters worse, the cybercriminals are using a URL shortening service that does not work with a third-party application that allows users to see previews of sites whose links have been shortened in tweets, said Beth Jones, a threat researcher at Sophos.
New Trojan Virus Poses Online Banking Threat
Times Online (United Kingdom) (09/21/09) Harvey, Mike
Security experts are gearing up for another wave of infections of the rapidly-spreading Clampi virus, which they say is one of the stealthiest and most pervasive threats to computers running Microsoft Windows. The Clampi virus infects victims' computers when they visit sites that host malicious code and remains dormant until victims log on to one of the more than 4,500 financial Web sites that it is programmed to monitor, including the Web sites of banks and credit card companies. When victims log onto their account, the virus captures the log-in information and sends it to a server operated by the attackers, who then instruct the compromised computer to send money to accounts they control or buy items using the stolen credit card information. Several small- and medium-seized businesses in the United States have been victimized by the virus, which first struck in July but is continuing to spread around the world. Security experts say another wave of attacks is possible. Researchers say the list of companies that Clampi is monitoring includes online casinos, email systems, wire transfer services, retail sites, utilities, share brokerages, mortgage lenders, and government sites. "Clampi is a complex threat," says Symantec's Orla Cox. "People are only just beginning to understand how it operates."
Cybersecurity Plan Doesn't Breach Employee Privacy, Administration Says
Washington Post (09/19/09) P. A16; Nakashima, Ellen
The U.S. Justice Department recently released in which it said that it does not believe that Einstein 2, the surveillance program that the federal government uses to detect attacks on its networks, violates the privacy rights of government employees or those they communicate with. According to the memo, Einstein 2 does not violate the privacy rights of federal employees because it informs them that they have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" when they log on to their computers. The memo notes that this applies to a private citizen who sends an email to any email account owned by a government employee--even a personal account--if that account is accessed from a federal network. The Obama administration decided to release the memo as part of its effort to improve transparency. However, some are saying that the administration also needs to release the legal opinions regarding Einstein 3, a system that the government wants to place on the networks of private telecommunications companies to detect and block malicious code. Civil libertarians are concerned that the system could capture private email traffic. Stewart A. Baker, who served at the Department of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, says the legal analysis of Einstein 3 should be the same as that of Einstein 2 since both programs are designed to protect government networks.
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