Iran Bans Banks From Sending Statements To ‘Foreign’ E-Mail Addresses

Many Iranians have complained of disruptions to Gmail and other “foreign” e-mail services in recent months.

May 08, 2012

Iran’s minister of communications and information technology, Reza Taghipour, has sent a letter to the head of the country’s Central Bank, Mahmud Bahmani, asking him to instruct banks to refrain from sending bank statements to e-mail addresses administered by foreign providers.
In his letter, Taghipour says that banned foreign e-mail providers include Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, and MSN.
The communications minister has called on banks to only accept national e-mail addresses from customers when they open accounts.
Taghipour has requested that banks provide access to the Internet for customers to be able to create national e-mail accounts at their premises.
The move appears to be aimed at forcing citizens to join the national e-mail system, which many Iranians have been reluctant to use.
Some Iranian websites have reported that the use of the national e-mail is obligatory for those working for the government and state institutions.

Mystery death on Skype: What killed US captain in Afghanistan?

The captain, a chief nurse who deployed to Afghanistan in March, was speaking with his wife via Skype when he pitched forward. The Army is investigating but does not suspect foul play.

By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer / May 7, 2012

It is a mystery gripping the US military: What caused a US soldier at a base in Afghanistan to die during a video chat with his wife?

Capt. Bruce Kevin Clark, of Spencerport, N.Y., is pictured in an undated U.S. Army photo obtained by Reuters May 7.

Courtesy of U.S. Army/Reuters

 

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Capt. Bruce Kevin Clark was speaking via Skype with his wife Susan Oreliana-Clark on May 1 when he was “suddenly knocked forward,” according to statement released by his wife on Sunday.

“There was no sign that CPT Clark was in any discomfort, nor did he indicate any alarm,” her statement noted.

Yet she did notice a disturbing detail after her husband collapsed forward out of the view of the computer’s video camera: “The closet behind him had a bullet hole in it.”

Afghanistan: 5 areas of concern after the US leaves

Oreliana-Clark promptly called family members and tried to reach military officials as the Skype chat feed continued and her husband did not respond to her voice.

“The Skype link continued for approximately two hours as CPT Clark’s family and friends stateside and in theater worked feverishly to send help.”

After two hours, military officials and Mrs. Clark say, two military personnel arrived in Clark’s room in Afghanistan “and appeared to check his pulse,” according to the Clark family statement.

His wife, who had been working “feverishly” to reach military officials, was “provided no details about his condition” by the troops who arrived on the scene.

Any Given Friday

A woman stands in the middle of a busy Damascus street. Yellow cabs honk and weave around her. Her red dress, splattered with white paint, flows in the wind along with a red fabric banner held up above her head like a translucent shield. A group of people gathers on the sidewalk to observe as she turns side to side, for all to see. As we watch them watching her through our computer screens, we hear a new sound — not a familiar chant of the revolution, but loud claps of extended applause. When she faces the camera, we finally read her words: “Stop the killing. We want to build a country for all Syrians.”

Her name is Rima Dali, and she stood in protest alone, armed with a red scarf and a powerful message, in front of the Syrian Parliament on April 8. She would be detained for two days for her dissent.

Dali’s action, while brave, would have been easy to disregard as a fleeting incident if it hadn’t happened again, a few days later, in front of the Palace of Justice. And again a few days after that, when more people occupied Dali’s place and even more onlookers clapped from the sidewalk.

Activists like Dali, who had a strong presence at the beginning of the uprising, are trying to rewind Syria‘s clock to the early months of the revolution, when the message of selmiyeh — peaceful — dominated the streets. During the past two weeks, despite the regime’s relentless violence, Syria protested like it was 2011 again.

During the 10-day lull between the announcement of U.N. and Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan’s six-point plan for a ceasefire and its implementation on April 10, violence sharply escalated in Syria — as it usually does before every international ultimatum directed at President Bashar al-Assad. But since then, while shelling and government attacks have continued in certain flashpoints, the daily death toll has decreased significantly. Within opposition circles, another sentiment was brewing even before the ceasefire: a realization that it’s time to reclaim the revolution in order to reclaim the country.

For months, the civic and social activism of these peaceful protesters have been rendered obsolete next to the physical heroics of the Free Syrian Army‘s (FSA) military operations against the regime’s brutality. Peaceful protests in city squares not only seemed impossible, but utterly useless against tanks, shells, and snipers. As armed resistance took its place within the revolution, the nonviolent activists slowly became passive pacifists. In recent days, however, that has changed.

David Cameron faces backlash over ‘big brother’ powers to watch you on the web

New powers: GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham

“Unprecedented intrusion into our lives” – Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch

02 April 2012

David Cameron is facing a growing backbench backlash over plans for a major expansion of the Government’s powers to monitor the email exchanges and website visits of every person in the UK.

Under legislation expected in next month’s Queen’s Speech, internet companies will be instructed to install hardware enabling GCHQ – the Government’s electronic “listening” agency – to examine “on demand” any phone call made, text message and email sent, and website accessed, in “real time” without a warrant.

A previous attempt to introduce a similar law was abandoned by the former Labour government in 2006 in the face of fierce opposition from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats as well as civil liberties groups.

Senior MPs from both coalition parties have lined up to condemn the move by ministers to revive plan, denouncing it as an unnecessary extension of the state’s powers to “snoop” on its citizens.

The Home Office argued that the measure was “vital” to combat terrorism and organised crime and stressed a warrant would be needed in order to access the content of the communications they were monitoring.

However that did little to allay the concerns of critics who said the authorities would still be able to trace who people were in contact with and how often and for how long they were communicating.

Anonymous hackers getting ‘more disruptive’, could cause power outage

Image via Wikipedia

February 21, 2012 5:15pm

United States security officials are sounded the warning against possible power outages brought about by cyberattacks from hacker – and hacktivist – groups like Anonymous.

US National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander gave this assessment to the White House and other private sessions, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Citing people familiar with the gatherings, the WSJ report said that, while Alexander has not publicly voiced such concerns, he has warned about an emerging ability by cyberattackers to disable or even damage computer networks.

So far, Anonymous – and groups allied with it – had concentrated mainly on exposing data or knocking sites offline, usually for a cause.

But the WSJ noted that Alexander’s warning may show a growing federal concern over the capabilities of Anonymous, which had previously launched high-profile cyberassaults against U.S. government and corporate targets including Visa, MasterCard and eBay Inc.‘s PayPal service.

Operation White North: Anonymous Demands Public Safety Minister Vic Toews Resign, E-Snooping Bill C-30 Scrapped

The Huffington Post Canada   Lauren Strapagiel

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Vikileaks has been shut down, but Public Safety Minister Vic Toews isn’t out of hot water yet.

Hacker group Anonymous has posted a video demanding the resignation of Toews and calling for the controversial online surveillance bill C-30 to be scrapped.

The video’s message targets Toews for reintroducing bill C-30 despite backlash from internet users and privacy advocates.

MCIS Yearbook 2012

These case studies underscore the ability of social networking to do three things: (a) reflect opinion trends and channel mass political action; (b) provide actionable tactical intelligence; and (c) enable highly effective —and highly controversial— security operations against targeted groups. The paper is published in the 2012 Intelligence Studies Yearbook

http://www.rieas.gr/images/mcis2012.pdf

While the world braces for e-threats, India moves slow

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6 Feb, 2012, 10.58AM IST, Rajat Pandit,TNN

MUNICH: After the first four “real” battlefields of land, air, sea and now increasingly space, India needs to get very serious about the virtual front as well. The country should begin planning a full-fledged military cyber command, instead of the current piecemeal and disjointed steps to bolster cyber-security, grappling as it already is with incessant online espionage and other attacks from China, Pakistan and others.

This was the clear takeaway from the deliberations on cyber-security and cyber-warfare in the high-profile Munich Security Conference on Sunday, even though India hardly figured in the discussions.

Experts said the emergence of “cyber-weapons” like the Stuxnet software ‘worm’ that was used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme over a year ago, had changed the entire security ballgame, almost on par with the use of nuclear bombs for the first time in 1945.

Major solar storm hits Earth

This gallery contains 12 photos.

A wave of charged particles from an intense solar storm is pummeling the Earth right now, which may trigger stunning aurora displays and cause minor disruptions to satellites over the next two days, NASA scientists say. (Jan. 24) Photo By … Continue reading →

Twitter users are being tricked into joining in cyber attacks on U.S. government – and could be jailed

• Links turn any PC into an unwitting part of attack
• Part of ‘hacktivist’ group Anonymous‘s cyber attacks
• Retaliation for U.S. strike at file-sharing site

Last updated at 3:17 PM on 20th January 2012

Links being forwarded via Twitter actually make people’s PCs part of Anonymous’s ‘denial of service’ attacks against U.S. government sites and anti-piracy organisations

Hacker group Anonymous have become a cult hit on Twitter, with 249,000 followers – but security experts Sophos warn that fans, are being tricked into taking part in its attacks.

Links being forwarded via Twitter actually make people’s PCs part of Anonymous’s ‘denial of service’ attacks against U.S. government sites and anti-piracy organisations.

The links are being forwarded as part of Anonymous’s recent ‘Operation Megaupload’ – a retaliation for the U.S. government ‘taking down’ a file-sharing site.

They look like ordinary web links, but launch cyber attacks from whatever PC you access them on.

People who click the links unwittingly become part of Anonymous’s attacks – and hit any website that the ‘hacktivist’ group chooses.

It’s a change of tactics for Anonymous – and security experts warn that claiming you clicked on a link by accident may not be a defense.

The attacks, a ‘denial of service’ attack, rely on thousands of PCs sending information to sites at once to crash them.