Orwell Comes Knocking

May 12, 2018 - 2 mins read

As America continues its free-wheeling descent into the hell that is a Police state, efforts ramp up to protect the common man. Department of Homeland Security officials have requested bids for a Media Monitoring Service that would have the ability to scan more than 290.000 news sources in and outside the US, and store journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, and bloggers in a database that must be searchable for “content” and “sentiment”.

Why I'm Leaving Facebook and You Should Too

March 27, 2018 - 1 min read

Why I’m Leaving Facebook and You Should Too. After years of abusive privacy invasions by the social media giant, the recent leak regarding Cambridge Analytica is causing a hemorrhage of users and advertiser dollars. Earlier this month, Facebook acknoweldged that data from over 50,000,000 users had been illicitly obtained by data mining and political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica. The data, while legally obtained by the social media site, Facebook, had been taken from friends of friends who did not consent to the collection by Cambridge Analytica.

Statement Regarding Intel Bug

January 3, 2018 - 2 mins read

I am at a loss for words. As the reality of the Intel bug settles in, the tech community has been shaken. For years we have falsely assumed the security of virtualization technologies. The convenience and ease of ‘spinning up’ and ‘blowing away’ vms (virtual machines) in server farms has become standard practice across the globe. Even McAfee Media Solutions utilizes virtualization to manage our web and vpn servers; helping us reduce costs and insure greater up times.

Undersecretary of State Goldstein Recommends VPNs to Iranians Amidst FBI Criminalization of Anonymity Tools.

January 2, 2018 - 2 mins read

As bloody protests continue in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian officials have blocked internet access to Facebook, Instagram, and other social media websites. Amid the protests, the US Undersecretary of State Steven Goldstein has voiced concern over the behavior of Iranian officials and encouraged Iran to stop limiting external access to the countries users. “They are legitimate avenues for communication,” Goldstein said. “People in Iran should be able to access those sites.

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Ripple NPM supply chain attack hunts for private keys • The Register - Threat actors were able to publish 5 new versions of the official Ripple NPM package, all with malicious code to steal keys. Ripple holders should consider rotating keys if they’ve made use of any of the packages. Effected are NPM hosted packages for 4.2.1-4 and 2.14.2. UN says scam call center epidemic is expanding globally • The Register - SE Asian OCGs (Organized Crime Groups) are feeling the heat in the South Pacific and moving abroad.