Ex-Spy Alleges Bush White House Sought to Discredit Critic

Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.

In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted ?to get? Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.

It is not clear whether the White House received any damaging material about Professor Cole or whether the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies ever provided any information or spied on him. Mr. Carle said that a memorandum written by his supervisor included derogatory details about Professor Cole, but that it may have been deleted before reaching the White House. Mr. Carle also said he did not know the origins of that information or who at the White House had requested it.

Intelligence officials disputed Mr. Carle?s account, saying that White House officials did ask about Professor Cole in 2006, but only to find out why he had been invited to C.I.A.-sponsored conferences on the Middle East. The officials said that the White House did not ask for sensitive personal information, and that the agency did not provide it.

?We?ve thoroughly researched our records, and any allegation that the C.I.A. provided private or derogatory information on Professor Cole to anyone is simply wrong,? said George Little, an agency spokesman.

Since a series of Watergate-era abuses involving spying on White House political enemies, the C.I.A. and other spy agencies have been prohibited from collecting intelligence concerning the activities of American citizens inside the United States.

?These allegations, if true, raise very troubling questions,? said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former C.I.A. general counsel. ?The statute makes it very clear: you can?t spy on Americans.? Mr. Smith added that a 1981 executive order that prohibits the C.I.A. from spying on Americans places tight legal restrictions not only on the agency?s ability to collect information on United States citizens, but also on its retention or dissemination of that data.

Mr. Smith and several other experts on national security law said the question of whether government officials had crossed the line in the Cole matter would depend on the exact nature of any White House requests and whether any collection activities conducted by intelligence officials had been overly intrusive.

The experts said it might not be unlawful for the C.I.A. to provide the White House with open source material ? from public databases or published material, for example ? about an American citizen. But if the intent was to discredit a political critic, that would be improper, they said.

Mr. Carle, who retired in 2007, has not previously disclosed his allegations. He did so only after he was approached by The New York Times, which learned of the episode elsewhere. While Mr. Carle, 54, has written a book to be published next month about his role in the interrogation of a terrorism suspect, it does not include his allegations about the White House?s requests concerning the Michigan professor.

?I couldn?t believe this was happening,? Mr. Carle said. ?People were accepting it, like you had to be part of the team.?

Professor Cole said he would have been a disappointing target for the White House. ?They must have been dismayed at what a boring life I lead,? he said.

In 2005, after a long career in the C.I.A.?s clandestine service, Mr. Carle was working as a counterterrorism expert at the National Intelligence Council, a small organization that drafts assessments of critical issues drawn from reports by analysts throughout the intelligence community. The council was overseen by the newly created Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. Carle said that sometime that year, he was approached by his supervisor, David Low, about Professor Cole. Mr. Low and Mr. Carle have starkly different recollections of what happened. According to Mr. Carle, Mr. Low returned from a White House meeting one day and inquired who Juan Cole was, making clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to gather information on him. Mr. Carle recalled his boss saying, ?The White House wants to get him.?

? ?What do you think we might know about him, or could find out that could discredit him?? ? Mr. Low continued, according to Mr. Carle.

Mr. Carle said that he warned that it would be illegal to spy on Americans and refused to get involved, but that Mr. Low seemed to ignore him.

?But what might we know about him?? he said Mr. Low asked. ?Does he drink? What are his views? Is he married??

Mr. Carle said that he responded, ?We don?t do those sorts of things,? but that Mr. Low appeared undeterred. ?I was intensely disturbed by this,? Mr. Carle said.

Barclay Walsh contributed research.

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Prepare for the "Advanced Persistent Threat"

A recent string of cyberattacks against large companies, government contractors, financial institutions, and even security providers themselves has highlighted a new type of heist: the advanced persistent threat, or APT.

This spring, these ambitious attacks have hit organizations that have valuable data and the resources to defend it well, including Google, Citigroup, and the International Monetary Fund. A recent APT-style attack on RSA, which provides security technology to some of the biggest banks, alarmed RSA's high-profile clients and appears to have led to an intrusion at Lockheed Martin, an RSA customer.

Unlike recent website takeovers by brazen "hacktivists" or massive thefts of credit card data, APTs are elaborate and sustained con jobs that are difficult to detect. The term was coined by government organizations accustomed to fighting online espionage, says Tom Cross, manager of the IBM X-Force Advanced Research security team, but these kinds of attacks are now becoming common enough to be discussed in corporate boardrooms. In a March survey of 563 IT security specialists by nCircle, a security technology company, 16 percent of the respondents listed APTs as their biggest security concern in 2011. That made it the second-most-worried-about security issue; 26 percent of respondents said their top priority was complying with security-related regulations.

RSA did not respond to Technology Review's requests for interviews, but Uri Rivner, the company's head of consumer identity protection, described some details of the attack in a company blog. First, one employee, who had limited administrative access to internal files, fell for a phishing scam and opened a spreadsheet labeled "2011 Recruitment plan.xls." Rivner said the file exploited a zero-day (previously unknown) security hole in Adobe Flash software. The hackers then installed a remote administration tool and breached multiple employees' accounts before extracting information over FTP, or file transfer protocol. According to Rivner and Cross, the breach had many of hallmarks of advanced persistent threats: repeated attempts to find a weak human link, a zero-day opening, sophisticated malware, and strategic methods to avoid detection while extracting data. APTs may lie dormant for months before finding a strategic moment to extract information.

"The first thing that these people do is collect info about their target," Cross says. "We put a lot of information about ourselves? both our personal and work life?on the Internet, so it's easy to do research and develop a profile of an organization."

That's one reason why many security experts urge companies to assume they are going to be targeted. "That's the reality," says Catherine Lotrionte, executive director at the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security at Georgetown University. As a result, she advises companies: "Make sure you have the best intrusion detection in place."

When RSA was attacked, it was using the services of a company called NetWitness to detect unusual activity across its networks. NetWitness was in fact "instrumental" in detecting the intrusion, says Eddie Schwartz, who was that company's chief security officer and has held the same title at RSA since it recently acquired NetWitness. Schwartz declined to reveal details of how the company detected the intrusion. However, he says that overall, the idea of securing networks by trying to "build a gigantic wall that nobody can climb over" is outdated. Training all employees to better detect phishing won't significantly help, he says, essentially because there will always be someone who will fall for a scam.

IBM's Cross disagrees; he thinks more companies should try training employees to be more alert for phishing or other signs of cyberattacks. "The goal is not to stop everything; the goal is to detect something," he says. "If you educate these people and show them that there is a real threat, they become your front line."

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Ex-Spy Alleges Bush White House Sought to Discredit Critic

Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.

In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted ?to get? Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.

It is not clear whether the White House received any damaging material about Professor Cole or whether the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies ever provided any information or spied on him. Mr. Carle said that a memorandum written by his supervisor included derogatory details about Professor Cole, but that it may have been deleted before reaching the White House. Mr. Carle also said he did not know the origins of that information or who at the White House had requested it.

Intelligence officials disputed Mr. Carle?s account, saying that White House officials did ask about Professor Cole in 2006, but only to find out why he had been invited to C.I.A.-sponsored conferences on the Middle East. The officials said that the White House did not ask for sensitive personal information, and that the agency did not provide it.

?We?ve thoroughly researched our records, and any allegation that the C.I.A. provided private or derogatory information on Professor Cole to anyone is simply wrong,? said George Little, an agency spokesman.

Since a series of Watergate-era abuses involving spying on White House political enemies, the C.I.A. and other spy agencies have been prohibited from collecting intelligence concerning the activities of American citizens inside the United States.

?These allegations, if true, raise very troubling questions,? said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former C.I.A. general counsel. ?The statute makes it very clear: you can?t spy on Americans.? Mr. Smith added that a 1981 executive order that prohibits the C.I.A. from spying on Americans places tight legal restrictions not only on the agency?s ability to collect information on United States citizens, but also on its retention or dissemination of that data.

Mr. Smith and several other experts on national security law said the question of whether government officials had crossed the line in the Cole matter would depend on the exact nature of any White House requests and whether any collection activities conducted by intelligence officials had been overly intrusive.

The experts said it might not be unlawful for the C.I.A. to provide the White House with open source material ? from public databases or published material, for example ? about an American citizen. But if the intent was to discredit a political critic, that would be improper, they said.

Mr. Carle, who retired in 2007, has not previously disclosed his allegations. He did so only after he was approached by The New York Times, which learned of the episode elsewhere. While Mr. Carle, 54, has written a book to be published next month about his role in the interrogation of a terrorism suspect, it does not include his allegations about the White House?s requests concerning the Michigan professor.

?I couldn?t believe this was happening,? Mr. Carle said. ?People were accepting it, like you had to be part of the team.?

Professor Cole said he would have been a disappointing target for the White House. ?They must have been dismayed at what a boring life I lead,? he said.

In 2005, after a long career in the C.I.A.?s clandestine service, Mr. Carle was working as a counterterrorism expert at the National Intelligence Council, a small organization that drafts assessments of critical issues drawn from reports by analysts throughout the intelligence community. The council was overseen by the newly created Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. Carle said that sometime that year, he was approached by his supervisor, David Low, about Professor Cole. Mr. Low and Mr. Carle have starkly different recollections of what happened. According to Mr. Carle, Mr. Low returned from a White House meeting one day and inquired who Juan Cole was, making clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to gather information on him. Mr. Carle recalled his boss saying, ?The White House wants to get him.?

? ?What do you think we might know about him, or could find out that could discredit him?? ? Mr. Low continued, according to Mr. Carle.

Mr. Carle said that he warned that it would be illegal to spy on Americans and refused to get involved, but that Mr. Low seemed to ignore him.

?But what might we know about him?? he said Mr. Low asked. ?Does he drink? What are his views? Is he married??

Mr. Carle said that he responded, ?We don?t do those sorts of things,? but that Mr. Low appeared undeterred. ?I was intensely disturbed by this,? Mr. Carle said.

Barclay Walsh contributed research.

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The Old Republic: All I Want is the Cutscenes

The Old Republic: All I Want is the Cutscenes

Posted on 13th Jun 2011 at 07:29 by Clive Webster with 18 comments

The latest trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic has been released and it?s freaking awesome. This follows previous cut-scene and video releases that have been similarly impressive, engaging and enjoyable. However, with the game looking a bit duff, I?m wondering if Electronic Arts, Bioware and LucasArts could be persuaded into releasing a cut-scene-only version? I?d happily pay to watch a short film made from them.



If you?re not sure what I?m on about, have a look at the Star Wars: The Old Republic intro cinematic (watch it in fullscreen mode) above, then the other trailers (not the gameplay videos) and come back.

See what I mean? They?re much more reminiscent of the original trilogy than the rubbish prequel films. There?s a focus on people that you readily recognise and empathise with overcoming obstacles; the classic setup for injecting drama and interest into a scene or story. Furthermore, there?s absolutely no mention of trade disputes, midi-sodding-chlorians or annoying lizard-rabbits.

In fact, some of the intros' cinematic characters are really close to those of Episodes IV to VI. There?s a dependable droid that happily receives rushed instructions, and it?s on a ship with dingy, circular corridors and laser-cannon pods. Then there?s the pilot of this ship ? he?s instantly introduced as a likeable yet roguish smuggler, and his attire hardly suggests otherwise. He even seems to steal Han?s dialogue: his is the fastest ship in the fleet, even though it might not look like much. All we need is a co-pilot with a shaving phobia and we?re done.

But who cares if Bioware is borrowing heavily from the source material to produce something this fun? Arguably, the mistake that George Lucas made with his prequels was refusing to follow his own conventions. We wanted a bit more of the same please, not some confused reinterpretation of the Universe we?d spent the last however many years discussing in detail.

So when the ?trader? ship blasts through the Imperial turbo laser, rushes through its guts, and then hits its hyperdrive, we?re cheering on the crew. When the Jedi master Force-pulls the second lightsaber to him, we?re given a moment to consider the great duel that?s about to ensue.

Even the cutting and pacing between the personal fight between Jedi and Sith and the action on the not-Millenium Falcon is so reminiscent of The Empire Strikes Back that it can?t fail to make Star Wars fans happy. The trailer even conveys emotion brilliantly ? Malcus exudes rage as he stalks towards the Jedi master and bats away his defence, while you can read the thoughts of his Padawan perfectly well after his death.

So please, can we just have the cinematics to watch, and leave the MMO to WoW deserters? Please?

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Exit Near, Gates Speaks Bluntly of U.S. Allies

Exit Near, Gates Speaks Bluntly of U.S. Allies

Digital communications services shouldn?t be banned, Indian panel says

An Indian government panel has recommended that none of the 15 mediums of digital communication used in the country, including Gmail, BlackBerry, Nokia, and Skype, can be banned for posing security threats because they cannot be monitored by law enforcement agencies, The Economic Times reports.

The Cyber Law Panel, as the council is called, has proposed that if in the mean time, operators are not willing to share encryption keys with security agencies, they should at least locate servers in the country.

As for a long-term solution, they recommended that the upcoming Central Monitoring System (CMS) should be made capable of intercepting any form of communication service offered within the country.

Furthermore, they also endorsed the telecom ministry?s stance that involves enabling intelligence agencies to monitor and intercept these technologies.

Finally, the committee recommended that India raise its encryption levels from 40 bits to the US-standard 256 bits. The country currently legally disallows encryption beyond 40 bits so that its security agencies can monitor communications on the Internet.

It has said security agencies must first check whether monitoring solutions are available in other counties before threatening to ban any specific communication service because it may have implications on India?s highly lucrative BPO and IT outsourcing industry.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/in/2011/06/16/digital-communications-services-shouldnt-be-banned-indian-panel-says/

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Should we paint Anonymous and LulzSec with the same brush?

LulzSec and Anonymous are the most famous hacker organizations around: if you?ve been reading tech news at all recently, you know who both of them are.

They bring down sites with distributed denial of service attacks, and they hack in and retrieve sensitive information. They look pretty similar on the surface.

But there?s a tendency to paint them with the same brush. For instance, this Geekosystem post refers to both groups when rattling off a list of their attacks that include Sony, porn sites, Nintendo and Minecraft. These are attacks that were executed by LulzSec alone.

But does it matter that we paint them with the same brush? Aren?t they all hackers committing crimes?

I don?t know that Anonymous would be too pleased with that perspective. The older, larger group chooses its targets based on who the public at large believes need to be brought into line ? governments, companies and organizations that are participating in significant social and moral wrongs. According to Anonymous itself, there has to be at least something of a consensus among everyday people that the target is doing something bad.

And LulzSec is making it harder for the public to take Anonymous seriously.

LulzSec appear to have some primitive anarchistic political motives that underlie some of their attacks ? when they took down the Senate they said that they ?don?t like? the US government much ? but for the most part is like a group of children burning cane toads in the backyard, giggling to each other as the animal crackles and bursts.

They do things ?for the lulz.?

I don?t want to get too dramatic, but it?s a bit like Batman and Joker, really. On the one hand we?ve got a vigilante who tries to right wrongs through illegal means, and just like in the comics and movies there?s a tug-of-war in public opinion about whether they are really good or bad.

Anonymous? recent attacks on Iranian government websites are one such example. The group opposes Iran for a laundry list of quite valid reasons, from extreme censorship to persecution of minorities ? such as the Baha?i community and atheists ? and the torture and killing of protesters and those with dissenting opinions.

LulzSec, on the other hand, is the Joker, causing havoc and chaos at random because of some deep-seated mommy issues.

And away from the halls of public debate, Batman and Joker are getting into a brawl. LulzSec is targeting 4chan, the birthplace of Anonymous, and 4chan?s /v/ users have been DDoSing anything and everything related to LulzSec, according to VentureBeat?s Matthew Lynley, who describes the situation as a civil war.

It?s likely that LulzSec is comprised of early members of Anonymous who felt constrained by the organization?s moral rules. Anonymous, for instance, never attacks the media. In an interview with an Iranian Anonymous member, he hinted at problems the leadership has had with keeping fringe elements in line. ?Companies like Sony just don?t deserve to be attacked,? he had said.

The two organizations are clearly very different. Yet, in the eyes of the law at least, they?re the same, so should we paint them with the same brush, or treat one as more acceptable than the other?

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/06/16/should-we-paint-anonymous-and-lulzsec-with-the-same-brush/

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White House Promotes a Smarter Grid

This week Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced new initiatives to support the development of the smart grid. But he also warned that the United States isn't doing enough to get the grid ready for cheap renewable energy. And he acknowledged privacy concerns are making some utility customers wary of new smart meters, which are a key component of the smart grid.

The initiatives include a nonprofit organization called Grid 21 that will promote new smart-grid technologies to consumers, a student competition aimed at improving energy efficiency at home, a series of meetings about Recovery Act smart-grid projects, and a "rapid response team" to speed up the review of potential energy-transmission projects. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also announced $250 million in loans for rural grid development. Full details can be found here.

Chu predicted that in 10 to 20 years, solar power will cost six to seven cents per kilowatt hour, making it competitive with fossil fuels. Once that happens, he said, there will be a boom in solar panel installations that will strain the grid.

Solar energy presents a challenge for utilities, because output fluctuates as the sun's position changes and clouds pass overhead. Utilities must actively manage the fluctuations, especially in neighborhoods with large numbers of solar panels or electric vehicles that need charging, to ensure that the right voltage levels are maintained and the power doesn't go out.

Renewable sources of energy will also require lots of new transmission lines, especially since some of the windiest or sunniest places are far from large cities, where power is needed most.

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Gaming 27 - The PlayStation Ryvita

Gaming 27 - The PlayStation Ryvita

Posted on 15th Jun 2011 at 07:41 by Podcast with 5 comments

Joe, Clive and Harry are joined by David Hing, who sit down to help discuss the wealth of news that poured out of E3 2011 last week. This includes the unveiling of the Nintendo Wii U and the PlayStation Vita, as well as the release dates for Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 3.

We didn't limit ourselves to just E3 announcements, though. A croaky Joe also let us know what the Duke Nukem Forever launch party was like, while the rest of us speculated about how the game would shape up. Check out the Duke Nukem Forever review to see how right everyone was in their predictions!


After that, we go through the usual reader mail and competition details. As always, feel free to send in any questions you might have for us too.

The bit-gamer podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.

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